Republican Debate: You can’t really respect ‘em if you’re killing ‘em in the womb

I thought we were done, but today there was another tedious debate (tedious transcript), there’s always another tedious debate – indeed, it seems that there’s a Democratic debate tomorrow, which I will happily watch and write about upon receipt of one million (1,000,000) dollars via the PayPal link. Even with the added crazy that only Alan Keyes can bring, it was not exciting, is what I’m saying.

The first question was about the national debt. Giuliani said that he’d solve the national debt by cutting taxes. Oh, he also wants to cut non-military spending 10%, which I guess is what you say if you don’t want to go through all the tedious effort of actually examining programs and figuring out what should be spent on them. Asked how people affected by those cuts should manage, he said they’d have to “figure out other ways to do it” and not rely on “the nanny government”. This is the guy who had cops walking his mistress’s dog.


Romney said the sacrifice he’s calling for from the American people is to “let the [government] programs that don’t work go. Don’t lobby for them forever.” Gosh, that doesn’t sound like very much sacrifice at all.

Asked who is paying more than their fair share of taxes, Alan Keyes said we need to get rid of incumbent politicians (Keyes wasn’t big on saying anything relevant to the actual questions). McCain said that poor people don’t pay any taxes except for the payroll tax, which will come as a surprise to poor people. Huckabee said we should have a “fair tax,” “and that means the rich people aren’t going to be made poor, but maybe the poor people could be made rich”. Whatever the hell that means. Romney said he doesn’t lie awake at night worrying about the taxes rich people are paying. Thompson said he’d like to be in Romney’s situation so he wouldn’t have to worry about taxes either. Romney said he’d like to be in Thompson’s situation. Thompson said Romney’s gettin’ to be a pretty good actor. This is what passes for wit in a presidential debate. Make that two million (2,000,000) for me to watch tomorrow’s debate. I don’t want to have to worry about taxes either.


Giuliani says we should have a flatter tax that you could file on one page. He then held up a piece of paper to show us what that would look like, in case we were unfamiliar with the concept.

Huckabee on regulation: “I can’t part the red sea, but I believe I can part the red tape.”

Asked whether the US should have economic trade with human rights abusers, McCain said hell yes, promising to “open every market in the world to Iowa’s agricultural products.” Of course he said it as a throwaway applause line, but, putting the question of human rights abuse to one side, don’t other countries have the right to set their own trade and economic policies, to not take Iowa’s agricultural products against their will?


Romney: “We call it global warming, not America warming. So let’s not put a burden on us alone and have the rest of the world skate by.” Oh I don’t think anyone will be doing much skating.

McCain said we can solve global warming with “capitalist and free enterprise motivation.” Which is like O.J. Simpson looking for the real killers.

We’ll never know what Fred Thompson thinks, because he refused to do a show of hands on whether he believes in global warming.

On education, Duncan Hunter thinks the problem is “bureaucratic credentialing” of teachers and that Jaime Escalante was hounded out of school by the Cylons unions. Alan Keyes thinks it’s that judges drove God out of the schools and that children aren’t told that their rights come from God not from the Constitution or our leaders. Huckabee wants to unleash weapons of mass instruction, which he also said in the last debate, and which shows incredible tone-deafness. Who is impressed by a line like that? Ron Paul thinks it’s the federal government and the Dept of Education getting in the way. Thompson thinks it’s the teachers’ union.

Keyes: “People talk about our prosperity, but you can’t really respect ‘em if you’re killing ‘em in the womb, it doesn’t make any sense.”


Giuliani says he has led an open, transparent life. Although what he seems to mean is that he keeps getting caught.

I wasn’t a knee-walking drunk

My new favorite name, a guy on McNeil-Lehrer yesterday talking about malaria: Dr. Ripley Ballou.

Bush tells ABC, “I doubt I’d be standing here if I hadn’t quit drinking whiskey, and beer and wine and all that.” Is it wrong of me to wish I had a time machine and a bottle of Wild Turkey?

He says that he was never a “knee-walking drunk.” That’s right, when he was drunk he usually preferred to drive. He does say he had an “addiction.” Is this the first time he’s admitted that?

What really got him to quit was that it was interfering with... his mountain biking: “Alcohol can compete with your affections. It sure did in my case. Affections with your family, or affections for exercise.”

Until they look at it, from a, just experience beyond human, they’ll never figure it out

Mike Huckabee says (video below) of his growing poll numbers, “There’s only one explanation for it, and it’s not a human one.” Zombies? Aliens? Southern Baptist androids? “It’s the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of five thousand people.” Heroin? “There literally are thousands of people across this country who are praying that a little will become much, and it has.” Coincidentally, that’s the subject line of half the spam email I get. “And it defies all explanation, it has confounded the pundits. And I’m enjoying every minute of them trying to figure it out, and until they look at it, from a, just experience beyond human, they’ll never figure it out.” Which is why Bill O’Reilly is uniquely qualified.



Iraq’s Shiite-run Interior Ministry has ordered all policewomen to turn in their guns, or lose their salaries. The women were recruited by the Americans. Now that the Iraqis are in charge of recruitment, there are no more women being recruited.

Bush had a meeting about teenage drug use today. He explained the economics of the drug trade: “It’s one thing to affect supply, but when you reduce demand, it affects the capacity of people to supply. If we have people -- fewer people using, there’s not going to be a need to supply as much.”

Later in the day he explained to Italian President Napolitano, “Iran is dangerous.” But not that sexy, bad-boy kind of dangerous.

George ’n Jews

Bush met some Jews today at the White House. Betcha he didn’t know they came in black.


It’s International Human Rights Day, so Bush talked about the only human right he really cares about, religious freedom, while unwittingly practicing the right to mangled speech: “We discussed how America must remain engaged in helping people realize the great blessings of religious freedom; and where we find societies in which religious freedom is not allowed to practice, that we must do something about it.”

This AP picture was taken through the magic of Hasid-o-cam.


Then he celebrated Hanukkah, and what’s Hanukkah without a honking big Christmas tree? (And a shout-out to Reuters photographer Jim Young for framing the shot so as to take in the entire tree.)

Republican debate, Hispanic-style: It’s no picnic to be living as an illegal immigrant

At the Univision debate (transcript), which would have been a lot more fun if Tancredo had shown up, the Republican presidential candidates evoked a special bond (or “peculiar connections,” as Romney put it) between their party and Hispanics. Romney noted that “Hispanic Americans serve in the military and care about our military,” while Duncan Hunter compared JFK, a Democrat who failed to provide air support at the Bay of Pigs, with Ronald Reagan, a Republican who supported El Salvador’s government and death squads as they massacred peasants and nuns.



Everyone thought immigration should be more like a credit card. Huckabee: “If you can get an American Express card in two weeks, it shouldn’t take seven years to get a work permit to come to this country in order to work on a farm.” Don’t leave your hovel without it. Romney: “Isn’t it amazing in this country, with the fact that American Express or Visa or Mastercard can tell you that fast whether the card is authorized or not,” but there’s no system for employers to verify immigration status.

Everyone was asked whether it was right that children with American citizenship because they were born here should be separated from their parents. No one really answered, mostly suggesting that the issue should wait until after the border is secured or the Second Coming, whichever comes first.

Giuliani: “It’s no picnic to be living as an illegal immigrant.” Although many of the agricultural products utilized in a picnic are picked by illegal immigrants. That’s what we call a paradox.

Asked about foreign rulers, Giuliani said “I actually agree with the way King Juan Carlos spoke to Chavez.” McCain actually quoted the hereditary monarch in Spanish (“Por que no te callas?”) (yes, the king used the familiar tu form, as if speaking to a child). Fred Thompson, asked about Castro having survived 9 American presidents, said, “I’m going to make sure that he didn’t survive 10 U.S. presidents. (LAUGHTER)” Ha ha, assassination is funny!

McCain on health care: “Ronald Reagan said nobody ever washed a rental car. And that’s true in health insurance. If they’re responsible for it, then they will take more care of it.” So if the government provides health coverage, we’ll all stop washing, is that what you’re saying?



The Huck uses the health care discussion to offer that he wouldn’t mind shipping Michael Moore to Cuba. At the last debate, he said he’d put Hillary on the first rocket to Mars. I’m beginning to see a pattern here.

The Huck also sent this important message: I am wearing an orange tie.



On education, Thompson says “if families would stay together, if fathers would raise their children, especially young men when they get into troublesome ages, we would solve a good part of the education problem in this country.”

Asked what role Hispanics will play in the development of American society, most suggested that they stop being so Hispanicky and become more like reg’lar Amurricins. Only McCain, from Arizona, said that “We will be enriched by their music, their culture, their food, their language”. The Huck: “Our equality is not based on our ancestry, our last name, it’s not based on how much money we make.” Last name, Huckabee, you don’t need me to make a joke out of that one. Hunter said their role is to become Republicans. Fred Thompson praised Hispanics’ work-ethic. You don’t need me to make a joke out of that one either. He added, “The Hispanic community is known for their values. They know that marriage is between a man and a woman, for example.” Romney: “The Hispanic community, like all other communities in this great nation, need to come together and strengthen America. Because this is the land of the brave and the home of the free. And Hispanics are brave and they are free, as are all of the people of this great nation.” Just as long as they’re not free to bravely mow his lawn.

Bombs or BlackBerries?

The Archbishop of York cut up his dog collar – I saw it on the BBC news – and won’t wear one again until Robert Mugabe is out of office in Zimbabwe. Well if that doesn’t do it I don’t know what will.

Watch the footage... IF YOU DARE!



McCain was on Fox News Sunday. He said that face-to-face negotiations, for example with Iran, are overrated. “BlackBerries work. Emissaries work. There’s many thousands of ways to communicate.” Including his favorite way to communicate: “I’d remind you that when we stopped the bombing in Vietnam, we were going to talk in Paris. It took 2.5 years because of the shape of the table. Bombing started of Hanoi. And guess what? Negotiations started again.”

Can’t find a transcript of the Republican debate on Univision, but I think this picture perfectly sums up the attitude of Republicans when confronted by Hispanics:

Giuliani, dressing normally and very, very empathetic with people

Giuliani went on Meet the Press this morning. He defended his business dealings with the government of Qatar: “This is a country that’s modernizing. It’s a country that’s moving in a direction we want it to move in. ... You and I can have dinner there. We can have dinner there, and we can dress normally.”

He said that he doesn’t believe, as Huckabee does, that homosexuality is aberrant. As long as they don’t have any, you know, homosexual sex: “It’s the acts, it’s the various acts that people perform that are sinful, not the, not the orientation that they have. Which includes me, by the way. I mean, you know, unfortunately, I’ve had my own sins that I’ve had to confess and had to deal with and try to overcome and so I’m very, very empathetic with people, and that we’re all, we’re all imperfect human beings struggling to, to try to be better.” See, being gay is just like cheating on your wife, then “dealing with it” by dumping your wife, and... okay, you’re not paying attention because you’re still laughing at Giuliani saying he’s very, very empathetic with people, aren’t you?


AP headline: “Pope Laments Christmas Consumerism.” Why, when I was a kid we got a new Hitler Youth uniform and we were happy to get it.

You say potato

Musharraf is not just firing judges who won’t take an oath of allegiance to him, he is taking away their pensions.

Warsaw prosecutors have ended a 17-month criminal libel investigation of a German newspaper that called President Kaczynski a potato, citing “a lack of evidence.”

Did that story remind all of you of the caricatures of King Louis Philippe as a pear, or was that just me?

And as filler for an uninspired blogger, a New York magazine competition, from 2/24/92, calling for a familiar quotation (1), and the silent reaction (2) of a listener or reader.

1. “Tomorrow and tomorrow...”
2. Is that from “Annie Hall”?

1. “I was a child and she was a child/ In this kingdom by the sea/ But we loved with a love that was more than love...”
2. Nobody doesn’t like Annabel Lee.

1. “I shot an arrow into the air,/ It fell to earth, I knew not where.”
2. Dial 911, I’ll try to work his hat off.

1. “Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?”
2. Coming soon, “Little Caesar II.”

1. “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.”
2. Quick – where’s the “Kick me” placard?

Driving that train

More from Cheney’s Politico interview. He used this week’s favorite Bush administration metaphor: “Al Qaeda in Iraq has been sort of the long pole in the tent, if you will, in terms of the opposition we face.” Bush used the long pole line for enrichment of uranium, copying Boo Hadley. These guys must be doing a lot of “camping.”

Phallic metaphors abounded. Cheney suggested that male congresscritters like Jack Murtha and John Dingell are letting themselves be ordered around by Nancy Pelosi, who “is driving that train. ... They’re not carrying the big stick I would have expected with the Democrats in the majority.”

Speaking of phallic metaphors, when asked about Sen. Thune, he said, “I hunt with the Senator -- he’s a courageous man.” It’s nice to know that Cheney has so gotten over shooting an old man in the face that he feels he can make jokes about it now.

Romney’s big religion speech: Freedom requires religion

Transcript.

Romney was introduced by Bush the Elder, who Romney thanked for the whole greatest-generation-World-War-II thing: “You left us, your children, a free and strong America.” This is where commas are so important: “You left us your children” would not be quite such an applause line.


He said that our generation also faces threats, such as “radical, violent Islam.” In a speech about religion, which was presumably written very carefully indeed, he decided to blame Islam rather than Muslims. Other threats: “over-use of foreign oil and the break-down of the family.” So to prevent your family breaking down, fill it with only domestic oil.

The Founders called on “the Creator” and “discovered the essential connection between the survival of a free land and the protection of religious freedom.” “Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom.” “Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.” Um, no.

The JFK part: “No authorities of my church” which he is steadily refusing to name “will ever exert influence on presidential decisions.”

10 minutes or so in, he does finally use the dread word “Mormon.” It is the faith of his fathers, and he will be true to them.


He believes Jesus Christ is the son of God and the saviour of all mankind. And, um, that’s all he’s going to say about that. He essentially says that if he did the “what Mormonism means to me” speech some expected he would have to do, that would make him the spokesman for his church, so naturally he couldn’t do that.

There are features of other faiths he wish Mormons had: the profound ceremony of the Catholic mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit of the Pentecostals, the confident blandness of the Lutherans, the money of the Jews... er, sorry, I got bored with transcribing. Here’s what he came up with for the Muslims: their commitment to frequent prayer.

Complains that people trying to remove mention of God in public life are trying to establish a “new religion” of secularism. We should acknowledge the Creator in words and ceremony. Nativity scenes, that sort of thing. Judges should respect “the foundation of faith on which our Constitution rests.” “I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from the God who gave us liberty.” “Liberty is a gift from God, not an indulgence of government.” We do trust in God, we are one nation under God.

Europeans are all atheists and their cathedrals are just backdrops for postcards. Oh, wait, his point is that there are people of faith, but the churches are withering away. That’s actually telling: for him, faith requires an organized church to be any good. You can’t just believe in God willy nilly.

At the “other extreme” to the Europeans is the creed of conversion by conquest. He means Muslims, because Christians have never done that sort of thing. In the US, by contrast, reason and religion are allies (in other words, he thinks Christian tenets, unlike oh say Muslim ones, are supported by reason. Hah!).

Anyone who kneels in prayer to the Almighty has a friend and ally in the Mittster.

He concluded, “Let us give thanks to the divine author of liberty, and together let us pray that this land will always be blessed with freedom’s holy light.” (his emphasis).


In fact, the word “Mormon” escaped his lips exactly once, no doubt slipped in so he wouldn’t be accused of not using it at all.

He failed to acknowledge, as even George Bush does, that some of us don’t believe in any of these religions. Presumably we’ll be sent in chains to the salt mines, since “freedom requires religion.”

In a good place

Dick Cheney says that by the time his administration leaves office, Iraq will be “in a good place”: “self-governing... capable for the most part of defending themselves, a democracy in the heart of the Middle East, a nation that will be a positive force in influencing the world around it in the future.” This sunny, not to say insanely out-of-touch, optimism, is not his most wrong-headed statement about Iraq, which is this: “we’ll have [Iraq] in a good place, where we’ll be able to look back on it and say, ‘That was the right decision. It was a sound decision going into Iraq.’” Even were Iraq to become the paradise on earth he posits, it could not justify the years of brutality and death he inflicted on that country. He is looking for the moment that makes invading Iraq a right decision, a sound decision. That moment cannot exist.

What he had to do

Marine Lance Cpl. Delano Holmes is being court-martialed for bayoneting an Iraqi soldier he was on sentry duty with in Fallujah 44 times (or, as the LAT helpfully breaks it down, 17 stab wounds, 26 cuts and one chop). Holmes’s attorney is claiming it was self-defense because he thought the Iraqi, Priv. Munther Jasem Muhammed Hassin, was signaling a sniper. Naturally, his Marine training to fight “until the threat is removed” kicked in, although one would have thought he was vulnerable to the supposed sniper throughout however long it takes to bayonet someone 44 times. Update: oh, Holmes didn’t even think Hassin was deliberately signaling a sniper (really crappy reporting job, LAT), just giving away their position by smoking and using his (illuminated) cell phone. The North County Times says the fight resulted when Holmes tried to get Hassin to stop doing so. They didn’t speak each other’s language, but bayoneting someone 44 times is like the international sign for “please stop doing that.” Clearly, as his lawyer says, Holmes “did what he had to do.” Holmes is 6' 2" and 190 pounds, Hassin was 5' 4" and 124 pounds. Holmes sustained no injuries. He fired Hassin’s rifle to make it look like self-defense.

The WaPo reports on former Guantanamo prisoner (2002-6) Murat Kurnaz, a 19-year old German seized in Pakistan, who the CIA, US military intelligence and German intelligence rapidly decided was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but who continued to be held, the military tribunals ignoring the intelligence reports in favor of a memo written by a general who noted that Kurnaz prayed while the National Anthem was being sung, and that he asked the height of the basketball rim in the prison yard, which the general took to be evidence that he was planning an escape attempt.

Tactical suicide

Guantanamo update: there are still 9 hunger strikers being forcibly fed, the longest of whom has been subjected to this torture for 816 days. And there was a previously unreported suicide attempt one month ago, a prisoner slashing his throat with a sharpened finger nail. The deputy commander of the guards at Gitmo, Cmdr. Andrew Haynes, said such suicide attempts were just a move to discredit the US military, adding, “Suicide is clearly a tactic that the detainees employ in the continued struggle.” Haynes said the unnamed prisoner produced an “impressive effusion of blood,” but, the Miami Herald paraphrased, “nothing compared to what the Navy commander said he had witnessed on the battlefield in other military assignments.” Guy tries to kill himself, and Haynes is playing “well if you think that was bad” games. Classy.

The London Times reproduces a current and a 2005 UN map which show the parts of Afghanistan safe for its workers to operate in. They’re shrinking.



Finally, one last picture of George Bush from today’s press conference:

Bush press conference, wherein is revealed the most disappointing thing in Washington

Not the most entertaining of these things. Bush was kind of subdued and careful. And he used the word “codicil” in a sentence. Correctly, even. These quotes are my transcription. (Official transcript).

“Americans could be forgiven for thinking that Santa will have slipped down their chimney on Christmas Eve before Congress has finished their work. Let’s hope they’re wrong.” Silly Americans, there’s no such thing as Congress finishing their work.

He kept talking about the danger that Iran will some day “show up with a weapon”. Makes it sound like Aunt Martha showing up for Christmas with her godawful fruitcake again.

“I’m sayin’ that, uh, I believed before the NIE that Iran is dangerous, and I believe after the NIE that Iran is dangerous”.


Says he was told in August that there was new intelligence on Iran, but Mike McConnell “didn’t tell me what the information was,” and indeed they only told him last week what it was, and didn’t try to stop him making threats against Iran.

He must have used the phrase “there’s a better way forward” about Iran twenty times.


Asked what went through his mind when he heard about the gang-raped Saudi woman sentenced to 200 lashes, he said he thought, what if it had been my daughter (he didn’t say which daughter), adding that he’d have been very emotional. For example, he’d have been “angry at those who committed the crime” and at the state. However, he can’t even remember if he brought it up when he talked to King Abdullah. But “he knows our position loud and clear.” And he knows that you don’t care enough about that position to actually, you know, mention it, or, in the unlikely case that you did in fact mention it, remember that you’d mentioned it.


Bush’s sophisticated analysis of the Venezuelan referendum: “The Venezuelan people rejected one-man rule. They voted for democracy. ... a very strong vote for democracy”. 51%, anyway. Says Congress must pass the free-trade agreement with Colombia or it will be “a destabilizing moment.”


Asked about the Republican candidates, he said he will resist efforts to make him be “pundit-in-chief.” I’m pretty sure you only get to be pundit-in-chief if you’ve defeated Paul Krugman in hand-to-hand combat. Two pundits enter, one pundit leaves.


The putz said, “The most disappointing thing about Washington has been the name-calling”.


“And, uh, it seems like to me that this Congress oughta be congratulating our military commanders and our troops, and one way to send a congratulatory message is to give ‘em the funds they need”. Or a card. A card is always nice.

Welcome to the real world

We’re all relieved that Gillian Gibbons has been released from a Sudanese prison for the crime of letting her students name a teddy bear “Mohammed,” and safely on her way back to Britain (even if that’s not what she wanted), but what happened to poor Mohammed?

Read the whole statement (it’s short) issued by National Security Adviser Boo Hadley on the NIE which says that Iran gave up its nuclear weapons program in 2003. He doesn’t challenge its conclusion but rather says that even though the entire factual basis behind Bush admin policy was wrong, the policy has in fact been proven correct (“It confirms that we were right to be worried”), and even more pressure should be put on Iran to stop its nonexistent weapons program.

The WaPo reports, “Hadley disagreed that the report showed that past administration statements have been wrong, noting that collecting intelligence on a ‘hard target’ such as Iran is notoriously difficult. ‘Welcome to the real world,’ he said.” Er, did Hadley really just condescend to us about “the real world”?

George Bush, in rapt attention during a performance of A Christmas Carol by, get this, actors from Ford’s Theater. The mind boggles. The mother of Tiny Tim there, next to Bush, is deployed in Iraq.

The other white meat

The Biden campaign is sending me fundraising emails more often than any other three campaigns combined. Anyway, today’s has this subject line: “I will eat Rudy Giuliani alive at a debate.” It’s not every candidate who boldly appeals to the cannibal vote in this way. Which leads me to my most ill-advised, tasteless and repulsive CONTEST ever: Tastes like chicken? I don’t think so. So what would Giuliani meat taste like? If you prefer, you may submit recipes (cook at 911° for 30 minutes and then... it’s Giuliani time!)

A full day in the United States Senate

Elections, elections. Chavez’s referendum lost “for now,” as he put it, words he famously used after the failure of his 1992 coup attempt, when he had surrendered and was allowed to broadcast a call for the other coup commanders (Chavez surrendered first) to do the same. He seems rather subdued today, considering 51% of the electorate have turned out to be “traitors,” as he called opponents of the referendum last week.

And Putin’s party “wins” the Russian parliamentary elections. Wouldn’t a straightforward dictatorship without the trappings of election which fool no one just be simpler? Or hold the election, but make up the results, as in Chechnya where there was a 99% turnout and a 99% vote for United Russia. Instead, they went to really a lot of effort to coerce millions of people into getting absentee ballots and filling them out as directed. Seems like a lot of wasted effort to me, but perhaps threatening people and breaking up demonstrations is just how they stay warm.

Andrei Lugovoi, the man believed to have murdered Alexander Litvinenko with polonium, has been elected to the Duma, gaining parliamentary immunity. Hurrah for democracy!

Bush made another little speech attacking Congress this morning for not doing his bidding fast enough on the budget, Telecom amnesty, warrantless electronic surveillance, and the alternative minimum tax. He even made a little joke: “In a political maneuver designed to block my ability to make recess appointments, congressional leaders arranged for a senator to come in every three days or so, bang a gavel, wait for about 30 seconds, bang a gavel again, and then leave. Under the Senate rules, this counts as a full day. If 30 seconds is a full day, no wonder Congress has got a lot of work to do.” He’s just jealous that they get to bang a gavel and he doesn’t. And because if they gave him one, it would take him a full day just to figure out how to make it work.

Now if he could only find some other sort of symbol...

Welcome

A lawyer for the US government told a British Court of Appeals that it is the position of the US that it has the legal right to seize without legal proceedings (i.e., kidnap) anyone, anywhere in the world, wanted for trial in the US on any charge, not just terrorism. Of course that’s a legal right under American law; the countries in which these kidnappings take place might have different rules. Or not. Possibly it’s just time to declare every other nation on earth null and void. Because, really, the continued existence of other “nations” with “national” “sovereignty” just gets in our way.

One country that is entirely welcoming is Scotland. We know this because after spending, if memory serves (I somehow forgot to post this story a week or two ago), to come up with a new national slogan, they came up with “Welcome to Scotland.” Reminds me of a British city council some years ago that held a contest among city employees to come up with the best money-saving idea. The winner of the £100 prize had this cunning scheme: offer a prize to members of the public to come up with the best money-saving idea.

Hey, did you know that Belgium hasn’t been able to form a government since June and may be about to fall apart as a nation? Someone should look into that.

OMG, it’s Ruprecht and Ruprecht!

Sectors hiding toilet paper

Hugo Chavez threatens to nationalize Spanish banks operating in Venezuela unless the king of Spain apologizes for telling him to shut up. This follows his intemperate exchange of words with Uribe. Venezuela will hold a vote tomorrow for Chavez’s referendum for a raft of sweeping presidential powers and an end to presidential term limits (Chavez said yesterday “If God gives me life and help, I will be at the head of the government until 2050,” when he will be 95), with the term being extended to a not-very-democratic seven years. Also, the voting age would be dropped to 16. And the working day and week reduced. And lots of other things, all stuffed into a single yes or no vote. Bloomberg News says, though I haven’t seen it elsewhere, that Chavez is threatening to resign if the referendum fails.

The Chavez administration is accusing – and it wouldn’t surprise me – business leaders of creating the shortages of recent weeks to influence the vote. The finance minister says, “We know there are sectors hiding toilet paper.”

In contrast to George Bush’s speech on HIV/AIDS yesterday, Laura Bush’s piece in the WaPo does actually mention gay (and bisexual) men. So although it’s against the strict policy of this blog to give credit where credit is due, I will give her credit for that. Elsewhere in the paper, the WaPo notes that George “chose to emphasize only the role of about 20 percent of the contractors, which come from the religious community.”

Headline of the day, AP: “Maine Town Honoring Earmuff Inventor.”

A robust culture of reporting things

Of all the subject lines in emails I’ve received from presidential campaigns, this has to be the most pathetic: “Biden surges past Richardson in Iowa.” He has 8% to Richardson’s 4% in a poll of likely caucus-goers. The email adds that he is “closing in on the front-runners” (Edwards, Clinton & Obama range from 23 to 27%).

Speaking of fuzzy math, the LAT notes that the US military is relying on Iraqi numbers about things like civilian deaths, enemy attacks, etc, and that those numbers... wait for it... may not be altogether accurate. Says a colonel on Petraeus’s planning staff, “The Iraqis don’t have a robust culture of reporting things.”

Late in the article there’s a mention of something I hadn’t heard before: “In October, for example, the entire command and control system used by Iraqi security forces to communicate with headquarters was shut down for two weeks when the government failed to pay the U.S. contractor that provides the satellite communications. For those two weeks, U.S. commanders and the Iraqi government received no reports from Iraqi forces in the field.”

In honor of World AIDS day (tomorrow), Bush gave yet another speech on the subject (at a Methodist church, naturally) which failed to mention gay people. Indeed, he mentioned the people who actually have HIV/AIDS only in passing, and none by name. Instead, he focused on “people who have dedicated their lives to save lives.” Especially if those people are motivated by religion, by the “universal call to love a neighbor”, the “timeless calling to heal the sick [he may have forgotten that AIDS can’t actually be healed] and comfort the lonely.” Generosity is a favorite word of Bush’s, especially when talking about American assistance to Africa, although I’m not sure such fulsome praise of one’s own “generosity” is really consistent with a generosity of spirit. People with the disease appeared in the speech only as the passive objects of that generosity. Or worse, since he implies that they got it because of their lack of proper Christian morals: “Faith-based groups... are changing behavior by changing hearts -- and they are helping to defeat this epidemic one soul at a time.” World AIDS Day, he said, is “a day we resolve to continue this work of healing and redemption.” Who is it he thinks requires redemption?

Above the fray

In re-runs of last night’s debate, CNN censored (without mentioning that they were doing it) the question posed by the gay retired brigadier general, and the candidates’ responses to it, because he has links to the Clinton campaign, which as we know invalidates both his question about gays in the military and his 43 years’ experience as a gay in the military.

Among the emails I’ve received from various Republican presidential campaigns today claiming victory in the debate is one from the Fred Thompson people, claiming he “was able to stay above the fray and out of the constant bickering between others around him.” Dozed off, did he?

Multiple caption contest

After blogging last night’s Republican debate, I’m still slowly recovering the will to live, so I’ll throw it open to you, the discerning blog reader, to caption pictures of 1) Laura Bush in a coat Nancy Reagan left behind, looking at a Christmas decoration with the sort of rapt attention George usually gives to shiny objects, 2) George and El Salvador’s President Saca, 3) Elsewhere in the Oval Office during that event, Condi and Bob Gates.

Republican debate: working in a small tight unit

Transcript (somewhat faulty), part 1, part 2.

Another YouTube debate and, oh good, the first video is a song.

Romney says Giuliani had a “sanctuary city,” except, occasionally, a Haitian would have a plunger shoved up his ass. Rudy says Twitt had a sanctuary mansion. Romney asks if he, as a home(mansion)owner, was supposed to go out and ask for the papers of any worker with a “funny accent.”


Tancredo rejects the idea that there are jobs no American will take, not even mowing Romney’s yard with a funny accent.

Huckabee, attacked for Arkansas’s merit-based college scholarships for undocumented aliens, says if he hadn’t gotten a college education, he might be picking lettuce in Mitt Romney’s yard.

Ron Paul, your weirdo followers think there’s a secret conspiracy to merge the US, Canada and Mexico, do you? Paul: heh, heh, no of course I don’t – the conspiracy isn’t a secret.


McCain takes another swipe at a program to study the DNA of bears, making a so-so joke that he doesn’t know if it’s for paternity or a criminal matter. What the hell does he have against bears? Other examples of wasteful spending he’s fought against in the Senate? Children’s health care.

Oh good, an animated Uncle Sam. Sam wants to eliminate income tax in favor of a national sales tax.

McCain says that Ron Paul, with his “isolationism,” would have allowed Hitler to come to power. In fact, McCain was in Iraq last week (I’m still waiting to see pictures of him in a helmet and flak suit), and evidently all the American soldiers stationed there gave him a message for Ron Paul: “and their message to you is... let us win.” If all 160,000 soldiers have a candidate they’re supporting, McCain was too modest to say who that might be.


Paul points out that it is not isolationism not to want to invade other countries. But he completely evades the whole Hitler thing. What were you doing while Hitler came to power, Congressman Paul, and why won’t you talk about it?

Chuck Norris is in the audience.

A guy in Manhattan Beach eats some corn and asks if the candidates would cut farm subsidies. All candidates: thanks, we’d like to win in Iowa.


Tancredo video: I am prepared to take on Hillary Clinton, or at least tiny snippets of Hillary Clinton taken out of context.

Thompson video: white lettering on black background just like Law & Order credits. Attacks Romney as a hypocrite on abortion and Huckabee as a hypocrite on taxes.

McCain video: I am also prepared to take on tiny snippets of Hillary Clinton taken out of context. Out-of-context Hillary is toast!

A guy with an assault rifle asks if anyone supports gun control. Anderson Cooper only puts the question to one of the candidates, possibly because of his name. Duncan Hunter says “from Bunker Hill to New Orleans to the rooftops of Fallujah, the right to keep and bear arms and use them effectively is an important part of America’s security.” I didn’t know the Second Amendment applied to Fallujah.

Asked what guns they own and which is their fave, Thompson says he owns several but won’t say what they are or where they are. McCain, interestingly, owns no guns.


A video made by a black father and son in Atlanta asks about black on black violence. Which Romney, racist prick that he is, blames on black children being born out of wedlock: “Well, one, about the war in the inner city -- number one is to get more moms and dads. That’s number one. And thank heavens Bill Cosby said it like it was. That’s where the root of crime starts.” Yes, thank heavens Bill Cosby gave cover for all the racist pricks.

Asked by a woman from Texas who called herself “Journey” whether women who have abortions should go to jail, everyone skirts (so to speak) the question by saying that that would be up to the states. Paul reminds us that he was an obstetrician, says in 30 years he never saw a medical need for an abortion, which suggests that some of his patients died needlessly. Thompson, while saying it’s up to the states, added that in state laws on post-viability abortion now, “It goes to the doctor performing the abortion, not the girl, or the young girl, or her parents, whoever it might be.” The questioner said nothing about the people seeking abortions being “girls” or “young girls.” Thompson, sexist prick that he is, just automatically infantilized them.

Q: “The death penalty, what would Jesus do?” Huckabee: fry ‘em, like I did as governor. Pressed, he added that Jesus was too smart to run for public office, ha ha.

Do you believe every word of the Bible is true? Giuliani: some of it’s allegorical, especially the stuff about not cheating on your wife. Romney: the Bible is the word of God. For some reason, he doesn’t mention the Book of Mormon.


Romney video: “ordinary isn’t good enough,” so go with slightly creepy.

Giuliani video: hey, I used to be mayor of New York, did you know that? Has a joke about “the city’s nemesis, King Kong.” Doesn’t mention 9/11.

Romney refuses to say if waterboarding is torture. McCain upbraids him for that, while Romney looks at him with a fixed look of slightly sour bemusement. McCain says “life is not 24 and Jack Bauer.” Life is Chloe O’Brien, however. Life is so Chloe O’Brien.

On Iraq, Thompson says “Too many people in this country are vested in a scenario of defeat. I’m vested in a scenario of victory”. 1) That language is lifted directly from Joe Lieberman. 2) Maybe Frederick of Hollywood should be avoiding words like “scenario.” He sounds like a producer who doesn’t understand why Rick can’t get the girl at the end of Casablanca.

Asked about using 9/11 excessively, Giuliani denies it.

Huckabee video: I’m Mike Huckabee, and God approves this message.

Retired Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr says he is openly gay. So why shouldn’t gays be in the military? Duncan Hunter says that most people who join the military are conservatives with Judeo-Christian values like, you know, hating queers, and they shouldn’t be forced to, and I swear to God I’m quoting, “work in a small tight unit” with gays. Gays in the military is evidently another issue Romney has flip-flopped on. McCain says don’t ask don’t tell is “working” (for whom, he does not say), and seems to say that Gen. Petraeus has told him this.


Asked about the space program, Huckabee says he’d send Hillary to Mars. Tancredo says Martians are trying to steal our jobs.

Ron Paul video: “There’s something going on in this country, and it stinks.”

The last question is about why Giuliani supported the Red Sox after the Yankees lost. Ten minutes after this thing was supposed to have ended, and they’re torturing us with a baseball question?

Command shtick

General Musharraf of Pakistan is a general no longer. He said, “I am bidding farewell to the army after having been in uniform for 46 years,” adding that it had gotten just a little bit gamey.


We’ve had many cheap laughs about the imagery of Mush taking off his uniform. Here’s another one: “Although I am taking off the uniform the army will always be in heart.”

It’s not just the uniform he’s giving up, but evidently also something called the “command stick,” which he can be seen fondling here:


That’s what we need, a command stick. Give Bush a command stick to play with and it’ll keep him out of trouble all day.

This march to war claim is pretty well created by punditry

AP has finally put out a partial transcript of its interview with Bush, some of which I dealt with in my last post.

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? “And therefore, the first step in getting to the process we ended up on today is to - for me to have recognized that the problem is terror, and states cannot accept terror on their border, particularly democracies, nor can a state be formed because of terror.”

IN OTHER WORDS: “A moment like today just doesn’t happen. In other words, it requires work to set - to lay the groundwork for what was a successful conference. And now the hard work between Israel and the Palestinians begin.”

IN OTHER WORDS: “In other words, there has to be something more positive than that which is being - that which is on the horizon today.”

IN OTHER WORDS: “Well, it’s going to take a while for any agreement to be reached, and so I think that there is a - in other words, it’s going to take - it’s going - the negotiations between Israel and Palestine aren’t going to occur in one week. And so there’s a - there’s going to be an opportunity for expectations to be set right over time, if - for success and/or for failure.”

YOU’D THINK THAT, WOULDN’T YOU? “You would think that people would say, what a great opportunity, let’s all go promote a free society in Iraq.”

IN OTHER WORDS: “It is going to be very difficult for that Palestinian state to come into being, so long as there are terrorists who are able to exploit the - a weak government and launch attacks against their neighbors. And that’s exactly what the road map says must not happen. In other words, the implementation of the vision is subject to the road map.”

Asked what arguments he could make that would convince China to join in sanctions against Iran: “Other than they would be a major threat to peace? I think that’s pretty significant. That’s a pretty significant argument. And that’s the argument I’ve been making. In all due respect, I think this ‘march to war’ claim is pretty well created by punditry.”

Worth it to try

Riots in Paris, again. Says the secretary of the police union, “Our colleagues will not allow themselves to be fired upon indefinitely without responding.”

Here’s the thing about our perceptions of the French: no matter how francophilic you are, your immediate response to that quote was, “By surrendering?”

The Virginia Republican Party convinced the state Board of Elections to require voters in the presidential primary to sign this pledge: “I, the undersigned, pledge that I intend to support the nominee of the Republican Party for president.” That is just so wrong in so many ways. For a start, you cannot “pledge” to “intend” something. And the state has no right to require us to make any statement about what we will do in the privacy of the polling booth, to sign our name to what some people will believe is a legally binding document (because what’s the point of requiring you to sign something in an official setting that isn’t a legally binding document?). And it suggests that the basic unit of a democracy is not the individual citizen but the political party.

But at least Virginia isn’t under martial law – yet. In an interview with AP, which annoyingly hasn’t made a transcript available, George Bush said that General Musharraf “ought to lift the emergency law... It’s hard for me to envision a free and fair election under emergency law.” As opposed to the elections held in an Iraq under military occupation and civil war.

Bush also said that the quest for Israeli-Palestinian peace is “worth it to try” and that the Annapolis Conference was “the beginning of an outline of a vision.” Or possibly an outline of a vision of a beginning. Or a vision of an outline of a beginning of a dream of a sketch of the start of a... Say, George, do you think we might be past the beginning of an outline of a vision stage if you’d done anything about this, say, seven years ago? What am I saying? if George had tried to solve the Middle East problem seven years ago, the earth would be a smoldering irregular ball of charcoal now.

Now, though, he’s completely committed to making peace: “I work the phones, I listen, I encourage, I have meetings. I do a lot of things.”


“The danger,” he said, “is for the Palestinians that unless there’s a vision described, that people can aspire to, hopeful, it is conceivable that we could lose an entire generation - or a lot of a generation - to radicals and extremists.” Or they could be bombed by the Israeli Air Force, that’s also kind of a danger for the Palestinians.

(Update: more on this interview in my next post.)


Extremists and extremism, by the way, were his words for the day, appearing seven times in his statement at the Conference: “we must not cede victory to the extremists” “the extremists are seeking to impose a dark vision on the Palestinian people” “if Palestinian reformers cannot deliver on this hopeful vision, then the forces of extremism and terror will be strengthened, a generation of Palestinians could be lost to the extremists” “The day is coming when the terrorists and extremists who threaten the Israeli and Palestinian people will be marginalized and eventually defeated.” (Isn’t that two days?)


I’ve forgotten which blog had the video, maybe someone could post the link in comments, but Bush totally screwed up Abbas’s first name. I never knew “Mahmoud” had so many syllables.

Who could ask for anything more?

AP headline: “Doctors Restore Cheney’s Heart Rhythm.”

Seeing whether or not peace is possible

If Bush was insistent on meeting the Israeli and Palestinian leaders separately ahead of the Annapolis Conference, couldn’t he just once have prevented the (admittedly correct) impression of collusion by meeting Abbas rather than Olmert first? Anyway, Bush met Olmert this morning and will meet Abbas in the afternoon.


He told Olmert, “I’m looking forward to continuing our serious dialogue with you and the President of the Palestinian Authority to see whether or not peace is possible.” See, and you thought there was no point to this conference.

Let’s pull back a little, so we can see the nice Christ-Mass decorations.


For the hell of it, here’s a picture of a special prayer session against the Annapolis Conference held at the Wailing Wall.


And here’s one of Bush this morning, looking especially chimp-like.


A reminder: there’s a label for posts dating back to 1996 about Trent Lott: the man, the – for lack of a better word – hair, the legend, if you feel like reviewing his career as it comes to an end.

Reject the extreme within them

The Annapolis Conference (motto: “Lower Your Expectations... No, Lower Than That... Lower... Keep Going...”) is about to begin. George Bush has issued a statement about it: “I remain personally committed to implementing my vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.” Yes, George, it’s all about you and your “vision.”

Twitt Romney says that the real problem is “broader than in that one hot spot as we help the Muslims themselves reject the extreme within them.” Why can’t they all be bland and boring (but with a slightly creepy undertone), just like Mitt?

Fred Thompson spent the post-Thanksgiving weekend shoring up his position as the gun nuts’ fave’rit candidate, going from a gun store in New Hampshire to a gun show in South Carolina to a hobo hunt in an undisclosed location. Here, a bored AP photographer takes a, so to speak, shot of the Fredster behind a row of rifles, kinda like prison bars.


New Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that he will join the Kyoto Accords. Also, he plans to get to the bottom of the whole toilets-flushing-counter-clockwise thing.

But do ants really need an aphrodisiac tonic?

Reuters: “Troops and police in Shenyang, northeast China, were deployed after thousands of demonstrators demanded help to recover their savings from a get-rich-quick scheme that involved raising ants to make an aphrodisiac tonic.”

The London Times has an article about increasing corruption in Afghanistan, full of good but annoyingly anonymous quotes. “The British public would be up in arms if they knew that the district appointments in the south for which British soldiers are dying are there just to protect drug routes.” “It’s not Afghan culture. It’s a culture of impunity. We created it. We came in in 2001 with cases of cash and made certain people untouchables.” The article suggests that “The Afghan Government fears that if corrupt officials in the south were replaced by staunch law enforcers, the huge profits from heroin trafficking would end up with the Taleban.”

Humanitarian minimum

In case you were wondering, I had Chinese take-out today, commemorating the first Thanksgiving, when the Pilgrims were saved from starvation by the native Chinese with orange chicken and potstickers.

Speaking of people threatened with starvation, Israel, as it threatened, will start cutting power supplies to Gaza next month, but claims the cuts won’t “harm the humanitarian minimum to which Israel is committed.” It’s nice to know they’re committed to a humanitarian minimum.

Speaking of humanitarian minima, and of minimal humans, George Bush called several no doubt carefully screened members of the military to wish them a happy Thanksgiving, saying it was “the least I can do.” Never let it be said that George Bush doesn’t do the least he can do.