British election results: “I hope in my heart that one day the prime minister may be able to say sorry”

I’m sorry I forgot to post a prediction about the British election results, since it would have been pretty accurate; you’ll just have to take my word for it. Labour won what would be a landslide in most countries, but is such a drop from its previous two election victories that it looks very much like a defeat, and might well have been an actual defeat if there had been a credible alternative, if anyone could have imagined either the Tories or the LibDems in power without, respectively, cringing or laughing. The last 3 or 4 years were the time for a push by the LibDems to displace the Tories as the primary opposition party, as they already are in some parts of the country, but there was no such push, and the electoral system is stacked against them, so that even in seats where they increased their vote, they mostly succeeded in cutting into Labour majorities and handing those seats to Tories.

The Tories ran quite a few gay candidates (although not, as far as I know, any lesbians, but don’t quote me on that), evidently without scaring the blue-haired old ladies or upsetting the horses. Really, it was a non-issue. I’m not sure yet how many were run in seats where they had a chance of winning (although to be fair, first-time candidates are not usually given safe seats but are expected to be seasoned by losing their first race), or how many did win; I’ll try to update when all the results are in (or someone could drop me an email, hint hint). They also ran more ethnic minorities than usual, and Adam Afriyie won in Windsor, the first ever black Tory MP. However Labour’s Oona King, who is black, a woman, and Jewish, was defeated by George Galloway of the Respect party, who is fiercely anti-war, the most left-wing member of the new Parliament, but absolutely not someone we want on our side.

In his remarkably glum victory speech, Blair admitted that the country wanted the result it got, for Labour to win but with a much reduced majority (which is a way of saying that those who switched their votes to the LibDems didn’t really mean it, which is true, but he shouldn’t be the one to say it). Another way of saying that is that voters wanted to send Blair a message not to govern so far to the right of the party of which he is supposed to be the leader.

I predict that Blair will be replaced as party leader and prime minister not less than a year but not more than two years from now; the only question is whether he’ll jump or be pushed. In his own constituency of Sedgefield, 14 people ran against him, and he had to stand there with all of them as the results were read out, including the Monster Raving Loony Party candidate and the former topless model whose real name is probably not Cherri Blairout Gilham — that’s her in the hat Tony is trying so hard not to look at....



and a man named Reg Keys, who scored an astonishing 10% of the vote on an anti-war platform, after his 20-year old son, a soldier, was killed in Iraq. After the count, he gave a speech and Tony had to stand there listening. Here’s the bit I heard, before the BBC got bored and switched away: “If this war had been justified by international law I would have grieved and not campaigned. If weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq — again I would have grieved, not campaigned. ... I hope in my heart that one day the prime minister may be able to say sorry.”

Mr. Terminator, tear down this wall pink ribbon

As I hinted yesterday, Bush is heading into a minor shitstorm by attending the 60th anniversary of V-E Day in Moscow. It now seems he secretly tried to get Russia to repudiate before then the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 and the subsequent Russian annexation of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Since Bush is going to Moscow by way of Latvia, he’s right in the middle of this, and he has written a letter to the president of Latvia using the word “occupation,” which has pissed the Russians off no end. Russia has not only refused to apologize, it is insisting that there was no annexation, that it was by mutual agreement.

As part of his campaign for Tom DeLay-style redistricting in California, Governor Terminator went to Elk Grove, a Sacramento suburb parts of which are in two different districts, put up a big red length of ribbon at that dividing line down a street showing how cruelly and wantonly divided Elk Grovians had been by this senseless act of redistricting. He then tore the ribbon, to symbolize the reuniting of Elk Grove, like the breaching of the Berlin Wall, except that this wall was entirely fictional. Also, he went to the wrong street, 1/8th of a mile away from the real line, which may have been a deliberate mistake, because where he went was in a gated community, where the protesters who normally follow him around these days can be kept out.



Evidently Schwarzenegger is planning to divide California into districts without the use of lines. I can’t wait to see him try.

Emulating popular culture

Evidently today is the National Day of Prayer. George “Hey Laura, This Milk Tastes Kind of Funny” Bush had a bunch of ministers of various religions over to the White House to pray at him. It didn’t help. I’d like to have seen the look on the Catholic priest’s face (Bush called him a pastor) when Bush told him, “Kind of sounded more like a Baptist preacher to me.”

Bush declared, “From the landing of the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, to the launch of the American Revolution, the men and women who founded this nation in freedom relied on prayer to protect and preserve it.” Also, smallpox-infected blankets. Of course, he couldn’t resist mentioning that God supports our side in its more... vigorous endeavors: “Today, we pray for the troops who are defending our freedom [which he had just explained comes from God] against determined enemies around the globe.” Excellent plan, I’m sure our determined enemies didn’t think of that.

But what does God think about freedom to engage in sexually suggestive cheerleading? As you know, a bill to prohibit such foul practices passed the lower house of the Texas legislature 65-56. Cathie Adams, president of the Texas Eagle Forum, worries that “High school cheerleading was starting to emulate popular culture.” Could be worse: could be the other way around. Although it might make the next Star Wars movie more watchable.

Something is seriously wrong with the condition of Britain today. First I saw this image of a ballot box on the Tory party website, looking like it had been dropped from an airplane.



But then I saw this picture, on the Labour website, of Tony & Cherie Blair casting their ballots, evidently in a barn in Appalachia.



And an email sent out by the LibDems this morning pleaded, “If you are in a part of the country which is forecast bad weather for today, remember that you only get this opportunity to directly affect the direction of our country once every four or five years.” So vote for better weather.

Accounting and accountability

So while Congress did vote for $200m in aid to Palestine, much of it somehow wound up in Israeli hands: $20m to the Israeli electricity company, $50m for checkpoints, etc. At this point I would start a sentence “And to add insult to injury...” but there are too many ways to finish that sentence, too many insults. Very little money will go to the elected Palestinian government, but will be disbursed by non-governmental groups, preferably Zionist ones: for example, $2m goes to Hadassah. Another insult: $5m will go to audit the Palestinian budget; I don’t read that as meaning the audit will track only how American money is spent, but as a top-to-bottom audit. Or possibly it will be a thorough audit of precisely how much insult has been added to injury.

And you should all be ashamed of yourselves for the thought that just went through your heads: many accountants are not Jewish.

The Marine in the shooting of an unarmed, wounded Iraqi prisoner of war, the “He’s fucking faking he’s dead. He faking he’s fucking dead” incident (previous posts here and here) has been cleared by the Marine Corps (actually I thought he was cleared months ago) despite actual videotape of the shooting. Also, the LA Times tells us, as if to jog our memories, “The incident later was the basis for an episode of the pro-military television show "JAG" on CBS. In that story, the Marine was found not guilty.” Maybe the Marines put the wrong tape in the VCR.

Actually, most LA Times stories are assigned on the basis of things the editor saw on after-school specials and reruns of Matlock.

So with that, the rejection of Lynndie England’s guilty plea (which means that she will return to her military duties), and the whitewash of the Giuliana Sgrena shooting, it’s been quite a week for accountability. Also, Rumsfeld and Bush still have their jobs.

Options

Evidently a large number of veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars are coming home, driving really fast, and dying in crashes.

Next week George “The Horse Whisperer” Bush will attend a military parade in Red Square celebrating the 60th anniversary of V-E Day, or, as the Baltic states and possibly one or two other countries think of it, the start of 45 years of subjugation by the Red Army. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, in a Rummyesque move, told them to suck it up: “when some now argue over whether we did or did not occupy other countries, I feel like asking them: ‘And what would have become of you if we hadn’t broken the back of fascism - would you still exist as a people?’” Isn’t it nice to have options?

Speaking of options, in India, a 19 (or 22)-year old nurse was raped by an orderly, who gouged out one of her eyes in the process. Before he was sentenced, he asked the court if he could marry his victim, so the court had her hauled in to answer this beyond-obscene (but not uncommon) proposition.

She said no.

Still speaking of options, the British people will be choosing a new government in a few hours. Under Mr. Blair, the British political system has become increasingly presidential in tone and function, but not electorally. No one gets to vote directly on who will be prime minister, which creates some anomalies. For example, it has become increasingly clear that he lied to Parliament about the legal advice he had on the legality of the war in Iraq, but voters in Labour-held seats wishing to punish Blair for that would have to vote against their Members of Parliament, precisely the people Blair lied to.

A response to the infidel pesh merga forces which surrendered themselves to the crusaders and became a thorn in the side of Muslims

The Tory policy generator.

Given the repetitious nature of events in Iraq, I feel justified in recycling part of my Feb. 28 post, with the number updated:

in Iraq today anti-queuing militants struck again, killing at least 46 men applying to join the police. As we know, Sunnis believe that queues are distasteful in the eyes of Allah, while Shiites insist that forming orderly lines is a mitzvah, and require young men to form such lines NO MATTER HOW FUCKING MANY TIMES THOSE LINES GET BLOWN UP.

Says the group responsible, “This operation is in response to our brothers who are being tortured in your prisons, and in response to the infidel pesh merga forces which surrendered themselves to the crusaders and became a thorn in the side of Muslims.” Somewhere there’s a computer program, just like the Tory policy generator, that writes these messages. Surely no human could.

The attack came one day after the new interim, provisional, probationary, contingent, temporary, transient Iraqi government was sworn in, and one day after the US announced yet again that the insurgents were demoralized.

If the ethics of perfidy don’t work, why is Chalabi in office?

The WaPo characterizes these comments by Iraqi PM Jafari, addressed to Sunni insurgents as “conciliatory”: “Come back to our people with atonement and apology... The dialogue of words will take you to what the language of bullets and the ethics of perfidy failed to do.” A great big sloppy kiss, that is, straight out of the John Bolton school of diplomacy. I can’t find the whole speech, so I have only the word of the Post and a few other papers that it was specifically Sunni insurgents he meant, as opposed to the Sunni politicians who refused to join his administration, so that a Cabinet was sworn in today missing 7 members. There was a deadline of early May (the 7th?) after which, if no cabinet had been formed, a new prime minister would need to be chosen. Hard to see how a cabinet without proper ministers of defense, oil, etc counts.

A measure setting stricter standards for driver’s licenses went through the House, attached by James Sensenbrenner to a measure to fund the military in Iraq. No one has attacked him for this tactic, designed to circumvent a proper debate, because this sort of blackmail goes on in the legislative branch all the time. “Nice little supplemental appropriations bill ya got here, shame if something wuz to happen to it.” Without extortion, nothing would get done in Congress. Just wanted to point out, in the midst of all the recent talk about filibusters, that the normal processes of law-making would make Tony Soprano turn away in disgust.

Oh, and Sensenbrenner also snuck through a provision removing the right of habeas corpus for non-citizens.

A cunning plan

From the Daily Telegraph: “China offered the people of Taiwan a pair of giant pandas yesterday... But it was not clear last night if Taiwan would accept the pandas, with some members of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party denouncing it as a ploy to undermine Taiwan’s sovereignty.” I’m a little foggy on how they’d do this, but they may be super-ninja pandas.

Ann Widdecombe, Tory MP and former Employment Minister, among other things, was asked in a phone-in program how she would improve the life of the (woman) caller, said, “I would buy you a cat.”

Brazil has rejected American AIDS money, finding it to have moralistic strings attached to it. The US wanted every group receiving money, including those which work with prostitutes, to condemn prostitution.

On its opening weekend in Britain, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” earned... £4.2m.

Former Polish military ruler Wojciech Jaruzelski reveals that Erich Honecker was a lousy kisser.

Shout, show, shove, shoot

Health & Human Services Secretary Mike “Pull the Plug” Leavitt suggested that one way to save money in the Medicare program would be getting people in the program to make out living wills.

Well, I’ve been reading the Pentagon whitewash (pdf). The WaPo notes that it was posted “in a form that allowed outside computer specialists to manipulate it and reveal the deleted portions.” That arcane bit of computer “specialist” knowledge, I can reveal to you now, is called cut-and-paste.

The rules of engagement for the Iraqi checkpoint were called “shout, show, shove, shoot,” meaning a car would be successively hit by a searchlight, a green laser pointer, warning shots, and disabling shots. Sounds like a night at the strip club.

The report admits failing to have done proper forensic analysis of the scene, because when they tried, someone threw a hand grenade at them. “As a result, the forensic studies of the car could not be as conclusive as they normally would be.”

The checkpoint had no radar gun, but one of the soldiers was a NYC cop, “trained in vehicle speed estimation.” I’d accept that in lieu of a radar gun... if not for his conflict of interest.

The report confirmed something I knew about way back on March 10, but haven’t heard another word about since: the roadblock was set up around a curve which is less than, ya know, optimal if you want people to actually see your roadblock before you start shooting them. It’s a roadblock, not a speed-trap.

When oddly large burritos are outlawed, only oddly large outlaws will have oddly large burritos

The American whitewash of the shooting of Italian journalist/hostage Giuliana Sgrena’s car repeats the claim that it was driving at 50 mph. I haven’t read the report but... did the hastily set up roadblock come equipped with a radar gun? Incidentally, one part of the report I’m looking forward to seeing describes for the first time the US military’s rules of engagement at roadblocks; it was one of the ineptly redacted sections.

Once again, the Kuwaiti parliament fails to enfranchise women. I’m so glad we fought Gulf War I, the war to make the world safe for feudalism, to restore that country’s “freedom.”

In response to a British academic boycott of an Israeli university connected to the “College of Judea and Samaria” in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank (talk about a land-grant college!), Israel has decided to upgrade the college to a university. That’ll show ‘em.

Ariel Sharon says, as if it were his decision to make, that Hamas can’t participate in Palestinian elections unless they disarm.

A washing machine has been developed in Spain to deal with the problem of husbands not doing their share of the chores: using fingerprint-recognition technology, it will not allow the same person to push the start button twice in a row.

Why obesity is a danger to our young:

A call about a possible weapon at a middle school prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops, close nearby streets and lock down the school.

Someone called authorities Thursday after seeing a boy carrying something long and wrapped into Marshall Junior High. [in Clovis, New Mexico]

The drama ended two hours later when the suspicious item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapenos and wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt.

The burrito was part of Morrissey’s extra-credit assignment to create commercial advertising for a product. "We had to make up a product and it could have been anything. I made up a restaurant that specialized in oddly large burritos," Morrissey said.

In France, a man sued his ex-wife & her lover for compensation for the time he spent with the 13-year old girl he thought was his daughter. The court ordered them to pay him €23,000, almost the cost of the personality transplant he so obviously needs, because “It has not been proved that he would have voluntarily carried out his natural duties knowing that he was not the father.” To be fair, the ex-wife had married the lover and asked for legal paternity (and custody) to be changed. €8,000 of the award was for moral and psychological damage. For the non-father, of course, not for the girl.

Speaking of 13-year olds being treated as symbols rather than human beings by those who are supposed to be taking care of them, the judge in Florida has ruled that that 13-year old may have her abortion after all.

Cheng Yizhong, the editor of a newspaper in Guangdong, China, which broke stories about SARS and about a fatal police beating, was to be given a press freedom prize by UNESCO. But the Chinese government told him not to go. Not big on irony, the Chinese government.

That led me to check the availability of “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It” in China, through this helpful site, but its connection to China is down right now. I have had one or two hits from China in the past, but not in quite some time.

Vote Tory and win a date with a dentist

In the British elections, Michael Howard has taken the Clinton idea of running on small policies to laughable extremes. Sez Howard, “People don’t want a date with destiny, they just want a date with the dentist.” Insert your own oral sex/laughing gas joke here. One of his major platform planks is keeping hospitals cleaner. Possibly by closing the National Health Service and sending poor patients to die in the streets, but at least the hospitals will be clean. The latest Tory email (I also signed up for the LibDems, which sent just 1 email the whole campaign, but couldn’t find a place on the Labour site at which to do so, or indeed at the Monster Raving Loony Party’s site) promises that if the Tories win, “on 9th May plans to prevent police officers having to fill in a form every time they stop a yob in the street would be unveiled; and on 6th June NHS trusts will have agreed to put matrons in charge of delivering cleaner hospitals.” They’re also setting their sights on disruptive 8-year olds, wanting to give schools unfettered power to expel unruly students. Here’s a poster they’re running in Scotland (where they currently have 1 MP out of 72).



England being England, Howard has begun speaking in rhyming couplets:

People have had enough of spin and smirk;
they just want someone who’ll make things work.

Mostly, though, it’s all immigrant-bashing, all the time. If you saw Michael Howard on C-SPAN yesterday, you saw a questioner get him to say that he would have kept his own grandparents (Romanian Jews) from immigrating to Britain. However, there are is some sort of invisible line, and one Tory candidate got in trouble for asking “What part of ‘Send them back’ do you not understand?”

Etiquette

Here’s an AP story, verbatim:

The US military released 85 Afghans from jails at its Bagram and Kandahar bases yesterday after deciding they posed no threat. The 85 all swore loyalty to the Afghan government and were given gifts and cash. They had been held for between three months and 2 years.

I’m trying to visualize this scene, and I can’t quite do it. What sort of gift is appropriate under these circumstances? Does Hallmark make a “sorry for holding you captive for no good reason” card? And when receiving such a gift, is a thank-you card de rigeur? And were they made to recite an actual oath of loyalty, and how was it worded?

The best interest of the child

Carl Hiaasen excoriates the Florida Department of Children & Families for its insistence that that 13-year old girl not be allowed to have an abortion: “A spokeswoman for DCF Secretary Luci Hadi said the agency is doing ‘what we believe is in the best interest of the child.’ Sure. If you happen to believe that unplanned pregnancy is a real character-builder for teenage girls. Don’t be surprised if DCF uses the same cold-blooded tactics against L.G. as it did against the retarded woman in Orlando -- dragging the case out in court until it’s too late for a safe abortion.”

Condi Rice and the Monroe Doctrine: “We have a positive agenda for this hemisphere.”

Condi Rice has been on a secret tour of Latin America. Well, not really secret, but for all the media attention it’s been getting, it might as well be. A pop quiz: did she visit Ecuador? Do you know the answer? Me neither. Answer, and transcripts of her various interviews and press conferences, here.

If there is an agenda to this trip, presumably it involves Venezuela. In Colombia, Rice said, “We don’t have a problem with the Venezuelan people.” As you know, “we don’t have a problem with the ___ people” is code for “the bombing begins in five minutes.” She carpet-bombed a press conference with utterances of the word hemisphere. “This is a question of what kind of hemisphere do we want to see, what kind of hemisphere do we want to live in, and what states are going to contribute to that hemisphere and what states will not contribute to that kind of hemisphere.” First, Colombia is actually in the Southern, Northern and Western hemispheres. Second, if Venezuela doesn’t properly contribute to the hemisphere, does it get towed to another hemisphere? Third, how many times can we repeat the word hemisphere before it loses all meaning? Fourth, since when does the rather broad geographic expression that is a hemisphere impose a demand for unified institutions? “We have a positive agenda for this hemisphere,” she says. This is imperialism dressed up in the blandest, least ideological language she could find, that of geographic imperative: “You can’t nationalize your oil industry, don’t you know you’re in the Western hemisphere?”

Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh

Go to any British Sunday newspaper site, especially the Independent or the Observer, for new details fleshing out what we already knew: Bush determined on invading Iraq many months before he said so in public (I don’t think anyone now remembers how often and over how long a period of time Bush claimed that he had taken no such decision and that Saddam could avoid it if he just complied with international blah blah blah), that Tony Blair signed up immediately, and that the British attorney general believed the war would be illegal, until he was sent to Washington to be pummeled into agreeing with the American view, presented to him by, among others, Alberto Gonzales.

So let’s move on to pictures of the commemorations in Vietnam of the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. There may or may not be something comforting in the thought that the war, and all its horror and devastation, has been transmuted, like every other war 30 years after its finish, into scruffy old veterans, bored students enduring yet another assembly, hot chicks dressed up as Viet Cong, Uncle Ho waving at tourists, and a fat American veteran happily taking pictures.

Frustrated

Insurgents greet the formation of an Iraqi semi-government (is this one provisional or interim, I’ve forgotten) with the traditional 21-car-bomb salute. Imagine for a moment what it must have been like for those insurgents waiting for that government: they’ve worked themselves up into a proper jihadist state of mind, made out their wills, they’re all ready to blow themselves up for the greater glory of Allah and ascend to heaven etc etc... and then have to wait for more than three months of squabbling and back-room intrigue by pettifogging politicians. Must be frustrating. Must be darned frustrating.

Speaking of frustrated people, I’ve been reading the London Review of Books personals for as many issues as I’ve been able to find online. Over the last few years it’s become an odd little writing phenomenon. Some examples:

Ordinary woman seeks ordinary man for the usual. Box no. 01/01

LRB? Never read it... hoping for a better class of tottie. F, 35. Eric Morecambe, dogs, spring, crispy duck, good dialogue (written and oral), tea, slapstick, Thatcher’s death, vodka, cheek muscles.

Toilet duties. That’s where you come in – buxom, 22-year-old blonde stereotype not shy of adjusting the surgical stockings of 73-year-old misanthrope with poor bladder control. Failing that, just send care home brochures to Box no. 08/05

Woman, 43, would like to meet a man – any man – whose evolutionary path isn’t that of Homer Simpson. Suspecting that’s too difficult, I may go lesbian. Box no. 08/10

I’ve committed every decorating sin listed in the March edition of Elle Decoration and I’m proud. M., 41, with carpeted bathroom, artex ceilings and a wealth of porcelain shepherdesses seeks laminate-crazy woman to 45 for nights of painting the hallway magnolia. And after that, insane sex in front of my MDF mock-Victorian TV cabinet (I’ll polish the brass handles just for you). Box no. 07/05

Ploughing the loneliest furrow. 19 LRB personals and counting. Only one reply. It was my mother telling me not to forget the bread on my way home from B&Q. Man., 51. Box no. 07/06

This is as gay as I get. Man, 37. Box no. 07/07

There’s enough lithium in my medicine cabinet to power three electric cars across a sizeable desert. I’m more than aware that this isn’t actually a selling point, but nonetheless it’s my favourite statistic about me. Man, 33 – officially Three Cars Crazy. Box no. 07/10

Every woman I’ve ever met is painted with unnerving accuracy by the ads placed in this column. You’re all my mother, aren’t you? M., 37, Worcs. Box no. 07/11

... Can’t say I’m choosy. You’re a biker, or worse.

‘Guilty, your Honour.’ Don’t let these be my last words ever spoken to a UK resident female. Long distance offers of love (one letter per month, weight-restricted, and all contents vetted) to Box no. 21/13

Angry trollop, 37. Offers? Box no. 21/14

Man, 46. Appears quite normal, but probably best avoided. What do the doctors know? Box no. 21/15

Easily, but rarely, led forties M post-graduate gooseberry, London/SE, seeks beautiful twenty-year old snake for fun evenings/engagement/crushing disappointment.

My hobbies include crying and hating men. F., 29. Box no. 14/10

Like I’ve said so many times before here, ‘desperate’. Do I have to spell it out? D-E-S-P-E-R-A-T-E. Jeez, what does it take to catch a 20-year old athletic male in this magazine? F., 67. Box no. 14/08

It only takes a minute girl. Not to fall in love, but to realise how futile it is to expect a normal relationship from these ads. With that in mind I’m after a juggling, trombone blowing F. in the finest gold lame this side of Elvis (you’re not a day older than 97). Box no. 22/05

Baste me in butter and call me Slappy. No, really. M. 35. Box no. 20/09

I’m a Pisces – which makes you and I a bad match, but how about your good-looking friend? Non-committal, easily-distracted, fly-by-night F (35). Sorry, I think I just heard my phone ring. Box no. 0222

Meet the new me. Like the old me only less nice after three ads without any sexual intercourse. 42-year old fruitcake (F.). Box no. 17/06

I’ve thought long and hard about all the things I look for in a woman and I’ve condensed their essence into a single word: clankerstanchion. If you are a London-based F with clankerstanchion to spare, please contact man with lashings of wumpflapsy. You will not be disappointed. Often scared, yes. Disappointed, never. Box no. 23/09

[More of my LRB favorites here.]

Here I am, brain the size of a planet...

C-SPAN will indeed be broadcasting the program I mentioned yesterday, in which the 3 British party leaders are questioned by a studio audience, Sunday 6 & 9 PM, PST. Its 1 1/2 hours.

Putin, not satisfied with having taken back into state control most tv & radio, now plans to register mobile phones and control the internet, giving the KGB access to records of which sites people view.

Speaking of unstoppable behemoths capturing medium after medium, I saw the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie today. Although the credits insisted it was adopted from Douglas Adams’s book, for me the definitive H2G2 will always be the original radio series, which I first heard in 1980 (the next sequel of which will begin to be available on bbc.co.uk within a couple of days after it airs on the radio May 3rd. Remember, each episode is online for a week and then disappears forever.)

My review of the movie: mostly harmless. It has more plot and less digression than I’d have liked, but less damage was done in accommodating it to the Procrustean bed of the film format than I expected. A lot of the best material was in the narrative by the Book, and a lot of that is lost. Marvin never complains about having a terrible pain in all the diodes down his left side. Some of the comedic timing is off. And here’s my last caveat: while the sets, the visual effects and puppets are very good (even Marvin the Paranoid Android, who looked so different from how I visualized him, but somehow it worked) the sound effects aren’t much of anything. I wouldn’t even have noticed, except that those in the BBC radio series, more than 25 years ago, were so good. As for casting, Martin Freeman as Arthur and Stephen Fry as the Book were inspired choices and so, surprisingly was Mos Def, who is evidently a musician of the sort the kids like (shows how with-it I am, when I saw the name I thought Albanian, not American rapper). On a second or third viewing, it might be wise to focus on his performance. Of all the actors, he seems to have thought the most about his acting choices (Bill Nighy just did Bill Nighy), about how to portray an alien posing not very well as human, as shown by his choice of a name, “Ford Prefect,” which he thought would be “nicely inconspicuous.” Sam Rockwell, perhaps inevitably, portrays Zaphod Beeblebrox, the fugitive Galactic President, as a parody of George W. Bush, and why not? Anyway, I liked the movie more than I expected to, and you all have my permission to see it, but if you’ve just read the books and never heard the original series (and the less said about the 1980s tv series the better), do yourself a favor and buy the CDs. Update: OK, I’ll admit I had a nefarious plan to get you all to buy those admittedly pricey CDs (12 episodes, 6 hours) through my Amazon link — if 20 of you did, the commission would give me enough money to replace my old, scratchy cassette tapes — but Amazon doesn’t seem to have them in stock. Way to fail to cash in on the movie, BBC!

George Bush and his magic wand

Variety reports that Bush’s decision to hold a pointless press conference in prime time cost the networks $40 million.

The least believable-sounding thing Bush said last night was also the truest: that on gas prices, he “can’t wave a magic wand.” I mean I know he can’t and you know he can’t, but we also know that he neither knows nor believes that. His magic wand has always been privilege. He has never done anything himself, so it’s all magic to him: he speaks commands and they are transformed into reality, he knows not how. His magic wand is his Dick... Cheney, that is. And all his other minions, practicing their pedestrian crafts. During the press conference, he disdainfully swept away the notion that he should have any idea of how things work; “I’m not an economist,” he said at one point, later asserting “I’m not a lawyer.”

So when he says he can’t bring gas prices down, it sounds like he’s lying, and he is, because he is not telling the truth as he (mis)understands it. He said, as he often does, “I’m an optimistic fellow.” Even if Americans understand that that optimism is grounded in self-delusion, they also realize that when he says he can’t wave a magic wand and reduce oil prices, what he means is that he is unwilling to exercise the magical powers he thinks he possesses on behalf of his less magically gifted subjects.

Making the unemployed run on time

Blogger generates the URL for my posts out of the first words of my post title, or the first line if there is no title. For my last post, entitled “Bush press conference: how can I live-blog if they start it early?,” the URL turned out to be http://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com/2005/04/bush-press-conference-how-can-i-live.html

I missed a detail of the bill passed yesterday against helping a minor cross state lines to get an abortion, and it’s a detail that refutes the R line that this is about “dodging” parental-notification laws or helping sexual predators: even if the minor female is accompanied by her parents, this bill adds a 24-hour waiting period. It’s about creating more hoops for pregnant women to jump through (and yes, that is a problematic metaphor).

Britain just opened a Robin Hood Airport in South Yorkshire. Motto: “Your Luggage Isn’t Lost, We Gave It to the Poor.”

Israel refuses an American proposal to give the Palestinian police actual weapons. Israel’s response: “Let them first take the weapons from the terrorists.” Yeah, that’s a plan.

The Christian Democratic justice minister of the German state of Hesse (who is neither Christian, democratic nor just) suggested that the unemployed be fitted with electronic tagging ankle bracelets to give them “the chance to return to a regulated daily schedule”.


You go to war with the superheroes you have... Captain America strategically deploys his shield because he caught Rummy looking at Spiderman’s package earlier.

Bush press conference: how can I live-blog if they start it early?

My apologies to anyone who listened to me and tuned in to Bush’s press conference late. 5:30 was the announced time, really it was. And no thanks to McNeil-Lehrer, which two hours beforehand said that there would be a press conference without giving the time. (Update: they moved it up because the networks would otherwise have gone with their regular crap, on the first day of sweeps. I suspect the White House knew about sweeps, figuring the networks would have to carry Bush but have no time for analysis afterwards.)

Bush doesn’t often address the nation in prime time, and hasn’t held a prime-time press conference in over a year. Since they aren’t routine, you’d expect him to come to one with an agenda. But he didn’t. And with major partisan firefights in Congress, I was wondering if he would come in order to 1) attack the D’s, or 2) offer compromises. He did neither (although he did say he wouldn’t resort to name-calling, in response to a question about partisanship, possibly from “Stretch”). Evidently (and thankfully) he has no plan for getting his agenda passed, and tonight he used one of the great weapons of the presidency, the ability to commandeer the airwaves, for no particular purpose, except that it was the 100th day of his second term. He didn’t help any of his positions (Social Security, Bolton, judges), he didn’t hurt them.

Why does Shrub “Southern up” his pronunciation of Yoownited Nations in a way he doesn’t for United States?

He said his administration is “doing everything we can to make gasoline more affordable”, and said that there was nothing it could do. Guess they can all go home early then.

He said America will stand by its commitment to Iraq, but that its commitment to pay Social Security was “file cabinets full of IOUs.” Commitments he does believe are real: on rendition, “we send people to countries where they say they’re not going to torture the people”; on Vladimir Putin, “he stood up and said he strongly supports democracy. I take him for his word.”

By Bush standards, it was a superficially good performance, meaning he didn’t step on his own tongue much. He accomplished this by saying nothing he hasn’t said ten or more times before, and saying it at length, which ensured that few actual questions were asked over the course of an hour, and none of those questions were unexpected.

Nightline tonight will compare this press conference with a BBC program in which the British party leaders were fiercely questioned by members of the public (I saw excerpts on the World News; hopefully C-SPAN will show it Sunday night). Might be fun.

And you think the DMV has long lines

Bush press conference tonight, 5:30 pm PST.

The Road to Surfdom notes that religious groups will oppose a new vaccine against cervical cancer, a sexually transmitted virus, being given to under-age girls because, says a rep of Tony Perkin’s Family Research Council, “they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex.” Are a lot of teenage girls waiting to be issued with a sex license before having premarital sex?

Follow-up: as promised, Ramune Gele gave birth in an art gallery in Berlin. Audra, in case you were wondering. Also, and I say this for the benefit of certain users of Google, and you know who you are: there are no pictures. Live with it.

In the new Iraqi cabinet, Achmad Chalabi will be acting oil minister. I hope somebody checks before he leaves work every day that he isn’t smuggling oil out in his pants.

The National Security Archive has pictures of dead soldiers’ coffins that the Pentagon stalled releasing (the pictures, not the coffins) for over a year. Note that the DOD dirtbags blacked out the faces and insignia of the honor guard.

Nothing can go wrong can go wrong can go wrong can go

Part of the R’s argument for killing the filibuster is that the Constitution requires that the Senate vote on every judicial nominee. It doesn’t, I’ve read it, there’s no way to squeeze that interpretation out of it. But in the spirit of compromise, I say fine, let’s have a vote on all the judicial nominees who haven’t had one. Chronologically. We don’t get to Priscilla Owen until the last remaining Clinton nominee has been voted on. In fact, I think it’s long past time Abe Fortas got a vote, I don’t care if he is dead, he’s not a lot more dead than Rehnquist, and he doesn’t have those stupid stripes on his sleeve.

The Daily Show had a clip from CNN of GeeDubya talking about how we gotta build more nukyular power plants, and how today’s technology makes them so much safer... and then CNN lost its feed from the speech. Also, he gave this speech just over three hours after spending part of his morning in the White House bunker because a cloud passed before the sun.

The more significant coincidence is the claim today that Chernobyl’s containment sarcophagus is falling apart. There was supposed to be a new one built, but a lot of that money, Ukraine being Ukraine, has vanished.

Most of us don’t have so much blind faith in technology — especially those of us who rely on Blogger — but Bush is in awe of what he can’t understand, which is almost everything.


George Bush and friends place their faith in technology.

Bush’s answer, by the way, is to reduce regulation on nuke plants and give them federal insurance against delays. “A secure energy future for America must include more nuclear power.” Yes, secure... nuclear... secure...

“I have never told a lie,” Tony Blair lies

Michael Howard has been on the attack against Blair’s character, which rather awkwardly requires him to say simultaneously that Blair lied about the case for war in Iraq but that he, Howard, supports the war anyway. Here’s the new Tory poster:



Subtle, huh?

Blair responds, “I have never told a lie. No. I don’t intend to go telling lies to people. I did not lie over Iraq.” So that settles that.

I have too many remote controls, with too many buttons. But I don’t think any of them do this:

The BBC this summer will try to persuade viewers to donate a kidney by pressing the red interactive button on their remote controls.

Iraq’s National Security Adviser shows the savvy that won him that position by announcing of the assassination of MP Lameah Abed Khadouri al-Sakri, “We believe it is politically motivated.”

The House voted to make it illegal for anyone to transport a minor across state lines to have an abortion. You’ve probably heard about R’s rewriting the official description of D amendments to exempt grandparents, siblings (or innocent participants like bus drivers) etc from the law to make it look like D’s were trying to protect “sexual predators.” But some of the purpose of this bill is lost in the focus on abortion rights rather than abortion availability. The AP story, for example, describes this bill as intended to “make it illegal to dodge [!] parental-consent laws”. Actually, with fewer and fewer counties in which abortion services are available, and more women farther from abortion providers than before, for many of them this bill would cut off the use of the nearest provider.

Speaking of the culture of life, Florida’s Department of Children & Families decided to make a child have a family, getting a court order to block a 13-year old in a shelter from getting an abortion.

Their capacity is still pretty much what it is

The Putin Youth movement, the Nashis, of whom I have written before, will start drawing up lists of people they consider to be “fascists” and their liberal sympathisizers. It must nearly be time for a purge of the kulaks again. Doesn’t look good.

Here, it was all about numbers yesterday. Gen. Richard Myers (at the press conference I mentioned in my last post, before I had the full transcript) had to admit that the number of attacks in Iraq was about the same as a year ago, adding about the insurgents, “I think their capacity is still pretty much what it is,” which may be the only thing Myers said that I can’t disagree with, but then inexplicably said, “Almost any indicator you look at, the trends are up. So we’re definitely winning.”

Rumsfeld, who tried to intervene to stop reporters nailing Myers down on whether “their capacity is still pretty much what it is” means that we’ve made no progress at all against them in one year, clarified:

what you have is a relatively small number of people who have weapons and who have money and who are determined to try to prevent democracy from going forward. And it does not take a genius to go out and kill innocent men, women and children. That’s a perfectly doable thing in a society.

And “the Zarqawi thing, numerically, is relatively small. It just happens to be the most lethal element.”

Also, it doesn’t necessarily matter if one or more rises to replace every insurgent we kill or capture: “You can have – the insurgency could be actually increasing and our capability to deal with it increasing, in which case the level stays about the same.” So that’s ok, then.

Honestly, I’d make fun of these comments, but it would be so redundant, gilding the lily as it were.

Also, and this should get more critical attention than it will, Rumsfeld insists that Zarqawi is now in Al Qaida. His proof? Well, he says, they are “connected in a variety of different ways.” Asked if he means they are in communication, he sez, “Well, maybe other things. Maybe people. Maybe money. Maybe communications. Maybe an oath of allegiance. Who knows?” Well, I’m convinced. Actually, his ideas of what constitute evidence and logical argument show less engagement with the real world every day. Watch the slippage, answering a question about where Zarqawi’s resources and recruits are coming from, from supposition to absolute conviction:

I’m going to speculate here that a non-trivial portion of his finances and his recruits come from outside the country. And they undoubtedly come through Syria, and they come through Iran, probably, and through other countries

See how that happened? Just by having a thought, he convinced himself that it was true. If he can think it, it must be so.

Rummy, of course, agrees with Myers that we’re winning: “And the more [our folks] scoop them up and the more they visit with them, the more they learn. And the more they learn, they more -- go out and scoop up others.” Visit with them? Has there ever been a blander euphemism for torture?

Meanwhile, the State Department has decided not to release figures showing the number of terrorist attacks in 2004 was way up over 2003. Here’s my favorite part: State’s acting counterterrorism chief, one Karen Aguilar, explained, according to the WaPo, “that the statistics are not relevant to the required report on trends in global terrorism.” In another humorous, “Yes, Minister” touch, Aguilar said that the National Counterterrorism Center would release the figures, but that if it didn’t (and it won’t), State wouldn’t release them either.

Also, less entertainingly and more shamefully, State is low-balling figures on deaths in Sudan.

To conclude this post, the Bushies are doing great damage to political discourse by their cavalier attitude towards facts and evidence, by their belief that they generate reality through their rhetoric, that if they say something often enough it becomes true. They weren’t kidding about deriding the “reality-based community.”

But will a piece of paper protect them from being terrorized by solar panels or the Bee Gees?

Greenpeace members climbed on to the roof of British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, and, in a protest action that Prescott claimed “terrorized” his wife, installed solar panels.

From the Daily Telegraph: “Australians expressed their outrage yesterday at the playing of the Bee Gees song Stayin’ Alive at this week’s anniversary of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign.”

The Syrian occupation troops are out of Lebanon (as are some of Syria’s puppets, like the head of Lebanese military intelligence). According to Robert Fisk, “They even took their statues with them.” You’d think that would have been a bigger news story today.

Secretary of War Rumsfeld says Iraq will be won by “giving the Iraqi people a sense... that they’re going to be protected by a piece of paper called a constitution, for the first time in their lives; and that that paper will protect them”.

That sound you hear is 25 million Iraqis guffawing.

And in yet another of Rummy’s patented pot-calling-the-kettle-black moments, he adds, “The Iraqis will prevail in the insurgency also because over time, it will become clearer and clearer that the insurgents have no plan; they have nothing other than killing people.” Like his boss, Rummy is not over-endowed with self-awareness.

It’s not a shooting war, but it is a war

Janice Rogers Brown, one of the Bush judicial nominees there’s been all the fussin’ and the feudin’ about (my cat just received an email from RNC chair Ken Mehlman about Brown’s general wonderfulness, which mistakenly called her the first African-American on the California Supreme Court, an honor belonging to Jerry Brown appointee Wiley W. Manuel [1977-81]), told a group of Catholic lawyers that “There seems to have been no time since the Civil War that this country was so bitterly divided. It’s not a shooting war, but it is a war.” Wait, it’s not a shooting war? But I was nearly finished sewing my 101st Fighting Secular Humanists uniform (the epaulets are the tricky part).

Evidently considering “bitterly divided” to be a good thing, Brown then enlisted on the side of “people of faith” against the secular humanists and says that, without God, “Freedom... becomes willfulness.” In other words, freedom is only a good thing for Christians. If she winds up on the circuit court after this little performance, something will be seriously wrong with this country.

It’s funny Bush insisting that it’s not good enough that only 95% of his nominees are confirmed. Most of his life, he considered a “gentleman’s C” to be a sufficient rate of success. Now all of a sudden his standards go up.

The greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century

The US military has completely exonerated the soldiers who shot at the car of Italian journalist/hostage Giuliana Sgrena, killing the secret service agent. The army says that they were only acting according to the procedures for checkpoints, which evidently involve shooting anything that moves several hundred times. Anyway, this report was conveniently released (but not to the public yet) while Berlusconi was busy putting together a new government.

The last nail in John Bolton’s coffin: last summer the British foreign secretary complained to Colin Powell that Bolton was sabotaging European negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. And Newsweek says that two years ago Britain demanded that Bolton be kept off the team negotiating with Libya over its nuclear program. In both cases (and North Korea) Bolton preferred regime change to nuclear non-proliferation, which was supposed to be his job. Actually, the person I really blame is Colin Powell, who let Cheney & the neo-Cons foist this turd on him, and didn’t insist that he be fired when he proved so wholly incapable of doing his job.

On the front page of the NYT this morning was this headline: “Rice and Cheney Are Said to Push Iraqi Politicians on Stalemate.” Rice and Cheney, not exactly the poster children for compromise themselves, are they? The interesting question is who leaked this and why. If a deal is suddenly made tomorrow, it will look like it was done in response to American pressure, which will just undercut the legitimacy of the government. So now they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t. If it was leaked from the American side, possibly the idea was to show that the US still calls the shots, given that any deal will probably leave former American golden boy Iyad Allawi out in the cold.

Putin today called the collapse of the Soviet Union a catastrophe, but doesn’t say what should have been done to keep it together. Possibly the sorts of things he does in Chechnya to keep it within what remains of the Russian Empire.

Cardboard Marines

The NYT reports that severe equipment and manpower shortages continue to plague the US military in Iraq and that a Marine unit “resorted to making dummy marines from cardboard cutouts and camouflage shirts to place in observation posts on the highway when it ran out of men.” Well, as Secretary of War Rummy Rumsfeld would say, you go with the cardboard army you have, not with the cardboard army you’d like.

No, seriously, I’m sure Rummy is working to protect our troops night and day.

The first rule of Safari Club is, do not talk about Safari Club

The Navajo Tribal Council voted unanimously to ban same-sex marriage (as the Cherokee did last year). One delegate abstained, asking the question I think we’re all asking, “Is there now today a long line of Navajos who want same-sex unions?” On the other side, the amusingly named Lorenzo Curley said that they were sending a message to young Navajoovians to “Hold fast to your society, your roots...”

You’re all way ahead of me, aren’t you?

Al Kamen notes that the Humane Society doesn’t appreciate Interior Secretary Gail Norton choosing Matthew Hogan, lobbyist for something called Safari Club International, as acting director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The head of Safari Club International, which I’d never heard of but which I hate already, calls the Humane Society “animal extremists.” Safari Club International’s approach to fish and wildlife involves hunting and eating it.

Yes, this will be on the final

The Japanese foreign minister has hit back against China, saying that Chinese high school history textbooks are even more biased than Japanese high school history textbooks. Suddenly, the casus belli of the War of Jenkin’s Ear seems like the height of reasonableness. Guys, a little perspective: everyone’s high school history texts suck.

More deep thoughts on historiography, from one Adolf Hitler: “After all, who remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?”

The US has pressured the UN Commission on Human Rights into firing its investigator in Afghanistan after he reported that the US military holds Afghans in secret prisons without trial, just in case you didn’t know that already.

I didn’t see the “Justice Sunday” telecast, but I have read Bill “Kitty Killer” Frist’s speech, which is clearly toned down from the speech he originally planned to give when he agreed to join the event, before all the backlash. Suddenly, the issue isn’t that D’s are opposing judicial nominees because they’re good Christians, the issue is good manners. They deserve “the courtesy and respect of a vote.” And, he adds, in the biggest climbdown, “the balance of power among all three branches requires respect – not retaliation.” He does not, however, climb down from the threat of “what opponents call the ‘nuclear option,’” so there’s room enough for three branches of government (for now) but not for more than one party.

(Update: Athenae at First Draft live-blogged Justice Sunday, and has a good time with it. I hope to see a transcript at some point, because while Frist dialed it back, no one else did, and when Frist runs for president, it would be helpful to be able to do the guilt-by-association thing to him.)

Genocide, quote-unquote

The LA Times has the ultimate man-bites-dog headline: “Afghan Says He Wasn’t Tortured at Guantanamo.” Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Still, I’m not sure it’s not something I would be pointing out, if I were him. They did question him for three years, but had only one question: “Do you know Osama?” We really must have the least sophisticated interrogators in the world. The not-very-thorough AP story (which, for example, mentions that he was arrested along with his brother but doesn’t say what became of the brother) says that he was released in Afghanistan. As with a lot of these guys, he was dumped in a country other than the one he was arrested/captured in. A few days ago, someone who had been taken in Bulgaria was deposited on a mountain road in Albania. We’re like the world’s worst travel agent.

When I wrote the last post, about unacknowledged past bad behaviour, I can’t believe I forgot to mention the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, which is today; I had even spotted a quote in the NYT I meant to use: a rep from the Turkish embassy in the US said, “We don’t see what happened as genocide, quote-unquote.” Quote unquote, indeed.

Hurt feelings, and other atrocities

By the luck of the draw, every item in this post is about the success or failure of a nation or institution to acknowledge and correct problems in its past behaviour.

Chinese President Hu Jintao has ordered Japan to go to its room and “seriously reflect” on what it did in the 1930s and ‘40s. Also, in the future it “should never do anything again that would hurt the feelings of the Chinese people or the people of other Asian countries”. You mean the Nanking Massacre hurt your feelings, Mr. Sensitive?

There’s a steaming turd at the top of the Friday Afternoon Info Dump: the Army, in a no-holds-barred investigation of...itself, has cleared all its high-ranking officers, including Ricardo Sanchez, of any responsibility for Abu Ghraib torture.

Neither the Post nor the AP story the NYT runs use the word torture.

As of next year, Romanian men won’t be allowed to marry unless they take a three-day anti-wife-beating course.

The Observer (London) has a memo issued by Pope Benny in 2001 ordering bishops to keep abuse evidence secret, or to put it another way, to obstruct justice. Asked for a comment, the Vatican press office says, without a hint of irony or shame, “This is not a public document, so we would not talk about it.”

Which is more awkward? Bush celebrating Earth Day, or Passover?

GeeDubya celebrated Earth Day, saying he likes the Earth because “that’s where I keep my stuff.” He added that he wants to pass the Earth on to his children; Jenna wants to make it into a bong.

He was supposed to hold his photo op in a national park, but it was raining, and he can barely tolerate nature when it’s dry (also, he has a Wicked Witch of the West-type problem), so instead he celebrated Earth Day in a Tennessee Air National Guard base, because when you think conservation and environmentalism, you think Tennessee Air National Guard. Naturally, he took energy-efficient public transportation.

Iniquitous

Follow-up: The Vatican responds to Spain’s homosexual marriage bill by calling it “iniquitous.” You say iniquitous, I say Inquisition, let’s call the whole thing off. The word iniquitous means “not equal or just,” and this bill is about nothing if not equality and justice, so I can’t imagine what the guys in the funny hats are on about. The cardinal who is the head of the Pontifical Council on the Family (which I’m gonna make a guess has no women on it and not a lot of married men) said that Spanish Catholics in government should refuse to implement the law, even if they lose their jobs: “A law as profoundly iniquitous as this one is not an obligation, it cannot be an obligation. One cannot say that a law is right simply because it is law.” Four words: Pope Benny, Hitler Youth.

Nobody expects the Spanish... gay marriage

WaPo headline: “State of Hibernation Is Induced in Mice.” Subhead: “Process Would Have Many Medical Uses.” Really, it’s not like we spend our whole working day trying to get mice to sleep for our own amusement you know, say scientists. Although they do look so darling when they’re asleep, and we do dress them up in little costumes.

As a little house-warming gift to Pope Benny, former head of the (Spanish) Inquisition, a bill legalizing gay marriage passed the Spanish National Assembly’s lower or, ahem, “bottom” house, and is expected to pass easily in its Senate, or “top,” house.

Yeah, the bottom/top thing was a little belabored.

John Bolton’s nomination seems to be going down in flames. One thing about him: given his past record of distorting intel on Cuba, he’d have little credibility when trying to use the UN as a blunt instrument to beat Cuba about the head and shoulders, which is just about the only thing the Bushies think the UN is good for.

On the other hand, John Negroponte’s past relationship with Contra terrorists and Honduran death squads evidently didn’t disqualify him from the job of True Tsar of All the Intelligence in the eyes of 98 US senators (Tom Harkin and Ron Wyden being the honorable exceptions). Neither the Senate Intelligence Committee, nor any news sources that I’ve seen, interviewed any Central American victims of his past actions to get their opinions on his nomination.

A new “Get Your War On” (click on image or better yet go to the cartoon’s site to avoid eye strain):

Desperate Insurgents

Molly Ivins on John Bolton: “Good news! If there is a distinct possibility a Bush nominee is a vile-tempered, lying, ineffective bully, the U.S. Senate is willing to hold off on the vote for two weeks.”

As I write, I’m watching Tony Blair being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on the BBC, broadcast here on C-SPAN. The first question is whether Blair wants to apologize for anything. If you want to see what tough questioning of a politician looks like, it repeats at 8:30 pm PT and Sunday night 6 & 9.

Waiting for that to come on, I caught some of a briefing by Pentagon spokesmodel Larry DiRita. He explained that “spectacular” Iraqi insurgent attacks were a sign of “desperation,” in much the same way that Teri Hatcher’s breasts on Desperate Housewives are spectacular. OK, he didn’t say that, but it would have made more sense than what he did say.

Also from that briefing, our Jargon Alert of the Week: Iraqi military and governmental types are “Iraqi elements of progress.”

Burma evidently used chemical weapons against the Karen rebels. Now watch the world spring into action. Really, just watch, it’ll spring into action any... minute... now...

From the AP: “Two Norwegians who thought a rowing boat was the perfect getaway vehicle after robbing an ambulance boat were foiled because they could not row. Police who arrested the men near the town of Askvoll said they were rowing in opposite directions.”

A Japanese company is producing a ghost detector. I want one.

Da means nyet

Scotty McClellan on the Bolton nomination (via Gaggle-obsessed Holden): “I think what you’re seeing is some Democrats on the committee trumping up allegations and making unsubstantiated accusations against someone the President believes will do an outstanding job at the United Nations.” Why are tax dollars paying for this man to call elected representatives liars?

And then a bit later he accused the D’s of “lower[ing] the discourse”.

Hugo Chavez is distributing 1 million copies of Don Quixote free to Venezuelans.

In Russia, Condi Rice gave another of her lectures on democracy, saying that Putin should have less control over the media. Her speech was not covered by any of the national tv networks. So that would be a no. (She spoke in a live radio interview.)

Speaking of “no,” although some media keep calling Rice a Russia expert, when she tried speaking Russian during the interview she several times said Da when she meant Nyet (when asked if she would be running for president).

Her mouth says da, da, but her eyes say nyet, nyet.

Oh, and she also called for regime change in Belarus.

The mystery of Madaen (also spelled Madain, I note for Google purposes) continues. 57 bodies (other reports give other figures) were pulled out of the Tigris. President Talabani insisted they were some of those hostages he still claims were taken by Sunnis — in fact, he claimed to know the names of all the victims and all the kidnappers. So the high standards of veracity and, dare I say it, comicality set by Iyad Allawi will remain intact.

Anyway, here’s a sentence about the bodies from the London Times; it contains three verbs — see if you can spot which verb is missing: “Police identified and photographed them before burying them.” That’s right: they seem to have been buried without being autopsied. There isn’t any mention of a proper forensic investigation in any other report I’ve seen either.

Most unnecessary article of the day, from the Times: “Analysis: Why Iraqis Fear Militias.”

Tom DeLay says scrutiny of his ethical shortcomings “certainly has gotten me closer to God.”

Poor God.

Habemus papam

Isn’t it nice to see the papacy return, if not to Italy, at least to another member of the Axis Powers?

I thought about staying away from this pope thing, not being Catholic. I thought I didn’t have a dog in this fight, and then “God’s rottweiler” won. A member of both the Inquisition and the Hitler Youth. And yes, I know he was a youth (14) when he was in the Hitler Youth, but I’m not willing to write it off as a Hitler Youthful indiscretion, not when he’s supposed to be a spiritual leader of a billion people. The fact that membership was compulsory is neither here nor there. The Catholic church has saints who were boiled or stoned or impaled to death for maintaining their beliefs when they were younger than he was when he joined. Is the position of the church now that no one has to behave morally until they reach at least 14? And as far as I know, he’s never apologized. There were no good choices in Nazi Germany, but he followed the easiest path, the path of — dare we say it? — moral relativism.

And he’s done a lot of unpleasant things — a whole lot — in his clerical career as well, but the Hitler Youth thing alone is disqualifying.

BREAKING NEWS: Condoleezza Rice turns against her master, saying that she was worried by “the centralisation of state power in the presidency.”

Oh, sorry, she meant in Russia.

The Tom DeLay Defense: Their Only Agenda Is the Politics of Personal Destruction

Tom DeLay sends out an email to his dwindling, but fanatical, fan base.

It should come as no surprise that following the 2004 election-year attacks on the President

That’s called an election campaign, moron.

that the Democrats, their syndicate of third party organizations (Common Cause, Public Citizen, Move-On, etc.)

Oo, syndicate, that’s a really scary word, Tom. Very Murder Incorporated. Very machine-guns-in-violin-cases.

and the legion of Democrat-friendly press would turn their attention to trying to retake Congress.

Democrat-friendly. You make it sound so... dirty.

It would be quite easy to write an entire book about how Democrats, and many in the press, have chosen to selectively report and strategically ignore many FACTS about me and my work as Congressman for the 22nd District.

Yeah, go write a book, Tom, that should keep you out of mischief. Although watch how many WORDS you CAPITALIZE, it tends to make you look like a NUT.

Tom DeLay does not stand accused of any violation of any law or rule in any forum and has never been found to have violated any law or rule by anyone.

He prefers to remain seated. If he stands up too quickly, his toupee goes all askew.

Democrats and their Outside Front Groups are Colluding to Target DeLay

Very 1950s. I like how “outside front groups” combines McCarthyite rhetoric about front groups with Southern racist rhetoric about outside agitators.

Democrats have made clear that their only agenda is the politics of personal destruction, and the criminalization of politics.

Oh, and universal health care, some of them want universal health care.

They hate Ronald Reagan conservatives like DeLay and they hate that he is an effective leader who succeeds in passing the Republican agenda.

Bringing in the big guns. Really envy Ronnie’s teflon, don’t ya, Tommie boy?

He follows by listing the various ethics complaints he claims to have been exonerated on, although that “exoneration” tends to take convoluted, legalistic forms such as this (about his attempt to bribe Nick Smith into voting for the Medicare drug bill in exchange for DeLay supporting Smith’s run for Congress):

The issues raised by the conduct of the Majority Leader in this matter are novel in that conduct of this nature and the implications of such conduct have never before been addressed or resolved by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Indeed, the Majority Leader’s testimony indicates that he did not believe he acted improperly under House rules during his encounter with Representative Nick Smith. In addition, the Investigative Subcommittee believes that the relevant facts related to the Majority Leader’s conduct — described in detail in this Report - already have been fully developed. In the view of the Investigative Subcommittee, these factors mitigate against further investigation and proceedings in this matter.

See, wasn’t that a clear exoneration? Or maybe they called him a douchebag, I’m not fluent in gibberish. And if he didn’t believe he was acting improperly, well, ignorance of the law (or the ethics rules) is always a defense, isn’t it? Anyway, having defined exoneration to his own satisfaction, if no one else’s, he moves on to more Dictionary Fun:

An “Admonishment” is Not a Sanction ... The verb “admonished” was used and is now exploited to mean some sort of sanction.

Writing about this in October, I said that admonishment was “from the Latin word admonere, meaning to moderately chide someone with no sense of shame.”

The Democrats refuse to let the [Ethics] Committee meet because they are still trying to politicize the ethics process and block the Committee from doing its work.

How can they politicize a process they’re preventing from occurring?

Next, DeLay again falsely accuses D.A. Ronnie Earle of partisanship.

Texas has only recently become a Republican state, so Earle’s claim that he prosecuted Democrats too is a red herring.

Read that again; try to follow the logic. Warning: don’t read it a third time, as your head will explode.

The trip DeLay to Russia [sic] in 1997 and the United Kingdom in 2000 were proper.

Here I agree wholeheartedly: it’s the fact that he returned to the United States that I object to.


Tom DeLay, and friend

Unimaginative

In Russia today, Condi Rice says, “One can’t imagine reverting back to Soviet times”.

And Condi, 4/8/04: “No one could have imagined them taking a plane, slamming it into the Pentagon”

Recycling racist propaganda for grins and giggles

This picture of an anti-Japanese protest in Hong Kong appeared in today’s NYT:



The poster is adapted from a 1942 American poster. In the original, the words on the arm read “American labor.” In this version, they read People's Republic of China. A little odd to see Chinese using this poster.

Talabani: We are independent now

So that whole story about Sunnis taking hostages in Madaen and ordering all Shiites out of a town was a fake. The government that the US planted in power after a war justified by false rumor and innuendo is now governing by false rumor and innuendo, quel surprise. The story was evidently planted in order to foment sectarian discord and discredit the army, which Rumsfeld told the Iraqi government, just last week, that it shouldn’t (read: couldn’t) purge of Baathists (read: Sunnis). Today Talabani says that he favors such a purge, but if not, he’ll be happy to use Shiite and Kurdish militias — “popular forces,” he calls them — instead. “We cannot wait for years and years of terrorist activity because we haven’t enough government forces,” he says, although the two months it took after the elections before he was selected for his current post doesn’t indicate any great sense of urgency up until now. He dismisses American opposition to the use of militias by saying “But we are independent now.” Funny, wasn’t he the guy just a few days ago saying how American troops would need to stay for some time yet? Being independent would entail, sort of as a minimum, his government being able to survive five minutes without Americans keeping him alive.

Talabani also repeats his opposition to the death penalty for Saddam Hussein, but says he might just happen to be out of the room when that decision gets made. A man of strong principle... but weak bladder.

Remain calm

From the Daily Telegraph’s contents page:

Shias asked to flee

Sunni Arabs who seized control of a town near Baghdad threaten to kill hostages
unless the Shias in the area flee, Iraqi officials have said.

Asked?

The town, by the way, named Madaen, is only 20 miles from Baghdad, in case you were taken in by all the happy talk about the insurgency declining. It’s hard to tell how big a deal this particular event is, but given all the stories today in the NYT & elsewhere marking the 30th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge ordering everyone out of the cities, this tactic of the "Sunni Arabs" (!) is a little worrying.

Fortunately we have Iyad ("Comical") Allawi, who somehow is still interim prime minister, to reassure us. This sentence is from the Reuters report:

He said some people were trying to implement "wicked plans of extremist terror"
and urged Iraqis to remain calm.

Not exactly a lullabies and sweet dreams kind of guy.

A gift to humanity

Follow-up: West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin has vetoed the Hillbilly English-only bill.

But is it art? From the Observer: “A Berlin couple plan to have their first baby at an art gallery on 24 April. Winifried Witt and Ramune Gele described their decision to have their child at the DNA-Galerie in central Berlin as ‘a gift to humanity’. About 30 people are expected to attend the birth.” I’ve heard of an art opening, but this is ridiculous.

A WaPo exclusive contains the stunning news that the American military commander in Afghanistan claims to be winning. Lt. Gen. David Barno went on to assert that any really spectacular military action by the Taliban will just show their desperation. Heard that one before. Barno says that Talibani are giving up because “they don’t want to be in this fight that goes against the tide of history here in Afghanistan any longer.” Yes, Talibani hate going against the tide of history, they positively pride themselves on their trendiness.

California prison guards, who have a ridiculously powerful union, have been getting training credits for finding words in jumbles, you know the sort of thing. For example at Pelican Bay last December, guards found words like candycane, elf, Frosty, and Santa Claus for one hour’s credit. Guards are of course supposed to be finding actual elf and frosty, which are I believe street slang for amphetamines and cocaine respectively, up prisoners’ asses, at least I assume that must be the rationale.

An LA Times article gives the D’s their strongest approach to combating Bush’s judicial nominees. It points out the existing strong R majority on most federal circuit courts, with only the currently evenly divided 6th Circuit due to change hands. So it’s not, can’t be, about fighting R domination of the judiciary; rather, the article says, it’s about “the kind of Republican who joins the courts”. That’s what the D’s should be saying. And oh look, here’s Rick Santorum writing an op-ed piece in the WaPo, paving the way for the nuclear option by pretending that Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown (she’s the daughter of a sharecropper, you know) are middle-of-the-road jurists unfairly hurt by an “unprecedented campaign of obstruction.” He uses the word “extreme” two times in as many sentences. Rick Santorum does. Rick fucking Santorum. And then accuses the D’s not only of dissing the American people by their stalling of Bush nominees, but of threatening the separation of powers.

A NYT article Saturday about the US cancelling water projects in Iraq and shifting the money to the military contains this killer quote from a civil engineer: “If the Americans think that training the Iraqi Army comes before clean drinking water for the people of Halabja, then we can’t expect anything from them.” And of course Halabja is a Kurdish town, so a stronger Iraqi army doesn’t protect it but actually threatens Kurdish autonomy.

The Sindy reports that the US has been selling arms to the Haitian coup government in violation of its own supposed arms embargo.

At long last, someone has developed a methodology for the typical unification of access points and redundancy

The Pentagon website appends this helpful datum at the very bottom of an article on Rumsfeld’s triumphal tour of the colonies (Iraq, Afghanistan, Kyrgystan): “He also made an overnight stop and met with local leaders in Baku, Azerbaijan.” Yes, it’s the local color that makes travel writing come alive. I’m sure he couldn’t be up to anything clandestine and unsavory in Azerbaijan.

Here is the ad for the Bill Frist anti-filibuster telecast, called “Justice Sunday,” which won’t be available on tv but will be streamed on the internet.



The choice would probably be more equal if the gavel were a bit bigger, if you know what I mean. The words, too small to read, are “The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and now it is being used against people of faith.” Of course, if they’re saying that the D’s oppose Bush’s judicial nominees because of their overt religiosity, the corollary is Bush chose them precisely for that religiosity. They’re delusional if they believe that that’s an argument that will appeal to, instead of frighten, the public at large. Equating attempts to preserve the separation of church and state with Southern opposition to racial integration, which the American Talibani have decided is their best line of attack, requires portraying the nominees as part of a specific, identifiable class of people which can be discriminated against. I say, if they want to depict the nominees as Evangelical Christian activists rather than as qualified jurists, let them.

What’s curious is that the same people who are so politically tone-deaf about how Americans view the role of the judiciary, do understand that their real agenda, which is of course overturning Roe v. Wade, is unpopular, which is why you never hear them use the word abortion when attacking judicial filibustering.

A chimney is being erected at the Sistine Chapel, to indicate when a new pope is chosen. It’s all about the phallic symbols today, isn’t it? Also, the body that will choose the next pope is called a conclave, the device that is supposed to be used to destroy the flu strain accidentally mailed out is an autoclave. It would probably be bad to reverse the two.

I rather like that the legislative calendar has put the permanent repeal of the estate tax adjacent to the bankruptcy bill. Shows the war against the poor in all its glory. Honestly, they should just pass a bill to require families bankrupted by illness to hand over their cars and houses directly to the ne’er-do-well offspring of plutocrats; call it the Capitalism Simplification Act of 2005.

Bush depicted the bankruptcy bill as making credit more available to the poor. Three hundred years ago people made the same argument about the poor financing their emigration to America through indentured servitude.

Nine years after the journal Social Text printed a deliberately meaningless paper entitled “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,” gibberish has gone high-tech. Three MIT students programmed a computer to generate a paper, “Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy,” which was accepted for an academic conference.