Gentle Reader -- You are welcome to peruse my web-based journal. I assure you that my contributions to this medium will be both infrequent and inconsequential. Read on!

EVERYTHING OLD IS JUST OLD

I am annoyed with myself for not writing here on the old blog and also for leaving the last lame post as the leader for some time. As a blogger, I suck.

Lots going on in the world, but not much with me. My life is in a kind of holding pattern, which is both good and bad, as some parts are going well and some are going less well. None of it is interesting enough to write about, however, which is a crying shame.

All for now. Hopefully, I can get back in the blogging spirit before too long. Sziasztok. posted by Carlton at 12:08 AM

SET THE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN

I've never really been one for video games, especially not the "sim" ones where you build a city, a civilization, an empire over the course of the game. It just gets too confusing after a while.

One thing I used to do, just for my own amusement (why else pay a game, after all?) is choose a particularly dumbass strategy, one not designed to win the game or even advance myself -- attack everything in sight, only build one city and never leave it, etc. The fun in this would be to see just how bad it would get, what the game would do to someone who played it exactly the wrong way, who insisted opn his own destruction.

I don't know why I brought that up. It's not like it has any parallels in our world or anything. posted by Carlton at 8:35 PM

PREDICTY SMURF

Some time ago, I made a few predictions. Let's see how I'm doing.

1. Before the election in 2004, someone in the political wings of the administration will succumb to a guilty conscience and leak some very damaging material to the press about the events of 9/11/01.

This is the only one I may have gotten right -- IF you count Richard Clarke. Which you probably shouldn't. Rats.

2. If this administration loses to a Democrat in 2004, expect massive shredding of documents and destruction of computer files.

Well, duh. It can't have happened yet, so I am not yet wrong.

3. North Korea will explode a nuclear weapon within the next year.

Well, this hasn't happened yet, has it?

4. Colin Powell will resign as Secretary of State before November 2004.

Come on, Colin!

5. Before the next election, the administration will be linked to at least one mysterious death in Washington D.C.

Hopefully some guy with the same middle initial as me.

So, it looks like none of the things I have predicted has come true. That's good -- I'd hate to break a perfect record.

posted by Carlton at 8:29 PM

LET'S REVIEW

A while back I wrote:

So . . . even IF

1. Going to war with Iraq is necessary, AND
2. Now is the time to do so, AND
3. This is so important that we should do it alone if necessary . . .
4. Does ANYONE think that THIS administration is savvy enough about the region, our necessary alliances with other countries, collecting intelligenece abroad and putting it to good use and the infinitely complex politics of being a colonial power (which is what this is all about, take note) to make it work?

So . . . as it turned out, they weren't.

It would be trite to say that we are in a terrible position right now. Putting aside the prison torture scandal -- which, to be honest, is so awful I can hardly bring myself to think about it -- our leaders have put us into a position in Iraq where it is literally impossible to win. I don't think it's impossible because the United States lacks the fighting spirit or the resources necessary to accomplish most anything, or because our military is inadequately trained or equipped.

It is impossible to win because we don't know what winning is in this situation, or we have defined winning to be a conjunction of circumstances that cannot coexist. We want for Iraq to be a liberal democracy; we want Iraq to be a pluralistic secular state, we want Iraq to be our ally/staging area in the Middle East. We want ALL these things. This is a situation roughly akin to having one's cake and eating it too -- if Iraq is democratic, then it will undoubtedly not be our ally. If it is secular, it will undoubtedly not be democratic. If it is our ally, then it will have to be a truly repressive regime on the order of the one so recently ousted.

The administration is still talking about a day not too far away when everything will come together in our favor, all the people in Iraq who justifiably hate is will suddenly change their minds and be cooperative, centuries-old customs and religious traditions will be abandoned and everyone will admit that we were right after all. They are still talking about winning.

They don't know what they mean by winning. posted by Carlton at 10:19 PM