Chuck is pretty much the husband in Sleeping With the Enemy at this point. “You made me tax you that hard! Get back here where you belong, and finance me some dinner!”

Notice he didn’t mention the Gormogons. Our security is too good. Though I probably shouldn't have mentioned that.

That's just class solidarity on the part of the college-dipped pseuds we like to call Smart People® around Castle Gormogon.

Well played, Mr. Hill.

This is an old hobby-horse of ours around Castle Gormogon.

In re: Egypt. Pakistan. Iran. President O. And, maybe most interesting, in passing about Avatar.

Why did white ethnics of the past stay uniformly loyal to the Democratic party for almost a hundred years? I think it has to do with self-identification as an out-group in society which needs protection from the hostile, oppressive Man, which is identified with the GOP.

Like a number of minorities in the U.S., it's possible that the peculiar nature of American culture (painfully wrapped around black-white race relations) makes many—but obviously not all—American-raised Hispanics see themselves as a minority first and foremost, and therefore despised and in a hopeless situation.

Consequently, not only does group solidarity in politics appear highly desirable, but a defensive, anti-aspirational subculture can develop where achievement is dismissed in advance as impossible, because the dominant “white” culture is seen as actively seeking to block non-whites’ progress out of racial animus.

If that's the case, it'll be a matter of generations before intracommunal dynamics, economic progress, and Hispanic achievement can demonstrate the falsity of that picture enough to put the Hispanic vote in play.

So, in the near term…there may be nothing the GOP can do.

Dave and his friend are not exaggerating about the late “Gunny” Carlos Hathcock, one of the most storied American warriors of this century, may God rest his soul.

Thank you, Larry.

Yeah, it’s strange. As worked up as I (and lots of other right-wing madmen) have always gotten about the size and scope of government, it's never really had political traction…until now. This is the first time in my conscious life (from, say, late-Carter ’til now) that people seem actually receptive to the idea of reducing government spending—even on popular items.

Hard to say how it’ll play out. Il popol’ è mobile.

I'm guessing this organization was run by the HVA, the DDR's foreign-intelligence service…

Alas for the 2012 legend, the Mayans themselves never believed such a thing. It was just the end of the astronomical/astrological Long Count. They still don't believe it. Just don't tell the “History” Channel.

Hmm…I’m thinking we had this conversation back around 1860, and the answer was “not so much.” But…boy. Some stat head should crunch the numbers and see what the countries would look like demographically, economically, etc.

How far south does the People's Republic of America go on the East Coast? New Jersey? Pennsylvania? Maryland?

And how far east from the West Coast does the PRA extend? Arizona won’t join, but New Mexico might want to. Nevada? Parts of Idaho? Could we negotiate San Diego as a free port of the Abridged U.S.A., maybe in exchange for Detroit as a Great Lakes port for the PRA? Of course, what about the Great Lakes states? Do they go to the PRA or AUSA?

All critical questions, I think you'll agree.

[Continued]

You are, however, dead right about the problem of Saudi Arabia's export of Wahhabism. This is largely the result of the deal between the Saudi religious establishment and the monarchy in the wake of Juhayman's millennarian seizure of the Great Mosque in 1979. Plus, the combination of their immense wealth and their custodianship of Mecca & Medina (thanks, Great Britain, for ejecting the traditional Hashemite rulers and shipping them off to Jordan and Iraq) has given what has been historically a hated and marginal branch of the religion immense global reach in the first instance and unwarranted prestige in the second.

[Continued]

Some folks have argued that Islam doesn't need a Reformation so much as a pope, which is to say a responsible, central point of authority which would rein in the extremist fringes. Of course, in Sunni Islam this is basically impossible and in Shi‘ite Islam, Iran provides an object lesson in how a centralized clerical hierarchy can be hijacked. That said, in a lot of ways, it was basically the Ottomans' answer to the problem—they made the entire religious establishment essentially a branch of the government, not unlike an established church in the west. As Claire has mentioned, the secular Republic of Turkey has basically continued this tradition with the Diyanet, essentially the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Consequently or coincidentally, the Turkish religious establishment has been notably unradical.

[Continued]

You're welcome, Claire.

Here's the problem, Jason. If by Reformation you mean a bunch of people outraged at the current state of the religion who take their cues from their vision of its utopian past…then that's a pretty good description of ‘Abdul-Wahhâb, the Deobandis, the Salafis (whose name would be “Apostolics" in a Christian analogy), etc. Like the reformers who laid into the Church of the 16th century, the first targets of all these guys were the other Muslims who lived nearby and didn't meet their standards (takfîr being the term of art for declaring other Muslims infidels). It’s only under the influence of modern (indeed Western) theories of capital-h History that Islamism has formed as a global Utopian ideology looking for an apocalyptic ushering in of a Utopia by a vanguard allowed to commit any sort of violence in its name. So, in one sense, it has been reformed.

[Continued]

Let me know if you need a briefer for your celebrity-propaganda initiative, Claire.

Yep. Colin's point is the crux. I was coming over to say pretty much the exact same thing, though with the further point that the intelligence services of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have long contended that Hizb ut-Tahrir actively funnels recruits to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, real gun-toting bad-asses. Obviously, those governments might have their own reasons for saying that (banning HT in addition to the IMU), but it's not a ridiculous accusation. In the ’70s and ’80s, Sinn Féin was accused of doing the same thing in Ireland—scrupulously maintaining a non-violent façade but funnelling people and support to the hard men with guns.

If, as seems not unlikely, the GOP takes both houses of Congress in the fall, can they be trusted to press an serious, aggressive legislative agenda? What will they do when Obama starts vetoing things left and right? Could this set up a dynamic where Obama's kept from doing unpopular things and he thereby becomes a better candidate in 2012?