Don't look now: Saddam is drowning kittens

Germany refuses to let a Turkish couple name their child Osama bin Laden.

Israel’s little show-trial of Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti continues, and it’s darned entertaining. Today guards tackled his 13-year old son, and the judge made these impartial comments: someone fighting for peace "doesn't turn people into bombs and kill children".

The Siemens company has decided, after all, not to register Zyklon as a trademark for a range of products, including gas ovens.

Ari Fleischer says of Iraq, “No other nation has been as militaristic.”

Former-Soviet former-republic Georgia has given in to Russian pressure to allow its troops into the country to hunt for Chechens.

Bush has said that Congress will be allowed to debate Iraq, and that it will not influence him in the slightest because his mind is made up. The Magic 8 Ball has spoken!

Indeed, US intelligence has conveniently discovered new evidence that Iraq is putting up buildings in places we don't like, because when we bomb them back into the Stone Age, by God they'd better stay back in the Stone Age.

I’ve had to remove several British football references from the following:

Don’t look now: Saddam is drowning kittens

The warmongers failed to win public opinion, so they’re suddenly cobbling together ‘evidence’
By Mark Steel
The Independent

So, they’ve got the evidence, about the weapons of mass destruction, but we can’t see it just yet. Is it still at the printers? Is it being held up by a row about how you spell "aflatoxin"? Perhaps there’s a problem with the plot, and the scriptwriters are refusing to let it go because the character of Tariq Aziz is left in the air and the relationship between Saddam and the scud missiles left hopelessly unresolved.

If they know the evidence, why can’t they tell us the main points until we have the dossier? Or at least make a trailer: "This is a story of a man for whom mass destruction was simply a hobby - ‘Soon all my chemical weapons will be in place’ -- and two men determined to stop him - ‘My God, there’s enough uranium in there to murder every living thing in every country affiliated to Nato. And look at this delivery notice, it says he’s getting his last crucial warhead in exactly three months’ - Together they have 90 days to stop the axis of evil."

Or when it comes they might announce: "We don’t have any photos of his weapons of mass destruction just yet - but we have got drawings. In felt pen."

And what a coincidence, that this evidence should promise to pop up now, just as it becomes clear public opinion is against a war. It all looks as desperate as a couple coming back from holiday and incompetently trying to carry out an insurance fiddle. Blair and Bush are almost kicking each other under the table as they mutter: "They’ve definitely got plutonium. Uranium. No, plutonium. Hang on a minute - I thought we agreed uranium."

In a couple of weeks Blair will hold another press conference and announce he’s left the evidence on the Tube. But he has finished it, honest. Then that night he’ll ring Bush and say: "Can I copy yours?"

So for the time being we’re left with statements such as the one by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, who said the war must go ahead because "Saddam has not lived up to his promise to allow inspectors into the country". He was then asked if the war would still go ahead if Saddam did allow them into the country, and Fleischer answered: "The policy of the US is regime change, with or without inspectors." So if Saddam does admit inspectors, they’ll be doing the most pointless inspecting in the world. You couldn’t blame them if they sat in the shade for a fortnight and sent back a note saying: "He’s got a machine that can turn us all into tadpoles.".

Which would be at the level of one paper’s cut-out guide to "Iraq’s evil arsenal", pride of place going to "Scud missiles". It admits the accuracy of these things is less than a mile, so can we really go to war with someone for possessing a large firework? They might as well include "The Dead Leg. Evil thigh-tingling weapon that could numb several people in one day". The Scud, we are told, has a "range of 200 miles, making Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, Iran and Kuwait possible targets". So either the demand is that Saddam gets rid of his Scuds, or that he moves Iraq to somewhere more than 200 miles from the nearest country.

But the tabloid also mentions nuclear weapons. For, "if Saddam acquires enriched uranium, he could be just months from building a warhead". If the Women’s Institute acquired enriched uranium, they could be just months from building a warhead. There is, however, a fair amount of evidence that Saddam doesn’t have the military power that Blair and Bush claim. Scott Ritter, who led the UN inspections team, has stated repeatedly that any nuclear potential was destroyed. And the last bunch of inspectors eventually left because they admitted they were acting as spies.

The other argument for war, that Saddam’s evil is proved by his war against Iran and his treatment of Kurds, is poetic in its hypocrisy. It’s true he did both those things but we were backing him at the time. The Americans shot down a civilian Iranian plane, vetoed a United Nations resolution condemning the attacks on the Kurds and dismissed anyone who pointed out this barbarism.

So it could be that because the warmongers are failing to win public opinion, they’re suddenly cobbling together "evidence". And there will be piles of it. Just like the stories of Germans raping nuns in 1914 and Iraqis throwing babies out of incubators in 1990, admitted as lies once those wars were over. There will be grainy film of Saddam chucking kittens in canals and crackly tape of him threatening to ruin David Beckham’s hair.

And what rough beast, its hour come at last, crawfishes towards Bethlehem to be born

Bush sent the London Times reporter scurrying for his slang dictionary to figure out what the hell it means that Saddam Hussein has “crawfished” out of UN agreements. The foreign pages’ editor comments, “Presumably UN support, if it is given, will register more formal offences than these.”

In Florida, a DA is concluding his second murder trial for the same murder. This happened in Torrance a couple of years ago and got almost no publicity, but this one has gotten a bit more. This time, the jury verdict from the first trial has been sealed, so that the possibility that a conviction has already been reached won’t hurt the prosecution’s ability to put an entirely different theory to another jury. The two boys in the first trial were 12 and 13 at the time they’re supposed to have killed their father, but of course are being tried as tiny adults.

Israeli hackers have been conducting a little cyber-warfare against peace and pro-Palestinian activists in the US, sending out fake e-mails under their name with subjects like Down with the United States.

The president is not a prop for some reality show

Evidently CNN offered to make those Al Qaida training films available to the government before airing--on condition that they’d get to film Bush’s reaction to the tape of the dog being gassed. Hey, Clinton would have done it. An unnamed Bushie said, “The president is not a prop for some reality show.” Guess that guy didn’t get the memo.

Israel’s Supreme Court allows the expulsion of relatives of militants to Gaza. Palestine says it will refuse to allow them to enter Gaza.

Water is essential for human life

WaPo on how US AID money in Egypt is going to support, not pro-democracy groups, but the courts that put members of those groups in jail, and government-run “trade unions,” and to computerize the toy-telephone Parliament and local governments.

The Earth Summit has produced some stunningly vague agreements, but it has also managed to make some stunningly obvious pronouncements. In the words of a London Times headline, “Water Is Essential for Human Life--It’s Official.”

More on the oil pipeline through Turkey. Fascinating on detailing the relative power of oil companies and nation states.

A former prisoner in Britain, to publicize his demand for compensation for injury from a razor hidden in a mattress, broke back into the prison and went up on its roof for four hours.

There are in fact 210 people named Romeo in Britain.

Most politicians turn out to be eunuchs

G’day, Bruce: A town in Australia is up for sale: Bruce. Bruce is 200 miles from Adelaide, population 4 people, 3 dogs.

The famous are not like you and I: Posh Spice and David Beckham have named their second child Romeo; their first was named Brooklyn (I don’t know if that’s a boy’s name or a girl’s name, but it is a future psychiatric patient’s name).

Germany is getting ever less cooperative over the war on Iraq. There is a big push by the US to remind Germany that it is also a hate target. Wait, are you telling me that there are people who don’t like Germany? Whatever for?

Iraq, according to the Times, is going on a “charm offensive” across Europe. It is not often you see “Iraq” and “charm” in the same sentence.

The latest in stupid corporate team-building exercises, like paint-balling and fire-walking, include: making stuff out of Legos, and herding sheep with dogs.

On September 11th, there will no doubt be a minute’s silence. Gee, it was such a big event, I think there should be at least a year’s silence. Anyone with me on this?

The Kentucky prison system has suspended religious services by Satanists, who claim that the Kentucky prison system, and indeed Kentucky itself, is absolute proof of the existence of Satan. Wiccan services continue.

Follow-up: the monkey god has died. Gets big funeral.

Libya has some Al Qaida prisoners. Qadafy has announced he will treat them like dogs, and not give them lawyers or the right to defend themselves. Just like the US, he says.

From the Times:

THE first eunuch to be elected mayor of an Indian city has had to resign after a court ruled that a eunuch was not eligible for a post reserved for women under an affirmative action scheme.

Kamla Jaan, 52, a flamboyant and illiterate character, who has dressed all her life as a woman and refers to herself as feminine (Indians traditionally refer to eunuchs as “she”), shocked the political establishment when she was elected Mayor of Katni three years ago in a landslide victory. ...

She proved an extraordinary and instant success, using her uniquely direct style to forge ahead with long-delayed civic projects, such as sinking new wells, fixing long-disused drains and renovating the local bus station. [That sentence is double entendre heaven] ...

The law in Madhya Pradesh state defines some eunuchs as men and some as women, and the judge backed the claim of petitioners that Ms Jaan was male. [If there were ever a sentence that needed elucidation...] ....

With no families, they are perceived to be less nepotistic and their role as social outcasts has made them less inhibited about speaking their minds.

As one of Ms Jaan’s constituents put it: “Most politicians turn out to be eunuchs, so we thought it was time to elect a real one.” [I suppose it’s easier than electing someone and then castrating them, but not as much fun.]

Last year eunuchs marked their entry into national politics with the launch of a national political party, led by Shabnam Mausi, who is known as Aunt Shabnam.

Please don't harass the monkey god

New California fad: cardio-striptease.

Hyderabad: An Indian court has intervened to save a monkey trapped inside a temple by over-zealous devotees convinced that it is the reincarnation of a monkey god. The court ruled that visiting pilgrims cannot harass the monkey, which is to get medical help.

Winston Churchill’s grandson also says that George W. Bush is no Winston Churchill (he’s an MP and a former minister for the armed forces, so it’s not just a cheap shot, either).

Bush keeps saying he’s “a patient man” (I have doubts about the noun as well as the adjective) and hasn’t decided whether to invade Iraq, and that therefore any criticism whatsoever is “premature.” And yesterday, the State department said of a plan to set up a government in exile that since Bush hadn’t decided on invasion, any talk of a future Iraqi government is “premature.” So, what, decision first, discussion afterwards, like the Queen of Heart’s court? Premature suggests that there’s a maximum time limit for discussing major decisions. A week? Two?

Tuvalu (that’s a country) is suing the US and oil companies for global warming, which should entirely submerge the country within 50 years.

Did you know that the Bible is full of emoticons?

A US district judge rules that Mexico had sovereign immunity when it stole money taken from the wages of bracero workers in the 1940s.

Water, water, everywhere

After 6 months in an Australian detention center, a Pakistani seeking asylum is released--and handed a bill for $85 a night for a dorm without a door and a two-hour wait for the showers. Of course, his new visa doesn’t allow him to work and...wait for it...potential immigrants aren’t allowed to have debts to the government.

At the Earth Summit, the Bush admin wrecks another international agreement, this one on clean drinking water, the lack of which kills millions of children each year, but screw ‘em. Let ‘em drink Coke (except in LA schools, where it will soon be illegal--what will they wash down their Ecstacy and Ritalin with?).

The constant references by Bushies to Churchill in the drum beating for war against Iraq is pissing off all the British newspapers, one of which even interviewed, gasp, historians.

Robert Mugabe fires the last white cabinet minister.

A couple of times this month I’ve sent funny stories about the megalomanocracy running Turkmenistan. In today’s paper was the punch line: US to expand military cooperation with Turkmenistan.

If you haven’t seen the study which says that the US has quadrupled its inmate population in twenty years, and that there are now 791,600 black men in jail or prison compared to 603,032 in colleges or universities, seek it out.

Wilmington, Dele. police have been compiling a database of potential criminals. Lacking the services of precogs, they use “jump-out” squads of police who drive around, spot a group of, let’s say, black youths, hanging around a street corner, jump (I’m assuming) out of their cars, round up, search and photograph the non-criminals. The mayor insists that this is constitutional in the alternate universe he lives in.

The Spanish Parliament votes to ask that the Batasuna party of the Basques be banned, and a high court judge simultaneously does just that. This means that electricity and water are cut off to its buildings and it is not allowed to call meetings or street demonstrations, but current elected officials can serve out their terms. The vote was 295 to 10, 29 abstaining. I’m guessing the 295 all belonged to other parties, which is pretty convenient for them. Under a new law, parties which justify terrorism are deemed responsible for it (Batasuna doesn’t quite do that, but nor does it condemn it and blames it on the continuing oppression of the Basques). It ill behooves a former fascist state to proscribe some people from the democratic process, especially on the grounds of thought crime.

In Detroit, a mohel was stopped for DUI on his way to perform a circumcision.

Ronald Reagan’s son says that he now speaks nothing but gibberish. I am refraining from commenting, not on the grounds of taste, which have never stopped me in the past, but on the grounds of it presenting no challenge whatsoever.

Speaking of Alzheimer’s, I’d like to remind everyone that Iraq did not expel the UN inspectors, they withdrew themselves, no matter how many times Rummy says differently. Also, the UN “inspectors” (this came out in January 1999) really were American spies, like Hussein always said they were. They reported to the US, which only passed on to the UN what it felt like passing on. Quoting myself from 2/13/99, “after the US offered the use of its U2 spy planes to Unscom to monitor Iraq, the first thing it did was to refuse to tell when and where photos were taken and deliberately fuzzy them up to disguise the U2’s capabilities.”

Evidently, the Bush admin just did a deal with China, actually negotiated whether the Uighur Muslims should be put on our list of terrorist organizations. This is deeply, deeply cynical.

William Saletan has an interesting piece analyzing Cheney’s pro-war speech. He says that there is a new line of argument based on Iraq’s supposedly being about to acquire nukes, for which Cheney offers no evidence whatsoever, and these nukes would prevent US acting against Iraq if it did something unpleasant in the future. Thus, Saletan says, the forthcoming war is no longer an extension of the war on terrorism, but of the 1st Persian Gulf War. Cheney said that inspections would no longer be of any use, because Iraq is so good at hiding stuff. The Bushies, lacking any evidence, are now playing on the difficulty of proving a negative--it doesn’t even matter whether there’s proof of the assertion of near-nuclear capability, let’s bomb now preemptively. Actually, the existing war on Iraq (7 bombing raids in the last week--it may not be Dresden, but that’s certainly war in my book) in aid of the “no fly” zone follows similar logic: it has nothing to do with protecting Kurds or Iraqis but solely with preserving our right to do whatever we want. In this sense, it is actually an extension of Bush’s Star Wars policy--destroying or neutralizing everybody else’s military capabilities while ours remains intact.

At least the Bushies have finally realized the unattractiveness of “regime change” as a slogan.

From the Village Voice:

The actual price of killing civilians in a place like Afghanistan was cheap. Marc Herold, a New Hampshire professor who tracks civilian casualties, compared U.S. compensation to Italian victims of the tramway accident with Chinese victims in the NATO bombing of its Belgrade embassy, and with Afghan civilian deaths. It comes down to this:

• Italian: $2 million per victim

• Chinese: $150,000 per victim

• Afghan: $100 per victim

One might add $50,000, the amount asked for in a Japanese court by Chinese victims of Japanese germ warfare in the 1940s. For the first time, the court admitted the action, but denied that any compensation was owed.

Sacrifice the chocolate rabbit

Remember those American soldiers imprisoned in Japan, eventually, for raping children in Okinawa? It seems that under an agreement written during the occupation, the US military provides their food, and they are eating extremely well, pissing off the Japanese yet again.

A website devoted to a campaign to get men to pee sitting down. There are greeting cards...

The new, possibly insane, president of Colombia, wishes to arm peasants to kill guerillas.

The UN World Food Program tells Zambia to suck it up and take GM foods or starve to death. This really does look like some sort of sick campaign to use African starvation to push agri-business’s agenda re Frankenstein Foods.

Speaking of monstrous foods, Britain’s food safety people are threatening to ban haggis (there may be a BSE risk in using sheep intestines).

Bush dismisses Musharaf’s strengthening of military control by saying that he is “tight” with us. WordPerfect’s dictionary defines tight as 3) well sealed against something such as air, 4) stretched so as to leave no slack, 5) allowing little room for maneuver, 11) miserly, 12) drunk. Probably of Germanic origin. Yup.

Speaking of dictators, 97% of Azerbaijan voters voted (sure they did) for various constitutional changes, including letting Aliyev essentially name his successor, his son. This will be the first hereditary ruling family in the former Soviet Union.

Speaking of hereditary ruling families, Bush the Younger’s lawyers insist that he doesn’t need to bother Congress’s pretty little heads before launching an attack on Iraq (a big one, not like the daily bombing raids, presumably), because the 1991 authorization of force is still in effect. By those standards, he could also go to war with North Korea, and god knows what other countries.

A diamond is (creepy) forever

Rummy Rumsfeld said that Russia’s trade deal with Iraq branded it an ally of terrorist states. Also today, the US said that Musharaf is still an ally, despite his 29 constitutional amendments yesterday. Also, Henry Kissinger was on McNeil-Lehrer today, talking about Iraq, where he has a rather sordid history of his own, which he wasn’t asked about--nor was he asked about the State Dept documents released this week showing that the Argentinian junta was considered an ally and that the US gov didn’t care about human rights abuses in the 1970s (the NY Times today said that Kissinger couldn’t be reached for comment, but there he was on tv as I was reading the paper, not being asked for comment).

The Australian tax authorities went after a convicted drug dealer for income tax on his dealings. So he insisted he had a right to deduct A£80,000 stolen from him during a failed deal. The courts agreed.

China has ended a plan for personalized number plates because the choices were too Western: FBI, 007, etc.

Bush proposed a new policy to prevent forest fires: remove all the trees. Problem solved.

Just goober

I guess Bob Barr wasn’t “just gooder” after all.

Evidently Bush likes to make his staff go jogging in Crawford when it’s 100°. If he didn't do it himself, you'd think
it was a fraternity pledge thing. Bush says running helps him clear his mind. Of what?

Rumsfeld says Al Qaida operating inside Iraq, although refuses to offer any proof. “I just know,” he said. Magic 8-Ball, I’m guessing. Iraq confirms presence of Al Qaida, in the part of the country controlled by Rumsfeld’s allies. Admittedly they also claim that Abu Nidal killed himself by shooting himself twenty or thirty times. Well, he was a fanatic you know, they do things like that.

6 weeks before Pakistani elections, Gen./President/Dictator Musharaf declares there will be “a transition from a democratic dictatorship to an elected essence of democracy." Something like that new-car smell that comes out of an aerosol spray can, no doubt. Oh, and he also gives himself the power to dissolve the elected Parliament, and a military-dominated National Security Council the right to overrule it. Oh, and he gave himself another 5 years in office to oversee the transition to democracy.

Speaking of the essence of democracy, Thomas Friedman in the Wed. NY Times comments that the Bushies advocate democracy only in regimes that oppose America, that policy is “to punish its enemies with the threat of democracy and reward its friends with silence on democratization.” This is an old Republican policy, as Friedman does not acknowledge, dating back to the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, which applied only to slaves in the South, where Lincoln’s writ did not run, and not to those held throughout the Civil War in the North.

The US adds another nation to the list of nations whose leader we’re trying to overthrow: Zimbabwe. Yes, Mugabe is a bastard, but before we start renaming his country after Cecil Rhodes (don’t tell our gov that imperial powers used to be able to just do that, or Kabul will be called Rummy), we might ask how big this sort of thing will go over in Africa.

For a start, they might start asking why the scientist who almost certainly was responsible for the anthrax outbreak was employed by the Pentagon when he used to do bio warfare with the Rhodesian and South African regimes, and was involved in a little anthrax outbreak in Zimbabwe, and whether that might have anything to do with why he hasn’t been arrested yet.

Something I hadn’t heard before: Arizona makes sex offenders on probation take polygraphs.

Where they're coming from

Quote in Washington Post from a University of NC student:

"I never really knew what the Koran was or what it said before this," said Chip Cook, 18. "Now I feel like I have a better understanding of where my Muslim friends are coming from."

Oh, come on. In the history of the universe no one named Chip ever had a Muslim friend. Indeed, if you wanted to keep a UNC student named Chip (or indeed George W. Bush) out of your hair for a while, you’d ask him to find Muslimia on a map.

Chip Cook, indeed. This is why you should never name babies while smoking pot, as Chip’s brother Cheetos and sister Pringles can attest.

Newsweek story on war crimes in Afghanistan by our illustrious allies, including the suffocation to death of 1,000 POWs. This was to be expected, it’s not like they hadn’t done it before (as I said here on 11/11/01, and the article makes clear). No proof that American forces participated or knew about it, yet, but they were certainly in the area. The Pentagon has been covering this up for 6 months.

New Yorker cartoon: 3 scientists in lab coats. One says, “We’ve just made a big cancer research breakthrough. Have a cigar.”

The US military just completed its largest-ever military exercises, costing $250m. It was rigged to make sure the American side won--so rigged that the retired Marine Lt-Gen who commanded the opposition forces resigned halfway through. The games were supposed to test current Pentagon war-fighting strategies.

The Israel-Palestine security deal has begun; it didn’t explicitly ban Israel assassinating people, so two days in, guess what...

Shoot first, ask questions later: Donald Rumsfeld says we shouldn’t wait for any evidence that Saddam Hussein is up to anything before going to war. "The people who argued have to ask themselves how they are going to feel at that point where another event occurs and it's not a conventional event but an unconventional event, and ask themselves the question, 'Was it right to have wanted additional evidence or additional time, or another U.N. resolution?'" And then he goes on to compare him to Hitler. Of course if we think of the Iran-Iraq war as Germany and Czechoslovakia, that would make Rumsfeld Neville Chamberlain.

A carpet is his soul

Here’s a sentence you don’t see every day, from the Daily Telegraph: “Scientists from Cambridge University who played loud dance music to drugged mice have received an official reprimand from the Home Office.”

The Pope in Poland warns against playing God. Usually, of course, Catholic priests like to play The Strict Headmaster and the Naughty Boy Who Needs to Be Punished.

The 4th Circuit has refused to ban the University of North Carolina holding voluntary classes to discuss the Koran. Had this been successful, UNC students would have tried similar court cases to ban the assignment of all other books, on the grounds that reading just eats into their heavy drinking schedule.

George Bush, enthusiastic: “I came off my ranch today in Crawford. There are not many places that would kind of lure me away, but Iowa State Fair is one. God has blessed Iowa and the citizens of this great state.” Really doesn’t get out much, does he?

Let the voters decide

Nigeria has to delay its next elections because termites ate the electoral register. Well, it’s original anyway.

Bush has finally responded to criticism of his Iraq obsession by saying that he’ll listen and calling it a “healthy debate” (unless it’s by a foreigner like the German chancellor, in which case they’ll send the ambassador to chew him out, in what some people might consider an attempt to influence the forthcoming German elections) (I mean, entire countries, many of them, have expressed opposition, but it wasn’t until Brent Scowcroft did so that Bush felt he had to respond publicly, which is an interesting set of priorities), and said “But America needs to know, I’ll be making up my mind based upon the latest intelligence and how best to protect our own country plus our friends and allies.” Try to diagram that sentence. So the real underlying message is that Bush might listen, but Bush, alone, will decide (to do exactly what he was going to do all along). Frank Rich, in a good column in the Saturday NY Times that y’all should read--
about Bush’s tendency to put on shows like the Waco summit (which someone on Washington Week said was an insult to dogs and ponies) to give the illusion of activity, says that Richard Perle gave the game away when he said that after all Bush’s bluster (not Perle’s term) on Iraq, their would be a collapse of confidence if he didn’t go ahead. Wasn’t that what Johnson and Nixon kept saying about Vietnam?

And the Sunday New York Times says that the US was providing Iraq battle-field satellite intelligence during the Reagan administration, when they knew it was using chemical weapons. The article makes clear that no one expressed any concern about this whatsoever.

A judge in a poor Ohio county tells prosecutors they can’t go after a death penalty because the cost to the county of paying for everything, including defense lawyers, would be too high.

Gee, and I thought there was no price too high to get in the way of our executing people, like the Mexican citizen just fried in Texas despite having been denied consular access (indeed, the US kept lying to Mexico that he wasn’t a citizen), seriously damaging President Vicente Fox, whose only selling point was that he was supposed to be close to the American government. But hey, if we wouldn’t not execute someone for the pope...

Katherine Harris has a sense of humor after all. Her Republican challenger is suing to have her thrown off the ballot, after she failed to resign as Florida’s secretary of state as required. Her response: “I say, let the voters decide." Now that’s funny!

When it’s bad

Israel finally got one of its human shields (I believe they call it the “neighbor policy”) killed.

Stephen Bochco’s next series will be another series involving NY cops--set in the year 2069. The mind boggles.

www.Vicefund.com. I think this one is serious, a mutual fund that invests in alcohol, tobacco, gambling and firearms. Motto: “When it’s good, it’s very, very good...and when it’s bad, it’s better.”

The California Supreme Court rules that an illegally obtained confession doesn’t invalidate a later one. I.e., the cops can break Miranda and then use the illegal confession as pressure to extract one they can use in court. 5 justices (of 7 voting) saw no problem with that.

You gotta love Jeb Bush. After finally firing the head of child welfare services for, ya know, losing a bunch of kids, he picks a replacement whose name is associated with a Christian loon group report saying, among other things, that married women shouldn’t work, that beating your child to the point of raising welts is the Christian way, and evidently that masturbation should be illegal. Still, as long as they aren’t using them for human shields.

Given the scenario that a US attack on Iraq would result in Iraq launching missiles at Israel and Israel responding, possibly with nukes, who do you think is most strongly behind the US attacking Iraq? Ariel Sharon.

Shocked, shocked I say

Noticed gray chest hairs, two of them, for the first time today. So old, so very old, so tired, take nap now.

In 1998, the Pentagon decided to privatize its travel expenses. Personnel would be ordered to take a personal, repeat personal, interest-free credit card with Bank of America--that is, involuntarily forced into a private contract with a corporation-- charge their expenses, and then hope the Pentagon would reimburse them before their credit tanked. Results are exactly what you’d expect. Story in the Village Voice.

sizehimup.co.uk allows you to estimate the size of a man’s penis using a formula based on the size of feet, nose, and hands.

A drug addict who broke into a doctor's surgery near Hanover in Germany was discovered fast asleep the following morning, Expatica.com reports. He had injected himself with a tranquillizer instead of the narcotic he was seeking. A doctor revived him and he was promptly arrested.

The inventor of the modern frisbee has died. In Santa Cruz. He wants his ashes inserted into a number of frisbees, some going to family and friends, others to be sold to benefit a planned frisbee museum.

The Guardian headline says that scientists are “shocked” that weeds have bred with genetically-modified crops, creating, wait for it, super-weeds.

New Yorker cartoon: man and woman in restaurant. He to her: ‘I never said “I love you,” I said “Love ya.” Big difference.’

Bizarrely, the US has accused the EU of “inappropriate” behaviour in trying to get other countries not to do private deals with the US not to send its soldiers to the International Criminal Court. As opposed to the US threats to cut off military aid to any country that doesn’t comply.

The correctness of my views

Last Feb. 22, I dissected Bush’s comments on North Korea, “No wonder I think they’re evil,” saying that for Bush the belief came first and the evidence, if any, second. I said, “I think he’s actually a little contemptuous of people who have to have evidence and logic to support their beliefs; for real men, beliefs derive from their ‘character.’” Well, here’s Ian Kershaw, in his biography of Adolf Hitler, on Hitler’s reading while in prison after the Beerhall Putsch: “He read not for knowledge or enlightenment, but for confirmation of his own preconceptions. He found what he was looking for.” He told a friend, “I recognized the correctness of my views.”

In a statement of astonishing arrogance even for Rummy Rumsfeld, today he said of Iran, “it may well be that they, for whatever reason, have turned over some people to other countries, but they’ve not turned any to us.” Why on earth would Iran consider itself under any obligation to turn over anyone to the United States? Don’t notice any reporters asking him about yesterday’s plan to send assassination squads into foreign countries.

Today, uninterestingly enough, is lefthanders’ day. Did you know that almost no one in Japan admits to being left handed? Did you know that the longest word you can type using only the left hand is “stewardesses”? Now you know. And by tomorrow, you won’t know it again.

Bush’s economic forum (a word my dictionary defines as “a meeting or medium for an exchange of views,” which is impossible when the views of everyone invited were interchangeable) was described by one participant as the biggest thing ever to happen in Waco. Man, where’s the FBI when you really need them? Several CEOs referred to themselves as “regular folks.” Dick Cheney said “It is easy to sit in Washington and get a disoriented picture of what goes on as opposed to getting out here periodically and ... talk to folks who are day in and day out where the rubber meets the road.” I think he may already be a tad disoriented. Bush himself pushed his Texas accent into overdrive, in the mistaken belief that it was reassuring. The only thing I was reassured by was that this stage-managed piece of propaganda was so incompetent that you could see the possibility for Bush losing in 2004. Christopher Hitchens writes of Bush Iraqi policy: “A dirty secret is involved here. From the US point of view, the present regime in Iraq is nearly ideal. It consists of a strong Sunni Muslim but approximately secular military regime. All it needs is a new head.”

Political abnormality illness. Do you think Blue Cross covers that?

Evidently homicide rates are down not because homicidal violence is down, but because emergency medicine has gotten better.

Tom Tomorrow points out that conservatives now refer to the invasion of Afghanistan as the War for the Liberation of Afghanistan. Presumably because the whole capturing-bin-Laden thing failed so miserably.

The Chinese now keep as many of their political prisoners in psychiatric asylums as the Soviets used to. “Political abnormality illness.”

Speaking of political abnormality illness, some younger members of the British Tory party are considering splitting off to form their own libertarian party. Tentative name: the Start Again Party. What a bunch of saps! Doesn’t really bode well for their future, does it?

Rumsfeld wants military special forces (assassination squads, as the Guardian puts it) to perform covert operations in countries with which the US is not at war, without telling the locals. Didn’t that sort of thing used to be considered an act of war?

Would American foreign policy have been more competent in the past year if anyone in government actually knew Arabic? Well, there’s one group trying to break down the barriers between Americans and Arabs by translating key newspaper pieces and documents. Unfortunately, it seems to be a front for Israeli intelligence, and its translations are a bit lop-sided, as are its selections. But through the use of email, it’s become influential in influencing the media as well as politicians.

Guardian on how Mugabe’s seizure of white farms is nothing like as harmful as the land policies foisted on Africa by the IMF. Yeah, yeah, land reform, I can see your eyes glazing over. Read it anyway, it’s an important article.

This does not conform to the task of civilisation

A major sponsor of the evil bankruptcy bill, Rep James Moran (D-VA), had credit card debt trouble himself. Until, of course, he sponsored a certain evil bankruptcy bill. He is the recipient of loans not only from one of those companies, but also a pharmaceutical company whose patent he tried to get extended, and from AOL (You’ve got corruption). For the more ordinary, overly optimistic type, there’s always something like this.

So in contrast to Mr. Moran, I present a story of politicians who do live by their own rules, the Milton Friedman-loving British Tory party, which is selling tickets to a gala dinner at this year’s party conference for less than half what the more successful Labour Party are able to charge in the open market.

Next month Ariel Sharon will go to Florida to stump for Jeb Bush.

Website of the day: http://polygamypoetry.tripod.com/songs.html

Yes, that’s songs celebrating the magic that is polygamy. And as if "The Poly Man Can" isn’t icky enough, there’s some accidental humor from the ads provided by the host site.

Speaking of which, two Japanese teenagers in a student exchange program were placed in a polygamist home in Salt Lake City.

Christian pickup lines, each one creepier than the last. Be sure to shower afterwards. So unclean, so very unclean.

If you were unaware that John Lennon was actually shot by Stephen King on the orders of Richard Nixon, you didn’t spend any time in Sproul Plaza in the early 1990s, when Steve Lightfoot was plying his trade there (and you didn’t read every third word of Newsweek, which is roughly how Lightfoot was able to detect the conspiracy). Steve didn’t get the help he so desperately needed, but he did get online. Did you know that if you fold the $20 bill lengthwise, you can see the Twin Towers on fire? After all 9+11=20.

Thanks to an especially brilliant change in the tax laws making non-physical-injury awards taxable, a Chicago policewoman who won her case for sex discrimination will owe the IRS $100,000 more than she was awarded by the jury.

Silly season British stories:

The Queen will be asked if she wants to meet two teenagers to explain how she felt after they hurled eggs at her car during her Golden Jubilee visit to Nottingham. The request is part of a new scheme in England and Wales under which victims of youth crime are offered the chance to come face to face with their tormentors.

3-year old nursery schoolers will be asked to rate their teachers by government inspectors, using a system of smiling, frowning, or unemotional (i.e., British) faces.

Also, a dolphin caught some jewel thieves off Dorset, and UFOs are destroying crops in Greece.

Gurbansoltan-edzhe is the cruelest month

I grow old... I grow old... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Here’s some advice (from “The Producers”): “When you’re down and out, and everybody thinks you’re finished, that’s the time to stand up on your two feet and shout ‘Who do you have to fuck to get a break in this town?’”

According to Saddam, "Darkness shall be defeated," he vowed in a 20-minute address. "The forces of evil will carry their coffins on their backs to die in disgraceful failure." Well, that’s be convenient, because they’ll already be carrying their coffins on their... no, no, I guess it really doesn’t make much sense.

Tonight is the deadline for Zimbabwean white farmers to leave their farms, which will then be turned over to Moammar Qaddafi, who’s been loaning them a lot of oil lately. It was supposed to go to poor black people, but shit happens.

If you’re wondering what sort of government we imposed on Nicaragua, well, the former president Arnoldo Alemán is being charged with theft of $100 million. The system works.

Niyazov was named president for life of Turkmenistan. He celebrated by renaming all the months. April is named after his mother (Gurbansoltan-edzhe), isn’t that sweet? And January for himself. He’s also renaming the days. The Times says “Mr Niyazov is not a man renowned for his modesty”.

Sharon calls the Palestinian leadership a “terror posse,” which I thought was very “street” of him.

Just Gooder

I wish to point out a new genre of telephone advertising, the sincere answering machine message. This is the message that you’re reasonably sure was recorded (today’s is from a satellite tv installer) but is intended to sound spontaneous and un-salesmanlike. The keynote of the form is the Columbo-like, “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you...” towards the end.

New Israeli tactic: stripping Palestinians it doesn’t like of citizenship.

I’m enjoying the vicious Republican primary race in Georgia. Bob Barr (who I can never mention without pointing out his possession of the world’s creepiest mustache) actually managed to condescend to Georgians, something hitherto believed impossible. His commercial (available on Babar, I mean Bob Barr’s website, but it’s a long download for not much) features a hayseed farmer saying “Linder’s good, Barr’s just gooder.”

From the This Life from the 7/21 London Sunday Times, which I had to type myself, because Rupert Murdoch got greedy:

A man in India beats the world record for having the most cement blocks smashed on his groin at once.

A CD by an Amazon parrot who impersonates Ethel Merman. Did the whole session in two takes.

Priests in Milan discovered that a couple who regularly prayed in front of a statue of the Madonna were actually recharging their mobile phone from the socket behind the statue.

Happy Hiroshima Day!

Kofi Annan rejects Iraq’s offer to talk about arms inspections, saying he was waiting for a formal invitation. So the answer to “What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation,” would in fact be yes. Fine, it’s most likely a ploy, but so what? Inspections either happen or they don’t, and it’s not like seeing which would interfere with anyone’s precious bombing schedule, since we’re not invading a desert country in August.

Although I am suddenly reminded of some invasion, I can’t remember which, that I figured out was about to start precisely because the president, Bush or Clinton, went on vacation. La la, nothing to see here. But Bush actually vacations more than he invades, which is saying something.

Furthermore, on this balmy Hiroshima Day, comes a report that the US can’t possibly take out all of Iraq’s missiles in the first days, so if Iraq goes after Israel, the war will go nuclear, because restraint, you may have noticed, is not big on the Israeli agenda lately.

Speaking of Israeli restraint, Sharon wants to try peace activists for treason, for telling military personnel that they could be prosecuted for war crimes. And the High Court rules that it’s ok to demolish homes without any right of judicial appeal. Which is a war crime.

Kevin points out that the Indonesia-ExxonMobil story has run in the Wall Street Journal. But not on McNeil-Lehrer, the NY Times, or the Washington Post. And I’ll bet this is nothing that will ever be a Nightline or the subject of angry speeches on the floor of Congress. Just another non-story about American complicity with repression of dark-skinned foreigners in an oil-producing country. Colin Powell will never be asked a penetrating question about this, or any question.

Thanks to stepped-up border patrols, the number of Mexicans dying in the deserts of California and Arizona trying to cross the border have reached record numbers. That’ll teach ‘em.

The "spirit of America": trapped in a coal mine with the water rising. That's about right

Congress rejected Iraq’s offer to let them and any experts they wanted investigate any site they wanted in Iraq. Evidently that wasn’t acceptable because it wouldn’t be humiliating enough. Sure, Iraq is being threatened with war, but given that Iraq is already being bombed twice a week (including yesterday), they could be forgiven for thinking that the last war never actually ended. A Guardian piece on this is appended below.

The Guardian also has a story about Palestinian children who hire themselves out as human shields. Specifically, they get paid to get into cars with strangers (where are these kids’ parents?), who drive to Israeli checkpoints, to prove that these cars are not suicide bombs. Israelis shoot at cars with only one occupant--something that would really speed up the Bay Bridge, if you ask me.

WaPo on how the Republican control of the House since 1994 shifted federal funding from D to R districts.

The Financial Times ran a piece, that no one else has picked up, that the State Dept is trying to kill a lawsuit on behalf of Indonesian villagers against Exxon Mobil, which paid the Indonesian security forces to run a campaign of terror on its behalf. State says it would hurt national security in the war on terrorism. You know, the bad kind of terrorism, not the good kind.

NY Times columnist Paul Krugman notes that when he originally run a quote from Bush in which Bush said that he had earlier said that the promise not to run deficits would only be broken if there was war, recession, or national emergency and “Lucky me, I hit the trifecta,” Krugman was accused of making the quote up. The trifecta quote was real, but the thing about war, recession or nat. emergency, no one can find Bush ever having said that during the election campaign. His promise not to run deficits was never qualified. He lied.

Signing an abortion restriction bill, Bush said, "Today, through sonograms and other technology, we can see clearly that unborn children are members of the human family. They reflect our image, and they are created in God's own image." He also signed a bill banning children from tearing the heads off of Barbie and GI Joe dolls, which also reflect our image.

The pope excommunicates several women who were ordained priests. Evidently that’s a bigger sin than male priests who fuck choir boys. Or did I miss those guys being excommunicated?

Bush meets those coal miners and says that they represent the “spirit of America”, a phrase he used 11 times. The Washington Post notes that he spoke 13 minutes to them, and 30 at a fundraiser.

Not drowning, but waving

Someone at the NY Times wasn’t paying attention to its front page today. 2 of the 3 headlines above the fold are: “Wave of Attacks by Palestinians Kills at Least 14” and “Wave of Pupils Lacking English Strains Schools”. Maybe their headline writer went to the beach this weekend.

While the Bushies are complaining about Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons, Donald Rumsfeld used to be Reagan’s middle east envoy, and was literally in Iraq while it was using poison gas in its war with Iran. And helped broker the deals by which Iraq was sold the helicopters it later used to drop poison gas on the Kurds. Rumsfeld never publicly expressed any concern whatsoever about chemical weapons until the Gulf War.

By the way, did you know that Rumsfeld thought about running for president in 1988?

Israel is preparing for a smallpox attack by Iraq in event of war. They are stockpiling vaccine, but not actually vaccinating. Do you think Sharon is capable of withholding vaccine from the Palestinians? I’m not sure, although I tend to think he is, enough that I hope someone is going to put the pressure on him. During the last Gulf War, gas masks filtered down to the Palestinians very slowly, and...let’s see if I can remember this exactly...certain Orthodox males, unwilling to shave their beards, commandeered some of the masks intended for children.

As Israel bans any travel in the northern West Bank, a report comes out that 1/4 of Palestinian children are experiencing malnutrition. The Israeli “Health Minister” says they brought it on themselves.

A new bizarre law in France allows students as young as 13 to be jailed for dissing their teachers.

Seems I gave Bush too much credit. He did not in fact put down his golf club while deprecating Middle East violence.

Bolivia obeyed the US’s orders and elected our candidate (a millionaire, natch) president. Evidently this is not news.

Ah, France. Where else would vineyard owners sue the Transport Ministry for its campaign against drunken driving.

Bush comments on the latest attack in Israel: "I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killings." To show his sincerity, he put down his golf club before saying that.

Quickies: Turkey abolishes the death penalty. Taiwan’s president supports a referendum to declare Taiwan independent. The US resumes training Indonesian death squads, I mean the military. Gerhard Schroder says a vote for him is a vote against war in Iraq (unfortunately, he has no chance in hell).

A very attractive idea

A federal district judge rules that the gov must say how many people it has detained without trial since 9/11 and name them. Ashcroft continues to claim that he is only protecting their privacy rights. Which is especially amusing in the week of the executive perp walks.

Heard Dubya yesterday, talking about how evil Saddam Hussein was, and how he poisoned his own people. With arsenic in the drinking water, no doubt.

The rescued coal miners have sold their story to Disney: hi ho hi ho...

OK, I know I shouldn’t be laughing at this, but... a 12-year old in a wheelchair goes to Lourdes hoping for a cure. Instead, a bus belonging to the Catholic group (I won’t use the word “charity” from the newspaper story, if all it does for people is send them to Lourdes) Handicapped Children’s Pilgrimage Trust, ran him over. The mother is suing.

Joseph Biden’s daughter was arrested outside a bar. Man, that Biden family: even the daughter is plagiarizing from the Bush twins. (Or am I hoping for too long a memory with that joke?)

Percy wouldn't have made that mistake

So Katherine Harris, running for Congress against Percy the dog, again demonstrates her ignorance of Florida election law by not resigning as secretary of state when she started running. And she’s gonna win the election anyway.

The FBI, investigating leaks of its intelligence failures, tried to get the 37 Congresscritters and Senators on the two houses’ intelligence committees to take polygraphs. The Post says that most refused, citing separation of powers, but doesn’t say who gave in. I want names.

They are, however, less protective of their powers to consider treaties, voting unfettered fast-track trade negotiating powers to the president for five years. This is clearly unconstitutional, and not just because it is removing power from Congress and putting it into the hands of trade representatives, who are usually wholly owned subsidiaries of big business. No, the major problem is that the current Congress is voting away the power to amend any treaty which is inherent in the Congresses elected in 2002, 2004 and 2006, as if greater sovereignty inheres in this Congress than in those. No Congress may bind its successors, no temporary congressional majority may partially annul the results of the next 3 elections. This is a constitutional issue of the highest order. And yes, I am the only person in America who cares about this.

Iraq has offered to restart negotiations with the UN on inspection. The US says there is nothing to negotiate with except complete surrender. So now the US is also writing the UN’s press releases.

The US is evidently now pressuring other countries to promise not to turn US citizens over to the International Criminal Court. Romania is the first to give in.

If tyranny is to prevail, you must first kill all the lawyers

A federal judge rules that US courts have no jurisdiction over prisoners in Guantanamo. This is fascinating. That means that there are places in the world that are literally beyond any law, in which no courts and no legal code operate. Imagine, a society that has no lawyers: Guantanamo must be heaven itself.

Not only were no non-alarmists called to testify to the Senate on Iraq, but the Bush admin didn’t send anyone either. Evidently it’s “too early.” The one good thing about this Bush is that he doesn’t call Saddam Hussein “Sad-dammm” in that obnoxious sneering way his father had.

Speaking of one-sided, even though Israel barred UN representatives investigating the Jenin Massacre, a report was somehow still issued, derived entirely from secondary sources. In other words, they issued a report under the name of the UN with no better evidence than you or I could get from the internet. This is unconscionable given that the news reports have, predictably, mostly said that “The UN clears Israel of massacre.” (Actually I’m told it never uses the word massacre, but the UN web server is currently not working, like the UN itself). Moreover, it seems to give equal blame to the Palestinian militants, who shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Where they should have been--and not get slaughtered instantly, I mean--the report fails to say. It’s not quite a whitewash, but enough so that it rewards Israel’s refusal to cooperate.

I feel a little sheepish about quoting another UN report after trashing that one, but what the hell: human beings now use up 40% of all plant and marine growth.

Bush says “We must collectively get after those who kill in the name of some kind of false religion." Ari Fleischer says he didn’t mean all Muslims, just the ones who “distort” Islam, which Georgie considers “a religion of peace.” Given that Bush also considers Ariel Sharon a man of peace, you have to wonder how all those people keep getting killed. Well, as another George once wrote, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is George W. Bush.

No more easy money? But I haven't had any yet, as Alice said to the Mad Hatter.

For the second time, a New York Times editor lets a reporter (I presume the same reporter) juxtapose a story about a Bush plan to screw the poor with how much money he was raising (I reported the last one Saturday). This time he wants to punish those on welfare still more, and raised $1 million, including from people who paid $10,000 to have their pictures taken with him. Bush is horrified at the notion that people on welfare might go to college instead of work--he calls it a loophole. “Now that’s not my view of helping people become independent. And it’s certainly not my view of understanding the importance of work and helping people achieve the dignity necessary so they can live a free life, free from government control.” But first, evidently, government has to squash their dreams, aspirations and chances of ever making more than $8 an hour, like a bug.

Yesterday a study came out that welfare reform is increasing the number of children living with neither parent.

Bush signed the corporate fraud bill that he refused to support earlier this month and seems already to be taking credit for. “No more easy money for corporate criminals, just hard time,” he said. What, they’ll be sentenced by the Supreme Court to serve as president or vice president? He also said that auditors will be audited, accountants will be held to account, and executives...

Guandong province, China, has increased the fines for having a second child to 8 times the couple’s annual income. Now, that’s welfare reform.

The State Department clears itself of any impropriety in its support for the failed coup in Venezuela.

The UN suppresses a report on the US air strike on that wedding, the very report that said that the US removed evidence from the scene. Amazingly, the report was submitted to the US and Afghan governments to release or not. UN investigations are beginning to have all the credibility of an Arthur Anderson account book. Also, Mary Robinson has finally openly accused the US of ordering her fired as head of the UN Human Rights Commission (which I said back in March).

So the Israeli government was going to send an exhibition about Albert Einstein to China. But China suggested they remove all references to Einstein being a Jew, so it’s going to Taiwan instead. The story on this mentioned an incident I hadn’t heard of before, but gave no date: pissed that an arms deal had fallen through, China served an Israeli delegation pork and shrimp. Anyone hear of this?

The US has declared victory in the Philippines and our troops are coming home. God knows what they’ve been doing, although they did rack up the highest death count of the year (helicopter crash). The group they went there to fight still possesses its leadership, the hostage rescue was badly fumbled, but by damn isn’t victory great!

The Congressional hearings on Iraq began today, and they were a poor meek thing indeed. Not a single opponent of war was asked to testify, and there seemed to be none in Congress. The thing is, since the Gulf War, containment has worked (not for the people of Iraq, of course, except for the Kurds, but nobody really cares about them, as the ongoing sanctions show). And you know there is no evidence whatsoever of Hussein having serious weapons capability left when they start talking about how easy it is to hide such programs--evidence, we don’ need no stinking evidence. In fact, the desire to bomb alleged underground labs and bunkers is behind the US’s plan to develop new “bunker-buster” nuclear weapons, and break the Test Ban Treaty in order to test them. I don’t want to see biological and nuclear weapons in the hands of the mustached-one either, but US hypocrisy on this begins to look like the laws they used to have in the South outlawing teaching slaves to read.

A draft national walking strategy

Remember the wedding in Afghanistan that the US bombed earlier this month? The Pentagon is kind of hoping you don’t, of course. They sent in “investigators” to find evidence. And remove it, to make sure no one else could see it, according to a preliminary UN report. I always wondered how you could bomb people and then send in more military to question witnesses (after securing the scene and tying up the women, of course) and expect much cooperation. One might also wonder why we haven’t seen any film from the cameras on the wings of the planes that were supposed to have been shot at.

You may remember the Beijing Evening News printed as true a piece from the Onion about Congress threatening to leave DC unless it built them a brand-new capitol with a retractable dome & luxury boxes, and then it refused to accept that it had made a mistake, challenging an LA Times reporter to prove that it was true. Eventually, they did retract, but they never quite got that the Onion is intended to be satirical. The paper said that some American newspapers make up news in order to make money. “According to congressional workers, the Onion is a publication that never ceases making up false reports.”

The British transport minister has become worried about a study saying that British people are walking less than they used to. “A draft national walking strategy is being prepared,” he said. The Sunday Times headline was “Minister of Sensible Walks.”

This week, the first Tory MP ever to announce his own homosexuality, without being, you know, caught at it, does so. Alan Duncan. And to tie this story in with Monty Python as well, it seems that Duncan’s constituency includes the grammar school that Graham Chapman went to. When he announced his own homosexuality:

the Python team received a letter from a woman outraged that he had confessed to being homosexual. She enclosed several prayers for his salvation and a quotation from the Bible. Eric Idle wrote back stating simply that the rest of the team had “taken him outside and killed him”. She did not write back.

Mr. Duncan has received the support of his party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, whose head looks remarkably like a penis. Other Tory MPs quoted were less supportive, including one called Crispin Blunt, whose name gives a decidedly mixed message.

A rather good “This Modern World” cartoon this week (find it at Salon)

Israel assassinates Ollie North

Bush proposes limiting pain & suffering compensation for malpractice to $250,000. By a mathematical coincidence, he was in North Carolina, where he plans to raise $750,000 for the state Republican party & Elizabeth Dole--that’s one amputation of the wrong leg, one blinding and one accidental death.

The censored Homer Simpson.

On this page there is a picture of the Hamas leader assassinated by Israel. Tell me this guy wasn’t Ollie North in a beard. Oh, and read the story, too. Also, it contains another picture which was on the front page of every European newspaper last week, but didn’t make it into any American source I saw.

Good piece in the NY Times magazine on the future of Afghanistan.

The Times also reports that Colin Powell is urging talks between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Note that he is not urging anyone to speak to those most irrelevant of people, the Kashmiris.

Well, almost the most irrelevant, because that would be the Iraqi Kurds (all Kurds, really), which another story points out are currently enjoying a golden age, because the US is keeping the Iraqi government off their backs--at least until we install the next military dictatorship (one of our top choices is being investigated in Denmark for crime crimes, by the by) and turn it loose on them once again.

The pope visits Canada for World Youth Day. Actually, for the Catholic Church, every day is world youth day, if you know what I mean.

Headline in today’s NY Times: “Bishops Select Lay Board on Sexual Abuse Review.” Double entendre heaven, I hardly know where to begin, with the “lay board” or with “sexual abuse review,” which I see as a Siskel-Ebert sort of thing--the thin priest gives “Father Brian Sodomizes Little Jimmy the Choir Boy” a big thumbs up, but the fat priest thinks it was derivative and doesn’t compare to Father Brian’s early, funny sodomies. (OK, maybe not the place for a Woody Allen reference, or maybe the perfect place.)

Actually, the board has no members of victims groups and just one psychiatrist, who is a founder of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation and regularly testifies in court that victims are just making it up. Another member is Robert Bennett, last seen as Bill Clinton’s lawyer. I think I preferred his early, funny sex scandals.

Alaska’s Lt. Governor Fran Ulmer, according to a badly written AP sentence, “took a break from her campaign to become the state’s first female governor to shop for a smaller handgun.” They have really specific elections up there.

The old one didn’t fit in her purse, in case you were wondering.

The House votes to ban “partial-birth abortions.” With no exception for the health of the mother. The bill actually states as fact that it is never necessary for the health of the mother. Congress should be prosecuted for practicing both medicine and assholery without a license.

A gay couple got married in Vermont. Their home state, Connecticut, doesn’t recognize the marriage. So they can’t get a divorce, because while Vermont will marry people who don’t live there, it won’t give divorces to them.

A gift to the poor

The Homeland Security Agency debate goes on. I want to point again to the exclusion of the ATF and my suspicion, which no one else has joined in, that this was a sop to the gun lobby. Today’s NY Times notes that when Ashcroft ordered the FBI not to use gun ownership background checks to investigate terrorism after 9/11, and ordered the records destroyed, he was ignoring Justice’s legal advisers, who said it was perfectly legal to use those records, and then lied to Congress about it.

In 1992 Valentine Strasser took power in a coup in Sierra Leone to become the world’s youngest leader at 25. Today he is broke and lives with his mother. Good.

Under Alberto Fujimori, upwards of 230,000 poor rural Peruvians were forcibly sterilized. Betcha we don’t ever hear much more than that.

Ariel Sharon has been forced by world revulsion to reverse himself and say that if he’d known all those civilians would be killed when he ordered a plane to drop a bomb on an apartment building in the middle of a very crowded city at night (a 10th child’s body was found today, by the way) he wouldn’t have ordered it. This would be more credible if he hadn’t crowed about the great success of the operation yesterday, when he already knew of the deaths. It’s almost enough to sully the reputation of assassinations. “Infanticidal tit-for-tat,” the Guardian calls it.

The Guatemalan government is to make payments to members of the old death squads for their glorious service (the death squads have recently been quietly reactivating). This is the government that acts as a figleaf for former dictator and scum Efrian Rios Montt, one of many, well ok, two, scummy leaders forced out on my birthday.

This is the FBI. Back away from the pizza

As I write, I’m listening to the Senate hearings on Priscilla Owen, or St. Priscilla, as Mitch McConnell dubbed her. She doesn’t actually seem to be listening, which some would consider a problem in a judge. The number of times in which she answered a question that wasn’t actually asked, including the softball ones, and had to be herded back towards what was actually asked, suggested she wasn’t paying that much attention but was, perhaps, looking out the window, watching a squirrel frolic, or waiting for recess, or thinking about boys.

So how much information about us is being handed over to the government by companies we do business with? According to the Village Voice, one unnamed supermarket chain (actually a relatively low-level employee on his own) handed over data from those loyalty cards. So they can profile what a terrorist shops for. Hotels, car rental agencies, travel agencies have handed over information. They are trying to figure out what “normal” patterns are, and what marks you as a terrorist (ordering a lot of pizza delivered and paying with a credit card is a major indicator of terrorist activity. And if you want pineapple or anchovies on your pizza, you have no taste. According to the FBI.). The FBI was handed a list of 2 million certified divers. Without a subpoena even, because no one wants to be seen as uncooperative. Nor did the supermarket chain, or the travel companies or anyone, feel obligated to tell anyone what they did.

Today, a court in Florida finds Salvadoran generals responsible for torture and orders them to pay damages (if you pay for pizza the wrong way the FBI will be all over your ass, but don’t look for these thugs to be deported any time soon). Tomorrow, the US plans to block an enforcement protocol for the treaty against torture, because it might involve inspection of US prisons and detention centers, including Guantanamo.

Only Ariel Sharon would think it wise to call his assassination-by-air-strike a “great success” despite the deaths of 9 children.

Bush’s hubris grows. He now intends a “regime change” in Iran.

The new Right-wing Dutch government runs into a little trouble. The minister for emancipation and family affairs (!), a follower of the dead bald gay guy, turns out to have once worn a uniform and toted a gun in the militia on the former Dutch colony of Suriname, back when said militia was merrily murdering opposition activists. Not the sort of emancipation they had in mind. She has had to resign.

Remember the 1980 Iranian embassy siege in London? It was stormed by the SAS, which evidently had orders directly from Thatcher that there be no “problems” left over. In other words: take no prisoners. Or, as it turned out, execute the prisoners. No word on when Thatcher will be arrested.

If God wanted you to have a tattoo...

I find I haven’t previously mentioned Bush’s nominee to the 5th Circuit, Priscilla Owen. She can probably best be destroyed by tarring her with Enron. When she ran for the Texas Supreme Court, she took a few thousand of their money, and then ruled for them in a tax case worth $225,000 for them. The White House defends this behaviour by noting that 7 of the 9 justices took Enron money and that she had to raise millions to run for the court. So it’s the system that’s corrupt, not her. I know I feel better. But the real reason to destroy her is her fierce anti-abortionism. In a case on judicial bypass of parental notification, she wanted pregnant girls to show an awareness of the physiology of what would happen to the fetus, that they would suffer psychologically and that there were religious objections to abortion. The last, of course, is why she is not fit to serve on any bench. But it’s still the piddling Enron thing that could actually get her, so I say go for it.

Israel looks like backing off deporting the families of suicide bombers. Was this because the militant groups threatened to go after the families of Israeli officials? Was it because they finally realized how bad it made them look, like last week’s apartheid plan, like 2000's attempt to pass a law legalizing the taking of hostages by the government? Is it worse that they actually consider these things to be reasonable steps, or that they’re so out of step with the rest of the world that they don’t even realize how morally repulsive these ideas are to, you know, sane people?

A line from a Daily Telegraph story, which I think it would be more fun to present without explanation: A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said: “This is not something we’ve come across before. It’s not a good idea to put parts of your body into a computer scanner, but then kids will be kids.”

From the Times, news that there are some things people do with their bodies that Ken Starr does consider sacred and private:


July 23, 2002
Starr switches from Monica to body art
From Tim Reid in Washington

KENNETH STARR, the Republican lawyer who hounded President
Clinton with his exhaustive investigation of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, has a new case that this time goes to the heart of the Constitution: the right to get a tattoo.

Mr Starr, a solicitor-general when President Bush Sr was in the White House and a man known for his conservative bent, has taken up the fight of Ronald White, a body artist and punk rocker, who has fallen foul of South Carolina’s anti-tattoo law.

Mr White, 33, is taking his crusade to the US Supreme Court, claiming that needling skin with his designs of dragons, gargoyles and angels should be entitled to the same First Amendment free expression rights as other artists enjoy. In 1999, frustrated by the failure of South Carolina’s politicians to repeal their 1966 law - Oklahoma is the only other state to retain a ban - Mr White tattooed a man on television. The South Carolina authorities took a dim view. He was arrested, fined $2,500 (£1,620) and put on five years’ probation. For that time Mr White cannot carry pistols or rifles, get a drink in a bar or leave the state without informing his probation officer. He appealed to the state’s highest court, citing his constitutional rights, but lost.

Now, with the help of Mr Starr, who views his case as a serious First Amendment issue, he is asking the highest court in the land to decide the vexed issue of tattoos. “It’s our personal right as Americans to choose how we will express ourselves - on our bodies especially - and that is of the upmost importance to me,” Mr White said.

Mr Starr told the court, which is deciding whether to hear the case in full, that it was wrong to outlaw Mr White’s art “in a society that protects liquor advertising and pornography”. He told reporters, however, that he does not himself wear a tattoo, and has no intention of getting one.

Mr White’s nemesis thus far has been J. M. “Jake” Knotts, a South Carolina congressman and a former policeman and Vietnam veteran, who reached the House in 1994 on an anti- tattoo ticket, claiming that they are unclean, ungodly and bad for his state’s image.

“If God wanted you to have a tattoo, he’d have put your name on you,” Mr Knotts, known in the tattoo world as “Thou Shalt Knotts”, declares. [Personally, I feel the same thing about pants, but the police don’t agree with me.]

The tattoo ban dates from the 1960s, when a parlour in New York was blamed for a hepatitis outbreak. Most states banned the practice, but have since relented.

With remarkably little discussion, we are soon going to see the start of Operation TIPS, which stands for Tyrannical Informants Program... Oh, the only thing I can think of for S is Stasi, which is highly appropriate, but doesn’t really work. This is the brilliant idea of getting every postal carrier, cable guy, meter reader, truck driver and possibly crack dealer to report “suspicious behavior” to the government. 1 million informers. Which some say means you have the right to keep meter readers the hell off your property unless they have a warrant, since they’ve been deputized (the Post Office backed out of the program). So the next time you see a meter reader looking in your bathroom window, don’t worry, he’s probably just looking for Al Qaeda. And here’s me writing political manifestos on my computer at 5 in the morning; that’s not suspicious, is it?

Speaking of fascism, Israel has been rounding up the families of suicide bombers to deport them into the vast concentration camp that is the Gaza Strip. Speaking of Israeli responses to terrorism, I caught a couple of minutes of the tv movie of the Antebbe raid on cable tonight, looking to spot my great-uncle, who played Scared Jew #3, before I gave up. OK, that has nothing much to do with anything, but it’s these personal touches that distinguish these writings from Mother Jones.

Yet another use for cow shit

Bush predicts--or possibly orders--that the SEC will clear Cheney.

Bush is firing (or kicking sideways) his gay AIDS adviser. It is suggested that this was because he advocated that gay & bisexual men use condoms. Well, that’s what it says in the NY Times. He was also a critic of the ridiculous abstinence-only sex ed. policies this admin loves (chastely of course) so much.

London Times headline: “Horses Mark Bomb Anniversary.” These are horses, Echo and Yetti, who survived an IRA bomb attack 20 years ago.

Americans, many of them, are claiming political asylum in Canada, from persecution for their use of medical marijuana. 800 Canadians have permits to grow or use marijuana. In the 1960s the Flying Burrito Brothers sang of
“heading for the nearest foreign border/ Vancouver may be just my kind of town/ ‘Cos they don’t need the kind of law and order/ That tends to keep a good man underground.”

From the Belfast Sunday Life, a response to the IRA’s apology this week for accidentally killing and wounding a few hundred people:

A statement issued by a spokesman on behalf on the ‘non-combatant’ people of Northern Ireland:

“‘During several years of armed conflict waged on our behalf by a variety of paramilitary groups, there were many incidents during which we civilians severely inconvenienced our tireless freedom fighters and jeopardised their vital operations. These incidents include: people setting off booby traps which were not intended for them, bearing a slight similarity to ‘legitimate targets’, living in the wrong area, obscuring the targets of snipers by walking recklessly across their own streets, and generally being in the wrong place at the wrong time. While it was never our intention to be killed or seriously wounded, the reality is that on a number of occasions, this was the consequence of our actions. We would therefore offer our sincere apologies’.”

A Hindu nationalist group says people can protect themselves against nuclear attack by smearing themselves with cow dung.

And the new Indian president, as predicted, is fake-Doctor A P J Abdul Kalam, nuclear scientist and vegetarian (because it’s bad to kill a pig, but not to kill 30 million Pakistanis). In fact, President Kalam is on tv right now. Oh my god, he’s covered in cow shit, run for the hills everybody, save yourselves, oh the humanity!

A very sensitive part of its geography

The Spanish fight back in the world’s silliest war, over the uninhabited Parsley Island, occupied a couple of days ago by a few (six, I believe) Moroccans with tents. The Spanish actually sent in the special forces, with attack helicopters and gunboats. According to the Spanish defence minister, “Spain was attacked by force in a very sensitive part of its geography.” Well, that can be very painful. The Times, jokingly I think, calls Morocco’s action the first occupation of Western European soil since WW II. The ownership of the island is actually pretty vague, but given Spain’s attitude towards Gibraltar, the Basques and Catalonia, and Morocco’s continuing illegal occupation of the Western Sahara, I’d say the colonialist impulse is still strong in both countries, so fuck ‘em. Or to put it another way, I say it’s parsley, and I say to hell with it.

Today is the 100th anniversary of the air conditioner, and the first day in a while it’s been cool enough not to need it.

The British government blames its failure to cut teenage pregnancies on the public’s “giggly” attitude towards sex. In other words, and explicitly, they are blaming Benny Hill. Benny’s father sold condoms for a living, by the way (there is a large biography just out, if you can imagine wanting to read such a thing).

The Republicans in Congress have loaded up the bill to tighten up the Bermuda loophole with tax breaks to businesses (designed to help them transfer American jobs overseas) worth 10 times as much as the loophole. You can’t make this stuff up.

Click for the Miami Herald’s report on what happened to all of those Bushies who participated in the post-election fight in Florida. Would you believe that at least 50 of them were given government jobs? Of course you would!

A powerful asset

The Israeli cabinet backs off the apartheid plan. For now.

The US is not only training a new central Afghan army, but also little proxy units to go after Al Qaida. These units are connected with local warlords and not under the central government’s control, and are paid more (by the US, I’m assuming), which means that the central army training programs are being deserted (at least 1/3). So the US is not only helping create private armies, but actively undermining its own puppet central government.

Two of the NY Times columnists in the Tuesday paper focus on Bush’s past economic history, Kristof noting that when the Rangers coerced Arlington into seizing private property for their ballpark, they added to the list properties they wanted to re-sell for a profit (after getting them at compulsory knock-down prices). Krugman focuses on the funds of the U of Texas, which Bush effectively privatized and whose dealings he made secret, so that many (unprofitable) deals were made with cronies, one of whom was Bush himself. He also notes that Bush’s fellow-owners of the Rangers gave him $12 million more than his investment entitled him to, out of the goodness of their hearts, and not because he was the son of the presidents. This is all familiar if you read Molly Ivins’s columns, but bears repeating.

Bush, meanwhile, is calling the current economic slump a “hangover” after an “economic binge.” Far be it for me to contradict Dubya on a subject he knows so much about, hangovers, but what’s he suggesting? That the economic growth of the Clinton years was unhealthy? That all stocks are horribly over-valued and need to come down? That the boast that everyone is a stock-holder now suggests that everyone is a drunken rube now? Actually, the truth is that Clinton’s Justice Dept was even less likely to punish corporate crime than the previous admin (or environmental crimes or...). Is he suggesting that Clinton was soft on white collar criminals? It would be amusing to hear him say it aloud. And rare indeed to hear him say “Clinton” out loud.

When Bush sold his Harken stocks, it was 2 months after he’d signed a promise not to for 6 months. This makes his claim that his sale was unrelated to insider knowledge about the company’s crappy performance, and that he’d always intended to sell to finance the Rangers deal, is that much less believable. The Bushies say that the promise was related to a planned public stock offering and that when it fell through the promise no longer needed to be kept.
Which would mean that Bush knew that the company was in trouble, so even their explanation points to insider trading.

Cheney, who did pretty much the same exact thing with Halliburton stock, is being sued, but, according to Ari Fleischer, “The Vice-President continues to be a powerful asset for the country and the President.” Another example of bad accountancy. There may also be a little fuss over the billions a division of Halliburton is now earning providing support services for the military, at much more money than it would cost the Pentagon to do it itself. The company got into this business after Cheney, the Elder Bush’s defense secretary, changed the rules to allow it...

The government gets John Walker Lindh to plead guilty, armed only with an illegal confession, a raftload of false charges they could never have proven in court, the knowledge that he’d be convicted in this environment whether they proved their charges or not, and a judge hand-picked for his willingness to allow in unconstitutional evidence. The system worked. He pleaded guilty to carrying hand grenades in Afghanistan, which I find hard to believe is against American law, and working with the Taliban, which ditto. Also, he’s supposed to cooperate in giving intelligence to the government. If little Johnny Taliban knows anything that the CIA still doesn’t know, you have to be wondering what they’ve been doing the last 10 months.

Bush proposes to set up cells to think like terrorists and plan attacks. And in a couple of years they’ll have skills they can take with them into the private sector.

From the Telegraph: A quadriplegic man is suing the Wildside strip club in West Palm Beach, Florida, for allegedly breaking the law by not providing wheelchair access to the lap-dancing room.

According to SEC documents, Bush did in fact know that Harken was in trouble when he sold his stocks–in fact, it looked likely to go bankrupt. That is insider trading. Rather than the SEC exonerating him, as he claims, an internal memo said the lack of action ‘must in no way be construed as indicating that the party has been exonerated or that no action may ultimately result’. Incidentally, you’ll remember Bush claims (now) that it was the fault of his lawyers that his documents didn’t get filed. So how did he reprimand those lawyers? One of them is now ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Committing public order offenses with his feet

Bush has gotten bored with going after the corporations, and thinks everyone else should be too: “I believe people have taken a step back and asked, ‘What’s important in life?’ You know, the bottom line and this corporate America stuff, is that important? Or is serving your neighbor, loving your neighbor like you’d like to be loved yourself?” Of course George has usually had much richer neighbors than the rest of us.

And his friends can afford their own drugs, which is why he’s opposing Democratic plans for drug coverage for the old. He says the plan, by making existing drugs affordable, would cut back on the incentive for drug companies to come up with new drugs that people can’t afford. Come to think of it, his argument is that the plan would be too expensive, but drugs under it would be too cheap.

New in the South African version of Sesame Street: an HIV-positive Muppet. Maybe the Cookie Monster can provide some marijuana brownies.

Guardian headline: Police Praise IRA for ‘Calming Clashes’. I’m assuming that here “calming” is used as a verb rather than an adjective.

Six Afghan governors are demanding that the US military get their permission before conducting military operations in their states. Good luck, guys. This alliance actually looks like a de facto separatist Pashtun region.

The Congressional hearings on the Heimat Security Agency suggest that the legislative branch has begun to realize what a power grab the proposal was. In the name of flexibility, the Bushies are trying to wrest from Congress the ability to shift funds and personnel at will. In addition to scaling down Congressional oversight, it would also ride rough-shod over civil service rules, or to put it another way, screw some large unions that generally support the D’s.

So the chair of the New Mexican Republican party gets a donation from someone he won’t name and insists he doesn’t really know who the guy was acting for, in order to bribe the Green Party (which refused to play) to run spoiler candidates for the United States Congress. This should be a big deal, but it won’t be, like earlier this year when I was the only one in the state complaining that Gray Davis was running ads to influence the primary of another party.


Speaking of which, the aptly named State Dept under-sec for Latin America, Otto Reich, tells Bolivia which of their candidates for president they will not be allowed to vote for, if they know what’s good for them. The ambassador tried that before the first round, and the guy’s numbers went way up.

I was pleased that the story I sent on the 2nd about the gang-rape ordered by the Pakistani local council got so much press, for a couple of days anyway. But the story goes on. If you’ll recall, the rape was ordered as punishment for another family member, her younger brother, who was accused of dating a member of a higher caste. In fact, he was accused of raping her. He was 11, she 30. In actual fact, it was he who was raped, by 3 men of an upper-caste. To cover that up, the 30-year old made her accusation. So the story just keeps getting scummier.

This week’s Private Eye cover is entitled New Osama Threat to America, with a picture of bin Laden saying, “Forget terrorism, I’m going to become an accountant.”

So police in LA (Inglewood) are caught on videotape beating up a black guy. That’s what I hate about summer: nothing but reruns on tv.

The papers tell me that the US has backed down on its demand for immunity for peacekeepers from the international court. In fact, it changed its demand from immunity in perpetuity to immunity for a year, which would be renewed annually.

Somehow the papers that Bush says would show his innocence in insider trading are in the possession of Harken, not the SEC, and Harken ain’t making them public. Perhaps it’s time to review how Bush the Elder managed never to answer any questions on Iran-Contra.

Another unanswered Harken question is who bought Bush’s stock from him. This is secret. Some experts are quoted saying this is common and it doesn’t matter, but there are two problems with that: 1) someone handed a large profit to the son of the president of the United States, so they might have an ulterior motive, 2) someone lost a lot of money due to Bush’s insider trading.

The European Court of Human Rights says that Britain must give full recognition of the femaleness of a transsexual, including the right to marry. More worryingly, women in Britain can retire at 60 instead of 65, so... do you really really want to retire early...?

Britain will introduce extra maternity pay and paternal leave exactly 9 months from today....

Flirtshirt

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show had the best reaction to Bush’s speech on corporate crime. After each proposal, they cut to Stewart’s stunned face--You mean convicted CEOs could become CEOs again? You mean they don’t have to attest to the accuracy of accounts now? You mean auditors can have conflicts of interest now? You mean if they profit from false accountancy, they can keep the money now? Are there are rules on Wall Street, he asked, can they just kill a guy for lookin’ at them?

Maybe it would be safer not to test that out.

By the way, Chimp Boy, we want to see the SEC case file on your role in Harken.

It’s been, what, 2 days since the Israeli Cabinet voted to institute racial segregation. Notice the wave of indignation from American politicians? Didn’t think so.

On news today, saw an Arthur Anderson promotional video from 1996 in which the company is praised by Dick Cheney. Priceless (although Arthur Anderson would put it in the plus column).

In US planning for war with Iraq, there arises the problem of what to do with Saddam Hussein, if he’s ever captured. Obviously not the international court. Another country-specific war crimes court? Current thinking is to let our Iraqi puppets set up a kangaroo court. Don’t expect the UN Security Council to have much to say about this: evidently the US is already parceling out the contracts to Iraqi oilfields like so many party favors.

London Times headline Thursday: Jordan to Let US Use Bases for War on Iraq. Daily Telegraph headline Thursday: Jordan Rejects Invasion Plan. The fix is only half in, I guess (man, I’m talking in nothing but clichés today). The hope seems to be that US troops will use Jordan, but that the Jordanian people don’t notice.

Mafiosi in prison in Italy are going on hunger strike to protest the prison regime. Joke for fans of The Sopranos: What, no fuckin’ ziti?

Daily Telegraph article:

T-shirts with hidden appeal

A Berlin designer has launched a range of T-shirts impregnated with pheromones, hormone-based scents said to attract the opposite sex. Anna Figoluschka, 26, says her “flirtshirt” gives its wearer an advantage when trying to stand out in a crowd. T-shirts with a blue anchor design contain male pheromones and those with a pink heart have female pheromones. Hannah Cleaver, Berlin

Confidence Game

Bush used the word “confidence” 5 times in his press conference. And many more in today’s speech. Which as I understand it put all the blame for corporate greed on the “late 90s.” I suppose that in the era-bashing department it makes a refreshing change from Republicans bitching about the 1960s.

Here’s a sentence you don’t see everyday, from a Daily Telegraph story:

A passenger who tried to smuggle her pet chameleon into Britain by wearing it as a hat was foiled by customs officers.

At his press conference, Bush was asked why he was not showing up at the NAACP annual meeting. He said, “Let’s see. There I was sitting around the table with foreign leaders looking at Colin Powell and Condi Rice...” before tailing off. Think Colls and Condi will set him right on why that was a stupid response? Me
neither.

The first article following is on Bush’s personal finances, the second compares the same to the standards he claims to be setting for others.

Restoring Confidence

New Yorker cartoon: 2 dogs looking at bowls filled with paper. Oh no, not homework again.

The German Christian Democrats are going after the gay vote, including a proposal I’ve never heard of in this country: giving gay partners spousal immunity from being forced to testify against each other.

The Israeli Cabinet votes 17-2 in favor of banning Palestinians buying houses in Jewish communities.

Hopefully, tonight’s news will juxtapose images of WorldCom executives refusing to testify before Congress with Bush calling questions of his own immoral and indeed illegal dealings with Harken Oil old-style politics. (That they were illegal is undeniable, whatever Bush might say.)

Look at the reporting of the hearings and of Bushs alleged plan to crack down on corporate malfeasance, and you will notice a lot of talk about the need to restore confidence. In fact, let me pause here and use that new-fangled Internet thingy to do a count.

OK, too early for a transcript. The White House site does have this headline, though: President Urges Congress to Support Nation’s Priorities. You’d think in a proper democracy, what the Congress supported would automatically constitute the nations priorities, wouldn’t you? Ah, just kidding.

At least twice, though. The problem is that confidence, for Bush as for the CEOs, is something to be manipulated. Harken, for example, used false accountancy methods (fuzzy math, if you will) to over-inflate its value, and Bush took advantage to sell his stock just before more accurate figures came out and the stock tanked. If he were selling anything other than stocks, that would count as fraud, selling something by pretending it is something else, like when they told me buying a computer would make my life easier. And since Bush was on the audit committee--and try picturing Chimp Boy on the audit committee of anything--this constitutes actual fraud. He doesnt want honesty in business, he wants confidence in business. How hard can that be to create, when the polls suggest that the American people have confidence in the leadership abilities of George W. Doofus? As I wrote this, I was reminded of something I wrote here last September 22:

The problem with Bush’s jihad is of course the one Republicans saw in every one of Clinton’s military adventures: no end strategy. Asked about that 2 days ago, Rumsfeld hemmed and hawed and then said that the end would be when Americans were persuaded that they were safe. Actually, much of what we’ve heard about security the last 2 weeks has been entirely about PR. Listen to it the next time someone talks about planes or skyscrapers: the language most of the time is about making people *feel* they are safe, not actually making people safer, except inasmuch as it is necessary to the goal of altering perception.

Indeed, much of Bush activity has been about creating the illusion of activity, given the complete inability to capture bin Laden or the Al Qaida leadership. Although as weve seen with the dirty bomb scare (remember that? just 4 weeks ago today) and vague terror alerts, perception can be altered in the other direction too when it suits the administrations needs.

So remember, when they talk about restoring confidence in the markets, what they mean is what they always mean: You are getting sleepy, sleepy, and when you wake up you will feel secure and confident and that your president isnt a mindless dipstick.

The Observer reports that teenage girls are using webcams to solicit gifts. [Oh good, my new, up to date word processor’s spellcheck has never heard of webcams. Um, or spellcheck, which is a bit worrying.] 14-year olds getting CDs in exchange for pictures of themselves. Also, some of these camgirls sell advertisement to hardcore websites. What a world! And how do you find these sites? Kidding, just kidding.

I mentioned the dog running against Katherine Harris. The website is www.percyforcongress.org. Putting the lick back into Republican.

The US has finally admitted that it killed civilians in Afghanistan, but still seems to be insisting that its planes came under anti-aircraft fire from the wedding party.

Looking at both print and television news sources, I sometimes conclude that a picture is worth zero words. Yesterday or the day before the BBC ran film from that incident a couple of weeks back where Israeli tanks fired on civilians, killing many, including children. The film shows the tank having a clear view of who it was it fired on (of their backs anyway--they were running away at the time) at close range. Nothing in any newspaper since.