Why ESL teachers burn an ungodly monsterous hole in my pants

I needed this, today. And a much better English lesson than anything that Tim James has to offer.



Limited INS resources should be used to stop terrorists and violent criminals likely to reoffend. Everyone else should be encouraged to take the legal route. But peoples' lives don't need to be disrupted to do that.

Why do we persistently go to dick mode to address any issue we face? Because it gives us an excuse to be a dick, that's why. Everyone likes the dick, apparently. Your mother, for instance. Or so I'm told.

I've always had a serious soft spot for English-as-a-Second-Language teachers, actually. Single ESL ladies should definitely hit me up. That sex has got to be nuclear.

Because, fundamentally, there are just people who see any problem and think, "What excuse can I find, here, to not give a shit about whose life I dick with?"

And others who say, "How can I help?"

I respect the latter. And want to bear their beautiful, brilliant, decent-hearted, multilingual children.

And the former can go fuck themselves. In whatever language they please.

If you want to sing out, sing out

Was on a Cat Stevens kick today.

Harold and Maude was one the favorite movies of my first real love in life, and the one we never got to watch before it was through. And, as it turned out, it was the movie my second love and I watched the night I started to fall for her.



And, mostly, because Cat's song Father and Son is one of the most beautiful songs about fathers and sons I've ever heard. And I couldn't get enough of it, this morning.



So Yusuf Islam's got something goin' right for him, in my book.

In the process, I came across this classic from Jackson Browne, today. Got me thinking about my own dreams. And all the dreams of people and kids I come across.



I don't know why, exactly. Why so many people resign their dreams. Resign themselves to lives they fell into. Or got too comfortable with. Rather than lives they love.

The beauty of it all?

It's not the end. Nothing ever is. Until it is.

Life's not a beautiful, tragic melody. The life you love is just waiting for you to make your move.

Just ask Nick Vujicic.



I love this little life of mine. Even the stumbles. And the failures. And the heartbreak. All of it.

Hope you love yours.

If not. Now's your chance.

Take us home

The $13 trillion pound elephant in the middle every financial policy discussion, at the moment.

A Day of Posturing by Congressional Hypocrites

"Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) yesterday actually scolded the executives for 'betting with other people's money and other people's futures.'

Taxpayers -- pitchforks in hand -- should hold a hearing and grill these senators along the very same lines.

Here is the difference between Goldman and Congress:

Goldman may be trying to sell ice to Eskimos, but nobody is making the Eskimos buy it. With Congress, either you give them your money or you go to jail."

It's not just the dirty deals made in Congress. And the shady accounting. And the selfish pursuit of self-interest.

It's the damn fool notion that these would be the very folks we would go to to fix all of these matters.



Why don't you listen to some Michael Buble and then consider whether you're gonna lie to me, again, and tell me how it's all the nice guys that fuck everything up in the world.

Because none of these guys look nice to me. Just ordinary assholes. Who just can't face up to their bullshit. Same as it ever was.

Take us home, Michael.

It just can't get any better than this

An interesting study of power and hypocrisy from Andrew Sullivan.

How Power Increases Hypocrisy

"The researchers found that compared to participants without power, powerful participants were stricter in judging others’ moral transgressions but more lenient in judging their own: 'power increases hypocrisy, meaning that the powerful show a greater discrepancy between what they practice and what they preach.'

Nothing new there.

My favorite line from Andrew, though, is this one:

"Power corrupts. Always has. Which is why we need more assholes in the press and fewer people, like Mike Allen, annotating and revering every word that drops from the platters of the connected and the powerful."

Yeah, that's been a plan of pure genuis. Get back with me about how that's workin' for ya, fellas.

Cause from here, to quote the advertisers for the beer of choice for assholes, it just can't get any better than this.

I am Fred Phelps

Among the multitude of ways to deal with these assholes while respecting the First Amendment.

Illinois Group Pickets Fred Phelps' Church

Fuck you, Fred. That's my contribution.

That and I agree with your son. You have my pity. And even my empathy and genuine concern. For how you could so totally twist the decent, compassionate teachings of Jesus of Nazareth into your hateful screeds. And so utterly undermine your family's more honest strength and well-being, in the process.

Fear, of hell and damnation, as a means of coercing conscience is exactly what Fred Phelps stands for. Fear of mass murder is how Al Queda goes about it. Fear of the government is how Iranian clerics and the Taliban do it.

Surely, we can stand for something stronger.

Meaning, something more like Jesus. Something more compassionate and decent. And loving.

And which more honestly respects peoples consciences.

Because if not, we really are just lesser versions of this dick. A man who really does believe in force and fear as a governing philosophy. All in the name of scaring people into good conscience.

Just like him.

Let him eat the court costs of his little adventures, I say. The families of U.S. Marines certainly shouldn't be picking up the tab.

But, at some point, all of us should take a step back, I think, and ask ourselves, "Am I more like Fred Phelps than I would like to admit?"

For many among us, the answer to that question, even unintentionally, is yes.

Endgame

If there is any one statement made in the last 10 years that better reflects the cowardice of this period, this is it.

Abbas calls on Obama to impose Mideast peace deal

It's your people, dumbass. You're the prime minister. Americans are not standing in the way. And, by and large, Israelis are not standing in the way. What's standing in the way is the willingness of Palestinians (and Israelis, to a lesser extent) to give up the bullshit and stop using peace deals as a means of manipulating for more shit.

Who cares about who gets what shit, you assholes? Sign a deal and stop killing people. It's not fucking rocket science.

And finally figure out that all of you are going to have to learn how to live with one another and stop killing each other. The end, maestro. Buh-dum-bum.

This is the consequence of all this rationalization of pressure, in lieu of responsibility, as political gamesmanship. It rationalizes the very kinds of games that Palestinian terrorist groups have played for years to get more stuff and kill more Israelis and Palestinians to get it.

This shit has got to end, in the broadest sense, if the world is to get safer for real. For any moron who isn't defending the bullshit along with them.

If Palestinians and Israelis want to be safe, they need to stop killing one another and to make arrangements to capture or kill those not prepared to end that ugly legacy and all of the horrific consequences that this security nightmare has created for Palestinians and Israelis.

And they need to genuinely commit themselves to live in peace. Period. Everything else is gravy. Or any number of excuses for why they'd rather people continue to die than to settle this insanity once and for all.

There are no winners in this kind of politics. And many, many dead losers.

Time for this to end.

Get over it, Potter

Proud enough I could spit in Potter's hospice drip. Maybe I will.

South Park - Sexual Healing



In a world of fools - meaning, me and you, fool - scared of our own little bitch shadows and making excuses for just about anything we hope will make all of our scared, stupid, selfish impulses go away forevah, or visit-Granny-in-hell-trying, Matt Stone and Trey Parker cut through the bullshit better than just about anything on ye olde boob-tube, these days. Except General Hospital. And Fox News.

And now some goodie-goodie terrorist douchebag named Yunus Muhammad has threatened their lives. Because they dare tell Muslims that they, too, are morons like the rest of us. Making enormous fools of themselves in the name of all that fear. And making a mess of their societies in the process.

Just like us. See. Now everyone can be like America.

And for eating all those delicious pork chops. Hmm. Pork chops.

These two boys are what America is all about. When we wipe our snot-filled noses and stop crying in our tiny little pillows about how scary and selfish the world is.

We are. You too, dumbass. Me too, asshole. Thanks for reminding me. Now get over it. And do better. And go do something useful with your life. Other than threatening everyone else to get your way.

And if you still can't handle life as it is, Drs. Stone and Parker have the treatment you need. That means you, ladies.

Martin Luther King. Selfless Adulterer. And other profound thoughts.

George Will brings the pain. And Stephen Colbert brings his famous Hawaiian beef casserole.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
George Will
www.colbertnation.com
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Heaps o' genius. Genius on a stick. Why is there not nearly enough genius on a stick?

If all political conversations took this turn, perhaps we might learn something.

Martin Luther King think he's the only one with a dream? I, I, I. Does that guy ever think about anyone but himself? Even his adultery was selfless.

Someone's gotta save the world now that Dreamboy got himself greased.

Might as well be George Will.

And ground beef in pineapple glaze.

Hmm. Pineapple glaze.

Hubris as a governing philosophy

If true, Rich Lowry has written an excellent commentary on the ugly protection racket that is Democratic regulatory policy, these days.

Pro-Business Does Not Mean Pro-Market

I don't have nearly enough knowledge of this area of policy to be able to say whether Rich's charges are true or not.

But they are remarkably plausible, given Democratic ideological and political strategy, right now.

Meaning, I don't know the details of the cases in the charges he is making, here, about businesses buying favor from the party and members of Congress.

But I can believe them, prima facie, because they match the general pattern of behavior from Democrats in the last 2 years, in particular.

Reap what you sow. So reap carefully, I suppose is the lesson.

You preach an unforgiving attitude to matters criminal and political, you may just get to taste the fruits of your labors.

Perhaps Democrats will be sounding a more liberal tone on such matters. I know. Democrats liberal. Who'd a known?

And, sadly, all of this is it likely to be for naught. The political winds do not blow leftward, this season.

Hubris, the Greeks murmur. Hubris.

Haven't you heard? All the kids are doing it.

Parents just don't understand

Spending time talking with the kids, today - the real fundamental of quality parenting and teaching, and all the emotional scarring they inspire in tiny little hearts - it's become all too clear to me that this problem just never seems to go away.



I hope parents of my generation remember Will's message. Now that we're the Einsteins with breadpins.

Kids these days

The more I watch liberal and illiberal democratic and autocratic politics, the more I am convinced that Lord Acton had the last word on power.

Power corrupts. Absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. And so does your mother.

So the big question is:

So where's the hope, genius?

If power corrupts and that's the last word, what's the way out? Or aren't you ready to concede that there is no way out, pretty boy?

Two things.

First, don't hate me cause I'm beautiful. It's just uncouth. And it just makes me sizzle in ways your momma warned you about.

Second, it's a damned good question, don't you think?

Why is it that if power corrupts that liberal democracies like America still seem to stumble forward in the biggest picture? Or was your high school history teacher just inescapably full of shit.

Well if your high school history teacher was me, then the answer to that last question is an inescapable and emphatic, "Booyah." Can't get anything past this guy. Except with magic.

But the answer to the first question is actually pretty straightforward.

Power corrupts. That's for sure.

But, the light at the end of that tunnel is that it also falls apart.

Every single time.

No exceptions.

Why?

For the same reason that bullies always get their due.

Because, after awhile, you piss off enough people, you create enough enemies, eventually, you're going down. Either of your own accord. Or someone will make sure that you go down. Or be subject to the musical wrath of Mr. Barry Manilow.

In democracies, we have elections. Without democracy, you have bloodshed and revolution. And loads of cake, apparently. Which was the long history of humanity - empire, war, and revolution - up until liberal democracy. Which is why it's so ugly that people would engage in similarly manipulative behavior, like, say, threatening war or revolution, in a liberal democracy, to get their way. Not that anyone would do that (I'm talking to you, Mr. Terrorism-is-the-perfect-preparation-for-schoolin' the-youngin' Western and not-so-Western activists and intelligencia).

In liberal democracies, we can just choose differently when someone deserves to be humbled. We don't actually have to bully them in return. Like, say, how the Republican leadership and conservative activists are gearing up to do, as we speak. Or as the Democratic leadership and progressive activists have been doing for the last couple of years. And really all of them have been doing since the beginning of politics as a social practice. And as homo sapiens have been doing to other homo sapiens - and really most of God's creation - since they first discovered bacon.

But, one thing is for sure.

Everyone gets their cummupance. Zero doubt about that one. Not sure? Go talk with Hitler. He might have a story or two after he recovers from that little matter of his suicide. Poor baby.

And that's how it always works out, in the end.

Because noone likes to be bullied and manipulated, obviously. And though bullies will often not take responsibility for their own bullying, in the beginning, they sure as hell will make sure that noone bullies them. And people find ways to confront bullying, in the end, is the truth.

In America, we have a democracy. And that's how we confront bullies who can't get the message that they need to either humble themselves or be humbled.

But, in the bigger picture, it's not our government that needs to face, most, it's bullying.

It's us.

Yeah, you, girly man.

Every single one of us who is trying to get their way with bullying because they think they can. Which is most of us. In one way or another. When we're honest, that is.

And it is most definitely every single one of us who encourages our political representatives to use bullying and manipulation and intimidation to get our way. No matter how self-destructive it so clearly is. To anyone with any kind of honest impulse in the world. Even you, James Carville.

We are a species of shitheads. Homo sapiens, that is. Always been true, at some level. As long as we have lived long enough to mistrust one another. Meaning as soon as Fox News took the airways.

And, like every real moment of progress in our history, we will not get better by success or intelligence, primarily.

We'll get better because being a shithead is a sure road to failure. And sometimes you just have to fall on your head enough times to get the lesson that noone's going to put up with your sorry ass if you can't face up. Unless you're member of the Catholic clergy, that is.

And that is the real story of human history. When all the gloss and bullshit doesn't fuck up the view.

And that, as it turns out, is the last word on power.

Until some other kid comes around and makes all of us look like the damned fools that we are.

Kids these days.

Gotta love 'em.

If you know what's good for you.

Courage and progress

The more the kids and I have discussed it, the more convinced I am.

The greatest bulk of human tragedy is borne of cowardice.

And the most pernicious cowardice of all is the failure to say those three little words that we find it so hard to say.

I was wrong.

Actually, as my friend Julie said recently, that's probably not true. The truth is that our cowardice is borne of our ability to say, "I love me. And I love you. Enough for both of us to be wrong plenty in life. Because that's what's gonna happen anyway, fool. Now stop hogging the blanket."

And most of that is borne of the further cowardice to acknowledge that perhaps our failure to do that is borne of our failure to treat each other more decently and forgive one another when we do screw up. And the ways that aggression is not only limited in preventing otherwise, but has generally contributed to creating many of those messes, in the first place.

When I think of all of the people who have died, lived in fear, and otherwise had lives destroyed or seriously undermined by this one common source, I am sometimes overwhelmed by the stupidity and waste of it all.

With the solid knowledge that our only hope of turning it around is finding the courage to face this failure.

And it is courage, it is clear to me, at this point, that is borne of love, and compassion, and decency, and forgiveness. And all of the values that we fear make us weak. But which really are our surest source of strength.

That is a fact, I am clear, at this point. And a stubborn fact more stubborn than our stubborn refusal to acknowledge it.

And it is our stubborness to acknowledge that fact that is the single most destructive source of the greatest share of preventable human tragedy in our sad, destructive history.

And it is a fact that does not care what we think otherwise. It is a fact that will most certainly be a part of human existence, in some smaller way, likely, for as long as we exist. And it is a fact that will engender the most serious preventable tragedy until we face it.

I've had to make my peace with this fact.

Until we find the courage to face it. And to be better, for real.

The only honest progress humanity has ever known.

Tragedy of our common cowardice

David Sirota is largely wrong in this piece that gets the big picture right.

Journalism is definitely a serious mess, these days.

Journalism today: A haven for parasites and double-dealers

What David is wrong about is the reason. Journalism's not in sorry shape because of the evil journalists in cahouts with big industry opposing the noble progressive agenda, as this old, tired, and self-centered line of reasoning supposes.

Journalism is in trouble because of people like David.

Not progressives. Though they certainly have done more than their share to make journalism a mess. Not conservatives. Though they have created enough of the ugly milleu that the media has become. Not moderates. Though most moderates have been either playing cynical games or been too cowardly to challenge the cynical games being played.

The reason most people that I talk with don't trust the press is the same reason I trust the press so little, these days.

Because they're assholes. They are a mass gathering of vultures and cynics looking to shit on anything decent and mishandle anything serious they can get their hands on. Because it's never dawned on them that maybe being assholes has helped create most of the more intractable messes they've been covering.

Why? Because assholes, as a rule, do not take responsibility. Ever. Not until they stop being assholes, that is. At which point, they're no longer part of the problem. But which problem remains while they are. Which is the ugly and destructive self-fulfilling prophecy of the press, politics, and most serious issues that we just can't seem to get a handle on that face us, today.

As a good friend of mine was just saying, it's Network in real time. It's press cynicism feeding a cynical political, financial, and broader culture. Taken to it's logical conclusion with the exercise of formal political power, it is the ugly tragedy that is most illiberal cultures, like North Korea, Cuba, China, Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Syria, and Iran. And the larger logic is what drove Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to their unimaginable depths.

And what all of those folks have in common is that none of them will take responsibility for it. Because there's too many other people to blame for their bullshit.

And no matter how much they fail and how much advocacy for more aggression to solve every problem backfires in every variation of foolish, obvious ways, they just keep at it.

Because to do otherwise would take courage that none of them seem to have.

To admit that this path of aggression and pressure to resolve our most serious problems was just a foolish, mistaken, counterproductive path.

It's ego trumping something more honest. And decent. And more genuinely liberal. And what they know is the better direction, deep in their tiny little hearts.

And you know what the saving grace for humanity is?

There's no way to get things turned around until we face up. Period. Everything else is one long lie to avoid facing the failure.

Doubt that? Then live with the failure.

Most of these assholes seemed pleased as punch to do so.

Perhaps that's all we will ever do.

Until we get honest, that is.

Nuff said

Jim Nantz is a whining little bitch.

Jim Nantz criticizes Tiger Woods' vocal tantrums

As for my kids.

I wouldn't want them to grow up to be whining little bitches.

Nuff said.

The stakes in this debate

Think hard about whether this is the direction that you want for civilization.

Irish Blasphemy Law: Authors, Writers, Fear Censorship

Because this is what is at stake in this debate about governance and who we are.

I'll take freedom for 500, Alex.

God love us, despite ourselves

I have many thoughts to share on this case and too little time to do it, tonight.

Richard Dawkins: Arrest Pope During UK Visit

All I'm going to say, for tonight, is that there are many tragic mistakes that have been made in this terribly tragic period of history in the Catholic Church. The Church, I will acknowledge, that my broader family has called home for all of my life.

But outside of leaving any child in the care of someone who will so seriously abuse their trust and love, I cannot think of a more tragic outcome to this sorry mess of human frailty than the imprisonment of this all-too-human and very decent man.

I can only hope that we will wake up from this sad frenzy of vengeance that has taken hold of us.

God love us, as always, despite ourselves.

Yeah, me too

My official favorite Katy Perry song.



I could listen to this song all day, by the way. In fact, it's exactly what I'm doing, at this very moment.

Go ahead. Try not to do it. I dare you.

Do realize how much easier homework is with this girl crooning by my side?

Ready to be that man.

The road to progress

It's hard to believe that we still have to argue that peace in the Middle East is in the interests of all parties involved. But Zibigniew Brzezinski and Stephen Solarz do a nice job of just that.

To achieve Middle East peace, Obama must make a bold Mideast trip

The outlines for a peace agreement these guys make look fine. Except for the one big hitch that has always stalled these agreements.

The details are not for Americans to work out. They are for Palestinians and Israelis to work out. And until they are, everything else is doomed to failure.

We can make our suggestions. But, they, ultimately, must make the commitments that make peace workable.

And the truth is that the hold up is not the Devil that is in the details. The hold up is each side committing themselves, for real, to an honest peace agreement for the long haul. Everything else is excuses. And the bitterness of their long and tragic past undermining a peaceful future.

And this proposal by these authors demonstrates better than most I've heard during this period the folly of the prevailing political winds.

"Accordingly, the administration must convey to the parties that if the offer is rejected by either or both, the United States will seek the U.N. Security Council's endorsement of this framework for peace, thus generating worldwide pressure on the recalcitrant party."

If America were to follow this suggestion, any peace commitment would almost certainly fall apart utterly. Though noone should root for that outcome, obviously. But noone should have any doubts about that.

If there is any region in the world where it is clear that the legacy of military and political force, pressure, and manipulation has failed the larger interests of everyone involved in a peace that allows both peoples to grow and develop to their fullest potential, this is the region.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad, former P.L.O. members, and the Israeli government can point to a hundred pyrrhic victories over the years that supposedly justified the use of various forms of military and political manipulation to force short term concessions.

And every single one of those victories ignores the very clear and long term cost that each of them has incurred:

The absence of peace. And the lack of trust between Israelis and Palestinians to build a peaceful, secure, and prosperous future that does not continue to sacrafice the lives of innocent Palestinians and Israelis for the acquisition of land and political concessions.

If the President were to follow the advice outlined in this article, he would further add fuel to the very rationalization that has maintained this bloody relationship and undermined peace for almost a hundred years between these peoples.

Because the logic of political pressure is exactly the rationale used by Palestinian terrorists and those Israelis who have favored killing every peace agreement that has ever been and using peace discussions as a calculation in broader power politics.

It is an ugly logic that has won them concessions many times.

At the expense of thousands of innocent and not-so-innocent Palestinian and Israeli lives.

As long as we continue down this path, we give ammunition to the same ugly rationalizations of terrorists and despots the world over.

And nowhere has is this game being played with uglier, bloodier, more openly cynical calculations than in Israel and Palestine.

We can pretend that our cynicism has no consequences. But thousands of dead Palestinian and Israeli citizens would beg to differ. Millions more citizens living in repressive societies with governments and poltical players who rationalize in similar cynical ways bear the burden of our self-centered rationalizations.

And if we want that to end, we need to end the games and the political manipulation.

There is no other road to any real progress.

Trust

It's so crazy.

The more I watch national and international media, political leaders, academics, activists, and all the rest, this political period.

The less I trust any of them.

The more I watch people, the more dissappointed I become that so many of this foolish little species have such a hard time ever just admitting that they just don't know what to do about even the biggest problems that we face. And that, maybe, genuinely listening to one another might, consequently, be in order. If we actually want others to take seriously our concerns.

To hear all the confident assertions, you would think that more of the folks with opinions about politics actually know more than they do.

Except when you hear them repeatedly make assertions that turn out to be wrong - and I really can't think of any of the major figures in any circles who do not fit that description - the more you begin to wonder if any of those folks have ever stopped to even consider it. No matter how clearly wrong that often are.

It's a strange spectacle to watch. If you're honest, that is.

Because not many of them really are, is the truth.

Which is exactly why Lord Acton argued and was right, I think, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Because those who covet it seem to almost never to able to admit that they ever screw up with its use. Which was exactly what he was telling the Pope when he said it.

No matter how many obvious mistakes they make.

I very much understand why the wisest political observers so often situate themselves so far from power.

Because it's so often such a three ring circus headed to nowhere.

And the truth is that I just don't trust most such folks anymore.

And it's good to know that I chose a life where I can avoid them as much as possible.

Because, most of the time, what a thoroughly unpleasant and ridiculous lot they are.

"Mature" democracies

Do Thais Lack Spirit for Democracy?

"There appears to be a misconception in Thailand over the past few years that democracy equals intimidation — whether that means blockading major city intersections in Bangkok and forcing the country’s commercial center to close, tossing grenades at government buildings, shutting down a major international summit attended by Asian leaders, occupying the Government House, or closing a major international airport."

Perhaps it is because intimidation is the way even the most "mature" democracies have been conducting themselves, as of late.

Because as this articles well articulates, everyone should know, by now, that intimidation isn't the way mature people and mature democracies should engage their disagreements.

Intimidation is how less mature goverments and peoples conduct themselves.

Mature governments and peoples only use force when no other means is available. Not as a rationalization for "by any means necessary" to get whatever it is that they want.

Perhaps the Thai people are watching contemporary democracies all too closely.

Perhaps they should find better role models.

The voice of integrity

Earl and Tiger @ Yahoo! Video

For all the cynics and everyone who still haven't quite found that voice.

Bullshit, or politics, by any other name

Is it possible to have a politics without people wallowing so thoroughly in their own bullshit?



Don't you hear it?

Me and my kind have all the answers. They and their kind are fools and naives and a threat to the rest of us.

You know, the really obvious bullshit.

Is it possible to have a politics that does not operate like this and is more thoughtful, reasonable, and grounded?

Like the rest of America is (more, at least). The way most peoples' families typically are. The way that most people are who don't have a stake in persistently attempting to improve the stink of their own fecal matter.

Of course it is.

The question is:

Are we going to do it? And are we going expect it out of those in politics?

Because the notion that we get better the more that we pretend that we have all the answers is like the notion that finding a cure for cancer means pretending we already have.

It makes no goddamn sense. It's a literal impossibility.

Slightly better odds than my Royals having a winning season.

Boy's gotta dream.

Story of my life

Until I find that one special singing partner.



Let the love story begin.

How's that "broken windows" policing workin' for ya?

At Least 3 Shot As Gangs of Youths Run Wild in Midtown

"Overall, crime in the city is still at record lows despite an uptick in murders, felony assaults and rapes this year. Jittery lawmakers are worried about crime rising, especially as the ranks are decreased at the nation's largest police department."

So, don't worry. The only increase we've seen is in murders, felony assaults, and rapes. You know. The small stuff.

Don't worry. We'll add officers, maintain the same policy, and everything will be under control.

And when that doesn't work, we'll blame all the pussies in the department who coddled all those criminals.

Because it couldn't just be that more aggressive policing is limited in what it can do. And might be counterproductive when enforcing the small stuff. Like broken windows. Hence the name of the strategy. Because it undermines trust from the community, especially in getting information and collecting evidence to solve stuff like, say, murders, felony assaults, and rapes.

Because noone who has information on that stuff might be guilty of, say, drug crimes, of course.

Perhaps we should ask Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's drug war capital, how that effort's working out.

Life in 'Murder City'

Noone with important information on those crimes is guilty of illegal immigration. Or illegal possession of firearms. Or other variations of broken windows.

Yeah, I'm sure it's all going a-ok. Because that's what the people who advocate the policy tell us. Even when it's not.

The question for people, at this point, on a whole range of more aggressive approaches in governance that have failed and backfired is:

How long are you going to swallow the bullshit?

And, more importantly, when might we all take some responsibility for the fact that our aggressive posturing has betrayed us, once again. And hurt a lot of people, in the process. No matter who is doing it.

Aggression is sometimes necessary. But honest use of aggression minimizes its use as much as possible and offers a broad scope for freedom, in the meantime, except when people are a genuine danger. And not a endless variations of made up dangers we can conjure to rationalize our use of power.

This has been the ugly and cynical rationalization behind power since humans started exercising it. And our progress has been marked by our honest challenge to that rationalization, since the beginning of time. Not pretending that the rationalization has made things better when it hasn't.

Progress is marked by our commitment to more genuine liberal values - meaning a commitment to liberty - and the more honest accounting of this rationalization of power and our behavior, as a consequence.

Deep in their hearts, even the cynics know that. Deep in our hearts, all of us do.

Because it's deep in our hearts where all of us are most honest.