Author: N.Z. Bear

Today in the Grudge Match: Buckley vs. Hitchens

William F. Buckley Jr. is out and about and is peeved that Christopher Hitchens is picking on poor Henry Kissinger.
If there was anyone on earth I could pick who does not need my rhetorical assistance, it would be Christopher Hitchens. But examining in such detail the work of an esteemed fellow as Mr. Buckley was a challenge I could not resist nonetheless.
I present the full text of his in The National Review here in my traditional highlighted quotes, with my own rebuttals and commentary interspersed. (Dare I use the ‘F’ word?)
The War on Kissinger
He is the enemy, for reasons many of them obvious.
The desire to do something about Henry Kissinger is, for many, a popular pursuit; for some, an obsession. He is the enemy, for reasons many of them obvious: He is a Harvard intellectual who served Richard Nixon intimately and survived. And of course he was at the right hand of the president for three years of the reviled war in Vietnam. Resentment is certainly fostered by facial expressions seen as registering Shylockean self-satisfaction, and verbal adroitness that sometimes seems to be bent on squaring circles, a demeanor that enemies will liken to that of the Vicar of Bray, and advocating what they see as Johnnie Cochran explaining the innocence of O. J. Simpson.
He’s a pompous, irritating git, yes. But I don’t think that’s truly the reason many people think he belongs behind bars. There are a great many annoying individuals in the world; only a select few deserve actual criminal punishment.
The latest expeditionary force against the enemy was initiated by Christopher Hitchens, a learned and resourceful moralist of exhibitionist inclinations who picks his enemies with brio and, a few years ago, undertook a book to the effect that Mother Teresa was a mountebank. The Kissinger offensive was done in Harper’s magazine, and became a book. The call, no less, was to declare Henry Kissinger a war criminal and urge international courts to try him for, among other things, murder and kidnapping.
That was a tall order of Hitchens, perhaps even outdoing the call to defrock Mother Teresa

LGF Emerges Victorious

You may be wondering why I’ve been oddly silent on the / MSNBC Weblog Central flap. The reason (for the last day at least) was I was actually doing a little in-the-background work drumming up support for Charles from previous “Best Of” webloggers who had been mentioned by Femia at Weblog Central.
I had in fact been scheduled to send our completed open letter to him this morning, but we’ve been (happily) overtaken by events: the offending “is this hate” question has been removed from LGF’s link at Weblog Central.
So, no open letter today. But here’s the text of the letter just to get my own thoughts on the matter down in the public record for posterity:
==============
Will –
Through your comments, you have made clear that you are interested in feedback from your readers and the weblogging community as a whole; a noble attitude. We are writing you now, therefore, to provide such feedback; each of us has either been highlighted as a “Best Of” weblog on your blog or has otherwise been prominently mentioned on Weblog Central.
Your nomination of Charles Johnson’s Little Green Footballs has, obviously, stirred much controversy. You clearly faced significant pressure to remove LGF from your list; pressure which you have resisted. For that, we commend you.
In your compromise solution, however, we feel that you have still bowed to those who oppose LGF’s political stance more than is appropriate. Your closing comment annotating LGF’s entry — “is this news or hate?” — lays an accusation at Charles’ feet simply by posing the question (“Does he beat his wife?”). And worse, it does so without providing any specific charge or facts to back it up. In this way, LGF is left with a vague and damaging allegation against it which neither Charles nor anyone else can refute or debate.
We urge you, therefore, to remove this note. Noting that LGF is controversial is both appropriate and accurate. But if you are going to label it as “hate” — even in the passive method of your current note — you *must* back that accusation up with facts. And to be frank, from your rather positive comments about LGF in your last entry (“LGF is actively maintained, well-presented, heavily trafficked, and a prime example of the ability of blogs to generate discussion and create community…”) it seems that you yourself do not believe the accusation to be true either.
We appreciate the difficult position you find yourself in, and thank you for your attention. And we hope that you will decide to take corrective action on this matter swiftly.
Signed,
N.Z. Bear, The Truth Laid Bear
Michele Catalano, A Small Victory
Solonor, Solonor’s Ink Well
Russel Wardlow, Mean Mr. Mustard
=====================
We got a nice little group of previous ‘Best Of’ awardees together, but I’m only listing names here who’ve given me a second note of permission to do so given the new circumstances. (I’m rather anal retentive that way; I tend to take the view that as bloggers, our names are really the only currency we have, so one shouldn’t use them lightly, no?)
At any rate, Charles appears pretty vindicated at this point, so enough said. Congrats to Charles, and kudos to Will Femia for doing the right thing in the end.
-NZB

Best in Show

I keep meaning to mention and support Bigwig’s fine idea, The Carnival of the Vanities, a weekly assemblage of bloggers self-selected best work.
Normally it’s over at Hraka, but this week, Lair is stepping in and hosting it at File 13.
Go forth and check it out, y’hear…

Bear Seeks Beer

Okay apropos of nothing, here’s a request to the peanut gallery:
Has anybody ever found a non-alcoholic beer that doesn’t taste like piss?
I enjoy good beer. I’d rather drink it than soda any evening. But often I have no interest in getting even a slight buzz; I just want a drink that tastes pleasant.
I’ve tried Kaliber, and St. Pauli Girl NA, and they suck, so don’t even bother suggesting them.
Am I chasing a nonexistent ideal here? Suggestions are highly desired…

The Forbes Fictional Fifteen

Asparagirl a chuckle out of the Forbes Fictional Fifteen, and indeed, so do I. It’s a list of the all-time richest fictional characters: Santa Claus tops the list, with his net worth calculated, rationally it seems to me, as infinite…

Weblog MetaData Initiative: Volunteers Needed!

For those of you who are interested in the more geeky side of the weblog world, the Weblog MetaData Initiative — formerly known as “BlogMD” — is looking for folks to help test out a preliminary, alpha-level specification for encoding metadata in weblogs.
All it takes is enough knowledge to know how to edit your weblog templates — we’re using HTML tags for this experiment, so it should be doable on any weblogging system, even Blogger.
If you’re interested, check out the announcement at the project’s new home — . Yes, we finally got a real domain!
And I certainly wouldn’t mind if folks spread the word on this — the more folks we can get as test cases using different weblog tools the more effective our effort will be, so please, make with the linky-linky thing if you would be so kind…
-NZB
Update: Several folks are now working on how to implement the tags on Blogger, and I’ve created a special test blog so they can hack away without munging up their real homepages. If you would like to join in the Blogger fun, drop me a message and I’ll add you as an administrator to the test blog…

They like me!

Neat! Somebody TTLB for a Bloggy award for best design.
Flattered, I am. I think the voting is open until the end of the month, so go cast your ballots…

Kaus as Kingmaker

I attempted to send this to Kausguy via email, but he’s having mail troubles, so I guess I’ll just have to make a post of it. I’m sure Mickey is spending his emailless hours hitting the refresh button compulsively on TTLB, so he’ll see it right away anyway of course.
Sir Kaus continues to search for a last-minute, write-in candidate to swoop into the California governor’s election and claim the ABGDALAINBS (Anybody But Gray Davis As Long As It’s Not Bill Simon) spot. Kaus seems to think that such a spoiler would be a sure thing to win, or at the very least, ensure that he didn’t have to expend much actual work coming up with blog post ideas for a week or two.
His last for help came today:
Two late-breaking, obvious California gubernatorial nominees (of kf readers): Warren Beatty or Martin Sheen! … Should have thought of them myself. … Beatty made a funny political movie about just the kind of quixotic campaign that this last-minute write-in drive could be. … Sheen’s politically active and respected. Time for him to cash in before those West Wing ratings fall even more!… Either man would steal much of Gov. Gray Davis’ liberal support. … Neither will do it, of course, because they both have something to lose if they flop. .. No, we need someone with high-name recognition, but no respectability left whatsoever.
Two words, baby: Hugh Hefner !
Envied by the men; popular with the ladies (natch). How could he lose? And besides, his campaign staff would sure be easy on the eyes.
P.S. – In mentioning his fritzed email, Kaus also said something about looking for a Sicilian girlfriend with a 4-6 inch penis. Or something like that. So if that’s you, well, go help a brother out…

Replay: The Bear Doctrine

We’re in the midst of much “why are we talking about invading Iraq and not North Korea, since North Korea just admitted they’re working on nukes” nonsense right now.
So I figured I’d reach back into the good old archives and repost a simple set of rules I declared for when I believe the United States is justified in using military force. The orignal post is but to save you that extra click (we’re service oriented here at TTLB), here it is:
The United States should consider military action to effect a change of regime against a foreign power when:
1) That power has demonstrated that they are hostile to the U.S. and its citizens, either by directly attacking us; by threatening or planning such an attack, or by supporting other actors who have executed or have threatened such an attack.
or
2) All of the following are true:
a) We have the means to decisively execute such a military operation without significant casualities, to our own forces or to innocent civilians.
b) Deposing the regime is clearly in the best interest of its citizens, and our intention is to establish a democratic government upon completion of the operation.
c) Such an operation is in the selfish best interest of the United States (economically; politically, etc.).

If you apply these principles to Baghdad and Pyongyang, I think it becomes rapidly clear why we’re not considering an assault on North Korea as a valid option (hint: it gets clearer if you’re a resident of Seoul).

People on ludes should not dictate foreign policy.*

TTLB is a public-service oriented kinda blog, and in that spirit, I offer the following words of wisdom from Sean Penn, from an advertisement he placed in the Washington Post today opposing war against Iraq:
says:
In an open letter to Bush taking up most of a page in the main section of the daily newspaper, the Oscar-nominated star of I Am Sam and Dead Man Walking, urged the President to stop a cycle where “bombing is answered by bombing, mutilation by mutilation, killing by killing”.
“I beg you, help save America before yours is a legacy of shame and horror,” Penn wrote, echoing voices of caution from around the world that have called for a measured response to allegations Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction.
The letter was signed “Sincerely, Sean Penn, San Francisco, California”. A spokesman for The Washington Post confirmed that it was placed by the Hollywood celebrity who has starred in more than 40 movies.
Quoting Bush’s declaration that the world was either “with us or against us” in the war on terrorism launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks, Penn, 42, said Bush was marginalising critics, manipulating the media and promoting fear.
Those actions and “your administration’s deconstruction of civil liberties all contradict the very core of the patriotism you claim”, wrote Penn, who is married to actress Robin Wright Penn, and was formerly married to pop star Madonna.
“Sacrificing American soldiers or innocent civilians in an unprecedented preemptive attack on a separate sovereign nation may well prove itself a most temporary medicine,” he said…
Why is this a public service? Because Tony Pierce was getting extremely agitated — irked, even — that nobody on the pro-war side of the Blogosphere had paid due note to Mr. Penn’s remarks.
Because you see, I — like many — don’t give too much of a damn what Sean Penn thinks. But if Tony is upset — well then that just won’t do.
PS – Sorry Tony, looked for a full transcript, couldn’t find one. But I’ll link to it if somebody tells me where it is!
*All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I’m fine.

Meryl on Chickenhawks

Meryl provides us with definitive “chickenhawk” argument, following the logic of those who say non-soldiers should not call for war to its (illogical) extreme. My personal favorite: “John Edward can’t talk to the dead unless he has first been dead (and I volunteer to help him achieve that state).” Now Meryl, be nice… nah, on second thought, don’t.