Recent Comments

1. about 5 hours ago on Doonesbury

   SNSurone, you do seem to worry a lot (though, indeed, the world has gotten even more worrisome lately). Chances are, given GoComics’ stellar history of keeping things working smoothly, there will be some hilariously obvious problem that will keep us from seeing comics for a few days. I’ve already penciled in some time next Sunday to catch up with all the comics I wasn’t able to see, starting tomorrow. I figure they’ll probably have it worked out by then.

   I may just take a few days off, and try on Sunday. I believe minimizing disappointment is helpful to one’s mental well-being.

2. about 18 hours ago on Doonesbury

   That’s the point the Times’ expert was making: they did not broadcast it, and were at least using a U.S. -based encrypted app. Hardly ideal, and hardly in line with secrecy rules (people have been fired for this sort of thing), and quite possibly illegal, but he judged it less bad than having confidential State Dep’t secrets on an email server that would be not be especially difficult for the Chinese or Russians to break into, without leaving any evidence that they did. I’m not so sure if I agree, but I’m not an expert.

3. about 18 hours ago on Doonesbury

   > excellent 2016 article from Vox

   Thanks! I’ll read it soon.

4. 3 days ago on Doonesbury

   > but Hillary’s emails!

   FWIW, the other day, on the NYT Daily podcast, the expert they consulted said that the two are comparable, but the emails were worse, since Signal is at least encrypted, and based in the U.S. (until SF or California secedes, anyway), and email servers have well-known vulnerabilities.

5. 3 days ago on Doonesbury

   > the evidence is very strong that Bush and his enablers pushed for that conclusion

   So this gives me 2 follow-ups, if you would, please: (1) do we know that Bush himself was “in the loop” for this “pushing,” or is it likely enough that (like Obama and Trump) some of his cabinet were pursuing and agenda that the President was not aware of, and might not have liked? And (2) what is this strong evidence? I’m not aware of any; all the evidence I’ve seen is compatible with the view that he lied, but hardly even strongly suggestive he did. I really haven’t seen any strong evidence that he knew Saddam had no WMDs. Please help cure my ignorance on this. (Remember: a lie is when you say something that’s false, and you know it’s false; otherwise, he’s just wrong, which is tragic but different.)

6. 3 days ago on Doonesbury

   Thanks for your reply. I did note than neither of those, while suspicious, is actually proof, or even, particularly strong circumstantial evidence. I really don’t think Bush would have lied to cover his VP’s … position, and the fact that they didn’t find them, in the real world, has little bearing on whether he believed they were there, or even, realistically, whether they actually had them.

   I read what some people well-plugged-in to military intelligence said, and the 2 assertions that stood out most to me were: (1) all the WMDs we thought they had (more than enough to kill the entire population of Iraq multiple times over) would fit comfortably into one Olympic-sized swimming pool, and (2) there was a (mostly-)military convoy that left Iraq for a friendly (to Iraq) country roughly when the invasion began, that we do not know what was in it; many in the intelligence community believe it was Iraq’s WMDs. And I have seen no evidence to suggest that they could not have hidden or sent away their WMDs. And I find it impossible to believe that, in a large country with huge swaths of undeveloped desert (where even large things could be buried in hours with minimal equipment), the failure to find something that Saddam knew we would be looking for proves that it did not exist.

   There are just too many things that have to be assumed, to believe that Bush actually lied about it, for me; none of the “evidence” I’ve heard yet comes even close to being strong. But slinging around accusations of lying where they are not well-supported cheapens it, and makes it harder to get appropriate ire when politicians actually lie, which happens plenty, especially these days. (Boy who cried “lie”.)

7. 3 days ago on Doonesbury

   > Do you really think life was better under American occupation?

   For the Iraqi villages that were gassed by Saddam, sure! (Look up Halabja if you have the stomach for it.) And doubtless there were other places/groups that he persecuted sufficiently that they thought the Americans were less bad.

8. 3 days ago on Doonesbury

   You could be right, but you could be overly pessimistic. I sure hope for the latter.

9. 3 days ago on Doonesbury

   While I mostly agree with you, kindly observe that even this current Supreme Court did rule that some of the things he was being prosecuted and/or sued for were not official acts, and the trial can proceed.

10. 4 days ago on Doonesbury

    Well, to be fair, he’d need to convince the court that it was an official act. They ruled, for example, that not everything he’s being sued over were official acts, and some of them can proceed, just the prosecutors or (lower) courts decided to suspend the trial, or sentencing, until after he’s out of the White House.

    Of course, at his age and health, he’s fairly likely to leave the White House feet first (even if no-one else shoots him), so chances are we won’t get a definitive ruling on whether a former President can go to jail for things he did prior to being in office.

    PLEASE note: I am not advocating for, or suggesting that, anyone should shoot the President. I’m just acknowledging that someone already shot him (if just barely), so it’s possible someone else could maybe do it. Chances are, whatever motivation there was for doing that, he’s doing nothing to lessen the motivation. (I don’t really know, since I don’t feel any motivation to shoot him, partly, I admit, because political violence in the U.S. nearly always backfires.)