Athenian democracy

In a deniable leak to the press, the Bush admin threatens that if Israel doesn’t stop building its wall-fence, US aid to Israel might be cut back by up to 1%.

London Times headline: “Walkout after Gay Bishop Is Finally Elected.” That’s the Episcopal Church of America, of course. And you just know what was going through the heads of each one of the 20 bishops who were walking out: Try not to sway your hips, try not to sway your hips, try not to sway your hips...

For those who say that California’s recent doings suggest we’re less than an Athenian democracy: Arianna’s running.

I mentioned that the recall ballot will also include Ward Connelly’s initiative to create a “color-blind” California. Does that mean he supports keeping Gray?

Don’t know if Arianna is color blind, but we know her gay-dar doesn’t work very well.

Greg Palast traces Shrub’s unwillingness to look too closely at Saudi funding of terrorism to the strong possibility that that would include Saudis who funded some of his failed attempts at running businesses.

The Village Voice has an article on how the Bush admin has been systematically attempting to force NGOs & government social service agencies to follow the Bush line on condoms, HIV, education, etc etc., or at the very least to live in fear that anything they say can be used to deny them funding.

Molly Ivins’s current column also talks about systematic deception by the Bushies, as did Paul Krugman, I think, on the NYT op-ed page a couple of days ago, who talked about the distortion of evidence in budgetary policy as well as Iraq and every damn thing else. Seems to be the theme of the week, the discovery that every scientist, statistician, social worker and probably janitor is expected to suppress evidence and opinion that goes against Bush policies, and cheerlead for those policies.

And the FDA will allow potato chips and suchlike that use Olestra to discontinue warning about the explosive diarrhoea and other possible side effects.

Because labeling is so important, isn’t it? Like the US military says that it no longer uses napalm, but still sets people on fire using petroleum-based firebombs. And did, in Iraq.

Larry Flynt is organizing a vigil to pray for the death of Bill O’Reilly.