QOTSA is one of my favorite rock acts, and probably my favorite of any rock group whose main success came in the 00s. Meat Puppets would be cool to see too, as would TMV. But Coheed and Cambria are the openers at the shows somewhat near me, and none of the American dates are very close. We'll see if I get to this touPr

Atlanta Thrashers sold to Winnipeg owners. That's good news, I think.

Hope Tampa can pull it out in the East but I would've kept starting RolosoPr

Staying in our role as an interventionist empire because China or some other nation would be worse for the global system is absurd. People always like to throw away the foreign policy of early American history, saying it was a different era, but the same things hold true. A game of global domination among empires is not something we were built to do, and it ages a nation quickly. In the Founders' era, there were the British and the Spanish empires to be very afraid of, and a lot of evil in the globe, but we knew enough not to go chasing it. We're not safer for our military occupations, we're not safer for having troops in 130 countries. The reason we have a military presence in so many places is the same that we throw foreign aid around, and both need to stop. They're just mechanisms for influencing other governments in our interests, which are not humanitarian. We aid as many villains as we chase in the pursuit of justice.

Bin Laden was so successful a unifier for angry Muslims because he appealed to a specific, enumerated list of grievances, most of which are secular, and his history fighting the USSR (notice - he's defined by his enemy). It wasn't the religious fanaticism that drove people to hate, it was direct US interference in their lives. Our policies have a clear impact on al Qaeda's recruiting power, evidenced by its spike when we invaded Iraq. People don't blow themselves up for God or 72 virgins, they do it when they've seen family, friends, or a whole town dismembered or killed. They do it when they're being bombed without explanation, or when their leaders fail to address crucial issues and lazily line their pockets with American money.

On an extremely basic level - Doesn't it bother you guys that when we make analogies to Star Wars, we're the Empire? How many Uncle Owens can you kill before someone takes their revenge?

The rationale that China or some other global power would fill the void we leave, and that'd be worse, is irrelevant. We're us, not them. Being the less evil empire is not enough for me, and it's not what we were designed for, and it's not what we chose to do when faced with powerful European empires in the Constitutional era. We can do more for liberty and democracy by being a good example. And while there's always tension between the US and China, isn't it clear when looking at the history of US-Russia and US-China that trade brings a better, freer country than does a global initiative to "beat" the bad guys. Too many people are stuck in a Cold War mindset because Russia lost more than we lost, but rest assured, the Cold War was a lose-lose-lose for Soviets, Americans, and everyone in between. The China model, peppered as it is with tragic abuses of innocent people (Tienanmen Square, Tibet), shows a general trend towards free markets and free expression with US non-intervention.

War is sexy and so is international intrigue, but I think people's preoccupations with military capacity ignores the much more basic principles in play. When you fuck with Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
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ople, they try to fuck with you. Let's not pretend we didn't start this whole mess. There was a time when the USA was held in very high regard in the Middle East, and there's no reason it can't be like that again in a few decades, but it

Yeah we caught lightning in a bottle in 05-07 but couldn't afford to keep the team together. Since then we've had to rebuild but now that Pegula's in place we can feel confident that if we get the talent we can retain it. With Golisano we lost Dumont, McKee, Briere, Drury, Campbell, Biron (the only back-up Lindy ever trusted enough to play), Afinogenov, Kotalik, etc. Not all stars but a lot of them played huge roles in our successes. Now with Pegula I at least feel confident that we'll be able to keep Stafford, Myers, and Sekera long term, instead of just having Miller, Vanek, and mid-salary players.