Limited, Inc.

Dope I had a large post today. Alas, the system froze for some reason, the blogger didn't post, and it is gone. Hmm, I don't feel like reconstructing it at the moment. Here, at least, is how it started out. Remora The crocodile tears of Rambo Years and years ago, LI was a graduate student. I lived in a house with a flying circus of roommates, one of whom was a Mexican Marxist on a downer. The low was due to a deadly combo of misplaced affection, excess alcohol and Ronald Reagan. To cheer himself up, H. would rent films and watch them while drinking Papst Blue ribbon and eating little pieces of cheese and sausages. To liven the meal up, sometimes he would stick little toothpicks in the sausages. His favorite film, the one that he considered one of the great comedy classics of all time, was Rambo. Sometimes I would join him. I didn't find Rambo as worthy of repeated viewing as he did, but it was funny.Our favorite part was the final scene. After Rambo had personally

Notes For some reason, although we read blogs, we don't often refer to them. This is sheer irresponsibility. But we want to point our readers to one blog today -- Junius -- written by Chris Bertram , a philosophy guy in Bristol, England. Bertram is a dithering dove and frankly, LI does not share his dithers. But we like Bertram's mixture of Burke-ishnesss (the very name, Junius, refers to Burke's ally in the war against Warren Hastings, Phillip Francis) and socialism. For us, the problem with philosophy guys and war is that they immediately plunge into talk about whether a war is just or not. Now, it is interesting whether a war is just or not. But that is obviously only one consideration in deciding that one supports a war. The mix of motives that eventuate in any social act should include justice, and should also include interest, costs and benefits, honor, pertinency, past actions, context, etc. The moral issues at stake in the invasion of Iraq often smell of ethe

Remora The focus groups in the street "Size of protest, it's like deciding, 'Well I'm going to decide policy based up on a focus group.' The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon the security - in this case - security of the people." - Bush, Washington Post "I understand the concerns of the thousands who marched on Saturday. -- Tony Blair, Guardian Millions of Soviet people are profoundly sympathetic with the Hungarian workers' struggle to successfully transform their homeland into a free, sovereign socialist state. We understand the desire of the Hungarian workers, peasants and intelligentsia to raise the standard of living of the population, utilizing the great advantages of the people's democratic system to do so. -- Pravda, November 1956, commenting on the Hungarian Revolution The reaction to the protests is very -- as Donald Rumsfeld might say (vide our last post on him) --- interesting. We have been especially am

Remora Powers of Thought The best American coverage of the protests world wide was carried by the Los Angeles Times. LI would bet that if ten million people around the world had protested in favor of Bush's position in Iraq, the Washington Post and the New York Times would have been alight with celebratory headlines. But no, we will give no headlines for peace marchers. Heavens. The LA Times went with an honest report . It didn't mix protest against Tony Blair's policy in London with machine gun toting thugs marching in Baghdad as a species of the same thing. We liked these grafs in Sebastian Rotella's story: "Leslie Druce, 70, marched in London carrying a placard that proclaimed "Bush and Blair ... Liars and Bullies." "They treat us like we have no power of thought," Druce said. "Who are they kidding? Do they really feel threatened by the Iraqis? The U.S. could be such a power for good in the world, but Bush has chosen to be