The anti-Churchill party

Now I know Dean is a nutcase, but he is the head of the DNC. His guaranteeing US defeat is a little unseemly is it not?

Saying the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean predicted today that the Democratic Party will come together on a proposal to withdraw National Guard and Reserve troops immediately, and all US forces within two years.

Dean made his comments in an interview on WOAI Radio in San Antonio.

"I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, 'just another year, just stay the course, we'll have a victory.' Well, we didn't have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening."

While I think Ann Coulter is a nutcase as well, doesn’t this make her charges that anti-war liberals are tip-toeing on the borders of sedition slightly more credible? (And believe me, I'm glad no one like Ann is the head of the RNC)

UPDATE: Kerry intimating that US soldiers in Iraq are behaving unprofessionally – almost as if they were terrorists (If plumbers plumb; terrorists ________)
-- probably doesn’t weaken Ms. Coulter’s argument either.

Kerry: “there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs. ...Iraqis should be doing that.”

Ok so I now think that 2012 is probably the soonest I won’t be pants pissingly terrified of Democrats being in charge of national security. Anyone who views occasional lapses in cultural etiquette as reason enough to turn over a country with incalculable oil wealth to the next new-and-improved Taliban cannot be taken seriously.

UPDATE: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi claims over half of house Democrats favor "speedy withdrawl" (much to the consternation of the other half).

UPDATE: Dean changes his mind (again)
"We can and have to win the War on Terror." "We can only win the war -- which we have to win -- if we change our strategy dramatically. ... if we want to win the war on terror we cannot pursue the failed strategy we've pursued..."

UPDATE: This can be filed under Murtha’s “Democrats not sure what they believe at any given moment” category. Delaware Sen. Tom Carper seemingly criticized much publicized pro-withdrawal comments by Howard Dean and other Democrats after returning from a tour from Iraq which I first thought was a rare display of candor.

"I wish more of my colleagues, and folks like Howard Dean, would try going to Iraq to see the situation there for themselves"

Great! So he’s implying that what they said was poorly informed and incorrect. Err no.

“Anyone who has visited Iraq and talked to the people there, he said, is not going to come back thinking this thing is going to be won militarily. It's not."

Huh? Isn’t that exactly what Howard Dean said? (see above)

Has Rove figured out a secret weakness in the liberal mind that causes pandering engines to engage simultaneously in forward and reverse inevitably causing a full logic meltdown? Will we see Dean interrupted in a future speech on the necessity of the Iraq war by a rebellious left hand attempting to make a peace sign?

UPDATE: So while conservatives are actively trying to allow democracy to take hold in Iraq liberals are exporting well worn tactics to discredit democratic elections through claims of disenfranchisement.

Juan Cole: ”The only way the vote will happen at all is that the US military has forbidden all vehicular traffic, so everyone has to walk for the next few days. This tactic prevents car bombings from disrupting the elections, but it is a desperate measure and not a sign of an election that could be certified as free and fair.”

Goodness that’s sounds almost as bad as Ohio. Everyone knows inconvenience = Jim Crow unless you happen to be in country with a tin-pot socialist dictator and then it isn’t inconvenience but a valid cultural preference we’d be arrogant and ignorant to judge. Just ask Jimmah.

UPDATE: Holy cow. I was totally joking about the Iraq/Ohio comparison and Eric Alterman is actually making the comparison....seriously.

Animation projects

I did these animations a few months ago for an After Effects class and have been pretty tardy in putting them anywhere they might be seen. I have no reason for the delay, besides laziness, but I'd be quite interested in any type of feedback you have to offer. They've been fairly compressed to speed up the download, so check them out and I hope you enjoy.