The US keeps encouraging Iraq to resist the UN inspectors. For example, here’s Ari Fleischer today: “If Saddam Hussein destroys the missiles that he said he never had ... you've got to wonder what other weapons does he have?” No, Ari, you really don’t. They must be chortling over Iraq’s current Catch-22: give up missiles it needs to fight an inevitable war, or give the US the excuse it needs to start the war immediately. Although, as I said last week, the US keeps bombing sites in Iraq, with less and less justification (a story in the Independent since then makes the same point), so really the war is now in its, what, 13th year.
Hussein wants to debate GeeDubya. Wouldn’t that be hilarious?
The Farc rebels in Colombia say they will treat the 3 CIA employees as prisoners of war. Hey, that’s more than we’d do for them. In fact, if they are CIA employees, or indeed civilian contractors like the gov says, the Geneva Conventions do not apply to them. A story on NPR today I only heard the headline for comments on this aspect of the increasing employment by the Pentagon of (armed) outside contractors, which is a way to avoid Congress or the press noticing just how many of them there are spread out over Colombia, the Philippines and god knows where else.
A Kentucky grand jury refuses to indict a white cop who shot a black prisoner, who was in handcuffs, 11 times. Since June 2000 Louisville cops have shot 6 men to death. Five were black, no charges have been brought.
Sharon will exclude Shas from government. Its “spiritual leader,” a rabbi, calls Sharon “Prime Minister of garbage cans,” whatever that might mean.
Which reminds me. The next Austrian coalition gov, which is taking even longer to put together than Israel’s, will include the party of the gay neo-fascist Jorg Haider.
Jonathan Steele in the Guardian says that the risk that Blair et al are taking in going to war in defiance of public opinion requires that there be tv images of Iraqis dancing in the streets, just as the invasion of Afghanistan was retroactively justified by women throwing off their burquas. Never mind what happened after that, it’s those first images that matter. This is why the US’s seesawing plans for post-invasion governance matter so much. The British, who have some experience of this, seem to think that Viceroy Tommy Franks is not going to be good PR. And what after that? If the UN gives permission for this war, it gives up the right to send peacekeepers in later, as it could in Kosovo (4 years after the Yugoslavs were kicked out, the UN special representative rules by decree as absolute dictator, the Albanians having no more self-determination than they did under Milosevic). Anyway, why should the UN discredit itself by picking up the wreckage left by the US, because the US “only does war”? The Afghan model won’t work, because there are no warlords to bribe. Fortunately for the US, it won’t matter, because we will have forgotten about Iraq by the end of this year, just like Afghanistan.
Saw Gephardt on McNeil-Lehrer. He drones on worse than Gore.
The parents of the 9-year old pregnant rape victim in Nicaragua say fuck it and get her an abortion illegally. The medical board that is required to approve an abortion had said that she faced the same risks from either abortion or pregnancy (a 9-year old? bullshit!).
Monday, February 24, 2003
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Not so much running, as speed-walking
Good (but long) Joan Didion article on various aspects of life after 9/11.
Obit of the day: Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to Britain who barely survived an assassination attempt in 1982, giving Israel the excuse to invade Lebanon. As a reminder of the human cost of these things, Argov was in the hospital for the last 21 years, blind and mostly paralyzed. Oh, and he strongly opposed the invasion of Lebanon and the fact that it was made in his name.
The White House denies that the 3 CIA employees kidnapped in Colombia last week were in fact CIA employees. Whatever happened to the thing about never confirming if people are in the CIA? That’s supposed to be policy. Whether these people really are or not (and of course they are), the policy is obviously now to lie, since what would they have said if the 3 were CIA? They’d never admit it, so they’d either lie, or do the neither-confirm-nor-deny thing, which if they’re only doing it for actual CIA employees and denying it for the rest, would be the same as admitting it. So, if you follow my logic, the official policy is now to lie.
London Times headlines, world in brief section: Struggle to Name Dead in Club Fire. Gee, isn’t that a bit late to be naming them, shouldn’t that have happened when they were, like, born? And a cop chasing thieves in his SUV (what else?) ran over 2 French sisters sunbathing. One is dead, one critical.
Sharon, still putting together a coalition, is giving housing over to a party representing the settlers. That can’t be good.
Some BBC headlines: “Blair: time running out for Iraq” (February 1, 2003); “Bush: time running out for Iraq” (January 14, 2003); “Straw: time running out for Iraq” (15 September, 2002); “Time is running out, UK warns Iraq” (November 9, 1998?)
Maybe it’s like one of those stores that always has a going out of business sale?
The Thai crackdown on drugs is up to 600 dead.
moveon.org is sponsoring a “Virtual March on Washington” Wednesday. Something about spamming Senators. Still, I’m picturing millions of people all over the country, sitting in front of their computers wearing those Virtual Reality gloves and glasses. Martin Luther King may have had a dream, but did it have kick-ass state-of-the-art digitized special effects, just like in Matrix? I thought not.
Obit of the day: Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to Britain who barely survived an assassination attempt in 1982, giving Israel the excuse to invade Lebanon. As a reminder of the human cost of these things, Argov was in the hospital for the last 21 years, blind and mostly paralyzed. Oh, and he strongly opposed the invasion of Lebanon and the fact that it was made in his name.
The White House denies that the 3 CIA employees kidnapped in Colombia last week were in fact CIA employees. Whatever happened to the thing about never confirming if people are in the CIA? That’s supposed to be policy. Whether these people really are or not (and of course they are), the policy is obviously now to lie, since what would they have said if the 3 were CIA? They’d never admit it, so they’d either lie, or do the neither-confirm-nor-deny thing, which if they’re only doing it for actual CIA employees and denying it for the rest, would be the same as admitting it. So, if you follow my logic, the official policy is now to lie.
London Times headlines, world in brief section: Struggle to Name Dead in Club Fire. Gee, isn’t that a bit late to be naming them, shouldn’t that have happened when they were, like, born? And a cop chasing thieves in his SUV (what else?) ran over 2 French sisters sunbathing. One is dead, one critical.
Sharon, still putting together a coalition, is giving housing over to a party representing the settlers. That can’t be good.
Some BBC headlines: “Blair: time running out for Iraq” (February 1, 2003); “Bush: time running out for Iraq” (January 14, 2003); “Straw: time running out for Iraq” (15 September, 2002); “Time is running out, UK warns Iraq” (November 9, 1998?)
Maybe it’s like one of those stores that always has a going out of business sale?
The Thai crackdown on drugs is up to 600 dead.
moveon.org is sponsoring a “Virtual March on Washington” Wednesday. Something about spamming Senators. Still, I’m picturing millions of people all over the country, sitting in front of their computers wearing those Virtual Reality gloves and glasses. Martin Luther King may have had a dream, but did it have kick-ass state-of-the-art digitized special effects, just like in Matrix? I thought not.
Satan for breakfast?
Crap I can’t make up: the “What Would Jesus Eat Cookbook.”
Bush: “if we are incapable of guaranteeing this peace, international peace would become senseless rhetoric.”
Choosing the next leader of Iraq, the American way.
His Fraudulency GeeDubya’s radio address today was on the subject of stealth judicial candidate Miguel Estrada, who neither Chris nor I can hear about without thinking of the actor in the 1970s gay cop show Chips (which is especially odd because I’ve only seen the show once). Anyway, Bush says the D’s “are stalling Miguel Estrada's nomination, while they search in vain for a reason to reject him.” I just want to point out that UN weapons inspectors have also been looking, mostly in vain, for reasons to reject Saddam Hussein. However, in that case, Bush cites that as reason to assume the worst, whereas after stonewalling the Judiciary Committee for 21 months, he expects the Senate to assume the best about Estrada. The point in common is that he wants his way, and he wants it NOW, dammit! Also, he referred to the Bar Association’s rating of Estrada; although he has refused to cooperate with the ABA in assessing his nominees, he is willing to cite them when they agree with him. As with his attitude towards going to the UN for resolutions on Iraq, it’s heads he wins, tails he loses.
WashPost headline: “Columbia Panel Focuses on Foam.” That’s what every committee needs: a latte machine.
The Post has an editorial on something I’ve been meaning to talk about. On the 15th I sent a link from the NY Times about Bush’s AIDS in Africa policy. I said, and I quote myself, “So Bush’s AIDS-in-Africa policy is also an attempt to stop abortion. What a surprise.” Imagine my surprise when the same story was run (even elsewhere in the Times) under headlines which suggested that Bush was in fact liberalizing his policy by working on AIDS with groups that also do abortions, when in fact it was clear that he was trying to hamstring them and extend the gag rule. The Post has it right, although they give Bush too much credit for his Potemkin policy. They do note that while he promised $10 billion, he’s only increased the budget this year by 1/20 of that. And guess what, it’s stolen from child poverty programs (and run through religious groups and US pharmaceutical businesses, as I’ve already said, while the UN AIDS program goes bankrupt).
Bush: “if we are incapable of guaranteeing this peace, international peace would become senseless rhetoric.”
Choosing the next leader of Iraq, the American way.
Coffins are explodingEvidently Tom Ridge is recommending "Have a good communications plan for your family." Or, to paraphrase Tom Lehrer, if you don’t have a good communications plan for your family, the very least you can do is to shut up.
Crematorium workers in Sweden are complaining about a rise in exploding coffins caused by pacemakers and breast implants, and relatives placing liquor, bullets and fireworks in caskets.
His Fraudulency GeeDubya’s radio address today was on the subject of stealth judicial candidate Miguel Estrada, who neither Chris nor I can hear about without thinking of the actor in the 1970s gay cop show Chips (which is especially odd because I’ve only seen the show once). Anyway, Bush says the D’s “are stalling Miguel Estrada's nomination, while they search in vain for a reason to reject him.” I just want to point out that UN weapons inspectors have also been looking, mostly in vain, for reasons to reject Saddam Hussein. However, in that case, Bush cites that as reason to assume the worst, whereas after stonewalling the Judiciary Committee for 21 months, he expects the Senate to assume the best about Estrada. The point in common is that he wants his way, and he wants it NOW, dammit! Also, he referred to the Bar Association’s rating of Estrada; although he has refused to cooperate with the ABA in assessing his nominees, he is willing to cite them when they agree with him. As with his attitude towards going to the UN for resolutions on Iraq, it’s heads he wins, tails he loses.
WashPost headline: “Columbia Panel Focuses on Foam.” That’s what every committee needs: a latte machine.
The Post has an editorial on something I’ve been meaning to talk about. On the 15th I sent a link from the NY Times about Bush’s AIDS in Africa policy. I said, and I quote myself, “So Bush’s AIDS-in-Africa policy is also an attempt to stop abortion. What a surprise.” Imagine my surprise when the same story was run (even elsewhere in the Times) under headlines which suggested that Bush was in fact liberalizing his policy by working on AIDS with groups that also do abortions, when in fact it was clear that he was trying to hamstring them and extend the gag rule. The Post has it right, although they give Bush too much credit for his Potemkin policy. They do note that while he promised $10 billion, he’s only increased the budget this year by 1/20 of that. And guess what, it’s stolen from child poverty programs (and run through religious groups and US pharmaceutical businesses, as I’ve already said, while the UN AIDS program goes bankrupt).
Friday, February 21, 2003
supplemental
Click here. The bit about not running if you catch fire. But really, what do you make of #11, "account for your family members," which seems like it would take more counselling sessions than I'm really prepared to engage in, or #12, "Do not go back into a burning building and carefully supervise small children." Yes, a burning building is
probably not the best place to supervise small children.
probably not the best place to supervise small children.
Pardon my freedom
The Daily Show points out that the Dept of Homeland Security’s website has this useful piece of advice: if you are on fire, don’t run.
If you’re looking for parodies of the site, see this, this, and especially this. But to fully appreciate them, you must first experience the hilarious graphics and duct-and-cover advice on offer at the government site. For example, here we see how a simple door can block the blast, firestorm and radiation of a nuclear blast.
Speaking of stuff that’s already most of the way to being a satire of itself, there is a restaurant in NC that has renamed French Fries “freedom fries.” Insubordinate.net suggests some other changes: “Freedom kissing”, “Pardon my freedom.”
The Serbian prime minister threatens to sponsor a breakaway Serb province in Kosovo if the west doesn’t let Serbia’s troops return to “protect Serbs’ rights.” Well, it’s worked so well in the past.
The sharia courts in Nigeria are getting creative. A thief has been sentenced to “cross-amputation”: right hand and left leg.
Sexism rears its ugly head in the Russian space program, which during the current crisis will not be sending any more woman cosmonauts up.
8 foot ceiling. Fireworks. What could go wrong?
After arresting the Palestinian professor in Florida, the Justice Dept is now going after academics elsewhere, including accusing a lecturer at Birbeck College in London, producing this gulp-inspiring headline in the Telegraph: “Don Denies Terror Claims.”
In more random censorship news, Russian authorities shut down a newspaper for running a parody of Putin’s growing personality cult, and Spain orders a Basque paper closed for supporting independence (it appeared anyway today under a different name).
Creepy religious item of the day (only $20).
If you’re looking for parodies of the site, see this, this, and especially this. But to fully appreciate them, you must first experience the hilarious graphics and duct-and-cover advice on offer at the government site. For example, here we see how a simple door can block the blast, firestorm and radiation of a nuclear blast.
Speaking of stuff that’s already most of the way to being a satire of itself, there is a restaurant in NC that has renamed French Fries “freedom fries.” Insubordinate.net suggests some other changes: “Freedom kissing”, “Pardon my freedom.”
The Serbian prime minister threatens to sponsor a breakaway Serb province in Kosovo if the west doesn’t let Serbia’s troops return to “protect Serbs’ rights.” Well, it’s worked so well in the past.
The sharia courts in Nigeria are getting creative. A thief has been sentenced to “cross-amputation”: right hand and left leg.
Sexism rears its ugly head in the Russian space program, which during the current crisis will not be sending any more woman cosmonauts up.
8 foot ceiling. Fireworks. What could go wrong?
After arresting the Palestinian professor in Florida, the Justice Dept is now going after academics elsewhere, including accusing a lecturer at Birbeck College in London, producing this gulp-inspiring headline in the Telegraph: “Don Denies Terror Claims.”
In more random censorship news, Russian authorities shut down a newspaper for running a parody of Putin’s growing personality cult, and Spain orders a Basque paper closed for supporting independence (it appeared anyway today under a different name).
Creepy religious item of the day (only $20).
Thursday, February 20, 2003
A little snip is a small price to pay for such a splendid machine
Rumsfeld wants to change the law preventing the deployment of weapons systems (i.e., Star Wars) that don’t actually work.
350 or so American Special Forces troops (and support staff--actually a suspiciously high number of support staff) will join the Philippines government in active combat against rebels. I must have missed the Congressional debate on that one. You’ll remember this started off as a “training mission.”
Saw John Ashcroft on McNeil-Lehrer saying that the Patriot Act was what allowed him to arrest that South Florida professor today. And charge him with things that took place before that Act was passed.
Pakistan’s air force commander dies in an air crash. That reminds me, I’m thinking of forming a charity to bring much-needed irony to irony-deprived nations. Ironie Sans Frontièrs, maybe.
Hey if those prisoners being kept forever in Guantanamo are such dangerous, highly-trained terrorists, how come none of the 19 who have tried to commit suicide actually succeeded?
Evidently, private mobile phones are banned in Iraq. OK, it’s to prevent them contacting the outside world, but still, isn’t that a great idea?
Speaking of fascist dictatorships, at the Georgia high school where Bush spoke today, students were warned that any protest against the war to make the world safe for democracy would not be tolerated. See, this is what I’m saying, we in the US have more irony than we could ever possibly use, and there are countries where children go to bed each night hungry for it. We are only 5% of the world’s population, and we use 23% of the world’s supply of irony.
According to Al Kamen at the Post, the founder of the largest duct tape company in the US is a major contributor to the Republican Party. Kamen also mentions the wart thing, if you didn’t believe me.
Israel has looked over the US “roadmap” towards Palestinian independence, and has over 100 changes it wants to make, including that there be no timetable, and that Palestinians have to jump through many hoops before Israel does anything at all, and that Palestine would have no military, control over its borders or airspace, or diplomatic relations with anyone Israel doesn’t approve.
From the Daily Telegraph: “Samoa's government has decreed that a new national uniform, complete with coconut shell buttons, must be worn by everyone attending a state function. The uniform - suits for men and the neck-to-ankle puletasi for women - can be made out of any material as long as it features traditional designs. These should include the teuila, the national flower, on the left side of the shirt with the word "Samoa" printed in small letters underneath it.”
Evidently at some point Samoa was taken over by gay men.
350 or so American Special Forces troops (and support staff--actually a suspiciously high number of support staff) will join the Philippines government in active combat against rebels. I must have missed the Congressional debate on that one. You’ll remember this started off as a “training mission.”
Saw John Ashcroft on McNeil-Lehrer saying that the Patriot Act was what allowed him to arrest that South Florida professor today. And charge him with things that took place before that Act was passed.
Pakistan’s air force commander dies in an air crash. That reminds me, I’m thinking of forming a charity to bring much-needed irony to irony-deprived nations. Ironie Sans Frontièrs, maybe.
Hey if those prisoners being kept forever in Guantanamo are such dangerous, highly-trained terrorists, how come none of the 19 who have tried to commit suicide actually succeeded?
Evidently, private mobile phones are banned in Iraq. OK, it’s to prevent them contacting the outside world, but still, isn’t that a great idea?
Speaking of fascist dictatorships, at the Georgia high school where Bush spoke today, students were warned that any protest against the war to make the world safe for democracy would not be tolerated. See, this is what I’m saying, we in the US have more irony than we could ever possibly use, and there are countries where children go to bed each night hungry for it. We are only 5% of the world’s population, and we use 23% of the world’s supply of irony.
According to Al Kamen at the Post, the founder of the largest duct tape company in the US is a major contributor to the Republican Party. Kamen also mentions the wart thing, if you didn’t believe me.
Israel has looked over the US “roadmap” towards Palestinian independence, and has over 100 changes it wants to make, including that there be no timetable, and that Palestinians have to jump through many hoops before Israel does anything at all, and that Palestine would have no military, control over its borders or airspace, or diplomatic relations with anyone Israel doesn’t approve.
From the Daily Telegraph: “Samoa's government has decreed that a new national uniform, complete with coconut shell buttons, must be worn by everyone attending a state function. The uniform - suits for men and the neck-to-ankle puletasi for women - can be made out of any material as long as it features traditional designs. These should include the teuila, the national flower, on the left side of the shirt with the word "Samoa" printed in small letters underneath it.”
Evidently at some point Samoa was taken over by gay men.
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
What would Jesus litigate?
Nicholas Kristof in the Times says roughly what I said last week about Bush’s frightening optimism.
It got no particular coverage, but police in Colorado Springs shot anti-war protesters with rubber bullets.
It’s kind of fun to watch the US and Turkey haggling about the size of the bribe Turkey’s going to get. We all know they’re going to come to a deal, but there’s all that bazaar bargaining to be gotten through first--“Sooner would I cut off my own left testicle than accept such a measly offer as $15 billion.” Hope they’re gonna pass some of the extortion money around; the last opinion poll showed 96% of Turks opposing this war, which may be higher than in Iraq itself. Actually, even with the bribe, Turkey is expecting to be really badly hit economically (unless of course it can find that map it says shows that the northern Iraqi oil fields are actually theirs), which should mean plenty of discontent, which I’m sure the Muslim extremists are much too ethical to exploit. No, no way this could go horribly horribly wrong.
Another possible political casualty is the EU. Chirac may be on the right side of the war issue (or he may be playing the Turkish game a little more subtly: God knows it’s not like he hasn’t taken a bribe or ten in his time), but he’s still a major prick, and way overplayed his hand when he told the Eastern (“new”) European states that now was a good time to shut up. Usually it takes an Israeli leader to come down from a moral height so quickly. Still, he may have a point: the US is using the former Warsaw Pact countries’ allegiance to NATO as a way of subverting their allegiance to a European community, or perhaps more accurately as part of an attempt at a hostile takeover of the EU by the US.
Have you noticed that the US bombing of Iraqi military sites, which is now a daily occurrence, no longer comes with any justification whatsoever (they fired a missile at us, they turned their radar on, they looked at us funny)?
Salon has an interview with Molly Ivins. They make you watch a commercial first, except they’re also failing economically and no one much wants to advertise, so sometimes you can’t read anything, like yesterday when it first ran.
Evidently part of the reason the GAO abandoned its efforts to get the names of Cheney’s energy advisors is that the R’s threatened to cut its budget.
Colin Powell, showing why generals make crappy diplomats, accuses the French--excuse me, “some nations”--of being “afraid of stepping up to the responsibility of imposing the will of the international community”. Oooo, now he’s calling them ‘fraidy cats. That should work--if they’re six.
Also, what’s “will of the international community” when it’s at home? The Holy Ghost?
A study shows that the majority of AIDS cases in Africa before 1988 were caused by unsterilized needles. This may or not be true, but there’s certainly been something of a cover-up of unsafe medical practices, for fear that Africans will give up on Western medicine altogether.
Another creepy medical story: a pregnant woman goes into the hospital in Sardinia to give birth, but instead for some reason decides to jump out the window, killing herself. A caesarian is performed successfully on her dead body.
Here’s a story of truly French thieves: they broke into a cheese cellar in eastern and stole one ton of something called comte (like gruyere, the article says), worth about $10,000.
It got no particular coverage, but police in Colorado Springs shot anti-war protesters with rubber bullets.
It’s kind of fun to watch the US and Turkey haggling about the size of the bribe Turkey’s going to get. We all know they’re going to come to a deal, but there’s all that bazaar bargaining to be gotten through first--“Sooner would I cut off my own left testicle than accept such a measly offer as $15 billion.” Hope they’re gonna pass some of the extortion money around; the last opinion poll showed 96% of Turks opposing this war, which may be higher than in Iraq itself. Actually, even with the bribe, Turkey is expecting to be really badly hit economically (unless of course it can find that map it says shows that the northern Iraqi oil fields are actually theirs), which should mean plenty of discontent, which I’m sure the Muslim extremists are much too ethical to exploit. No, no way this could go horribly horribly wrong.
Another possible political casualty is the EU. Chirac may be on the right side of the war issue (or he may be playing the Turkish game a little more subtly: God knows it’s not like he hasn’t taken a bribe or ten in his time), but he’s still a major prick, and way overplayed his hand when he told the Eastern (“new”) European states that now was a good time to shut up. Usually it takes an Israeli leader to come down from a moral height so quickly. Still, he may have a point: the US is using the former Warsaw Pact countries’ allegiance to NATO as a way of subverting their allegiance to a European community, or perhaps more accurately as part of an attempt at a hostile takeover of the EU by the US.
Have you noticed that the US bombing of Iraqi military sites, which is now a daily occurrence, no longer comes with any justification whatsoever (they fired a missile at us, they turned their radar on, they looked at us funny)?
Salon has an interview with Molly Ivins. They make you watch a commercial first, except they’re also failing economically and no one much wants to advertise, so sometimes you can’t read anything, like yesterday when it first ran.
Evidently part of the reason the GAO abandoned its efforts to get the names of Cheney’s energy advisors is that the R’s threatened to cut its budget.
Colin Powell, showing why generals make crappy diplomats, accuses the French--excuse me, “some nations”--of being “afraid of stepping up to the responsibility of imposing the will of the international community”. Oooo, now he’s calling them ‘fraidy cats. That should work--if they’re six.
Also, what’s “will of the international community” when it’s at home? The Holy Ghost?
A study shows that the majority of AIDS cases in Africa before 1988 were caused by unsterilized needles. This may or not be true, but there’s certainly been something of a cover-up of unsafe medical practices, for fear that Africans will give up on Western medicine altogether.
Another creepy medical story: a pregnant woman goes into the hospital in Sardinia to give birth, but instead for some reason decides to jump out the window, killing herself. A caesarian is performed successfully on her dead body.
Here’s a story of truly French thieves: they broke into a cheese cellar in eastern and stole one ton of something called comte (like gruyere, the article says), worth about $10,000.
Monday, February 17, 2003
Down with this sort of thing
You know what else duct tape is good for? Removing warts, evidently.
More signs from the London anti-war rally: “Stop Mad Cowboy Disease", "Down With This Sort Of Thing", "Peace Not Slogans". It occurs to me that y’all probably thought my reference to grass in Hyde Park was a joke. If it was, it was that of the government, which initially tried to ban the rally from the park on that basis (mow down Iraqis, not grass). They had to back down, unlike the NY City government, which got away with trying to stop anti-war protests in NYC, with, as it turns out, a friend-of-the-court brief by the Bushies (which I’m hoping someone will put online).
What the fuck just happened in the Cyprus elections?
Sharon, anxious to increase Israel’s Jewish population, has decided to import some 20,000 Ethiopians who may or may not have once been Jewish.
Chirac today said that war is always the worst resolution. It’s too bad he was unaware that that is the motto of the Bush administration: “Always the Worst Resolution, since 2001.”
The Nicaraguan government is mulling over whether to allow a 9-year old rape victim to have an abortion. Cardinal Obando y Bravo (remember him?) naturally thinks she should be forced to carry it to term.
Remember when Shrub went to Spain and got Prime Minister Aznar’s name and title wrong? Well, his brother is there now, promoting trade, and referred to the “Republic of Spain.” The king is not happy. Fortunately, the Aznar problem may not plague Shrub long, since Aznar’s support for Bush’s war has caused his support, like Tony Blair’s, to plummet.
Thailand’s crackdown on drug use has somehow wound up with 397 dead, and counting.
As the FCC considers relaxing rules against media monopolies yet further, read this on the Venezuelan media’s onslaught against Hugo Chavez. This is a must read.
N Korea threatens to tear up the armistice agreement ending the Korean War, or more accurately says that US actions have already abrogated it.
The last New Zealand veteran of World War I has died.
More signs from the London anti-war rally: “Stop Mad Cowboy Disease", "Down With This Sort Of Thing", "Peace Not Slogans". It occurs to me that y’all probably thought my reference to grass in Hyde Park was a joke. If it was, it was that of the government, which initially tried to ban the rally from the park on that basis (mow down Iraqis, not grass). They had to back down, unlike the NY City government, which got away with trying to stop anti-war protests in NYC, with, as it turns out, a friend-of-the-court brief by the Bushies (which I’m hoping someone will put online).
What the fuck just happened in the Cyprus elections?
Sharon, anxious to increase Israel’s Jewish population, has decided to import some 20,000 Ethiopians who may or may not have once been Jewish.
Chirac today said that war is always the worst resolution. It’s too bad he was unaware that that is the motto of the Bush administration: “Always the Worst Resolution, since 2001.”
The Nicaraguan government is mulling over whether to allow a 9-year old rape victim to have an abortion. Cardinal Obando y Bravo (remember him?) naturally thinks she should be forced to carry it to term.
Remember when Shrub went to Spain and got Prime Minister Aznar’s name and title wrong? Well, his brother is there now, promoting trade, and referred to the “Republic of Spain.” The king is not happy. Fortunately, the Aznar problem may not plague Shrub long, since Aznar’s support for Bush’s war has caused his support, like Tony Blair’s, to plummet.
Thailand’s crackdown on drug use has somehow wound up with 397 dead, and counting.
As the FCC considers relaxing rules against media monopolies yet further, read this on the Venezuelan media’s onslaught against Hugo Chavez. This is a must read.
N Korea threatens to tear up the armistice agreement ending the Korean War, or more accurately says that US actions have already abrogated it.
The last New Zealand veteran of World War I has died.
Saturday, February 15, 2003
One Two Three Four...
Looking back on old emails, I find I forgot, when discussing Powell’s UN speech, to use a fact which I was holding for an apposite moment. Actually, I’m wondering how many of you were aware of this: in 1969 Powell wrote the first report on the My Lai massacre, which he said based on no investigation did not happen, and added that in fact the American soldiers had great relations with the Vietnamese people.
The US expels an Iraqi journalist covering the UN. Hopefully the UN will protest. But I’m guessing the point was to make sure that Iraq would respond and kick US journos out, so there will be fewer pictures of the coming carnage broadcast in the US. And sure enough, some Fox News reporters are kicked out. Or possibly Iraq is just taking seriously the Fox slogan “We report, you decide,” and made the decision the rest of us would like to make--to deport all employees of Fox.
Given that Turkey is trying to extort a bribe of something like $25 billion to aid the war effort, it’s hard to get too worked up over France and Germany holding up deploying weaponry there.
Well over a million people marched to Hyde Park against the war, doing the grass simply no good at all. One person protested in support of war outside the Iraqi embassy. Protesters included the Eton George Orwell Society, Archaeologists Against War, the Swaffham Women's Choir and Notts County Supporters Say Make Love Not War (And a Home Win against Bristol would be Nice). “Make Tea Not War,” and the slightly cleaner and infinitely more British version of an old American standard: “One Two Three Four, We Don’t Want Your Bloody War.” One man walking a poodle had a sign “Stop insulting poodles.” The astonishing thing is that no one is chanting the equivalent of Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh. No one actually supports Saddam; the protest is purely anti-war. Tony Blair does not have the British people behind him, nor his own party, but he does have proxy control over the royal prerogative and a willingness to substitute his personal judgment for that of the nation.
Here’s a paragraph from a Mary Riddell column in the Observer:
Political leaders hate crowds. Mass meetings have been supplanted by leaks and soundbites. In the fractious build-up to war, lonely societies are encouraged to become more solipsistic. A fearful population, hiding behind its anthrax-proofed windows, is also tractable. There is nothing threatening to government about citizens bickering over the last roll of duct tape in Wal-Mart.So Bush’s AIDS-in-Africa policy is also an attempt to stop abortion. What a surprise.
The American ambassador to Venezuela, where the US has supported a coup and really should shut up now, says that elections aren’t the answer. “Elections divide people. Elections don't bring people together ... Either you're on this side or you're on that side”. Or to put it another way, the elected president, Chavez, should give in to the rich people holding his country hostage.
Incidentally, Iraq rejected the Franco-German peace plan (which involved UN soldiers, for no obvious reason since there has been no resistance to inspections). Doesn’t seem to have gotten much play yet, only saw it in one paper.
Friday, February 14, 2003
A mad Martian come to live on Earth
WashPost headline: “Shuttle Probably Was Pierced.” Last time it was the O rings, now it’s evidently the belly button rings.
NY Times headline: “Survey Shows Majority Backs Delaying a War.” How ‘bout this one: “Survey Shows Majority Backs Whatever the Last Person They Heard Call Into Talk Radio Said.” The poll also says 42% think Saddam was involved in 9/11.
Doonesbury joins the chorus pointing out that Bush has never asked for sacrifice in the war on terror. That’s ok, we’re sacrificing quite enough for tax cuts for the rich.
Bush: “The decision is this for the United Nations: When you say something does it mean anything?” We’ve been wondering the same thing about you for years now, George.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/frontpages/ for the 2/14 front page.
Saddam issues a decree banning weapons of mass destruction. So that’s ok then.
AP headline: “Boston Priest Reinstated After Probe.” No comment.
The US Navy, showing that sense of priorities for which it is famous, removed the Admiral in charge of a battle group that is literally heading for the Gulf right now, because he had sex with a (female) subordinate.
A little late, some Valentine’s Day cards. My favorites: “You’ll do.” “I love you blah blah blah hearts & flowers yadda yadda yadda cupid etc.”
Here’s a British Valentine’s Day story: a juror in a fraud case sent a card to the prosecutor, asking him out. She was bounced off the jury and the other 11 quizzed about whether they also wanted to have sex with the prosecutor. None did. He won the case.
Russia’s tax police are going to start questioning the *children* of suspected tax cheats--using lie detectors.
Not really sure what this is about (from the Daily Telegraph): Einars Repse, Latvia's prime minister, told critics of his first 100 days in office that he was a "mad Martian come to live on Earth".
Yet another “old” European country makes Rummy’s hit-list. Austria is refusing to let the US transport troops through the country. Austria is not, of course, a member of NATO, but no one knows if the Secretary of War knew that. Or cared.
NY Times headline: “Survey Shows Majority Backs Delaying a War.” How ‘bout this one: “Survey Shows Majority Backs Whatever the Last Person They Heard Call Into Talk Radio Said.” The poll also says 42% think Saddam was involved in 9/11.
Doonesbury joins the chorus pointing out that Bush has never asked for sacrifice in the war on terror. That’s ok, we’re sacrificing quite enough for tax cuts for the rich.
Bush: “The decision is this for the United Nations: When you say something does it mean anything?” We’ve been wondering the same thing about you for years now, George.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/frontpages/ for the 2/14 front page.
Saddam issues a decree banning weapons of mass destruction. So that’s ok then.
AP headline: “Boston Priest Reinstated After Probe.” No comment.
The US Navy, showing that sense of priorities for which it is famous, removed the Admiral in charge of a battle group that is literally heading for the Gulf right now, because he had sex with a (female) subordinate.
A little late, some Valentine’s Day cards. My favorites: “You’ll do.” “I love you blah blah blah hearts & flowers yadda yadda yadda cupid etc.”
Here’s a British Valentine’s Day story: a juror in a fraud case sent a card to the prosecutor, asking him out. She was bounced off the jury and the other 11 quizzed about whether they also wanted to have sex with the prosecutor. None did. He won the case.
Russia’s tax police are going to start questioning the *children* of suspected tax cheats--using lie detectors.
Not really sure what this is about (from the Daily Telegraph): Einars Repse, Latvia's prime minister, told critics of his first 100 days in office that he was a "mad Martian come to live on Earth".
Yet another “old” European country makes Rummy’s hit-list. Austria is refusing to let the US transport troops through the country. Austria is not, of course, a member of NATO, but no one knows if the Secretary of War knew that. Or cared.
Thursday, February 13, 2003
Duct tape, plastic sheeting, and other Valentine's Day accessories
The fake bin Laden suggests in that tape that Iraqis fight the Americans by digging ditches and camouflaging them. Presumably this involves plastic sheeting and duct tape, as recommended by Tom Ridge and Jeffrey Daumer (possibly for different reasons).
The Congressional hearings on the Columbia accident have already begun, and a commission set up. Meanwhile any investigation of the intelligence failures leading up to 9/11, 17 months ago, remain stalled.
Here’s another ironic contrast: North Korea has a new ballistic missile capable of reaching California, which the Bushies will no doubt soft-pedal, while Iraq has been found to have a missile capable of traveling 183 kilometers, breaking the limits placed on its missile capacity by a full twenty miles, which means it can reach a bit more of Kuwait than it could before, and I’m just guessing that Powell and Rumsfeld will explain how that is a reason why we need to go to war with Iraq.
Speaking of double standards, the perceived need to prepare for war is so strong that we’re threatening trade sanctions on Germany and France for preventing NATO moving weaponry into Turkey, why isn’t Iraq allowed to prepare for the same war. We’re calling up reserves, moving troops into place, bombing defensive sites in Iraq every day, even operating militarily inside Iraq according to today’s WashPost, etc., but if Iraq made any of these preparations, it would be, you guessed it, another reason why we need to go to war with Iraq.
In Parliament today, Jack Straw accused the Iraqis of giving inspectors nothing but a “reprint of earlier documents.” He should talk. He also accused Saddam of tyranny, while refusing to let Parl vote on going to war.
In the British census, 390,000 people designated themselves Jedis. They will not officially be counted, although they outnumber newer religions (depending on how long ago “a long time ago (in a galaxy etc)” actually is) like Sikhs, Jews and Buddhists. The registrar general, asked if he was being presumptuous in deciding what constituted a religion, said that he had acted “with immense consultation and remarkable concentration"”--like Yoda.
Ooh, are the Israelis pissed off at Belgium, whose supreme court ruled that Ariel Sharon can be tried for war crimes in the 1982 Sabra/Shatila massacres after he leaves office. Netanyahu calls it a “blood libel,” although the charge is neither a collective charge against the Jews, nor is the massacre false. The Israeli justice minister astonishingly says, "Legally, this is practically a world precedent, a law which allows for the prosecution of a person for alleged actions in the past. It has a clear retroactive nature to it and is, therefore, unprecedented." I can’t see any reason why the Israeli justice minister would ever have heard of the Nuremberg trials, can you? Or indeed, Adolf Eichmann’s trial. Unprecedented, indeed.
The Congressional hearings on the Columbia accident have already begun, and a commission set up. Meanwhile any investigation of the intelligence failures leading up to 9/11, 17 months ago, remain stalled.
Here’s another ironic contrast: North Korea has a new ballistic missile capable of reaching California, which the Bushies will no doubt soft-pedal, while Iraq has been found to have a missile capable of traveling 183 kilometers, breaking the limits placed on its missile capacity by a full twenty miles, which means it can reach a bit more of Kuwait than it could before, and I’m just guessing that Powell and Rumsfeld will explain how that is a reason why we need to go to war with Iraq.
Speaking of double standards, the perceived need to prepare for war is so strong that we’re threatening trade sanctions on Germany and France for preventing NATO moving weaponry into Turkey, why isn’t Iraq allowed to prepare for the same war. We’re calling up reserves, moving troops into place, bombing defensive sites in Iraq every day, even operating militarily inside Iraq according to today’s WashPost, etc., but if Iraq made any of these preparations, it would be, you guessed it, another reason why we need to go to war with Iraq.
In Parliament today, Jack Straw accused the Iraqis of giving inspectors nothing but a “reprint of earlier documents.” He should talk. He also accused Saddam of tyranny, while refusing to let Parl vote on going to war.
In the British census, 390,000 people designated themselves Jedis. They will not officially be counted, although they outnumber newer religions (depending on how long ago “a long time ago (in a galaxy etc)” actually is) like Sikhs, Jews and Buddhists. The registrar general, asked if he was being presumptuous in deciding what constituted a religion, said that he had acted “with immense consultation and remarkable concentration"”--like Yoda.
Ooh, are the Israelis pissed off at Belgium, whose supreme court ruled that Ariel Sharon can be tried for war crimes in the 1982 Sabra/Shatila massacres after he leaves office. Netanyahu calls it a “blood libel,” although the charge is neither a collective charge against the Jews, nor is the massacre false. The Israeli justice minister astonishingly says, "Legally, this is practically a world precedent, a law which allows for the prosecution of a person for alleged actions in the past. It has a clear retroactive nature to it and is, therefore, unprecedented." I can’t see any reason why the Israeli justice minister would ever have heard of the Nuremberg trials, can you? Or indeed, Adolf Eichmann’s trial. Unprecedented, indeed.
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Highest moral traditions
At a religious broadcasters’ event, Bush says war with Iraq would be “in the highest moral traditions of our country.” Do you think when Shrub uses the word “moral” he has in mind a different definition than the rest of us?
Speaking of our moral war, the US ambassador to the Vatican last week flew a conservative theologian to Rome to try to persuade the pope that this is a just war. Your tax dollars at work.
Still speaking of a moral war, an article in the New Statesman 1/20/03 issue by John Gray suggests that the problem with American foreign policy is that Bush believes evil can be eradicated from the world by an act of will (an unforgiving moral optimism, he calls it), while Europeans, say, know better. Countries that have had experience of endemic violence (Northern Ireland, the Basques, Cyprus) know that dealing with it is a process, not a single event--while the Bushies expect to be out of Iraq within 18 months. Gray thinks that such rhetoric stops the US admitting that international relations is often about a choice among evils, and inhibits honesty about mundane interests, like oil. “But if Bush talks so insistently of evil, it is because he belongs in a tradition of American piety that does not finally believe in it. Like Woodrow Wilson before him, he does not doubt that once the world has accepted American values, it will enjoy everlasting peace and prosperity.”
The reference to Wilson is apt. Somehow with the eclipse of Kissingerian Machiavellianism in the American right by the, yes, unforgiving moral optimism of the Reagan-Shrubite wing, the optimist/pessimist view of human nature has switched between the right and left wings. The Jefferson-Adams, Paine-Burke debate is still being fought out, but the left has become institutionally conservative, advocating restraints on power such as the UN and the Bill of Rights, while the right wing has become scarily optimistic about the use of power--on the side of the angels--without any constraints, such as international treaties, the UN, or, domestically, the Bill of Rights and Congressional oversight. I mean, look at Ashcroft’s draft of the “Patriot II” Act (This time it’s personal). This isn’t actually a traditional rightist use of power; it’s not the Palmer raids or McCarthyism, it’s the French or Russian Revolutions, it’s the electronic equivalent of the Jacobin clubs and those little old ladies who used to sit in chairs in the stairwells of apartment buildings in Moscow, taking note of who came and went. And if you think the left wing was dangerous when it sought absolute power in the pursuit of creating heaven on earth, imagine Dubya exercising absolute power in “the highest moral traditions of our country.”
I trust you’ve all bought your duct tape, to defend against the next terrorist attack. Remember, we are at Condition Orange because of specific information of terrorist threats, although Tom Ridge admits that specific information does not include “time or place or methods or means.” With that definition of specific, Ridge would not have done well in journalism school.
The Pentagon has ordered 77,000 body bags.
The Guardian says that the British government is working on plans for establishing democracy in Iraq--one plan would have it fully functioning within six months. The Iraqi people would just go off to polling booths in the rubble of their nearest school or city hall.
The Bushies have successfully muddied the waters, convincing the great unwashed, but totally brainwashed, American public that Iraq is somehow linked to 9/11, that Powell was authenticating a tape of Osama bin Laden (that I predict will turn out not to be him) before he’d even heard it, and touting it as a reason to go to war with Iraq, although in a rational universe, a reminder of the existence of He Whose Name George Bush Is Not Allowed To Say Out Loud would be an embarrassing reminder of past unfinished business.
You know those commercials that people who use drugs are supporting terrorism? Yeah, but did you know they’re also not banned from joining the military? If you’re trying to enlist and you test positive for marijuana, why you can just come back in 45 days (a year if you fail a second time; or one year if you’re positive for cocaine). I assume if you have amphetamines in your system, the Air Force welcomes you with the keys to a bomber.
Speaking of our moral war, the US ambassador to the Vatican last week flew a conservative theologian to Rome to try to persuade the pope that this is a just war. Your tax dollars at work.
Still speaking of a moral war, an article in the New Statesman 1/20/03 issue by John Gray suggests that the problem with American foreign policy is that Bush believes evil can be eradicated from the world by an act of will (an unforgiving moral optimism, he calls it), while Europeans, say, know better. Countries that have had experience of endemic violence (Northern Ireland, the Basques, Cyprus) know that dealing with it is a process, not a single event--while the Bushies expect to be out of Iraq within 18 months. Gray thinks that such rhetoric stops the US admitting that international relations is often about a choice among evils, and inhibits honesty about mundane interests, like oil. “But if Bush talks so insistently of evil, it is because he belongs in a tradition of American piety that does not finally believe in it. Like Woodrow Wilson before him, he does not doubt that once the world has accepted American values, it will enjoy everlasting peace and prosperity.”
The reference to Wilson is apt. Somehow with the eclipse of Kissingerian Machiavellianism in the American right by the, yes, unforgiving moral optimism of the Reagan-Shrubite wing, the optimist/pessimist view of human nature has switched between the right and left wings. The Jefferson-Adams, Paine-Burke debate is still being fought out, but the left has become institutionally conservative, advocating restraints on power such as the UN and the Bill of Rights, while the right wing has become scarily optimistic about the use of power--on the side of the angels--without any constraints, such as international treaties, the UN, or, domestically, the Bill of Rights and Congressional oversight. I mean, look at Ashcroft’s draft of the “Patriot II” Act (This time it’s personal). This isn’t actually a traditional rightist use of power; it’s not the Palmer raids or McCarthyism, it’s the French or Russian Revolutions, it’s the electronic equivalent of the Jacobin clubs and those little old ladies who used to sit in chairs in the stairwells of apartment buildings in Moscow, taking note of who came and went. And if you think the left wing was dangerous when it sought absolute power in the pursuit of creating heaven on earth, imagine Dubya exercising absolute power in “the highest moral traditions of our country.”
I trust you’ve all bought your duct tape, to defend against the next terrorist attack. Remember, we are at Condition Orange because of specific information of terrorist threats, although Tom Ridge admits that specific information does not include “time or place or methods or means.” With that definition of specific, Ridge would not have done well in journalism school.
The Pentagon has ordered 77,000 body bags.
The Guardian says that the British government is working on plans for establishing democracy in Iraq--one plan would have it fully functioning within six months. The Iraqi people would just go off to polling booths in the rubble of their nearest school or city hall.
The Bushies have successfully muddied the waters, convincing the great unwashed, but totally brainwashed, American public that Iraq is somehow linked to 9/11, that Powell was authenticating a tape of Osama bin Laden (that I predict will turn out not to be him) before he’d even heard it, and touting it as a reason to go to war with Iraq, although in a rational universe, a reminder of the existence of He Whose Name George Bush Is Not Allowed To Say Out Loud would be an embarrassing reminder of past unfinished business.
You know those commercials that people who use drugs are supporting terrorism? Yeah, but did you know they’re also not banned from joining the military? If you’re trying to enlist and you test positive for marijuana, why you can just come back in 45 days (a year if you fail a second time; or one year if you’re positive for cocaine). I assume if you have amphetamines in your system, the Air Force welcomes you with the keys to a bomber.
Monday, February 10, 2003
Tom Hanks (and that donkey) died for your sins
I said that the Franco-German plan on Iraqi inspection was sensible. It’s also invisible. OK, I expected it to be dismissed by the Bushies, but both the NY Times and McNeil-Lehrer today took their cues from them and neglected to provide the actual details of the plan, as if discussion of alternatives to war were irrelevant because Secretary of War Rumsfeld says so.
Rummy and Powell, increasingly reading off the same hymnal, both use the word “inexcusable” to describe Germany, France and Belgium’s refusal to act on the presumption of a war by sending weapons to Turkey. Well, we’ve already forgiven Germany for that whole Hitler thing and the Holocaust thing, but yes, this time they’ve finally done something inexcusable. And France--well, the NY Post’s front page shows a picture of graves in Normandy and the headline "They died for France but France has forgotten." Yeah, it’s like they haven’t seen Saving Private Ryan.
And by the way, 150 million people are not and cannot be “isolated.”
Israel has been replacing the old gas masks given out after the last Gulf War. Except for the Occupied Territories, of course.
FAIR has a good report (fair.org) on the numerous allegations the US has made against Iraq over the last few months subsequently disproved by UN inspectors or otherwise, and suggests that the media should have treated the Powell report with a touch more skepticism, whereas in fact his claims were often reported as if they were fact, without the usual distancing words like “claimed”, “alleged” that they’re supposed to make when reporting unverified assertions.
PETA’s president has written to Yasser Arafat, complaining about an attempt to blow up Israeli soldiers with explosives strapped to, gasp shock horror, a donkey. “We watched on television as stray cats in your own compound fled as best they could from the Israeli bulldozers. . . . If you have the opportunity, will you please add to your burdens my request that you appeal to all those who listen to you to leave the animals out of this conflict?” I looked at the PETA website, but could find nothing more on this, although there was a pop-up ad for Burger King. Veggie burgers, of course.
The 8th Circuit rules that an insane prisoner who is (usually) sane only when medicated can be executed. The court says that Arkansas has an interest in having sane inmates, so the side-effect of sanity should not impact his fate.
Rummy and Powell, increasingly reading off the same hymnal, both use the word “inexcusable” to describe Germany, France and Belgium’s refusal to act on the presumption of a war by sending weapons to Turkey. Well, we’ve already forgiven Germany for that whole Hitler thing and the Holocaust thing, but yes, this time they’ve finally done something inexcusable. And France--well, the NY Post’s front page shows a picture of graves in Normandy and the headline "They died for France but France has forgotten." Yeah, it’s like they haven’t seen Saving Private Ryan.
And by the way, 150 million people are not and cannot be “isolated.”
Israel has been replacing the old gas masks given out after the last Gulf War. Except for the Occupied Territories, of course.
FAIR has a good report (fair.org) on the numerous allegations the US has made against Iraq over the last few months subsequently disproved by UN inspectors or otherwise, and suggests that the media should have treated the Powell report with a touch more skepticism, whereas in fact his claims were often reported as if they were fact, without the usual distancing words like “claimed”, “alleged” that they’re supposed to make when reporting unverified assertions.
PETA’s president has written to Yasser Arafat, complaining about an attempt to blow up Israeli soldiers with explosives strapped to, gasp shock horror, a donkey. “We watched on television as stray cats in your own compound fled as best they could from the Israeli bulldozers. . . . If you have the opportunity, will you please add to your burdens my request that you appeal to all those who listen to you to leave the animals out of this conflict?” I looked at the PETA website, but could find nothing more on this, although there was a pop-up ad for Burger King. Veggie burgers, of course.
The 8th Circuit rules that an insane prisoner who is (usually) sane only when medicated can be executed. The court says that Arkansas has an interest in having sane inmates, so the side-effect of sanity should not impact his fate.
Sunday, February 09, 2003
Buy a slurpie--if you hate America
I got a paper cut today from a bagel. How is that possible? Not from the knife, either, from the actual bagel.
Click here. Just do it (except people receiving email from Kevin, who had the same idea, but whose mail server, unlike mine, was working this morning).
The exec director of the New Hampshire Republican Party just resigned. It seems he hired a telemarketing firm to jam the lines of the Democratic party’s get-out-the-vote operation with 5-second hang-up calls last election days.
The Franco-German plan on Iraq is nicely sensible. So of course it is rejected out of hand by the US. Powell has joined Rummy in condescending to the Europeans, telling Germany and France to read UN resolution 1441 again.
Rummy, in a breathtaking interview with the Times of London, answers one of my questions, how he could say that if Saddam fled he could get amnesty. The Rumster says that the country he goes to could simply say that it wasn’t going to extradite him. See, I was wondering how the US could legally give him world-wide asylum, but the man who discredits my first name says, just ignore international law altogether. Hell, the judges on the International Court are just a bunch of girls. Probably on the same menstrual cycle. (There, I’ve finally figured how to use that joke without being accused of sexism--I’ve attributed it to Rocket Rummy.)
Sue Myrick, the NC Congresscritter who I mentioned made comments about all 7-11 owners being Arabs, explains that she simply wanted to remind people of the dangers of terrorism, including "the illegal trafficking of food stamps through convenience stores for the purpose of laundering money to countries known to harbor terrorists."
The new Union of Serbia and Montenegro is going along smoothly. The prime minister of Montenegro refused to attend celebrations of the new forced marriage and accused the EU of forcing Montenegro into it, and promises a referendum on real independence in 3 years. (I just read for the first time that the US may be encouraging them, because it wants a new vassal state--and a nice new naval base). Montenegro has been called a Mafia state by the Italians, of all countries, and a bunch of its leaders are implicated in a scandal in which the deputy state prosecutor bought a sex slave from Moldova and passed her around. And they just failed, again, to elect a president. No one has noticed or cares that Kosovo was forced into the same country without any pretense that anyone cares what Kosovans want.
The US is making a deal with Turkey allowing it to occupy Iraqi Kurdistan. No, no, *first* you get the Kurds to fight for you, *then* you betray them; it’s worked so well in the past.
Click here. Just do it (except people receiving email from Kevin, who had the same idea, but whose mail server, unlike mine, was working this morning).
The exec director of the New Hampshire Republican Party just resigned. It seems he hired a telemarketing firm to jam the lines of the Democratic party’s get-out-the-vote operation with 5-second hang-up calls last election days.
The Franco-German plan on Iraq is nicely sensible. So of course it is rejected out of hand by the US. Powell has joined Rummy in condescending to the Europeans, telling Germany and France to read UN resolution 1441 again.
Rummy, in a breathtaking interview with the Times of London, answers one of my questions, how he could say that if Saddam fled he could get amnesty. The Rumster says that the country he goes to could simply say that it wasn’t going to extradite him. See, I was wondering how the US could legally give him world-wide asylum, but the man who discredits my first name says, just ignore international law altogether. Hell, the judges on the International Court are just a bunch of girls. Probably on the same menstrual cycle. (There, I’ve finally figured how to use that joke without being accused of sexism--I’ve attributed it to Rocket Rummy.)
Sue Myrick, the NC Congresscritter who I mentioned made comments about all 7-11 owners being Arabs, explains that she simply wanted to remind people of the dangers of terrorism, including "the illegal trafficking of food stamps through convenience stores for the purpose of laundering money to countries known to harbor terrorists."
The new Union of Serbia and Montenegro is going along smoothly. The prime minister of Montenegro refused to attend celebrations of the new forced marriage and accused the EU of forcing Montenegro into it, and promises a referendum on real independence in 3 years. (I just read for the first time that the US may be encouraging them, because it wants a new vassal state--and a nice new naval base). Montenegro has been called a Mafia state by the Italians, of all countries, and a bunch of its leaders are implicated in a scandal in which the deputy state prosecutor bought a sex slave from Moldova and passed her around. And they just failed, again, to elect a president. No one has noticed or cares that Kosovo was forced into the same country without any pretense that anyone cares what Kosovans want.
The US is making a deal with Turkey allowing it to occupy Iraqi Kurdistan. No, no, *first* you get the Kurds to fight for you, *then* you betray them; it’s worked so well in the past.
Saturday, February 08, 2003
A poison factory is a term of art
Evidently the US tabloids have been calling the French what Le Monde has translated as primates capitulards et tou-jours en quête de fromages (cheese-eating surrender monkeys). It comes from Les Simpsons. There is also a column against France in the Sunday NY Times by Tom Friedman, whose IQ drops a point per day as we approach war. Yes, the French aren’t convinced of the need to fry the children of Baghdad, they must be stopped. Rumsfeld says that European governments that don’t support the war will be rejected by their own people. Meanwhile, his own German relatives told him to go to hell.
A British story, but it’s bound to be happening here too, says that bullied children are turning to steroids.
Colin Powell showed a satellite picture of what he called “terrorist chemicals and poisons factory” in northern Iraq. An Observer reporter has gone there, and it is no such thing, although there is a bakery. The NY Times also reports on this. Defending the lie, a State Dept spokesmodel says, “A poison factory is a term of art.”
Also in the Observer, a bit more about the British citizen Texas executed this week. I had missed the fact that the real murderer didn’t serve even a day of jail time. And that all 12 jurors signed a petition asking for DNA testing, which was never done.
The Bush admin threatens public schools with loss of federal funds if they don’t allow students and teachers to pray, loudly and openly, although not with each other.
The GAO gives up on its attempt to get the records of Cheney’s energy task force. Wimps. And in the Senate, James Inhofe hired a mining industry lobbyist to oversee clean air legislation.
6 of 7 of the judges on the new International Criminal Court will be women.
A British story, but it’s bound to be happening here too, says that bullied children are turning to steroids.
Colin Powell showed a satellite picture of what he called “terrorist chemicals and poisons factory” in northern Iraq. An Observer reporter has gone there, and it is no such thing, although there is a bakery. The NY Times also reports on this. Defending the lie, a State Dept spokesmodel says, “A poison factory is a term of art.”
Also in the Observer, a bit more about the British citizen Texas executed this week. I had missed the fact that the real murderer didn’t serve even a day of jail time. And that all 12 jurors signed a petition asking for DNA testing, which was never done.
The Bush admin threatens public schools with loss of federal funds if they don’t allow students and teachers to pray, loudly and openly, although not with each other.
The GAO gives up on its attempt to get the records of Cheney’s energy task force. Wimps. And in the Senate, James Inhofe hired a mining industry lobbyist to oversee clean air legislation.
6 of 7 of the judges on the new International Criminal Court will be women.
Friday, February 07, 2003
Good cop
I’ve finished reading Powell’s speech, and the impression of intellectual dishonesty grows. Here’s my favorite: “in the history of chemical warfare, no country has had more battlefield experience with chemical weapons since World War I than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.” What he means by battlefield experience is that Iraq was subject to chemical warfare by Britain in 1920 (1921?). Also, I didn’t know Hussein had been in power for 85 years.
He also used the “dual-use” argument, that the chemical weapons “infrastructure” was embedded within civilian industry, so deeply that no one, including experts (UN inspectors, say) could tell. He offered no proof of this, of course.
Does anyone remember Reagan showing grainy satellite footage of that runway being constructed in Grenada, implying that it was a huge secret, when anyone could, and did, just walk in and take all the photos they wanted, as some smartass reporters could, and did? Well, Powell says that, while Iraq will argue that various equipment is being used for legitimate purposes, “But if that is true, why did we have to learn about them by intercepting communications and risking the lives of human agents?” Because you and your little friends like playing spies?
Incidentally, if Powell is good cop to Rumsfeld’s bad cop, has anyone considered that the police tactic of good-cop-bad-cop is actually a piece of play-acting? Is it possible that all that posing as a “dove” was just a prelude for this week’s little morality play, wherein honest and not-at-all-warlike General Powell finds himself persuaded all against his will of the necessity for war?
Bad cop Rummy Rumsfeld (played by Dennis Franz) says that Germany won’t help us--just like Libya and Cuba.
The picture of an Iraqi plane spraying chemical agents wasn’t actual footage, by the way, although news channels didn’t necessarily label it as a Pentagon art project.
And what do you suppose was actually in that vial of anthrax?
It turns out that the British “dossier” on how bad Saddam is, which Powell praised in his speech, was plagiarized to a large extent, right down to the typographical errors, from published articles, some of them years old. So much for MI6, whose sources turn out to be a subscription to Jane’s Intelligence Review.
He also used the “dual-use” argument, that the chemical weapons “infrastructure” was embedded within civilian industry, so deeply that no one, including experts (UN inspectors, say) could tell. He offered no proof of this, of course.
Does anyone remember Reagan showing grainy satellite footage of that runway being constructed in Grenada, implying that it was a huge secret, when anyone could, and did, just walk in and take all the photos they wanted, as some smartass reporters could, and did? Well, Powell says that, while Iraq will argue that various equipment is being used for legitimate purposes, “But if that is true, why did we have to learn about them by intercepting communications and risking the lives of human agents?” Because you and your little friends like playing spies?
Incidentally, if Powell is good cop to Rumsfeld’s bad cop, has anyone considered that the police tactic of good-cop-bad-cop is actually a piece of play-acting? Is it possible that all that posing as a “dove” was just a prelude for this week’s little morality play, wherein honest and not-at-all-warlike General Powell finds himself persuaded all against his will of the necessity for war?
Bad cop Rummy Rumsfeld (played by Dennis Franz) says that Germany won’t help us--just like Libya and Cuba.
The picture of an Iraqi plane spraying chemical agents wasn’t actual footage, by the way, although news channels didn’t necessarily label it as a Pentagon art project.
And what do you suppose was actually in that vial of anthrax?
It turns out that the British “dossier” on how bad Saddam is, which Powell praised in his speech, was plagiarized to a large extent, right down to the typographical errors, from published articles, some of them years old. So much for MI6, whose sources turn out to be a subscription to Jane’s Intelligence Review.
Thursday, February 06, 2003
These horrible agents
I meant to direct your attention to a N Korean propaganda poster featured on the front page of the NY Times Saturday, but forgot. Fortunately, here it is, and several others.
I saw an SUV outside Trader Joe’s last week, with a Ralph Nader bumper sticker. I took it for post-modern irony. Or possibly delusion: it was parked in a compact space, so maybe the owner thought they were driving a Sentra. Anyway, I’ve got a modest proposal: since SUVs are only purchased to drive your kids to a soccer game on a butte and such, I say let’s ban them from paved roads altogether. They’ll get good use out of their 4-wheel drives, and the rest of us will get faster, safer commutes.
Interview with Kurt Vonnegut on the war and such.
On why we should send the Statue of Liberty back to the frog-eaters.
Symbolism of the week: when Colin Powell went to the UN today, the staff covered up Picasso’s Guernica.
Said Powell: “Clearly, Saddam will stop at nothing until something stops him.” Clearly.
He also said (clearly) that when Resolution 1441 passed, “No Council member present...had any illusion...what serious consequences meant.” In other words, he is again saying that the French (etc) actually voted to let the US go to war with Iraq, and just either forgot or are lying about it.
Well, Powell successfully made the case that Iraq isn’t being very cooperative with the inspectors, and that neither is the United States. Imagine how much more effective the inspectors would be if the US hadn’t saved up its alleged intelligence for this day. Yes, the Iraqis are trying to hide weapons. But, as Powell himself said a few days ago, just because there’s a UN doesn’t mean that nations give up their sovereign right to defend themselves. How much more so for Iraq, which is being asked to give up all its weapons more dangerous than a pointy stick, when it is faced with certain war. Powell’s actual evidence was semi-convincing, though most of it depended on relying on him to be right and telling the truth about what those buildings were (although those satellite pictures were great, weren’t they? And that’s after being deliberate fuzzed up to hide our capabilities. Certainly good enough that you’d have to ask why we need U-2 flights), who those people were, and for god’s sake, how seriously are we expected to take this line: “Stop talking about it. They are listening to us. Don't give any evidence that we have these horrible agents.” These horrible agents? You mean your agent Maury who got you this gig, telling you it was an episode of Law & Order? Horrible agents indeed. Who writes this dialog?
Even William Safire, who has pretty much turned off his analytic skills for the duration, wonders why if we knew about an Al Qaida base in northern Iraq (an area not under Saddam’s control, but effectively an American protectorate anyway), we didn’t just bomb it into oblivion. The aluminum tubes were brought out again, and still prove nothing. Some defector testimony, which is always valueless, and stuff obtained by torture. The Iraqi-Al Qaida connections are laughable, of course (some of Powell’s claims have already been denied by British intelligence).
Speaking of intelligence, Guardian arcticle on previous American intelligence failures and/or lies: the Kuwaiti babies in the incubators, the Tonkin Gulf “incident,” the “chemical weapons” factory in Khartoum, etc.
Oh, and North Korea just threatened the US with a first strike. You’d think that would be news, but the good people at the NY Times evidently don’t.
2 Republican Congresscritters from NC have little problems with racism. Howard Coble, chair of the subcommittee on domestic security, says that FDR was right to intern Japanese, because weren’t a multicultural society then. And Sue Myrick also warns of the enemy within: “Look at who runs all the convenience stores across the country.”
Speaking of the enemy within, the World Court just ordered the US to stop executing Mexican nationals.
I saw an SUV outside Trader Joe’s last week, with a Ralph Nader bumper sticker. I took it for post-modern irony. Or possibly delusion: it was parked in a compact space, so maybe the owner thought they were driving a Sentra. Anyway, I’ve got a modest proposal: since SUVs are only purchased to drive your kids to a soccer game on a butte and such, I say let’s ban them from paved roads altogether. They’ll get good use out of their 4-wheel drives, and the rest of us will get faster, safer commutes.
Interview with Kurt Vonnegut on the war and such.
On why we should send the Statue of Liberty back to the frog-eaters.
Symbolism of the week: when Colin Powell went to the UN today, the staff covered up Picasso’s Guernica.
Said Powell: “Clearly, Saddam will stop at nothing until something stops him.” Clearly.
He also said (clearly) that when Resolution 1441 passed, “No Council member present...had any illusion...what serious consequences meant.” In other words, he is again saying that the French (etc) actually voted to let the US go to war with Iraq, and just either forgot or are lying about it.
Well, Powell successfully made the case that Iraq isn’t being very cooperative with the inspectors, and that neither is the United States. Imagine how much more effective the inspectors would be if the US hadn’t saved up its alleged intelligence for this day. Yes, the Iraqis are trying to hide weapons. But, as Powell himself said a few days ago, just because there’s a UN doesn’t mean that nations give up their sovereign right to defend themselves. How much more so for Iraq, which is being asked to give up all its weapons more dangerous than a pointy stick, when it is faced with certain war. Powell’s actual evidence was semi-convincing, though most of it depended on relying on him to be right and telling the truth about what those buildings were (although those satellite pictures were great, weren’t they? And that’s after being deliberate fuzzed up to hide our capabilities. Certainly good enough that you’d have to ask why we need U-2 flights), who those people were, and for god’s sake, how seriously are we expected to take this line: “Stop talking about it. They are listening to us. Don't give any evidence that we have these horrible agents.” These horrible agents? You mean your agent Maury who got you this gig, telling you it was an episode of Law & Order? Horrible agents indeed. Who writes this dialog?
Even William Safire, who has pretty much turned off his analytic skills for the duration, wonders why if we knew about an Al Qaida base in northern Iraq (an area not under Saddam’s control, but effectively an American protectorate anyway), we didn’t just bomb it into oblivion. The aluminum tubes were brought out again, and still prove nothing. Some defector testimony, which is always valueless, and stuff obtained by torture. The Iraqi-Al Qaida connections are laughable, of course (some of Powell’s claims have already been denied by British intelligence).
Speaking of intelligence, Guardian arcticle on previous American intelligence failures and/or lies: the Kuwaiti babies in the incubators, the Tonkin Gulf “incident,” the “chemical weapons” factory in Khartoum, etc.
Oh, and North Korea just threatened the US with a first strike. You’d think that would be news, but the good people at the NY Times evidently don’t.
2 Republican Congresscritters from NC have little problems with racism. Howard Coble, chair of the subcommittee on domestic security, says that FDR was right to intern Japanese, because weren’t a multicultural society then. And Sue Myrick also warns of the enemy within: “Look at who runs all the convenience stores across the country.”
Speaking of the enemy within, the World Court just ordered the US to stop executing Mexican nationals.
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
To the president's recollection, he thinks he has been there
GeeDubya calls the US space program “a desire written in the human heart.” But he can’t remember whether or not he’s ever visited the Johnson Space Center. Which is in Houston. Says his spokesmodel, “To the president's recollection, he thinks he has been there.” In George Bush’s head, no one can hear you scream. Ari Fleischer also says Bush has never seen a NASA takeoff or landing because there are so many other beautiful things to see.
Speaking of beautiful things to see in Texas, the state executed that innocent guy today. The prosecution did release to the defense the documents it had previously withheld, a full 7 hours before the execution, so that’s fair enough. The DNA test was never performed.
All hail the Union of Serbia and Montenegro Until the Next Civil War, as the nation of Yugoslavia is voted out of existence. Farewell, Union of Southern Slavs, and don’t let the war crimes tribunal hit you in the ass on the way out.
From the Daily Telegraph (a story about Britain): “The Catholic Church is to appoint an education "tsar" to fight suggestions that Catholic schools are breeding grounds for sectarianism and religious bigotry.” Yes, to show how open and tolerant you are, you’re appointing a TSAR.
Speaking of tolerance, New Mexico’s state senate saves the proud sport of cock-fighting from being outlawed. Evidently it’s an important part of Hispanic culture, according to some assholes.
Evidently I failed to mention the Bush plan to let states reduce Medicaid payments, impose co-pays, throw people off, etc etc, without having to get federal permission. This would not only set off a race to the bottom, which we’ve already begun, but end Medicaid as an entitlement program, which is the idea.
Speaking of beautiful things to see in Texas, the state executed that innocent guy today. The prosecution did release to the defense the documents it had previously withheld, a full 7 hours before the execution, so that’s fair enough. The DNA test was never performed.
All hail the Union of Serbia and Montenegro Until the Next Civil War, as the nation of Yugoslavia is voted out of existence. Farewell, Union of Southern Slavs, and don’t let the war crimes tribunal hit you in the ass on the way out.
From the Daily Telegraph (a story about Britain): “The Catholic Church is to appoint an education "tsar" to fight suggestions that Catholic schools are breeding grounds for sectarianism and religious bigotry.” Yes, to show how open and tolerant you are, you’re appointing a TSAR.
Speaking of tolerance, New Mexico’s state senate saves the proud sport of cock-fighting from being outlawed. Evidently it’s an important part of Hispanic culture, according to some assholes.
Evidently I failed to mention the Bush plan to let states reduce Medicaid payments, impose co-pays, throw people off, etc etc, without having to get federal permission. This would not only set off a race to the bottom, which we’ve already begun, but end Medicaid as an entitlement program, which is the idea.
Drinking pesticides for fun and profit
Here’s a subtle clue that your housekeeping might not be the best: after hearing a loud crash in my bedroom during one of Sunday’s earthquakes, I couldn’t figure out what had fallen down.
The fed gov is asking a court to dismiss a suit by a whistle blower who said that Star Wars doesn’t work, and was fired. The gov says that letting her have her day in court would let military secrets out (like the fact that Star Wars doesn’t work, I’m guessing).
Speaking of secrets, Chuck Hagel, Republican Senator of Nebraska, owned the company that ran the voting machines that counted the votes that put him into that office in 1996 in a surprise win (the company threatened to sue someone who found went public). Article on how computerized vote-counting is a black box that leaves no verifiable paper trail. The whole country is now Florida. The Hill reports (there’s a link to the story from the above link) that Hagel failed to disclose his interest in the company, as required by law. His company makes half the voting machines used in the US, and this is very paranoid-making.
So why is Tony Blair, whose pursuit of whatever the latest opinion poll tells him to pursue is legendary, following Bush’s line so assiduously when he can’t even bring the Labour party behind him, much less the British people? I’m thinking Shrub’s got pictures of him tied up and being whipped, possibly by Hillary Clinton. Today, Mr. Blur actually channeled Lyndon Johnson: "History points to this lesson: show weakness now and no one will ever believe us when we try to show strength in the future”.
Guardian on the US’s war in Colombia, and the legalization of new death squads in that country. For the spelling-challenged, this is the nation of Colombia, not the space shuttle Columbia. When Colombia falls apart in a mass of flaming debris, it will not be available at reasonable prices on Ebay.
Bayer paid college students, mostly in Edinburgh, to test out some pesticides. By drinking them. This actually violates the Nuremberg Code. Bayer is a subsidiary of IG Farben, which brought you Zyklon B.
The fed gov is asking a court to dismiss a suit by a whistle blower who said that Star Wars doesn’t work, and was fired. The gov says that letting her have her day in court would let military secrets out (like the fact that Star Wars doesn’t work, I’m guessing).
Speaking of secrets, Chuck Hagel, Republican Senator of Nebraska, owned the company that ran the voting machines that counted the votes that put him into that office in 1996 in a surprise win (the company threatened to sue someone who found went public). Article on how computerized vote-counting is a black box that leaves no verifiable paper trail. The whole country is now Florida. The Hill reports (there’s a link to the story from the above link) that Hagel failed to disclose his interest in the company, as required by law. His company makes half the voting machines used in the US, and this is very paranoid-making.
So why is Tony Blair, whose pursuit of whatever the latest opinion poll tells him to pursue is legendary, following Bush’s line so assiduously when he can’t even bring the Labour party behind him, much less the British people? I’m thinking Shrub’s got pictures of him tied up and being whipped, possibly by Hillary Clinton. Today, Mr. Blur actually channeled Lyndon Johnson: "History points to this lesson: show weakness now and no one will ever believe us when we try to show strength in the future”.
Guardian on the US’s war in Colombia, and the legalization of new death squads in that country. For the spelling-challenged, this is the nation of Colombia, not the space shuttle Columbia. When Colombia falls apart in a mass of flaming debris, it will not be available at reasonable prices on Ebay.
Bayer paid college students, mostly in Edinburgh, to test out some pesticides. By drinking them. This actually violates the Nuremberg Code. Bayer is a subsidiary of IG Farben, which brought you Zyklon B.
Sunday, February 02, 2003
Creationists are suing a Texas Tech professor who won’t write letters of recommendation for students who don’t believe in evolution.
The Catholic Church bans transsexuals from being priests.
I mentioned that Bush’s little initiative on AIDS in Africa mostly bypasses the UN AIDS fund. That fund ran out of money today.
The US is planning to use sea lions in the Iraq war.
You can now pass Florida’s high school PE requirements online. Now why didn’t they have that when I was in high school?
The Bush admin wants to keep using methyl bromide, a pesticide due to be banned under an international agreement to protect the ozone layer, because it is necessary to one of the American industries most beloved of Republicans: golf courses.
CanNOT make this shit up.
Speaking of poison gases, it seems that the gassing of the Kurds in Halabja was actually the work of Iran, not Iraq.
Britain is working on setting up new tests for aliens seeking citizenship. It includes how to use a telephone, what the cops can and can’t do, “etiquette of everyday life,” equality of the sexes, the funny name of that guy Mrs. Wallace Simpson was fucking, why Wales only gets a “National Assembly” while Scotland has a “Parliament,” etc etc. What it does not include, to much tut tutting, is British history. I believe the American system is that if you can correctly answer any historical questions (what decade did World War II occur in, that sort of thing), you are promptly expelled.
Well, there’s nothing like a little shuttle explosion to break the monotony of war coverage. Shrub, in a speech I thankfully missed, said, "The same Creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today.” He added, “On the other hand, the joker who named Uranus...”
Observer on an innocent man Texas is due to execute this week. The police kept back evidence of his innocence, just brought to light. And the judge who is to decide whether to issue a stay, has evidently already made up his mind--if you count a letter to the pardons & parole board telling them they should fry the guy--but is willing to take new evidence, two days after the execution.
The Catholic Church bans transsexuals from being priests.
I mentioned that Bush’s little initiative on AIDS in Africa mostly bypasses the UN AIDS fund. That fund ran out of money today.
The US is planning to use sea lions in the Iraq war.
You can now pass Florida’s high school PE requirements online. Now why didn’t they have that when I was in high school?
The Bush admin wants to keep using methyl bromide, a pesticide due to be banned under an international agreement to protect the ozone layer, because it is necessary to one of the American industries most beloved of Republicans: golf courses.
CanNOT make this shit up.
Speaking of poison gases, it seems that the gassing of the Kurds in Halabja was actually the work of Iran, not Iraq.
Britain is working on setting up new tests for aliens seeking citizenship. It includes how to use a telephone, what the cops can and can’t do, “etiquette of everyday life,” equality of the sexes, the funny name of that guy Mrs. Wallace Simpson was fucking, why Wales only gets a “National Assembly” while Scotland has a “Parliament,” etc etc. What it does not include, to much tut tutting, is British history. I believe the American system is that if you can correctly answer any historical questions (what decade did World War II occur in, that sort of thing), you are promptly expelled.
Well, there’s nothing like a little shuttle explosion to break the monotony of war coverage. Shrub, in a speech I thankfully missed, said, "The same Creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today.” He added, “On the other hand, the joker who named Uranus...”
Observer on an innocent man Texas is due to execute this week. The police kept back evidence of his innocence, just brought to light. And the judge who is to decide whether to issue a stay, has evidently already made up his mind--if you count a letter to the pardons & parole board telling them they should fry the guy--but is willing to take new evidence, two days after the execution.
Thursday, January 30, 2003
His willingness to terrorize himself
Maybe Shrub could make his case for the Iraq-Al Qaeda connection by saying that he has no evidence for it because he’s relying on the US intelligence agencies that so completely failed to notice the 9/11 guys.
At least it would make more sense than this: "The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorize himself."—Grand Rapids, Mich., Jan. 29, 2003
I missed something obvious about the timing of the war. It’s not just the weather, it’s the reservists. A shitload of reservists have been called up, and you don’t keep reservists sitting around for months, or send them home to call them back later. This is actually how World War I started.
Not that we’re waiting. A report yesterday that doesn’t seem to worry anybody in particular says that US troops are already operating in northern Iraq.
I’m told Bush’s one effort at pretend compassion, the AIDS initiative, actually amounts to less than what our proportional (by population and wealth) contribution to the UN Global AIDS Fund should be but isn’t. And most of it goes to US pharmaceutical companies and church groups. (His other new initiative, $600m for drug addicts, will be in the form of vouchers that can be used at religious groups--see a trend here?). Actually, $2b a year to treat 30 million with AIDS in Africa--to say nothing of prevention--that’s, let’s see, carry the 2, $67 per year each. How much does it cost to keep an American with AIDS alive for a year?
The Herero are suing Germany for genocide (look it up, I can’t explain everything to you).
I Am Your Father’s Skeleton, Luke: Two teenagers stole a Broadway actor's skeleton from a New York crypt and took it to a party dressed as Darth Vader the Star Wars character, police said. Michael Herz, 18, and Michael Sossi, 17, deny taking the body of Elmer Grandin, who died in 1938, and two other skulls.
At least it would make more sense than this: "The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorize himself."—Grand Rapids, Mich., Jan. 29, 2003
I missed something obvious about the timing of the war. It’s not just the weather, it’s the reservists. A shitload of reservists have been called up, and you don’t keep reservists sitting around for months, or send them home to call them back later. This is actually how World War I started.
Not that we’re waiting. A report yesterday that doesn’t seem to worry anybody in particular says that US troops are already operating in northern Iraq.
I’m told Bush’s one effort at pretend compassion, the AIDS initiative, actually amounts to less than what our proportional (by population and wealth) contribution to the UN Global AIDS Fund should be but isn’t. And most of it goes to US pharmaceutical companies and church groups. (His other new initiative, $600m for drug addicts, will be in the form of vouchers that can be used at religious groups--see a trend here?). Actually, $2b a year to treat 30 million with AIDS in Africa--to say nothing of prevention--that’s, let’s see, carry the 2, $67 per year each. How much does it cost to keep an American with AIDS alive for a year?
The Herero are suing Germany for genocide (look it up, I can’t explain everything to you).
I Am Your Father’s Skeleton, Luke: Two teenagers stole a Broadway actor's skeleton from a New York crypt and took it to a party dressed as Darth Vader the Star Wars character, police said. Michael Herz, 18, and Michael Sossi, 17, deny taking the body of Elmer Grandin, who died in 1938, and two other skulls.
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
"Exoatmospheric kill vehicle" would make a terrible name for a rock band
I mentioned a man suing the police for sending him a Valentine’s Day Card. Here is what it said: "Will you be my Valentine? I'm hoping we can meet. We have a cosy cell, prepared here in St John Street."
Bush said that if Saddam ain’t evil, evil has no meaning. John Pilger, in a somewhat over-the-top article, suggests that dropping 800 cruise missiles on Baghdad, the majority of whose population is under 14, might constitute that. Well, as Bush didn’t say to the Iraqi people, Your real enemy isn’t surrounding you, it’s over-head and coming straight for you. This is the administration that has claimed that Iraqi will be dancing in the streets when we “liberate” them. I don’t think there’ll be that much dancing in the rubble.
OK, that was me being over-the-top, not Pilger. Pilger does call Bush a fascist, but if you read past the hyperbole, you can see that it comes from someone who know what he’s talking about regarding American bombing (he is an Australian journalist who helped break the story of the secret bombing of Cambodia, and wrote about East Timor for 25 years).
The real problem is that nothing is unthinkable for the Bushies. I don’t think they’ll actually use nuclear weapons against Iraq, but they’ll sure plan for it and threaten it. I was about to say that they might even use smallpox or something, but it’s not like the US hasn’t used biological warfare against Iraq before: targeting water purification and sewer treatment plants, then denying Iraq access to replacement parts and medicines (did they get away with the attempt last month to stop Iraq importing antibiotics?), etc.
Incidentally, if I were Iran, I’d be worried about the several minutes Bush spent talking about them. And Iraq. And N Korea. He didn’t repeat the phrase Axis of Evil, but it’s obviously still in his oddly chimp-like head.
Also in the speech, the return of the Laffer Curve, which I don’t think anybody has pointed out yet. Drug benefits on Medicare only for those who subject themselves to HMO controls.
And very vague assertions of connections between Iraq and Al Qaida. On Prime Minister’s Questions today, Tony Blair had a rather hard time dealing with the fact that British intelligence has cleared Iraq of that allegation. The new emphasis on terrorism suggests that the whole WMD thing isn’t going over well. His father also changed the rationale for attacking Iraq several times in the run-up to the fighting, and Reagan with Grenada. There is also a focus, in relation to inspections, on down-grading the inspections themselves and saying that Iraq fails if it doesn’t do all the work itself. This is of course partly because the inspectors have hit several hundred sites and found zippo, but also because it shifts focus from the lack of cooperation with the inspectors by the United States, which has failed to provide them with real intelligence, if any. The growing talk about an “Adlai Stevenson moment” is clearly worrying them.
By the way, if terrorists had blown everyone up, the president would now be John Ashcroft. The horror. The horror.
Michael Kinsley on the speech:
For my fellow censorship buffs, a landmark: the BBC has allowed the first broadcast of “cunt,” in a docudrama about witch-hunts. They say it wasn’t an offensive term in the 16th century.
The Post says the “new evidence” about the Iraqi WMD programs is confined to dual-use materials--like those aluminum tubes. They really do have nothing.
Evidently, the key Star Wars contract was won by default by Raytheon in 1998 after Boeing got caught spying on it and dropped out. So no actual analysis was done as to whether Raytheon’s “exoatmospheric kill vehicle” would actually work. Which it doesn’t. No one ever prosecuted Boeing (for example, for fucking up an $800m. bidding process), because then people might have wondered why it was still left in charge of the Star Wars project (that’s not me, it actually says that).
The White House cancels a poetry symposium because some of the poets might oppose the war.
Many government documents on the resignation of King Edward in 1937 have been released, if anyone is interested. Evidently they threatened to take his money away if he came back to Britain without permission. The Guardian has the best coverage.
Bush said that if Saddam ain’t evil, evil has no meaning. John Pilger, in a somewhat over-the-top article, suggests that dropping 800 cruise missiles on Baghdad, the majority of whose population is under 14, might constitute that. Well, as Bush didn’t say to the Iraqi people, Your real enemy isn’t surrounding you, it’s over-head and coming straight for you. This is the administration that has claimed that Iraqi will be dancing in the streets when we “liberate” them. I don’t think there’ll be that much dancing in the rubble.
OK, that was me being over-the-top, not Pilger. Pilger does call Bush a fascist, but if you read past the hyperbole, you can see that it comes from someone who know what he’s talking about regarding American bombing (he is an Australian journalist who helped break the story of the secret bombing of Cambodia, and wrote about East Timor for 25 years).
The real problem is that nothing is unthinkable for the Bushies. I don’t think they’ll actually use nuclear weapons against Iraq, but they’ll sure plan for it and threaten it. I was about to say that they might even use smallpox or something, but it’s not like the US hasn’t used biological warfare against Iraq before: targeting water purification and sewer treatment plants, then denying Iraq access to replacement parts and medicines (did they get away with the attempt last month to stop Iraq importing antibiotics?), etc.
Incidentally, if I were Iran, I’d be worried about the several minutes Bush spent talking about them. And Iraq. And N Korea. He didn’t repeat the phrase Axis of Evil, but it’s obviously still in his oddly chimp-like head.
Also in the speech, the return of the Laffer Curve, which I don’t think anybody has pointed out yet. Drug benefits on Medicare only for those who subject themselves to HMO controls.
And very vague assertions of connections between Iraq and Al Qaida. On Prime Minister’s Questions today, Tony Blair had a rather hard time dealing with the fact that British intelligence has cleared Iraq of that allegation. The new emphasis on terrorism suggests that the whole WMD thing isn’t going over well. His father also changed the rationale for attacking Iraq several times in the run-up to the fighting, and Reagan with Grenada. There is also a focus, in relation to inspections, on down-grading the inspections themselves and saying that Iraq fails if it doesn’t do all the work itself. This is of course partly because the inspectors have hit several hundred sites and found zippo, but also because it shifts focus from the lack of cooperation with the inspectors by the United States, which has failed to provide them with real intelligence, if any. The growing talk about an “Adlai Stevenson moment” is clearly worrying them.
By the way, if terrorists had blown everyone up, the president would now be John Ashcroft. The horror. The horror.
Michael Kinsley on the speech:
“It would be a fine reason to topple other governments around the world that torture their own citizens and do other despicable things. Is the Bush administration prepared to enforce the no-torturing-children rule by force everywhere? And what happens if Saddam decides to meet all our demands regarding weapons and inspections? Is he then free to torture children and pour acid on innocent citizens without fear of the United States?Sorry I only found this afterwards, but here’s the State of the Union drinking game, along with scores—this is actually well worth looking at, it’s quite revealing.
“If Saddam's human-rights practices morally require the United States to act, why are we waiting for Hans Blix? Or if the danger that Saddam will develop and use weapons of mass destruction against the United States justifies removing him in our own long-term self-defense, what does torturing children have to do with it? Bush was careful not to say explicitly that Iraq's internal human-rights situation alone justifies going to war-though he was just as careful to imply that it does. But Bush has said clearly and often that Saddam's external threat does justify a war all by itself. So, human-rights abuses are neither necessary nor sufficient as a reason for war, in Bush's view, to the extent it can be parsed. Logically, they don't matter. That makes the talk about the torture of children merely decorative, not serious.”
For my fellow censorship buffs, a landmark: the BBC has allowed the first broadcast of “cunt,” in a docudrama about witch-hunts. They say it wasn’t an offensive term in the 16th century.
The Post says the “new evidence” about the Iraqi WMD programs is confined to dual-use materials--like those aluminum tubes. They really do have nothing.
Evidently, the key Star Wars contract was won by default by Raytheon in 1998 after Boeing got caught spying on it and dropped out. So no actual analysis was done as to whether Raytheon’s “exoatmospheric kill vehicle” would actually work. Which it doesn’t. No one ever prosecuted Boeing (for example, for fucking up an $800m. bidding process), because then people might have wondered why it was still left in charge of the Star Wars project (that’s not me, it actually says that).
The White House cancels a poetry symposium because some of the poets might oppose the war.
Many government documents on the resignation of King Edward in 1937 have been released, if anyone is interested. Evidently they threatened to take his money away if he came back to Britain without permission. The Guardian has the best coverage.
Tuesday, January 28, 2003
And the State of the Union is...the envelope, please...strong!
In Davos, Colin Powell strayed from his script and used the words “great crusade.” You just may hear more about this. He also says again that Saddam is running out of time. If the Bush admin had a theme song, it would be the one from Jeopardy.
Another amazing scoop from the Guardian: “Arab World: US Flag Burnt in Protests.”
CBS says the Iraq war will start with a bombardment of 300-400 cruise missiles, in the first day, more than in the whole 1991 war. And the same again the second day.
The Comcast cable company refused to accept anti-war commercials to run on CNN in the DC region during the State of the Union address (obviously not actually during, but that’s what AP says).
If the US didn’t like Libya getting the chair of the UN human rights commission, I really don’t think it will be pleased in May when the chair of the Conference on Disarmament goes to Iraq (it goes alphabetically).
In preparation for war, many American soldiers are making deposits at the sperm bank (some of which have military discounts). Many of them are less afraid of being killed than of being Gulf War Syndromed into infertility.
From the Daily Telegraph: A convicted burglar has been given legal aid to sue the police for sending him a Valentine's card last year. Gary Williams, who has a 12-year criminal record, was one of 10 known burglars and car criminals who received cards from Brighton police. But when he opened the card, his girlfriend thought it must be from another woman. She was so cross that, before he could explain, she hurled an ashtray at him, and it went whistling past his head. Williams, 26, will go to the High Court next month to seek a judicial review of the actions of Ken Jones, the chief constable of Sussex. He is seeking damages, arguing that the card was malicious and caused him distress.
State of the Union address, some random quotes and sarcastic comments:
“No one was ever healed by a frivolous lawsuit.” Did he not see Patch Adams, in which Robin Williams taught us the healing power of frivolity?
Creepiest line to a secularist: “we will transform America one heart and one soul at a time.”
He said we should set a high standard for humanity by banning cloning. Makes it sound like an entrance test.
On Saddam Hussein: “If this isn’t evil, evil has no meaning.” That would be very worrying to Boy George, whose vocabulary is already pretty small.
Another word in his vocabulary that he trotted out several times is security. For example, he talked about a peace between a secure Israel and a democratic Palestine (on the same day that the first part of the BBC news at 3 was given over to a live broadcast of Sharon’s victory speech, which actually made me more nauseous than Shrub’s). And he would defend the “freedom and security of the American people.” Who precisely is threatening the freedom of the American people? No one, but you’re not supposed to look at the construction that closely. The problem is that security is a purely negative virtue, so he needed to pair it with a positive one. Or more positive, since freedom itself is only the absence of restrictions. Which is why the speech only offered freedom to Iraq, not democracy.
He actually brought up those damned aluminum tubes again, saying they were “suitable for atomic weapons production.”
Nothing about Osama. Guess Bush isn’t mad at him anymore.
Another amazing scoop from the Guardian: “Arab World: US Flag Burnt in Protests.”
CBS says the Iraq war will start with a bombardment of 300-400 cruise missiles, in the first day, more than in the whole 1991 war. And the same again the second day.
The Comcast cable company refused to accept anti-war commercials to run on CNN in the DC region during the State of the Union address (obviously not actually during, but that’s what AP says).
If the US didn’t like Libya getting the chair of the UN human rights commission, I really don’t think it will be pleased in May when the chair of the Conference on Disarmament goes to Iraq (it goes alphabetically).
In preparation for war, many American soldiers are making deposits at the sperm bank (some of which have military discounts). Many of them are less afraid of being killed than of being Gulf War Syndromed into infertility.
From the Daily Telegraph: A convicted burglar has been given legal aid to sue the police for sending him a Valentine's card last year. Gary Williams, who has a 12-year criminal record, was one of 10 known burglars and car criminals who received cards from Brighton police. But when he opened the card, his girlfriend thought it must be from another woman. She was so cross that, before he could explain, she hurled an ashtray at him, and it went whistling past his head. Williams, 26, will go to the High Court next month to seek a judicial review of the actions of Ken Jones, the chief constable of Sussex. He is seeking damages, arguing that the card was malicious and caused him distress.
State of the Union address, some random quotes and sarcastic comments:
“No one was ever healed by a frivolous lawsuit.” Did he not see Patch Adams, in which Robin Williams taught us the healing power of frivolity?
Creepiest line to a secularist: “we will transform America one heart and one soul at a time.”
He said we should set a high standard for humanity by banning cloning. Makes it sound like an entrance test.
On Saddam Hussein: “If this isn’t evil, evil has no meaning.” That would be very worrying to Boy George, whose vocabulary is already pretty small.
Another word in his vocabulary that he trotted out several times is security. For example, he talked about a peace between a secure Israel and a democratic Palestine (on the same day that the first part of the BBC news at 3 was given over to a live broadcast of Sharon’s victory speech, which actually made me more nauseous than Shrub’s). And he would defend the “freedom and security of the American people.” Who precisely is threatening the freedom of the American people? No one, but you’re not supposed to look at the construction that closely. The problem is that security is a purely negative virtue, so he needed to pair it with a positive one. Or more positive, since freedom itself is only the absence of restrictions. Which is why the speech only offered freedom to Iraq, not democracy.
He actually brought up those damned aluminum tubes again, saying they were “suitable for atomic weapons production.”
Nothing about Osama. Guess Bush isn’t mad at him anymore.
Sunday, January 26, 2003
It is now illegal in France to insult the flag or boo the Marseillaise (6 months + €7,500). I haven’t said enough about France’s rapid movement in an authoritarian direction, of which this law is the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, much of what Secretary of War Rumsfeld calls Old Europe does seem to be moving backwards. Italy is on the verge of restoring immunity for members of parliament--immunity is a standard protection for democracy in other countries, but Italy is, well, Italy. Berlusconi, who keeps changing laws to legalize his many illegal activities, often retroactively, this week has changed a law to let him continue breaking the rules after he dies: he wants to be buried in a place too close to a population center, in violation of some perfectly sensible health codes from the 19th century.
Saturday, January 25, 2003
He’s got big ones
No Elephant Sex, Please, We’re British: the Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire has fired a herd of African elephants who have become a little too, shall we say, frisky. Where will they go where their sexual antics will be tolerated? France, of course. The Guardian does not say precisely what the elephants have been doing--I assumed the obvious until the last sentence: “workers involved with the elephants will be offered alternative positions at Longleat Safari Park.”
A British radio station held a contest offering tickets to a concert by a former Spice Girl to whoever could sit on dry ice the longest. Three of the contestants missed the festival because they spent 8 to 10 weeks in hospital with severe ass injuries (their nerves froze first so they didn’t realize there was a problem; also, their brains were very very small).
The Senate has quietly struck out of the budget funding for John Poindexter’s Big Brother program and the registration of enemy aliens. Also dead, Bush’s idea of letting states limit trips to the ER on Medicaid. On the other side, Bush plans to let federal housing money be used to build places of worship, ‘cuz Jesus needs a place to live too, I guess.
I saw on the BBC news, but not I think anywhere else, that this week the Israeli Supreme Court approved the use of human shields by the military.
An interesting piece on the op-ed pages of Saturday’s NY Times on the Kennedy administration’s efforts to impose inspections of the nuclear facilities of Israel, which fooled inspectors every time. Although the article doesn’t say it, Israel’s tactics were more like North Korea’s, demanding throughout the 1960s ever-escalating bribes in terms of aid & military hardware in exchange for not building nukes, which it did anyway.
With the shortage of oil imports due to Venezuela’s little local difficulties, the US has been greatly increasing its oil imports from, would you believe, Iraq.
I haven’t had the time to pay as much attention as I’d like to the Israeli elections, which sound like fun. The Likud defense minister went on walk-about yesterday while his handlers went ahead of him calling out “He’s got big ones, he’s got big ones,” meaning exactly what you think it means. Today, the secular party held a rally--today being the sabbath. A prominent Orthodox rabbi, a rabbi mind you, said that he hoped the party’s leader would burn to a cinder--said that about a man who survived Nazi concentration camps.
A British radio station held a contest offering tickets to a concert by a former Spice Girl to whoever could sit on dry ice the longest. Three of the contestants missed the festival because they spent 8 to 10 weeks in hospital with severe ass injuries (their nerves froze first so they didn’t realize there was a problem; also, their brains were very very small).
The Senate has quietly struck out of the budget funding for John Poindexter’s Big Brother program and the registration of enemy aliens. Also dead, Bush’s idea of letting states limit trips to the ER on Medicaid. On the other side, Bush plans to let federal housing money be used to build places of worship, ‘cuz Jesus needs a place to live too, I guess.
I saw on the BBC news, but not I think anywhere else, that this week the Israeli Supreme Court approved the use of human shields by the military.
An interesting piece on the op-ed pages of Saturday’s NY Times on the Kennedy administration’s efforts to impose inspections of the nuclear facilities of Israel, which fooled inspectors every time. Although the article doesn’t say it, Israel’s tactics were more like North Korea’s, demanding throughout the 1960s ever-escalating bribes in terms of aid & military hardware in exchange for not building nukes, which it did anyway.
With the shortage of oil imports due to Venezuela’s little local difficulties, the US has been greatly increasing its oil imports from, would you believe, Iraq.
I haven’t had the time to pay as much attention as I’d like to the Israeli elections, which sound like fun. The Likud defense minister went on walk-about yesterday while his handlers went ahead of him calling out “He’s got big ones, he’s got big ones,” meaning exactly what you think it means. Today, the secular party held a rally--today being the sabbath. A prominent Orthodox rabbi, a rabbi mind you, said that he hoped the party’s leader would burn to a cinder--said that about a man who survived Nazi concentration camps.
Thursday, January 23, 2003
The larrikin moon
Bush today opened his mouth, which is never a wise move for him. He said that Iraqis who obeyed orders to use WMDs would be “persecuted as war criminals,” and referred to “the so-called inspectors”. Also, France and Germany will be “held to account” if they don’t back Bush’s war.
And then Secretary of War Rumsfeld opens his mouth and pisses off all of “Old” Europe.
WaPo on the sort of advice Bush gets on AIDS and homosexuality.
(Later): Jerry Thacker has had to withdraw, although he says that his calling AIDS a “gay plague” was taken out of context.
Orrin Hatch will make it harder for D’s to block Bush’s nominees for judgeships the way he allowed R’s to block Clinton’s nominees.
Also in the hypocrisy stakes, Harvey Pitt is *still* in charge of the SEC, which just quietly gutted most of the new accountancy rules imposed after last year’s scandals, which were, after all, *last year’s* scandals.
Been meaning to mention Maureen Dowd’s column of the 23rd, which says precisely some of the things I said recently: “The Bushes seem to believe that the divisive thing in American society is dwelling on social and economic inequities, rather than the inequities themselves.”
The Sundance Film Festival is going on right now and one of the big hits is a documentary about some of my relatives. It sounds like the film thinks they didn’t actually abuse all those children, so that’s nice, I guess.
Speaking of sex with children, we need to know exactly how the story about Scott Ritter leaked to the press just as he was about to go to Baghdad on a peace mission.
For your surfing pleasure, it is now possible to access all of Salon’s articles. They make you watch a commercial first (although if you have more than one screen up at once and your speakers off like I do when I web-browse, this isn’t much of an inconvenience). Actually, Salon is not what it once was, but some of its political and cultural writing is still worth reading.
And then Secretary of War Rumsfeld opens his mouth and pisses off all of “Old” Europe.
WaPo on the sort of advice Bush gets on AIDS and homosexuality.
(Later): Jerry Thacker has had to withdraw, although he says that his calling AIDS a “gay plague” was taken out of context.
Orrin Hatch will make it harder for D’s to block Bush’s nominees for judgeships the way he allowed R’s to block Clinton’s nominees.
Also in the hypocrisy stakes, Harvey Pitt is *still* in charge of the SEC, which just quietly gutted most of the new accountancy rules imposed after last year’s scandals, which were, after all, *last year’s* scandals.
Been meaning to mention Maureen Dowd’s column of the 23rd, which says precisely some of the things I said recently: “The Bushes seem to believe that the divisive thing in American society is dwelling on social and economic inequities, rather than the inequities themselves.”
The Sundance Film Festival is going on right now and one of the big hits is a documentary about some of my relatives. It sounds like the film thinks they didn’t actually abuse all those children, so that’s nice, I guess.
Speaking of sex with children, we need to know exactly how the story about Scott Ritter leaked to the press just as he was about to go to Baghdad on a peace mission.
For your surfing pleasure, it is now possible to access all of Salon’s articles. They make you watch a commercial first (although if you have more than one screen up at once and your speakers off like I do when I web-browse, this isn’t much of an inconvenience). Actually, Salon is not what it once was, but some of its political and cultural writing is still worth reading.
Monday, January 20, 2003
Happy National Sanctity of Human Life Day
Headline in NY Times world brief section: “Northern Ireland: Protestant Group Upset.” Woodward and Bernstein would be proud.
Site at which you can click on any year since 1776 and see who US troops were killing or threatening. The producers of the site seem to think that the US is not a peace-loving nation.
Today (Sunday) was National Sanctity of Human Life Day, as proclaimed by GeeDubya.
Isn’t it interesting that when we read that, we all know he actually meant--and only meant--fetuses, and American fetuses at that.
Secretary of War Rumsfeld helped put out the point of the day Sunday that if Saddam Hussein left Iraq, he could be offered immunity from prosecution. Leaving the question, prosecution by whom? The US can’t immunize someone from the International Court, it can’t speak for the next Iraqi government (well, it probably can, but you’re supposed to pretend that your puppet governments are capable of speaking when you’re drinking a glass of water), so Rummy really only means that the US won’t prosecute him, like Manuel Noriega, which was never very likely. Either that or the Rumster forgot that he doesn’t actually speak for the entire world. God I hate that man.
Site at which you can click on any year since 1776 and see who US troops were killing or threatening. The producers of the site seem to think that the US is not a peace-loving nation.
Today (Sunday) was National Sanctity of Human Life Day, as proclaimed by GeeDubya.
Isn’t it interesting that when we read that, we all know he actually meant--and only meant--fetuses, and American fetuses at that.
Secretary of War Rumsfeld helped put out the point of the day Sunday that if Saddam Hussein left Iraq, he could be offered immunity from prosecution. Leaving the question, prosecution by whom? The US can’t immunize someone from the International Court, it can’t speak for the next Iraqi government (well, it probably can, but you’re supposed to pretend that your puppet governments are capable of speaking when you’re drinking a glass of water), so Rummy really only means that the US won’t prosecute him, like Manuel Noriega, which was never very likely. Either that or the Rumster forgot that he doesn’t actually speak for the entire world. God I hate that man.
Friday, January 17, 2003
Empty war heads
Bush wants pain and suffering in malpractice lawsuits limited to $250,000. That last sentence was of course fallacious. Bush couldn’t give a shit about limiting pain and suffering, he wants to limit compensation for doctors whose incompetence inflicts pain and suffering, or perhaps more importantly, for their insurance companies. Those insurance companies have, like everyone else who invests heavily in the market, not been doing that well, but they expect their other investments, in campaign donations to Republicans, to perform rather better. Naturally the insurance companies want to shift their losses from having bought stock in Enron to those who most deserve to bear them: those scheming bastards who have been crippled and tormented by the mistakes of their doctors. Bush of course said nothing about doing anything to reduce malpractice, which you might have expected at the same time as he was proposing to reduce the costs to doctors of malpracticing. Maybe this is because gross incompetence is a way of life for GeeDubya, taken for granted like the air he breathes.
Any comments he might have made about doing this to ensure continued access to doctors (didn’t read the whole speech) were made nonsense of by his plans to cut payments to Medicare doctors yet again, announced last month, or by the plan announced on the very same day as his malpractice speech to let states restrict the access of Medicare patients to emergency medical services.
But that isn’t the real addition of insult to injury. No, the real jaw dropping, you gotta be shitting me insult is the provision that got almost no attention: he wants any money plaintiffs receive from their own insurance companies to be deducted from awards. In other words, he wants to shift penalties awarded against doctors guilty of medical malpractice from the guilty doctors to the insurance companies of their innocent victims.
So the inspectors found some empty warheads in Iraq. I guess that means the warhawks will stop attacking the inspectors as incompetent, huh? I’ve heard conflicting opinions from Iraq and from the empty war-heads in charge of US foreign policy as to whether Iraq accounted for them, but nothing from the UN inspectors yet. Of course anything that the US says about the content of the Iraqi submission is automatically suspicious given the 8,000 pages the US decided to censor before handing it to anyone else. In further sloppy reporting, I haven’t heard what happened to the warheads: did the inspectors remove them for destruction, or what? Also, I take it warhead means the part of a rocket that doesn’t contain the engine and propellant, which makes it pretty much just an empty metal container. OK, they may be more sophisticated than that, but it would have been nice if one of the many fine news sources I patronize had looked into this. One quick and dirty guide to their sophistication or lack of it might be the price.
Any comments he might have made about doing this to ensure continued access to doctors (didn’t read the whole speech) were made nonsense of by his plans to cut payments to Medicare doctors yet again, announced last month, or by the plan announced on the very same day as his malpractice speech to let states restrict the access of Medicare patients to emergency medical services.
But that isn’t the real addition of insult to injury. No, the real jaw dropping, you gotta be shitting me insult is the provision that got almost no attention: he wants any money plaintiffs receive from their own insurance companies to be deducted from awards. In other words, he wants to shift penalties awarded against doctors guilty of medical malpractice from the guilty doctors to the insurance companies of their innocent victims.
So the inspectors found some empty warheads in Iraq. I guess that means the warhawks will stop attacking the inspectors as incompetent, huh? I’ve heard conflicting opinions from Iraq and from the empty war-heads in charge of US foreign policy as to whether Iraq accounted for them, but nothing from the UN inspectors yet. Of course anything that the US says about the content of the Iraqi submission is automatically suspicious given the 8,000 pages the US decided to censor before handing it to anyone else. In further sloppy reporting, I haven’t heard what happened to the warheads: did the inspectors remove them for destruction, or what? Also, I take it warhead means the part of a rocket that doesn’t contain the engine and propellant, which makes it pretty much just an empty metal container. OK, they may be more sophisticated than that, but it would have been nice if one of the many fine news sources I patronize had looked into this. One quick and dirty guide to their sophistication or lack of it might be the price.
Thursday, January 16, 2003
Divisive
I bought shoes today. I hate buying shoes. Fortunately, the shoe store was near a Krispy Kreme, and I don’t so much mind buying donuts.
North Korea’s website. Probably its only website.
It is now legal to have unmarried sex in Georgia. Plan your vacations accordingly. In the case involved, a 16-year old boy was ordered by the court to write an essay on why he shouldn’t have sex (in Georgia the age of consent is 16, although I guess only if you’re married; however, asking a 16-year old student of the Georgia education system to write an essay is just plain cruel). He wrote that it was none of their business. Unmarried sex is still illegal in 9 states and the District of Columbia.
News from the exciting world of cock fighting: in the Philippines, a fighting cock with razors attached accidentally kills, heh heh, his owner, after hitting him in the groin.
In his speech attacking affirmative action at the U of Michigan, Bush attacked “racial prejudice” at length. It’s just discrimination he doesn’t mind too much. Or at any rate, he’s willing for it to end, but only if it happens accidentally, as some commentators have said. Actually, though, what he really wants is for the issue of race to just go away. This is why he talks about prejudice, which doesn’t directly hurt anyone, and why he attacks affirmative action as “divisive,” as if rocking the boat is the worst thing he can accuse it of. Compare this to his preemptive claims that critics of his tax cuts for the rich were engaged in “class warfare.” Remember, it’s not racial and class inequality that are the problem, as far as he is concerned, but people bringing those inequalities to our attention.
In place of “quotas,” he approves the humbug plan adopted in California, and elsewhere, after affirmative action was banned in the university system, of taking the top, what is it, 5%?, of students at each high school, in effect replacing racial quotas with the divergent standards of schools in different neighborhoods. Elsewhere, he has criticized these differing standards as the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” but here he actually makes them the basis of his policy (or “basics of his policy,” as GeeDubya would say).
I was gonna say that “divisive” is what Trent Lott would mean when he used the words “stirring up the niggras,” but I decided that was too crude.
Secretary of War Rummy Rumsfeld again (see mine of 11/18/02) says that it doesn’t matter what the UN inspectors say about Iraq having WMDs (there, I’ve finally given in to the acronym). In fact, if they find no weapons, it just shows how sneaky the Iraqis are. On 11/18/02 I called this the heads I win tails you lose approach (in case you haven’t committed all my emails to memory)(and if not, why not?). Actually Rumsfeld has never been a big fan of having proof for the assumptions behind his policies (like GeeDubya with tax cuts). Bob Woodward reports that Rummy was calling for war with Iraq on 9/12/01, with, obviously, no proof of Iraqi involvement. To be fair, recent polls suggest that Americans think that some or most of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis, which is further evidence that in a democracy you get the government you deserve (or, to roughly quote H L Mencken, democracy is the theory that the people know what they want and deserve to get it--good and hard).
The Supreme Court decided 5-4 that it wasn’t double jeopardy to give a death sentence to someone in his second trial after the jury in his first trial found him guilty but deadlocked over the sentence, which in Pennsylvania law meant he automatically got a sentence of life rather than death. I guess it comes down to how you define “jeopardy.” Since he was found guilty the first time, and the second trial was on his own appeal, then yes a second *verdict* of guilty doesn’t count as double jeopardy. But the second trial certainly put him in jeopardy of a *sentence* of death for a second time, and the 5th Amendment reads that no one shall be “subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb”--the wording doesn’t confine jeopardy to the verdict. Either way, to create the possibility that challenging your conviction, as in this case, would put you in danger of the death penalty, is to pervert the course of justice. Even if it weren’t unconstitutional, it would be wrong and dangerous. In fact, I may be wrong, but I see nothing in the ruling that stops prosecutors who didn’t go for the death penalty in the first trial doing so for the second, purely as a way of punishing prisoners who dared challenge their conviction.
The NY Times didn’t like the $41 hamburger at all.
North Korea’s website. Probably its only website.
It is now legal to have unmarried sex in Georgia. Plan your vacations accordingly. In the case involved, a 16-year old boy was ordered by the court to write an essay on why he shouldn’t have sex (in Georgia the age of consent is 16, although I guess only if you’re married; however, asking a 16-year old student of the Georgia education system to write an essay is just plain cruel). He wrote that it was none of their business. Unmarried sex is still illegal in 9 states and the District of Columbia.
News from the exciting world of cock fighting: in the Philippines, a fighting cock with razors attached accidentally kills, heh heh, his owner, after hitting him in the groin.
In his speech attacking affirmative action at the U of Michigan, Bush attacked “racial prejudice” at length. It’s just discrimination he doesn’t mind too much. Or at any rate, he’s willing for it to end, but only if it happens accidentally, as some commentators have said. Actually, though, what he really wants is for the issue of race to just go away. This is why he talks about prejudice, which doesn’t directly hurt anyone, and why he attacks affirmative action as “divisive,” as if rocking the boat is the worst thing he can accuse it of. Compare this to his preemptive claims that critics of his tax cuts for the rich were engaged in “class warfare.” Remember, it’s not racial and class inequality that are the problem, as far as he is concerned, but people bringing those inequalities to our attention.
In place of “quotas,” he approves the humbug plan adopted in California, and elsewhere, after affirmative action was banned in the university system, of taking the top, what is it, 5%?, of students at each high school, in effect replacing racial quotas with the divergent standards of schools in different neighborhoods. Elsewhere, he has criticized these differing standards as the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” but here he actually makes them the basis of his policy (or “basics of his policy,” as GeeDubya would say).
I was gonna say that “divisive” is what Trent Lott would mean when he used the words “stirring up the niggras,” but I decided that was too crude.
Secretary of War Rummy Rumsfeld again (see mine of 11/18/02) says that it doesn’t matter what the UN inspectors say about Iraq having WMDs (there, I’ve finally given in to the acronym). In fact, if they find no weapons, it just shows how sneaky the Iraqis are. On 11/18/02 I called this the heads I win tails you lose approach (in case you haven’t committed all my emails to memory)(and if not, why not?). Actually Rumsfeld has never been a big fan of having proof for the assumptions behind his policies (like GeeDubya with tax cuts). Bob Woodward reports that Rummy was calling for war with Iraq on 9/12/01, with, obviously, no proof of Iraqi involvement. To be fair, recent polls suggest that Americans think that some or most of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis, which is further evidence that in a democracy you get the government you deserve (or, to roughly quote H L Mencken, democracy is the theory that the people know what they want and deserve to get it--good and hard).
The Supreme Court decided 5-4 that it wasn’t double jeopardy to give a death sentence to someone in his second trial after the jury in his first trial found him guilty but deadlocked over the sentence, which in Pennsylvania law meant he automatically got a sentence of life rather than death. I guess it comes down to how you define “jeopardy.” Since he was found guilty the first time, and the second trial was on his own appeal, then yes a second *verdict* of guilty doesn’t count as double jeopardy. But the second trial certainly put him in jeopardy of a *sentence* of death for a second time, and the 5th Amendment reads that no one shall be “subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb”--the wording doesn’t confine jeopardy to the verdict. Either way, to create the possibility that challenging your conviction, as in this case, would put you in danger of the death penalty, is to pervert the course of justice. Even if it weren’t unconstitutional, it would be wrong and dangerous. In fact, I may be wrong, but I see nothing in the ruling that stops prosecutors who didn’t go for the death penalty in the first trial doing so for the second, purely as a way of punishing prisoners who dared challenge their conviction.
The NY Times didn’t like the $41 hamburger at all.
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Bored as dead rats
In another display of arrogance, the Bush admin decided that Tom Ridge didn’t have to show up for a confirmation hearing chaired by Joe Lieberman. In another display of Democratic cravenness, Lieberman has caved in, and even given up his chairmanship a few days early, showing the leadership style that makes him totally unsuited for the office he announced he was running for the same day.
http://www.theonion.com/onion3901/bush_on_north_korea.html
You know that new car smell, the real one, not the one in the spray cans? It’s poisonous, can give you sick building syndrome. It takes 3 years for the level to drop into the safe range.
The biggest split over what to replace the World Trade Center with is between the sexes. Naturally, men want really tall, thrusting, throbbing towers at least the height of the original. Women are more concerned about safety. Actually, whose stupid idea was it to exempt the towers from fire department regulations anyway? Just don’t do that again, and we’ll keep the replacements below 50 stories.
The French minister of education (I’ll give the URL for the educationalists on the list), says what no other minister of education has ever said--school is boring, and by god it’s supposed to be boring. Why when he was in school, “80 per cent of us were as bored as dead rats”.
Turkmenistan’s loony leader, Sapamurad Niyazov, who renamed the months, has announced that later this week (in the month of Turkmenbashi) 32 people allegedly involved in a plot to assassinate him will go on trial. He also announced what their sentences will be.
In different parts of today’s NY Times, it is reported that Cal. Governor Gray Davis plans to cut 500,000 people from Medicaid, and that he will spend $220,000,000 on a spanking new death row for San Quentin, capacity of 1,000.
The world’s stupidest kidnappers released their victim, a former Goldman Sachs exec, after he promised to pay them $5 million. They actually got caught, just after that, because they ordered a pizza using his credit card.
http://www.theonion.com/onion3901/bush_on_north_korea.html
You know that new car smell, the real one, not the one in the spray cans? It’s poisonous, can give you sick building syndrome. It takes 3 years for the level to drop into the safe range.
The biggest split over what to replace the World Trade Center with is between the sexes. Naturally, men want really tall, thrusting, throbbing towers at least the height of the original. Women are more concerned about safety. Actually, whose stupid idea was it to exempt the towers from fire department regulations anyway? Just don’t do that again, and we’ll keep the replacements below 50 stories.
The French minister of education (I’ll give the URL for the educationalists on the list), says what no other minister of education has ever said--school is boring, and by god it’s supposed to be boring. Why when he was in school, “80 per cent of us were as bored as dead rats”.
Turkmenistan’s loony leader, Sapamurad Niyazov, who renamed the months, has announced that later this week (in the month of Turkmenbashi) 32 people allegedly involved in a plot to assassinate him will go on trial. He also announced what their sentences will be.
In different parts of today’s NY Times, it is reported that Cal. Governor Gray Davis plans to cut 500,000 people from Medicaid, and that he will spend $220,000,000 on a spanking new death row for San Quentin, capacity of 1,000.
The world’s stupidest kidnappers released their victim, a former Goldman Sachs exec, after he promised to pay them $5 million. They actually got caught, just after that, because they ordered a pizza using his credit card.
Monday, January 13, 2003
Do you want fries with that?
I talked a while back the growing partisanship in Congress, in the sense of increasing intolerance of independence by rank & file Congresscritters. For more evidence of this, see this story
on changes in Congressional rules to tighten control by the leadership over the committees. This is important.
New Senate majority leader Bill “Kitty Killer” Frist says that critics of his civil rights record ignores “the fact I go to Africa once a year or twice a year to work with the African American community.” Um, I think those people are the African AFRICAN community.
CIA black propaganda alert: the sudden reports in several sources that Saddam Hussein might fake a coup, even fake an assassination using one of his doubles, before or during a US invasion. The hawks must be very worried about their war being taken away from them. Fake coup indeed.
In NY, a restaurant is offering a $41 hamburger. The meat is Japanese kobe beef, whatever that means. Evidently the cows are fed beer and get massages. Oh, and the restaurant is one of those that charge a service charge (20%), rather than have tipping. The Times reporter enjoyed it.
Damn, now I'm hungry again.
on changes in Congressional rules to tighten control by the leadership over the committees. This is important.
New Senate majority leader Bill “Kitty Killer” Frist says that critics of his civil rights record ignores “the fact I go to Africa once a year or twice a year to work with the African American community.” Um, I think those people are the African AFRICAN community.
CIA black propaganda alert: the sudden reports in several sources that Saddam Hussein might fake a coup, even fake an assassination using one of his doubles, before or during a US invasion. The hawks must be very worried about their war being taken away from them. Fake coup indeed.
In NY, a restaurant is offering a $41 hamburger. The meat is Japanese kobe beef, whatever that means. Evidently the cows are fed beer and get massages. Oh, and the restaurant is one of those that charge a service charge (20%), rather than have tipping. The Times reporter enjoyed it.
Damn, now I'm hungry again.
Sunday, January 12, 2003
Drawing ridicule, scorn and anger
The government of Greenland has collapsed, after 37 days, in a controversy over a healer being brought in to drive evil spirits out of the government’s offices. The government resigned. So it worked.
Weapons of Mass Irritation: the US has been spamming Iraqi military and other leaders with emails suggesting that they not use their weapons against the US invasion, or face “personal consequences.” Also that if they help the US defeat Saddam, their credit will improve, penises grow larger, and watch women have sex with donkeys (I’m guessing. Actually, I’d like to see the exact text of these emails, if anyone runs across them).
In Britain, someone posted in the website Friends United that he’d become a great success since high school, selling cocaine. He’s now in prison.
I guess relating to Iraq, John Bolton, #3 man in the State Dept: “There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States.”
When the ex-boyfriend of a Portland, Ore. cop was arrested for drugs, the cops went through her garbage cans and had her used tampons tested for drugs. (The story I read doesn’t say what the results were, but I think negative). She sued. A newspaper decided to go through the police chief’s garbage and list its contents in the paper. That would be one response. The other, I humbly submit, is for everyone in Portland to send their used tampons to the police or DA.
Ill. Governor George Ryan has pardoned or commuted all 150, 156, or 167 (how hard a fact was this for the newspapers to check, really?) people on death row. Here’s the response of the brother of one homicide victim: "How can one person have all of this authority and power?" As opposed to the power to decide that someone else’s life should be snuffed out. I can’t even imagine thinking that way, where a commutation is some awesome tyrannical use of absolute power, while signing a warrant of execution is nothing. Another relative of a victim (or maybe the same one) says "It's like we were murdered again." We? Ryan rightly says that his decision "will draw ridicule, scorn and anger."
Weapons of Mass Irritation: the US has been spamming Iraqi military and other leaders with emails suggesting that they not use their weapons against the US invasion, or face “personal consequences.” Also that if they help the US defeat Saddam, their credit will improve, penises grow larger, and watch women have sex with donkeys (I’m guessing. Actually, I’d like to see the exact text of these emails, if anyone runs across them).
In Britain, someone posted in the website Friends United that he’d become a great success since high school, selling cocaine. He’s now in prison.
I guess relating to Iraq, John Bolton, #3 man in the State Dept: “There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States.”
When the ex-boyfriend of a Portland, Ore. cop was arrested for drugs, the cops went through her garbage cans and had her used tampons tested for drugs. (The story I read doesn’t say what the results were, but I think negative). She sued. A newspaper decided to go through the police chief’s garbage and list its contents in the paper. That would be one response. The other, I humbly submit, is for everyone in Portland to send their used tampons to the police or DA.
Ill. Governor George Ryan has pardoned or commuted all 150, 156, or 167 (how hard a fact was this for the newspapers to check, really?) people on death row. Here’s the response of the brother of one homicide victim: "How can one person have all of this authority and power?" As opposed to the power to decide that someone else’s life should be snuffed out. I can’t even imagine thinking that way, where a commutation is some awesome tyrannical use of absolute power, while signing a warrant of execution is nothing. Another relative of a victim (or maybe the same one) says "It's like we were murdered again." We? Ryan rightly says that his decision "will draw ridicule, scorn and anger."
Thursday, January 09, 2003
The protean meaning of the phenomenon of the fart
The NY Times is not paying enough attention to prepositions. On its front page Wednesday, this headline: “US, in a Shift, Is Willing to Talk With North Korea About A-Arms.” Actually, though, that’s not the case. The US statement is that it has decided to speak to North Korea. Not with North Korea, but to North Korea. The distinction will not have eluded the North Koreans.
I haven’t noticed the FBI showing any embarrassment over last week’s fallacious warning about 5 Middle Easterners infiltrating the country from Canada. It’s not just that they went into full panic mode over a tip from one guy, but that they failed to notice that the pictures and names they had were of Pakistanis, not Arabs.
There are 54 Mexican nationals in US death rows. According to Mexico, which has gone to the World Court, all of them have been denied consular access.
Speaking of lack of evidence, there’s a cute piece in Salon by William Saletan comparing the press’s reporting of unsubstantiated claims that a clone has been born to reporting of unsubstantiated claims by the US that Iraq has weapons.
The Israeli Supreme Court allows the 2 Arab MPs to run for re-election. Which is fine as far as it goes, but the willingness of Jewish politicians to jettison the democratic rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel to have someone to vote for remains disturbing. The Court also allowed the candidacy of Meir Kahane’s racist successor. Meanwhile, the corruption scandal in Likud reaches Sharon. He went on tv today to denounce any suggestion that he would ever break election rules, only to have the broadcast ended in the middle by order of the election commission because it, well, broke election rules. The rules he had broken were that he illegally borrowed money after Likud was ordered to repay election contributions that had also broken the rules. Oh, and then he lied about the source of the borrowed money. Another infinite regression loop, just like the never-ending exchange of “reprisals.” Even his broadcast today wasn’t an explanation, but a series of accusations against his accusers and the Labor party--libel, perjury, etc.
WARNING: JOKE IN EXTREME POOR TASTE COMING UP. The UN reports that rebels in the Congo are eating pygmies. This is what happens when cannibals go on a diet.
Publisher’s blurb for On Farting: Bodily Wind in the Middle Ages by Valerie Allen and John Thompson: "The study of the fart in medieval culture participates in the widespread and productive contemporary study of the body, its practices and its hermeneutics. As a consequence of the cultural materialist interest in the quotidian, recent criticism has moved away from an abstracted conception of selfhood toward an appreciation of how the concrete daily regimens of bodily habits, generally taken for granted, shape the horizon of our cultural and individual consciousness. The fart, in its parodying of language and its logic of affinity, leads us ultimately to the problem of interpretation itself. ... A multifarious typology of the fart will permit a better understanding of the phenomenon's protean wealth of meaning.”
It takes years of grad school before you can write a boring book about farting.
Which leads us to another book, “Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis.” According to the review, ancient Hebrews used to swear oaths with their hands on their testicles, which is the origin of the word testify. My Oxford Concise says it’s the other way around, that the word testicles comes from the Latin testis (witness), suggesting that testicles are a witness to virility. There will be a short quiz on all this later.
I haven’t noticed the FBI showing any embarrassment over last week’s fallacious warning about 5 Middle Easterners infiltrating the country from Canada. It’s not just that they went into full panic mode over a tip from one guy, but that they failed to notice that the pictures and names they had were of Pakistanis, not Arabs.
There are 54 Mexican nationals in US death rows. According to Mexico, which has gone to the World Court, all of them have been denied consular access.
Speaking of lack of evidence, there’s a cute piece in Salon by William Saletan comparing the press’s reporting of unsubstantiated claims that a clone has been born to reporting of unsubstantiated claims by the US that Iraq has weapons.
The Israeli Supreme Court allows the 2 Arab MPs to run for re-election. Which is fine as far as it goes, but the willingness of Jewish politicians to jettison the democratic rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel to have someone to vote for remains disturbing. The Court also allowed the candidacy of Meir Kahane’s racist successor. Meanwhile, the corruption scandal in Likud reaches Sharon. He went on tv today to denounce any suggestion that he would ever break election rules, only to have the broadcast ended in the middle by order of the election commission because it, well, broke election rules. The rules he had broken were that he illegally borrowed money after Likud was ordered to repay election contributions that had also broken the rules. Oh, and then he lied about the source of the borrowed money. Another infinite regression loop, just like the never-ending exchange of “reprisals.” Even his broadcast today wasn’t an explanation, but a series of accusations against his accusers and the Labor party--libel, perjury, etc.
WARNING: JOKE IN EXTREME POOR TASTE COMING UP. The UN reports that rebels in the Congo are eating pygmies. This is what happens when cannibals go on a diet.
Publisher’s blurb for On Farting: Bodily Wind in the Middle Ages by Valerie Allen and John Thompson: "The study of the fart in medieval culture participates in the widespread and productive contemporary study of the body, its practices and its hermeneutics. As a consequence of the cultural materialist interest in the quotidian, recent criticism has moved away from an abstracted conception of selfhood toward an appreciation of how the concrete daily regimens of bodily habits, generally taken for granted, shape the horizon of our cultural and individual consciousness. The fart, in its parodying of language and its logic of affinity, leads us ultimately to the problem of interpretation itself. ... A multifarious typology of the fart will permit a better understanding of the phenomenon's protean wealth of meaning.”
It takes years of grad school before you can write a boring book about farting.
Which leads us to another book, “Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis.” According to the review, ancient Hebrews used to swear oaths with their hands on their testicles, which is the origin of the word testify. My Oxford Concise says it’s the other way around, that the word testicles comes from the Latin testis (witness), suggesting that testicles are a witness to virility. There will be a short quiz on all this later.
Tuesday, January 07, 2003
Suicide kindergarten camps, he averred
In the middle of one of his rants, Netanyahu said the Palestinian gov should close “suicide kindergarten camps”. Say what?
Photo of Ariel Sharon peering through binoculars--whose lens cap is on.
The BBC reports that Britain has finally been proven still to be the force in the world it likes to think itself. All right, they didn’t put it in those terms, but for months you could see how dispirited Tony Blair was by the fact that there hasn’t been a single terrorist attack, even an abortive one, on Britain, despite his many warnings that Britain was a prime target. The BBC said that a raid on a home has uncovered a “deadly toxin.” Let the flood of jokes about British cuisine begin.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has decided that potential terrorist threats cannot be considered when licensing nuclear reactors, not because there is no threat, but because they can’t put a number to it. “We have no way to calculate the probability portion of the equation [risk = probability times consequences], except in such general terms as to be nearly meaningless.” Well, no, we don’t know the number, but I’m sure if you ask Tom Ridge, he’ll come up with a nice color for you. Jesus Christ, our entire foreign and military policy, the suspension of major civil rights and so forth are all predicated on risks expressed in such general terms as to be nearly meaningless.
Republicans have suddenly discovered that “double taxation” is immoral, at least when it’s in the form of dividends (of course it’s not double taxation for the many corporations that escape paying corporate income tax). The fact that they’d even say this in public suggests a total contempt for the intelligence of the American people (the thing nobody ever went broke underestimating, as the Bard of Baltimore averred). The sales tax is a double tax. Paying state as well as federal income taxes is a double tax. I could go on.
But if you’re going to be double taxed, at least you shouldn’t have to work hard to earn your money. Just received a box of things my mother taped off HBO for me, and I’ve been somewhat befuddled by the credits. Someone is employed on The Sopranos as a dialogue coach for James Gandolfini. First, imagine your job being to teach someone to talk like a New Jerseyan. Second, Gandolfini is a native of New Jersey. I was very disappointed by the fact that not once in the 4th season is someone described as a “motherless motherfuck.” Also, in a Robin Williams special, someone had responsibility for Mr. Williams’s hair and makeup. OK, any makeup was washed away in a flood of sweat within the first twelve seconds, so that part’s kind of pointless, but my god, his hair--that should be a team effort. I’d expect to see one person credited with responsibility just for the hair on his left arm above the elbow. The man is quite hairy, is the point I’m trying to make here.
Do you think “averred” is the most pompous word I’ve ever used? Do you think I made up for it with “motherless motherfuck”?
Monday, January 06, 2003
Is Oxford ready for Chancellor Billy Bob?
Another Republican, the current vice-chairman of the California party, running for the top job, has befouled his career by expressing the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name, that of white Republicans for the Confederacy. Bush’s people refuse to comment, saying it’s a local matter. These are the people who keep telling Venezuela and the EU and everyone else how to handle their local matters.
I mentioned that Roy Jenkins died without mentioning that he was chancellor of Oxford. There is a move afoot to have Bill Clinton replace him.
I also mentioned that Israel banned Palestinian delegates to a conference in London. What’s interesting is how Israel took the opportunity to spit at the British gov, which it didn’t actually forewarn of the move. And when Jack Straw called about it, they published a transcript, which is a serious breach of diplomatic protocol.
The US continues to refuse to talk to North Korea, saying that that would be to reward blackmail. So the US has cut off food aid. Denying food to a starving nation can of course in no way be construed as blackmail.
Speaking of nuclear blackmail, during the Gulf War, Colin Powell was asked, and then ordered, to draw up contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against Iraq. Ordered by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.
I mentioned that Roy Jenkins died without mentioning that he was chancellor of Oxford. There is a move afoot to have Bill Clinton replace him.
I also mentioned that Israel banned Palestinian delegates to a conference in London. What’s interesting is how Israel took the opportunity to spit at the British gov, which it didn’t actually forewarn of the move. And when Jack Straw called about it, they published a transcript, which is a serious breach of diplomatic protocol.
The US continues to refuse to talk to North Korea, saying that that would be to reward blackmail. So the US has cut off food aid. Denying food to a starving nation can of course in no way be construed as blackmail.
Speaking of nuclear blackmail, during the Gulf War, Colin Powell was asked, and then ordered, to draw up contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against Iraq. Ordered by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.
A hot tip on the Iraq war
Roy Jenkins, Britain’s home secretary and chancellor and nearly prime minister in the 1960s, has died, rather disconcertingly while I was in the middle of reading his biography of Churchill.
Britain was supposed to have a conference on Middle East peace next week, but Israel has banned the Palestinian delegates from traveling.
Cute story in the NY Times Sunday about a New Orleans prosecutor in a capital case who wears ties with nooses & the Grim Reaper on them.
Brits and gambling. Foreign sec Jack Straw says that the odds of war in Iraq are 60-40 against (the last figure on Slate’s Saddameter was 68% for). And Ladbrokes lowers the payoff for bets that Iain Duncan Smith won’t last out the year (as head of the Tory party, if you didn’t know, and if you didn’t, that’s just one reason he’s probably going) from 3:1 to evens. But if you’re planning a flutter, my handicapping is in favor of war and against IDS leaving that soon, simply because of lack of alternatives.
Britain is planning to ban replicas of guns: when fake guns are banned, only fake criminals will have fake guns. If there’s ever a ban on replicas of crime policies, Blair would be in trouble.
Still no word on exactly what the “hot pursuit” policy re American troops really is on the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Britain was supposed to have a conference on Middle East peace next week, but Israel has banned the Palestinian delegates from traveling.
Cute story in the NY Times Sunday about a New Orleans prosecutor in a capital case who wears ties with nooses & the Grim Reaper on them.
Brits and gambling. Foreign sec Jack Straw says that the odds of war in Iraq are 60-40 against (the last figure on Slate’s Saddameter was 68% for). And Ladbrokes lowers the payoff for bets that Iain Duncan Smith won’t last out the year (as head of the Tory party, if you didn’t know, and if you didn’t, that’s just one reason he’s probably going) from 3:1 to evens. But if you’re planning a flutter, my handicapping is in favor of war and against IDS leaving that soon, simply because of lack of alternatives.
Britain is planning to ban replicas of guns: when fake guns are banned, only fake criminals will have fake guns. If there’s ever a ban on replicas of crime policies, Blair would be in trouble.
Still no word on exactly what the “hot pursuit” policy re American troops really is on the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Saturday, January 04, 2003
Baby Jesus butt plugs
John Edwards announces he is running for president. This may be the last you ever hear from him. He says he wants to be a “champion for regular people.” So I guess none of us will be voting for him. Guardian headline: “Millionaire Lawyer Aims to be President for ‘Regular Folks’.”
See the 1/3/03 Doonesbury for a useful concept: “comfort arrests.”
The body of a murdered prostitute in Britain is identified through her breast and butt implants. You don’t want to know why fingerprints and dental records were no help.
Butt implants was a new concept to me. But see www.betterbuttocks.com.
www.furnitureporn.com
The US military claims it can pursue people from Afghanistan into Pakistan. Pakistan says like hell.
Didn’t the Bay Guardian’s “Offies” used to be funnier? Well, here’s a link anyway.
And 3 stories from it, below, so you don’t have to bother.
Oh, there’s also an article on dildos with religious themes, such as the one I couldn’t resist using in my subject line.
Excerpts from Offies:
And while we're at it, I'm not a crook, so let's stop all this impeachment crap
Recently released tapes from the Nixon archives provided even further insight into the former president's beliefs: After Nixon's ambassador to France got badly drunk on an airplane and began groping flight attendants, Nixon declared at a staff meeting, "Look, people get drunk. People chase girls. And the point is, it's a hell of a lot better to get drunk than take drugs. It's better to chase girls than boys. That's my position, and let's stop this crap."
Coming soon to Abercrombie and Fitch
The leader of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, set off a new fashion trend in that country with his trademark hat made out of the fur of aborted lamb fetuses.
And next, the happy cows will be promoting McDonald's
An ad campaign for Denny's featured Miss Piggy, the Muppet, hawking a sausage- and-bacon combo breakfast. "I think people understand that it's the Muppets," a Denny's spokesperson said. "If we had a real pig in here eating bacon, then there would be issues."
Wednesday, January 01, 2003
A diplomatic showdown
Israel bans another Arab MP and his party from the elections (a story yet to appear in either the NY Times or the WashPost, although everyone carried the court ruling that military reservists can’t resist illegal orders but must be good little Germans). Won’t stop them calling themselves a democracy, I imagine, although 20% of the population is now effectively disenfranchised. But I guess the Palestinians can always vote for the Zionist of their choice.
The US has finally snuck genetically modified crops into Europe in a rather odd place: its money. The euro is printed on cotton, which is imported from Turkey or the US. In the US, cotton is often GM, and no records are kept.
Speaking of funny money, the parents of a Vermont girl arrested for marijuana possession showed up with her $50,000 bail money, which the police promptly confiscated because it smelled like marijuana. The money came from their daughter’s friends.
Today was the annual release of British records under the 30 Years’ Rule. In 1972, the year of Bloody Sunday, the Heath gov considered repartitioning the province and expelling the Catholics. The 2001 census shows the Catholics are gaining fast. The census people refuse to take no religion for an answer. Even if you’re an atheist, they ask what your parents were and where you went to school so they can decide what religion you should be.
The Texas Supreme Court rules 8-0 that the state doesn’t have to pay for abortions in cases where the mother’s health is at risk. That’s eight to zero. The state is required to pay for all medically necessary procedures for men, of course.
This is a British story, or it might result in some very silly warning labels: A 12-year-old girl died after hitting her head during a pillow fight with her best friend. Jessica Smith made a playful lunge with the pillow but missed and banged her head on a bedstead. ....
Speaking of dead girls (because I always enjoy starting out the year on a light note), that Russian colonel, the only person in the military ever charged with one of the many, many atrocities committed in Chechnya, was acquitted for raping and strangling a teenage girl because he was crazy at the time. Well, drunk, anyway. The rape part wasn’t mentioned in court.
Shrub is twisting himself into humorous knots trying to describe why North Korea is not like Iraq. He again tries to claim that Iraq might have nukes, which it does not. He says, “I believe this is not a military showdown, this is a diplomatic showdown.” The word showdown is a sure sign that he was in Texas at the time; the military/diplomatic distinction, if it means anything, means that the American response in one case is military, in the other diplomatic, or in other words, his explanation for why he’s responding to the two situations differently is that it’s because he’s responding to them differently. So that clears that up. Come to think of it, I know what a military showdown is, but what the heck is a diplomatic showdown? Start back to back, walk ten paces, then turn around and exercise diplomacy? Dooooo not forsaaake me, o my daaarlin’....
The US has finally snuck genetically modified crops into Europe in a rather odd place: its money. The euro is printed on cotton, which is imported from Turkey or the US. In the US, cotton is often GM, and no records are kept.
Speaking of funny money, the parents of a Vermont girl arrested for marijuana possession showed up with her $50,000 bail money, which the police promptly confiscated because it smelled like marijuana. The money came from their daughter’s friends.
Today was the annual release of British records under the 30 Years’ Rule. In 1972, the year of Bloody Sunday, the Heath gov considered repartitioning the province and expelling the Catholics. The 2001 census shows the Catholics are gaining fast. The census people refuse to take no religion for an answer. Even if you’re an atheist, they ask what your parents were and where you went to school so they can decide what religion you should be.
The Texas Supreme Court rules 8-0 that the state doesn’t have to pay for abortions in cases where the mother’s health is at risk. That’s eight to zero. The state is required to pay for all medically necessary procedures for men, of course.
This is a British story, or it might result in some very silly warning labels: A 12-year-old girl died after hitting her head during a pillow fight with her best friend. Jessica Smith made a playful lunge with the pillow but missed and banged her head on a bedstead. ....
Speaking of dead girls (because I always enjoy starting out the year on a light note), that Russian colonel, the only person in the military ever charged with one of the many, many atrocities committed in Chechnya, was acquitted for raping and strangling a teenage girl because he was crazy at the time. Well, drunk, anyway. The rape part wasn’t mentioned in court.
Shrub is twisting himself into humorous knots trying to describe why North Korea is not like Iraq. He again tries to claim that Iraq might have nukes, which it does not. He says, “I believe this is not a military showdown, this is a diplomatic showdown.” The word showdown is a sure sign that he was in Texas at the time; the military/diplomatic distinction, if it means anything, means that the American response in one case is military, in the other diplomatic, or in other words, his explanation for why he’s responding to the two situations differently is that it’s because he’s responding to them differently. So that clears that up. Come to think of it, I know what a military showdown is, but what the heck is a diplomatic showdown? Start back to back, walk ten paces, then turn around and exercise diplomacy? Dooooo not forsaaake me, o my daaarlin’....
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