Lileks on a tear

Today's Bleat:

I was tempted to write about George Soros comparing Bush and America to the rise of the Nazis, but I’ve just had it with these people. I’m more interested in those who ride the coattails of their rhetoric. I want someone to ask Dean this question in the Presidential debate: “Governor Dean, one of your wealthiest backers has compared America in 2000s with German in the 1930s. Do you agree with this analogy?” The only acceptable answer to my ears is “No, I don’t.” Period. Any elaboration, any “no, buts,” any “nevertheless there are worrisome trends” will mark Howard Dean as a truly dangerous man, for he will show himself willing to use the most debased and paranoid argument in modern politics to put his butt in the big chair.

Other targets today include Michael Moore and the French. Even dead French.

Anyway, I was googling for another matter; I’d recalled from Citizens, Simon Schama’s incredible account of the French Revolution, that Voltaire's pen-name was meant to capitalize on the great fascination with that new technology, Electricity. Can’t prove it, but I’m certain that’s the case. And it cracks me up—imagine waking 200 years from now to learn that one of the most esteemed thinkers of the end of the 20th century was someone named Cyberdude.

Read It All for a virtual smorgasbord of screed.