news…

Hey, Wall, c’mon. I thought Punch Drunk Love was a lot more like Buster Keaton than writing columns for Slate and appearing on Hugh Hewitt is like volunteering to fight fascists in Spain.

Booze can never function as an excuse for Hitchens; whose campaign for Bush’s folly has included every guttersnipe, sleezo tactic we are supposed to notice with Coulter. Our Orwell? In as much as Adam Sandler is our Buster Keaton.

But neither will go down in history for looking as painfully ridiculous as Bush did in his helmet and codpiece on that aircraft carrier with the “Mission Accomplished” sign.

That’s pretty lame, Woody. First of all, you don’t know whether a film is “cheesy” unless you’ve seen it and so you’re just blowing hard. Second. The idea that you are imparting some sort of wisdom by suggesting that a Will Ferrell film is likely to do draw more people to the box office than what you call an “art film” is more proof that you’re a very silly, tiresome, self-important ass. I mean, who knew ? If I ever attain Woody’s level of analytical competence, I might eventually be able to figure out the really hard stuff all by myself, like the possibility that large numbers of our folks in uniform enjoy watching football games on television.

It’s not a matter of experience in the film industry. It’s a matter of being able to add. Maybe I can handle that better than you.

Will it help you to move on if I act impressed about one more thing that you brag about here? You’re more like the guy who swept up behind the elephants at the circus. When asked if he wanted to change jobs, he replied, “What…and get out of show business?”

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reg, I didn’t say that liberals wouldn’t go see Talledega Nights. I said that more people would go to that than some cheesy art film recommended by Randy. Can’t you guys get anything straight?

And, don’t be stupid about measuring interest in football from a site that is not dedicated to sports and to a throw-in post–and it’s August. Anyone interested in football is going to read CBS Sportsline or ESPN, which I linked, before they go to GM’s Corner. Duh. If Marc Cooper wrote about So. Cal football, the reponse to him would not reflect the interest in that team.

On Kerry and Bush—screw 35 years ago. I’m not the same person today that I was then, and neither are the two candidates from the last Presidential election–even though one would have you think that he was a hero although he was in and out before the ink dried on his medical reports, which he still keeps secret. Kerry looked as dumb in his hunting photo op as Dukakis did tooling around in that tank.

I’m not going to respond to you or Randy for a while. I know, I know. Ann Coulter warned me about trying to talk to liberals, and she’s right.

Why are we *still* hearing that Turkey has 250,000 troops on the border with Iraq? Turkey had about 210,000 distributed in the Kurdish regions of Turkey, they are still there for the most part, and they have been for years. Last I read, they added about 40,000 near the border of Kurdistan, and were complaining that the U.S. and the Kurdish regional government weren’t moving against the PKK enclave that both governments currently leave unmolested. 40,000 against perhaps some 4-5,000 PKK fighters–well, that’s your classic 10-to-1 counterinsurgency ration, so it’s hardly disproportionate for the task they might end up carrying out.

The Kurdish government has no great love for the PKK, and the U.S. doesn’t either. They are an irritation, an embarrassment and a distraction to both parties. The Kurdish government just shut down PKK “sympathizer” offices on the Iranian side of the country, and if they have objections to the Iranian shelling, they aren’t voicing them very strenuously. Honestly, I think the Kurdish leadership (and the U.S. military) is hoping and praying that Turkey and Iran *will* move in a coordinated fashion against the PKK, so that they can praise that action with faint damns.

Kurds killing Kurds? Kurds standing aside and letting other people kill Kurds, when it’s politically convenient? It’s nothing new. The Kurds as a whole (even in Turkey) will prefer a Kurdistan that’s stable, relatively free, relatively democratic, prosperous (possibly wildly prosperous, if they get Kirkuk) to any Kurdistan bent on Eretz Kurdistan. Greater Kurdistan is far too dangerous a game to play right now. The saner among them will not endanger autonomy gains won over the decades, first under Saddam, now under our umbrella. And the Kurds are for the most part very sane indeed.

Nightmare Alley is a noir masterpiece. Also, a twodisc release of Double Indemnity is coming out next week.

Why are we *still* hearing that Turkey has 250,000 troops on the border with Iraq? Turkey had about 210,000 distributed in the Kurdish regions of Turkey, they are still there for the most part, and they have been for years. Last I read, they added about 40,000 near the border of Kurdistan, and were complaining that the U.S. and the Kurdish regional government weren’t moving against the PKK enclave that both governments currently leave unmolested. 40,000 against perhaps some 4-5,000 PKK fighters–well, that’s your classic 10-to-1 counterinsurgency ration, so it’s hardly disproportionate for the task they might end up carrying out.

The Kurdish government has no great love for the PKK, and the U.S. doesn’t either. They are an irritation, an embarrassment and a distraction to both parties. The Kurdish government just shut down PKK “sympathizer” offices on the Iranian side of the country, and if they have objections to the Iranian shelling, they aren’t voicing them very strenuously. Honestly, I think the Kurdish leadership (and the U.S. military) is hoping and praying that Turkey and Iran *will* move in a coordinated fashion against the PKK, so that they can praise that action with faint damns.

Kurds killing Kurds? Kurds standing aside and letting other people kill Kurds, when it’s politically convenient? It’s nothing new. The Kurds as a whole (even in Turkey) will prefer a Kurdistan that’s stable, relatively free, relatively democratic, prosperous (possibly wildly prosperous, if they get Kirkuk) to any Kurdistan bent on Eretz Kurdistan. Greater Kurdistan is far too dangerous a game to play right now. The saner among them will not endanger autonomy gains won over the decades, first under Saddam, now under our umbrella. And the Kurds are for the most part very sane indeed.