The Enlightened Despot

It’s what our forefathers would have wanted:

A long weekend, but a short roundup due to limited activity around the blogosphere and in the world of politics over the holiday - though Kim Jong Il apparently didn’t get the memo…

• … as he decided to carry out a nuclear test today. As symbolic gestures go, making a fuss when failed states run by crazy people play with nuclear weapons is a pretty good use of outrage, but the big picture isn’t all that different from what it was yesterday. The DPRK has a much more advanced nuclear program than we’d like, but is in no position to threaten us directly at any time in the near- or medium-term.
• Speaking of nuclear weapons and the crazy people that want them, Fareed Zakaria is arguing that Iran might not want to be a nuclear power after all. His evidence: statements by Iranian politicians. If that sounds pretty naive to you, I’m not unsympathetic, but his argument - that an Islamist government that thought it was about to go nuclear would have to be pretty stupid to keep calling the Bomb un-Islamic - has some teeth to it. I wouldn’t sell your stock in BunkerBuilders just yet, though.
• I have a guest internet clogging up Alaska’s tubes.

The North Korean nuclear test is something of a downer, so I’m lightening the mood here:

This video created a minor scandal when it first surfaced, but the scandal was merely that it surfaced - I have never heard anyone claim that this is particularly off-color for military humor:

It’s easy enough - and trendy too! - to Support Our Troops when they’re finishing off the Nazis or making sure that a nation so conceived can long endure, but defending our nation isn’t always so aesthetically pleasing. Here at the Despot, we’ll be celebrating Memorial Day with visions of our troops making our East Coast Elitist readership base uncomfortable. First up:

And the living’s heavily-edited. I post this video, featured on the Daily Dish, solely because the star was a friend of mind in college - though she is far too hip to be seen with me in public anymore:

Margaritas from Zach Klein on Vimeo.

(h/t CWB)

Happy Groundhog Day!

Since everybody and their mother will be posting “I Have a Dream” - which is indeed a very fine speech - today, I thought I’d mix it up and give you this, which seems to be much less well known:

I’m in an airport right now, soon to be on an airplane for many hours, and then hopefully asleep for many more, so the current posting draught will continue. Fortunately, news is on vacation too. We’ll be back at full speed within a day or so. Until then, Merry Christmas:

After a seemingly endless election chock-full of things to make fun of, this transition simply isn’t that funny. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Back in 2000, the post-election period was hilarious, because democracy, like so many things, is funniest when it isn’t working properly. So, be thankful the process is going smoothly, but remember the funnier times.

The Onion, naturally, was firing on all cylinders, and I’ve always thought that was the moment that catapulted them into their current prominence. I remember reacting grumpily to the Economist referring to one of their articles as ‘a joke going around on the internet’. You wouldn’t seem them slighted thus today. The article in question:

Serbia Deploys Peacekeeping Forces To U.S.

BELGRADE–Serbian president Vojislav Kostunica deployed more than 30,000 peacekeeping troops to the U.S. Monday, pledging full support to the troubled North American nation as it struggles to establish democracy.

“We must do all we can to support free elections in America and allow democracy to gain a foothold there,” Kostunica said. “The U.S. is a major player in the Western Hemisphere and its continued stability is vital to Serbian interests in that region.”

The highlight of their coverage, though, was this:

Clinton Declares Self President for Life

Speaking of the Economist, the election mess drove them into the satire business as well. After the jump, the ‘leaked’ draft of the innauguration speech GWB (whom they had endorsed) would give if things came out in his favor:

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In the spirit of the season, I’ll be taking the day off from blogging in any substantive way. Instead, I’ll be giving thanks for the hilariousness of our Democracy by posting items that make fun of it. We here at the Despot do our best to snark it up all day, every day, of course, but for today, I’ll be leaving out the boring parts where we report on the news of the day or argue about policy.

First up, via TNR (quoted but not linked), from their pages in 1957, the Gettysburg Address if it had been delivered by Eisenhower:

I haven’t checked these figures but 87 years ago, I think it was, a number of individuals organized a governmental set-up here in this country, I believe it covered certain Eastern areas, with this idea they were following up based on a sort of national independence arrangement and the program that every individual is just as good as every other individual. Well, now, of course, we are dealing with this big difference of opinion, civil disturbance you might say, although I don’t like to appear to take sides or name any individuals, and the point is naturally to check up, by actual experience in the field, to see whether any governmental set-up with a basis like the one I was mentioning has any validity and find out whether that dedication by those early individuals will pay off in lasting values and things of that kind. . . . But if you look at the over-all picture of this, we can’t pay any tribute - we can’t sanctify this area, you might say - we can’t hallow according to whatever individual creeds or faiths or sort of religious outlooks are involved like I said about this particular area. It was those individuals themselves, including the enlisted men, very brave individuals, who have given the religious character to the area. The way I see it, the rest of the world will not remember any statements issued here but it will never forget how these men put their shoulders to the wheel and carried this idea down the fairway. Now frankly, our job, the living individuals’ job here is to pick up the burden and sink the putt they made these big efforts here for. It is our job to get on with the assignment - and from these deceased fine individuals to take extra inspiration, you could call it, for the same theories about the set-up for which they made such a big contribution. We have to make up our minds right here and now, as I see it, that they didn’t put out all that blood, perspiration and - well - that they didn’t just make a dry run here, and that all of us here, under God, that is, the God of our choice, shall beef up this idea about freedom and liberty and those kind of arrangements, and that government of all individuals, by all individuals and for the individuals, shall not pass out of the world-picture.