And here I thought I was getting back in the groove of the whole blogging on a daily basis thing, when what should happen? Work starts to kick my ass again, followed closely by a nasty head cold... Hopefully I'll be back to normal, whatever that is, in a few days.

Bleh...

So are we officially calling this Gulf War II or what?

The Command Post has rapidly emerged as an amazing repository of news, analysis, and rumor. I'm using it now as a primary source of web-based news on the war, as it has become a form of news supra-wire, organically using dozens of contributors to scour newspapers, TV news, and other web sites to post any related information.

I've been spending a lot of time with my faithful RSS reader lately. The feed from TCP is more timely, interesting, and increasingly unique content, putting more traditional news sources to shame. The "fog" means that much of the information the site provides turns out to be unreliable (complete bullshit at times) but it's less filtered, more raw, and more up to the minute than anything else out there. Conventional wire services such as AP or Reuters, or existing news supra-sites like Google News or Yahoo News are slow, repetitive, and boring.

Tip of the hat to the folks running and contributing to it...

Here’s a forecast for Baghdad and Kuwait over the next several days.

Bad news: the sandstorms that have been plaguing our forces in Iraq will continue.

Good news: the temperatures will be in the high 50s- low 60s (Fahrenheit of course), which will hopefully make wearing chemical protection gear bearable for our troops. Also the blowing wind will make chem and bio weapons far less effective.

Michael Totten is doing a fine job highlighting the humanitarian work Allied forces are already engaged in.

Hearts and minds, via the stomach.

AP reports a fairly sizable action in the central-Iraqi town of An Najaf. 150-500 enemy casualties are reported. No clear word on allied losses yet, although the pentagon claims that some of its equipment was sufficiently damaged to be abandoned. Whatever that means...

The Brits, citing the impending humanitarian needs of the city's residents, are going to enter Basra to wipe up the last remnant Iraqi resistance.

Kev is naked in that unnamed middle eastern country of his. Well, maybe not really naked, but his situation certainly seems improved. And I'm sure he is working on a bitchin' tan.

Here's hoping he can get a beer sooner rather than later.

No huge events today. Plenty of small skirmishes with irregular Iraqi resistance, faked surrenders, and ambushes. This has been particularly notable (and deadly) in the continuing assaults on Allied troops holding the bridges of the town of Nasiriyah.

Two Apache pilots have been captured by the Iraqis when their helicopter went down after an attack on the Medina Republican Guard division near Baghdad.

3ID is beginning to engage elements of the Republican Guard on the outskirts of Baghdad. Marines are rapidly moving north to join them in surrounding the capital. It's unclear how much of the RG or SRG is inside the city itself, and how much is in fixed fortifications on the outskirts. Reports are that orders have been given to Iraqi troops to use chemical weapons if the Allies forces get within a certain distance of Baghdad.

There have been Allied casualties throughout the day. Not many, but some. In all likelihood, there will be many more in the next several days, as the main battle for Baghdad is joined. US troops are outnumbered, with at least three Iraqi Republican Guard divisions in and around the capitol. Even with substantial aerial and artillery bombardment, the task of clearing these forces will be difficult unless the Iraqis surrender.

Links via those groovy kids over at The Command Post, and Google News of course.

Saddam is being played on Iraqi Teevee. So far he hasn't said anything that proves that this wasn't filmed before the bombs started falling. Just another call for Jihad.

...

Blah, blah, blah... Get on with it moustache-boy...

...

Ok, now he's naming names of units engaged in action. He specifically named those resisting in Basra. He didn't mention any of the battles that took place in the last day, or the POWs, so this has probably been recorded in the last 48 hours. But he could have probably guessed which units and areas would be involved in combat, so maybe it could have been taped pre-war...

There's still the issue if this is the same guy we saw on the earlier broadcast. He doesn't look the same, but I suppose it's possible. We'll have to wait for further analysis to know for sure.

...

All the talking heads on MSNBC are saying it was probably recorded pre-war. Walid Phares said the language Saddam used would make sense if Basra was fully occupied, and not still resisting.

...

Conclusion: It's a tape. And an old one. In his speech, Saddam praises the commanders of the Iraqi 51st and 11th divisions, both of which surrendered days ago. That seals the deal. It was taped, probably the day before the bombing began. Saddam's Schroedinger Cat status remains unchanged.

Matt Welch provides a link to Atleticorules' description of the captured US soldiers being shown on Al Jazeera. It sounds pretty bad, four dead and five captured, from a logistics unit. The four dead may have been executed by their Iraqi captors, and the living ones are being poked and prodded by Iraqi "journalists".

I hope we're able to launch some kind of rescue mission. Of course that assumes that these POW haven't already been executed.

The good Dr. Frank has the rundown on the soldier who threw grenades into the HQ of the 101AB.

I find it very difficult to believe that a member of the 101 could do this, even if he was a Muslim. It's mind boggling really. I would prefer if it were just some disgruntled guy who snapped. There's still not enough info to go on, but even the possibility of an ideological plant is very, very bad.

Two Royal Navy helicopters have crashed in the Persian Gulf. 7 people are dead.

I've been away for a couple hours. I had to catch the final episode of Farscape. After a four year commitment, even war couldn't pry me away.

Fourtunately, no big events have been made public in my absence. The event I'm watching most closely is the situation in Basra. Reports are that Allied troops are within miles of the city. Both the Iraqi 51st Mechanized and 11th Infantry divisions have supposedly surrendered whole. MSNBC was saying a "3rd Brigade" was still holding the center of the city.

Is this the 3rd Brigade of the Special Republican Guard? I hope not. Talking those fruitcakes down is gonna be tough.

I think I've found my next Laptop:

No wider than an entry-level ThinkPad but much thicker and heftier, the $4,500 GoBook MAX is a waterproof, vaporproof, shockproof piece of field equipment. "We drop each one 54 times from one meter, bake it in an oven, chill it in a freezer, vibrate it, and submit it to a shower of hurricane proportions," crows the GoBook's brochure.

Turkey needs to back the fuck up.

The AP is reporting that the entire Iraqi 51st Mechanized Infantry Division has surrendered to Allied forces in the south of Iraq. According to the story, the 51st had about 8,000 men and 200 tanks before the war started.

This surrender, if true, will almost certainly end Iraqi resistance around Basra.

Dow marks best week since 1982.

From the Corner:

On House Continuing Resolution 104: "Expressing the Support and Appreciation of the Nation for the President and the Members of the Armed Forces Who are Participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom": 392 Yeas, 21 "presents," 11 nays.

I’m incapable of describing how much I despise this man, or how angry I am that, due to Seattle being a one-party town, he will represent me for as long as I live here.

I wish I could hate him, but I lack sufficient respect for the swine to muster true hatred…

For all you RSS junkies out there, Howard provides a link to an Associated Press RSS feed.

The now occupied (liberated?) town of Safwan, provides our first example of how the Iraqi (at least Shia) civilians will react. How's it going? From the UK Guardian:

In the town of Safwan, Iraqi civilians eagerly greeted the 1st Marine Division.

One little boy, who had chocolate melted all over his face after a soldier gave him some treats from his ration kit, kept pointing at the sky, saying "Ameriki, Ameriki.''

A quote from the New York Times:

In Safwan, civilians greeted the First Marine Division with cheers today as they entered.

More Photos at news.yahoo.com.

Earlier, during Rumsfield's news conference, The Donald was discussing Saddams failure to take his chances to get out while he could. His quote:

He choose... Poorly.

Perhaps not, but we do seem to have entered a period of continuous bombardment of Iraqi military targets. I watched the attack on Baghdad on Fox and MSNBC before I headed into the office. It certainly was impressive, both for its power, and for its accuracy. You could see after the first wave (what seemed to be about 10-20 explosions) that where Saddam’s palace complex once stood, there was now a nice, orderly rectangle of fire and smoke.

I hope we can keep this accuracy up.

Well, it's 1:00 AM pacific, and I'm signing off for the night. To summarize the day's events, ground forces started moving north, Iraq has launched a couple of ineffectual Scuds at Kuwait, and the Iraqi army may or may not be on the verge of surrendering en mass. 30 some hours later and we still don't know if we've killed Saddam in yesterday's strike.

A helicopter accident killed 12 allied troops, the only American or British deaths so far. No major ground combat has occurred, and aerial bombardment has been limited to a few specific targets. No shock and awe as of yet, and a massive bombing campaign may not be necessary, especially if Saddam is kaput.

The fog of war is thick. Outside of Baghdad the media has no idea where troops are or what they're doing. Rumors abound of activity in the North and West, and Marines from the US and UK have almost certainly taken a number of southern border towns. I expect the southern oil fields will be secured over night, and possibly Basra as well if the city's garrison surrenders.

The war goes well so far, but is far from over.

Sweet dreams kids...

It looks like the trickle of Iraqi surrenders is beginning to become a steady stream. Hopefully while I sleep tonight it will become a pretty good sized river.

A superlative Bleat today from the mighty Lileks. My favorite bit:

Was that bifocaled roué on TV last night actually Grampa Butcher himself? No idea. I’d be happy if they got one of the sons. If you ever played “Doom” you know that the Martian base had hundreds of barrels of toxic waste conveniently placed around the installation, and when shot they would blow up reel gud. If there was an imp or a zombie standing nearby, the hellspawn were instantly converted to a pixelated smear of red-currant jam. It was a crude effect, cartoonish and blocky, but we’d never seen anything like that in a game before; your first reaction was whoa.

That’s what I think of when I think of the Tomahawks slamming into Uday or Qusay’s Love Shack - immediate conversion to a Smuckeresque crescent. And I’ll be frank - it’s not the way I’d like them both to go. The ideal scenario would take place in some dank third-string bolthole, where the Lads and Dad had taken refuge because all the nice bunkers with the gilt-edged toilets and circular beds had been destroyed. At some point the boys get claustrophobia, and start yanking the handle to open the steel door. That’s when Saddam takes out a pistol and says “I always knew you would disappoint me.”

You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.

As Anna pointed out in an earlier comment, the F-117 Stealth cannot carry the GBU 28. MSNBC claimed yesterday that was the bomb used in the attack on Hussein's position.

It was in fact, according to Fox at least, the GBU-27, a 2000 lb laser guided bomb, specially made for the Stealth Fighter. I humbly regret any confusion.

MSNBC assmonkeys...

Portland police are forcably breaking up the remnants of today's chaotic anti-war protests...

Update: Michael Totten, a native Portlandite has more, along with a nice little jab at the Indymedia folks who cheerlead this kind of crap.

Today my hit count was much higher than normal. This is to be expected with a war on and all. What does suprise me is where I'm getting about half of those hits from.

"I'm sure its related to Mojo's hard hitting war coverage," you're thinking to yourself.

Ok, maybe you're not, but I'll bet you're not guessing that the #1 referrer is the fan page for MSNBC's lovely anchorwoman, Natalie Morales. Not that I'm complaining or anything, I love Ms. Morales almost as much as this guy, but I'm far more likely to gush over my real favorite MSNBC lovely, Norah O'Donnell.

It's just interesting is all.

Fox is reporting that 20% of the Republican Guard is ready to surrender.

This amid reports that the Pentagon is continuing to communicate with all levels of Iraqi military command, in hopes of getting more forces to surrender.

Fox news is practically declaring the war over. Happy tidings are spreading across the TeeVee spectrum. Saddam may be dead. The Iraqi Army has "for the most part, given up."

Me, I'm cautiously optimistic, but it just seems too quick and easy. And we didn't start really moving until a few hours ago. I don't think we've even taken Basra yet... I hope all the good news holds up, but it's a long road to Baghdad, and Saddam is a devious and clever enemy. Fortunately, Tommy Franks and his Pentagon Masters seem to have a clever deviousness all their own.

Uncertainty rules the day. It's 27 hours later and we still don't know if we actually got Hussein. The Iraqi military may or may not have a functional command and control. The Iraqi army may or may not be surrendering. There's still lots of time for bad things to happen. Or it could all end faster and better than we could have possibly hoped. We'll see.

All's I'm saying is don't break out the good booze yet. Stick with the moderately priced booze for now.

The first major suckage of the war.

GlobalSecurity.org has a neat little collection of leaflets that US forces have been dropping over Iraq, with English and Arabic versions:

As a side note, the folks at GlobalSecurity are asking for donations to help them keep the site free. If you find the their information as useful as I do, go ahead and throw 'em a few bones.

Are you, like me, getting irritated be having to add all those +'s and -'s when figuring out Baghdad time? Try this java powered world clock, with the current time for Washington, London, and Baghdad.

Via Drudge

Our armies are unbeatble, but are also more than meets the eye. Yes, Optimus Prime will help us destroy our enemies.

(Via the Corner - People who were not children in the 80's will probably not understand how cool this is...)

ABC Radio, all I've really got here at work, is reporting some kind of small tank battle is currently going on...

Update: KVI here in Seattle has switched to a FOX News audio feed. Mas Bueno.

3rd Infantry and 1st Marine Expeditionary (with Royal Marines at their side) have crossed the border and are heading north. No resistence yet.

Well, there's nothing new going on, so I'll probably sign off for the night unless something important happens in the next hour or two...

Unfortunately, my gut tells me we missed Saddam, even though the tape tonight may be pre-recorded or faked.

Update:

CNN is reporting rocket attacks on Northern Kuwait. No one hurt. There's not going to be any more real information for hours, so I'm off to bed.

Fox is reporting that "France is 'Deeply Concerned' by Iraq strikes."

In other breaking news, Jacques Chirac complained to French reporters that his vagina was sore, and that he was suffering from a "not so fresh feeling"...

MSNBC is reporting that the strike on the Baghdad "Target of Opportunity" was the 5,000 lb, GPS guided GBU-28 E/B "bunker buster".

Image via GlobalSecurity.org

Big boom. Deep boom. Dead bunker-dwelling bad guy (hopefully).

Proof that the American attack on Iraq will be disasterous on the world economy:

Oil Prices Slump, Asia Stocks Rally

and

Japanese Stocks Close at a Two-Week High

Of course, things could change as the war progresses, but panic has not set in...

Tim Blair points to the first images of the USS Donald Cook launching part of today's strike. Also, the results.

South Korea is now on its highest state of alert in seven years.

Iraqi TV is broadcasting Saddam now (translated on CNBC from an Al Jezera feed). May or may not be live. May or may not be alive. I haven't heard anything to indicate todays events, but I missed the beginning. He's just spewing out rhetoric now.

If it is ol' Saddam and not one of his doubles, he sure is looking like crap. His moustache is looking grey, and the glasses are not flattering.

Even if he is alive, the earlier strike was still effective in that it puts the iraqi forces into scramble mode, and leaves us with the initiative.

Fox is reporting that artillery fire is crossing the Iraq - Kuwait border (its unclear whose firing). They're also saying that reporters embedded with units on the Kuwaiti frontier are not being allowed to report. That means something's going on down there.

So, it looks like we were trying to get Saddam with the first strike. This wouldn't have happened unless Gen. Franks had some decent information that he thought was worth accelerating the timeline. So the question I've got, that I haven't heard asked yet, is what if we got him and his top generals?

Why would the Iraqi military, even the most hardcore Republican Guard units, continue to fight if the Hussein clan is whacked and the successor generals are running scared?

We probably didn't get Hussein and his boys, but if we did, the war's over. As Stephen Green said, this was a bold move, but if successful it will dramatically help our cause. It was a good move by our commanders, and it shows a flexibility that heartens me greatly.

I really hope we got the bastard.

(All the while Brian Williams is having a hiccup attack. Poor bastard, that's his moment in history.)

"Decapitation Attack".

More than 40 satellite-guided Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from U.S. warships in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, military officials said. F117 stealth fighters, which carry two 2,000-pound bombs apiece, also were involved in the strikes, though apparently on a target other than Saddam.

MSNBC analysts are also reporting that the air attack in the west and south is ongoing.

On my way home from work today, I spotted a small pickup truck with the following message spelled out in duct tape on the back of the cab:

Proud vet says go get 'em boys!

I'm no veteran, but I second that with great enthusiasm. In ultra-liberal, anti-war Seattle, this small gesture, along with a number of other vehicles with the flag flying proudly, heartened me greatly. As has the number of our allies.

And to all those brave boys and girls out there in the Kuwaiti desert and in the fleet, kick ass, keep your head down, and come back in one piece. All of you.

Let's get this done and over with so I can go back to posting about butthole related flash games, as God intended.

Well, as I type this we're T-16:30 till President Bush's ultimatum for Saddam Hussein and his spawn to get out of Iraq. It seems highly unlikely that Hussein will oblige the president, but even if he does, our troops will still occupy Iraq to rid that nation of its chemical and biological weapons. If he does not, there will be an invasion.

Personally, I've been for regime change since the events of '98 made it obvious that the UN process was worthless. Does this mean I'm one of the conspiratorial "Jacobins" that Pat Cadell has been ranting about for the past six months? I wish. I think being pals with Paul "prince of darkness" Wolfowitz would be groovy.

Unfortunately, I'm just this guy. You know?

Now, while pondering my long held belief in removing Hussein, I should be feeling quite happy that the vile Baathist regime is about to go the way of its Nazi ancestors. However, happiness is not exactly the right feeling.

Nor am I suffering from any heightened anxiety regarding Saddam destroying Iraqi infrastructure or using weapons of mass destruction. There's already reports that he's preparing to do, or has started doing, both of these things. There was always a risk of this, and it was a certainty once Saddam's life and power was put on the line. These are things we want to avoid if at all possible, but once we decided to strike, the possible price has to be accepted. The same can be said for the possible deaths on both sides, military and civilian, as well as any Iraqi attempts to strike Israel.

Possible terrorist retaliation also doesn't bother me much. At least not much more than it has for any other day for the past year and a half. Whether Bin Laden and friends have 50,000 or 100,000 crazed Jihadis doesn't really make much difference. An ass-load times two is still an ass-load. Any strikes that are carried out against the mainland US will be done by small groups, and the Happy Jihad Friends already have enough recruits.

All these risks and hazards I've mentioned, and more that I haven't, are sobering indeed. But they don't really affect me much. My cold, calculating, machine brain has long ago done the moral calculus and decided that regime change in Iraq was worth the possible costs.

I guess apprehension, not doubt, is the word that best describes my feelings. This is a big event. It's possibly the biggest world event since the end of the Second World War, and at the very least it's the biggest since the Iron Curtain came falling down. The world changes forever tomorrow. What direction will it go? As with any war, no one knows. That's what really gives me pause.

As to the after effects, our decision for war will threaten world stability and our security. A decision to let Saddam to continue his despotic rule with his weapons programs safely hidden, however, guarantees a world slowly plunging into chaos and the gradual destruction of all that makes us, and the rest of civilization, secure. Remember that.

I still hold out hope that mass-surrenders and Special Forces attacks on scud launchers will render the worst of Saddam's schemes mute. I hope, but do not expect. War sucks, and I hope the Iraqi generals can figure out which way the wind is blowing and save both sides the trouble and blood.

As I close, at T-16:00, MSNBC is reporting large sandstorms over Iraq. If something unexpected doesn't happen, hellfire rolls in when the storm rolls out. Let's hope its clean and quick.

I'm watching Ringo Starr on Leno. As the song progresses, the hate grows rapidly within my heart. It escalates from a slight pang to a deep, throbbing fire of disgust and fury. My vision becomes red and unfocused as the sound penetrated my brain. This is probably a good thing, as Ringo's stupid looking beard and wussy-ass earrings are only adding to my anger. Unfortunately, the fury and rising blood pressure have no effect on my ears, which are still working fine.

It's not really the instruments. They are inoffensive enough, playing an unremarkable song. No, it's that out of tune voice. That hideous, vile off-key yelping. Ye gods make it stop. I'm reaching for those pencils on the table. I put the sharp ends in my ears and prepare to crash two hardbound books against the side of my head. Steady Mojo, you've only got to quickly move those arms and then the sweet oblivion of death. On three.

One...
Two...
....

Oh, praise budda! It ends. I don't have to kill myself. The rage dies down. I start breathing again. But I'm left hallow and empty inside, in horrible pain. Ringo has permanently damaged my soul. This was his tribute to George Harrison. George must have owed him money.

He's been getting away with his crimes for decades. How did this mediocre drummer get his own band? Sure, he was a Beatle, but c'mon! How could no one in a position of power have stopped this madness? How could the universal rules of taste and talent have been flaunted for so long?

Because the universe is a cruel and evil place, I have faith that Ringo will outlast Paul and reign as the last living Beatle. When his withered, emaciated body finally gives out, he will have an indestructible robot body made to house his brain and villainous vocal chords. He will then spend eternity tormenting sentient life on a million worlds, a scourge on all lifekind.

May God have mercy on our souls...

It’s been a long standing tradition among Americans to doubt the manly virtues of Frenchmen. And, for most of my life, I have been an eager participant in this fine pastime. However, Merde In France brings us news of this article, which makes me almost feel some sympathy for the poor bastards:

Four decades of feminism have turned middle-class French men into miserable creatures who are intimidated by women and losing their way in an increasingly matriarchal society, a study says.

Men aged 20 to 45 believe that they have paid a heavy price for the social, legal and professional empowerment of women since the onset of the Pill and women’s liberation in the 1960s, according to the analysis for Elle, an upmarket women’s magazine.

“Men of all generations are suffering,” it said. “They feel diminished, devalued in a society where things feminine are perceived as positive and all-powerful values.”

...

Younger men were said to be more unhappy than their elders. The 25-35 group felt that women “consume men and abuse them sexually”. The saddest group seemed to be those aged 20-25, who the magazine defined as “subjugated and feminised”.

“It is not rare that they cultivate a gay image in which they find a model for acceding to femininity. Behind the abandonment of their virility there lies another odd ideal: that of ‘homosexual fusion’ with the woman, a loss of differentiation between sexes.”

I mean, god-damn and sweet Jebus wept. That is the most pathetic and sad set of results in the history of mankind. Pull yourself together boys! ;)

It's just a hunch, but I'm pretty sure this movie is going to be the dumbest in a good long time. It looks worse than fucking Armageddon, and I didn't think that was possible. Where's the comic book guy when you need him?

I still haven't had much time to post, but I did spend a few minutes cleaning up ye ol' blogroll. How the hell did it get so damn big?...

I've added a long-time favorite, Warren Ellis' Die Puny Humans. You'll notice Ellis stole the same monkey typing picture off Google images that I did for use as a banner. His version lacks a little something... let's call it love.

Also added is the grillmaster Celissa's delightfully named Hippies Are For Barbequing. I remind you, dear readers, that come the apocalypse, damn dirty hippies will find their proper place as a prey species to the vicious man-beast carnivores that me, and people like me, will mutate into. So you might as well get used to the idea now before the next comet strike, nuclear war, and / or alien invasion...

Today is the 167th anniversary of the battle of the Alamo.

It is also the 53rd anniversary of the invention of Silly Putty.

When my new religion finally takes over, March 6 will be one of the high holy days. Hallelujah.

Michael Totten recently posted a brief piece on the unhappiness of many on the left, himself included, with the current violent pacifism of leftist activism. He describes the current battle between the "Patriotic Left" and the "Reactionary Left" as no less than a "Civil War."

Having never been a lefty or a Democrat, I can't add any personal input to the discussion, but the issue is fascinating. There are bigger forces at work here than a simple struggle for the heart of the left, as Totten describes it. We are witnessing a potentially massive shift in the American political landscape.

The collapse of the left has been gradually progressing since the mid nineties. I'd place the beginning of this decline at Clinton's ditching the liberal shtick and moving to the Dick Morris, poll-driven center. As a result, he became extremely popular personally, but estranged himself from the liberal democrat base.

He also didn't do much good for the party as a whole, as the nineties saw the gradual increase in Republican power in the House and Senate. A weak successor candidate in Al Gore, and an already splintering leftist base (voting for Nader), allowed Bush to get a virtual tie, and with a little help from the Supreme Court, the Presidency.

9-11, the subsequent war in Afghanistan, and the upcoming war in Iraq, have accelerated the splintering within the Democratic Party and its lefty supporters, but the trends were already there, and will continue. The Party's worthless centrists are incapable of taking a stand on anything, while the delusional hard left can't stop yelling about blood and oil long enough to make a coherent argument. Decent, intelligent lefties (yes, there are such things) are left to the wolves (sorry, bad pun, I know), and it sounds like they're finally getting fed up with it. This is not a good thing for the left.

It won't happen overnight, but the left as we now know it is going to die as a significant political force.

After saying that, you right-wingers should forget about all the party hats, banana daiquiris and celebration parties, 'cause the right is next. The collapse of the left, if it continues, may for the short term benefit the right, but Totten correctly points out that American politics doesn't go long without reestablishing balance. The two party system, whatever its faults, has proven stable. People will become disillusioned with the GOP and whatever emerges from the remains of the left will gain support. Then the right will do a similar process of death and rebirth.

The terms Left and Right as we use them now are already obsolete. The fringe left has more in common now with the politics of Pat Buchanan than they do with those of their one-time idol JFK. Our current political lexicon is an anachronistic cold war holdover. What the hell do the terms Liberal, Conservative, Progressive, Revolutionary, or Reactionary mean anymore. Try matching the dictionary definitions with their corresponding real-world representatives, and then pull up a lawn chair and bask in the warm glow of irony.

The political groupings of the future will in many important ways be completely different than that of today. New alliances and ideologies will emerge, some of which are in their infancy now, others that will only appear in the middle of this change. It's impossible to predict how it will turn out.

The degree of this change could certainly range from large scale defections, such as the Dixiecrat's switch in the sixties, to the emergence of a new Party, as we saw with the death of the Whigs and emergence of the Republicans in the 1850's. I think it really depends on how quickly the left dies out, and how fast something new rises up to replace it.

The current political axis hasn't changed significantly since the late 60's. It's about time it did. And, as a bonus, the whole thing should be quite entertaining to watch...

Well, the NPFH (New Project From Hell) is still kicking my ass, so blogging remains a low priority. A summary of my life over the last few weeks is the travails of database programming in VB.NET, a new tool for me. For those interested in my impressions of this fine development tool, I present the following:

VB.NET Rules – Real Object Oriented Programming. Everything's a class. There's inheritance and includes and everything you could want in a language! Huzah.

VB.NET Sucks – Real Object Oriented Programming. You now have to deal with all the classes and crap. And it’s a completely new object model, with all kinds of common old VB features gone. Lame.

VB.NET Rules – The new data access model in Visual Studio .NET has a feature that auto-generates SQL commands. Groovy.

VB.NET Sucks – Said SQL command builder doesn't fucking work. Ass.

VB.NET Rules – Oh, wait, it does work. Yeah!

VB.NET Sucks – But only sometimes. And it won't tell you why it's not working. Ugh.

VB.NET Rules – Setup programs are quick and easy to build. Sweet.

VB.NET Sucks – The setup programs require the .NET Framework installed to work, which it won't install automatically. If you're doing database work, it requires another install, which is also not capable of being included in the setup. This is the lamest thing ever. What the fuck was Microsoft thinking here?

So, anyways, that's it. There's some nice features, but goddamn, these problems sure are frustrating. Not that any of you care...