It's being stuffed down their throats and they don't like it

I’d like to return to the tearaway burqas. I mentioned this particular Janet Jackson-type performance in a USO performance in Iraq as exhibit 1,382 in our series Why Do They Hate Us?, but let’s do a comparison. During Gulf War I, US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia weren’t allowed booze, female soldiers weren’t allowed to drive and were pressured into covering up. This time, we’re an occupying army, and cultural sensitivity goes out the window to the point where we mock their culture in a strip-tease act.

Then there’s this: “Beauty without Borders,” women from the US who have gone to Afghanistan to teach the women how to put on makeup properly. Way down in the article you find out the program is sponsored by American cosmetics companies.

Iran’s mock elections were today and Puppet President Khatami, as he must now be known, not only failed to heed my excellent advice by resigning, but urged people to vote for the theocrat of their choice, and voted himself. Pillock. (Note to Joslyn: that’s me expressing my English origins, of which I have none.) Polling stations were kept open late, to handle the massive crowds of voters. Well, that’s what they said. We’ll see if they’re going to massage the turnout figures. When those figures come out, keep in mind that they will be artificially high because voters get their identity cards stamped, with all that that might imply. And because clerics have ordered them to vote as a religious duty. And the Ayatollah Khamenei said it would be a “slap in the face to America,” which presumably is some people’s idea of a religious duty.

Governor Terminator holds the most expensive fundraiser ever, up to $500,000, to support his campaign for his bonds initiative. The event is held in NY, which is already questionable in its ethics, and at the home of one of the Johnson & Johnson heirs. J & J owes the state $1.3 billion in rebates from some program.

Imagine my surprise: China has backed down from the very vague promises of direction elections in Hong Kong they made before the handover. The interesting thing is that there was no reason for Deng Xiaoping to say this week that only “patriots” would be allowed to run in HK (assuming that word is translated accurately, patriotism for what country? China or HK?), less than 4 weeks before that referendum in Taiwan. Obviously, they want an anti-China backlash in Taiwan, although god knows what they’re planning.

Man Arrested for Watching Porn While Driving.” Why does the porn part seem to bother them more than the while driving part?

Tom DeLay: “Americans have been tolerant of homosexuality for years, but now it's being stuffed down their throats and they don't like it.” (presumably homosexuals aren’t actually Americans, and should go back to Homosexistan or Homosexuvania or whatever it’s called).

And the Gropinator says that on this issue the courts have dropped the ball. Basically, anything that anyone says on this issue sounds dirty. Schwarzenegger sent a letter to the state attorney general: “I hereby direct you to take immediate steps to obtain a definitive judicial resolution of this controversy.” The attorney general is an elective office; the governor has no power to “direct” him to do anything, as the former’s spokesmodel pointed out: “He can direct the Highway Patrol. He can direct 'Terminator 4.' But he can't tell the attorney general what to do.”

Yet another good political blog, http://www.wonkette.com/. She comments on a WaPo story that the Bushies are not only preparing attack ads on Kerry, but have even drawn up scripts for ads against Kucinich, just on the off-chance: “In other words: Ad scripts to campaign against the vegan endorsed by "the creatures of the forest"? Got 'em. Post-invasion plan for Iraqi government? Uhmmmm. . .”