fareedr

"Many governments – some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us,..."

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:14:53 -0800

“Many governments – some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation. So other nations will continue to deal with us. They will continue to work with us. We will continue to share sensitive information with one another. Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.”

- Sec. of Defense Robert Gates, http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/11/quotable-secretary-gates-on-wi/

Obama and Afghanistan

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:40:28 -0800

Obama and Afghanistan:

I realize that:

I’ve been idle on Tumblr for months.
This is about 2 weeks too late in internet time.

But I think it’s still worth commenting on.

How is this a betrayal? Obama made it very clear during the campaign that he would begin withdrawing from Iraq in order to focus on Afghanistan - a war he considered just. I may not agree - but I’m incredibly frustrated with the “left” continuously projecting their own beliefs on Obama, and castigating him when he “betrays” them. Obama the Candidate and Obama the President are not the same person as Obama the Savior Of The Left - the latter is a figment of our collective imagination.

Worst case scenario - we are in Afghanistan another 10 years. Best case - Obama ends both wars, honorably, before the end of his first term. I still have Hope.

langer:

“If we had wanted Bush’s wars, and contractors, and corruption, we could have voted for John McCain. At least we would have seen our foe facing us, not felt him at our back, as now we do. The Republicans are given a great boon by this new war. They can use its cost to say that domestic needs are too expensive to be met—health care, education, infrastructure. They can say that military recruitments from the poor make job creation unnecessary. They can call it Obama’s war when it is really theirs. They can attack it and support it at the same time, with equal advantage.I cannot vote for any Republican. But Obama will not get another penny from me, or another word of praise, after this betrayal. And in all this I know that my disappointment does not matter. What really matters are the lives of the young men and women he is sending off to senseless deaths.”

—

Garry Wills, NYRblog: Afghanistan: The Betrayal

My message to the teabaggers.

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:07:19 -0700

My message to the teabaggers.

I would like to get the MBTA’s attention by making...

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:02:25 -0700

I would like to get the MBTA’s attention by making #greenlinesucks a trending topic. Who’s in?

UP: Not Your Father's-Children's Story.

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:32:58 -0700

DUDE SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!

aaronwhite:

UP is children’s story about an introverted boy who meets an outgoing an adventurous young girl. The two grow up together and eventually marry. They share a love for kids; she works as a photographer, and he a balloonist, at the zoo. Their bond is carefree and loving.

When they try to conceive a child of their own, the wife is sadly diagnosed as infertile. Instead of adopting, they save their meager earnings for travel and adventure, however, life’s unexpected calamities prevents them from pocketing enough. When the now-greying husband finally manages to purchase vacation tickets to surprise his wife with, we learn that she has been diagnosed with a soon-to-be-fatal cancer, and hospitalized.

The widowed old man settles into a lonely routine. His few social interactions involve keeping businessman an contractors from taking his home and demolishing it to make way for the modern jungle around him. While protecting the pieces of home that remind him of his late-wife, he accidentally injures one of the contractors. Summoned to court, the old man is labeled a menace, and ordered to move into a retirement community.

Real UPlifting story, eh?

Thankfully these first 10 minutes end, and after you’ve smeared the tears off your face, the rest of the movie is a lighter and enjoyable, though not without more heartbreak & adult themes (murder, abandonment by a father, etc).

Two thumbs up.

Hello world!

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:21:35 -0700

Hello world!

And now the 419rs make it to FACEBOOK!! Using my name. Amazing.

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:45:45 -0700

And now the 419rs make it to FACEBOOK!! Using my name. Amazing.

The women of Iran are finding their voice.

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:45:51 -0700

The women of Iran are finding their voice.

Ay Iran is the unofficial national anthem of Iran. The Shah had...

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:41:31 -0700

Ay Iran is the unofficial national anthem of Iran. The Shah had his own (praising him, of course) and the Islamic Republic has another. However, Iranians everywhere learn and sing this song as a symbol of their pride and identity outside whatever opressive regime happens to control them at the time. The best analogue for us would be America the Beautiful - but imagine a Sarah Palin led coup had replaced The Star Spangled Banner with some song praising the coming rapture.

I will never forget how moving it was when a wedding I went to in Tehran broke out singing Ay Iran. It was a simple act, but to me, the outsider, it seemed like an extremely meaningful, though simple, act of political defiance.

I hear the protesters are in the streets singing it tonight, and my thoughts are with them.

Ay Iran.

Iran is pissed.

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 19:27:03 -0700

Iran is pissed.:

Our elections are broken, but when I see this, I try hard to remember not to take American democracy for granted.

The conversational style of Spam seems to be winning against...

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 07:57:22 -0700

The conversational style of Spam seems to be winning against google.

Stupid Metro headline OTD (one day late, via Seth)

Thu, 28 May 2009 05:23:00 -0700

Stupid Metro headline OTD (one day late, via Seth)

I’ve been procrastinating through customization recently....

Fri, 22 May 2009 16:46:09 -0700

I’ve been procrastinating through customization recently. I’m particularly happy with my current top bar. I’ve removed the extraneous stuff (mobile me, for instance), and am now using 2 different system monitors to get the stats I really want.

The memory bar graph and cpu stats come from MenuMeters, and the temperature and fan speeds come from iStat menus. I just liked the look of the MenuMeters versions better, and only iStat has temperature monitoring (which is important if you use your laptop on your lap). I also managed to get two different Google Notifiers working, one of which I hacked up to use the Conduit Labs logo instead of the gmail defaults.

Weekend talk about Riedel inspired me to find a wine I’ve...

Tue, 19 May 2009 05:11:22 -0700

Weekend talk about Riedel inspired me to find a wine I’ve never had before and bust out the fancy crystal.

FML

Thu, 14 May 2009 09:09:05 -0700

FML

New loot in Loudcrowd. Awesome.

Fri, 08 May 2009 13:32:00 -0700

New loot in Loudcrowd. Awesome.

I am trying all the different ways to get from north station to...

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 05:51:00 -0700

I am trying all the different ways to get from north station to work. Today’s test involved an inbound green line and no walking. Feeling like canned fish is definitely a strike against this option.

People have no taste

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:15:38 -0700

Connecting to server...
You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
You: wassup.
Stranger: whats your favorite band
You: pavement.

Your conversational partner has disconnected.

WTF headline of the day from everyone’s favorite free...

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:26:03 -0700

WTF headline of the day from everyone’s favorite free paper, the Boston Metro.

(thanks to seth for bringing in the hard copy)

The Get Up Kids, Mass Pike This might be the world’s only...

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:47:04 -0700

The Get Up Kids, Mass Pike

This might be the world’s only song to speak of the pike in a positive light.