German insurance companies have decided to keep 1/4 of the fund for the Holocaust victims they previously stiffed, as “administration costs”. That idea was rubber-stamped by Lawrence Eagleburger--remember him? how could you forget when McNeil-Lehrer keeps dredging him out of his swamp to pontificate stupidly--who is chairman of the international commission, salary $340,000, part of those administration costs.
The Observer on a phenomenon I’ve been noticing more stories on, Israeli settlers terrorizing Palestinians, poisoning their water supplies, stealing their crops, killing them and generally trying to force them out. Possibly it’s just the stories that are new, since in the case they talk about, this has been going on for 5 years.
Bush, in a very Bush-like move, appoints William Webster, the 78-year old former head of the FBI & CIA, to be chairman of the new accounting oversight board. This makes it look like Bush is taking corporate fraud seriously by putting in charge a heavyweight--but one who will need to take a lot of naps.
Speaking of wrinklies, the Desperate Dems have been reaching for retired pols to fill the sudden gaps in important Congressional races--Mondale, Lauchtenburg--who will probably not be able to serve out their terms. Even if the Dems keep control of the Senate, they could lose it to demographics.
A large part of Kuwait was just declared a colony of the United States. Or a free-fire zone, depending on how you want to interpret it. In this area, US soldiers will build up for their war, out of the public eye, and all Kuwaiti citizens have been ordered to leave.
The Department of Agriculture has decided to allow irradiated meats in school, as part of a program of energy self-sufficiency, in which we save electricity by letting children be their own night-lights.
According to North Korea, it was actually Bush who abrogated the 1994 nuclear treaty, by saying that it was part of an axis of evil, which was, according to the North Koreans, a declaration of war and a statement of intent to hit them with a nuclear attack. Before resuming the treaty, they want a non-aggression pact in which the US promises not to launch a nuclear first strike against them. OK by me. There’s also something mentioned glancingly in the NY Times, that they also think the US ambassador has been interfering in the thaw of relations between the Koreas. It would be nice to know what was meant by that.
Some weeks back I asked why the US was insisting that a UN resolution on Iraq had to say that it had violated previous agreements. The answer: as a hidden tripwire that would allow the US to then say that Iraq had violated the 1991 cease-fire, justifying resuming the first Gulf War.
So if the US resolution is rejected and it goes to war anyway, going against the decision of the Security Council, shouldn’t its seat be taken away? Shouldn’t the minimum requirement for having standing to ask a body’s permission to do something be agreement to abide by its decision? Even the People’s Court tv show insists on that. “Heads I win, tails you lose” is not supposed to be one of the principles of international law.
Can’t wait to find out what “sleeping gas” the Russians used. They’re not letting the families near the hostages who are still in hospital, which I’m assuming is a sign of something nefarious. And the doctors aren’t being told what it is they’re treating, either. No one’s mentioned whether they’re releasing bodies, which if they’re not would be another sign. It now looks like very few of the 117 or so dead were shot, maybe 2 of them, the rest were all poisoned. That said, it’s hard to see what the alternative was, although Putin is still a shit, and is conducting a war of extermination against the Chechens, who haven’t been left much alternative either. The initial claim by the government that they acted because hostages were being shot is not actually true.
The German military attaché in Israel is holding a ceremony to honor SS and other World War II (and WW I) soldiers. So he invited some Israeli army officers along. This is not going over very well.
That law Berlusconi passed to allow him to challenge judges, take it to appeal and run out the clock? It seems members of his party in parliament voted illegally, pressing their absent neighbor’s button, or taping down their own button so the machine would vote in their absence.
Friday, October 25, 2002
I swear by God we are more keen on dying than you are keen on living
More news of remakes/sequels that should never be made: a remake of The Stepford Wives, starring Scientologist Nicole Kidman. There’s a creepy joke in there somewhere.
Another similarity between North Korea and Iraq: Iraq has ordered its diplomats to send their children back home as hostages to their loyalty, while N Korea only allowed the kidnapped Japanese--as if N Korea had a right to “allow” anything in relation to its victims--to visit Japan if their children stayed behind. (Later: Japan has decided to hold on to the 5). Incidentally, remember that kid in the photo with Saddam from before the 1st Gulf War, one of the foreign hostages? There was an interview with him in the London Sunday Times. He says that he was scared shitless, and is about to become a fireman.
We got trouble: Uzbekistan bans pool halls.
A completely over-the-top attack radio ad against Paul Wellstone (60 seconds).
[I wrote that before Wellstone died, but the ad is still worth a listen]
Wasn’t it Bush who said when he stole office that he wanted his staff to spend time with their families? Now he wants them to spend their vacation days stumping for R candidates.
The latest reality show, in planning, is The Will, in which a billionaire’s relatives vote each other out of his or her will.
Bahrain has the first elections in a Gulf state in which women are allowed to vote. Other than that, it’s not a great advertisement for democracy in the Arab world, with Shiites boycotting and Islamic fundies still managing to win a probable majority (there will be a second round).
So the sniper(s) have been caught. This is the guy who left a note saying “I am God.” Oh good, God is black, Muslim, pissed-off, and armed.
About Paul Wellstone’s death I have only this to say: fuck.
Another similarity between North Korea and Iraq: Iraq has ordered its diplomats to send their children back home as hostages to their loyalty, while N Korea only allowed the kidnapped Japanese--as if N Korea had a right to “allow” anything in relation to its victims--to visit Japan if their children stayed behind. (Later: Japan has decided to hold on to the 5). Incidentally, remember that kid in the photo with Saddam from before the 1st Gulf War, one of the foreign hostages? There was an interview with him in the London Sunday Times. He says that he was scared shitless, and is about to become a fireman.
We got trouble: Uzbekistan bans pool halls.
A completely over-the-top attack radio ad against Paul Wellstone (60 seconds).
[I wrote that before Wellstone died, but the ad is still worth a listen]
Wasn’t it Bush who said when he stole office that he wanted his staff to spend time with their families? Now he wants them to spend their vacation days stumping for R candidates.
The latest reality show, in planning, is The Will, in which a billionaire’s relatives vote each other out of his or her will.
Bahrain has the first elections in a Gulf state in which women are allowed to vote. Other than that, it’s not a great advertisement for democracy in the Arab world, with Shiites boycotting and Islamic fundies still managing to win a probable majority (there will be a second round).
So the sniper(s) have been caught. This is the guy who left a note saying “I am God.” Oh good, God is black, Muslim, pissed-off, and armed.
About Paul Wellstone’s death I have only this to say: fuck.
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Water intifada--would that be a super soaker?
A piece in the NY Times on how the US is training for urban warfare in Baghdad buries its lead rather deep: the model they’re using is the recent Israeli incursions into Jenin, as in “Massacre of”.
Some death penalty facts, in the week that the Supreme Court refused to deal with the execution of minors: About 70 countries have abolished it for all crimes, with a further 23 countries having a “de facto” abolition, with no executions in the past ten years. Since 1990, 34 countries have abolished the death penalty, including Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Turkmenistan.
And this week, the last territory under British rule, the Turks and Caicos islands, abolished it. The last execution in British territories was in 1977 in Bermuda, two men for the assassination of its governor.
Godfather IV. Please god no.
The US will release some of the Guantanamo prisoners. The harmless ones. Did you know we had an octogenarian in custody?
Israel has banned Palestinians drilling for water, accusing them of conducting a “water intifada.” Also, no picking of olives (this is the season for that), because they figured it was easier than to protect Palestinian pickers from attack by settlers.
Another downtrodden minority is organizing: the insane. I just for the first time saw this marvelous expression--“mad pride”--but I googled it and evidently it’s widespread.
Some death penalty facts, in the week that the Supreme Court refused to deal with the execution of minors: About 70 countries have abolished it for all crimes, with a further 23 countries having a “de facto” abolition, with no executions in the past ten years. Since 1990, 34 countries have abolished the death penalty, including Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Turkmenistan.
And this week, the last territory under British rule, the Turks and Caicos islands, abolished it. The last execution in British territories was in 1977 in Bermuda, two men for the assassination of its governor.
Godfather IV. Please god no.
The US will release some of the Guantanamo prisoners. The harmless ones. Did you know we had an octogenarian in custody?
Israel has banned Palestinians drilling for water, accusing them of conducting a “water intifada.” Also, no picking of olives (this is the season for that), because they figured it was easier than to protect Palestinian pickers from attack by settlers.
Another downtrodden minority is organizing: the insane. I just for the first time saw this marvelous expression--“mad pride”--but I googled it and evidently it’s widespread.
Tuesday, October 22, 2002
Free regime world change
Currently on auction at Christie’s: the employment log of a Turkish bath attendant on the Titanic. They decided that her wages terminated the second the ship went down. After all, she wasn’t working any more, now was she?
Last month a Canadian (with Syrian citizenship) was seized by the INS at Kennedy Airport, where he was actually just changing planes on his way back to Canada. He was then deported to Syria. That’s a man with a Canadian passport, who lives in Canada. And the US won’t share any of its alleged evidence with Canada. That was 3 weeks ago, and they can’t find him in Syria, where he is liable for arrest for missing his military service (he has lived in Canada since he was a teenager).
Dubya’s relationship with the English language is getting odder, if that’s possible. In the last couple of weeks he keeps talking about the “free world” taking on Iraq. I’d love to see a list of countries that constitute this free world. He also says that “regime change” could mean Iraq complying with Security Council diktats. So when he says “the policy of the United States is regime change”, it means what, exactly?
Today’s another day when the newspapers might as well be reporting from different planets. The NY Times has Bush saying that he was trying diplomacy over Iraq (another misuse of a word: issuing orders to be complied with without question, with the threat of military force behind those orders, is not diplomacy), while the London Times, which comes today from that alternative universe where Spock has a goatee, says that the US is promoting “zero tolerance” (a phrase to be found nowhere in today’s NY Times), meaning the slightest deviation by Iraq--a single weapons facility left off a list (and remember the US likes to define anything chemical, including drug factories and water purification plants, as potential dual-use facilities for chemical warfare), a delay of two hours in letting inspectors into some facility-- would lead to war.
There’s a good piece in today’s Wash Post on how Bush supports his policy with lies.
Speaking of lies, FAIR examines 10 media outlets (LA Times, AP, ABC, etc etc), comparing their 1998 reports of the UN pulling inspectors out of Iraq with current reports falsely claiming that Hussein kicked them out.
Saturday, October 19, 2002
Focus
The Vatican has vetoed the American bishops’ zero tolerance policy for child sexual abuse. One complaint was that the policy “did not give a more detailed description of abuse”. Oh just go out and buy your own porn.
Most condescending sentence from a court this week: a panel of the 6th Circuit, upholding drug testing of welfare recipients in Michigan, said "We think it is beyond cavil that the state has a special need to insure that public moneys expended [on welfare] are used by the recipients for their intended purposes."
If you missed it on the business pages, the Bush admin tried to torpedo the brand-new legislation on corporate fraud, proposing to underfund it by 27% less than the law authorized.
In the stories about North Korea, no one is really exploring whether the US kept its end of the 1994 agreement, but there are certainly hints that at the very least it was well behind schedule. We need to know more.
Dick Armey, trying to get in his last few stupid comments before leaving Congress, has found a new political role model: “Al Qaeda doesn’t have a Senate. Al Qaeda doesn’t have a Sen. Daschle who has another focus. Al Qaeda has a clear focus. Terrorizing America is the first and only focus.” Also cheese. They like cheese.
Maybe states just shouldn’t have poet laureates. New Jersey’s is being accused of anti-semitism, California’s just resigned because he fudged his resumé, said he finished college when he didn’t. Let me repeat: fudged his resumé, to be poet laureate. He hadn’t gone through the state senate confirmation process, either. Let me repeat: a senate confirmation process, to be poet laureate. What would that be like? “Mr. Troupe, can you tell this committee what rhymes with vanilla?” Could have been worse, I suppose; Davis could have appointed Johnny Cochrane (If the poet laureate-ship don’t fit, you must re-submit) or Nipsy Russell.
Not to agree with the anti-Europe nutters, but Ireland’s referendum today was a mockery of a fraud of a sham. Last year they rejected the Nice Treaty (Nice the place, not the condition of being pleasant) expanding the EU to the East but also shifting some power away from the member states towards the not hugely democratic EU government. So, as is always the case when the people don’t do what they’re told in relation to Europe, they were made to vote again today, and get it right this time. To be sure, Ireland scrapped rules requiring equal time on tv and a pro & con pamphlet delivered to every household, and changed the question to a compound one, did they want to ratify the Nice Treaty *and* reject membership in a European army. The contempt for democratic practice seems to be growing everywhere. If it weren’t for the ferret guy I’m not sure I’d even be voting next month.
Tokyo: For office jokers unsatisfied with photocopies of their bottoms, a Japanese company has developed a copier with a large plastic screen that can print images of the entire body with “warts and all” definition. It costs £57,000. (AFP)
Most condescending sentence from a court this week: a panel of the 6th Circuit, upholding drug testing of welfare recipients in Michigan, said "We think it is beyond cavil that the state has a special need to insure that public moneys expended [on welfare] are used by the recipients for their intended purposes."
If you missed it on the business pages, the Bush admin tried to torpedo the brand-new legislation on corporate fraud, proposing to underfund it by 27% less than the law authorized.
In the stories about North Korea, no one is really exploring whether the US kept its end of the 1994 agreement, but there are certainly hints that at the very least it was well behind schedule. We need to know more.
Dick Armey, trying to get in his last few stupid comments before leaving Congress, has found a new political role model: “Al Qaeda doesn’t have a Senate. Al Qaeda doesn’t have a Sen. Daschle who has another focus. Al Qaeda has a clear focus. Terrorizing America is the first and only focus.” Also cheese. They like cheese.
Maybe states just shouldn’t have poet laureates. New Jersey’s is being accused of anti-semitism, California’s just resigned because he fudged his resumé, said he finished college when he didn’t. Let me repeat: fudged his resumé, to be poet laureate. He hadn’t gone through the state senate confirmation process, either. Let me repeat: a senate confirmation process, to be poet laureate. What would that be like? “Mr. Troupe, can you tell this committee what rhymes with vanilla?” Could have been worse, I suppose; Davis could have appointed Johnny Cochrane (If the poet laureate-ship don’t fit, you must re-submit) or Nipsy Russell.
Not to agree with the anti-Europe nutters, but Ireland’s referendum today was a mockery of a fraud of a sham. Last year they rejected the Nice Treaty (Nice the place, not the condition of being pleasant) expanding the EU to the East but also shifting some power away from the member states towards the not hugely democratic EU government. So, as is always the case when the people don’t do what they’re told in relation to Europe, they were made to vote again today, and get it right this time. To be sure, Ireland scrapped rules requiring equal time on tv and a pro & con pamphlet delivered to every household, and changed the question to a compound one, did they want to ratify the Nice Treaty *and* reject membership in a European army. The contempt for democratic practice seems to be growing everywhere. If it weren’t for the ferret guy I’m not sure I’d even be voting next month.
Tokyo: For office jokers unsatisfied with photocopies of their bottoms, a Japanese company has developed a copier with a large plastic screen that can print images of the entire body with “warts and all” definition. It costs £57,000. (AFP)
Thursday, October 17, 2002
The real issue is values
A bible that sets itself on fire. Now if they can only do the same for the American flag.
Speaking of inspections of nuclear programs, North Korea agreed to those in an agreement signed with Clinton in 1994. It never allowed the inspections, and has just said it’s been violating the agreement, and has scrapped the agreement. If this doesn’t show the lack of rationale behind the Iraq war, indeed if the alliterative Bali bombing doesn’t show that terrorism is the greater threat, well I don’t know.
Indonesia has responded to the B.B. by returning to tyranny, with a new security agency and warrantless arrests and detention without trials. Um, just like us. The US will of course support this, just as it praised Malaysia for putting people in prison without trial or rights, and just as it just asked for a mild watering down of the sedition law China is making Hong Kong pass, contrary to the One Country, Two Systems promises. I noticed yesterday the Indonesians were saying that suspects were under “intense interrogation,” which was a) intended to be reassuring, b) impossible for anyone to deny meant torture.
The Dutch semi-fascists, and the government of which they were a coalition partner, fall apart.
A Hungarian couple have his and hers (now hers and his) sex-change operations.
At a wedding in Britain, the organist didn’t show up, so a guest played the Wedding March on his cell phone.
Man bites dog: the head of the Israeli press office accuses international media of being under the control of Palestinians. He also claims that Israeli government boycotts forced various foreign media (ABC, Wash Post, Guardian, Toronto Star) to withdraw correspondents the gov didn’t like. Mind you, he’s bragging about this.
Saddam Hussein wins his election by 100%, with a 100% turnout. 11,445,638, if you were wondering. "This is a unique manifestation of democracy which is superior to all other forms of democracies even in these countries which are besieging Iraq and trying to suffocate it." said Izzat Ibrahim, vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. Any Palm Beach joke would be superfluous at this point. Ibrahim added that every family would mobilize to fight the US: “Even a sheep-herder will have a role to play.” I’m trying to picture what that role would be. Any guesses?
Real life once again imitates the Simpsons. A baby “decoder” is on sale.
When the Justice Dept went after an Islamic charity for links to Al Qaida, indicting Enaam Arnaout for having acquired weapons in the 1980s, to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, they failed to mention who he acquired those weapons from. If you guessed the CIA, you are of course correct.
Evidently one reason the CIA failed to find Mullah Omar was that the picture they were using was someone else entirely. The guy in the wanted pictures they dropped all over Afghanistan is a) pissed, b) in hiding. Oh, and c) he has two eyes, unlike Omar. In the kingdom of the American intelligence community, the one-eyed man is king.
The Washington sniper has brought up the question of fingerprinting guns before selling them, recording their ballistics. Not surprisingly, the Bush admin is opposed, unconvinced about its reliability--in which case every conviction based on ballistics evidence should be immediately overturned. Ari Fleischer says “How many laws can we really have to stop crime, if people are determined . . . to violate them.” Didn’t know Ari was a Libertarian anarchist. He also said “in the case of the sniper, the real issue is values.” And talked about the privacy rights of law-abiding gun nuts. When R’s talk about privacy rights, it’s always about something stupid. Incidentally, whenever I renew my driver’s license, the DMV takes my fingerprints, so my privacy isn’t as important as that of a sniper rifle.
Since I wrote that, the government has had to U-turn, by which I mean promised to study the issue for eight or nine years.
Also, knock off the use of military spy planes in the sniper hunt. It’s illegal, and it’s a bad precedent, and I’d prefer that they not accidentally bomb any weddings.
A Michigan appeals court rules that a pregnant woman can use lethal force to defend her fetus when her own life is not endangered. I don’t know about lethal force, but there has to be some way to give greater legal protections to pregnant women without actually giving them to the fetus itself. We have hate crime laws--no wait, I’m against those, but it’s certainly a precedent.
Most sarcastic headline on Iraq’s referendum, from the Guardian:
“A nailbiting night in Baghdad Central”
From an online contest to name the next war:
I mentioned that Dick Armey targeted the Dallas Morning News in a rider to the military budget. A columnist from that paper, Dave Lieber, has a few ideas of his own for legislation:
Rummy Rumsfeld says that he believes North Korea already has several nukes. And he’s just getting around to mentioning this now. Guess it slipped his mind.
What did the North Koreans mean when they said they also had “more powerful things”? Presumably biological and/or chemical weapons. So there should have been a public eruption today in Washington. But there wasn’t. Still as Ari Fleischer said, "What is different is the unique history of Iraq. Different policies work in different parts of the world, and different doctrines work at different times and in different regions because of the local circumstances." Actually, I tricked you. That quote was about why pre-emption was fine for the US, but not for India against Pakistan.
The Daily Show explained why we’re going after Saddam Hussein but not Kim Jong Il: you can’t bomb a man with glasses.
The Pakistani Islamicist coalition that did so well in the elections has named as its PM candidate Fazlur Rehman, a man who called in 1998 for the killing of Americans if the US bombings in Afghanistan killed his hero, a fellow named Osama.
Perhaps it shouldn’t, but I find my sympathy for the Australian victims of the Bali Bombing diminishing as they’re all whisked home to top-rate burn clinics, and the Balinese are leaving hospital untreated because they can’t afford it. (This is combined with Australia’s generally awful history in relation to Indonesia and the fact, which I mentioned but which is unheard in the US media, that the nightclub excluded natives, and the reprisals against Muslim institutions in Australia).
Indonesia will introduce an “emergency death penalty” for terrorists by presidential decree.
As a historian, I could only hope to live in a country where it was possible for the work of a historian to really piss people off. A historian’s suggestion that Philip of Macedon (Alexander the Great’s father) was killed by a jealous gay lover set off demonstrations in Salonika by Greek nationalists.
Congress finally passes a bill to reform election counts, but probably won’t bother fully funding it, and the R’s got what they wanted, ID checks and the use of DMV and Social Security records to deal with the nearly non-existent problem of voter fraud, but which will somehow be implemented in such a way as to disfranchise minority voters.
The judge in the case of those Florida boys convicted of killing their father overturned the verdict. Here’s another detail which should but won’t be used in the disbarment of the DA involved in the case: he planned, if he got convictions both of the boys and the other guy, to ask that the latter be set aside. That is, he acknowledges that he went into court arguing a position he did not believe to be true.
Tom Tancredo, the Congressman for the district including Columbine, has said that his promise not to take money from gun groups wasn’t a real promise (“didn’t rise to the level of a pledge”), and has taken a contribution from the NRA. Tancredo, who doesn’t rise to the level of pond scum, is also one of those who promised to limit himself to 2 terms. He is running for his third term.
From an AP story: A Modesto man has died after his wife held him down and bit him repeatedly when he refused to have sex with her, police said.
Speaking of inspections of nuclear programs, North Korea agreed to those in an agreement signed with Clinton in 1994. It never allowed the inspections, and has just said it’s been violating the agreement, and has scrapped the agreement. If this doesn’t show the lack of rationale behind the Iraq war, indeed if the alliterative Bali bombing doesn’t show that terrorism is the greater threat, well I don’t know.
Indonesia has responded to the B.B. by returning to tyranny, with a new security agency and warrantless arrests and detention without trials. Um, just like us. The US will of course support this, just as it praised Malaysia for putting people in prison without trial or rights, and just as it just asked for a mild watering down of the sedition law China is making Hong Kong pass, contrary to the One Country, Two Systems promises. I noticed yesterday the Indonesians were saying that suspects were under “intense interrogation,” which was a) intended to be reassuring, b) impossible for anyone to deny meant torture.
The Dutch semi-fascists, and the government of which they were a coalition partner, fall apart.
A Hungarian couple have his and hers (now hers and his) sex-change operations.
At a wedding in Britain, the organist didn’t show up, so a guest played the Wedding March on his cell phone.
Man bites dog: the head of the Israeli press office accuses international media of being under the control of Palestinians. He also claims that Israeli government boycotts forced various foreign media (ABC, Wash Post, Guardian, Toronto Star) to withdraw correspondents the gov didn’t like. Mind you, he’s bragging about this.
Saddam Hussein wins his election by 100%, with a 100% turnout. 11,445,638, if you were wondering. "This is a unique manifestation of democracy which is superior to all other forms of democracies even in these countries which are besieging Iraq and trying to suffocate it." said Izzat Ibrahim, vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. Any Palm Beach joke would be superfluous at this point. Ibrahim added that every family would mobilize to fight the US: “Even a sheep-herder will have a role to play.” I’m trying to picture what that role would be. Any guesses?
Real life once again imitates the Simpsons. A baby “decoder” is on sale.
When the Justice Dept went after an Islamic charity for links to Al Qaida, indicting Enaam Arnaout for having acquired weapons in the 1980s, to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, they failed to mention who he acquired those weapons from. If you guessed the CIA, you are of course correct.
Evidently one reason the CIA failed to find Mullah Omar was that the picture they were using was someone else entirely. The guy in the wanted pictures they dropped all over Afghanistan is a) pissed, b) in hiding. Oh, and c) he has two eyes, unlike Omar. In the kingdom of the American intelligence community, the one-eyed man is king.
The Washington sniper has brought up the question of fingerprinting guns before selling them, recording their ballistics. Not surprisingly, the Bush admin is opposed, unconvinced about its reliability--in which case every conviction based on ballistics evidence should be immediately overturned. Ari Fleischer says “How many laws can we really have to stop crime, if people are determined . . . to violate them.” Didn’t know Ari was a Libertarian anarchist. He also said “in the case of the sniper, the real issue is values.” And talked about the privacy rights of law-abiding gun nuts. When R’s talk about privacy rights, it’s always about something stupid. Incidentally, whenever I renew my driver’s license, the DMV takes my fingerprints, so my privacy isn’t as important as that of a sniper rifle.
Since I wrote that, the government has had to U-turn, by which I mean promised to study the issue for eight or nine years.
Also, knock off the use of military spy planes in the sniper hunt. It’s illegal, and it’s a bad precedent, and I’d prefer that they not accidentally bomb any weddings.
A Michigan appeals court rules that a pregnant woman can use lethal force to defend her fetus when her own life is not endangered. I don’t know about lethal force, but there has to be some way to give greater legal protections to pregnant women without actually giving them to the fetus itself. We have hate crime laws--no wait, I’m against those, but it’s certainly a precedent.
Most sarcastic headline on Iraq’s referendum, from the Guardian:
“A nailbiting night in Baghdad Central”
From an online contest to name the next war:
- Operation: You Tried to Kill My Dad
- Operation My Name is Inigo Montoya
- Dubya Dubya III
- The Empire Strikes First
- Operation Vietnam Redux
- World War W
- “Fool my Dad once...shame on...um...Fool me the second time...uh...Hell, I'm goin' to Texas."
I mentioned that Dick Armey targeted the Dallas Morning News in a rider to the military budget. A columnist from that paper, Dave Lieber, has a few ideas of his own for legislation:
• The Mispronounced Name Amendment: Applies to any congressional leader who in 1995 referred to an openly gay congressman with a term that rhymes with rag. The leader shall be forced to wear, for an entire year, a rainbow-colored tie with the words "Ask me what my first name is."
• The Fool-Me-Twice-Shame-on-You Amendment: Applies to any congressional leader who apologized for the above incident and then in 2000 made another derogatory joke about the same congressman. The leader shall be forced to do aerobics exercises with Richard Simmons on live television.
• The Failed Coup Amendment: Pertains to any top House leader who tried to orchestrate the ouster in 1997 of his boss, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and, when asked about it later, did not tell the truth about his role. The leader shall be forced to tell the story of George Washington and the cherry tree to every first-grader in Flower Mound.
• The Thanks for the Memories Amendment: Applies to any congressional leader who spread a false report on the House floor that comedian Bob Hope had died. The leader shall be forced to serve as an unpaid intern for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., for no less than one year.
• The False Pretenses Fund-raiser: Relates to any congressional leader who had a fund-raiser for his re- election campaign on Dec. 6 with Vice President Dick Cheney in Dallas, then announced six days later that he had no intention of running again. The leader shall repay, with interest, the more than $400,000 his campaign received from contributors.
• The Misleading Signs Amendment: Pertains to any congressional leader whose son has lost a primary to replace him in Congress. If supporters put up signs stating "Support the Armey Flat Tax" to confuse voters into thinking that the father was running for re-election, the congressional leader shall remove the nails from each wood stake using his front teeth.
• The Father-Son Nepotism Amendment: Relates to any congressman who helped get his son a job as the regional administrator for the General Services Administration in a city whose name is Fort Worth. If the father and son said afterward that the son got the plum patronage job on his own merits, then the congressional leader shall be forced to tell the story of George Washington and the cherry tree to every second-grader in Flower Mound.
Rummy Rumsfeld says that he believes North Korea already has several nukes. And he’s just getting around to mentioning this now. Guess it slipped his mind.
What did the North Koreans mean when they said they also had “more powerful things”? Presumably biological and/or chemical weapons. So there should have been a public eruption today in Washington. But there wasn’t. Still as Ari Fleischer said, "What is different is the unique history of Iraq. Different policies work in different parts of the world, and different doctrines work at different times and in different regions because of the local circumstances." Actually, I tricked you. That quote was about why pre-emption was fine for the US, but not for India against Pakistan.
The Daily Show explained why we’re going after Saddam Hussein but not Kim Jong Il: you can’t bomb a man with glasses.
The Pakistani Islamicist coalition that did so well in the elections has named as its PM candidate Fazlur Rehman, a man who called in 1998 for the killing of Americans if the US bombings in Afghanistan killed his hero, a fellow named Osama.
Perhaps it shouldn’t, but I find my sympathy for the Australian victims of the Bali Bombing diminishing as they’re all whisked home to top-rate burn clinics, and the Balinese are leaving hospital untreated because they can’t afford it. (This is combined with Australia’s generally awful history in relation to Indonesia and the fact, which I mentioned but which is unheard in the US media, that the nightclub excluded natives, and the reprisals against Muslim institutions in Australia).
Indonesia will introduce an “emergency death penalty” for terrorists by presidential decree.
As a historian, I could only hope to live in a country where it was possible for the work of a historian to really piss people off. A historian’s suggestion that Philip of Macedon (Alexander the Great’s father) was killed by a jealous gay lover set off demonstrations in Salonika by Greek nationalists.
Congress finally passes a bill to reform election counts, but probably won’t bother fully funding it, and the R’s got what they wanted, ID checks and the use of DMV and Social Security records to deal with the nearly non-existent problem of voter fraud, but which will somehow be implemented in such a way as to disfranchise minority voters.
The judge in the case of those Florida boys convicted of killing their father overturned the verdict. Here’s another detail which should but won’t be used in the disbarment of the DA involved in the case: he planned, if he got convictions both of the boys and the other guy, to ask that the latter be set aside. That is, he acknowledges that he went into court arguing a position he did not believe to be true.
Tom Tancredo, the Congressman for the district including Columbine, has said that his promise not to take money from gun groups wasn’t a real promise (“didn’t rise to the level of a pledge”), and has taken a contribution from the NRA. Tancredo, who doesn’t rise to the level of pond scum, is also one of those who promised to limit himself to 2 terms. He is running for his third term.
From an AP story: A Modesto man has died after his wife held him down and bit him repeatedly when he refused to have sex with her, police said.
Monday, October 14, 2002
Making the world safe for petroleocracy
Some clown in the Indonesian government with a really short memory says that the bombing of the Bali nightclub was the worst incidence of terror in Indonesia’s history. Unless you count the million dead Chinese and/or Communists in the 1960s, or genocide in East Timor, Acheh, or the Japanese occupation, or Dutch colonialism, then yeah Indonesia has been a paradise until now. Incidentally, the reason so many foreign tourists died was because Indonesians weren’t allowed to go in.
The constant refrain of Hitler analogies during last week’s war resolution debates was bad enough, but the references to the Cuban Missile Crisis were just plain bizarre, considering how close the world came to reenacting the last scene of Dr Strangelove (sorry, pre-enacting; the movie came out in ‘63). I meant to comment on that last week but forgot; today I can add that we came closer even than we thought. A Russian naval officer now says that during the height of the crisis, a US destroyer dropped depth charges on a Soviet submarine, without realizing it had a nucyular weapon on board. The crew believed WW III had started, and discussed launching the weapon, a nucyular torpedo, which would have required the approval of 3 officers. So today’s hero is the one who voted no, one Arkhipov. This was the day before Russia backed down over Cuba.
OK, I’ll stop misspelling nuclear now. Just twice and it’s already getting on my nerves.
Bush says that the US would “never seek to impose our culture or our form of government” on Iraq. Well I’m sure they’re breathing a sigh of relief that they won’t be forced to line dance and listen to country music (although I understand Donald Rumsfeld has commissioned the Dixie Chicks to write a new national anthem for Iraq) and their children won’t have to memorize A Very Hungry Caterpillar as if it were the Little Red Book. Sadly, I think he’s lying about the form of government thing, since their future, like ours, is to be a vassal of Exxon-Mobil under what I’ve just now decided to call a petroleocracy.
It took about 3 days after the first reports that the Bush admin was sabotaging discussions to create a commission to investigate the intelligence failures of 9/11 for the actual details to emerge. Bush wants the commission to have a Republican majority, not split evenly, and with no subpoena powers for the D’s acting alone. Also there may have been something about not inspecting presidential palaces.
Speaking of which, the latest Iraqi “obstructionism” on inspections turns out to be nothing more than that they won’t guarantee anyone’s safety in the areas of the American no-fly zone, and don’t want to pay for all the protection and ancillary services of the inspectors, both of which seem fair.
Remember the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes 30 years ago and they ate each other? The 14 survivors just went back to Chile to play the match they had been going to. They won. Which just goes to show vegetarians have it all wrong. No story mentions how the team got to Chile.
Well it’s another Indigenous Peoples Day, so don’t kill any wooden Indians.
The constant refrain of Hitler analogies during last week’s war resolution debates was bad enough, but the references to the Cuban Missile Crisis were just plain bizarre, considering how close the world came to reenacting the last scene of Dr Strangelove (sorry, pre-enacting; the movie came out in ‘63). I meant to comment on that last week but forgot; today I can add that we came closer even than we thought. A Russian naval officer now says that during the height of the crisis, a US destroyer dropped depth charges on a Soviet submarine, without realizing it had a nucyular weapon on board. The crew believed WW III had started, and discussed launching the weapon, a nucyular torpedo, which would have required the approval of 3 officers. So today’s hero is the one who voted no, one Arkhipov. This was the day before Russia backed down over Cuba.
OK, I’ll stop misspelling nuclear now. Just twice and it’s already getting on my nerves.
Bush says that the US would “never seek to impose our culture or our form of government” on Iraq. Well I’m sure they’re breathing a sigh of relief that they won’t be forced to line dance and listen to country music (although I understand Donald Rumsfeld has commissioned the Dixie Chicks to write a new national anthem for Iraq) and their children won’t have to memorize A Very Hungry Caterpillar as if it were the Little Red Book. Sadly, I think he’s lying about the form of government thing, since their future, like ours, is to be a vassal of Exxon-Mobil under what I’ve just now decided to call a petroleocracy.
It took about 3 days after the first reports that the Bush admin was sabotaging discussions to create a commission to investigate the intelligence failures of 9/11 for the actual details to emerge. Bush wants the commission to have a Republican majority, not split evenly, and with no subpoena powers for the D’s acting alone. Also there may have been something about not inspecting presidential palaces.
Speaking of which, the latest Iraqi “obstructionism” on inspections turns out to be nothing more than that they won’t guarantee anyone’s safety in the areas of the American no-fly zone, and don’t want to pay for all the protection and ancillary services of the inspectors, both of which seem fair.
Remember the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes 30 years ago and they ate each other? The 14 survivors just went back to Chile to play the match they had been going to. They won. Which just goes to show vegetarians have it all wrong. No story mentions how the team got to Chile.
Well it’s another Indigenous Peoples Day, so don’t kill any wooden Indians.
Sunday, October 13, 2002
Speaking of chemical warfare being waged on the Iraqi people, it seems that American tobacco companies (RJ Reynolds, Philip Morris) have been involved in the smuggling of billions of cigarettes into Iraq in violation of sanctions, to say nothing of tax law (which is why the EU is suing). The financial beneficiary is Uday Hussein, who runs the operation. Although there is a lot of talk about connections between drugs and terrorism, nobody mentions cigarettes, which are big money-earners for Hezbollah and many others.
Now that we’re courting Iran, no one is willing to mention the return of the religious police, public stonings, a great increase in public executions, amputations, blindings, etc.
Still, I’m hoping the mullahs stay in power long enough to issue a fatwah against Jerry Falwell, who managed to apologize for calling Mohamed a terrorist without making a single mention of the 9 dead in India in the protests about his remarks (only in India could a statement by an American Christian “reverend” set off fighting between Hindus and Muslims. Although there were those riots when Falwell said the Teletubbies were gay. Well, ok, maybe not, but wouldn’t it have been cool?)
Speaking of odd theology, what if the Maryland sniper really is God? Just asking.
NYT on why people mispronounce nuclear.
Now that we’re courting Iran, no one is willing to mention the return of the religious police, public stonings, a great increase in public executions, amputations, blindings, etc.
Still, I’m hoping the mullahs stay in power long enough to issue a fatwah against Jerry Falwell, who managed to apologize for calling Mohamed a terrorist without making a single mention of the 9 dead in India in the protests about his remarks (only in India could a statement by an American Christian “reverend” set off fighting between Hindus and Muslims. Although there were those riots when Falwell said the Teletubbies were gay. Well, ok, maybe not, but wouldn’t it have been cool?)
Speaking of odd theology, what if the Maryland sniper really is God? Just asking.
NYT on why people mispronounce nuclear.
Friday, October 11, 2002
But is it art?
Another poll, from the Pew Research Center, says that 66% believe Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11, and 86% believe he has or nearly has nukes. This country really does have the “president” it deserves. But note that it also says that 85% believe that Saddam has to be ousted for the war to be a success; winning the war that many in Congress claimed to be voting for, the war for UN resolutions and disarmament, would be considered a failure.
Found the Montana hairdresser ad. Very amusing.
The Bushies intend to rule Iraq through the US military rather than through a government of the existing opposition, a tacit admission of how badly they screwed up Afghanistan. Actually I’d prefer a Douglas MacArthur-style military occupation to a cobbled-together bunch of puppets and losers such as the existing opposition forces. Still, we gotta leave some time, and it doesn’t look good. A coalition of ethnic and religious groups will fall apart when no one’s around to knock heads together, leading either to Afghan-style warlordism or Iran-style Shia loonyism.
Speaking of which, how ‘bout them Pakistani elections? I admit I didn’t see it coming, but Musharaf must have done. After all, he hobbled the semi-democratic parties and generally put his thumb on the scales, so if the balance of power is held by Islamic fundies, he must have wanted it that way, or at least not minded. The president of the 6-party Islamic coalition group has a manifesto that begins with making everyone fear Allah and goes on to removing from the tv all “singing by prostitutes and dancing girls,” which I guess is very big over there after Seinfeld reruns, and hell, a ban on all singing and dancing, and instead, jihad all the time. Yes, I am quoting. They aren’t yet talking about banning kites, as far as I know, but it’s only a matter of time.
Where they really did well was in the two provinces bordering Afghanistan, which means an end to turning over Al Qaeda & Talibanis, they’ve said as much. So far the Bushies are just saying they accept the results of a, cough, democratic election, but with really sickly looks on their faces. If this gets out (not that it will, given the ignorance shown by the polling above), some of the rationale for invading Iraq but not Pakistan must surely be in doubt.
What hasn’t gotten much play is the story that a deal is near on UN resolutions on Iraq. There will be one written so vaguely that France and Russia can say it doesn’t authorize military action, and would require another resolution, and the US can say allows force without one. If this happens, I want the UN disbanded.
One of Bush’s nominees for a federal district judgeship in Texas, who has been confirmed but not technically given office, has decided, against all ethical rules, to postpone it and continue in the Texas Legislature for a bit, to make sure the R’s get to choose their own speaker. When I say ethical rules, I mean the rules for judges, I’m not sure there are any ethical rules for the Texas Lege.
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is practically taunting the CIA to stage another coup against him. He appointed the brother of Carlos the Jackal as director of energy (i.e., oil, so you know the Bushies are paying attention). Oddly enough, Carlos in 1975 burst into an OPEC meeting and held a bunch of oil ministers (including Venezuela’s) hostage.
Harry Belafonte criticized Colin Powell as a house slave. Guardian headline: Belafonte Told to Stick to Day-O Job
Can’t wait for Sunday when C-SPAN will run Iain Duncan Smith’s speech to the Tory Party conference, where everybody was paying so much more attention to the old John Major-Edwina Currie fuckfest. IDS, the least likely John Wayne lookalike, proclaimed himself the Quiet Man (“do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man”). As some have pointed out since, he really has a great deal to be quiet about.
From the Daily Telegraph: Two zoo keepers in Recklinghausen, north-west Germany, are being investigated by police for eating chickens and sheep from the zoo's petting area.
Christian toys, including
Item # (3a) Calvary Hill-complete with 3 removable crosses and roll-away stone. >>$10.75 ea.
Yes, let your children reenact the crucifixion. Suitable for ages 4 to 9, they say. (scroll about half-way down).
Speaking of childhood trauma, from the Sydney Morning Herald:
Found the Montana hairdresser ad. Very amusing.
The Bushies intend to rule Iraq through the US military rather than through a government of the existing opposition, a tacit admission of how badly they screwed up Afghanistan. Actually I’d prefer a Douglas MacArthur-style military occupation to a cobbled-together bunch of puppets and losers such as the existing opposition forces. Still, we gotta leave some time, and it doesn’t look good. A coalition of ethnic and religious groups will fall apart when no one’s around to knock heads together, leading either to Afghan-style warlordism or Iran-style Shia loonyism.
Speaking of which, how ‘bout them Pakistani elections? I admit I didn’t see it coming, but Musharaf must have done. After all, he hobbled the semi-democratic parties and generally put his thumb on the scales, so if the balance of power is held by Islamic fundies, he must have wanted it that way, or at least not minded. The president of the 6-party Islamic coalition group has a manifesto that begins with making everyone fear Allah and goes on to removing from the tv all “singing by prostitutes and dancing girls,” which I guess is very big over there after Seinfeld reruns, and hell, a ban on all singing and dancing, and instead, jihad all the time. Yes, I am quoting. They aren’t yet talking about banning kites, as far as I know, but it’s only a matter of time.
Where they really did well was in the two provinces bordering Afghanistan, which means an end to turning over Al Qaeda & Talibanis, they’ve said as much. So far the Bushies are just saying they accept the results of a, cough, democratic election, but with really sickly looks on their faces. If this gets out (not that it will, given the ignorance shown by the polling above), some of the rationale for invading Iraq but not Pakistan must surely be in doubt.
What hasn’t gotten much play is the story that a deal is near on UN resolutions on Iraq. There will be one written so vaguely that France and Russia can say it doesn’t authorize military action, and would require another resolution, and the US can say allows force without one. If this happens, I want the UN disbanded.
One of Bush’s nominees for a federal district judgeship in Texas, who has been confirmed but not technically given office, has decided, against all ethical rules, to postpone it and continue in the Texas Legislature for a bit, to make sure the R’s get to choose their own speaker. When I say ethical rules, I mean the rules for judges, I’m not sure there are any ethical rules for the Texas Lege.
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is practically taunting the CIA to stage another coup against him. He appointed the brother of Carlos the Jackal as director of energy (i.e., oil, so you know the Bushies are paying attention). Oddly enough, Carlos in 1975 burst into an OPEC meeting and held a bunch of oil ministers (including Venezuela’s) hostage.
Harry Belafonte criticized Colin Powell as a house slave. Guardian headline: Belafonte Told to Stick to Day-O Job
Can’t wait for Sunday when C-SPAN will run Iain Duncan Smith’s speech to the Tory Party conference, where everybody was paying so much more attention to the old John Major-Edwina Currie fuckfest. IDS, the least likely John Wayne lookalike, proclaimed himself the Quiet Man (“do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man”). As some have pointed out since, he really has a great deal to be quiet about.
From the Daily Telegraph: Two zoo keepers in Recklinghausen, north-west Germany, are being investigated by police for eating chickens and sheep from the zoo's petting area.
Christian toys, including
Item # (3a) Calvary Hill-complete with 3 removable crosses and roll-away stone. >>$10.75 ea.
Yes, let your children reenact the crucifixion. Suitable for ages 4 to 9, they say. (scroll about half-way down).
Speaking of childhood trauma, from the Sydney Morning Herald:
NZ court rules against porn movie birth
October 11 2002
A High Court judge today issued an injunction preventing the labour and birth of a child being filmed for a pornographic movie.
Justice Heath issued the injunction in the High Court at Hamilton. The woman, who can be identified only as "Nikki", is due to give birth on November 26, but was admitted to Waikato Hospital this week with complications.
Child, Youth and Family wants guardianship of her unborn child and a court order preventing the filming of the birth.
The court's decision is regarded as a landmark one and the government's deputy solicitor general, Helen Aikman, acted on behalf of the department.
She told the court, "It is increasingly common to videotape birth. The key difference here is the intention to shoot the film for pornographic purposes, not for personal or educational use," the Waikato Times newspaper reported.
"The thought of a baby being in a porn movie is likely to be highly offensive to a person of normal sensibilities," Aikman said.
"It is an unnecessary impediment to put on a child growing up, knowing it has been in a porn movie. The baby is likely to be harmed merely by association with this film."
To the extent to which I should have said 'purported,' I accept that
Iran has been making its own cola drink, Zam Zam, which is now being drunk all over the Middle East as a sign of opposition to US imperialism. A French Muslim is to launch Mecca Cola, while sales of Coke have dropped 20-40% in some countries. When I was in East Berlin in 1983, dropping off some microfilm, I mean just being a tourist, just an innocent tourist, I had me some of that “Commie Cola,” and it was truly atrocious.
Reenacting one of the oldest clichés, an Israeli man in a hotel orders up a call girl and its... his own daughter! He has a heart attack. And his wife is going to divorce him.
How many Congresscritters, especially D’s, just voted for a war they didn’t believe in, in order to get reelected. Remember what Madeleine Albright said about Iraqi children killed by US sanctions, that it was a price worth paying? Maybe that should be Congress’s new motto. Maybe we should put it on the money, in place of In God We Trust.
Bush told Chirac, “If you want to avoid war, vote for a strong resolution.” You know, a resolution for war.
Here’s a depressing sentence, from the Post: “House members, too, declared they had discussed the issue long enough. Rep. J.C. Watts (Okla.), the Republican caucus chairman, said the two days of debate were ‘more than we debated Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo combined.’” That’s enough democracy, now back to the imperial presidency, already in progress. Of course Bush failed to ask for network time because even he would rather watch Drew Carey than his own speech. Now it’s all over and Bush can get on with two solid weeks of fund-raising, as can the rest of them. Remember how everyone made fun of Jimmy Carter for the “Rose Garden strategy in 1980,” where he refused to campaign because there was a “national crisis?”
I heard at least one member of Congress say we were not just “liberating” Iraq, but giving them democracy. If this is the best we can do (and our great ally Tony Blair is about to suspend representative democracy in Northern Ireland, by the way), and I’m not even gonna mention Florida again, why would they want it?
Speaking of which, the Republican running for Senate against Max Baucus of Montana just dropped out because Baucus ran commercials depicting him as gay and corrupt and gay, or at any rate as a former owner of beauty shops who used to give beauty tips on tv in Denver. I can’t find this commercial at Baucus’s website, although I sat through 3 of them. If anyone has any ideas...
The Washington Post has an article about the Missouri Senate race, which is evidently dead even, without mentioning its significance: if the R beats Jean Carnahan (the widow of the dead man that beat John Ashcroft in 2000), he takes over the office in November, not January, and the Senate shifts back from D to R.
Speaking of dead men running for office, here in the gubernatorial election, in Monday’s debate, the Republican with two first names accused the Democratic governor with two last names of breaking the law by taking campaign donations in his Lite Gov office nearly 5 years ago, and Simon had the pictures to prove it. Except the guy handing him the check denied it. And it didn’t look anything like the Lt Gov office. And it was a Saturday so the building was closed. And Davis’s schedule, which was in the public realm, showed him in another part of the state. Simon took several days even to admit he got it wrong, without of course apologizing, because no one in politics ever apologizes. After denying he ever called the photo “proof,” this is what he said: "To the extent to which I should have said 'purported,' I accept that." (which is as close as he gets to an apology, which isn’t very close). This guy used to be a prosecutor. But under Guiliani, which explains it. Actually, the charge originated in one of those fake organizations purporting to be cops, whose purpose is to take donations in order to endorse candidates.
Simon’s most recent commercial actually praises his great business skill, and how he created many jobs (mostly lawyers trying to keep him out of jail for exercising his great business skill) (actually he did create jobs; but none of them are still around), and says that he isn’t perfect. The last California candidate who said he wasn’t perfect was Gary Condit.
The number of police car chases in LA has gone up 40% in the last 3 years, and down in the rest of the state. In other words, those people are just trying to get on tv. But what they really want to do, is direct.
Trying to find people to vote for tonight, reading websites. The Libertarians, by the way, have fired their gubernatorial candidate and are running a write-in. I’d hoped to be able to vote for a Libertarian for Congress, as Ellen Tauscher just supported the war on Iraq after saying she wasn’t really sure about it but what the hell, and there is only a Libbie against her. Who’s one of those who believe that the income tax amendment wasn’t properly ratified, yadda yadda yadda, and we should go back to gold and silver money. And whose website spawned several pop-up ads, which I suppose is Libertarianism in action. I’ve also found out why the Libbie Lite Gov candidate’s ferret was euthanasized: he took it to a rally for legalizing ferret ownership--and it bit a tv cameraman.
Reenacting one of the oldest clichés, an Israeli man in a hotel orders up a call girl and its... his own daughter! He has a heart attack. And his wife is going to divorce him.
How many Congresscritters, especially D’s, just voted for a war they didn’t believe in, in order to get reelected. Remember what Madeleine Albright said about Iraqi children killed by US sanctions, that it was a price worth paying? Maybe that should be Congress’s new motto. Maybe we should put it on the money, in place of In God We Trust.
Bush told Chirac, “If you want to avoid war, vote for a strong resolution.” You know, a resolution for war.
Here’s a depressing sentence, from the Post: “House members, too, declared they had discussed the issue long enough. Rep. J.C. Watts (Okla.), the Republican caucus chairman, said the two days of debate were ‘more than we debated Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo combined.’” That’s enough democracy, now back to the imperial presidency, already in progress. Of course Bush failed to ask for network time because even he would rather watch Drew Carey than his own speech. Now it’s all over and Bush can get on with two solid weeks of fund-raising, as can the rest of them. Remember how everyone made fun of Jimmy Carter for the “Rose Garden strategy in 1980,” where he refused to campaign because there was a “national crisis?”
I heard at least one member of Congress say we were not just “liberating” Iraq, but giving them democracy. If this is the best we can do (and our great ally Tony Blair is about to suspend representative democracy in Northern Ireland, by the way), and I’m not even gonna mention Florida again, why would they want it?
Speaking of which, the Republican running for Senate against Max Baucus of Montana just dropped out because Baucus ran commercials depicting him as gay and corrupt and gay, or at any rate as a former owner of beauty shops who used to give beauty tips on tv in Denver. I can’t find this commercial at Baucus’s website, although I sat through 3 of them. If anyone has any ideas...
The Washington Post has an article about the Missouri Senate race, which is evidently dead even, without mentioning its significance: if the R beats Jean Carnahan (the widow of the dead man that beat John Ashcroft in 2000), he takes over the office in November, not January, and the Senate shifts back from D to R.
Speaking of dead men running for office, here in the gubernatorial election, in Monday’s debate, the Republican with two first names accused the Democratic governor with two last names of breaking the law by taking campaign donations in his Lite Gov office nearly 5 years ago, and Simon had the pictures to prove it. Except the guy handing him the check denied it. And it didn’t look anything like the Lt Gov office. And it was a Saturday so the building was closed. And Davis’s schedule, which was in the public realm, showed him in another part of the state. Simon took several days even to admit he got it wrong, without of course apologizing, because no one in politics ever apologizes. After denying he ever called the photo “proof,” this is what he said: "To the extent to which I should have said 'purported,' I accept that." (which is as close as he gets to an apology, which isn’t very close). This guy used to be a prosecutor. But under Guiliani, which explains it. Actually, the charge originated in one of those fake organizations purporting to be cops, whose purpose is to take donations in order to endorse candidates.
Simon’s most recent commercial actually praises his great business skill, and how he created many jobs (mostly lawyers trying to keep him out of jail for exercising his great business skill) (actually he did create jobs; but none of them are still around), and says that he isn’t perfect. The last California candidate who said he wasn’t perfect was Gary Condit.
The number of police car chases in LA has gone up 40% in the last 3 years, and down in the rest of the state. In other words, those people are just trying to get on tv. But what they really want to do, is direct.
Trying to find people to vote for tonight, reading websites. The Libertarians, by the way, have fired their gubernatorial candidate and are running a write-in. I’d hoped to be able to vote for a Libertarian for Congress, as Ellen Tauscher just supported the war on Iraq after saying she wasn’t really sure about it but what the hell, and there is only a Libbie against her. Who’s one of those who believe that the income tax amendment wasn’t properly ratified, yadda yadda yadda, and we should go back to gold and silver money. And whose website spawned several pop-up ads, which I suppose is Libertarianism in action. I’ve also found out why the Libbie Lite Gov candidate’s ferret was euthanasized: he took it to a rally for legalizing ferret ownership--and it bit a tv cameraman.
Thursday, October 10, 2002
Quantum arcology
Dick Armey, who blames the Dallas Morning News for the failure of his son’s attempt to get into Congress, secretly inserted a provision into a military spending bill that would have forced its parent company to sell it (or a tv station in Dallas).
A list of the top 10 US mistakes of the Afghan War.
North Korea will kindly allow the 5 Japanese citizens it kidnapped (excluding all the mysteriously “dead” ones and the ones they won’t admit to) to visit Japan. It will hold their children as hostages in the meanwhile.
Maureen Dowd reports (leaving the question why it wasn’t in the main news section rather than the op-ed pages of the NY Times) on Bush’s choice to chair the FDA panel on women’s health policy. Ok, a man, I mean, that was a given. But also a Christian loon (one W. David Hager), who is against single women having sex because it’s a sin and has written a book on using the healing power of Christ to treat headaches, PMS and ungodly sex, thinks IUDs as well as abortions are evil, organized a Christian petition against RU-486, etc. Add to this the policy of abolishing or radically changing any scientific advisory panel likely to report inconvenient facts, say on global warming, and you have a policy of distorting the work of bodies that are supposed to be producing objective information. Makes you wonder about the “intelligence” about the danger from Iraq, doesn’t it? Well, yes indeedy, there is “intense pressure” on the intelligence agencies, according to this Houston Chronicle story. Not a great story, but it includes discussion of the evidence Rumsfeld claims to have about Iraq-Al Qaida connections. Indeed, the claim that Iraq offered sanctuary to bin Laden and other Al Qaida leaders--turns out it was actually in 1998, and was rejected.
The Guardian on the same subject. Last 9/19/01, I myself asked this question: “And what is the standard of evidence applied by the Bushies, anyhow? If they're convinced that bin Laden is responsible, does that mean the evidence is better than that suggesting that arsenic in the drinking water is bad? better than the evidence for global warming? better or worse than the evidence that Star Wars will work?”
Oddly enough, Saddam Hussein is running for re-election next week. Theme song: Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You.” Evidently the first such fake referendum was sponsored by the British in the 1920s (after they invited an opposition leader to high tea with the High Commissioner, where they arrested him and exiled him to Ceylon. Which does admittedly have a lot of tea planations).
A list of the top 10 US mistakes of the Afghan War.
North Korea will kindly allow the 5 Japanese citizens it kidnapped (excluding all the mysteriously “dead” ones and the ones they won’t admit to) to visit Japan. It will hold their children as hostages in the meanwhile.
Maureen Dowd reports (leaving the question why it wasn’t in the main news section rather than the op-ed pages of the NY Times) on Bush’s choice to chair the FDA panel on women’s health policy. Ok, a man, I mean, that was a given. But also a Christian loon (one W. David Hager), who is against single women having sex because it’s a sin and has written a book on using the healing power of Christ to treat headaches, PMS and ungodly sex, thinks IUDs as well as abortions are evil, organized a Christian petition against RU-486, etc. Add to this the policy of abolishing or radically changing any scientific advisory panel likely to report inconvenient facts, say on global warming, and you have a policy of distorting the work of bodies that are supposed to be producing objective information. Makes you wonder about the “intelligence” about the danger from Iraq, doesn’t it? Well, yes indeedy, there is “intense pressure” on the intelligence agencies, according to this Houston Chronicle story. Not a great story, but it includes discussion of the evidence Rumsfeld claims to have about Iraq-Al Qaida connections. Indeed, the claim that Iraq offered sanctuary to bin Laden and other Al Qaida leaders--turns out it was actually in 1998, and was rejected.
The Guardian on the same subject. Last 9/19/01, I myself asked this question: “And what is the standard of evidence applied by the Bushies, anyhow? If they're convinced that bin Laden is responsible, does that mean the evidence is better than that suggesting that arsenic in the drinking water is bad? better than the evidence for global warming? better or worse than the evidence that Star Wars will work?”
Oddly enough, Saddam Hussein is running for re-election next week. Theme song: Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You.” Evidently the first such fake referendum was sponsored by the British in the 1920s (after they invited an opposition leader to high tea with the High Commissioner, where they arrested him and exiled him to Ceylon. Which does admittedly have a lot of tea planations).
Monday, October 07, 2002
My name is Saddam, and I'm addicted to weapons of mass destruction
Something I hadn’t known: the R candidate in NJ who made such a fuss about deadlines when Toricelli dropped out himself filed a brief to get on the primary ballot after the then-frontrunner in his party dropped out after an FBI raid.
Saw the Cal. gubernatorial debate today. Don’t remember any of it, because it was just that dull, except that Davis was admonished for bringing a prop (a government report), which was against the rules. When Simon tried to invite the Green candidate as his guest, the Davis people accused him of trying to use a prop. The debate was at noon, because god forbid anyone should be able to see it. In the same way, Bush tonight failed to ask for network time, because that would have pre-empted King of Queens.
So what really happened in Yemen? The French are blaming Al Qaida for the tanker blowing up, although if they have any evidence, they aren’t showing it. If true, it indicates that Qaida is going after the oil biz. Which is actually a pretty damned good target, if not as showy as their usual style. Imagine the cost of oil if they have to terrorist-proof every port, tanker, refinery, etc.
The US is compiling files for war crimes charges against Iraqi leaders. Remember: one rule for the rest of the world, no rules for the US. Imagine the conversation when someone from the US government approaches Cambodia, say, to try to get them to promise never to extradite any American to the International Court. War crimes charges, indeed, while Henry Kissinger still walks free and talks pompously. And while we’re at it, let’s say this clearly: the US cannot demand that Iraq submit to the will of a (bought and paid for) majority of the UN Security Council, when the US would not abide by a Security Council decision against such a war. And as long as we’re stating the obvious about how pseudo-governmental bodies are supposed to work, let me repeat, since no one else is even saying it: the UN cannot issue a resolution directed against Iraq, and delegate the interpretation of whether that resolution has been followed to the US.
Here’s a kind of bizarre sentence from the Guardian: “At a Republican fundraising event at the weekend, the president described President Saddam as a "cold-blooded killer" and challenging him to honour his pledge to allow unfettered weapons inspections.” ‘Cuz he’d hate to be called a welsher as well as a cold-blooded killer.
Bush tomorrow (or whenever in relation to when I mail this) will give his first televised speech in favor of his little war. Look, let’s ignore the opinion polls, the subjective tests of opinion tell the real truth: every newspaper, every Congresscritter, is getting mail running several to one against the war. The polls that suggest the opposite fail to measure that support for the war is a centimeter deep. This also suggests that any serious argument against it would be well received; too bad the D’s are too spineless to attempt it.
OK, I’ve seen the speech. First, it was singularly inappropriate for this speech to have been anything other than an address to the nation from the White House. You don’t give a speech in support of war in front of an audience, with pauses for applause and so on. Bush says Hussein is addicted to weapons of mass destruction; he himself is an alcoholic and former cocaine user. We refuse to live in fear; on the other hand a ranch in the middle of the Texas desert gets pretty darned hot too. He said that America should speak with one voice; he’s thinking everyone should start talking like Jack Nicholson, cuz that’d be pretty cool; also, everybody should start mis-pronouncing nuclear, like he does (Bush, not Jack). There was a scary line about there being a “unified Iraq” after the American conquest, scary that is to every ethnic and religious minority in the country. Also he said something about Iraq sharing in the growing prosperity of the world, a coded reference to the lifting of the punitive sanctions now on the Iraqi people; still, a year after the bombing started in Afghanistan, with international pledges to rebuild that country almost entirely unfulfilled, and most of the money being spent in Kabul, and most of that just to pay aid workers ($250,000 to support each UN employee in Afghanistan for a year), Iraqis might be pardoned for being sceptical about such claims.
William Saletan notes that Bush needed to connect the war against terrorism to the war against Iraq and failed to do so, except in one crucial way: “The link between them is subjective: The events of Sept. 11 lowered our standards for using force.” Lack of knowledge becomes a reason to attack, the default position is now violence rather than waiting, the toleration of risk is now zero.
The current pope has created 468 saints, more than all previous popes put together.
A member of the newly elected German parliament is 19.
A longish story about Jeb Bush’s business deals, which is the usual collection of slimy insider stuff you expect from a Bush.
In Iran a guy suffers a non-fatal heart attack just as they’re prepared to execute him (publicly), with the noose literally around his neck. They’ll try again when he’s feeling better. I don’t think Hallmark makes a card for this.
I’m not sure what it means that this year’s Project Censored list isn’t on its own website, but here’s a link. So how did *I* do, in these dispatches? I mentioned the FCC’s loosening of rules on media ownership (by the way, evil radio monopoly Clear Air is getting around the rules limiting ownership to 8 stations in one market in San Diego by using transmitters located just over the border). And I think I’ve mentioned the efforts of US companies like Bechtel, backed by the government, IMF etc, to privatize water supplies in 3rd world countries. I’ve gone on at some length about Colombian death squads, and US support thereof. Efforts at producing small nuclear weapons, check. HMOs as a model for education? No. Small farms disappear under the NAFTA regime? No. Actually, the workings of NAFTA in general are pretty much a mystery to the US press, not helped by the fact that the NAFTA courts that can strike down state and federal regulations operate in secret; there’s loads of interesting stuff in Jim Hightower’s book If the Gods Had Wanted Us to Vote etc. Crisis in US housing. Actually, the write-up neglects to mention that it’s not just a failure of public housing, but that developers in the last couple of years have moved very decisively from cheap housing to the high-end of the market. #10 is about the CIA’s alleged efforts to install a US- and Exxon-friendly government in Macedonia (neither link to this one works).
A Department Store in Sharon, PA, throws $2 bills (remember those?) and coupons from its roof to a crowd below. There were no survivors. Oh ok, no one got actually killed, but it wasn’t pretty.
Saw the Cal. gubernatorial debate today. Don’t remember any of it, because it was just that dull, except that Davis was admonished for bringing a prop (a government report), which was against the rules. When Simon tried to invite the Green candidate as his guest, the Davis people accused him of trying to use a prop. The debate was at noon, because god forbid anyone should be able to see it. In the same way, Bush tonight failed to ask for network time, because that would have pre-empted King of Queens.
So what really happened in Yemen? The French are blaming Al Qaida for the tanker blowing up, although if they have any evidence, they aren’t showing it. If true, it indicates that Qaida is going after the oil biz. Which is actually a pretty damned good target, if not as showy as their usual style. Imagine the cost of oil if they have to terrorist-proof every port, tanker, refinery, etc.
The US is compiling files for war crimes charges against Iraqi leaders. Remember: one rule for the rest of the world, no rules for the US. Imagine the conversation when someone from the US government approaches Cambodia, say, to try to get them to promise never to extradite any American to the International Court. War crimes charges, indeed, while Henry Kissinger still walks free and talks pompously. And while we’re at it, let’s say this clearly: the US cannot demand that Iraq submit to the will of a (bought and paid for) majority of the UN Security Council, when the US would not abide by a Security Council decision against such a war. And as long as we’re stating the obvious about how pseudo-governmental bodies are supposed to work, let me repeat, since no one else is even saying it: the UN cannot issue a resolution directed against Iraq, and delegate the interpretation of whether that resolution has been followed to the US.
Here’s a kind of bizarre sentence from the Guardian: “At a Republican fundraising event at the weekend, the president described President Saddam as a "cold-blooded killer" and challenging him to honour his pledge to allow unfettered weapons inspections.” ‘Cuz he’d hate to be called a welsher as well as a cold-blooded killer.
Bush tomorrow (or whenever in relation to when I mail this) will give his first televised speech in favor of his little war. Look, let’s ignore the opinion polls, the subjective tests of opinion tell the real truth: every newspaper, every Congresscritter, is getting mail running several to one against the war. The polls that suggest the opposite fail to measure that support for the war is a centimeter deep. This also suggests that any serious argument against it would be well received; too bad the D’s are too spineless to attempt it.
OK, I’ve seen the speech. First, it was singularly inappropriate for this speech to have been anything other than an address to the nation from the White House. You don’t give a speech in support of war in front of an audience, with pauses for applause and so on. Bush says Hussein is addicted to weapons of mass destruction; he himself is an alcoholic and former cocaine user. We refuse to live in fear; on the other hand a ranch in the middle of the Texas desert gets pretty darned hot too. He said that America should speak with one voice; he’s thinking everyone should start talking like Jack Nicholson, cuz that’d be pretty cool; also, everybody should start mis-pronouncing nuclear, like he does (Bush, not Jack). There was a scary line about there being a “unified Iraq” after the American conquest, scary that is to every ethnic and religious minority in the country. Also he said something about Iraq sharing in the growing prosperity of the world, a coded reference to the lifting of the punitive sanctions now on the Iraqi people; still, a year after the bombing started in Afghanistan, with international pledges to rebuild that country almost entirely unfulfilled, and most of the money being spent in Kabul, and most of that just to pay aid workers ($250,000 to support each UN employee in Afghanistan for a year), Iraqis might be pardoned for being sceptical about such claims.
William Saletan notes that Bush needed to connect the war against terrorism to the war against Iraq and failed to do so, except in one crucial way: “The link between them is subjective: The events of Sept. 11 lowered our standards for using force.” Lack of knowledge becomes a reason to attack, the default position is now violence rather than waiting, the toleration of risk is now zero.
The current pope has created 468 saints, more than all previous popes put together.
A member of the newly elected German parliament is 19.
A longish story about Jeb Bush’s business deals, which is the usual collection of slimy insider stuff you expect from a Bush.
In Iran a guy suffers a non-fatal heart attack just as they’re prepared to execute him (publicly), with the noose literally around his neck. They’ll try again when he’s feeling better. I don’t think Hallmark makes a card for this.
I’m not sure what it means that this year’s Project Censored list isn’t on its own website, but here’s a link. So how did *I* do, in these dispatches? I mentioned the FCC’s loosening of rules on media ownership (by the way, evil radio monopoly Clear Air is getting around the rules limiting ownership to 8 stations in one market in San Diego by using transmitters located just over the border). And I think I’ve mentioned the efforts of US companies like Bechtel, backed by the government, IMF etc, to privatize water supplies in 3rd world countries. I’ve gone on at some length about Colombian death squads, and US support thereof. Efforts at producing small nuclear weapons, check. HMOs as a model for education? No. Small farms disappear under the NAFTA regime? No. Actually, the workings of NAFTA in general are pretty much a mystery to the US press, not helped by the fact that the NAFTA courts that can strike down state and federal regulations operate in secret; there’s loads of interesting stuff in Jim Hightower’s book If the Gods Had Wanted Us to Vote etc. Crisis in US housing. Actually, the write-up neglects to mention that it’s not just a failure of public housing, but that developers in the last couple of years have moved very decisively from cheap housing to the high-end of the market. #10 is about the CIA’s alleged efforts to install a US- and Exxon-friendly government in Macedonia (neither link to this one works).
A Department Store in Sharon, PA, throws $2 bills (remember those?) and coupons from its roof to a crowd below. There were no survivors. Oh ok, no one got actually killed, but it wasn’t pretty.
Saturday, October 05, 2002
What'd he do after seeing "She's Gotta Have It"?
I thought the US draft UN resolution on Iraqi inspections sounded familiar. It’s the Kosovo demands of 1999 all over again: under it, Iraq/Serbia loses control over its airspace, roads, foreign troops go wherever they want. How’s that for regime change?
William Saletan of Slate observes that Senators were arguing for the Iraqi resolution by saying that if we showed resolve, we could scare Hussein into surrendering without a war, so let’s hope he doesn’t actually hear about us saying that.
The only Senator to vote no was Robert Byrd, who is making all the right arguments (well, some of them) while at the same time sounding cranky and senile, which is a little dispiriting.
The Catholic Church names a new saint, Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, who has had many miracles attributed him, including making people forget he was a Fascist supporter of Francisco Franco and curing someone of a disease called radiodermititus, which I believe is the ability to receive AM radio through the skin. He founded Opus Dei, an extreme right-wing secret society the pope likes, which I believe advocates the belief that Bloom County’s Opus the penguin is God. Members joined Franco’s government. Today a Vatican spokesman, without a trace of irony, said that this was because Opus Dei allows its members freedom.
Those kidnapped Japanese in N Korea? Without exception, they say they don’t want to go home. Their relatives are not best pleased.
Someone suggested that before Ari Fleischer advocates assassination again, he consult with one of his predecessors as White House press secretary, James Brady.
John Walker Lindh gets 20 years for going to the wrong summer camp. He says his spiritual journey began when he saw Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. Personally I haven’t been able to walk by a pizza shop since Do The Right Thing without throwing a garbage can through its window.
Putin’s 50th birthday is Monday. He’s getting a crown, an exact replica (including the jewels) of the crown used by tsars at their coronations. Can we have the sloppy drunk back, please?
William Saletan of Slate observes that Senators were arguing for the Iraqi resolution by saying that if we showed resolve, we could scare Hussein into surrendering without a war, so let’s hope he doesn’t actually hear about us saying that.
The only Senator to vote no was Robert Byrd, who is making all the right arguments (well, some of them) while at the same time sounding cranky and senile, which is a little dispiriting.
The Catholic Church names a new saint, Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, who has had many miracles attributed him, including making people forget he was a Fascist supporter of Francisco Franco and curing someone of a disease called radiodermititus, which I believe is the ability to receive AM radio through the skin. He founded Opus Dei, an extreme right-wing secret society the pope likes, which I believe advocates the belief that Bloom County’s Opus the penguin is God. Members joined Franco’s government. Today a Vatican spokesman, without a trace of irony, said that this was because Opus Dei allows its members freedom.
Those kidnapped Japanese in N Korea? Without exception, they say they don’t want to go home. Their relatives are not best pleased.
Someone suggested that before Ari Fleischer advocates assassination again, he consult with one of his predecessors as White House press secretary, James Brady.
John Walker Lindh gets 20 years for going to the wrong summer camp. He says his spiritual journey began when he saw Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. Personally I haven’t been able to walk by a pizza shop since Do The Right Thing without throwing a garbage can through its window.
Putin’s 50th birthday is Monday. He’s getting a crown, an exact replica (including the jewels) of the crown used by tsars at their coronations. Can we have the sloppy drunk back, please?
Friday, October 04, 2002
Patient fires are extremely rare
So, according to the Post, earlier this year Pat Robertson opposed Bush’s “faith-based” initiative, saying it could finance cults that brainwash people. You already know the punch-line to this one, don’t you?
At the Labour Party convention, Clinton finally mentioned the great unmentionable of American politics, the 2000 elections, saying that Bush won fair and square, 5 votes to 4 in the Supreme Court. What’ll be the reaction here, shitstorm or ignored completely?
(Later): it wasn’t mentioned in the NY Times story on the speech.
The EPA has given up trying to require the chemical industry to safeguard itself against terrorist attacks. Did I mention last week that these are the people who won’t tell the poisoned thousands in Bhopal what they were poisoned with? Because without chemical companies, evil itself would be impossible.
The Iraqi VP says that Bush and Hussein should fight a duel. Ok by me. I’m thinking something like the fish-slapping dance in Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
The US succeeds in stopping UN inspections of Iraq going ahead under the old rules. Since when does one country get the UN to stop enforcing its own resolutions under its own rules, which have not been changed? UN policy keeps melding seamlessly into US implementation, with no sense that there are any rules at all governing its operation. How does one take the UN seriously?
Speaking of inspection of weapons of mass destruction, this week marks the 16th anniversary of Israel’s kidnapping of Mordechai Vanunu. Israel has refused to sign any international agreement regulating the use of nuclear weapons, non-proliferation, the test ban treaty, etc, but gets $3 billion in US aid per year despite the Symington Accord which outlaws aid to countries developing nuclear weapons outside of international agreements.
I thought the Libertarian listed on the Calif. ballot as “ferret legalization coordinator” was good, but in Montana, their candidate for Senate is blue, which is what happens when you drink colloidal silver (and it’s permanent). If you’re wondering, there is also a Green candidate.
Pyongyang has no traffic lights, according to the News Hour. So forget about the axis of evil, it’s the intersections that’ll get you.
American soldiers in Afghanistan have been given laminated cards, helpfully suggesting responses to journalists’ questions. For example:
"How do you feel about what you're doing in Afghanistan"?
Answer: "We're united in our purpose and committed to achieving our goals."
"How long do you think that will take?" Answer: "We will stay here as long as it takes to get the job done - sir!"
Israel stages a practice drill for kidnapping Arafat and dumping him in the Libyan desert.
Finally, Republicans who care about the right of every vote to be counted. In NJ, they are complaining that replacing Torricelli on the ballot would affect the rights of military servicemen who have already voted by absentee ballot. Of course that would only affect those who voted for Torricelli, so the R’s are actually supporting the rights of D’s to vote, isn’t that self-sacrificing of them?
If you’ve spent any time on the web at all this week, you’ve seen what a study claims is the world’s funniest joke, which isn’t especially funny and you’ve all heard it before, so here’s the world’s lamest joke, according to the same study:
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Boo.”
“Boo who?”
“Don’t cry!”
The study indicates that in animal jokes, ducks are the funniest animals. Here are some more jokes, by nation:
Scotland
I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather. Not screaming in terror like his passengers.
Belgium
Why do ducks have webbed feet? To stamp out fires. Why do elephants have flat feet? To stamp out burning ducks.
Germany (no, really)
A general noticed one of his soldiers behaving oddly. The soldier would pick up any piece of paper he found, frown and say: “That’s not it” and put it down again. This went on for some time, until the general arranged to have the soldier psychologically tested. The psychologist concluded that the soldier was deranged, and wrote out his discharge from the army. The soldier picked it up, smiled and said: “That’s it.”
France
An alsatian went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote: “Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.”
The clerk examined the paper and politely told the dog: “There are only nine words here. You could send another ‘Woof’ for the same price.” “But,” the dog replied, “that would make no sense at all.”
At the Labour Party convention, Clinton finally mentioned the great unmentionable of American politics, the 2000 elections, saying that Bush won fair and square, 5 votes to 4 in the Supreme Court. What’ll be the reaction here, shitstorm or ignored completely?
(Later): it wasn’t mentioned in the NY Times story on the speech.
The EPA has given up trying to require the chemical industry to safeguard itself against terrorist attacks. Did I mention last week that these are the people who won’t tell the poisoned thousands in Bhopal what they were poisoned with? Because without chemical companies, evil itself would be impossible.
The Iraqi VP says that Bush and Hussein should fight a duel. Ok by me. I’m thinking something like the fish-slapping dance in Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
The US succeeds in stopping UN inspections of Iraq going ahead under the old rules. Since when does one country get the UN to stop enforcing its own resolutions under its own rules, which have not been changed? UN policy keeps melding seamlessly into US implementation, with no sense that there are any rules at all governing its operation. How does one take the UN seriously?
Speaking of inspection of weapons of mass destruction, this week marks the 16th anniversary of Israel’s kidnapping of Mordechai Vanunu. Israel has refused to sign any international agreement regulating the use of nuclear weapons, non-proliferation, the test ban treaty, etc, but gets $3 billion in US aid per year despite the Symington Accord which outlaws aid to countries developing nuclear weapons outside of international agreements.
I thought the Libertarian listed on the Calif. ballot as “ferret legalization coordinator” was good, but in Montana, their candidate for Senate is blue, which is what happens when you drink colloidal silver (and it’s permanent). If you’re wondering, there is also a Green candidate.
Pyongyang has no traffic lights, according to the News Hour. So forget about the axis of evil, it’s the intersections that’ll get you.
American soldiers in Afghanistan have been given laminated cards, helpfully suggesting responses to journalists’ questions. For example:
"How do you feel about what you're doing in Afghanistan"?
Answer: "We're united in our purpose and committed to achieving our goals."
"How long do you think that will take?" Answer: "We will stay here as long as it takes to get the job done - sir!"
Israel stages a practice drill for kidnapping Arafat and dumping him in the Libyan desert.
Finally, Republicans who care about the right of every vote to be counted. In NJ, they are complaining that replacing Torricelli on the ballot would affect the rights of military servicemen who have already voted by absentee ballot. Of course that would only affect those who voted for Torricelli, so the R’s are actually supporting the rights of D’s to vote, isn’t that self-sacrificing of them?
If you’ve spent any time on the web at all this week, you’ve seen what a study claims is the world’s funniest joke, which isn’t especially funny and you’ve all heard it before, so here’s the world’s lamest joke, according to the same study:
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Boo.”
“Boo who?”
“Don’t cry!”
The study indicates that in animal jokes, ducks are the funniest animals. Here are some more jokes, by nation:
Scotland
I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather. Not screaming in terror like his passengers.
Belgium
Why do ducks have webbed feet? To stamp out fires. Why do elephants have flat feet? To stamp out burning ducks.
Germany (no, really)
A general noticed one of his soldiers behaving oddly. The soldier would pick up any piece of paper he found, frown and say: “That’s not it” and put it down again. This went on for some time, until the general arranged to have the soldier psychologically tested. The psychologist concluded that the soldier was deranged, and wrote out his discharge from the army. The soldier picked it up, smiled and said: “That’s it.”
France
An alsatian went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote: “Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.”
The clerk examined the paper and politely told the dog: “There are only nine words here. You could send another ‘Woof’ for the same price.” “But,” the dog replied, “that would make no sense at all.”
Wednesday, October 02, 2002
Going the extra kilometer on Iraq
There’s a story in the NY Times on how Ted Turner is no longer happy with his partners at AOL Time Warner because his personal fortune has gone down from its previous $9 billion. Here’s the pathetic part: it says he checks the stock price every hour.
Nicholas Kristof comments that Iraq is only the most oppressive place in the Middle East if you’re a man, whereas the women are doing pretty well, can drive and not wear burquas and everything. Indeed, the head of Iraq’s biological warfare program is a woman. You go, girl!
Of course a Palestinian in Gaza or in a refugee camp, or a Kurd anywhere in the Middle East, may take exception to the most oppressive place thing.
Rummy Rumsfeld yesterday was insisting that US pilots have been putting their lives at risk every day to enforce UN resolutions in Iraq, by which he meant the US-, not UN-imposed no-fly zones. Although he is now claiming, which the Wash Post reported and the Times did not, that those planes have been conducting “aerial inspections” all these years on behalf of the UN disarmament resolutions--presumably the government just forget to mention it before now. Or file reports with the UN, presumably. So all this proves that Iraq trying to shoot down our planes actually demonstrates their contempt for the UN, and therefore they can’t be trusted on inspections. Follow that? Also, he rejects, nay spits on, Russian claims that the stepped-up bombing in recent weeks creates obstacles. He called that criticism “nonsensical,” which is an odd term to use towards a country you’re counting on not to veto your resolution at the UN...
I see that Bush now wants to go to war with Iraq to enforce UN resolutions that have nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction, like the return of Kuwaiti prisoners. That’s probably why we rejoined UNESCO last month: there’s probably a plan to switch to the metric system that Iraq isn’t fully in compliance with (yeah, we’re not on metric either, that’s the fuckin’ point).
It is believed that Iraqi commanders have been pre-authorized to use chemical and bio weapons, anticipating that US bombing will cut communications.
The Times’s science pages bring word of a company offering DNA tests to find out just what racial mixture you are. Perfect for improving your chances at college admissions or government contracts (that’s not me, that’s the company’s ad literature).
A study says that the Bushies aren’t enforcing environmental laws, are collecting 1/5 the fines that Clinton did over a comparable period, initiating fewer suits and going for smaller fines. And the Wall St Journal says that the FDA is sending out many fewer warning letters to drug companies about fraud & such.
The EU caved to the US on the International Criminal Court, allowing is members to give it a blanket exemption. Which Germany, amusingly enough, says it won’t.
The British MP for Grimsby has changed his name, in order to support the local fishing industry, from Austin Mitchell to Austin Haddock. Surprisingly, none of his four children have followed suit.
Bush signed a bill to require that Jerusalem be treated as the capital of Israel, including in the naming of nationality in passports (for US citizens born in Jerusalem). And then announced that he’d ignore the law he signed because it’s unconstitutional.
Here’s a sentence from an LA Times story that echoes what a lot of Bushies have been saying: “If the United Nations fails to back the United States, and Washington subsequently acts alone against Iraq, that would seriously erode the Security Council's role in world affairs and the influence of its member states, the analysts say.” An odd definition of influence, really. As Tony Blair has yet to realize, a lap dog is not the same as a guide dog. Indeed, the UN just negotiated details of the return of inspectors to Iraq, and the US is threatening to veto it (it would include the 1998 limitations on inspections of presidential palaces--and today Ari Fleischer said that a bullet in Saddam Hussein’s skull would settle things, so I can’t see any reason why no-notice armed inspections of his palaces would be a sticking point). I thought the US was supposed to be willing to compromise its original position, which I commented on the last 2 or 3 emails, but instead more details are coming out, like the suggestion of “no drive” zones around places being inspected.
Bill Clinton is at the Labour Party annual conference, along with Kevin Spacey (they went to a McDonald’s, it was in all the papers. From the Times: “The plastic seat used by Mr Clinton has already been renamed the McClinton chair.”). Here’s a quote: meld the cadence of the hymnal into political speech. “You were there when we turned back the tide of ethnic cleansing. You were there when the alliance turned back Saddam Hussein. When Saddam threw out the weapons inspectors, you were there. And when you were moving towards peace in Northern Ireland, we were there.” And wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy...
Norway has killed 634 whales this year.
Remember those Japanese the North Koreans admitted kidnapping, but the majority of them died? It seems that their bodies all washed out to sea in floods, as well.
Another result of the American refusal to fund family planning abroad: a shortage of condoms in the developing world, where they must be given away or the people can’t afford them. In 2000 950 million were sent, down from 1.5 billion in 1996, with an actual need of about 8 billion, which is an awful lot of sex in total, but doesn’t some like much per capita (that’s the little capita, and not the big capita, if you get my meaning).
Nicholas Kristof comments that Iraq is only the most oppressive place in the Middle East if you’re a man, whereas the women are doing pretty well, can drive and not wear burquas and everything. Indeed, the head of Iraq’s biological warfare program is a woman. You go, girl!
Of course a Palestinian in Gaza or in a refugee camp, or a Kurd anywhere in the Middle East, may take exception to the most oppressive place thing.
Rummy Rumsfeld yesterday was insisting that US pilots have been putting their lives at risk every day to enforce UN resolutions in Iraq, by which he meant the US-, not UN-imposed no-fly zones. Although he is now claiming, which the Wash Post reported and the Times did not, that those planes have been conducting “aerial inspections” all these years on behalf of the UN disarmament resolutions--presumably the government just forget to mention it before now. Or file reports with the UN, presumably. So all this proves that Iraq trying to shoot down our planes actually demonstrates their contempt for the UN, and therefore they can’t be trusted on inspections. Follow that? Also, he rejects, nay spits on, Russian claims that the stepped-up bombing in recent weeks creates obstacles. He called that criticism “nonsensical,” which is an odd term to use towards a country you’re counting on not to veto your resolution at the UN...
I see that Bush now wants to go to war with Iraq to enforce UN resolutions that have nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction, like the return of Kuwaiti prisoners. That’s probably why we rejoined UNESCO last month: there’s probably a plan to switch to the metric system that Iraq isn’t fully in compliance with (yeah, we’re not on metric either, that’s the fuckin’ point).
It is believed that Iraqi commanders have been pre-authorized to use chemical and bio weapons, anticipating that US bombing will cut communications.
The Times’s science pages bring word of a company offering DNA tests to find out just what racial mixture you are. Perfect for improving your chances at college admissions or government contracts (that’s not me, that’s the company’s ad literature).
A study says that the Bushies aren’t enforcing environmental laws, are collecting 1/5 the fines that Clinton did over a comparable period, initiating fewer suits and going for smaller fines. And the Wall St Journal says that the FDA is sending out many fewer warning letters to drug companies about fraud & such.
The EU caved to the US on the International Criminal Court, allowing is members to give it a blanket exemption. Which Germany, amusingly enough, says it won’t.
The British MP for Grimsby has changed his name, in order to support the local fishing industry, from Austin Mitchell to Austin Haddock. Surprisingly, none of his four children have followed suit.
Bush signed a bill to require that Jerusalem be treated as the capital of Israel, including in the naming of nationality in passports (for US citizens born in Jerusalem). And then announced that he’d ignore the law he signed because it’s unconstitutional.
Here’s a sentence from an LA Times story that echoes what a lot of Bushies have been saying: “If the United Nations fails to back the United States, and Washington subsequently acts alone against Iraq, that would seriously erode the Security Council's role in world affairs and the influence of its member states, the analysts say.” An odd definition of influence, really. As Tony Blair has yet to realize, a lap dog is not the same as a guide dog. Indeed, the UN just negotiated details of the return of inspectors to Iraq, and the US is threatening to veto it (it would include the 1998 limitations on inspections of presidential palaces--and today Ari Fleischer said that a bullet in Saddam Hussein’s skull would settle things, so I can’t see any reason why no-notice armed inspections of his palaces would be a sticking point). I thought the US was supposed to be willing to compromise its original position, which I commented on the last 2 or 3 emails, but instead more details are coming out, like the suggestion of “no drive” zones around places being inspected.
Bill Clinton is at the Labour Party annual conference, along with Kevin Spacey (they went to a McDonald’s, it was in all the papers. From the Times: “The plastic seat used by Mr Clinton has already been renamed the McClinton chair.”). Here’s a quote: meld the cadence of the hymnal into political speech. “You were there when we turned back the tide of ethnic cleansing. You were there when the alliance turned back Saddam Hussein. When Saddam threw out the weapons inspectors, you were there. And when you were moving towards peace in Northern Ireland, we were there.” And wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy...
Norway has killed 634 whales this year.
Remember those Japanese the North Koreans admitted kidnapping, but the majority of them died? It seems that their bodies all washed out to sea in floods, as well.
Another result of the American refusal to fund family planning abroad: a shortage of condoms in the developing world, where they must be given away or the people can’t afford them. In 2000 950 million were sent, down from 1.5 billion in 1996, with an actual need of about 8 billion, which is an awful lot of sex in total, but doesn’t some like much per capita (that’s the little capita, and not the big capita, if you get my meaning).
Monday, September 30, 2002
Cheap trollopes and Christian spanking
The US proposal for Iraqi inspections is indeed intended to be rejected. They snuck in a provision for sending armed guards with the inspectors. Combined with the demand for access to presidential palaces and Bush’s cowboy rhetoric, that sounds rather like hit squads, or will sound like that to Iraq. Not only inspectors and guards, but also anybody else the states which are permanent members of the Security Council feel like sending along, and those nations could also pick their own sites. In other words, spying in advance of war (choosing targets for bombing) would actually be institutionalized. And Iraqi scientists and others could be removed, presumably by force, from the country--so that they could be safely interrogated, of course.
According to Dubya, "You can't distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." He can’t distinguish a hawk from a handsaw either.
Actually, the Wash Post says Bush hasn’t mentioned the name Osama bin Laden unprompted since March 8, at all since July 8. Although to be fair we don’t know if Osama has been talking about Bush. OK, this is in part embarrassment at having muffed the ostensible purpose of the last military action before launching the next, but Bush doesn’t get the kick out of his enemy’s names that his father did. Junior likes nicknames, but not real ones. When was the last time he mentioned Al Gore’s name? It actually came up last week, and Fleischer said not to read anything into the fact; Bush sentences referring to Gore lately have had so many pronouns I defy him to say which “he” refers to whom. Remember the contemptuous tone in which Bush the Elder used to say “Saddam”, or “Pierre” for Pete du Pont, dragging out the vowels to the length of whole sentences?
Ari Fleischer insisted at a press conference today that the homeland security bill is bipartisan, though no more than 1 D supports it.
Isn’t it awfully cheap of the New Jersey Republicans to try to keep a replacement for Toricelli off the ballot?
David Mellors, who was fired by John Major for a sex scandal in 1992, says that Edwina “Hot” Currie is a cheap trollope, a phrase you surely do not hear every day.
40 years ago today JFK, just like Shrub, stood up to a rogue state which was resisting the will of the world, and threatened to send in the military. Fortunately, Mississippi surrendered.
Jeb Bush’s daughter gets away with it. OK, I don’t believe in criminalizing drug use, but bringing drugs into a rehab clinic might be something else again. You might also wonder about a rehab clinic where the same client gets caught twice, and just whose reputation they were protecting by refusing to testify. Maybe Jeb should take the advice of his new child welfare services, and give her a jolly good, but Christian, spanking.
Speaking of Christian spanking, click here for the Domestic Discipline & Spanking Web Site, which asks the magic question, “is domestic discipline commanded of God?” To save you some time, the answer is evidently yes. [Update: that link is no longer working.]
A University of Glasgow study proves that housework makes you depressed. Then I should be the happiest man in the world.
According to Dubya, "You can't distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." He can’t distinguish a hawk from a handsaw either.
Actually, the Wash Post says Bush hasn’t mentioned the name Osama bin Laden unprompted since March 8, at all since July 8. Although to be fair we don’t know if Osama has been talking about Bush. OK, this is in part embarrassment at having muffed the ostensible purpose of the last military action before launching the next, but Bush doesn’t get the kick out of his enemy’s names that his father did. Junior likes nicknames, but not real ones. When was the last time he mentioned Al Gore’s name? It actually came up last week, and Fleischer said not to read anything into the fact; Bush sentences referring to Gore lately have had so many pronouns I defy him to say which “he” refers to whom. Remember the contemptuous tone in which Bush the Elder used to say “Saddam”, or “Pierre” for Pete du Pont, dragging out the vowels to the length of whole sentences?
Ari Fleischer insisted at a press conference today that the homeland security bill is bipartisan, though no more than 1 D supports it.
Isn’t it awfully cheap of the New Jersey Republicans to try to keep a replacement for Toricelli off the ballot?
David Mellors, who was fired by John Major for a sex scandal in 1992, says that Edwina “Hot” Currie is a cheap trollope, a phrase you surely do not hear every day.
40 years ago today JFK, just like Shrub, stood up to a rogue state which was resisting the will of the world, and threatened to send in the military. Fortunately, Mississippi surrendered.
Jeb Bush’s daughter gets away with it. OK, I don’t believe in criminalizing drug use, but bringing drugs into a rehab clinic might be something else again. You might also wonder about a rehab clinic where the same client gets caught twice, and just whose reputation they were protecting by refusing to testify. Maybe Jeb should take the advice of his new child welfare services, and give her a jolly good, but Christian, spanking.
Speaking of Christian spanking, click here for the Domestic Discipline & Spanking Web Site, which asks the magic question, “is domestic discipline commanded of God?” To save you some time, the answer is evidently yes. [Update: that link is no longer working.]
A University of Glasgow study proves that housework makes you depressed. Then I should be the happiest man in the world.
Saturday, September 28, 2002
Bungee jumping from helicopters and having sex with dolphins. Must be the weekend
This could be entertaining: a site that allows you to test whether a website is blocked in China or not. They can get The Onion. [update: dead link]
At the creepier end of the Web, try http://www.dolphinsex.org/, which asks the burning question, How can I tell if a dolphin wants to have sex with me? [update: dead link]
It’s easy to see the catch in Bush’s proposed UN resolution on Iraq. It’s not the access, it’s that Iraq would have to produce a list of all its programs and sites, and if Bush pretends not to believe the list, he gets his war. If this is legal under the UN Charter, we all have to stop taking the UN seriously. Also, the UN would get to inspect Hussein’s palaces---and mosques. What I haven’t figured out is why the US is so insistent that the resolution say that Iraq is in breach of past resolutions.
The % of people bothering to vote in primaries has increased to a whopping 17% this year, a truly vigorous democratic process.
In November Oregon will vote on whether to allow free negroes and mulattoes to move to their state.
More on the John Major sex scandal, as long as I started on the subject: when he was PM, there was a rumor that he was having an affair with the Downing St. caterer. His staff advised her not to deny the rumors, which she now realizes was so that she would be the decoy for the real affair. Major himself told her she should earn as much money as she could from the story, and they both sued the New Statesman for doing a story which denied the rumor, but still reported it, in the context of a story on Britain’s over-strict libel laws. Major and the caterer made a lot of money off those over-strict libel laws, and a lesson was sent to the papers not to go after the real affair, if they ever found out about it.
The British National Health is prescribing vibrators for women with sexual and physical disfunctions. But just once submit a claim to Blue Cross for hookers... Incidentally, a women’s sex shop in the East End is called Sh! I suppose they preferred that to Bzzzzzz. Also in today’s papers, a new nasal spray that puts women into a state of extreme sexual arousal.
At last some D’s are beginning to come out against, or at least ask questions about, the war. Frank Rich has a sentence in today’s NY Times about sure the D’s are patriotic, they give national security nearly as high a priority as their own job security. You do have to wonder about the strategy that they should just cave in to Bush quickly (cuz they’re gonna do it anyway) so they can get back to domestic policy. Guys, you spend $200 billion on a war, there is no domestic policy.
At the creepier end of the Web, try http://www.dolphinsex.org/, which asks the burning question, How can I tell if a dolphin wants to have sex with me? [update: dead link]
It’s easy to see the catch in Bush’s proposed UN resolution on Iraq. It’s not the access, it’s that Iraq would have to produce a list of all its programs and sites, and if Bush pretends not to believe the list, he gets his war. If this is legal under the UN Charter, we all have to stop taking the UN seriously. Also, the UN would get to inspect Hussein’s palaces---and mosques. What I haven’t figured out is why the US is so insistent that the resolution say that Iraq is in breach of past resolutions.
The % of people bothering to vote in primaries has increased to a whopping 17% this year, a truly vigorous democratic process.
In November Oregon will vote on whether to allow free negroes and mulattoes to move to their state.
More on the John Major sex scandal, as long as I started on the subject: when he was PM, there was a rumor that he was having an affair with the Downing St. caterer. His staff advised her not to deny the rumors, which she now realizes was so that she would be the decoy for the real affair. Major himself told her she should earn as much money as she could from the story, and they both sued the New Statesman for doing a story which denied the rumor, but still reported it, in the context of a story on Britain’s over-strict libel laws. Major and the caterer made a lot of money off those over-strict libel laws, and a lesson was sent to the papers not to go after the real affair, if they ever found out about it.
The British National Health is prescribing vibrators for women with sexual and physical disfunctions. But just once submit a claim to Blue Cross for hookers... Incidentally, a women’s sex shop in the East End is called Sh! I suppose they preferred that to Bzzzzzz. Also in today’s papers, a new nasal spray that puts women into a state of extreme sexual arousal.
At last some D’s are beginning to come out against, or at least ask questions about, the war. Frank Rich has a sentence in today’s NY Times about sure the D’s are patriotic, they give national security nearly as high a priority as their own job security. You do have to wonder about the strategy that they should just cave in to Bush quickly (cuz they’re gonna do it anyway) so they can get back to domestic policy. Guys, you spend $200 billion on a war, there is no domestic policy.
Friday, September 27, 2002
Bias, preconceived notions, and apparent animus
I forgot to mention that Bill Simon, floundering candidate for governor here, has loaned his campaign some money, I think $4 million. This is a truly terrible practice, which other millionaire-candidates have used. Worse than regular campaign contributions because it means that every donation that comes in after the election goes to pay off that loan, so it goes straight into his pocket, and is thus even closer to bribery than normal.
Something else I’ve been meaning to mention is that the repeated claims that Iraq tried to assassinate Bush the Elder in 1993 were pretty much discredited by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker at the time. Happily, the website has just put that story online. And here's a current Hersh story on Zacarias Moussaoui. He suggests that the Justice Dept is looking for one conviction, the only one it could conceivably get related to 9/11, and doesn’t much care about how little the charges against him relate to reality, or whether he has any information. In a conspiracy case, you always go for a plea bargain to extract information, but Justice is unwilling to give up its shot at a nice, healing, feel-good execution.
I do enjoy the story about Justice accidentally giving him classified documents. The FBI defended itself by saying that some of its agents drafted in to work on terrorism after 9/11 didn’t know how to work with classified documents. As we all now know, the usual procedure is to lock them in a drawer and never act on them. The next Wash Post story says that the CIA director doesn’t like the staff of the House-Senate investigative committee. He accuses them of acting with “bias, preconceived notions, and apparent animus.” So he’s hiring them all as CIA analysts.
Daniel Goldhagen, who wrote Hitler’s Willing Executioners, has a book coming out on the complicity of the Catholic church in Nazi anti-semitism, including giving access to birth records used in finding Jews. He thinks the Church should have declared it an obligation to resist persecution of the Jews, as the Danish Lutheran Church did.
Milosevic in the Hague blames the Srebrenica massacre on...the French secret service. Didn’t see that one coming.
There’s nothing so fun as a good Tory party sex scandal: John Major and Edwina Currie, 1984-88. This is a guy who as prime minister had to fire several ministers whose affairs became public. Although there was one adulterous former-minister he never gave the cabinet-level job she expected: Edwina Currie.
From Newsweek, on the claim that Iraq is backing terrorism, including an Iranian group I’ve never heard of, which also used to be supported by various members of Congress, including one Senator John Ashcroft. And this is a group that killed Americans in Iran in the 1970s. In May 2000 he wrote to Janet Reno protesting the arrest of one of its members for failing to disclose her terrorist background when claiming political asylum.
The Bushies are extending health benefits to “unborn children,” including those of illegal immigrants, in a cynical ploy. My first thought was that if that’s what it took to get pre-natal care covered, so be it, but I’m having second thoughts. I think this policy isn’t just heading down the road to making abortion illegal, which I can deal with because the top of the slippery slope is not the same as the bottom, if you follow, but I think such a policy is already at the bottom of one dangerous slope, because it separates out, from a medical perspective, the health of the mother from that of the fetus. While the two are usually one and the same, when they conflict, I don’t want anyone putting their thumb on the scale in favor of the fetus. The policy would direct medical resources to the fetus in a way that treats the mother as an incubator, and this is not the way I want doctors thinking.
Can’t remember if I passed on the story about two Floridians who went fishing and found a severed human head, bringing it to the authorities only after continuing fishing another five hours. A detail I missed: they named the head Bob, geddit?
Something else I’ve been meaning to mention is that the repeated claims that Iraq tried to assassinate Bush the Elder in 1993 were pretty much discredited by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker at the time. Happily, the website has just put that story online. And here's a current Hersh story on Zacarias Moussaoui. He suggests that the Justice Dept is looking for one conviction, the only one it could conceivably get related to 9/11, and doesn’t much care about how little the charges against him relate to reality, or whether he has any information. In a conspiracy case, you always go for a plea bargain to extract information, but Justice is unwilling to give up its shot at a nice, healing, feel-good execution.
I do enjoy the story about Justice accidentally giving him classified documents. The FBI defended itself by saying that some of its agents drafted in to work on terrorism after 9/11 didn’t know how to work with classified documents. As we all now know, the usual procedure is to lock them in a drawer and never act on them. The next Wash Post story says that the CIA director doesn’t like the staff of the House-Senate investigative committee. He accuses them of acting with “bias, preconceived notions, and apparent animus.” So he’s hiring them all as CIA analysts.
Daniel Goldhagen, who wrote Hitler’s Willing Executioners, has a book coming out on the complicity of the Catholic church in Nazi anti-semitism, including giving access to birth records used in finding Jews. He thinks the Church should have declared it an obligation to resist persecution of the Jews, as the Danish Lutheran Church did.
Milosevic in the Hague blames the Srebrenica massacre on...the French secret service. Didn’t see that one coming.
There’s nothing so fun as a good Tory party sex scandal: John Major and Edwina Currie, 1984-88. This is a guy who as prime minister had to fire several ministers whose affairs became public. Although there was one adulterous former-minister he never gave the cabinet-level job she expected: Edwina Currie.
From Newsweek, on the claim that Iraq is backing terrorism, including an Iranian group I’ve never heard of, which also used to be supported by various members of Congress, including one Senator John Ashcroft. And this is a group that killed Americans in Iran in the 1970s. In May 2000 he wrote to Janet Reno protesting the arrest of one of its members for failing to disclose her terrorist background when claiming political asylum.
The Bushies are extending health benefits to “unborn children,” including those of illegal immigrants, in a cynical ploy. My first thought was that if that’s what it took to get pre-natal care covered, so be it, but I’m having second thoughts. I think this policy isn’t just heading down the road to making abortion illegal, which I can deal with because the top of the slippery slope is not the same as the bottom, if you follow, but I think such a policy is already at the bottom of one dangerous slope, because it separates out, from a medical perspective, the health of the mother from that of the fetus. While the two are usually one and the same, when they conflict, I don’t want anyone putting their thumb on the scale in favor of the fetus. The policy would direct medical resources to the fetus in a way that treats the mother as an incubator, and this is not the way I want doctors thinking.
Can’t remember if I passed on the story about two Floridians who went fishing and found a severed human head, bringing it to the authorities only after continuing fishing another five hours. A detail I missed: they named the head Bob, geddit?
Bootylicious / The California propositions
The British chief rabbi has escaped from charges of heresy by recanting his stated view that there were things to be learned from other religions.
This week the Bushies seem rather desperately to be trying to link Iraq with Al Qaeda without actually producing any evidence. Introducing a new charge at this late date smacks of desperation. And lying.
Good calm piece against the Iraq war by Michael Kinsley on the Slate (Thursday). (and the Wash Post editorial section for Friday)
Ari Fleischer says everyone should stop finger-pointing. Good, tell your boss that. He also tried to say that the line about the Senate not being interested in the US’s security was taken out of context, like there could ever be a good context for such a comment (and Bush said it several times, so it wasn’t a slip of his famously accident-prone tongue). Actually, Fleischer said that it was ok because it wasn’t about the war on Iraq, but on the details of the Homeland Security Agency. As someone on Slate, maybe Kinsley, points out, this is worse, because Bush is calling traitors people who disagree with him on a relatively minor matter of labor regulations in a government agency. Also, the RNC is using the Bush quote in a fund-raising e-mail to 2 million people (I wonder how you get on that list without giving money?)(OK, I’ve just signed up for something, well I signed my cat up, although I hope they don’t try mailing anything to the street address they required).
Of course it’s hard for the Republicans to attack your position on Iraq when you’re trying so awfully hard not to have one, huh Mr. Daschle?
Merriam-Webster has added a definition for “Bootylicious.” And the new Shorter Oxford English Dictionary includes Blairite, Klingon, Tardis, name and shame, wedgie, chick flick, and bunnie boiler.
It’s time once again to play Deconstruct the California Voter Pamphlet. As ever, if you vote No on everything, you wouldn’t be going that far wrong.
We all know that financing spending by bonds is bad policy, no matter if the cause is good, so that’s a big NO to props. 46, 47 and 50. But let’s go further.
46 is bonds for “housing and emergency shelter”. This lumps together way too many types of housing programs--lumping together is the theme of the November 02 ballot--from university housing to firemen to the handicapped to migrant workers to homeless shelters, but not to the one they’re using to advertise this measure, shelters for battered women, which is simply nowhere in the prop.
47 is bonds for schools, K through U. Note the biased adjectives of the official summary: it funds “necessary” facilities in areas of the “greatest need,” and will provide “adequate higher ed. facilities.” Hey, it’s on the ballot so that the voters can decide what’s necessary and adequate. Note to writers of the statement in favor: I think I saw a sentence that wasn’t capitalized or italicized; try to do better next time. “Students can’t learn and teachers can’t teach in overcrowded and rundown classrooms.” Of course they can. And building new classrooms would keep class sizes small. Funny, I thought you needed more teachers as well. Or are you saying that now there are a bunch of teachers who spend all day just hanging out in the parking lot smoking because there’s no classroom for them? The No people say this was written to favor LA Unified, which would be nice to know the veracity of, if I weren’t voting against it on the bond thing.
48 is only technical and non-controversial, according to the official statement and the Yes argument respectively, so vote no. 4 years ago we evidently voted (who remembers) to let local judges decide whether to consolidate courts, and they all have, presumably because Superior Court judges are paid more. So there are no more municipal courts, and 48 would eliminate references to muni courts in the state Const. Which would make it impossible to revive them, although the No people make a good case that they give rise to conflicts of interest.
49 is The Arnold’s measure for after-school programs, which will evidently solve all crime and improve grades and possibly cure cancer. Up to $5 per day per student and they get their own personal android from the future to protect them and teach them valuable life lessons. For some reason it screws larger schools. Like all propositions this time, the Yes people claim it will cost nothing, just re-jigger existing spending priorities, taking all budget decisions out of the hands of the Legislature, like Prop 98 before it. This is taxation without representation and I say to hell with it.
50 is drinking water and wetlands and bonds therefor, and if you think this comes up every two years, you’re right. Actually what’s going on is something kind of new, at least on this scale. 51 is another, which is for transportation projects. I’ll consider them together. Basically, special interests were allowed to buy into these initiatives, adding their own projects in exchange for contributions. They’d both divert existing funds to these projects (plus the bonds in 50). So 50 has some good Colorado River stuff, but also makes sure that new housing developments get water piped out to them, somehow, and 51 includes, if I recall, a $300,000 (or was it 3 million?) road for a golf course, and these would be funded no matter what the economy was doing or what other priorities there might be.
52 is election-day voter registration, which works in other states (the No people say that doesn’t count because Calif. is big and those states are small, but I fail to see the relevance). It’s a bit iffy on what counts as proof of residence (yes, it does include junk mail, I checked that claim in the wording of the actual initiative), but then you don’t need to show picture ID now, to register or to vote, so what’s the dif?
Candidate statements are always fun. The Libertarian for governor, who I believe has been fired by his party for spitting on a talk show host, cites Gene Roddenberry alongside Milton Friedman and Herbert Spencer as one of his favorite philosophers. Come on, Roddenberry and Spencer would have despised each other. The Green says that other parties represent the past, Greens the future. Just once I’d like to have a party that represents the present. The Libertarian for Lite Governor is the ferret guy (did they really break down his door to seize his ferrets?), while the Green candidate’s son was murdered, which perhaps puts the ferret thing into perspective. The D for secretary of state is against people who have had abortions being denied the right to vote. The Green for Controller pledges to Follow the Money. The Libertarian for attorney general will encourage businesses to put full walls and doors on public restroom stalls. Just encourage, mind you, not require, because he is a Libertarian. The Republican, excuse me, “nonpartisan” for superintendent of public instruction seems awfully focused on what the students and teachers wear. And wants a moment of silence. Excuse me, a Moment of Silence.
This week the Bushies seem rather desperately to be trying to link Iraq with Al Qaeda without actually producing any evidence. Introducing a new charge at this late date smacks of desperation. And lying.
Good calm piece against the Iraq war by Michael Kinsley on the Slate (Thursday). (and the Wash Post editorial section for Friday)
Ari Fleischer says everyone should stop finger-pointing. Good, tell your boss that. He also tried to say that the line about the Senate not being interested in the US’s security was taken out of context, like there could ever be a good context for such a comment (and Bush said it several times, so it wasn’t a slip of his famously accident-prone tongue). Actually, Fleischer said that it was ok because it wasn’t about the war on Iraq, but on the details of the Homeland Security Agency. As someone on Slate, maybe Kinsley, points out, this is worse, because Bush is calling traitors people who disagree with him on a relatively minor matter of labor regulations in a government agency. Also, the RNC is using the Bush quote in a fund-raising e-mail to 2 million people (I wonder how you get on that list without giving money?)(OK, I’ve just signed up for something, well I signed my cat up, although I hope they don’t try mailing anything to the street address they required).
Of course it’s hard for the Republicans to attack your position on Iraq when you’re trying so awfully hard not to have one, huh Mr. Daschle?
Merriam-Webster has added a definition for “Bootylicious.” And the new Shorter Oxford English Dictionary includes Blairite, Klingon, Tardis, name and shame, wedgie, chick flick, and bunnie boiler.
It’s time once again to play Deconstruct the California Voter Pamphlet. As ever, if you vote No on everything, you wouldn’t be going that far wrong.
We all know that financing spending by bonds is bad policy, no matter if the cause is good, so that’s a big NO to props. 46, 47 and 50. But let’s go further.
46 is bonds for “housing and emergency shelter”. This lumps together way too many types of housing programs--lumping together is the theme of the November 02 ballot--from university housing to firemen to the handicapped to migrant workers to homeless shelters, but not to the one they’re using to advertise this measure, shelters for battered women, which is simply nowhere in the prop.
47 is bonds for schools, K through U. Note the biased adjectives of the official summary: it funds “necessary” facilities in areas of the “greatest need,” and will provide “adequate higher ed. facilities.” Hey, it’s on the ballot so that the voters can decide what’s necessary and adequate. Note to writers of the statement in favor: I think I saw a sentence that wasn’t capitalized or italicized; try to do better next time. “Students can’t learn and teachers can’t teach in overcrowded and rundown classrooms.” Of course they can. And building new classrooms would keep class sizes small. Funny, I thought you needed more teachers as well. Or are you saying that now there are a bunch of teachers who spend all day just hanging out in the parking lot smoking because there’s no classroom for them? The No people say this was written to favor LA Unified, which would be nice to know the veracity of, if I weren’t voting against it on the bond thing.
48 is only technical and non-controversial, according to the official statement and the Yes argument respectively, so vote no. 4 years ago we evidently voted (who remembers) to let local judges decide whether to consolidate courts, and they all have, presumably because Superior Court judges are paid more. So there are no more municipal courts, and 48 would eliminate references to muni courts in the state Const. Which would make it impossible to revive them, although the No people make a good case that they give rise to conflicts of interest.
49 is The Arnold’s measure for after-school programs, which will evidently solve all crime and improve grades and possibly cure cancer. Up to $5 per day per student and they get their own personal android from the future to protect them and teach them valuable life lessons. For some reason it screws larger schools. Like all propositions this time, the Yes people claim it will cost nothing, just re-jigger existing spending priorities, taking all budget decisions out of the hands of the Legislature, like Prop 98 before it. This is taxation without representation and I say to hell with it.
50 is drinking water and wetlands and bonds therefor, and if you think this comes up every two years, you’re right. Actually what’s going on is something kind of new, at least on this scale. 51 is another, which is for transportation projects. I’ll consider them together. Basically, special interests were allowed to buy into these initiatives, adding their own projects in exchange for contributions. They’d both divert existing funds to these projects (plus the bonds in 50). So 50 has some good Colorado River stuff, but also makes sure that new housing developments get water piped out to them, somehow, and 51 includes, if I recall, a $300,000 (or was it 3 million?) road for a golf course, and these would be funded no matter what the economy was doing or what other priorities there might be.
52 is election-day voter registration, which works in other states (the No people say that doesn’t count because Calif. is big and those states are small, but I fail to see the relevance). It’s a bit iffy on what counts as proof of residence (yes, it does include junk mail, I checked that claim in the wording of the actual initiative), but then you don’t need to show picture ID now, to register or to vote, so what’s the dif?
Candidate statements are always fun. The Libertarian for governor, who I believe has been fired by his party for spitting on a talk show host, cites Gene Roddenberry alongside Milton Friedman and Herbert Spencer as one of his favorite philosophers. Come on, Roddenberry and Spencer would have despised each other. The Green says that other parties represent the past, Greens the future. Just once I’d like to have a party that represents the present. The Libertarian for Lite Governor is the ferret guy (did they really break down his door to seize his ferrets?), while the Green candidate’s son was murdered, which perhaps puts the ferret thing into perspective. The D for secretary of state is against people who have had abortions being denied the right to vote. The Green for Controller pledges to Follow the Money. The Libertarian for attorney general will encourage businesses to put full walls and doors on public restroom stalls. Just encourage, mind you, not require, because he is a Libertarian. The Republican, excuse me, “nonpartisan” for superintendent of public instruction seems awfully focused on what the students and teachers wear. And wants a moment of silence. Excuse me, a Moment of Silence.
Thursday, September 26, 2002
Internal threat
A piece in the International Herald Tribune notes that Sharon used to demand 7 days of quiet before he’d negotiate with Palestinians, but when there were 6 weeks of quiet, nothing. (That’s assuming that “quiet” means only attacks on Israelis; Israel killed 75 Palestinians during that period). But he did appoint as head of settlements (and there’s a new settlement today, by the way) a proponent of expelling the Palestinians from the West Bank. Tom Friedman writes today that Sharon wants to both treat Arafat as irrelevant and treat him as responsible for everything that occurs.
And Maureen Dowd comments re Germany that the Bush policy is now that the US can decide not only who can run a country, but what the proper issues are for their election debates.
Those of you read the NY Times online instead of getting ink on your hands missed a hilarious picture of Kyrgyzstan’s dictator Akayev and his amazingly improbable eyebrows. He wants more US aid for supporting the US on terrorism. The US did put an opposition Muslim group on its list of terrorist groups--as I’ve said before, we now seem to be negotiating such listings with other countries.
William Bennett has formed a group called Americans for Victory over Terrorism, which has a list of Americans it considers an “internal threat.” I’ve checked their website, but there’s no application form. I’ve always wanted to be on an enemies list, although personally the only internal threat I know of is attached to my ascending colon.
The government is threatening to vaccinate us all for smallpox. Those of us already vaccinated would have to be revaccinated because no one knows whether it’s still effective. Doesn’t that give you a cozy feeling, that they’re planning to inject this stuff into you and don’t even know how long it lasts? An Amerind leader is demanding that Indians be vaccinated first, since they have less immunity.
It took Clinton forever to get RU-486 licensed, but he did so under such stringent conditions (whose validity I can’t judge, but France seemed to get along quite well without them for many years) make it difficult and a pain in the ass to use, as well as more expensive ($100 a pill, with three being the recommended dose--I thought it was being manufactured by a non-profit) than surgical abortion. That’s great national medical policy isn’t it? Why do policies that produce unnecessary surgical procedures always seem to involve women? OK, I know the answer to that one.
And since I wrote that, the House has voted to allow hospitals and insurance companies to refuse to pay for or perform abortions and still keep their Medicare and other federal funding.
When the Federal Building in Oklahoma City was blown up, it was storing a TOW missile in a locker a few floors above the famous daycare center. The government sees nothing wrong with that.
The most hilariously tasteless 9-11 commemorative thingy since the last one.
Remember thinkofthechildren.co.uk, that satire of mob mentality I sent out on the 15th? It’s been closed down at the request to the web provider of the Metropolitan Police. The author is pissed, but does see the irony.
I haven’t tried this experiment, but someone who ran “why do they hate America” through a search engine got 823,000 hits.
And Maureen Dowd comments re Germany that the Bush policy is now that the US can decide not only who can run a country, but what the proper issues are for their election debates.
Those of you read the NY Times online instead of getting ink on your hands missed a hilarious picture of Kyrgyzstan’s dictator Akayev and his amazingly improbable eyebrows. He wants more US aid for supporting the US on terrorism. The US did put an opposition Muslim group on its list of terrorist groups--as I’ve said before, we now seem to be negotiating such listings with other countries.
William Bennett has formed a group called Americans for Victory over Terrorism, which has a list of Americans it considers an “internal threat.” I’ve checked their website, but there’s no application form. I’ve always wanted to be on an enemies list, although personally the only internal threat I know of is attached to my ascending colon.
The government is threatening to vaccinate us all for smallpox. Those of us already vaccinated would have to be revaccinated because no one knows whether it’s still effective. Doesn’t that give you a cozy feeling, that they’re planning to inject this stuff into you and don’t even know how long it lasts? An Amerind leader is demanding that Indians be vaccinated first, since they have less immunity.
It took Clinton forever to get RU-486 licensed, but he did so under such stringent conditions (whose validity I can’t judge, but France seemed to get along quite well without them for many years) make it difficult and a pain in the ass to use, as well as more expensive ($100 a pill, with three being the recommended dose--I thought it was being manufactured by a non-profit) than surgical abortion. That’s great national medical policy isn’t it? Why do policies that produce unnecessary surgical procedures always seem to involve women? OK, I know the answer to that one.
And since I wrote that, the House has voted to allow hospitals and insurance companies to refuse to pay for or perform abortions and still keep their Medicare and other federal funding.
When the Federal Building in Oklahoma City was blown up, it was storing a TOW missile in a locker a few floors above the famous daycare center. The government sees nothing wrong with that.
The most hilariously tasteless 9-11 commemorative thingy since the last one.
Remember thinkofthechildren.co.uk, that satire of mob mentality I sent out on the 15th? It’s been closed down at the request to the web provider of the Metropolitan Police. The author is pissed, but does see the irony.
I haven’t tried this experiment, but someone who ran “why do they hate America” through a search engine got 823,000 hits.
Tuesday, September 24, 2002
Unhelpful
The Bushies are still pissed off at Chancellor Schröder, even though he sacrificed the justice minister who denies having said what the newspaper said she said, which was pretty mild to begin with, really, and the head of the SPD in the Bundestag, who had compared Bush to a Roman Emperor. Ari Fleischer says that Schröder’s letter to Bush “really didn't read like an apology. It read more like an attempt at an explanation.” Yes, if she was misquoted, an explanation would be more appropriate than an apology, unless you’re calling Schröder a liar, Ari. The head of the Christian Dems says that German-American relations have never been as bad as they are now. Um, never? One thing we do know, the Bush administration do love their grudges.
The White House says that Israel’s siege of Arafat’s hq is “unhelpful,” the same word Rumsfeld used about Schröder’s campaign. Because as we all know, the rest of the world exists to be helpful to the United States government. Of course it took 3 days for them to say anything at all about the siege (but then again, Bush hasn’t called Schröder to congratulate him on his election victory either).
I was just reading about a US defense planning document which says that the US should ensure that no rival superpower emerges by taking on the defense of all other industrial nations itself and “maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role”. Also, the US should prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, by military means if necessary. It was written in 1992 by Paul Wolfowitz, working for Dick Cheney (who in the 1st Bush administration refused to believe that Gorbachev’s reforms were real and asked about nuking Iraq). The article (by Frances FitzGerald in the Guardian), says that the current under sec of defense for policy, Douglas Feith, wrote with Richard Perle in 1996 a paper advising Netanyahu to scrap Oslo and re-take the West Bank and Gaza. Asst secretary of defense for international security is J. D. Crouch, who in 1995 advocated military strikes on North Korea’s nuclear plants and missile facilities. It also notes that while Bush is now claiming Iraq threatens the US, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, while out of office, called for Saddam’s overthrow on the ground that he threatened Israel and the region. Indeed, Wolfowitz wanted it done to remove any possibility of Iraq backing Arafat, in order to force Arafat to surrender.
The Tom Ridge color of the day is in fact still orange.
Belgium legalizes euthanasia (and Bush is fighting same in Oregon in court).
Virgin shark gives birth!
In theory, this link is to video of the infamous and hilarious Bush “fool me once” gaffe.
If not (and I think the Voice fucked that one up), the audio is definitely available here.
The US invaded another country today, the Ivory Coast. Twenty years from now, we’re going to see stories about American soldiers discovered in jungles somewhere not knowing that the war on terror is over, like those Japanese soldiers after World War II, except in our case it will be because we lost track of how many countries we sent troops to. “Hey, didn’t we deploy some Marines to Yemen? Whatever happened to those guys?”
The next country we’ll have to invade is obviously Israel, which is refusing to stop the siege of Arafat, as demanded by the UN Security Council resolution, and we all know how seriously Bush takes Security Council resolutions.
I think Germany is becoming fed up with being told it now has to suck up to the US. Bush intervened fairly obviously in the German elections, which is unforgivable from what’s supposed to be an ally. The US has, finally, become as hostile to honest differences of agreement as Israel. Which leads me to a new website designed to name and shame anti-Israeli academics in the US. Some of the examples are hilariously mild, much milder than, say, *my* average comments on Israel.
The NY Times had a story today about how Indonesians refuse to believe the report, which the CIA says the Indonesian government leaked and vice versa, that a captured al Qaida guy (and I really wish we’d stop going to war with people who don’t put a U after their Q’s) says it is operating there and was part of a massacre of Christians, planned to blow up the US Embassy and kill the president (of Indonesia). The Times reporter seemed torn between claiming it was just denial--that sort of thing could never happen here--and admitting that the CIA has a history of black propaganda in that country. This is also why the claim last week that Cuba was hindering our efforts by passing on false tips about terrorism was ignored by pretty much everyone.
The Tom Ridge Color of the Day has indeed been down-graded to yellow again. Next time we go up to orange, I at least want to see some shit blow up. The Post says “US Given a Yellow Light As Threat Index Is Eased.” So everybody speed up and try to get through before it changes colors again.
Actually, it’s more dangerous than you think, because Bush says that the Senate is "not interested in the security of the American people." Really knows how to win friends and influence people, doesn’t he? I think what they’re saying in semi-private is probably a lot stronger, at least that’s the hint in the Wash Post. By semi-private I mean fund raisers, to which thousands of important, or at least rich, people go but what is said is never reported in the media. We’re more likely to hear what Bush sings in the shower than what he tells crowds of millionaires.
Sign of the Apocalypse of the Week: a shark in Detroit’s Belle Isle Aquarium has a virgin birth, three in fact. Evidently they can do that.
Excerpt from the Guardian:
If not (and I think the Voice fucked that one up), the audio is definitely available here.
The US invaded another country today, the Ivory Coast. Twenty years from now, we’re going to see stories about American soldiers discovered in jungles somewhere not knowing that the war on terror is over, like those Japanese soldiers after World War II, except in our case it will be because we lost track of how many countries we sent troops to. “Hey, didn’t we deploy some Marines to Yemen? Whatever happened to those guys?”
The next country we’ll have to invade is obviously Israel, which is refusing to stop the siege of Arafat, as demanded by the UN Security Council resolution, and we all know how seriously Bush takes Security Council resolutions.
I think Germany is becoming fed up with being told it now has to suck up to the US. Bush intervened fairly obviously in the German elections, which is unforgivable from what’s supposed to be an ally. The US has, finally, become as hostile to honest differences of agreement as Israel. Which leads me to a new website designed to name and shame anti-Israeli academics in the US. Some of the examples are hilariously mild, much milder than, say, *my* average comments on Israel.
The NY Times had a story today about how Indonesians refuse to believe the report, which the CIA says the Indonesian government leaked and vice versa, that a captured al Qaida guy (and I really wish we’d stop going to war with people who don’t put a U after their Q’s) says it is operating there and was part of a massacre of Christians, planned to blow up the US Embassy and kill the president (of Indonesia). The Times reporter seemed torn between claiming it was just denial--that sort of thing could never happen here--and admitting that the CIA has a history of black propaganda in that country. This is also why the claim last week that Cuba was hindering our efforts by passing on false tips about terrorism was ignored by pretty much everyone.
The Tom Ridge Color of the Day has indeed been down-graded to yellow again. Next time we go up to orange, I at least want to see some shit blow up. The Post says “US Given a Yellow Light As Threat Index Is Eased.” So everybody speed up and try to get through before it changes colors again.
Actually, it’s more dangerous than you think, because Bush says that the Senate is "not interested in the security of the American people." Really knows how to win friends and influence people, doesn’t he? I think what they’re saying in semi-private is probably a lot stronger, at least that’s the hint in the Wash Post. By semi-private I mean fund raisers, to which thousands of important, or at least rich, people go but what is said is never reported in the media. We’re more likely to hear what Bush sings in the shower than what he tells crowds of millionaires.
Sign of the Apocalypse of the Week: a shark in Detroit’s Belle Isle Aquarium has a virgin birth, three in fact. Evidently they can do that.
Excerpt from the Guardian:
A new report calculates today that the European Union spends enough money each year on farmers to pay for a round the world trip for all 21m European cows. Aid campaigners estimate that, thanks to the generosity of Europe's taxpayers, the cows could touch down in London, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Hanoi, Siem Reap, Brisbane, Raratonga, Los Angeles and San Francisco and still have enough left over for £400 spending money each. Alternatively, the 38bn euros (£24bn) annual cost of the common agricultural policy (CAP) could pay for an upper class ticket to New York on Virgin, and the cows would get a free haircut, manicure and massage plus a choice of 50 different movies thrown in.
Sunday, September 22, 2002
For Fox Sake, Listen
Ya know, they changed the Tom Ridge Color of the Day to orange for 9/11+1, and then forgot to tell us if they changed it back or not.
California prisons ban pornography. It creates a hostile work environment for female guards, and heaven forfend prison guards experience a hostile work environment.
The toffs were out in force today in London, marching for the right to kill foxes. For a hilarious write-up, see this.
Here’s a paragraph:
The SPD seems to have sort of won the German elections, which I said a month ago could never happen. Oops. To be fair, it looks like Schröder only gets to keep his job thanks to the popularity of the Greens. The Frei Democrats are reduced to 4th place, which isn’t quite the kicking I’ve been wanting them to get for the last 20 years, but it will have to do. Mostly it was the massive incompetence of Bavarian PM Stoiber that did it. He criticized Schröder for not supporting the US’s Iraq war, but hadn’t realized that required him to have an answer to the question, So does that mean you’ll send German troops. By the end, he was actually more anti-war than Schröder, saying he’d refuse to let bases in Germany be used. This is a guy who started the campaign by kicking a football, right into the face of an old lady, several times called Bush “George Bus,” failed to cut short his vacation during those floods, and when he finally showed up, was wearing loafers. One can but hope his racist anti-immigrant talk, which only showed up late in the campaign when he seemed to be losing (is it better or worse that his racism was only opportunistic, I can never tell?), was also unappealing to voters.
The political news from Slovakia is also good, for once.
California prisons ban pornography. It creates a hostile work environment for female guards, and heaven forfend prison guards experience a hostile work environment.
The toffs were out in force today in London, marching for the right to kill foxes. For a hilarious write-up, see this.
Here’s a paragraph:
As the cortège of blood sportsmen and women came into view, the pigeons in Trafalgar Square took off in a dense cloud and didn’t come back, which was pretty sensible of them in the circumstances. But this was not just, or even largely about hunting. “Only Stupid Sheep hide under Bushes, Tony” one placard said, in what appeared to be a reference to Iraq, but may be a piece of old country lore. Rather more alarmingly, another placard declared: “British Beef is Safer than Sex.” Someone must explain to this person, and quickly, that British beef has absolutely nothing to do with sex.Someone was wearing a t-shirt with the slogan in my subject heading. Other slogans: a sign held by an 8-year old: I want to hunt when I grow up, daddy. “Revolting peasant.” “No taxation without Morris dancing.”
The SPD seems to have sort of won the German elections, which I said a month ago could never happen. Oops. To be fair, it looks like Schröder only gets to keep his job thanks to the popularity of the Greens. The Frei Democrats are reduced to 4th place, which isn’t quite the kicking I’ve been wanting them to get for the last 20 years, but it will have to do. Mostly it was the massive incompetence of Bavarian PM Stoiber that did it. He criticized Schröder for not supporting the US’s Iraq war, but hadn’t realized that required him to have an answer to the question, So does that mean you’ll send German troops. By the end, he was actually more anti-war than Schröder, saying he’d refuse to let bases in Germany be used. This is a guy who started the campaign by kicking a football, right into the face of an old lady, several times called Bush “George Bus,” failed to cut short his vacation during those floods, and when he finally showed up, was wearing loafers. One can but hope his racist anti-immigrant talk, which only showed up late in the campaign when he seemed to be losing (is it better or worse that his racism was only opportunistic, I can never tell?), was also unappealing to voters.
The political news from Slovakia is also good, for once.
Saturday, September 21, 2002
Still thinking in pre-9/11 terms
Gray Davis’s ads keep telling us that California rose from the 7th to the 5th largest economy in the world under him. Actually, thanks to the dotcom bust, we’ve dropped behind France. But a Davis spokesman says “We will not surrender.” Fortunately, as ever, France will. “We won’t fight about numbers,” said the Chief Stereotype Upholder at the French Consulate.
What Davis isn’t bragging about is that the California state fish (!), the California golden trout, is becoming endangered. Oddly enough, if it gets listed, the government will tell the California golden trout who they can fuck, because evidently the problem is in part that they are miscegenating with other breeds of trout. And then how do you bring up the children? All very Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
Still no word on making the banana slug the official state mollusk, a bill for which was vetoed by Deukmejian, as you will all recall.
Unclear on the concept: the FEC fines the Democratic Party $243,000 for accepting $1,000,000 in illegal campaign contributions in 1996.
Israeli troops are tearing up Arafat’s headquarters around him, and replace the Palestinian flag with an Israeli one. Not terribly subtle, the Israelis.
A cute piece in the Wash Post on how Texas still doesn’t see what the big deal is about executing people, and candidates routinely accuse each other of being soft on executing the retarded.
Maureen Dowd has the perfect analogy for Bush’s streamrollering tactics for his war on Iraq: “Bush is like the guy who reserves a hotel room and then asks you to the prom.” And a quote from Rumsfeld I’d missed: "I suggest that any who insist on perfect evidence are back in the 20th century and still thinking in pre-9/11 terms." Didn’t we already bomb a country because we blamed it for bin Laden? How many countries can we blame for the same thing? Isn’t going after Iraq like the FBI continuing to name different people as the “20th hijacker”?
Can you believe that Union Carbide still isn’t telling Bhopal exactly what chemicals it released 18 years ago?
Friday, September 20, 2002
Nichtregierungsfaehig
There was a demo in Vienna today against a plan to require horses drawing carriages to wear diapers. The protesters protested by wearing, you guessed it, diapers.
Slate nicely provides a link to this 1999 Wash Post story about US infiltration of UNSCOM, including sneaking in equipment to intercept Iraqi military communications having nothing to do with the UNSCOM mission.
Shrub’s proposed resolution will do what I said the UN resolution he wants would do, transfer all decision-making power to Bush with a single vote, after which he would not have to bother with them again. It calls for him to be allowed to use “all means,” which we expected, when and if he wants, and in advance of any UN resolution and in advance of finding out how inspections actually go. Even the 1991 resolution required the government to use peaceful means first. What’s impressive is that the Bushies wrote the resolution so it doesn’t even restrict possible military action to Iraq. When they say they want “maximum flexibility,” they mean it. I hear yoga is good for that.
The Bushies are really pissed at German Chancellor Schröder for using opposition to Bush’s wars in his reelection campaign. And especially since that position may put the SPD over the top. But they’re really pissed that the justice minister compared Bush’s actions to Hitler’s, in using foreign conquests to detract from domestic failures. The Bush people think this is unfair, and point out that Hitler’s domestic policies, especially economic, were much more successful than Bush’s.
In the minute and a half I spent studying German, I missed one of their really useful compound words: nichtregierungsfaehig, meaning “unfit to govern.” Let’s all try to subtly work that word into a conversation. Add a .de to the end of that, and it’s an SPD website. Not quite sure what the animation of the donkey crapping is meant to signify.
Shrub also releases a new military doctrine of pre-emption, while trying not to use the word. I believe the title is Kill Them All, Let God Sort Them Out, since its premise is that there need be no proof of a specific threat in order for US action to constitute “self-defence.” It makes a pretense of multi-lateralism, which William Saletan of Slate says is merely unilateralism in disguise, since it involves creating coalitions only of whoever is willing to back us up in doing whatever we damned well want to do. It also says that the US will remain militarily far superior to anyone else forever, and that anyone trying to come close will get their ass kicked (“dissuade future military competition”).(The US now spends as much as the next 8 military powers combined). The Times reminds us that Bush when running for this job promised a “humble foreign policy.” By the way, non-proliferation will be replaced by counterproliferation, whatever the hell that might be.
Colin Powell says that the US will block UN inspectors going to Iraq unless it gets the resolution it wants. In other words, no inspectors without authorizing the US to go to war.
Slate nicely provides a link to this 1999 Wash Post story about US infiltration of UNSCOM, including sneaking in equipment to intercept Iraqi military communications having nothing to do with the UNSCOM mission.
Shrub’s proposed resolution will do what I said the UN resolution he wants would do, transfer all decision-making power to Bush with a single vote, after which he would not have to bother with them again. It calls for him to be allowed to use “all means,” which we expected, when and if he wants, and in advance of any UN resolution and in advance of finding out how inspections actually go. Even the 1991 resolution required the government to use peaceful means first. What’s impressive is that the Bushies wrote the resolution so it doesn’t even restrict possible military action to Iraq. When they say they want “maximum flexibility,” they mean it. I hear yoga is good for that.
The Bushies are really pissed at German Chancellor Schröder for using opposition to Bush’s wars in his reelection campaign. And especially since that position may put the SPD over the top. But they’re really pissed that the justice minister compared Bush’s actions to Hitler’s, in using foreign conquests to detract from domestic failures. The Bush people think this is unfair, and point out that Hitler’s domestic policies, especially economic, were much more successful than Bush’s.
In the minute and a half I spent studying German, I missed one of their really useful compound words: nichtregierungsfaehig, meaning “unfit to govern.” Let’s all try to subtly work that word into a conversation. Add a .de to the end of that, and it’s an SPD website. Not quite sure what the animation of the donkey crapping is meant to signify.
Shrub also releases a new military doctrine of pre-emption, while trying not to use the word. I believe the title is Kill Them All, Let God Sort Them Out, since its premise is that there need be no proof of a specific threat in order for US action to constitute “self-defence.” It makes a pretense of multi-lateralism, which William Saletan of Slate says is merely unilateralism in disguise, since it involves creating coalitions only of whoever is willing to back us up in doing whatever we damned well want to do. It also says that the US will remain militarily far superior to anyone else forever, and that anyone trying to come close will get their ass kicked (“dissuade future military competition”).(The US now spends as much as the next 8 military powers combined). The Times reminds us that Bush when running for this job promised a “humble foreign policy.” By the way, non-proliferation will be replaced by counterproliferation, whatever the hell that might be.
Colin Powell says that the US will block UN inspectors going to Iraq unless it gets the resolution it wants. In other words, no inspectors without authorizing the US to go to war.
Wednesday, September 18, 2002
The higher good
Santa Cruz handed out medical marijuana yesterday, so I guess it hasn’t changed that much since I left. More proof: one of the sponsors was the “Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana.” Favorite line in the NY Times article: “While people smoked marijuana on the lawn in front of City Hall, cigarette smokers were asked to move to the sidewalk.” The DEA sent a helicopter to try to drown out the demonstration. A candidate for city council said that “it would be noble of them if they felt the pain a little bit and did something for the higher good.” He should immediately be kicked in the balls, for the higher good. Wait, did he really say *higher* good? He also thinks marijuana is responsible for the rampant heroin use in Beach Flats, my, um, old neighborhood.
Once again, Florida’s elections were so badly screwed up that it’s impossible to tell who really won. Reno had to pull out, not because she lost, but because to do otherwise would have cost so much money and time that whoever was finally declared the victor in the primary would have lost to the Jebster. Well good look to Mc-whatshisname, but that wasn’t a real election. When people aren’t allowed to vote, when polling stations open late or close early, etc etc, you shouldn’t even bother to count whatever votes the computers didn’t eat, because the conditions for a fair election were not there.
Saw my first commercial for a proposition today. Evidently Ahnuld Schwarzeneger is sponsoring one for after-school programs. The ad directs you to the website www.joinarnold.com, where you can read about Prop 49 and, oddly, see a picture of him in bathing trucks showing off his muscles at least 20 years ago.
Saw Rummy Rumsfeld on McNeil-Lehrer today. Haven’t seen someone so smug since Elliot Abrams.
I read a funny story about chemical warfare today. In 1939 the British, unsure of whether the Germans would use mustard gas as in the first war (they didn’t), were testing the possibility of chemically treating knickers to protect members of Highland regiments. See, true Scotsmen are a) insane, b) wear nothing under their kilts (see a), and during WWI had experienced some rather nasty burns in their nether regions. Kilts were banned in 1940, but that didn’t stop officers continuing to wear them, although it made them a target for snipers, at least when they stopped laughing.
Also read about the new right-wing nut president of Colombia. OK I knew that when he was a governor he started vigilante groups and the homicide rate doubled in his state (and plummeted when he left again), but the Sunday Times strongly suggested that his career has benefitted from the drug cartels. He was mayor of Medellin in the early ‘80s when Pablo Escobar was pumping all that money into civic projects there. And he was head of civil aviation at a time when many pilot licenses were being handed out to smugglers. The article was a bit light on proof, but I guess it wouldn’t surprise me.
Once again, Florida’s elections were so badly screwed up that it’s impossible to tell who really won. Reno had to pull out, not because she lost, but because to do otherwise would have cost so much money and time that whoever was finally declared the victor in the primary would have lost to the Jebster. Well good look to Mc-whatshisname, but that wasn’t a real election. When people aren’t allowed to vote, when polling stations open late or close early, etc etc, you shouldn’t even bother to count whatever votes the computers didn’t eat, because the conditions for a fair election were not there.
Saw my first commercial for a proposition today. Evidently Ahnuld Schwarzeneger is sponsoring one for after-school programs. The ad directs you to the website www.joinarnold.com, where you can read about Prop 49 and, oddly, see a picture of him in bathing trucks showing off his muscles at least 20 years ago.
Saw Rummy Rumsfeld on McNeil-Lehrer today. Haven’t seen someone so smug since Elliot Abrams.
I read a funny story about chemical warfare today. In 1939 the British, unsure of whether the Germans would use mustard gas as in the first war (they didn’t), were testing the possibility of chemically treating knickers to protect members of Highland regiments. See, true Scotsmen are a) insane, b) wear nothing under their kilts (see a), and during WWI had experienced some rather nasty burns in their nether regions. Kilts were banned in 1940, but that didn’t stop officers continuing to wear them, although it made them a target for snipers, at least when they stopped laughing.
Also read about the new right-wing nut president of Colombia. OK I knew that when he was a governor he started vigilante groups and the homicide rate doubled in his state (and plummeted when he left again), but the Sunday Times strongly suggested that his career has benefitted from the drug cartels. He was mayor of Medellin in the early ‘80s when Pablo Escobar was pumping all that money into civic projects there. And he was head of civil aviation at a time when many pilot licenses were being handed out to smugglers. The article was a bit light on proof, but I guess it wouldn’t surprise me.
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