http://thegoldengate.net Politics, The War On Terror, Economics, Liberty, Freedom, and the Occasional Satire Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:28:39 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Tragic. The US government nationalizing and bailing out major financial institutions it helped to destoy... I am a libertarian. To contrast this with Democrat and Republican: we might say that the Republicans (at their core) want the government to stay out of our financial lives, but control what we do in our bedrooms (morality/religion). ... http://thegoldengate.net/2008/09/18/libertarianism-a-realistic-response-to-the-reality-of-realpolitik Some of you may have seen the post by Deepak Chopra about Sarah Palin, in which he psycho-eviscerates those who find value or some type of agreement with the positions she takes.  Upon reading it several times, I became progressively dismayed, although fascinated by the clarity with which it typifies "green/Boomeritis" ... http://thegoldengate.net/2008/09/15/deepak-on-palin-and-obama-arrogance-you-can-believe-in Well, I've looked over and considered all of the Propositions on our local San Francisco ballot. And I've come to the conclusion that the San Francisco Taxpayers Union is absolutely correct -- there's not a damn thing worth supporting on this year's ballot. I tried to keep an open mind going ... http://thegoldengate.net/2006/10/27/san-francisco-ballot-measures-endorsements AnalPhilosoher asserts that it's inappropriate for President Bush to call Jihadists fascists because "jihadists aren't statists" (via Instapundit.) . Okay, well, how can we square this assertion with the former Taliban government in Afghanistan or the current Iranian regime? . If you read Paul Berman's excellent book "Terror and Liberalism" (and everybody should), ... http://thegoldengate.net/2006/08/10/islamic-fascists-yes Over at EU Referendum we see the Director's Cut of Qana. The narrative here is of how the combination of Hezbollah's media management and modern photo-journalism has turned the recording of a tragic event into theatre, in the best tradition of Michael Moore. As best we can, we have pieced together the ... http://thegoldengate.net/2006/08/05/hezbollahs-propaganda-machine I recently saw "good night and good luck", which re-awakened my interest in the cultural impacts of fascism and the ability of people with media power to smear people with inaccurate but effective half-truths, or out and out lies.  To avoid dealing with the unfair social ostracism such smears create, ... http://thegoldengate.net/2006/07/27/mccarthyism-lives-global-warming-gore-and-corporatism-as-the-new-communism The state of conservative vs. liberal politics on major networks seems to be made up of people on both sides, who really don't understand what they are saying, but are unquestionably certain that they are right. It is one thing for an entrepeneur to say "I think I can make a ... http://thegoldengate.net/2006/07/21/liberal-and-conservative-in-the-face-of-uncertainty So, Dan Rather is talking about Rathergate and partisanship and the media. San Francisco Chronicle TV critic Tim Goodman liveblogged Rather's latest, um, account at the annual Television Critics Press tour which is going on right now in Los Angeles. An excerpt of Rather's remarks ran today on the first ... http://thegoldengate.net/2006/07/13/rather-defensive Captain Ed has ANOTHER great post. He also has some reasonable seculation and asks some daunting questions. Quotable: One of the reasons that the DoD may have sat on the captured IIS files without translating or releasing them, some speculate, was that the contents may embarrass some of our allies in ... http://thegoldengate.net/2006/07/07/those-crazy-russians-more-iraqi-documents-translated Captain Ed has a great post about Yale's courtship and eventual rejection of Hashemi, the Taliban's former diplomat at large. Quotable: It's odd that Yale would have trotted out the diversity argument, considering the regime that Hashemi represented. Let's recall that the Taliban beat women for not covering themselves from head ... http://thegoldengate.net/2006/07/06/yales-hypocrisy