There’s a better future, and I want to take a risk toward that future

Truly leaving no child behind, a public elementary school in Sutter, California (north of Sacramento) required students to carry Radio Frequency Identification tags (RFIDs) to track their movements. This will be overturned, but only because pedophiles can also use readers to track their movements, not because it is degrading and creepy.

Juan Cole points out that once Iraqi election results are announced, the winners will no longer be anonymous and will be subject to assassination. Fortunately the proportional representation system the US imposed on Iraq should mean that replacements come from the existing party lists. Imagine being subjected to all those clichés about brave Iraqis defying the blah blah blah every time there was an election to fill a suddenly vacant seat.

I’m getting a certain amount of traffic today from search engines because Monday I mentioned mud-wrestling contests among American women MPs at one of our prison camps in Iraq. People want to see the pictures. You’ve gotta love the assumptions the Internet has created that if there is such an event, there will be pictures (in fact there are) and they will be posted to the internet (not yet). Information wants to be free, especially when it involves women mud-wrestling.
(Update: my mistake. Tex at UnFairWitness has a couple of pictures posted for your unfair-witnessing pleasure. It seems that the NY Daily News ran pictures a few days ago.)

As much as I depend on the White House website for sources of humor, I found it impossible to do more than skim “President Participates in Class-Action Lawsuit Reform Conversation.” I see he doesn’t know the real word for “baby doctor.” Bush does explain that “A capitalist society depends on the capacity for people willing to take risk and to say there’s a better future, and I want to take a risk toward that future. And I’m deeply concerned that too many lawsuits make it too difficult for people to do that.” Of course what he doesn’t explain is that he wants to make it easier for capitalists to get their better futures by risking other people’s lives.

Wooing Old Europe, Condi-style

Kamen at the WaPo quotes State Dept spokesmodel Tom Casey, who objected to Cuba and Zimbabwe being on a UN human rights panel: “The United States believes that countries that routinely and systematically violate the rights of their citizens should not be selected to review the human rights performance of other countries.” But when the US does it, it’s just a few bad apples, and mostly we violate the rights of citizens of other countries and blah blah hypocrisy Abu Ghraib naked human pyramids Alberto Gonzales detention without trial blah blah blah blah....

Sorry, I just had a vision of 4 more years of sanctimonious Bushies pretending to be spreading freedom throughout the world, and I went into blogger automatic pilot.

Kamen points out that Saudi Arabia, another exemplar of human rights, is also on that panel.

Condi Rice was in Paris, “wooing” the French, as all the news sources put it. It somehow comes as no surprise that her style of “wooing” is actually the issuing of marching orders, thinly disguised. An Independent editorial (not available for free online) points out (as does Eli at Left I On the News) that when she said, “America stands ready to work with Europe on our common agenda -- and Europe must stand ready to work with America,” “it sounded very like a command - and if not a command, then a threat.” (The arrogance of power is never far from the Bushies; Chimpy himself today said that Congress “needs to” pass his budget.)

Elsewhere in that speech, she suggests a single historical line from Rosa Parks to the fall of communism to the elections in Afghanistan and Iraq. Must be Black Propaganda History Month.

People accused Bill Clinton of running a permanent campaign, of electioneering rather than governing. Well what do we make of the promotion of Karl Rove, a man who has spent his career running slimy campaigns on behalf of slimy candidates, to the policy position of deputy chief of staff?

Stopping all acts of violence everywhere

Bush describes his budget as one that “reduces and eliminates redundancy.” Also eradicates, extinguishes, annihilates and wipes out redundancy. He adds that he will hold “federal programs to a firm test of accountability,” but does not say if this test will involve Western-style accountancy.

21 are killed in Baghdad. Care to guess what they were doing? Yes, waiting on a line (to join the military), which is behaviour abhorrent in the eyes of Allah.

Denmark returns its Center-Right government to power, on a strong anti-immigrant platform. That’s the theme of European elections this year, with Tony Blair and Michael Howard also engaged in a bidding war on who can be more beastly to Johnny Asylum-Seeker.

Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas come to an agreement “that all Palestinians will stop all acts of violence against all Israelis everywhere, and, at the same time, Israel will cease all its military activity against all Palestinians everywhere”. That line comes from Sharon, who evidently doesn’t acknowledge the possibility of Israeli citizens who are also Palestinians.

So we can now forget about the Middle East because, as we all know, cease-fire agreements are considered sacred in that part of the world and are never broken. So there’s no reason to bet on how long it lasts, because it will last forever, although if you’ve got a pool, put me down for 5..4...3...2...


And then Sharon ate him.

All the different shirts

From the LA Times:

"They’re all around there in the Capitol, as you know, the different special interests," Schwarzenegger said recently, "the purple shirts and the brown — all the different shirts."

The purple shirts refer to T-shirts worn by unionized state workers who have been holding protests around Sacramento over the governor's plans to change their retirement system and take away some of their holidays, among other things. As for the brown shirts, it was unclear to whom Schwarzenegger was referring.

When an Austrian politician starts having hallucinations involving brownshirts--run.

Rep. Jane Harman will introduce a bill to ban torture. One would have thought that was illegal already, but evidently one would have been wrong. The bill would also ban “rendition.” I’ll be interested to see how Harman defines torture, something no Bush official has been willing to do.

Now, a gay activist with a trimmed beard standing on line for a mud-wrestling contest....

The London Times presents an interesting juxtaposition. Tacked on to the end of a story about Iraqi Taliban-wannabes allegedly killing barbers for trimming beards contrary to the will of Allah is this: “An American military policewoman who took part in a mud-wrestling contest at an Iraqi prison was yesterday demoted and found guilty of indecent exposure.” See, we have our standards, they have their standards.

There must also be something in the Koran about standing in line also being contrary to the will of Allah. Two more queues were bombed today, one of Iraqi policemen waiting to collect their pay, another of applicants to join the Iraqi police. This is only the 853rd and 854th time respectively that this has happened, by my count.

A gay activist, Scott McCoy, is named by D party activists to replace a Utah state senator resigning on health grounds. Should be fun.

George Monbiot writes that we may hear less UN-bashing from the R’s on the subject of the oil-for-food program in Iraq, since the Volker report says that much bigger violations of sanctions occurred through illegal sales of oil--which the US knew about and did nothing to stop, because it benefitted allies we wished to keep sweet, like Turkey and Jordan. Monbiot also has more details of the money that the CPA lost through its non-Western accounting methods: “Some $800m was handed out to US commanders without being counted or even weighed. A further $1.4bn was flown from Baghdad to the Kurdish regional government in the town of Irbil, and has not been seen since.”

Social Security Privatization and the Permanent Republican Majority

Now that Bush has revealed more details of his Social Security privatization scheme, I must say I’m relieved to see how lame it is. This turkey could pass only if the D’s efforts to stop it reach a Kerryesque level of incompetence. Which is quite possible, of course: I never thought the Medicare drug benefit could make it all the way into law still containing that idiotic “donut,” which shows what I know. But with the government managing the investment funds, with the clawback of anything below a 3% return, and with those mandatory annuities, and with even the Bushies now admitting it won’t help the long-term stability of Social Security, even the gamblers with visions of stock market windfalls won’t find this very attractive. One can only hope Bush expends lots and lots of his “capital” trying to push this turd uphill.

So what was it about? Like tax cuts, Social Security privatization was fundamentally about “starving the beast,” circumscribing the powers of government. Connect pensions to the stock market, and any attempt to regulate pollution, raise the minimum wage, tax corporations, prevent them sending jobs oversees, etc etc etc would be denounced as threatening granny’s private personal retirement account. Almost every aspect of a progressive agenda would be measured against the Dow Jones and found wanting. The R’s would be practically assured of a permanent majority.

So maybe just as well the plan stinks up the joint.

Always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom

Rumsfeld revealed this week that he twice offered to resign over Abu Ghraib. But just as Rummy was more concerned about the leak of images of Abu Ghraib torture than with the actual torture, his faux-resignations offer the image of taking responsibility without actually taking responsibility. By offering to resign rather than simply resigning, he was signaling that he believed he had done nothing wrong, but if Bush thought otherwise, he could act. This wasn’t accountability, but passive-aggressiveness, the equivalent of asking “do these pants make my butt look big?”. Rather than treat torture as a moral issue, his actions indicate once again that he saw it purely in pragmatic terms--whether his political effectiveness had been damaged--the very same amoral stance that led his subordinates to consider torture a legitimate tool.

And as long as I’m talking about Rumsfeld’s amorality, I haven’t yet mentioned his push this week for research into “bunker-buster” nuclear weapons, but I don’t think the discerning readers of this blog need explained to them why developing usable nukes is insane.

The US has forced the UN drugs agency to stop giving clean needles to heroine addicts to prevent AIDS transmission.

A week ago I mentioned (and posted) the British Labour party poster accused of being anti-semitic. That one, and another which supposedly made Michael Howard look too much like Fagin, have been removed from the Labour website. So the latest thing is the new Labour slogan, “Britain Forward Not Back,” intended to show that Labour is too dynamic to use verbs or correct grammar. But the slogan turns out to bear a certain similarity to a Halloween episode of the Simpsons which showed Bill Clinton declaring, “We must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.”

How socks can be a direct violation of human rights

Rumsfeld says there won’t be an Iranian-style theocracy in Iraq, run by “a handful of mullahs” (yes, those mullahs are a handful), because “The Shia in Iraq are Iraqis, they are not Iranians”. He does have a way of stating the bleeding obvious in a way that makes it sound like bullshit.

Rummy says “the great sweep of human history is for freedom.” The Bushies are beginning to talk about history being on their side the way “scientific Marxists” used to.

An Israeli military court releases the captain who emptied his gun into a 13-year old Palestinian girl last November, after one of the witnesses, another soldier, recants. This is insane, there are recordings of the bastard saying “I confirmed the kill” and there are ballistics from the ten bullets he used in the confirmation process. Previous posts here and here.

I trust my silence up until now about the royal coup in Nepal hasn’t been taken as tacit approval or anything. In the unlikely case that you’ve been waiting to hear from me before forming an opinion on the subject, here we go: authoritarian rule bad, democracy good.

The now censored Nepalese press has taken to running editorials on socks, how there are many types of socks on the market but if someone insists on wearing “the same pair of socks day in and day out, not even bothering to assess the detrimental effect of the overpowering stench... Isn’t it a direct violation of human rights?” This could just be a metaphor. There have also been editorials against chopping down oxygen-producing trees, on archery, women’s cricket, and how to enjoy sunshine.

If you need help making up your minds about the coup in Togo, here’s a hint: authoritarian rule bad, idiot son succeeding father bad, democracy good, “Togo” funny name for a country.

A Hong Kong firm is making feng shui underpants.

I don’t know what he said precisely or the context

From Secretary of War Rummy’s press conference Thursday: “The number of Iraqi security personnel who have died defending their country tells without question that they have the courage to do so.” Or just that they’re not very good at it.

Asked about Gen. Mattis calling shooting people fun and a hoot, Rummy declined to condemn the remarks. “I have not read his words. I don’t know what he said precisely or the context.” The reporter, who had actually just quoted the remarks in full, did not ask what possible context would excuse the remarks or whether Rumsfeld’s laziness about looking into such matters was indicative of his own permissive attitude to such assholery. Rummy pulled the same “haven’t read his words” thing with William “My God’s bigger than your God” Boykin, and was saying quite late in the game that he hadn’t read the report on Abu Ghraib torture (Maureen Dowd wrote, “Fire Rummy, or make him read faster.”) Clearly, DRummy has still not improved his literacy skills.

Consistent with our values

Condi says that the US’s Iran’s “behavior, internally and externally, is out of step with the direction and desires of the international community.”

Attorney Generalissimo Gonzalez says the Department of Justice will combat terrorism “in a way that’s consistent with our values.” Which is odd, because his previous dismissal of the Geneva Conventions as quaint and obsolete in the “new kind of paradigm” that is the war against terrorism suggests that he sees values such as civil and human rights as merely situational and revocable.

Speaking of combating terrorism in a way consistent with their miserable, vicious, desiccated values, the Iraqi police have taken to showing videos of prisoners confessing to their heinous crimes on tv. Totally voluntary confessions, I’m sure.

Loathed, loathed I tell you!

A day after Bush in SOTU said the US would work with our European allies to get Iran not to develop nuclear weapons, Condi Rice says we won’t do so because “I think our European allies agree that the Iranian regime’s human rights behavior and its behavior toward its own population is something to be loathed.” So until they change their human rights situation, they’ll just have to keep their nuclear weapons.

Condi did add that a US invasion of Iran is not on the agenda “at this point in time.” That’s a little too temporally specific to be reassuring.

“It’s fun to shoot some people”

The Marine Corps decides not to punish Lt. Gen James Mattis for saying that shooting people is “fun” and “a hoot.” Possibly they’re afraid to.

If recreational homicide doesn’t bother anyone these days, we should hardly expect torture to, and indeed Waterboardin’ Al Gonzales is confirmed as Attorney Generalissimo and Grand Inquisitor by 60-36. There were no anti-torture Republicans, including John McCain, himself a former torture victim. At Condi Rice’s confirmation hearing, during a discussion of her opposition to giving legal protections against torture to foreign prisoners, Christopher Dodd told her “I’d like you to spend about 15 minutes with John McCain.” Turns out, wouldn’t have done any good.

Oh dear, the UN oil-for-food program didn’t have “Western-style budgeting and accounting procedures.”

This Guardian article deals with some of the questions I’ve been pondering about the odd collapse of the latest Northern Irish peace efforts following unlikely accusations that IRA leaders were associated with a bank robbery in December and culminating this week with the IRA’s withdrawal from arms decommissioning, evidently in a sulk about the aspersions on their hitherto unsullied honor.

So bored that I’m blogging the Annual National Prayer Breakfast

And today, Bush follows up on the SOTU address with prayer, as do all of us under 55. Specifically, at something the White House website calls the “Annual National Prayer Breakfast.” I’m having trouble sorting out those adjectives--is it the breakfast that’s national or do we have a national prayer that I don’t know about? And it was held at the International House of Pancakes, which just confuses the thing more.

The White House chooses to use this picture of Bush doing his little-boy-closing-his-eyes-real-tight thing, although whether that’s because he was praying or that’s how he always eats eggs benedict, it doesn’t say.



He said this: “You know, last night was a prayerful occasion. (Laughter.) I noticed a lot of members were praying that I would keep my speech short. (Laughter.)” Oh no stop my sides are splitting.

Don’t know if the event was filmed, because the President of Madagascar was there, and I would dearly love to hear Shrub trying to pronounce one of those great Malagasy names: Marc Ravalomanana.

He says that “prayer has always been one of the great equalizers in American life.” I thought that was the Colt revolver.

Here’s another picture. I think the circular things are the angels that follow him everywhere.

Friday Species-in-Danger-of-Extinction-from-Global-Warming Blogging

Eli at LeftI notes “the tremendous disparity in press attention between the very real global warming crisis and the bogus Social Security ‘crisis.’” We all know what’s needed to make people give a shit about environmental issues: cute animal pictures. Therefore, I hereby invite other bloggers to join in Friday Species-in-Danger-of-Extinction-from-Global-Warming Blogging, which I’m inaugurating a day early, and calling dibs on polar bears.

Evil smug scum watch

Elliott Abrams, who did such a lovely job undermining democracy here and in Central America during the Reagan administration, has been promoted to deputy national security adviser with responsibility for advancing democracy. Back then, I said that if one good thing came out of Iran-Contra, it was that that smug prick would never become secretary of state. If you’re too young to remember this supporter of death squads, dictators and Contras, do google him. The first Google hit is a David Corn article in the Nation, which should be a good place to start. But a list of his misdeeds doesn’t convey how obnoxious this guy’s smugness was, how irritating his ubiquitous appearances on McNeil-Lehrer and Nightline.

My favorite Abrams story: a Congressional committee once asked him if any foreign governments had contributed funds to the Contras. He said no, which was technically true only because when Abrams had solicited $10 million from the Sultan of Brunei, he gave him the wrong Swiss account number, so the money hadn’t technically gone to the Contras but to one temporarily lucky (until he got caught) Swiss citizen.

So Abrams’s rehabilitation continues. At a glacial pace, I suppose, compared to the near-instant whitewashing of torture apologists like Alberto Gonzales (yesterday I caught a bit of the Senate speeches, with Orrin Hatch outright accusing D’s of racism). Still, even Bush daren’t put him up for a position requiring Senate confirmation (he was after all convicted of lying to Congress, later pardoned by Bush the Elder) or make the announcement on any but a busy news day. I think the best response to this is a reminder that Bush’s father still hasn’t answered questions about his role in Iran-Contra, about which he said the Reagan administration had “erred on the side of life.” Ah, the culture of life.

Alternative caption: Republicans display fingers they had dipped in the blood of infidels.

Marc Cooper on this stunt: “These congress-twerps who spend their days and night suckling on the special interests tit braved no more than the risk of camera-light sunburn for their efforts.”

Opening the door to freedom, but not to frivolous asbestos lawsuits

The Czech Republic is going to lower the minimum wage. I can’t remember a country ever doing that before.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has boldly come out against old people having sex, which we can all agree is as icky as anything thought up by the other Stephen King. The Medicare drug plan will cover Viagra in cases of erectile disfunction, but Mr. King says “If we are going to subsidize someone’s recreational sex, I don’t think that’s what our founding fathers had in mind.” Right, they had slaves for that.

Allawi claims that all the suicide bombers caught on the day of the elections were non-Iraqis, which is not a claim I’ve heard before (nor do I believe it).

Clean-up on the SOTU post, below: Bush said “We expect Syria to end all support for terrorists and open the door to freedom.” 1) Is that what you expect, really? Megalomaniacal much? 2) I understand the ending support for terrorists bit, but what exactly are they supposed to do to comply with the door-opening part?

Really, blogging that travesty with a cold was not the funnest experience ever. I must have been coughing during the “frivolous asbestos lawsuits” line, cuz I missed it. And life is definitely too short to bother with the Democratic response. I’m ready for my nap now, I’ll tell you. Do Republicans party after the SOTU, I wonder? Tomorrow morning will D.C. call girls be scrubbing purple ink out of their various orifices?


I don’t really have a caption for this one, I just thought Bush looks particularly goofy in it.



We’re number one! No wait, we’re purple! Hey, did you say indelible?




That look of smug bemusement does not go with that tie.



Donald Rumsfeld and John Snow wait patiently to receive their kisses.

The State of the Union is private, I mean personal, I mean strong, I don’t know what I mean

6:06 Bush enters, shakes a lot of hands. I’m hoping some of that purple ink rubs off on his hand.

Oo, the state of the union is both confident AND strong. A twofer.

6:11 CNN camera finds John McCain, who is managing to both glower and look bored at the same time. He sees the camera and immediately pretends to be asleep.

Taxpayer funds must be spent wisely or not all. Guess which one he prefers.

We must raise children to meet the demands of the 21st century. Translation: troops to occupy Iran, Syria and, just for the hell of it, Togo.

6:15 Joe Lieberman doing one of those things where you look like you’re applauding but make no sound. They learn that in Senate school.

6:18 As much as his mispronunciation of nuclear annoys me, following it up with “Clean Skies policy” is even more obnoxious. And he calls for ethanol, even though last week’s West Wing was specifically designed to scuttle that.

6:20 There’s Hillary, giving the most grudging applause on record.

6:22 He has a message for everyone 55 or older: don’t let anyone mislead you. And a message to everyone younger: let me mislead you.

6:24 I don’t think I’ve heard so many voices raised in opposition (to Bush’s lies about Social Security) in one of these things before.

6:27 The Boy in the Bubble says he’ll listen to anybody with good ideas. Except increasing payroll taxes.

6:30 We have to pass on values to the next generation. Like homophobia. As he talks about a “culture of life,” CNN turns its cameras to Christopher Reeve’s widow. Awkward... . Says values don’t come from the government. Except abstinence. And faith-based programs. And...

6:35 He proposes a program to keep young men out of gangs (he’s never heard of girl gangs?). You will never hear another word about this.

Wants to focus AIDS spending on African-Americans. Not butt-fuckers. Managed to talk about AIDS without mentioning gays, just like he called for banning gay marriage without mentioning gays.

6:38 Wants competent defense lawyers in capital cases. Of course in Texas that’s defined as “awake more than 50% of the time.”

6:40 Our military operations are determined, successful and continuing. If they’ve succeeded, why do they need to continue?

Will continue to build the coalitions that will defeat the dangers of our time.

The only thing that will defeat tyranny and whatnot is “the force of human freedom.” He makes it sound like a weapon; the words “force” and “freedom” don’t belong together. I’ve said it before: only Bush can make freedom and liberty sound like a threat.

Will support democratic movements in the Middle East and beyond, with ultimate goal of defeating tyranny in the world. Is there any example of Bush now supporting the democratic opposition to an established government in the Middle East?

Evidently there’s an arc of freedom or something from Morocco to Jordan to Bahrain. Please consult your globes. It’s an arc, really it is. They’re really reaching for geometrical expressions.

6:51 Several people aren’t standing to applaud the brave Iraqi people. I’m sure Fox is taking down their names.

They’ve even got one of those voters, sitting next to Laura. She can’t decide how many fingers she’s supposed to hold up.

6:59 If he had to pick just one soldier killed in Iraq to mention by name, wasn’t it a bit tacky to pick one from Texas?

Who you gonna call?

Should it worry us that the CIA website’s Terrorism FAQ page hasn’t been updated since April 2002? And this, I swear to Allah, is an actual logo on the actual CIA’s actual website.

Complete nonsense

I may live blog the State of the Union Address, and I may not, depending on the state of my personal union, i.e., how bad my cold is. If I can’t do it live, you’ll have to amuse yourselves. May I suggest: each time Bush uses the word “personal” to describe some aspect of his Social Security plan, respond by saying “private” in a different funny voice.

A while back I said that I wanted the Gonzalez nomination to become an up-or-down vote on torture, because I really am curious how such a vote would go, how badly damaged the moral compass of this countries’ elected representatives had become. I half-way got my wish: the D’s have proclaimed this a vote on torture, but say that they intend to confine themselves to impotent squawking. This is the lead of a WaPo article by Dana Milbank: “Senate Democrats angrily denounced White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales yesterday as an advocate of prisoner torture but said they would not block his confirmation as attorney general.” Tells you everything you need to know about the D’s.

That article ends with this quote from Orrin Hatch: “To have this man, who has come from nowhere, from the most humble of circumstances, who typifies the struggle every immigrant family to this country has gone through, to not give him this opportunity when he is fully qualified for it, I think would be a travesty.” Yes, he deserves to be attorney general because he’s an immigrant. But does Hatch have a deeper agenda in that remark? Because the LA Times also quotes Hatch today, supporting a constitutional amendment overturning the ban on immigrants like Governor Terminator becoming president as “an anachronism that is decidedly un-American.”

Iraqi “President” Yawar says it would be “complete nonsense” to ask for American troops to be withdrawn. Right, like every previous action taken by the US in Iraq wasn’t based on complete nonsense. Wasn’t that Bush’s campaign slogan?: 4 More Years of Complete Fucking Nonsense.

Do as we say, not as we do

Now the bastards are taking our action figures hostage. THIS MUST BE STOPPED!

Compare and contrast:

Today’s NYT, p.9: “the State Department sharply rebuked Egypt on Monday for arresting a major opposition leader ahead of what may be a sixth referendum on Mr. Mubarak’s rule.”

And another story, on p.8 (the facing page), notes that Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca detention center have “been swollen by more than 2,500 arrests of suspected insurgents in the last month, part of a nationwide pre-election crackdown.”

The Israeli attorney general rules that the land seizures I mentioned yesterday are illegal.

Secretary of Edukashion Margaret Spellings and George Bush. Don’t tell Condi that someone’s eyeing her husband.

Western-style budgeting

Comical Allawi says he will “begin a national dialogue to guarantee that the voices of all Iraqis are present in the coming government.” Funny, I thought that’s what the fake-election was for.

If, according to the Bushies, the ideals of freedom and liberty are universal, those of accounting are evidently not. Paul Bremer responds to a report that his Proconsulship failed to keep track of $8.8 billion in Iraqi money: “Western-style budgeting and accounting procedures could [not] be immediately and fully implemented in the midst of a war.” Knowing how you actually spend money is “Western-style budgeting”?

With “only” 50 or so Iraqis killed yesterday, many Americans, such as Gen. Carter Ham, whose name really could not be more Caucasian, say that they expected many more dead. So how many dead Iraqi civilians was considered an acceptable price for the Iraqis to pay for this little exercise?

And how many dead Iraqi civilians were there, anyway? An alert reader emails to point out that we’ve seen no figure, but they claim to know what the election turnout was. Must be some more of that non-Western counting.

Bush today congratulated the Iraqi people for “supporting those who have helped make this world a more peaceful and free place.” Oh, did I say Iraqi people, I meant the Detroit Pistons.

More details on the Israeli plan to steal land from Palestinians on the wrong side of the Wall: the decision was made secretly last July, and implemented secretly, which is quite a trick. Palestinians who lived on one side of the wall and owned olive groves and whatnot on the other side were simply refused transit permits, not told until recently that Israel considered their land no longer theirs. The seizure is under a 1950 law meant to apply to lands abandoned by Palestinians who fled Israel in the war of independence, not people who can literally see their property from their houses.

What we’re seeing here is the voice of freedom

Condi Rice, who evidently processes auditory sensations through her eyeballs--which would explain a lot--says, “What we’re seeing here is the voice of freedom.”

Enough about the plucky Iraqis already. My polling station is usually in the local Methodist church, so each election I run the risk of bursting into flame and you don’t hear any CNN anchors singing my praises.

Less brave were the candidates whose names were not made public before the election. Perhaps the details of the constitution will be worked out entirely by people wearing ski masks. And how is it so many Iraqis seem to own ski masks, anyway? Does Iraq possess many ski slopes? Is Halliburton importing them?

How lazy and uninformed and easily bamboozled were the journalists who quoted turnout figures based on the number of registered, rather than eligible, voters? And which even then turned out to have been made-up.

Stick it

Bush hails the “courage” of the Iraqis who came out to vote (“They have demonstrated the kind of courage that is always the foundation of self-government”), ignoring the fact that it was his failure to create the conditions of security which some would consider the prerequisite of a free vote that made voting an act of courage in the first place.

Wednesday I predicted there wouldn’t be much violence today. Yesterday I guessed (not here in the blog, which I thought would be ghoulish) 15-20 dead. It was higher than that, but as far as we know mostly confined to Baghdad. Elsewhere, weeks of threats did their job. With the travel ban, and journalists in fear for their lives, 1) we won’t hear of some of the violence outside the Green Zone, 2) turnout figures will be inflated with little fear of discovery.

Juan Cole gives a nice summary of how these elections were forced on the Bushies against their will by Sistani and his followers, and why the cheerleading press should refrain from making this another “Mission Accomplished” moment (I think of it more as another Bush-and-the-plastic-turkey moment).

Just tuned in to Fox News, because it is both fair and balanced. It could have settled for just being fair or just being balanced, but no, nothing less than fair and balanced would do. Evidently, the Iraqi people told the insurgents to “stick it.”


To prevent fraud, voters dipped their fingers into the blood of infidels.



Bullets and ballots, like belt and suspenders.


Maybe it’s me, but this polling station in Mosul doesn’t really inspire much confidence.

Their future in the making

Iyad “Comical” Allawi: “They should take part because this is their future in the making and people have to take their fate in their own hands.” Their own hands? Interesting words, coming from a man put in office by an army of occupation.

After reading Michael Ignatieff in the NYT Magazine (the same piece appears in the Observer), I have to respond to his assertion that “antiwar ideologues can’t support the Iraqis because that would require admitting that positive outcomes can result from bad policies and worse intentions.” He suggests that those of us who denigrate tomorrow’s elections are ivory-tower purists--note the use of the word “ideologues”--to which I answer: damned straight. Even if I personally accepted on pragmatic grounds that these elections were good enough, I would not be able to tell an Iraqi who took the position that elections held under occupation were unfree that she should settle for less-than-free. If the election workers putting up banners at your polling station looked like this



and were dressed in the uniform of a foreign power, would you feel the elections were legitimate? Would you vote in them, and if you did choose to vote rather than lose your say in your country’s future, would you feel at least a little ashamed?

One thing the Americans “forgot” to enact was a McCain-Feingold campaign finance provision, and money became rather important with 111 parties, many with similar names (think People’s Front of Judea/Judean People’s Front on a larger scale) trying to distinguish themselves, and the only people able to practice retail politics being the snipers. Lots of printed matter, lots of tv commercials, lots of money paying for those things coming from the US government, from exiles, various Arab states and Iran and who knows where else.

The Sunday Times of London has an amusing parody of English history, amusing, at any rate, for the minority of you who can follow a joke in which William the Conqueror’s “battle plan hit a snag when his troops became ensnared in an enormous tapestry being woven by the embedded war reporters.” Also describes Henry VIII as the perfect Jerry Springer guest.

Since prostitution is now legal in Germany (plan your vacations accordingly), brothel-owners can advertise in their local (government-run) job centers. And under the new reforms in welfare laws, unemployed people can be sent into the sex industry, on penalty of losing their benefits. A liberalizing policy cross-fertilizes with a conservative policy to create a stupid result; there’s a lesson in that somewhere.

Speaking of stupid results in Germany, the latest reality tv program in that country: Sperm Race. The winner gets a Porsche. A red one.

The best way to ensure the success of democracy is through the advance of democracy

Appointed Iraqi President Yawer says that while the vast majority of Iraqis won’t vote, it will not be because they are boycotting the poll, but because they are afraid for their lives. So that’s alright, then.

Bush’s radio address today: “The terrorists and those who benefited from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein know that free elections will expose the emptiness of their vision for Iraq.” Funny, if anyone would know how elections reward empty visions, you’d think it would be Shrub. “The best way to ensure the success of democracy is through the advance of democracy.” Must be a Zen thing. “One Iraqi, speaking about the upcoming vote, said, ‘Now, most people feel they are living in darkness. It is time for us to come into the light.’” You sure he/she was talking about elections and not your failure to restore electricity?

Governor Terminator wants teachers in low-income neighborhoods to get “combat pay,” which he means literally, saying that they are “threatened always with their lives and their cars are stolen.”

His Muscleness is also moving ahead with a plan he claims is opposed by both major parties, to redistrict California in 2006. This is not good.

Plus ça change: Ronald Reagan, 1987: “I think it’s far better if the Iranians go to bed every night wondering what we might do”.

I know this is shocking to you

Bush, interviewed by the NYT, says little of interest, but in a follow-up to the Wednesday press conference, where he said he’d never read a 2000 article by Condoleezza Rice setting out foreign policy, he had this to add:

“I don’t know what you think the world is like, but a lot of people don’t just sit around reading Foreign Affairs,” he said, chuckling. “I know this is shocking to you.”

No I’m not shocked, Chimpy, but you’re not “a lot of people” but the leader of the most powerful country in the world, and yet you find so incongruous, so beyond your ken as to be a source of amusement, the thought that anyone would think that a president would actually read a journal about foreign policy, or indeed read the opinions of an applicant to head the NSC before hiring her, or indeed read, period.

The Foreign Affairs website, by the way, has a link at the top to the article in question.

In case you were wondering what happened to Jean-Bertrand Aristide, deposed as Haitian president by thugs and the US last year, he has been hired by the University of South Africa, Pretoria.

This Labour Party poster is being attacked as anti-Semitic (the Tory party leader and shadow chancellor pictured here are both Jewish).



The London Times’s “The Week on the Web” has directed me to the PostSecret site, which began at the Washington DC arts festival, where people were given postcards to write secrets which are posted anonymously. A mixed bag, as you’d expect: downloading porn, sex with strangers, not washing hands after going to the bathroom. Some of my favorites, for different reasons: I liked myself better as a boy; I love one of my children; I talked someone into suicide; I archive my farts in carefully labeled mason jars; I used to pee into snowballs before throwing them at friends; I’m secretly fed up with irony.

The Times also mentions this site, which mail-orders toast at ridiculous prices. It may be a joke.

Vulgar names

The LA Times’s editorial page has joined that of the Washington Post in its crusade against Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. I wouldn’t mind--they’re entitled to their opinions and I’m not a big fan of Chavez or some of his policies either--but both papers’ editorials (I analyzed the Post’s two weeks ago and in November) are egregiously biased and drip with such contempt for Chavez that they sound like me talking about Bush. If they want to take over this blog and give me control of their editorial pages I’d be happy to oblige, but in the meantime they’re supposed to be better behaved than a mere blogger. The LAT accuses the “demagogic” (fair enough) Mr. Chavez of “picking a fight” with George Bush, neglecting to mention US involvement in a coup attempt against him. The paper applauds Colombia’s use of bounty hunters to kidnap a FARC leader, neglecting to mention that the bounty hunters were actually bribed members of the Venezuelan police, and describes Chavez’s reaction to this incident as throwing a fit. And he called Bush “vulgar names.” Oh deary dear, let’s not give the LA Times the vapors by using vulgarity; after all, they’re used to the high-minded sophistication of Governor Schwarzenegger, who always gives the State of the State Address before the House of Girlie-Men in iambic pentameter.

If he votes, we leave

GOTV under occupation:

Soldiers then surrounded a two-story house. The battalion had received reports that it was being used as a meeting place for insurgents.

A paunchy, middle-aged man invited the soldiers to search the house. As they did, the 1st Platoon leader, 2nd Lt. Jason Shick of Grand Rapids, Mich., questioned the man on the second floor.

“Ask him does he know any anti-American forces or anti-coalition forces at all in this area,” Shick told the interpreter. ...

“We don’t have anything to tell you,” the man’s wife said plaintively, in halting English.

The man shook his head no.

Shick checked the man’s name against a list of suspects. Satisfied he was not a terrorist, Shick then tried to lock up his vote.

“Is he going to vote in the upcoming elections?” he asked the interpreter.

“Yes, they are going to go vote,” the interpreter said after consulting with the couple.

“Good. Tell him thank you very much,” said Shick, heading back down the stairs. “And make sure he votes. If he votes, we leave. Americans go home.”

You’ll notice he didn’t ask the wife if she was going to vote, focusing exclusively on the man even after the interpreter said that both would be voting. But what I adore about this little vignette is the utter lack of self-awareness that allows the soldiers to first terrorize and then canvass this couple.

Hi mum, having a wonderful time, wish you were here

The Times answers something I’d been wondering about, how candidates and election workers can’t appear in public in Iraq, but all those posters get put up (and torn down): street urchins. How sweet.

The British soldier who took those photos of prisoner abuse, testifies at the court-martial of other soldiers that he took them to show his mum. How sweet.



“Comical” Allawi’s election slogan: “Strong leadership, safe country.”

I may be reading too much into this, but what’s a blog for if not to read too much into things? Bush has said, roughly 12,073 times and most recently in his press conference, that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. Presumably he means without Saddam Hussein in power, but that’s not what he says. I think Bush’s grasp of reality is so attenuated that he believes that when he dismisses someone from his mind, that person is no longer present in the world in any meaningful way. Begone Saddam, begone Osama, I banish you from reality!

The fact that they’re voting, in itself, is successful

OK, one final stab at Bush’s press conference:

Can I ask a follow-up, sir? What would be a credible turnout number?

THE PRESIDENT: The fact that they’re voting, in itself, is successful.

So... one?

Really, if there are more parties on the ballot than there are electors, something has gone a little bit awry.

There is a nice piece in the Indy, behind the usual obnoxious pay barrier, by British comedian Mark Steel on the Iraqi elections, which he thinks are a bit of a farce since real power will continue to lie with the occupiers.

They won’t have any say on who runs the country, owns the country, or arms the country. So it won’t be a governing body, it will have the powers of a parish council, making pronouncements such as, “With regard to the incessant artillery fire behind the Burger King, we can’t alter the military situation. But we can come up with suggestions for how to deal with the congestion this is causing at the traffic lights on Rumsfeld Street. Now, Mrs Aziz has proposed a special lane for suicide bombers, with hefty fines for anyone blocking their way, and I for one think that’s jolly clever. But most importantly, it’s that time of year where we invite all those who wish to have stalls for the Baghdad Village Fayre. And I can tell you that Mr Mohammed has very kindly offered once again to take responsibility for the guess the weight of the hostage’ competition.”

The over-riding issues in Iraq are the occupation and the mass privatisation, which the new body will be unable to have any say in. Half of Britain goes berserk if the European Union interferes with British law by recategorising whelks or insisting we can’t set fire to asylum-seekers. So imagine what the Tories and the Daily Mail would say if we were told that, in line with EU regulations, our parliament no longer had the right to oppose the French riding tanks through our cities or the Italians swiping all our oil.

The elections only make sense in the context of the whole war, having been set up by the Americans as part of their process of controlling the region. It’s as if a pack of burglars came into your house, robbed you, then set up an election so you could vote for which member of the family filled out the form for the insurance.

So on the night of the elections in Iraq, there ought to be the shortest Election Special programme ever. Peter Snow will yell, “On the board behind me is a huge map of the country. There are hundreds of candidates, so let’s see what happens if this one over here gets 86 per cent, or if he gets absolutely none at all. All this region, from right up here to way down there, will still be run by the Americans. So there’s the result - goodnight.”

Any time we lose life it is a sad moment

In the opening remarks of his press conference (there’s a link to the transcript in my earlier post on it), Bush failed to mention the transport helicopter that had crashed, leaving it up to one of the reporters to bring up the topic. Similarly, a White House that is pathological about controlling spin, as we have seen in their insistence that the media stop using the term privatization, failed to announce that the search for Iraqi WMDs had been abandoned, leaving the timing and manner of the inevitable leak up to fate (and it was in December, a perfect time to bury a story). I’d also like to include this week’s revelation that 23 Guantanamo prisoners made a mass attempt at suicide, but since that occurred in 2003, perhaps they were right in thinking they could cover up that particular tidbit.

What I’ve concluded is that Bush especially, but also his merry minions, cannot deliver bad news; they don’t know how. Maybe it’s a psychological thing. We know that they lie, of course, deny that bad things have happened, that bad things are bad (increased violence in Iraq spun as a sign that the baddies are becoming “desperate,” etc), but when it’s undeniable and unspinnable, like a helicopter crash, and there isn’t a culprit to hunt down, they haven’t a clue how to talk about it. When he was asked about that crash, here’s what he said: “And, obviously, any time we lose life it is a sad moment.” And later he added that the American people “value life. And we weep and mourn when soldiers lose their life,” a line delivered in a very once-more-without-feeling style (three seconds later he was joking with a reporter).

I’m not looking for Clintonesque mawkishness, but he is not just any other life-valuing American experiencing a sad moment, he is the commander in chief of the armed forces, at the top of the chain of command that included those 31 dead troops. Some acknowledgment of that would be appropriate.

A Bush line I somehow missed earlier: “I will remind [Putin] that if he intends to continue to look West, we in the West believe in Western values.”

---

Douglas Feith announced his resignation today. The WaPo describes him as “a principal architect of the Defense Department’s postwar strategy in Iraq” who “devis[ed] the Pentagon’s overall counterterrorism strategy, including that used in Iraq and Afghanistan,” and quotes him:

“I don’t have any definite plans,” he said of his post-Pentagon life. “I just have some notions.”

Wasn’t that always the problem?

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. What’s that you say, Mr. Feith? The door would never hit you in the ass, but will greet you as a liberator? Whatever you say, Mr. Feith.

Getting out the fanatic vote

Four days before Iraqi elections, and the locations of polling stations still haven’t been released, but we now know that there will also be fake polling stations, to lure suicide bombers. Good, because it wasn’t going to be confusing and chaotic enough.

Personally, I doubt there will be all that much violence on election day, but you’d be a fool to count on it, so the threats have done one thing: skewed the participating electorate heavily towards the fanatics. Some of them will be the brave pro-democracy fanatics Bush keeps invoking, some will be other varieties of fanatics; Iraq has rich and diverse assortment of fanatical fauna. But in much of the country, the lack of security has already determined that the electorate will consist of an unrepresentative minority: those willing to risk their lives for their beliefs. Left out will be the “afraid of all the violence” majority.

I passed on a suggestion months ago, I think from a letter to the New York Times, that adding on a referendum on whether the US occupation should end would increase turnout dramatically. Since that didn’t make it onto the ballot, if we are to understand Sunday’s results we need to ask how the voters who are most concerned with that are going to vote. I’m unclear on this. Will they vote for anti-American parties, or will they vote for Allawi and other American puppets on the theory that if the US gets the result it wants it will leave the country alone, much the same way that the Sandinistas were voted out in Nicaragua by a country weary of years of American attacks and economic pressure.

The 4 Brits who were held in Guantanamo for 3 years have been released by the British police, and are now looking forward to selling their stories of American torture (one was told that his wife was being tortured in the next room) to the tabloids. And in response the Pentagon rolled out a spokesmodel new to me, because I think I would have remember the name: Lieutenant Commander Flex Plexico. That’s better than my previous faves, Carter Ham and Michael Formica.

Ah, I’ve just googled him. Flex is a nickname, though not so identified in the news stories. Real name: Alvin Plexico.

The Blair government, responding to a Law Lords decision that its detention of foreigners without trial was illegal because it was discriminatory, will change the law (and opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights) to expand it to include British citizens (which means they can also go after animal rights activists, who are regularly demonized by right-wing newspapers), and allow the government to order house arrest, monitoring bracelets, etc. And there’s surprisingly little outrage evident.

“I firmly planted the flag of liberty”: I blog Bush’s press conference so you don’t have to

Transcript.

our own freedom is enhanced by the expansion of freedom in other nations

You make it sound like a condiment.

We anticipate a lot of Iraqis will vote. Clearly there are some who are intimidated. ... I urge all people to vote. I urge people to defy these terrorists.

I assume he’ll be setting an example by going to Fallujah and walking people to the polls. He is so brave when others’ lives are at stake. Bring it on!

I appreciate the hard work of the United Nations, which is providing a good leadership in the ground.

Freudian slip, transcription error?

And I anticipate a grand moment in Iraqi history. If we’d been having this discussion a couple of years ago and I had stood up in front of you and said the Iraqi people would be voting, you would look at me like some of you still look at me, with a kind of blank expression.

That’s a mirror, George.

And it’s exciting times for the Iraqi people.

Terrifying, George, the word is terrifying.

Iraqi insurgents lack the “vision thing”:

These terrorists do not have the best interests of the Iraqi people in mind. They have no positive agenda. They have no clear view of a better future.

That’s also a mirror, George.

Asked what a credible turnout would be, he astonishingly fails to answer, except with the standard Special Olympics line:

The fact that they’re voting in itself is successful. Again, this is a long process. ... It’s a -- it is a grand moment for those who believe in freedom.

in the long term, our children and grandchildren will benefit from a free Iraq.

How long, George, got a time frame?

In his inaugural speech, he said something about America standing with victims of oppression, “Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there” sort of thing. So today a reporter asked about a Jordanian arrested for an anti-American speech.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I am unaware of the case. You’ve asked me to comment on something that I didn’t know took place.

If reporters only ask about stuff Shrub knows took place, press conferences would be very short affairs indeed.

Describes the Social Security crisis as “dictated by just math,” “the math shows that we have an issue,” and then tries to figure out how old a reporter’s son (who he refers to as “she” even after being corrected) will be when the system goes broke. To give him credit, he almost got his sums right. Further on Social Security:

we have a duty to act on behalf of their children and grandchildren.

We’re already giving them the benefit of a free Iraq, what more do they want?

About his mission to spread freedom everywhere:

There won’t be instant democracy.

Isn’t that we were promised in Iraq? Just add saturation bombing and stir?

And I remind people that our own country is a work in progress.

Explains all the scaffolding and visible butt cracks.

You know, we -- we -- we declared all people equal, and yet all people weren’t treated equally for a century. We said, you know, everybody counts; but everybody didn’t count.

Very zen.

He undeftly evades a question about Gonzales’s confirmation hearing remarks “that cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of some prisoners is not specifically forbidden so long as it’s conducted by the CIA and conducted overseas. Is that a loophole that you approve?”

THE PRESIDENT: Listen, Al Gonzales reflects our policy, and that is we don’t sanction torture. He will be a great Attorney General, and I call upon the Senate to confirm him.

On how wonderful his second inaugural speech was:

I firmly planted the flag of liberty

Enough with the phallic imagery already.

Peaceful nations cannot close their eyes or sit idly by in the face of genocide

I’ve been meaning for some time to swipe this quote from the website of a Grinnell College professor whose personal page links to this blog: “I wept because I had no answers, until I met a man who had no questions.”

Four British citizens are released from Guantanamo, flown back to the UK at British expense, and were then arrested. They are expected to be released in a day or two (they did confess during their 3-year sojourn at Gitmo, but that evidence can’t be used in a British court), but the UK gave some sort of promise to the US that they would be prevented from posing a threat again, one of the conditions of their release. How the UK is supposed to do that with citizens unconvicted of any crime is not clear. Yet again, the US has demanded that other countries act with as little regard for the law as we do.

Several bloggers have asked just how Iraqi voters are supposed to know where their polling stations will be. I’m rather curious about this myself. Follow the sound of gunfire? The trail of blood?

Australians are losing their accents.

You may remember stories about the last two Jews in Kabul, who were engaged in a decades-long feud. Last week one of them died.

Margaret Spellings started as secretary of education yesterday; it took her one whole day before she decided to gay-bash a PBS children’s program which will show cartoon Vermont lesbians, and demand that PBS return the federal money used in producing the program. I’m a little unclear on how PBS distribution works, but evidently PBS plans to pull the episode, but WGBH will distribute it. Unbanned in Boston. Pretty good for WGBH, which used to censor the episodes of Upstairs Downstairs that might offend the delicate ears of Boston bluebloods.

R’s have been attacking Barbara Boxer for mentioning her questioning of Condi Rice in a fundraising letter. A spokesmodel for Rice, who last week didn’t think it was legitimate for her integrity to be impugned, said the letter “puts to rest any doubts some may have had that this is all about politics.”

The last Italian veteran of World War I dies, at 110.

Paul Wolfowitz, in a speech trying to yoke the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps to Bush foreign policy objectives, says that “peaceful nations cannot close their eyes or sit idly by in the face of genocide,” but allows as how people might want to close their eyes during the comb-licking scene in “Fahrenheit 911.”

Have you accepted oppression of the crusader harlots and the rejectionist pigs?

The Justice Dept gives Arizona permission to implement the parts of an anti-immigrant initiative passed in November that require voters to present proof of citizenship and other i.d. DOJ permission is required under the Voting Rights Act because of the Arizona Republican Party’s historical practice of using “literacy challenges” to intimidate and harass black and Hispanic voters, a practice William Rehnquist was involved in back in the day. But I’m sure they’d never do anything like that with these provisions now....

Speaking of voter suppression, the tape issued by Zarqawi (supposedly) asks Iraqis the question, “Have you accepted oppression of the crusader harlots and the rejectionist pigs?”

Well, have you?

Really, though, it’s nice to see Iraqis practicing coalition politics, with the crusader harlots reaching out to the rejectionist pigs in a spirit of bipartisanship. Rainbow politics, Iraqi style.

Maybe Saddam’s plumber still has some of those gold bidets in stock

While doing my evening trawl through the British press tonight, I’ve seen articles about scared Iraqi election workers who hide their identities, scared Iraqi security men (“even in the hospital ward they refused to remove their black ski masks as they were treated by doctors”), and scared Iraqi candidates (“They are being told how to campaign for the election without getting killed. The instructions are simple - avoid public places and do not reveal your identity, the cleric advised. Most candidates should stay at home as much as possible, he added.”) The entire country is in witness protection.

The Indy points out the problem with banning all cars before and during the elections: insurgents know that any moving car is likely to contain people connected with the election. There really is a very fine line in Iraq between elections and free-fire zones, isn’t there?

Shrub used to like to say that Saddam Hussein built palaces instead of schools and hospitals. Today, the US announced plans for a new $1.5 billion embassy.

Back in the continent no one’s paying attention to right now, the former head of the US Army’s Southern Command accused Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez of funding Bolivian opposition parties and providing a haven for (Colombian) FARC training camps, while Chávez accuses the US of being behind Colombia’s kidnapping of a FARC leader from Caracas. This reminds me so much of the mid-1980s, when it was the US, Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica.

I was going to write something asking why Yushchenko should be “wooing” Putin, when Putin should be apologizing for interfering in Ukrainian elections (see if you think this counts: “we did only that which was asked of us by the Ukrainian Government”). But then Pock-Faced Mr. Y appointed as his prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, the “Gas Princess,” who is actually wanted in Russia on charges of having bribed officials, and has talked about exporting the Orange Revolution to Russia. Interestingly, though, her first language is Russian rather than Ukrainian.

Not bending any statutes

DOD spokesmodel Lawrence DiRita, whose special way with a weasely “rebuttal” of reports of Pentagon malfeasance has won him a special place in all our hearts, responds to reports that Rumsfeld set up a clandestine spy unit thusly: “There is no unit that is directly reportable to the secretary of defense for clandestine operations”. You’ll have spotted the key word. He also says the Pentagon isn’t “bending” any statutes. For once, I agree with him.

Speaking of plausible deniability, Richard Nixon’s secretary Rose Mary Woods, seen here attempting to demonstrate how one could accidentally delete 18½ minutes of secret tapes with one’s foot while answering the phone, has died.



Speaking of uncomfortable positions, this is from the Sunday Times:

An eight-month pregnant Russian woman wanted to give her baby the thrill of its life before it was even born by going parachute jumping near Moscow. But she got more of a rush than she bargained for when she went into labour before reaching the ground. “I was already in the air when I felt a massive pain,” Marija Usova said. “I cried out, ‘Oh, God, help me’ and kept my legs tightly together, but beyond that there wasn’t much I could do.” She said she was close to passing out but managed to control her descent. The baby girl was born minutes after she landed.

Her name is Larisa, which means seagull.

Speaking of keeping your legs tightly together, James Dobson’s Focus on the Family sells packages of materials to help deal with the after-effects of abortion, because they are such loving Christians. Here, for example, is the Post-Abortion Grandparents’ Kit, because “Your heart still aches for the grandchild you’ll only hold in heaven.”

The Cardinal of Madrid says that in that city there is “sinning on a massive scale.” Plan your vacations accordingly.

At least American civil and military officials have stopped claiming that the Iraqi voters will be safe. Proconsul John Negroponte does say that “I believe in a preponderance of the country it will be safe for people to go and vote.” He doesn’t specify in which areas it is not safe. US officials keep citing polls which say Iraqis want to vote, as if supporters of a boycott would nonetheless choose to participate in Western polls.

Exterminate! Exterminate!! Exterminate!!!

The Pentagon is planning on deploying killer robots in Iraq. This puppy, named Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems or SWORDS by the folks at the Pentagon’s Department of Mindbogglingly Bad AcronymS (Dumbass), comes with cameras, machineguns, and absolutely no desire to rise up and destroy humanity.



Fortunately, like its...predecessor...it doesn’t look like it can deal with stairs. So I’d get started building some stairs, if I were you. Just in case.



(Update: evidently the military’s little toy can’t go faster than 4 mph, which makes its range especially limited given its short battery life (or fuel or whatever runs it). No word on the price tag.)

Unless someone wants to make a major strategic blunder

My head would have melted if I’d had to compile this: “The Beast 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2004.” I agree with much of the list. Best line, re Rumsfeld (who is number 2, in more ways than one): “Carries himself in press conferences like a cranky grandfather who is sick of hearing his daughters whine about how he molested them every now and then.”

The real problem with Rumsfeld is that people overestimate his intelligence. For example, today a spokesmodel for the Iranian foreign ministry dismissed American talk of invading Iran as merely psychological warfare: “We think the chance is very low unless someone wants to make a major strategic blunder.” What he neglects to take into consideration is that Rummy, Cheney, etc live to make major strategic blunders. It’s their thing.

The Bush Doctrine of...wait for it...Liberty

The “Bush doctrine of liberty.” It is just too early on a Sunday morning to raise the amount of outrage that phrase requires.

An LA Times story, “Torture Becomes a Matter of Definition,” features the execrable John Yoo and others saying that the US shouldn’t publicly rule out specific torture methods because that would allow future torturees to better resist interrogation. Besides administration officials, you know who else knows what techniques are used: the people they’re used on. The corollary of Yoo’s argument, therefore, is that people who have been subjected to interrogation must never be released or allowed to speak to someone like a lawyer who might tell the world. The Bush doctrine of liberty.

Seeds of liberty

The military operation to “secure” Iraq so that elections can be held has the vaguely condescending name “Operation Seeds of Liberty.” Here, Charles Graner shows off his green thumb.



The announced security measures, UnFairWitness notes, seem to involve a ban on both driving and walking near polling places, necessitating the use of “pogo sticks of liberty” by would-be voters.

An Austrian Green Party official wants Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Austrian citizenship revoked for signing the death warrant in the execution that took place this week, on the grounds that he brought Austria into disrepute. I don’t suppose we can revoke his American citizenship on the same grounds.

The Sunday Times of London has details, leaked by South African intelligence, of the plans the British investors including Mark Thatcher (currently awaiting news on whether his American visa will be re-issued) had for Equatorial Guinea if their “time-share coup” had succeeded. The plan was to create a company on the model of the East India Company to run the country (and its oil). They planned to put an exiled opposition leader in nominal charge while keeping him in virtual house arrest; their greatest worry was that he actually become popular and hence less controllable.

I support breast equality

When Arafat was alive, the State Department (and Thomas Friedman, who just thinks he’s the State Department) frequently issued fiats demanding that he say this or that... in Arabic. The charge being that he said one thing to the West in English and another to his own people. So what the WaPo story headlined “Arabs Say U.S. Rhetoric Rings Hollow” is really asking is, will the US say the same thing in Arabic that it says in English. Another article, “Bush Speech Not a Sign of Policy Shift, Officials Say,” answers that question with a resounding “No.”

In fact, Dan Bartlett insists, “it is not to say we’re not doing this already. It is important to crystallize the debate to say this is what it is all about, to say what are our ideals, what are the values we cherish.” In other words, it’s all about--and only about--re-branding. Which we all knew, but I didn’t expect to hear a Bushie admit it just a day later.

By the way, all those commentators who are so impressed with Shrub’s “bold,” “sweeping” proclamation of a crusade to end tyranny everywhere, his shift from opposing “nation-building” to advocating Utopia-building, should note that this is actually a narrowing of focus. After 9/11, Bush said he would “rid the world of evil” (like Kane in “Kung Fu,” I said at the time). So just restricting that to tyranny is really a step down.

Speaking of ending tyranny, the LA Times has an article about a public defender fighting for the right of women to go topless in California’s beaches and parks, where now only man-boobs are allowed free rein. Her slogan: “I support breast equality.” Women convicted of indecent exposure have to register as sex offenders.

How to speak to baboons

Emily Latella Memorial Editorial: I agree with Bill Thomas that Bush’s Social Security privatization plan is a dead whore.

Speaking of the elderly, the power of the people, or at least the power of pissed-off old people, turns out not to be completely dead in Russia. Huge protests have made Putin back off the elimination of various benefits for pensioners and veterans. Instead, to reduce the cost of those programs he’ll have to go back to the policy of the last few years: steadily reducing Russia’s life expectancy.

Oh give me a fucking break [Indy link no longer working]:

International aid agencies in India have been horrified to find, even amid the suffering caused by the tsunami, some survivors being refused access to basic relief because they are considered “Untouchables”.

Accounts have emerged of members of the former Untouchable castes not being allowed to drink clean water from a tank provided by Unicef because other castes believed it would pollute the water in the tank. Dalits, as the former Untouchables are known today, have been thrown out of government relief camps by the other survivors staying there ....

Zoo keepers in Kent, England, are having to learn French in order to communicate with their baboons.

Fired

I probably spent too much time yesterday analyzing Bush’s speech, considering that his only contribution was to read it out loud, but one last observation, or a question really, about the use of metaphor: he referred to the “untamed fire of freedom,” and called 9/11 the “day of fire.” Is this just sloppy writing, or does it mean something?

Classic good news/bad news: the FBI has shelved its Carnivore program for surveilling the entire internet... because over-the-counter commercial software does the job just as well.

If we can avoid it

Consecutive stories listed on the Nation & Politics page of the WaPo: 1) “An Ambitious President Advances His Idealism,” 2) “Cheney Warns of Iran As a Nuclear Threat.”

Cheney says, “We don’t want a war in the Middle East, if we can avoid it.”

We don’t want to fight
but by jingo if we do...
We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men,
and got the money too!

Avoid. Like “war in the Middle East” is a runaway truck. Of course you can “avoid” war, it’s easy: don’t invade, don’t bomb, no war.

As Viktor Yushchenko clears the last legal challenge and is sworn in as Ukraine’s president, Vladimir Putin finally admits defeat and sends a telegram looking forward to “good-neighborly and equal relations,” adding “or we will crush you.”

Speaking of good-neighborly and equal relations, Bush in his speech said, “We have known divisions.... and I will strive in good faith to heal them,” adding, “Or we will crush you.” “Yet those divisions do not define America. We felt the unity and fellowship of our nation when freedom came under attack”. What’s he saying, that in order to heal divisions, he’ll engineer another terrorist attack?

Independent editorial title: “Let Us Hope That Mr Bush’s More Nuanced Words Could Be Heard above the Gunfire in Iraq.” (No link, as the article is behind a pay barrier, but other than the title it’s nothing special).

Another Indy op-ed piece, by Johann Hari, says, “George Bush presented America as the armed wing of Amnesty International.” Also pay or Lexis-Nexis only.

Speaking of spreading freedom, the WaPo says that the prison camps maintained by the US in Iraq are almost full, with about 9,000 prisoners, and more every day. If Venezuela, say, arrested thousands of opponents in advance of an election, what would the US say about that?

The Colombian “bounty hunters” who kidnapped a FARC rebel in Venezuela, turn out to be members of Venezuela’s security forces, who will be charged with treason. I was right that there was no extradition request; but also, Interpol had rejected Colombia’s request to put the man on its wanted list because they saw the charges against him as political.

Israeli troops in Gaza shoot dead a Palestinian boy playing with a toy gun he’d been given for Eid, presumably by people who didn’t like him much. You have to ask why toy guns are even on sale there.

Freedom blah blah liberty blah blah freedom again blah blah...

One of my favorite Daily Show segments is when they have children read transcripts of tele-pundits tele-punditting at each other. Bush’s second inaugural speech reminds me of that, in that none of it was in his own voice. Phrases like “multiply in destructive power,” “pretensions of tyrants,” etc do not roll trippingly off his tongue.

(Who are the idiots yelling “four more years”?)

Before I forget, I want to call attention to the coded anti-abortion language: “Even the unwanted have worth.”

He used the word “freedom” 893 times in 20 minutes, and “liberty” 562 times. These are essentially negative words, at least the way Bush used them, in contradistinction to tyranny and oppression. It’s hard to say what the features are of a place with freedom and liberty, except that they lack the secret police, punishment of dissidents etc of tyrannies. Even Norman Rockwell had a more sophisticated vision of freedom:



Did Bush use the word “democracy” even once? By his choice of words--and wouldn’t you like to see him forced to define them?--he set the bar pretty low; hell, he thinks Iraq and Afghanistan have freedom now.

I was definitely right in my last post about his use of “freedom” as a threat, a dagger aimed at the heart of any regime he doesn’t like, members of the “axis of evil” or the “outposts of oppression.” I mean, really: “one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.” It’s a top-down view of freedom, something that applies to nations or regions and only as an afterthought to individuals.

Other words that stand out, although less obviously, are words like “permanent,” “eternal” and “always,” applied to the values of America, which evidently have something to do with liberty and freedom. OK, it doesn’t sound sinister when I write it like that, but there’s something rigid and unexamined in his invocation of the permanence of his alleged values. Coming out of his mouth, the notions of freedom and liberty take on his own personal characteristics: stubbornness, lack of reflection. Read the speech, if you have the stomach for it, and see if you don’t see what I mean.

All that remains is to observe that Chimpy’s tie was ugly, and that there was a wide variety of amusing hats on view. Rehnquist’s little beret, or whatever that was, went so well with the Gilbert and Sullivan robes, and Rummy’s consiglieri hat.

After interpreting omens

Inauguration, from the Latin inauguratus, meaning “consecrated after interpreting omens.” And, indeed, His Fraudulency said yesterday that “We have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom”. You know, George, I hear a tin-foil hat will block the flying-saucer messages. He also called for “the expansion of freedom in all the world.” Only Shrub could make “freedom” sound so much like a threat.


I may just spend the day hiding under the bed.

The dangly bits

Condi is voted out of committee 16-2.



Sharon’s government secretly decided 6 months ago to seize the East Jerusalem property of Palestinians who live in the West Bank, without compensation. This has been applied to Palestinians who own agricultural property on what is now the wrong side of the Wall. So the Wall has turned out to be a land grab after all, who’d have guessed?

As you may remember, police in Inglewood, CA. were filmed in July 2002 beating a black 16-year old in what it was feared would be another Rodney King incident.



The white officer who did most of the beating was fired, but two hung juries failed to convict him. Another white officer on the scene was suspended for 10 days for failing to report the incident and then lying about it, while a black cop received only 4 days’ suspension for beating the kid with a flashlight. So the 2 white cops sued for...wait for it... discrimination, and were awarded $1.6 million and $810,000 respectively.

New Zealand has put out a series of stamps in recognition of New Zealand’s unique cultural contrib... well, all right, sheep. But one stamp featuring a male merino sheep has been denounced as an insult to rural NZ because it doesn’t show “the dangly bits.”

Rocks

I guess someone thought twice about the name “America Rocks the Future: A Call to Service,” and changed it to “America’s Future Rocks.” And nothing says rock & roll like George & Laura in their most rockin’ party togs.

With a forklift

2 posts ago I said I didn’t know what this was about.

Well, according to the lawyer of the soldier responsible for it, he was simply moving the prisoner out of the sun. With a forklift. So it was an act of kindness. With a forklift.

His understanding

Alberto Gonzales has answered more questions in writing, no more satisfactorily than he did in Senate testimony. Torture bad, still won’t define it, does say that techniques which would violate the 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment if they were used in the US might be ok if we used them abroad, not that we’d ever do that, unless we did, and the CIA can do whatever it wants. And this, on rendition, with the weasel phrases highlighted: “It is my understanding that the United States does not render individuals to countries where we believe it is more likely than not they will be tortured.”

Though several Bushies have been asked about waterboarding, none will say a word against it.

To return yet again to Bush’s “accountability moment” line: I’ve said before that Bush’s life is marked by periodic declarations of clean-slate moments, when everything is supposed to have changed, and everything he did before is supposed not to matter: going teetotal and Jesusy at age 40, 9/11, etc. The accountability moment is another one of these.

Condi says the solution to North Korea’s nuclear problem is 6-party talks which will tell NK, “If you intend to a be part of the international system, you have got to give up your nuclear weapons programs.” When has North Korean ever shown an interest in being part of the international system, whatever that might be?

Cowabunga

Condi: “I have to say that I have never, ever, lost respect for the truth in the service of anything.” Can’t lose what you don’t have.

Condi is the “intellectual” of the Bush administration, which means she tries to phrase things intellectually: “Our role is directly proportional, I think, to how capable the Iraqis are.” She of course meant to say inversely proportional. Nice try.

Yet more pictures of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, this time, phew, not by us, but by the Brits. The London Times attempts to explain this one: “Lance Corporal Darren Larkin appears to be pretending to surf on his victim, seemingly unaware that he is in a country where even the slightest contact with the soles of the feet is regarded as a grave insult.”




What this one is all about, who knows.


There are also the usual simulated sex acts, but it’s mild by Abu Ghraib standards, abuse rather than torture, unless there’s something in the Geneva Conventions about simulated surfing. The pics were discovered because a fusilier used a commercial film developer.

Latest thing British people will bet on: the next James Bond. Clive Owen is currently at 4:1.

Tonight will see the first execution of the Schwarzenegger administration, of a man with brain damage, which the jury never heard about.

One of the “youth events” associated with the inauguration, hosted by Jenna and Not-Jenna, will have the beyond-parody name “America Rocks the Future: A Call to Service.” Room service, possibly.