Dave's Verse

Scott Lemieux notices a lot of people reflecting on Iraq and trying to justify their support for the war based on the idea that they had "WMDs". And since they didn't and they feel they were mislead, their support isn't so bad in retrospect. Scott explains why the "WMD" argument is still an insufficient reason to go to war: Let’s say that Hussein turned out to have something that could be called “unconventional weapons.” So what? 1)Such “unconventional weapons” posed no threat whatsoever to American civilians (even the least apologetic liberal hawks aren’t claiming that Hussein had any ties to anti-American terrorist groups or any independent capacity for deploying weapons abroad). And, even more importantly, 2)the whole “WMD” argument was in itself a massive con. WMD is an umbrella term that conflates the genuinely unique threat of nuclear weapons with many more chemical and biological weapons that don’t have any more destructive capacity than weapons th...

A few posts from Kevin Drum made me ask that question. The first one is the story of Rob Portman changing his stance on gay marriage because of his son: That isn’t how I’ve always felt. As a congressman, and more recently as a senator, I opposed marriage for same-sex couples. Then something happened that led me to think through my position in a much deeper way. Two years ago, my son Will, then a college freshman, told my wife, Jane, and me that he is gay. He said he’d known for some time, and that his sexual orientation wasn’t something he chose; it was simply a part of who he is. Jane and I were proud of him for his honesty and courage. We were surprised to learn he is gay but knew he was still the same person he’d always been. The only difference was that now we had a more complete picture of the son we love. That's a nice story. I'm glad Portman and his wife we able to accept their son as he is, and that their son had the courage to come out and inspire this change in ...

This March marks the ten year anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. Andrew Sullivan is rounding up reflections here and here . They mostly consist of people admitting they were wrong. Like Andrew, I supported the Iraq war. I was a freshman in college at the time. I had just started paying attention to politics after 9/11. I was fairly conservative. So I watched a lot of FoxNews and pretty much acted like a cheerleader in the lead up to the war. What happened over the next few years in Iraq wasn't the sole reason I had a change in perspective. I think being on my own and being exposed to a bunch of different ideas for the first time in my life was the biggest reason. I started thinking about things I had taken for granted most of my life and began to change my views. The tragedy that resulted from the war certainly changed how I viewed war. But the more fundamental transformation occurred upon learning about how the Bush administration manipulated things, abused power, and ac...

Batman is back in the news regarding the latest Justice League rumors. So I figured this was a good time to rehash this post from Modern Myth Media and give my own. Though there is no such thing as a bad time to talk about Batman. I love nearly everything about the trilogy. So this was difficult to narrow down. But there are some moments that are more awesome than others. So here, we, go: "Bats are nocturnal" This is the scene after one of Bruce's first nights as Batman. He's tired and beat up. Alfred swings open the blinds, waking up Bruce who says, "Bats are nocturnal". I thought this was a nice moment of lightness and real emotion from Bruce. That realness is one of the things I love about the trilogy. Bruce gets hurt. He sleeps during board meetings, or til 3 in the afternoon, which according to Alfred is pushing it, even for a billionaire playboy. And to top this scene off, even though he is tired, the first thing he does when he gets out of bed is...

The latest rumors come from a source with a pretty good track record. Go to Batman on Film if you want all the details and Jett's thoughts. In short, the rumor is that Christian Bale will return as Batman to be alongside at least Superman, if not the Justice League. And Christopher Nolan will produce, Zack Snyder will direct, and David Goyer will write it. It all seems a bit unclear right now and obviously, it's not confirmed by Warner Brothers or anyone mentioned above. If these rumor turn out to be true I'll be very conflicted. I love The Dark Knight Rises and the entire Dark Knight Trilogy. I love that it is a "realistic" Batman universe and that Rises ended it in the way it did. So I'm confused as to why anyone would want to mess with that. Well, as the guys at Modern Myth Media pointed out in their podcast, I can see why they want to do this from a financial perspective. It lends a ton of credibility to have Nolan and Bale attached to a project that wi...

I'm still without a job. But I've been busy recently interning (kind of). So I haven't been completely up to date with my reading. Along with that, it just seems like a weird time in politics. Congress rarely seems to be in session. And when it is, they are dealing with such dumb stuff that I can barely muster the energy to comment on how dumb it is. But my nephew has the tv and I don't want to watch whatever the hell it is he's watching. So let's ratchet up the dumb. Chuck Hagel was confirmed. Either some Republicans were convinced Hagel wouldn't single-handedly destroy the nation or it was all for show. The Violence Against Women Act was finally passed, but with just about every male Republican voting against it. That, along with the constant barrage of anti-abortion laws states are trying to pass, just makes the Republican disdain for women's rights all the more apparent. Obama's State Department just released a memo saying the Keystone pipeline...