DISQUS

Thanks for the link. One thing I'd add is that the legislative solution hasn't gotten even as far as a brainstorm session so far as I know (Oregon's next legislative session isn't until January '09). I think it's premature to say that Clem's proposal is to trigger an enforcement mechanism.

If we did seek a legal solution, my proposal would be state-certified glassware. That way, pubs could advertise their state-certified 18- or 20-ounce glasses. That would allow consumers to make their own judgment about places that didn't use certified glassware--effectively making it a market-based enforcement. (Imagine how many people would go to gas stations where a "gallon" was not a certified unit of measure.) It would save a lot of money and reward good behavior rather than punishing bad behavior.

That was a fantastic article, wasn't it? I hesitate to speculate on which segments of the housing market would be hit the hardest. Close-in homes are probably fine. Beaverton snout-houses less so. The Pearl. I wonder.

It was one of the strongest arguments I've read about the economy. (I also am ignorant to the ways of economics.)

The thing about these questions is, of course, that they're rigged. It would be as if I asked:

1. Would you have been as keen to bomb Iraqis if it meant you'd have to see them playing soccer with a GI's head in a year?

or

2. If you had known that a destabilized Iraq would become a nexus for terrorists, would you have supported the war?

The only decent question of the group is your own, and it's really the $64,000 question. It's not a question that has a particular answer--it's a theoretical question about one's orientation toward war. It's the question we didn't have before the war because people were busy asking bogus, rigged questions, and one we can't ask now because all the people who fell in line behind the original bogus, rigged questions (whether hawks or doves) must now defend them.

(My answer to the question is: are you mad? It's a policy of humanitarian intervention, one that coheres only infrequently with the US national interest. If we start cracking down on countries because they're run by dictators, expect a few decades of quagmires.)

Reading that now...

Richard,

On sponsoring terrorism, you're right about Hamas--though this isn't exactly the same thing as participating in it. Saddam just offered bounties; there's no evidence he was involved in planning. In fact, I'd argue that the way in which he sponsored Hamas shows how out of the loop he was--and how "old school" he was. Let's say I grant you the argument--are you contending we invaded Iraq to stop Hamas? Because, beyond Hamas, there's no evidence of connection to terrorists threatening us.

Your other points are quite a bit weaker. "Sharing an interest" isn't exactly strong evidence of threat. Sanctions did kill thousands, but of course that's not what I was referring to. We didn't invade Iraq on a humanitarian mission. We invaded to stop a threat that was already checked by the sanctions. That the rebuilding is going well is flatly contracted by all fact we have available. Care to support that claim?

Mostly, though, you've avoided the larger thrust of my argument: where was the threat that justified pre-emptive invasion?

(Incidentally, I appreciate your responses. It's not often I can debate this issue reasonably with someone. Thanks.)

There were several reasons to be against the invasion, but the best was that Saddam wasn't a threat to the US. If the explicit reason for invading was to stomp Saddam before he attacked us, then he explicitly had to be a threat. We know this was the explicit reason because the neocons rewrote national policy to include the pre-emption doctrine, which holds as a basic premise the (admittedly lowered) criterion of "immanent threat."

And I'm not retrofitting this argument with the knowledge that we now know there were no WMD. I opposed the war on strategic grounds prior to the invasion, and I firmly believed he had WMD. The reasons it was a boneheaded strategy are four:

1. In 30 years of rule, Saddam had never sponsored terror beyond his borders. He was an old-school despot, and he oppressed Iraqis to stay in his old-school dictatorship.

2. The fanatical fundamentalists who perpetrate terror despised Saddam. He may have managed to get invaded by the US, but Osama knew he fought us with our own weapons. Saddam was essentially a secularist, and was despised by Osama. That there was somehow a link between them was a farce on the face of it.

3. Sanctions were working. When I made this argument before the war, I was evicerated as a rube. The argument seems a hell of a lot stronger now, however, when we see that the regime was collapsing financially and had no means to produce WMD.

4. We are under assault by actual terrorists. Bogging ourselves down in a half-trillion dollar boondoggle in Iraq was about as stupid a move as we could have made. Anyone with even the most passing familiarity with Iraq's history would have known it was going to be a hellish, violent debacle that sucked enormous resources. Guess what? It's a hellish, violent debacle that's sucking enormous resources.

You can call me commie scum--it's accurate. But you'll have a harder time calling the many generals who argued these same points themselves. To say that this was somehow a broadly-agreed-upon war is to engage in revisionist history.

I assume you realize that "that scum Zuniga" is a vet.

So what's the deal with Kinja? All of a sudden I started getting referals from it. It's some kind of feed, apparently. Why's it suck?

(Anything that boosts my hits I regard as genius.)

Polyphonic who? You must be some kinda hep cat.

Thanks for the link. This has fallen off some people's radar (or at least, mine), but it's a critical issue. Despite the joy the WMD debacle is bringing me, I have to remember to keep my eye on other balls.

Well you know, I met some cool people who contacted me as a result of my blog. It's gotten me more into a community than I've been in awhile (politically speaking); in fact, I think that's one of the blogosphere's greatest advantages--it connects people.

Bloggers must always confront the question of whether to let the world know what they look like. Well, we know what you decided. Cool.

I don't even know what the question means. But welcome back.

Great post! Keep 'em comin.

But how's the beer?!

I did, too. Just seeing what kind of chatter there is about it...

Ooooh, Wendell. But just think!--it's the wet season there.

Ah Terminal Gravity...




One of the best beers and THE nicest brewpub in the state.

Whoops, posted that prematurely.




I was going to query: what's floats your beer boat? Top five? Best swedish ale?

Wow, you actually checked it out! Co-ool. So then, the next thing I have to say is: the County Cork got rid of its Beamish tap!




For the afficiando of Irish stout, Beamish is the finest. Heartier than Guinney, better in all ways than feeble Murphey's, Beamish is the geek's stout. And not only that: IT'S BREWED IN COUNTY CORK, IRELAND.

We went out drinkin last night--tried to drown our despair in a pint (or four) of Lucky Lab. Sighting: Fred Eckhardt. Had the Super Dog, which is a dry-hop special. Tasty.




Of course, nothing's washing the taste of this war out of my mouth.

On the beer front, a discovery of mine. Full Sail is now running their Equinox ESB in kegs. I assume this came from the pilot brewery at RiverPlace, which means 10 barrels max (310 gallons).




For those of you who haven't tasted it, Equinox rocks. It was my fave FS beer, and I was depressed when they discontinued it. As I recall, it was the first John Harris beer he brewed at FS. Deliciously hoppy (NW hops), a nice light candy sweetness to bouy the bitterness underneath (though you probably have to let the beer warm a bit for that). It's at County Cork, for sure. Elsewhere...?