Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “Watchbaker, Watchbaker, Bake Me a Watch”

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November 13, 2007

Watchbaker, Watchbaker, Bake Me a Watch

Hatched by Dafydd

Yeah, yeah, that time again. You could set your watch by it. Unless, of course, you want your watch to run somewhat faster than "weekly."

(What the heck does that mean? It doesn't even make sense. I was punchy from lack of sleep when I wrote it -- and I reckon you need to be equally punch-drunk to find it funny. Fortunately... I know my readers!)

Council

Sometimes I think that winning the Watcher's Council weekly massacre is nine-tenths just coming up with a truly awesome title:

Courts v. Terrorism = Wile E. Coyote v. Road Runner, by Big Lizards.

In fact, I must note that we didn't really win: We tied with Soccer Dad's post. The Watchthing had to pick one or the other; he was about to vote for the latter, but moved by all the trouble we've had lately (the haunting, the burnt toast, the Prodigious Hickey, and that whole thing with the lard jar that was so disturbing, I never even mentioned it to anyone), pity stayed his hand.

You remember this post: the whole spiel about why civilian courts just aren't up to the job of fighting terrorism, at least not by themselves.

We voted for a pair of posts that ended up doing pretty well themselves; in fact, they came in numbers 2 and 3... even in the right order! (And of course, in the ordinary voting, Soccer Dad tied with Big Lizards.)

Unsex Me... Not, by Soccer Dad;

Greenie Insanity and the Santiago Fire, by Cheat Seeking Missiles.

The first is about the quandry of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-Carpetbag, 95%): Should she "unsex" herself and run just as a (genderless) candidate? Or should she run as "the girl," so she can complain about the unchivalrous nature of bullying men -- who keep asking her hard questions. I think she should just bite the bullet and run as a dumb bleached beach blonde.

The second is more or less a grudge post by Laer at Cheat Seeking Missiles, responding to a post by another Council blog -- Rick Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse; Moran implied that anyone who sought to "politicize tragedy" was an idiot; and Laer, having examined the political implications of tragedies and disasters (as have we at Big Lizards), took exception.

Nouncil

We fared pretty well in our Nouncil vote, too: Our number-one pick won, and our number-two pick tied for third (along with about thirty other blogs):

A Great Shifting of the Winds, by Eternity Road.

Aaron at Eternity Road posts that in recent years, and against what most people believe, the Democratic Party has truly become the party of the rich and infamous. The GOP remains the party of the middle-income voter, the religious voter, and the married voter.

Clinton & Bush Both Thrown a Curveball on Iraq?, by the Anchoress.

The Anchoress writes about the deep and unfathomable "Curveball," who gave us the information about WMD in Iraq... which most people, probably even including the Anchoress, thinks was wrong; but which I have long argued was actually correct: We really did find "stockpiles of WMD" in Iraq.

But the CIA decided post-hoc not to count as WMD any device or chemical that was "dual use" -- since they belatedly decided that they were against villainizing Saddam Hussein... which might retroactively justify the Iraq war that the CIA opposed (and have been punishing President Bush for initiating ever since). Still, the aptly named Curveball is a character well worth studying.

Interestingly enough, nobody voted for the post we actually nominated in the Nouncil category... not even us! I've noticed that Power Line doesn't tend to do well in these Council hootenannies; don't know why.

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Hatched by Dafydd on this day, November 13, 2007, at the time of 11:59 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: Geoman

I read recently (somewhere, who knows?) that Saddam, under questioning, admitted he had faked having WMDs to prevent an invasion from Iran.(When a liar says he is lying, how can you believe him?).

This plays into the confusion when we invaded. I read (somewhere else...what am I, a reference library?)that when Saddam's generals were captured in 2003 they all said that WMDs existed and were deployed, but always somewhere not under their command.

If this story is true it explains everything. "Curveball" had the right info, and so did the CIA, and so did Bush. We reported the facts as we knew them, and had just as good an info as Saddam's generals, which is not half bad.

But it was all an edifice of lies, deliberately constructed by Saddam.

Why is it that this is not the prevailing theory regarding WMDs? It explains all the facts simply and believably.

The above hissed in response by: Geoman at November 14, 2007 9:43 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Geoman:

Another possibilty is that Hussein himself was spoofed: If his WMD scientists were afraid to tell him that the program wasn't going well (worried he might tell Uday to do something to "motivate" them), they might have continued to give him rose-colored reports about "stockpiles of WMD"... reports which Saddam conveyed to his generals with instructions how and when to use them.

The generals, receiving such instructions but no such WMD, were certainly not about to contradict the Great Man. So they just saluted and said, "Jawohl, mein Fuhrer."

Then, when the war came and not a single unit deployed WMD, and when we went nuts trying to find it, and when the newspapers were all saying "Bush lied, people died" (all of which I'm sure Hussein was informed about before his capture), Hussein -- no dummy -- realized he'd been screwed by his scientists... so he decided to make hay into lemonade by claiming he was just foolin'.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh at November 14, 2007 5:38 PM

The following hissed in response by: Geoman

This goes to my theory that science fiction is the root cause of the current madness we see among liberals.

Think about - science fiction has without a doubt become mainstream. Liberals have a weak grasp of reality to begin with. Combine the two, and what do you get?

How often in science fiction do we see the magic device - the device that moves the plot forward in some way (a form of Hitchcock's McGuffin), but is in itself inexplicable. Dr. McCoy waves his little spinning salt shaker over someone and then explains in detail their medical condition. How does that work? It can't be any science I'm aware of, not even theortical science, but it needs to work to make the plot move forward.

Stay with me here. Liberals see enough of this stuff and start to believe that we have secret agent 00 something with his invisible car. And if we have that, why, the only possible reason we went to war with Iraq was because someone lied. And it couldn't be Saddam, since he got the short end of the deal, so it has to be...Bush!

I once saw Gwen Eiffel ask Tim Robbins whether Bush had lied, or perhaps some mistakes had simply been made. Timmy sputtered and spewed incredulous shock and dismay, and (I'm paraphrasing) as if only a fool doesn't know that the government has super secret magical devices that allow them to see and know everything.

As science fiction has become mainstream, so has tin foil hatted paranoia.

The above hissed in response by: Geoman at November 15, 2007 9:44 AM