I suppose, for iran, the best way to pay back Israel for an attack would possibly not be to rain [or attempt to rain] down missiles on the country but rather to cause general upheaval throughout the region as a consequence so as to stoke anger against Israel, not only in the region, but globally - in essence Iran would play the victim to Israel's cruel, self centered aggressor so that when oil prices spiked and the already fragile global economy crashed countries already predisposed to hate Israel would, well, hate it even more. This scheme would involve shutting down the Strait of Hormuz and possibly attacking other gulf states or finding some other way to draw them into the hostilities - not to mention how Assad might try to use the chaos as cover for a major escalation against his problems.

So would such a plan by Iran be much more likely to deter Israel than a 'mere' retaliation from Hamas etc etc? Possibly. Lot of unknowns here.

[and the biggest unknown is that of Netanyahu's confidence in the trustworthiness of Obama to do the right thing viz Israel's security needs. To me this is the dynamic people tend to overlook when talking about the likelihood of an Israeli strike on Iran - of course there are strong reasons, of both a strategic and practical nature, why Israel should forbear, especially if acting alone - but if you're the decider in Israel and you've come to the conclusion that, one, a nuked up Iran is not an acceptable outcome, and two, Obama cannot be trusted, then you're between the rock and the hard place and green lighting an attack becomes very real - and when Bibi speaks what I hear is a man who has looked through the door and seen the devil - he doesn't trust Obama, and for good reason as far as I'm concerned]

I see that ol' Vlad, grand inquisitor of riotous pussy, has now come out and endorsed Obama's reelection. First Middle Kingdom's sagacious oligarchs make known their preference for The Chosen One, and now the pure as driven mud magi of a Russian oligarchic renewal speaks up for the same sanguineous hope of a continuing American decline. These are glorious days, my friends.

And yet Obama still might win - hell, likely will win if he can cozen enough blacks and Hispanics into fervid belief that if elected Romney plans to enslave them all and eat their children. It's all so depressing. To a sane, rational, clear thinking person it should be obvious there's only one choice to be made here and that a failure to see the obviousness of this would mean one was either grossly ignorant or suffering under the delusions of an ideologically induced dementia - and yet it appears half the country at least is either shockingly stupid or quite simply out of its mind. Very depressing. So depressing I had almost decided not to write about this nonsense anymore - politics too often now is like listening to an argument between two idiots about who deserves the title of dumbest - but I couldn't ignore ol' Vlad, he's just such an amusing fella.

A lot of people seem to want to believe that all the talk in Israel about an imminent attack on Iran is just Bibi et al bluffing - but to what purpose? I just don't see it - you talk the big talk about doing what's necessary to secure the country and then you don't follow through on it and 'allow' Iran to go nuclear, well, that amounts to a big show of weakness and Israel, probably more than any other country in the world, is a firm believer in dynamic that perceived weakness invites aggression. No, to me this is the leadership preparing its people for the dire days to come - and possibly one last effort to convince Obama that, yes, we're serious about this.

"... Chinese media slams Romney... that's like an endorsement, right?... that's them saying our plans include a diminished America and we trust Obama to serve that agenda quite nicely, Romney not so much... and that Ryan guy, boy... him we don't like..."

I read two things this morning that seemed to capture the sad absurdity of the Syria problem - one story about a missing young American reporter, ex-marine, who waded into that mire motivated by an angry idealism and found himself admiring the insurgents because unlike his lazy, fatted, self obsessed countrymen they were willing to die for something 'noble' - and then the story of one of these captured 'freedom fighters' who apparently, in all seriousness, thought he was in Palestine making war on the Jews - frightening thing is one has to assume there are many more like him because otherwise you'd think at some point someone would have lowered the AK-47 for a moment and whispered to him "ah... sorry, my friend, this is Syria and we're here to kill Alawites... more or less... gist of it anyway".

I wonder if the redoubtable idiocy of 'legitimate rape' moron Akin can in the long run prove a good thing for republicans. Of course in the short term it's a disaster - given Obama's horrible, indefensible performance as president the media is desperate for some excuse that will justify in their minds the continuing bias in support of him - Akin has now handed it to them - and it's not only that his comments were astoundingly stupid, it's also that his stubborn absolutism in refusing to acknowledge the damage he has done conforms exactly with the kind of intolerant extremism liberals will now stigmatise all conservatism with - Akin is basically a perfect confirmation of all the evil intent liberals want to believe motivates the right.

So, yes, this is bad and may cost Romney the election - but in the long run, if it forces conservatives to rethink the indulgence they too often show to an Akin-like mindset, some good may come of it. After all, you want to survive against a media controlled by left wing sympathies, anything that sounds like intolerant absolutism is not the way to go.

It says a lot about how deep, pervasive and utterly disturbing media bias is when it becomes a big story that one of its own almost reluctantly admits to it, as Jack Tapper recently did on Laura Ingraham's show - well, becomes a big story outside of the liberal media. How ironical the age of Obama is. But not in a funny way - unless you find the tired political musings of late night TV funny [I used to find Stewart and Colbert sort of funny - then they turned into shameless advocates if not indeed fawning acolytes of Obama, and not with the goal of defeating an evil conservative, but to defeat Hillary for christ sake - it was at that point I realized there was something desperately wrong with American media and the vain, dreamy liberal ideal made manifest in the Obama had exposed it in a very disturbing way - I imagine it will take a good war ripe with existential threat and doom to straighten things out - that would be Netanyahu's cue to light a fire... or is the kindling in the Senkaku Islands...?]

The glee democrats are expressing about the pick of Ryan suggests one of two things: by over reacting they're trying to make it seem obvious how awful the man and his ideas are so the lazy and ignorant just accept it as fact; or, trapped inside the liberal echo chamber, they really can't see the virtues of the guy or how his abilities truly threaten to reveal just how inept at everything but lies and demagoguery the Obama presidency has been.

Although I guess there's another option - their glee is justified, because people like me who have been enthused about Ryan for a couple of years now fail to understand that the value of the man will be lost on a simple minded electorate - which would be ironic since I constantly talk about how an ignorant and unsophisticated electorate threatens the viability of a democracy in complicated times. In that sense, I guess my hope for a Ryan success [interesting that I'm talking about a Ryan not a Romney success] would amount to something of a plea to our better angels. Didn't know I was such a romantic.

A couple of quick reactions to liberal response to Ryan as VP. One, the claim he's an extremist. Compared to Obama, yes that's true - because you have to come a very long way back to the right to get away from how far left Obama and his ilk are. Compared to Clinton, or even better Kennedy, not so much. If you're a far left ideologue then indeed Ryan will seem extreme - but remember America remains a right leaning country - and remember as well, since the problems we face are extreme, weak kneed solutions will not suffice - my experience of Ryan is that he's very good at defending himself and very good at selling message that what liberals call extremism is just strong leadership engaging a crisis in a responsible way.

The other charge I'm hearing from liberals is one I actually agree with, ie that making the 'risky' choice is an admission of weakness by Romney. This is exactly why I all along urged making the 'risky' choice - Romney has obvious flaws - but let's understand that Romney's flaws have nothing to do with his qualifications for the job - anyone voting for Romney in a rational way is doing so based on his resume and how awful at the job Obama has been - problem is most people [who are not set in stone viz their opinons] vote based on some instinctive, superficial, gut level response to a candidate - Romney has trouble connecting on that level. So yea, Romney has flaws - but unlike Obama's myriad flaws, they're not of the nature that would negatively impact his performance as president - they may stop him from actually becoming president though. Ryan will help in several ways I believe to mitigate effect of these flaws - the man exudes decency, integrity, likeability [not to mention he's an expert outdoorsman and hunter, attributes much prized by important demographic] - and he should force the debate going forward to be about policy rather than tax returns and all the other crap Obama has tried to make the issue of late - whether Ryan can compensate enough for Romney's shortcomings, guess we'll see.

Now, for sure, I'll be branded a scurrilous racist for saying this - and no doubt the reason serious writers are not saying it is because they know full well they'd be branded scurrilous racists and their careers would be over - but I don't have a career so I can say it - and furthermore I think I can say it because I'm pretty damn sure it's true - but Obama's unconstitutional reinterpretation of the welfare reform law is an attempt to mobilise the minority vote in general and the black vote in particular, right? And it was done in concert with the move on gay marriage, yes? because the Obama people know full well the gay marriage move could suppress black and hispanic turnout [you just know Obama and the boys are all smiles gloating over the cold cunning behind this ploy].

I mean I'm beating a dead horse I guess but if you're Romney and you don't realize the kind of no holds barred political fiend you're up against here in Obama and you think you can just stand back and let the supposed 'objective facts' of the economy win the election for you, then you're gonna lose - sure, if the press was a fair and even handed arbiter holding Obama to account for his bad behavior and poor record, then yeah, maybe you could get away with such a strategy - but that ain't ever gonna happen. The press is co-opted, they're deeply invested in the bullshit liberal dreamy land made manifest in the ideal of Obama - sure many of them may be at this point holding nose and closing eyes - but they're completely bought in and it's simply a case for them now of the end justifying the means.

It may be a sad, sad commentary on the state of our democracy - and that's a conversation we can have later since there's much to worry about in that respect - but right now the bitter reality is the bitter reality - Obama needs to lose, and if Romney can't go to the mattresses and figure out how to make that happen, then... well, good luck to us.