Going to strip clubs for fun and class credit

The Bush administration plans to spend $100 million per year to promote marriage among the poor. Presumably this will come out of all the job training programs that have been axed. I trust no cynic out there is thinking that this exists solely in order to trick people into screwing up their eligibility for welfare.

One plan they could adopt was that put into practice by a British civil servant trying to get her boyfriend, another civil servant, to propose to her. She put his naked picture online and said it wouldn’t come off until he proposed. He doesn’t seem to have, but she did crash her server and got booted.

The war in Afghanistan just mysteriously expanded, with the US now bombing tribal forces opposed to the puppet government, but in no wise connected with the Taliban or Al Qaeda.

Attorney-and-Witchfinder General John Aschcroft, speaking to religious broadcasters, said that this is not a religious war, except for God being on our side. “Civilized people--Muslims, Christians and Jews--all undertand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator.” Not being a civilized person, I can respond to that only in a series of grunts and bellows.

Following is from the Daily Cal. Comments seriatim, in brackets.

Male Sexuality Class Put on Hold Amid National Media Attention
Questionable Group Activities Cited as Cause
By STEVE SEXTON
Tuesday, February 19, 2002

The UC Berkeley male sexuality class that came under fire last week has been suspended by administrators while an investigation into reports of illicit class activities is conducted.

The class’s female counterpart is also under review, but has not been suspended, officials said.

A meeting between the instructors of the student-run classes took place Friday, following an inquiry into the classes by The Daily Californian. But when instructors of the male sexuality class failed to show up, the class was pulled, said George Breslauer, dean of social sciences at UC Berkeley. [Unfortunately, the class rather got off on being pulled.]

Students and instructors of the class told the Daily Cal they took trips to strip clubs and “sex exchanges” and watched an instructor strip. Some also said a party at an instructor’s house included group sex and a “party game” that had students photographing their genitalia and then trying to match the pictures to the correct body. [Pin the tail on the donkey for the frat crowd. Isn’t it weird that the article doesn’t specify that these were gay strip clubs? And the instructor stripped at a strip club--and did rather more than that. Somebody has removed all the homosexual content from this article.]

Those activities came as a surprise to the professor charged with overseeing the course, Caren Kaplan, chair of the women’s studies department. She told the Daily Cal she does not “police the content.” [Although the students did keep asking her to dress up in a policewoman’s uniform.]

But now she is heading the investigation into the reports, which have attracted national media attention, said Breslauer.

Under the policies guiding the classes, dubbed “DE-Cals” for Democratic Education at Cal, the sponsoring professor must sign off on the curriculum and then is “responsible for the content” of the class.

A second system of checks is intended, requiring the head of the sponsoring department to agree “that the course is an appropriate one for his or her department.”

But since Kaplan is both the sponsoring professor and the chair of the department, no secondary approval was needed.

She could not be reached for comment over the weekend.

Breslauer, her immediate supervisor, said it was “too premature” to make a determination of wrongdoing on Kaplan’s part. [I know this is sadly pedantic of me, but I’m torn between making an obvious joke based on the word premature or pointing out that “too premature” is a faulty usage.]

He said DE-Cal classes are “run with very little faculty oversight,” and added, “That will probably change.” [As soon as they hear about the strip clubs.]

The DE-Cal program is currently offering more than 100 courses, the topics of which range from the history of Afghanistan to counting cards in blackjack. The classes are not funded by the university, but are provided use of campus facilities and count for between 1-2 units toward graduation.

The program is regarded as a triumph for liberal, democratic education. But some fear that the activities in the male sexuality class have endangered the entire program.

Aside from indicating more supervision may be on the horizon, administrators have not said there will be drastic changes to the program.

Instructors of the female sexuality class have already begun to
distance themselves from their male counterpart. [Which hasn’t noticed and is lying back smoking a cigarette.]

“The male and female sexuality classes are two separate classes and are in no way affiliated,” said Kim Brodsky, an instructor of a female sexuality class. “We support and defend the curriculum of our course as educational and empowering, and we are looking forward to teaching this class for years to come.” [Would a joke based on “to come” be too crude?]

Instructors of the 2-unit male sexuality class [although it likes to brag that it has 8 units] likewise defended their curriculum. Drew Navarro, one instructor, said the classes “provide a much-needed forum” for discussion “of how students really feel about themselves and their bodies and others.”

The course description on the DE-Cal Web site says the class is
“intended to provide a safe environment in which men may learn about their own bodies and male sexuality. This course aims to create a greater community of men and women who are empathetic, understanding and supportive of each other’s sexuality.”

Some students enrolled in the male sexuality class are now searching for other classes to get their course load above their colleges’ minimum unit requirement for full-time student designation--typically 11-13 units.

“Current students are paying the price for alleged wrongdoings last semester,” Breslauer said.

I trust everyone had a happy Displaced Apostrophe Weekend (aka Presidents’ Day, President’s Day, Presidents Day, Presiden’t’s’ Day...).

British Marines accidentally invaded Spain today. They thought it was Gibraltar.

Shrub is on walkabout in Japan. He praised the Japanese prime minister for having nice hair and accidentally sent the Japanese stock market into a tailspin by using the word devaluation in a speech instead of the word deflation. Oops.

There is a new policy whereby the US might intervene militarily any time an American is taken hostage anywhere in the world. Because there were still some countries left we hadn’t threatened to go to war with.

Fake indicator of the week: greenhouse gas intensity, which is the number that the Bush environmental policy is meant to reduce. It means the amount of greenhouse gases divided by GDP. The upshot is that Bush is proposing to reduce greenhouse emissions less than would happen naturally, and without actually reducing them.

Spreading around the embarrassment, British paratroops open fire in Afghanistan on a cab taking a pregnant woman to the hospital. Take that, unborn terrorist!

2 F16s were sent to escort a plane with a couple of passengers behaving suspiciously by going to the bathroom too often. Mile-high club.

The British High Court rules that prostitutes employed in brothels do not have an obligation of confidentiality.

A guy is being tried for shooting his girlfriend for saying the words New Jersey. He is a nutter and certain words set him off, including Snickers and Wisconisin. At his trial, witnesses had to use flash cards for the dangerous words.

A Pentagon agency for surveillance, computer technology and general Big Brother-ry is to be headed by convicted Iran Contrateer John Poindexter. Takes you back, doesn’t it? And isn’t it amazing how the similarly undisgraced Eliot Abrams, the smuggest man in the Reagan administration, has managed to remain so quiet since rejoining government?

Princess Margaret died, and the nation went into a deep state of indifference. One letter to the paper asked "May I be the first to forget where I was when I heard the news. "

Favorite headline: Dinosaur Hunters Find Vomit. Evidently it’s the oldest fossilized vomit ever found, and they’re a little bit more excited by that than they probably should be.

A man in Ohio who called a cop a “pig” was ordered by a judge to stand in a public place with a sow for two hours while people jeered at him.

Heinz is going to bring out chocolate flavored french fries, which they describe as being for the kid with a sweet tooth who’s going to have his first coronary at 29. All right, they thought better about the 2nd half of that, just as they thought better of the idea of Froot Loops-flavored french fries.

Bush put his gubernatorial records in his father’s presidential library, and has since pretended that Texas’s surprisingly good Public Records Act no longer applies to them. I assume this story came out because reporters were looking for Enron connections and found that they’d get their info not in 10 days as the law requires, but whenever the library feels like it.

The county in which Dayton, Tennessee, the town of the Scopes Monkey Trial, has been ordered to stop holding bible classes in elementary schools, which they’ve evidently been doing for 52 years.

I keep reading that Charles Pickering testified against KKK leader Samuel Bowers in the 1960s, but the reporters are all too lazy to look up what he testified to. Does anyone know? A Google search didn’t help.

Speaking of lazy reporters, a story just broke--except in the sense of having been broadcast on radio 3 months ago--that Attorney Gen Ashcroft said that the difference between Islam and Christianity is that in the former fathers send their sons to their death while in the latter God sent his son to his death, or something like that.

Incidentally, when did George Bush start fund-raising again?

Speaking of hateful statements, I was flipping channels yesterday and watched some tv evangelist I’d never seen before. He said that California schools now require students to take 3 weeks of Islamic studies, or some such, in which they must pick a Muslim name and design their own jihad (the televangelist pronounced it jahid). Did you know that? He also commented on limitations of women in Islamic countries, and then made a 1950s type joke about how banning women drivers might not be that bad.

TV Guide description of a program next week: Glutton Bowl: The World’s Greatest Eating Competition. Qualifying rounds in speed and quantity include bowls of mayonaise, beef tongue and sticks of butter, with a surprise “delicacy” in the finals. 2 hours. Fox, if you needed to ask.

OK, fine, Kevin, O’Neil didn’t *literally* call Byrd a Klansman, but we all knew what he meant. Far be it for me to claim the moral high ground of living in a literalist’s ditch, or something.

The US military’s Oops List continues to grow. An attack by a drone Wednesday killed 6 nomads looking for metal to salvage in a long-abandoned and bombed Taliban hq. As Jon Stewart said about the last such screw-up, Operation Shoot First was a complete success, but Operation Ask Questions Later is still on-going.

Bush: “I’m deeply concerned about the plight of the average Palestinian, the moms and dads who are trying to raise their children, to educate their children.” Dubya’s deep understanding of the complexities of other cultures is an example to social anthropologists everywhere.

If you liked those commercials for whatever company that was featuring the image of Martin Luther King Jr (registered trade mark), you’ll love the upcoming marketing of Mohandas K. Gandhi (registered trade mark), whose great grandson just signed up with the same company responsible for marketing the name and image of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe.

I once mentioned Polygamy Porter. Thanks to the continuing quest of British reporters for alcohol in the Land of Osmond, I now know its motto: Why have just one?

The University of Georgia has switched its heating system from coal to chicken fat. There’s a good joke in there, but I can’t quite come up with it. Answers on a postcard, please.

Under the headline “Nice Humps,” the Daily Telegraph reports on a beauty contest for camels in the United Arab Emirates. Do you think they have to sleep with the judges? Anyway, the prize is £20,000.

NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof says that the so-called terrorists which US “advisers” are in the Philippines to fight, or at least to patrol nowhere near them, are actually a rapidly declining tiny band of criminals in the kidnap-for-ransom business. But the Philippines government, by portraying them as Osama mini-me’s, has managed to acquire an extra $100 million in military aid. Which should buy someone a lot of shoeware.

The queen marked her 50th anniversary as queen yesterday by opening a cancer ward, symbolic of her family being a cancer on the body politic, I’m assuming.

The EU establishes an arrest warrant across the EU covering 32 crimes, including some that are not crimes in every EU country, like racism and xenophobia, and after voting down habeas corpus & speedy trial safeguards.

The US admits that its most recent botched raid in Afghanistan was a botched raid and releases 27 prisoners, although it may have released them to the puppet regime....

The US has paid at least 35 Afghan warlords $200,000 each. I believe at the current exchange rate, that equals about 3 weeks of undying loyalty.

The justification of the US’s participation in the civil war in Colombia has officially been expanded from drugs to terrorism this week, without any debate or indeed notice in this country. Hell, the CIA director’s testimony to Congress yesterday was the first time he’d been seen in the 5 months since 9/11, which should give you some clue to the thoroughness of Congressional oversight, although they will haul every single Enron executive up to make them recite the 5th amendment.

Even that wasn’t as edifying as today’s re-enactment of the Monty Python 4 Yorkshiremen sketch, with Robert Byrd & Paul O’Neil bragging about their crappy childhoods. Said O’Neil: “I won’t cede to you the high moral ground of not knowing what life is like in a ditch.” Heaven forfend. He also called Byrd a Klansman.

Speaking of high moral ground, during WW II Chaim Weizmann offered the British use of Palestine as a site to develop mustard gas.

I hope the report in the Post is incomplete on the hearings into Bush nominee to the 5th Circuit Charles Pickering, since it seems they skipped over a good deal of his racist past (which you can look up yourself, I have a headache.)

Quote unquote

Lots of government types saying stupid things:

Antonin Scalia stands up to the Catholic church, says it is wrong on the death penalty, and any Catholic judge who doesn’t believe in the death penalty should resign. Doesn’t mention abortion. And doesn’t mention the difference between a principle derived from religion and one derived from any other form of morality.

The budget director Mitchell Daniels says NY’s fight for federal aid is “a little money-grubbing game.” And if there’s any justice, he just lost--his job. There is, of course, no justice. He says the comment was misconstrued. Bush promised NY $20 billion, and where is it in the budget? Nowhere. They’re even trying to count the money to families of victims, although that one is unlikely to fly.

Fritz Hollings attacks the administration’s dealings with Enron, saying its $3,500 to himself were so small as not to be a contribution but an insult. Right, like when the service in a restaurant is so bad that you only leave a $3,500 tip.

I should have made it clear that the policies I was talking about were associated with Israel’s current fascist minister of tourism, not just the assassinated fascist minister of tourism.

A British education authority has lost a court case and will have to pay a student whose dyslexia they failed to diagnose £52,500.

What, I should make a tasteless joke about that story, like you didn’t all think the same thing and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

During the Super Bowl--or so I’ve heard, if I want to watch people attempting to injure each other for no good cause I’ll watch CNN or the Cartoon Network--the government unveiled its new anti-drug ads, at the cost of $35 million that might have been spent on treatment, which evidently blame drug users for financing terrorism by their habits. One might think that since this will not convince a single addict to mend their ways, it was actually intended to make everyone else more contemptuous of drug users.

If you think the “axis of evil” didn’t play well in Europe--Germany for some reason is especially pissed--how about those images of a wounded POW at Camp X-Files being transported to his interrogation session shackled to a stretcher.

New words for old / Dubya is Kenny Boy Law / Going out on a limb for Israel

Paris sets standards for garret apartments, which is the end of the romance of Paris as we have known it. Balzac, La Boheme, starving artists, gone gone gone. The regs will ban apartments with sloping ceilings and require a minimum size and height, heat and hot & cold running water (like any Parisian needs water for any purpose!).

The line “Let’s roll,” that Bush just used again, which I made fun of the first time he appropriated it as suggesting a 1970s cop show, the family of the hijackee who used it wants to trademark it.

The youngest survivor of the Titanic just had her 90th birthday. She says it didn’t really affect her, she prefers to look to the future...

Anti-abortionites want to use federal money to provide those anti-abortion clinics (see under “abortion alternatives” in your phone book--they are no longer allowed to fly under false flags) with ultrasound machines, not for health of course, but for emotional blackmail purposes.

Bush keeps a scorecard of Al Qaeda in his desk and crosses off the dead ones. Isn’t that special.

Remember the Israeli tourism minister who was assassinated? Ever wonder what sort of damage a right-wing loon can do in a job like that? Evidently they’re advertising suggesting that people go to (illegal) settlements on the Gaza strip--to work on their tans. Ads in this country (which I have not seen), say “Go out on a limb for Israel” next to a picture of a water skier. Of course environmental destinations or christian sites get nothing to promote themselves.

Spain gets its first gay priest. This should be fun to watch. A parishoner is quoted as saying that they wondered when he got the earring, but when he dyed his hair blonde, they knew something was up.

Hamas is now swamped by resumes. Since they decided to allow women to be bombers, it has been deluged by applications.

The woman bomber this week belonged to an organization that has been targeted by the Israeli military for some time: not Hamas, but the Red Crescent. She was an ambulance driver, and the army has managed to shoot a great many of those in recent months.

Afghan Interim Puppet in Chief Karzai has responded to the fight between 2 warlords by sending in a delegation of elders, who I presume will talk to both sides about how much tougher things were when they were young until they acquiesce or fall asleep, whichever comes first.

My sample ballot arrived. OK, a Decline to State Party member may vote in the primaries of other parties, but evidently won’t get to see what that ballot looks like until election day. I’m becoming so offended by this process that I may not vote.

A story you may have missed because the NY Times ran it in the business section with the Enron stories: while the Bushies are sensitive about releasing information about who they talked with, they quietly released to Congressional investigative committees run by loons like Dan Burton anything they wanted from the Clinton administration--without asking the Clintonites--including, yes, advice from outside advisers to the VP, and even a conversation between Clinton and Barak over Mark Rich.

Bush is asking Americans to donate two years of their lives to the country. Also he is pretty much eliminating job training for the unemployed, and youth job training programs, in his next budget. So that should free up some time.

I was right. The town where US forces were tricked into killing the wrong people in a faction fight, and the town where US forces tied people up, shot and then burned them, are one and the same.

Speaking of intelligence failures, those video-wills left by would-be martyrs, that the administration was claiming last week foreshadowed new terrorist attacks, turn out to be at least two years old.

Harold Pinter has throat cancer. This is deeply ironic.

The Washington Post points out that Jeb Bush wants his daughter’s drug abuse case to be treated in exactly the opposite manner to his preference for every other drug abuse case. This is also ironic, in a different way.

The warning CNN was pissing itself over all day--that Al Qaeda planned to fly a plane into a nuclear power plant--turns out to have come from just one captured fighter, suggesting that the CIA’s processing of intelligence is as good as it was when it failed to discover a certain plot last September, when one plane may or may not have been intended to fly into a nuclear plant. Not that anyone is talking about that. The CIA is obviously now over-compensating for its previous short-comings by reporting as intelligence any half-baked rumor that anyone is willing to pass on to it, and probably paying good money for it too.

Sharon once more opens his big mouth, inserts his big feet, and does a tap dance on his tonsils.

There isn’t any country outside the US where the State of the Union address played well. Read the world press, and you will quickly learn how to write “arrogance” in every language there is. He damaged talks between North and South Korea, not for the first time, and set back the moderates in Iran.

There is, admittedly, a delicate balance between bull in the China shop and Thank you sir, may I have another. I can’t figure how Saudi Arabia has gotten away with so much shit with no criticism worthy of the name. Well yes I can, it’s the oil stupid, but if there were ever an exporter of terrorism, it has to be the Saudis. That they don’t actually order terrorist actions is perhaps worse, since it’s purest cynicism. Bin Laden at least believes in a cause, no matter how moronic. This week the Saudi foreign minister has been attacking the western (British) press for a conspiracy against his country. See, in November 2000 there were a series of explosions, which may have been Al Qaeda, but the Saudis liked to claim were western alcohol smugglers fighting it out--Al Capone instead of Al Qaeda. So one of the victims of an explosion, a British citizen, was seized out of his hospital bed and tortured for 2 months until he confessed, as were 4 others. The British government decided to cover this up. Read any of the British papers for this week.

California primaries and more

A Guardian article compares the Bushes to the Kennedys: no fewer than 7 Bushes have now been arrested for booze or drugs.

Ari Fleischer says that to reveal what Enron said to Cheney would be a violation of the right to petition.

I forget yesterday to comment on something especially annoying in Bush rhetoric, including in the State of the Union speech: his constantly referring to the “civilized world.” This phrase should be arousing as much ire as “crusade” did early on, but for some reason isn’t. Anyone, when did Bush get to be civilized? He executes people and his knowledge of literature begins and ends with the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

And “axis of evil”? I don’t think Iran and Iraq will mind too much being called evil, but to be accused of working together?

Our allies the Afghans evidently tricked us into fighting their factional fights yet again last week, where US forces killed 17 of the wrong people. Oops.

OK, the voter pamphlet arrived today. I’ll make it easy for you: vote no.

First, everyone mentions terrorism, from that ridiculous statement on the inside cover by the Sec of State, who I believe just might be running for something this year, to the arguments on the props. Remember: if prop 41 fails, the terrorists win; also, if prop 41 passes, the terrorists win.

40 & 41 are bond measures and you know how I hate those. Regressive taxation is wrong, whatever the cause. Prop 40 is also huge, the largest ever, and includes things that don’t all belong in the same measure.

Incidentally, some of the No arguments are written by the scum of California politics, but you should vote no anyway.

41 is a bond measure for new voting equipment, not the sort of thing a bond measure usually pays for, but whatever. Note that it sets specifications only, meaning that counties pick their own equipment, meaning we’ll still have error rates that vary by district. The fact that the bond money will be paid out as matching funds makes that variance even greater, being dependent on what a district can afford.

42 requires gas taxes to be spent on transportation purposes.
Hypothecated taxes (dedicated taxes) are rarely a good idea, since the optimal tax and the optimal budget rarely coincide, but in this case it would also specify how the money is spent, setting priorities that may not make sense in years to come, and withdrawing money now going to the general budget to pay for transportation, which may not be the highest priority for a shrinking budget.

43 says that a voter who cast his vote legally should have their vote counted. That’s all it says, one sentence long. Which sounds good, and the idea of having that set forward as a principle to guide court cases, also good. But impossible. How do you require a ballot lost by the post office to be counted? Or one with a hanging chad or whatever? How do you count a ballot if you can’t determine intention? As an absolute, it becomes unworkable, and a magnet for many many lawsuits.

The one thing no one mentions re 43 is write-ins. I might vote for it if I thought it forced the registrars to count *all* votes, every Michael Mouse and Count Chocula (they currently only count votes given to certified write-in candidates), but the bit about casting vote according to the law probably stops that.

44 is on the ethics of chiropractors, and there’s a joke there I needn’t make, since we all thought it. It would de-license for a decade quacks, sorry chiropractors, guilty of insurance fraud, which may be ok, if a trifle too specific, but also outlaws the use of ambulance chasers, i.e., agents to secure business, which doesn’t seem like a problem. Also, stop bugging me with this shit.

45 would allow incumbents to get around term limits, one time only, by collecting signatures equal to 20% of those who voted for the office in the previous election. You know me, I oppose term limits strongly, but this is tinkering at best. It gives an advantage to politicians with money behind them, who would then owe favors in their lame duck term. At the level of principles, this may actually be worse than term limits themselves. To me, term limits are offensive because they take away the right of the voter to vote for whomever they want. To the authors of 45, term limits are offensive because they take away from politicians their right to be reelected (like the thing about not counting write-ins unless there is an official campaign, which treats the vote as something that belongs to the candidates, not to the voter). The system is not supposed to be for the benefit of the politicians but for that of the electors.

The state of the union is just tickety boo

Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia tells the NY Times that there is no limit to how far women can go in our society. As long as they don’t drive and are accompanied by a male relative and don’t try to leave the country without getting permission from a male relative.

Yet another Bush with a substance abuse problem: Noelle Bush (which I assume is for people who can’t afford a Christmas tree), Jeb’s daughter, caught for prescription fraud.

With communications between India and Pakistan largely cut off, the Pakistanis are resorting to sending over balloons with insulting messages.

Last week Shrub was complaining that Enron had kept its affairs secret and if his mother-in-law had known the true state of Enron’s finances she wouldn’t have lost $8,000. In the State of the Union address he talked about “accountability,” the closest he got to mentioning the biggest domestic issue currently before the nation. But he is also defending the refusal to release the names of contacts of Cheney’s energy task force, defending the government’s “privacy.” Interesting definition of what is private and what is, oh I don’t know, the people’s business.

The Post says that Bush rejected the idea of having a separate speech just for his economic plan, since this one would be dominated by national security. Bush said that economic security is national security. Of course he also insisted yesterday that Enron is a business story and not a political story.

Still, if one were to parse the State of the Union address solely in terms of hypocrisy, well it would certainly be easy. Bush defending liberty and the dignity of every life, quote unquote, for example. All right, he’ll get away with all that stuff. Anyway, when he wasn’t being hypocritical, he was being scarily evangelical. If the head of Amnesty International says that “right, liberty, and justice are true for all people everywhere” [the quote is approximate] it’s one thing, when a president of the US says it, look out.

Again making my point about the nation-state, he accuses the enemies (at least he didn’t use the phrase evil-doers) of seeing the entire world as their battle field. Of course, part of the speech at least finally told us who the next target is, Iraq, not Somalia. Can’t wait. Maybe we should start a pool on the code name: “Operation Desert ______.”

Incidentally, I’ve been hearing the war in Afghanistan referred to as the first war of the 21st century. And people accuse me of being pessimistic. It reminds me of the first book to call World War I by that appellation, in its title yet, published I believe in 1920.

Other quick takes on the speech: the State of the Union has “never been stronger.” What, never? I could have sworn there was a day in 1884, May 13th I believe....

We are now working with Russia, China and India as never before. How did India get on that last?

Especially in tragedy, God is near. Well you know how it is when you’re driving past car crashes, you just have to look.

My economic policy can be summed up in one words: jobs. You just knew it would be a one-syllable word, didn’t you?

Well, since it didn’t make the Washington Post, for some reason, maybe it’s another incident of American self-censorship, or maybe it’ll be all over the news in a day, but evidently Bush has a fairly serious heart condition. That low heart rate he boasts about is not from exercise and is too low to be a good thing, thus the pretzel incident.

White House counsel Alberto Gonzales says that the Geneva Convention is “obsolete” in terms of questioning prisoners. He probably read that book by the French general describing how they got information out of prisoners during the Algerian War (torture and then execute), for which the general was forced to pay a modest fine (for defending it in a book, not for actually doing it). What does France think it is, anyway? Israel?

Yesterday I reiterated my thesis that the wars against Muslims is a war in defense of the nation-state. Today Bush says of the prisoners, “They know no country.” Well sure, they’re in Guantanamo, I’m not even sure what country that is, Cuba or the US.

I heard on NPR but don’t see in tomorrow’s papers that Saudi Arabia, noting that over 100 of its citizens are imprisoned in Guano, wants them back. The US might return prisoners to their nation of origin, NPR says, if they promise to imprison them. Which brings up my point that we are encouraging violations of due process all over the world. What we are asking of Saudi Arabia and other countries is to just put them in jail, no questions asked. Nor is this the only time. Some of the prisoners, as I can’t remember if I mentioned before or not, came from Bosnia; we demanded they be turned over, without presenting any evidence, and it happened. When India demanded that Pakistan arrest militants after the parliament building massacre, Pakistan did, and Bush applauded them for it. No trial of course, just detention.

And justice is doing well, all over the world (theme for the day, or at least the e-mail):

Ashcroft ordered a statue of the Spirit of Justice covered up (boob showing) (worse, he was once photographed next to said boob) (which makes a pair of boobs, of course).

India says that two of the guys who attacked the American Center in Delhi, who were shot dead, confessed to being Pakistanis. Um, just before they died.

Jim Lehrer, who is beginning to give Larry King a run for his money in the softball interview department, talked to Interim Chief Warlord of Afghanistan Karzai today--he’s in the US this week. In an earlier interview, which it will be interesting to see if it’s quoted in the American press--he supported amputation, but only for the rich, who should know better. Hear that, Ken Lay? Well, Bush didn’t cut off Lay’s hand, but he did give him a diminutive name, Kenny Boy.

The US sub Grenville, which last year sunk a Japanese fishing boat, today hit a US warship.

Cheney is still refusing to reveal how closely his energy policy was influenced by Enron. It is a matter of principle: they are fighting to preserve the right of future presidents to receive candid advice from the people who have bought the right to give that advice.

US forces are now on patrol in the Philippines, but only in areas where they’re not expecting any rebels to be. Which means we spent millions to send them on a nature hike.

Evidently the Bush administration defines an illegal combatant as one who is “beyond the control of any state.” A couple of problems with that.

First, I thought we bombed and invaded a whole country that we considered to *be* responsible for them. Second, we didn’t recognize the Afghan government, so, what, no Afghans could take up arms because the US didn’t recognize that they had a state to control them? Third, if we’re going to war with entities that consider themselves beyond the control of any state, does that mean we’re going to invade Enron next?

Still, that definition confirms something I said early on, which is that the Morons Crusade was fought on behalf of the nation-state, any geographically defined nation-state, including the Philippines, Indonesia, China, Pakistan etc, against any (non-corporate) extra-national force or ideology.

A cute NY Times piece on the mayor of Penn., PA, pop 475, who hadn’t been running, but 2 people wrote him in. This is evidently not uncommon in small towns, write-in non-candidates winning. Isn’t that 19-year old mayor who lives at home (Daily Show joke: when his mom tells him to clean his room, he tells her you can’t fight city hall) also from PA? I’d be interested in knowing how many uncontested local elections there are now, and whether we’re gotten to the point where local government is atrophying from lack of interest.

I had a lengthy fight with a Safeway cashier over some chicken breasts today. They were marked two for one, and then additionally $3 off each package because someone had obviously way over-ordered. But the cashier tried to take the $3 off *before* doing the two for one, effectively eliminating one of the two $3 coupons. She never saw my point but eventually gave it to me with a strong sense that she thought I’d gotten away with something. I came close to mentioning that my math SATs were 710 and she was working as a cashier, but didn’t, because that would be wrong.

A Russian group called Walking Together may be worth paying attention to; Putin’s attempt to build a Nazi Youth.

A letter to the Daily Telegraph suggests that instead of sending reps to Guantanamo, they should check for inhumane conditions in the British train system.

Clifford Baxter of Enron commits suicide. Or does he? Three words for the Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton: Vince. Foster. Payback.

London Times headline, about a Chinese shopowner insisting he couldn’t be evicted because of feng shui: “Feng Shui Claim is Ruled Out of Line.”

A Hungarian soap opera filmed a wedding scene using a real registrar, accidentally marrying the stars. Said the actress, I can’t believe I married that idiot.

McNeil-Lehrer had the most obsequious interview today with Colin Powell, mostly over the Middle East, mostly on the subject of why that naughty Mr Arafat won’t obey his masters. No mention of settlements, no mention of yesterday’s car bombing, no mention of assassinations, no, literally no criticism of Israel whatsoever, a lot of talk about how bad it was for the Palestinians to import arms but nothing about the US export of arms to Israel while it assassinates people and blows up tv transmitters and so on.

www.whitehouse.org/initiatives/patriot/index.asp

Asking for increased military spending including yet more military wage increases, Bush calls the military America’s “highest calling.” Yes, like the priesthood, but with more weaponry.

Never thought I’d mention Mariah Carey, who is evidently a very famous singer with large breasts and a larger ego, none of whose songs I’ve ever heard, who was just dropped by her label. Variety headline: Virgin Sacrifices Carey.

So Bush is insisting that not going ahead with a tax cut is exactly the same as a tax increase. But what about Florida, where Jeb Bush just did exactly that? Ari Fleischer: “That’s a state matter, and the president doesn’t weigh in on state matters.” Dick Cheney: “I think if you think about it, you know, what a state does is much more fiscal management, whereas what we’re talking about at the federal level is what really governs the overall shape and direction of our economy.” Go back in your bunker, Dick. Maybe Dubya was the smart one after all.

Speaking of the smart one, Neil Bush has been in Saudi Arabia. I’ve often asked what happened to him, since he got away with murder in the Silverado S & L bankruptcy (sort of the Enron case of its time, I suppose) by pretending to be so stupid that he just had no idea what was going on. He did, of course, and my reading of the case was that he personally took a house as a bribe. Anyway, he was in Saudi giving advice on their PR problems and why those darned Israelis are just so popular in the US, despite their prime minister just having rubbed out a witness against him, execution-style, in Beirut. From a Saudi paper:

Win American hearts through sustained lobbying: Neil Bush
By Khalil Hanware & K.S. Ramkumar, Arab News Staff

JEDDAH, 22 January -- Neil Bush, brother of US President George Bush, said here yesterday that the distorted image of the Arab world could be removed through the sustained lobbying of US politicians.

“The US media campaign against the interests of Arabs and Muslims and the American public opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be influenced through a sustained lobbying and PR effort,” Bush, chairman and chief executive officer of Ignite! Inc., said in his keynote address on the concluding day of the three-day Jeddah Economic Forum at Hilton Hotel here.

The support for Israel had been strong for many years because of the strong public opinion in its favor and continuous lobbying by Israeli supporters among politicians. After all, politicians shape policies based on public opinion, he said.

He recalled that many of those whom he had met throughout his travels in the Middle East expressed sorrow, sympathy, anger or concern over the tragic events of Sept. 11 and how it had affected the US.

“Over 3,000 lives were lost through a brutal and horrific act that affected not only Americans but peoples all over the world. I want to express gratitude to all for their support. Without the support of the peace-loving people in this region and all over the world, the US president cannot succeed in his fight against terror,” said Bush, who freely interacted with delegates before he began his speech on “The corporate challenges of human resources in a complex global environment.”

In the speech, he called for the root causes of terror to be explored. “There could be economic disparities, social unrest or unemployment causing growing dissatisfaction in the region. But I have been told that the bigger issue is the resolving of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There was only lip service for ending the conflict, but since Sept. 11 there has been a difference. There seems to be a sense of urgency. The difference is public opinion has shifted. Public opinion shapes public policy dramatically. It’s true in the US, in this part of the world and elsewhere,” he said.

“In the US for years we believed in Israel’s right to exist. We still see Israel as a loyal friend, one the US will not turn its back on. That is the fundamental belief in our country,” Bush said.

“The US media has been reporting Israelis defending themselves from rebels disrupting their stability. So public opinion is bigger in my opinion. No wonder the people of the US side with Israel. And it’s no wonder given the politics of our leaders who are steadfast in their support for Israelis,” he continued.

The scene in this part of the world is quite different, said Bush, who has been visiting the region for the last 10 years. “I hope America sees Arabs as I see them, and understand Islam as I understand it. Leave behind the misunderstandings about our two peoples and two cultures. And let us help bridge the gap by understanding each other,” Bush declared.

Dubya on MLK day: “He refused to answer hatred with hatred or meet violence with violence.” Didn’t know Bush liked that kind of thing.

The EU tells both Israel and Palestine to knock it off, especially mentioning that Israel should stop destroying all of the EU’s development projects in Palestine, $20m worth so far. Unclear if the targeting is deliberate.

Amazon.com makes a profit. This is surely one of the signs of the Apocalypse.

Today the EU Food and Farm Commissioner missed the launch of the EU’s Food Safety Administration. He had salmonella.

Bush names Tom Coburn co-chair of his AIDS advisory committee. I know he doesn’t believe in condoms or, you know, sex, but there’s something else about Coburn that I can’t remember. Anyone?

New on the PC front, at least in Britain: the term “Asian” is out. Seems Indians don’t like being lumped together with Muslim loons.

I’ve seen a newspaper obit and 2 tv pieces on the death of Peggy Lee, and everyone’s avoiding the obvious line: Yes, that’s all there is.