Actually, I take exception to the definition of fascism you dug out of Wikipedia--which is always an unqualified source of information. Here is the more general definition:

"A philosophy or system of government that is marked by stringent social and economic control, a strong, centralized government usually headed by a dictator, and often a policy of belligerent nationalism." (From The American Heritage Dictionary)

This Dictionary is a qualified source of informaiton. Although I would add to this definition: willing to beat up anybody who disagrees with the central authority on any point, such as Noriega's Battalon Dignidad. Or the Battalon Dignidad that McCain/Palin are constructing right now during their campaign events.

Posted at October 10, 2008 3:10 PM in response to I See Crazy People

I might add that before the invasion and occupation of Iraq. I sat with several retired navy officers who believed we should simply drop hydrogen bombs on Iraq, turn their desert into glass, and go skating in with pads of butter on our jackboots.

You really need to spend time with some older military personel to have your eyes opened wide...I'm not saying they all think like that. But I bet McCain believes that nuclear weapons can be used tactically. I bet that is what he means when he says he knows how to win wars, or he knows how to get Bin Laden. He's planning to carpet H-bomb the whole Hindu Kush. That ought to take care of the problem.

Posted at October 10, 2008 2:55 PM in response to I See Crazy People

Yup. I can tell you haven't spent much time with retired Navy and Marine career officers. You are describing many of them to a T--bullet headed Republicans that they are. Where do you think the expression Bullet Headed came from? It isn't a new expression. My father is afraid, and this is no joke, that if he ever voted for a Democrat, his mother and father would haunt him from the grave while he lived.

Posted at October 10, 2008 2:51 PM in response to I See Crazy People

But this is the more important map:

District by District

Your map is not granular enough to tell the whole story.

Posted at October 10, 2008 2:47 PM in response to I See Crazy People

Calling a fascist a fascist is like calling a toad a toad. It isn't name calling, it's classification. I have known fascists who were members of the Weathermen. I have known fascists who are retired Naval Captains. They exist.

Posted at October 10, 2008 2:17 PM in response to I See Crazy People

That's good. Now why didn't I think of that? I'm jealous.

Posted at October 10, 2008 1:28 PM in response to Sarah Palin's Body--and What It Is Trying To Say

Actually, I do take some comfort in your remarks. There is the famous scene at the end of Fantasia that celebrates Walpurgis Night with the music from Night on Bald Mountain. The mountain unfolds it black wings, the unclean spirits sweep through the graveyard, the souls of the damned wither and crisp as they slip through his fingers into the eternal fires concealed within the depths.

And then the Rosy Dawn emerges, and the Great Demon folds his wings, and conceals himself, in the light, as a Bald Mountain, once again, and a candlight precessional walks down to the still waters in the calm of the sunrise to the strains of Ave Maria. It's archteypal, of course, and I am hoping this is a similar pattern.

It's a pattern that follows the characteristics of a birth. First there are labor contractions in a closed uterine system, painful to both the foetus and the mother. The uterus contracts and there is no escape. There is no exit. Then the cervix effaces and the foetus shifts into the birth canal, and the struggle intensifies to titanic proportions. It's life and death, do or die--wrapped in the coils of an immense snake, blood pressure ready to explode, skull fusing together, powerful forces of extrusion--and then, emergence, all at once, into the cool air and bright lights and rapid expansion and chill to the skin, and the crisis has passed. Breathe. Your life has just begun.

Posted at October 10, 2008 11:51 AM in response to The Pied Piper of Crazyland

You seem to have an obsession with other people getting some help for their obsessions. You've been ready to blow for some time--are you always merely going to be ready? Blow man, blow. Since you seem to be obsessed with blowing.

Posted at October 10, 2008 11:03 AM in response to "You'd call that an obsession."

He needed someone to hug. His wife won't let him touch her since he took away her narcotics. She said subjecting to his vile impulses when she wasn't in a narcotic stupor was TRULY a Kafkaesque experience.

Posted at October 10, 2008 10:29 AM in response to "You'd call that an obsession."

Yes, and I am sick of hearing about Conservatives obsessed with Sarah Palin's visible panty lines. Ugh! It's enough to put me off my mooseburger...somebody pass the fermented carabou milk...I need a drink.

Posted at October 10, 2008 10:25 AM in response to "You'd call that an obsession."