When Debaters Attack

I had an fairly long conversation via instant messenger with Jeff today. I thought it was really interesting, especially since we have fairly similar views on political matters, except on the subject of trade. With his permission, I have placed the conversation here, which I think he agreed to after I let him have the last salvo. Other cool links we bounced at each other on the subjects we discussed include:

Paul Wellstone's Nation article, arguing why the Democratic party shouldn't go farther to the center, like the DLC types argue;

Noam Chomsky's deconstruction of the War On Drugs (cribbed from Randomwalks).

Michael Moore (WTO chair) saying that WTO protestors make him want to vomit; and

Michael Moore (the other one) on the failure of the left. More spot on than anything I've read out those pinkos in a long, long time. A must!

Here's hoping for less work tomorrow

When things pick up at work I get much less of the web filtered through my jaundiced view than usual, which cascades down to what goes in the blog. I try not to get too caught up in the computer at home, but I do like to get a daily entry put together. (sigh). I'm waiting for a Major Inspiration to hit, the kind that lets me plan a week and a half ahead of time of entries that all make sense in how they fit together. Perhaps something debate related would be in order; for those who aren't in the know, the debate subculture in high school and college breeds a whole extra school of thought where ideas that seem terribly bizarre to the rest of society make perfect sense, such as: "Nuclear war would be good if it was a small one, since the rest of the world would see how bad it was and would gain a consciousness to disarm themselves." Or: "If the development of Artificial Life is inevitable, and Artificial Life is the worst possible thing to happen to the universe, the most moral thing to do would be to overtly cause the extinction of humanity before that happens." Or, like the one round in college that my dad came to, when Maggie and I argued that we should ban marriage because it's a patriarchal institution that prevents other types of familial arrangements to be accepted. Oh, and imagine each of these arguments spewed out at auctioneer speed in a jargon absolutely unintelligible by a layperson, and I think you begin to get the picture.

I did think this was really funny: ESPN's lookalike athlete/celebrities.