The Shrine

Even the Republicans don't like Bolton

God, what a horrible choice for a UN ambassador!

Hiring a Wolf to guard the henhouse?

Pretty much. I mean, why hire a UN ambassador that doesn't even like the UN? That's like hiring a Secretary of State that doesn't even like dipomacy.

"Bolton has served as the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security since being sworn in on May 11, 2001. As such, he was to be part of the State Department's delegation to six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear program in 2003. He was removed from the delegation after describing Kim Jong Il as a "tyrannical dictator" of a country where for many, "life is a hellish nightmare." [6] (http://washingtontimes.com/world/200308 ... -6491r.htm) In response, a North Korean spokeman said "such human scum and bloodsucker is not entitled to take part in the talks." [7]"

Source: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Bolton">boom bada boom wikky wikky wikky wikky</a>

I think Kup and Tort are right, I may have to find at least one other reputable source to quote from all the time...

Actually, that's not bad coming from Washington Times. Mental, you are familar with the newspapers to avoid, right?

I know that many news organizations are somewhat biased - as are we all - but no, I'm not familiar with "the newspapers to avoid". Exactly what are you talking about?

EDIT: Also, that's pretty close to as factual as possible...I don't see anything (other than the quotes from Bolton and North Korea's rep) that could be construed as opinion. So what's your beef?

SineSwiper wrote:Actually, that's not bad coming from Washington Times. Mental, you are familar with the newspapers to avoid, right?

Er, so we should only read papers that reinforce our views? I don't read the Times because I don't think it's worth the effort, but it still has some value. Just know your source so you can evaluate what you read.

Back on topic, I think Bolton's nomination says a lot about the Bush administration itself. This guy might have positive characteristics, but I certainly haven't heard about any of them.

Heh, well I agree with him on the North Korean thing. That guy is a psychopathic midget freak...

I sure as hell don't think that he should be represent us on the U.N. though, considering his role in promoting the fabricated case for the Iraqi war.

If even half the accounts about this guy are true, the man is a 10th degree blackbelt asshole and really shouldn't be over much of anything.

Kupek wrote:

SineSwiper wrote:Actually, that's not bad coming from Washington Times. Mental, you are familar with the newspapers to avoid, right?

Er, so we should only read papers that reinforce our views? I don't read the Times because I don't think it's worth the effort, but it still has some value. Just know your source so you can evaluate what you read.

Ditto. I'm not saying that we should read the newspapers that are preaching to the choir, but there's a difference between hiding the real facts to create a bias and just happening to pick up stories that one side or another might read. There's a subtle difference between NYT and say, Salon.com, even though I like reading both.

Washington Times would fall in this category of writing to hide the facts. NYT would be more inclided to reveal everything. I don't want unbiased reporting, because as HST had been preaching, it's all a load of horseshit. There is always bias, but you can have good reporting of facts along with bias.

Who's HST?

The very few Salon articles I've read, I wouldn't consider the difference between them and the NYT "subtle". "Wide" and "blaring" come to mind. The Salon articles I've looked at (admittedly, all two of them) have seemed HELLA liberal...but I should really take another look, since I haven't read one in awhile.

I'm not sure that Salon is considered to be in the same class of journalistic "respect" that the NYT is, either, though a lot of my notions of journalistic "respect" have gone out the window in recent years.

And as far as Bolton goes...yeah. I think I can be a lot like him in some ways - I have a propensity for brutal honesty at the expense of tact and sometimes even good sense - but I wouldn't exactly recommend myself for a U.N. job either. I think the position needs a diplomat - ESPECIALLY dealing with a potential future nuclear power with a chip on its shoulder - not someone who managed to elicit a response in an international forum that contained the words "human scum" and "bloodsucker". I would imagine that telling someone, more or less, that their government sucks, is generally not good diplomacy.

EDIT: Ooooh, Hunter Thompson?

It's funny...on the "international diplomacy" tip, for nostalgia I pulled out two papers I'd written from a class I took at Stanford taught by William Perry, former secretary of defense under Clinton. Here I am, this little Stanford undergrad, hopped up on Red Bull and writing blithely about counterforce versus countervalue nuclear strikes at 3AM in the morning.

But it's interesting - it was, really, really neat to hear about national defense from someone who was DOING it for I think about four years at the highest level possible. He was a really neat guy, too - he was in his mid-seventies and just knowledgeable as all hell, and he managed to insert some humor into a course on some VERY serious subjects.

The "Moon Bomb" was my favorite. While he was undersecretary of defense coming up through politics in the seventies under Carter, he had to read through mail that the U.S. government got regarding possible defense strategies - at least this is what I remember him telling us. He said he got some very, very interesting recommendations. The "Moon Bomb" was the one he told us about. Some guy had written into the U.S. government with a recommendation for a new weapon to use against the USSR. His idea was (and I swear I'm not kidding):

1. Attach a line of cabling to a rocket, made out of some sort of very, very strong metal and with high tensile strength.
2. Attach the other end of the cabling to the Earth.
3. Launch the rocket up to the moon in such a way that the cable embeds itself in the Moon's surface.
4. As the Earth turns in its orbit, the cable attaching the Moon and the Earth will slowly wrap around the Earth's surface diametrically, pulling the Moon closer and closer to Earth.
5. Finally, the Moon will crash into the Earth. The rocket's time of launch and the points of contact will have been calculated in such a way so that when this happens, the Moon will land squarely on the USSR.

This is unquestionably one of the truly funniest things I ever heard, and I swear I'm not making this up - my imagination is good, but it's not that good!

Point of Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Perry

Or the alternate project, the Sun Bomb: