Rudy Guiliani, Ron Paul, and the Republican boogeyman

In the latest of the Republican debates, Rudy Guiliani scored some major points with a lot of people, it seems, for what was, in my mind, a demonstration that he has no grasp whatsoever of middle-eastern politics, or the circumstances that led to the rise of Al Qaeda, as well as what appears to be a tenuous-at-best grip on either comprehension of the english language, rudimentary logic, or honesty (my money's on the latter).

Here's what happened. Ron Paul, the Republican candidate for president who's running on the platform of being an anti-war libertarian/republican, challenged him as to whether or not he understands why it is that Al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11 - which is of course is inexorably tied to our long history of involvement in middle-eastern politics that essentially equates to our bombing, subduing, occupying, and killing their people while making a general nuisance of ourselves in that area of the world, which is in turn inexorably intertwined with the undisputed fact that that there is a fuckload of oil in those parts. And of course, Guiliani twists the point into the accusing Ron Paul of insinuating that we brought 9/11 upon ourselves, that we deserved it, getting to act all offended, and actually having the fucking temerity to suggest that Ron Paul take back the suggestion.

This represents, of course, an absurd situation of political posturing that has little to do with reality, but it does tell you some interesting things about the way in which Guiliani views foreign policy, and why he would make a scary, scary fucking president.

What Ron Paul asserts here is perfectly rational - that, in studying the reasons given by the terrorists themselves as to why they attacked us on September 11, in analyzing the political climate of the middle-east, and of our involvement in it, we can learn things that might cause us to take courses of action that would prevent future attacks; he does these things and comes to the conclusion that if we hadn't gotten as involved in the Middle-east as we did for so many decades, that 9/11 wouldn't have happened. In my mind, this is a perfectly rational way for one to guide future actions along those lines. If the dog bites you because you keep poking it, maybe you should at least consider the possibility of stopping poking it.

This logic, of course, doesn't work for the assholes like Guiliani, for to ascribe human motivations to inhuman actions is to weaken the ability to make them seem subhuman. For the hawk agenda that Guiliani champions to have legs, it works back to describe the rationale behind the 9/11 attacks in tautological language: to say that they attacked us because they're evil, and that's what evil people do.

To Guiliani, the terrorists are boogeymen, and that's all that they want them to be. They want the fight to be "us vs. them", where we are the good guys and they are the assholes, and the notion that we've behaved like assholes in the past in a way that has exacerbated the conflict simply doesn't fit into that picture.

Of course, saying that we've behaved like assholes in the past doesn't make the actions of the terrorists any less evil. Consider: let's say you're an asshole who has made a pattern over the past year or so of breaking into your neighbor's garage and stealing their tools. They know it's you, and they're pissed at you, and rightly so. Eventually they get pissed off enough that one of them comes over and kills your child. Does that make that person a murderer? Absolutely. Is their response appropriate? Of course not. But it doesn't mean that you're not still an asshole, and it doesn't give you leave to continue behave like an asshole!

Ron Paul is absolutely correct in his insistence that our middle-eastern policy is deeply flawed and exacerbates the creation of terrorists; in fact, it allows for the recruitment of new terrorists far faster than we kill them.

This doesn't matter to the Guiliani Republicans. They don't see the big picture, they don't see how to deal with terrorists in a way that doesn't make the recruitment of new terrorists easier and easier.

Or, at least, they aren't interested in that, because the threat of the boogeyman is what wins them elections.

Catan!

So, apparently I'm really good at Catan. With the release of the game over XBox Live Arcade, I've been playing it almost nonstop, and have amassed a fairly impressive (if I do say so myself) 12-9 record. That may not seem like too much, but consider that each of these games is four-player, and you've got something worthy of crowing about. The XBox360 interface is nice, although the multiplayer has a tendency to crap out a bit much, and there still appear to be some problems with the ranking system insofar as it appears not to count against you when you leave a game early (this is mitigated some by the fact that it seems to value total points over win record, but then again, that in turn values quantity of games played over quality).

The AI was fairly touted by the developers as "being challenging to even the most advanced players" but I haven't really seen that; the AI is capable of SOME advanced play and its tactics are perfectly fine, but it still seems to leave a bit to be desired on the strategical front; in any case, my record against AI opponents is, so far, perfect.

In any case, my rank in online ranked play is currently in the top 20, with 3000+ so far ranked. I'm confident that I'll remain near the top over time.

Best scambait ever! (not even remotely SFW)

Okay, so we've all gotten those scam emails from people saying that they're the son of an african prince, saying that they have access to some obscene amount of money and that, if financed by some poor soul over the Internet, they will offer them a cut of the loot. "Help me get my money out of the country before the government confiscates it" type scame exist in many different minor variations, but the end goal is always the same: dupe someone out of some cash. The "official" name for these scams are "419" scams; why this is, I'm not 100% sure.

So it came as a bit of a surprise to me (though in retrospect I suppose it's probably inevatable) that an active Internet community has sprung up to bait the scammers; a lot of people, savvy to the notion that they are dealing with scammers, take the time to actively waste the scammers' time by leading them on, messing with their heads, getting them to send pictures, etc. Some of the stories turn out to be quite amusing. 419 eater is one of the more prominent sites.

Anyhoo, here is one particularly hilarious scambaiting story (again, not even REMOTELY safe for work!) that starts off as a fairly standard scambait but quickly devolves into a sordid story of love, loss, and falccid and erect pictures of the scammer's penis.

It must be read. (hat tip to The Agitator