The story about the Bush idea of using nukes in Star Wars has yet, two days later, to appear in either the NY Times or the Washington Post. You really do have to read 5 newspapers to know what’s going on. One might also ask: what are the US troops in the Philippines up to now? Yemen? Georgia? etc? Are we still forcibly feeding prisoners in Guantanamo?
In the French presidential elections (safe bet: the incredibly corrupt Chirac will be re-elected), the candidate for a center-right party slapped a 10-year old Arab boy, and his ratings doubled, and he is now being courted for greater things, like possible prime ministership. To be fair, the kid was picking his pocket. Deja vu for me, that story.
The War Crimes Tribunal is now in existence, and what a week for it. The Unilateral States of America is not only not participating, but has banned anyone in government helping prosecutions before it in any way, and is considering sanctions on anyone who does.
Speaking of criminality, more and more black people have been claiming the slavery tax credit on their income taxes, some for political reasons, some the victims of scams. And the IRS is actually paying some of them, maybe $30 million or more so far, by mistake of course. Evidently if you’re black you can deduct $43,000, the current value of 40 acres and a mule.
Speaking of black, researchers have decided that the Black Death was not caused by bubonic plague after all.
The US has recognized the coup government of Venezuela, which has abolished the country’s congress, supreme court, atty general, constitution, and name. Bush says that now the status will be one of tranquility and democracy. Or in other words, the country is now back in the hands of the rich white people. Yeah, I know, this is me never being satisfied, since I was deeply opposed to the election of Chavez, who had previously attempted a coup (so has really nothing to complain about today) and was obviously a lunatic driven mad by power, if you consider being president of Venezuela to be power. But he was an indio, which drives the white elite crazy, and a sort of socialist who liked Cuba, which drove the US crazy. If the CIA didn’t arrange for him to be driven out, it would have, even if the country wasn’t a major oil producer.
By the time Powell finally arrived in Israel, it was already way too late. He had his knees cut off. Not by the latest bomber (the White House is now calling them homicide bombers, and Fox News immediately followed suit), not by Sharon, but by the folks back at home. Bush, you may not have noticed, but you can be sure everyone in the Middle East has, has stopped calling for the immediate pull-out of Israeli troops, and yes, called Sharon a man of peace. They said that the decision to meet Arafat was made entirely by Powell. By the time Powell arrived, it had been made abundantly clear that he did not speak for his own government. It’s time to resign, while he still has some faux dignity left.
Thursday, April 11, 2002
Making the gravy train (gondola?) run on time
Israel has successfully followed the United States in throwing away all the sympathy gained for it by terrorist acts against it. We sure don’t need to see another news interview with an Israeli teenager saying how it isn’t even safe to drink lattes at a cafe anymore, when people in the West Bank are without water.
When Ariel Sharon offered Arafat a one-way ticket to Beirut, I thought what I’m sure we all thought: “Man, what a crappy travel agent he’d make.” So you have to wonder who’s Colin Powell’s travel agent, as he makes his way slowly to Israel by way of Morocco, Spain and possibly Tahiti. In Morocco they asked him if he was lost, shouldn’t he be in Israel? His response is unrecorded, but I like to think it was “I came to Casablanca for the waters.”
Did you know that Israel is the only recipient of US foreign aid that gets it all at once in January, rather than paid in instalments? Not that Bush would threaten the funding (which I understand is now mostly military aid), but he couldn’t if he wanted to.
Sharon has been quietly gathering right-wing nuts for the winter, adding 2 religious right parties to his cabinet in case Labor develops a backbone and quits. It might have been nice if some of the media had told us what their positions are, but I assume pretty ghastly, given that they’re supposed to push to the right a cabinet that already includes advocates of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians.
There’s been a lot of talk about how Arab states and Palestinians need to recognize Israel, but no one ever says what that means. I’ve said this before, but not in a few years, so it bears repeating: what is there to recognize? Israel has no borders; I mean, even Israel couldn’t tell you what it’s borders are supposed to be. It has no constitution, but has essentially been a self-selecting body, setting the rules as it goes along for the choosing of its successors. You could say the same thing about Britain, but it’s not quite the same thing. How about the Israeli population? Well, Sharon would exclude from that Palestinians who actually lived there but were expelled by military force and terror, but include, potentially, me and any other Jew in the world. Recognize Israel, I’m not even sure there is such a thing.
When Ariel Sharon offered Arafat a one-way ticket to Beirut, I thought what I’m sure we all thought: “Man, what a crappy travel agent he’d make.” So you have to wonder who’s Colin Powell’s travel agent, as he makes his way slowly to Israel by way of Morocco, Spain and possibly Tahiti. In Morocco they asked him if he was lost, shouldn’t he be in Israel? His response is unrecorded, but I like to think it was “I came to Casablanca for the waters.”
Did you know that Israel is the only recipient of US foreign aid that gets it all at once in January, rather than paid in instalments? Not that Bush would threaten the funding (which I understand is now mostly military aid), but he couldn’t if he wanted to.
Sharon has been quietly gathering right-wing nuts for the winter, adding 2 religious right parties to his cabinet in case Labor develops a backbone and quits. It might have been nice if some of the media had told us what their positions are, but I assume pretty ghastly, given that they’re supposed to push to the right a cabinet that already includes advocates of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians.
There’s been a lot of talk about how Arab states and Palestinians need to recognize Israel, but no one ever says what that means. I’ve said this before, but not in a few years, so it bears repeating: what is there to recognize? Israel has no borders; I mean, even Israel couldn’t tell you what it’s borders are supposed to be. It has no constitution, but has essentially been a self-selecting body, setting the rules as it goes along for the choosing of its successors. You could say the same thing about Britain, but it’s not quite the same thing. How about the Israeli population? Well, Sharon would exclude from that Palestinians who actually lived there but were expelled by military force and terror, but include, potentially, me and any other Jew in the world. Recognize Israel, I’m not even sure there is such a thing.
Sunday, April 07, 2002
When the Bush administration talks about education, it always uses the word accountability. The rest of the time, it prefers to avoid the subject. Case in point: the Pentagon is asking for a large slush fund for foreign military assistance, entirely at the discretion of the Pentagon, with none of those pesky restrictions based on human rights, drug production, support for terror, etc that are supposed to apply to regular foreign aid (until Bush signs the waiver). Also unaccountable are businesses who injure their employees through repetitive stress; Bush has a plan to deal with it and, surprise, it’s entirely voluntary.
Also unaccountable, as in accountable to a court of law, is the treatment of POWs in Guantanamo. The latest plan is to bring in Pakistani intelligence officers to “interrogate” the prisoners.
The Taiwanese, worried that they are falling behind in teaching their populace English, have assigned the task to their garbage trucks, which will now broadcast simple phrases in English such as “How much does a pound of cabbage cost?”
In a case which has medical ethicists as excited (in a creepy way) as only medical ethicists can be, a lesbian couple (that’s not the issue), nay a deaf lesbian couple, has been having children through artificial insemination deliberately designed to be deaf. They’re those weird type of deaf people who think of it as some sort of lifestyle choice. One commentator asked if it was not the job of parents to ensure the most advantages for their children. One of the parents gave an interesting response, though, that black people in America are worse off than deafs, but no one complains about people deliberately choosing to have black children. Of course, the whole issue could have been avoided if they’d been able to *adopt* a deaf kid rather than making another one.
Also unaccountable, as in accountable to a court of law, is the treatment of POWs in Guantanamo. The latest plan is to bring in Pakistani intelligence officers to “interrogate” the prisoners.
The Taiwanese, worried that they are falling behind in teaching their populace English, have assigned the task to their garbage trucks, which will now broadcast simple phrases in English such as “How much does a pound of cabbage cost?”
In a case which has medical ethicists as excited (in a creepy way) as only medical ethicists can be, a lesbian couple (that’s not the issue), nay a deaf lesbian couple, has been having children through artificial insemination deliberately designed to be deaf. They’re those weird type of deaf people who think of it as some sort of lifestyle choice. One commentator asked if it was not the job of parents to ensure the most advantages for their children. One of the parents gave an interesting response, though, that black people in America are worse off than deafs, but no one complains about people deliberately choosing to have black children. Of course, the whole issue could have been avoided if they’d been able to *adopt* a deaf kid rather than making another one.
Two stories this week of Bush politicizing ecological science. A report, the product of 12 years which said that caribou would be harmed by a pipeline in Alaska, was replaced by a two-page jobbie cobbled together in 7 days which said they wouldn’t. And the US is not supporting the American who heads the UN body looking at global warming, because he believes it exists, and is instead supporting a pliable Indian.
To the increasingly long list of things about His Fraudulency, add sentences with the word “needs” in them. “Saddam Hussein needs to go.” “Arafat needs to say, in Arabic...” No, Georgie, this is what you want, not what they need.
Sharon has decided to treat Colin Powell’s arrival next week as a deadline before which he needs to commit as many atrocities as he can, like one of those game shows where people run around supermarkets trying to throw expensive items into their cart within 60 seconds (which I seem to recall is how Kevin used to earn his living). I’d like to think this isn’t what Bush had in mind, but I can’t seem to make myself think that.
I was going to remark at some point on the fact that while no Palestinian leader seems to believe that terror tactics are bad (or Palestinians period, including parents of the suicide bombers) (although it should be said that at least the bombers volunteered; Bush talks about Palestinians who dragoon children into these missions, but it’s not like Israel doesn’t have a draft), neither has anyone resigned from the Sharon government in protest. But then, I haven’t noticed anyone protesting the torture through forcible feeding of the POWs, or the fact that Rumsfeld says he intends that that alleged Al Qaeda leader will tell everything he knows, which can obviously only come about through some form of torture or threat of death (but most likely sleep deprivation, which is considered by experts to be the most invidious form of torture, but doesn’t leave scars).
Bush would be more believable if he named specific practices he didn’t approve of: shooting Palestinian civilians through doors in front of children, for example, leaving old women to bleed to death in the streets while ambulances are blocked, that sort of thing. I read an account by the head of a clinic who was made to enter every room in front of the soldiers, who quickly realized that he was being used as a human shield.
To the increasingly long list of things about His Fraudulency, add sentences with the word “needs” in them. “Saddam Hussein needs to go.” “Arafat needs to say, in Arabic...” No, Georgie, this is what you want, not what they need.
Sharon has decided to treat Colin Powell’s arrival next week as a deadline before which he needs to commit as many atrocities as he can, like one of those game shows where people run around supermarkets trying to throw expensive items into their cart within 60 seconds (which I seem to recall is how Kevin used to earn his living). I’d like to think this isn’t what Bush had in mind, but I can’t seem to make myself think that.
I was going to remark at some point on the fact that while no Palestinian leader seems to believe that terror tactics are bad (or Palestinians period, including parents of the suicide bombers) (although it should be said that at least the bombers volunteered; Bush talks about Palestinians who dragoon children into these missions, but it’s not like Israel doesn’t have a draft), neither has anyone resigned from the Sharon government in protest. But then, I haven’t noticed anyone protesting the torture through forcible feeding of the POWs, or the fact that Rumsfeld says he intends that that alleged Al Qaeda leader will tell everything he knows, which can obviously only come about through some form of torture or threat of death (but most likely sleep deprivation, which is considered by experts to be the most invidious form of torture, but doesn’t leave scars).
Bush would be more believable if he named specific practices he didn’t approve of: shooting Palestinian civilians through doors in front of children, for example, leaving old women to bleed to death in the streets while ambulances are blocked, that sort of thing. I read an account by the head of a clinic who was made to enter every room in front of the soldiers, who quickly realized that he was being used as a human shield.
Saturday, April 06, 2002
Hello from Doe Library. Just read a London Times editorial twitting a politician thusly:
That’s from the November 7, 1879 issue, the politician was William Gladstone.
“He asks whether the Afghans, in resisting us when we occupied
military positions in their country, did not do what we should have done ourselves; but he omits to express any reprobation of the treachery which provoked us.”
That’s from the November 7, 1879 issue, the politician was William Gladstone.
Friday, April 05, 2002
Yesterday I heard some of the tributes in Parliament to the Queen Mum. “She smells of wee but we love her” was not amongst them. Someone said she has gone to “perpetual peace and rest.” What else does he think she’s been doing for the last 101 years?
Bush finally gets pissed off about the Middle East. Ooooo. “Enough is enough,” he said, indicating that one word is exactly equal to the same word, just as sure as eggs is eggs. What he actually means is, now Christians are being threatened, and that’s something else entirely, that something else being “enough.”
The Vatican is looking for a new “chief papal embalmer,” as the current one has died.
So cousins can now marry and have children, say scientists. Great, all my cousins are male.
If you think the Queen Mum’s death was the end of an era in Britain, prepare to gasp: Bobbies’ helmets are going to get a new design. The current 12-inch tall things, favorite targets for drunken students, have been in use since 1863.
See the NY Times piece about the guy in jail in Illinois since murder since 1946 who didn’t do it? Uncovered, once again, by journalism students. Evidently they gave him sodium pentathol and a spinal tap (which needs explanation), and they gave his confession to the papers--before he’d actually made any confession.
A Fairness and Accuracy Reporting study of news broadcasts on the 3 networks over a year and a half on events in Israel find many many uses of variants of the word “retaliation,” as in “Israelis today retaliated for yesterday’s suicide bombing by blowing up Chairman Arafat’s favorite camel, Booboo.” 79% of the time, it was used just that way--the Israelis retaliating for something Palestinians did--and 9% the other way around. In other words, in the most common formulation, the Palestinians were portrayed as the aggressors and the Israelis were only responding.
Bush finally gets pissed off about the Middle East. Ooooo. “Enough is enough,” he said, indicating that one word is exactly equal to the same word, just as sure as eggs is eggs. What he actually means is, now Christians are being threatened, and that’s something else entirely, that something else being “enough.”
The Vatican is looking for a new “chief papal embalmer,” as the current one has died.
So cousins can now marry and have children, say scientists. Great, all my cousins are male.
If you think the Queen Mum’s death was the end of an era in Britain, prepare to gasp: Bobbies’ helmets are going to get a new design. The current 12-inch tall things, favorite targets for drunken students, have been in use since 1863.
See the NY Times piece about the guy in jail in Illinois since murder since 1946 who didn’t do it? Uncovered, once again, by journalism students. Evidently they gave him sodium pentathol and a spinal tap (which needs explanation), and they gave his confession to the papers--before he’d actually made any confession.
A Fairness and Accuracy Reporting study of news broadcasts on the 3 networks over a year and a half on events in Israel find many many uses of variants of the word “retaliation,” as in “Israelis today retaliated for yesterday’s suicide bombing by blowing up Chairman Arafat’s favorite camel, Booboo.” 79% of the time, it was used just that way--the Israelis retaliating for something Palestinians did--and 9% the other way around. In other words, in the most common formulation, the Palestinians were portrayed as the aggressors and the Israelis were only responding.
Tuesday, April 02, 2002
With effort and fun
The Tom Ridge color of the day is blank, ‘cause I’m out of ideas.
Remember those stories about all the farm subsidies going to really rich people like Ted Turner? Well Congress decided to do something to stop it: the new farm bill requires that information to be kept secret. Problem solved.
The US claims to have captured a top Al Qaida leader, or possibly a waiter. And by captured, I mean sent along forces, presumably armed, in a foreign country, and simply removed people from that country. People say that Sharon is trying to prove that his forces can go anywhere they want and do anything they want, but the US really can.
Of that man, Donald Rumsfeld, in a euphemism excessively folksy even for him, said that we were “visiting” with him. Since this visiting is going on in a location the government refuses to disclose, I assume this visiting involves electrodes attached to genitals rather than lemon meringue pie, unless the CIA has uses for a lemon meringue pie which I’d rather not know about.
Speaking of torture, a) Amnesty International refuses to condemn the forcible feeding of POWs in Guantanamo, which is stupid of them, b) if you haven’t seen the picture of Johnny Taliban naked, blindfolded and trussed up like a Christmas goose, make sure you do. Prosecutors told the court yesterday how they intend to indict him for conspiracy to do things he didn’t actually do, including kill that CIA officer Johnny Spann who had just threatened to kill him. I would just note that Spann was not wearing a uniform, which according to Rumsfeld would make him an “unlawful combatant.” The judge kept interjecting gratuitously, asking what Lindh was doing there in the first place, and asking his lawyers if they’d ever been in a war. American justice at its most impartial.
The fuss about whether BBC reporters should wear black ties when reporting on the Queen Mother’s death goes on, and on. See The Times for how much ink can get spilled on this subject.
The fucking Michigan law against fucking saying fucking obscenities in fucking public has been fucking struck down in fucking open court, live on Court TV in what I understand was a fucking hilariously obscenity-laden trial. So you can shout “f...” in a crowded theater.
zdnet.co.uk for corporate anthems, which I’ve mentioned before but have since then really taken off as an internet past-time. KPMG’s song, with the refrain “We will be number one, with effort and fun,” is this week at number, um, two. “Together each of us will run for gold that shines like the sun in our eyes.”
Remember those stories about all the farm subsidies going to really rich people like Ted Turner? Well Congress decided to do something to stop it: the new farm bill requires that information to be kept secret. Problem solved.
The US claims to have captured a top Al Qaida leader, or possibly a waiter. And by captured, I mean sent along forces, presumably armed, in a foreign country, and simply removed people from that country. People say that Sharon is trying to prove that his forces can go anywhere they want and do anything they want, but the US really can.
Of that man, Donald Rumsfeld, in a euphemism excessively folksy even for him, said that we were “visiting” with him. Since this visiting is going on in a location the government refuses to disclose, I assume this visiting involves electrodes attached to genitals rather than lemon meringue pie, unless the CIA has uses for a lemon meringue pie which I’d rather not know about.
Speaking of torture, a) Amnesty International refuses to condemn the forcible feeding of POWs in Guantanamo, which is stupid of them, b) if you haven’t seen the picture of Johnny Taliban naked, blindfolded and trussed up like a Christmas goose, make sure you do. Prosecutors told the court yesterday how they intend to indict him for conspiracy to do things he didn’t actually do, including kill that CIA officer Johnny Spann who had just threatened to kill him. I would just note that Spann was not wearing a uniform, which according to Rumsfeld would make him an “unlawful combatant.” The judge kept interjecting gratuitously, asking what Lindh was doing there in the first place, and asking his lawyers if they’d ever been in a war. American justice at its most impartial.
The fuss about whether BBC reporters should wear black ties when reporting on the Queen Mother’s death goes on, and on. See The Times for how much ink can get spilled on this subject.
The fucking Michigan law against fucking saying fucking obscenities in fucking public has been fucking struck down in fucking open court, live on Court TV in what I understand was a fucking hilariously obscenity-laden trial. So you can shout “f...” in a crowded theater.
zdnet.co.uk for corporate anthems, which I’ve mentioned before but have since then really taken off as an internet past-time. KPMG’s song, with the refrain “We will be number one, with effort and fun,” is this week at number, um, two. “Together each of us will run for gold that shines like the sun in our eyes.”
Monday, April 01, 2002
The Tom Ridge color of the day is Soylent Green, which is people.
You wouldn’t know it from reading the NY Times or watching McNeil-Lehrer, but the US just started torturing hunger-striking POWs at Camp X-Files. Britain gave up this practice in 1974 (after force-feeding women IRA prisoners) and as far as I’m concerned any doctor who participates in it should be defrocked. There should be discussions of this in the AMA; there should be debates on Nightline; there will not be.
The top-selling book in France explains that 9/11 never actually happened, or maybe just that the Pentagon was never attacked.
In some ways I miss the old Catholic church. A statement from a priest was read at various pulpits, in which he apologized for having “inappropriate sexual contact” with an 8-year old. Now is that one of the Seven Deadly Inappropriatenesses or one of the Ten Suggestions on Avoiding Inappropriate Behaviour?
Sunday, March 31, 2002
Condemn, in Arabic
The Tom Ridge color of the day is banana yellow: You did it! You finally, really did it! Damn you all to hell!
US forces are going along on raids in Pakistan, bringing the countries in which Bush has introduced combat forces up to, what, 37?
Hard to get much sense out of my usual British sources of news today. Evidently they were all really shocked at the sudden and completely unexpected death of the Queen Mum. And some were jolly cheesed off at the BBC coverage, because the presenter was not wearing a black tie. Winner of the Ted Baxter News Duh Award: The CNN news scroll said that most Brits could not remember a time when she was not around.
The Israeli soldiers have been executing people. And by executing I mean executing: shots to the back of the head.
Bush finally speaks publicly about the events in the Middle East, stupidly. Not surprisingly, since Israel is doing what he’d like to do with bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and so many others, he blames Arafat for everything. As ever, there are assertions that Arafat is somehow ordering every single terrorist attack, and no evidence at all. Bush says “I believe he needs to stand up and condemn, in Arabic, these attacks...” If Arafat tried to do that, he would be drowned out by the sound of gun- and tank-fire, but it’s the thought that counts. That incredibly condescending and arrogant “in Arabic,” which we’ve heard a lot lately, is the result of Tom Friedman of the NY Times continual emphasis on the disparity between the Arabic and English pronouncements of various peoples and countries. Friedman in today’s paper also has the best case for letting Israel do its worst that it is possible to make, which is that if suicide bombs work here, they will be used in every conflict. True, but you can’t refuse to do the right thing because there are assholes on the other side. Bush also said that he’d continue not phoning anyone, saying of Arafat, “all he has to do is watch what I just said.” Gee, if only the Israelis hadn’t just blown up his generator. Bush also had words for Israel, that while they’re doing their worst, they should “keep in mind there must be an avenue toward a peaceful settlement.” Sharon immediately responded, “Oh, you want a settlement? I’ve got as many settlements as you want. They’re cheaper wholesale.” [It’s not every day, but it’s a good day, when you can combine a pun with an ethnic stereotype.]
An article I think in the Times, maybe the Post, says that US documents show that the CIA did not intervene in Angola in 1975 after the Cubans got involved, but before, when there was no hint of Cuban interest yet. And that US activity was closely coordinated with the South Africans. Just a timely reminder that your government lies to you. Every single day.
US forces are going along on raids in Pakistan, bringing the countries in which Bush has introduced combat forces up to, what, 37?
Hard to get much sense out of my usual British sources of news today. Evidently they were all really shocked at the sudden and completely unexpected death of the Queen Mum. And some were jolly cheesed off at the BBC coverage, because the presenter was not wearing a black tie. Winner of the Ted Baxter News Duh Award: The CNN news scroll said that most Brits could not remember a time when she was not around.
The Israeli soldiers have been executing people. And by executing I mean executing: shots to the back of the head.
Bush finally speaks publicly about the events in the Middle East, stupidly. Not surprisingly, since Israel is doing what he’d like to do with bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and so many others, he blames Arafat for everything. As ever, there are assertions that Arafat is somehow ordering every single terrorist attack, and no evidence at all. Bush says “I believe he needs to stand up and condemn, in Arabic, these attacks...” If Arafat tried to do that, he would be drowned out by the sound of gun- and tank-fire, but it’s the thought that counts. That incredibly condescending and arrogant “in Arabic,” which we’ve heard a lot lately, is the result of Tom Friedman of the NY Times continual emphasis on the disparity between the Arabic and English pronouncements of various peoples and countries. Friedman in today’s paper also has the best case for letting Israel do its worst that it is possible to make, which is that if suicide bombs work here, they will be used in every conflict. True, but you can’t refuse to do the right thing because there are assholes on the other side. Bush also said that he’d continue not phoning anyone, saying of Arafat, “all he has to do is watch what I just said.” Gee, if only the Israelis hadn’t just blown up his generator. Bush also had words for Israel, that while they’re doing their worst, they should “keep in mind there must be an avenue toward a peaceful settlement.” Sharon immediately responded, “Oh, you want a settlement? I’ve got as many settlements as you want. They’re cheaper wholesale.” [It’s not every day, but it’s a good day, when you can combine a pun with an ethnic stereotype.]
An article I think in the Times, maybe the Post, says that US documents show that the CIA did not intervene in Angola in 1975 after the Cubans got involved, but before, when there was no hint of Cuban interest yet. And that US activity was closely coordinated with the South Africans. Just a timely reminder that your government lies to you. Every single day.
Friday, March 29, 2002
Keeping the bird-watchers happy
The Tom Ridge color of the day is black and white on silver nitrate: God willing, we will prevail, in peace and freedom from fear and in true health, through the purity and essence of our natural fluids.”
Three jokes from this week’s obituaries:
Milton Berle married and was then divorced from a showgirl. They married again 2 years later. Asked why, he said Because she reminded me of my first wife.
Dudley Moore was married to a much taller model. He said that he had to go up on her.
Billy Wilder worked for the US Army in occupied Germany after the war in a program to de-nazify films and theater. Asked to allow a former Nazi to play Jesus in the Passion Play, he replied, “Permission granted, but the nails have to be real.”
At least Bush’s efforts towards Middle East peace are working out well, huh? Hypocrisy watch: it was surprisingly Colin Powell who brought up Passover. I have seen no commentator or politician anywhere mention our Ramadan bombing. He also said that the problem was terrorism and not the absence of a political way forward. Riiiiight.
Something I’d like to put a lot of stress on because it ignored as events overtook it: Arafat tried to stave off the ridiculously vengeful assault on his hq by accepting a cease-fire. And then he saw the cease-fire that the Americans (General Zinni) brought him, which had been rewritten by the Israelis to allow it to continue “proactive attacks” on Palestian civilian targets. This is the American version of being a neutral go-between.
Bush really was neutral today, playing with his dog on the ranch and not issuing any statements, talking to anyone in the Middle East, or making much effort to keep up with events there, according to the Washington Post. Maybe it’s just as well. Powell had advanced warning of the raid and didn’t ask that it not happen.
The Israeli deputy minister of internal security wants Palestinians with bad or suspect papers to be put in detention camps.
The US military has been in Kazakhstan for a while, secretly, training what they laughingly call a military. The secret war continues to spread. Whatever happend to those troops in the Philippines?
www.craneaccidents.com. Self-explanatory. Some neat pictures, if you like that sort of thing.
Three jokes from this week’s obituaries:
Milton Berle married and was then divorced from a showgirl. They married again 2 years later. Asked why, he said Because she reminded me of my first wife.
Dudley Moore was married to a much taller model. He said that he had to go up on her.
Billy Wilder worked for the US Army in occupied Germany after the war in a program to de-nazify films and theater. Asked to allow a former Nazi to play Jesus in the Passion Play, he replied, “Permission granted, but the nails have to be real.”
At least Bush’s efforts towards Middle East peace are working out well, huh? Hypocrisy watch: it was surprisingly Colin Powell who brought up Passover. I have seen no commentator or politician anywhere mention our Ramadan bombing. He also said that the problem was terrorism and not the absence of a political way forward. Riiiiight.
Something I’d like to put a lot of stress on because it ignored as events overtook it: Arafat tried to stave off the ridiculously vengeful assault on his hq by accepting a cease-fire. And then he saw the cease-fire that the Americans (General Zinni) brought him, which had been rewritten by the Israelis to allow it to continue “proactive attacks” on Palestian civilian targets. This is the American version of being a neutral go-between.
Bush really was neutral today, playing with his dog on the ranch and not issuing any statements, talking to anyone in the Middle East, or making much effort to keep up with events there, according to the Washington Post. Maybe it’s just as well. Powell had advanced warning of the raid and didn’t ask that it not happen.
The Israeli deputy minister of internal security wants Palestinians with bad or suspect papers to be put in detention camps.
The US military has been in Kazakhstan for a while, secretly, training what they laughingly call a military. The secret war continues to spread. Whatever happend to those troops in the Philippines?
www.craneaccidents.com. Self-explanatory. Some neat pictures, if you like that sort of thing.
Thursday, March 28, 2002
You may remember from a few months ago a story I sent that the president of Zambia, Frederick Chiluba, had gotten so mysteriously rich in office that he didn’t notice when some bank clerks siphoned off his entire salary for over a year. Anyway, he’s getting divorced, and his wife wants half their 6 houses and farm and the 400-head herd of cows, sheep and goats, and $2.5 billion.
Right-wing Christian types like James Dobson are complaining about a gender-neutral Bible. Also out this week, the first translation of the Bible into Romany. Don’t know if it includes the bit about Jesus on the cross giving permission for gypsies to steal from non-gypsies.
Thanks to a rather important breach of privacy lawsuit in Britain, I’ve had to read more than I really wanted or needed to know about Naomi Campbell. Celebs have been trying to use the European human rights laws to stop the tabloids writing about them. Anyway, she won but the judge called her a liar and gave her a minimal award. The paper that had to pay, the Mirror, began its story, “Judge gives lying drug abuser £3,500.”
The Supreme Court rules that it was ok for a man to be sentenced to death in a trial in which his lawyer had also previously represented the victim, a “mere theoretical division of loyalties,” according to Fat Tony Scalia.
It also says that employers are allowed to cheat illegal alien workers; courts cannot force them to pay back wages.
The prime minister of Thailand thinks that the opposition is trying to get cab drivers to gossip about him.
People have been breeding cats with stubby little legs, Munchkins, so that they are unable to jump or hunt, making them less difficult pets. Practical, but creepy.
According to the NY Times, the new big thing on all the Springer-type shows is snap paternity tests.
Right-wing Christian types like James Dobson are complaining about a gender-neutral Bible. Also out this week, the first translation of the Bible into Romany. Don’t know if it includes the bit about Jesus on the cross giving permission for gypsies to steal from non-gypsies.
Thanks to a rather important breach of privacy lawsuit in Britain, I’ve had to read more than I really wanted or needed to know about Naomi Campbell. Celebs have been trying to use the European human rights laws to stop the tabloids writing about them. Anyway, she won but the judge called her a liar and gave her a minimal award. The paper that had to pay, the Mirror, began its story, “Judge gives lying drug abuser £3,500.”
The Supreme Court rules that it was ok for a man to be sentenced to death in a trial in which his lawyer had also previously represented the victim, a “mere theoretical division of loyalties,” according to Fat Tony Scalia.
It also says that employers are allowed to cheat illegal alien workers; courts cannot force them to pay back wages.
The prime minister of Thailand thinks that the opposition is trying to get cab drivers to gossip about him.
People have been breeding cats with stubby little legs, Munchkins, so that they are unable to jump or hunt, making them less difficult pets. Practical, but creepy.
According to the NY Times, the new big thing on all the Springer-type shows is snap paternity tests.
Wednesday, March 27, 2002
Spent the most futile 2 hours of my life today on the phone to tech support for my modem...
Sorry, almost forgot... The Tom Ridge color of the day is periwinkle blue: The cermony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Tech support being in Colorado, so at $.05/minute, that call cost more than the modem, and got me exactly nowhere. At the end it was suggested that I reload Windows95, which is not going to happen.
Hypocrisy watch: I’m waiting for someone in the Bush admin to forget about bombing Afghanistan over Ramadan and complain about this latest attack coming on Passover (actually before Passover). Bush already made some comment about people who would rather kill than have peace. As opposed to Bush himself, he wants (temporary) peace in Israel so he can kill in Iraq.
Note that when Lebanon for some reason blocked Arafat addressing the Arab conference by video link, he was able to bypass them by going on Al Jazeera. A semi-free press, ain’t it great?
Dudley Moore died today (as did Milton Berle, as ever stealing someone else’s act), and I’d just like to point out that he did actually do some pretty funny work, little of which you’ve ever seen or heard, so it’s sadder than you think.
Tracy Emin is a British artist and Turner prize winner who has sometimes featured in my “But is it art?” e-mails, including for her most famous work, an unmade bed. Anyway, her cat went missing and she put up posters, which were immediately taken down again by neighbors who thought they must be worth something. The cat came back anyway.
A first in Spain (or anywhere else, to my knowledge): a priest installed a mobile-phone jamming device in his church to prevent phones ringing during services. Especially annoying are the ones that play tunes. The most popular tune in Spain is the Mission Impossible theme. You can make your own joke about this one: parting the Red Sea, virgin birth...
Indian scientists have worked out a way to make vegetables less
gas-producing: bombarding them with gamma rays. And you’d better fart less, because after the first irradiated aspharagus, you grow three extra butts.
The Supreme Court, by an astonishing 8-0 vote (I didn’t know Breyer had a brother on the circuit court in SF, did you?) allows public housing to throw out people who are visited by people who are caught with drugs somewhere else entirely without the knowledge of the tenants. Rehnquist says that’s reasonable.
Californian prison authorities are planning on new rules to allow strip searching and background checks on visitors over the age of 7, a ban on sitting on laps, requiring women visitors to wear bras and not to kiss their husbands or whomever for more than 5 seconds, etc etc.
Sorry, almost forgot... The Tom Ridge color of the day is periwinkle blue: The cermony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Tech support being in Colorado, so at $.05/minute, that call cost more than the modem, and got me exactly nowhere. At the end it was suggested that I reload Windows95, which is not going to happen.
Hypocrisy watch: I’m waiting for someone in the Bush admin to forget about bombing Afghanistan over Ramadan and complain about this latest attack coming on Passover (actually before Passover). Bush already made some comment about people who would rather kill than have peace. As opposed to Bush himself, he wants (temporary) peace in Israel so he can kill in Iraq.
Note that when Lebanon for some reason blocked Arafat addressing the Arab conference by video link, he was able to bypass them by going on Al Jazeera. A semi-free press, ain’t it great?
Dudley Moore died today (as did Milton Berle, as ever stealing someone else’s act), and I’d just like to point out that he did actually do some pretty funny work, little of which you’ve ever seen or heard, so it’s sadder than you think.
Tracy Emin is a British artist and Turner prize winner who has sometimes featured in my “But is it art?” e-mails, including for her most famous work, an unmade bed. Anyway, her cat went missing and she put up posters, which were immediately taken down again by neighbors who thought they must be worth something. The cat came back anyway.
A first in Spain (or anywhere else, to my knowledge): a priest installed a mobile-phone jamming device in his church to prevent phones ringing during services. Especially annoying are the ones that play tunes. The most popular tune in Spain is the Mission Impossible theme. You can make your own joke about this one: parting the Red Sea, virgin birth...
Indian scientists have worked out a way to make vegetables less
gas-producing: bombarding them with gamma rays. And you’d better fart less, because after the first irradiated aspharagus, you grow three extra butts.
The Supreme Court, by an astonishing 8-0 vote (I didn’t know Breyer had a brother on the circuit court in SF, did you?) allows public housing to throw out people who are visited by people who are caught with drugs somewhere else entirely without the knowledge of the tenants. Rehnquist says that’s reasonable.
Californian prison authorities are planning on new rules to allow strip searching and background checks on visitors over the age of 7, a ban on sitting on laps, requiring women visitors to wear bras and not to kiss their husbands or whomever for more than 5 seconds, etc etc.
Tuesday, March 26, 2002
Don’t tell Bush about the INS
The Tom Ridge color of the day is hot pink: Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.
My mother called at 11:05 last night to ask if I was in jail. I wasn’t.
I was going to elaborate on that, but I like it the way it stands.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange says that Dan Quayle said he should be liquidated. Incidentally, NZ is being pressured again to allow American nuclear subs into its ports, if I’m reading between the lines correctly.
A Miami nursing home, according to an AP story, wants a vote to unionize to be thrown out because voodoo signs (black beads, lines of pennies etc) may have intimidated the home’s Haitian staff into voting for the union. So management is willing to admit that its staff believes in sacrificing chickens as a form of medical care.
John Ashcroft says of recent INS fuck-ups that it’s “enough to drive a man to drink.” Or the hard stuff---dancing.
My mother called at 11:05 last night to ask if I was in jail. I wasn’t.
I was going to elaborate on that, but I like it the way it stands.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange says that Dan Quayle said he should be liquidated. Incidentally, NZ is being pressured again to allow American nuclear subs into its ports, if I’m reading between the lines correctly.
A Miami nursing home, according to an AP story, wants a vote to unionize to be thrown out because voodoo signs (black beads, lines of pennies etc) may have intimidated the home’s Haitian staff into voting for the union. So management is willing to admit that its staff believes in sacrificing chickens as a form of medical care.
John Ashcroft says of recent INS fuck-ups that it’s “enough to drive a man to drink.” Or the hard stuff---dancing.
Monday, March 25, 2002
The Tom Ridge color of the day is baby-puke green: I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like... victory.
Cambridge, Mass. wants to reduce the local voting age to 17. I don’t think I want politicians trying to speak “to the young people” any more than they do now. Today I had an example of a credit card company trying that. When UCB sells my name, it doesn’t distinguish between grad students and the other kind, so in addition to the normal credit card company come-on’s, I get solicitations for “starter” credit cards. This one was instantly recognizable as the latter rather than the former because it offered as one of its benefits, “discounts on cool stuff.”
Along the lines of the Classmates Reunited website have been Bullies Reunited (to reunite bullies with their victims), a satire, and Cell-mates Reunited, which only sounds like a satire, there is now www.geocities.com/talibanreunited.
Saw a clip of Halle Berry’s Oscar speech on McNeil-Lehrer. So how exactly does winning an Oscar (in the same year that she pulled down an extra $500,000 for showing her boobs in another movie, but I don’t think she mentioned that in her speech) make her the new Rosa Parks?
Still, even she wasn’t as self-important as the representatives of the Catholic church on the same program. I was in the kitchen, but did I really hear someone say that the real victims are the good priests whose reputations are now tarnished? As opposed, say, to all the thousands of kids who got diddled. The spokesmonk for one American archdiocese, Denver I thinkk, said that the problem was solved there because priests had to sign a piece of paper saying they wouldn’t punk out the choir boys. And I’m not particularly exaggerating that, either. Reminds me of a Dave Allen joke: a nun asks a priest if he thinks the clergy will ever be allowed to marry. Not in our lifetimes, he replies, nor in our children’s lifetimes, but maybe in our children’s children’s lifetimes...
Cambridge, Mass. wants to reduce the local voting age to 17. I don’t think I want politicians trying to speak “to the young people” any more than they do now. Today I had an example of a credit card company trying that. When UCB sells my name, it doesn’t distinguish between grad students and the other kind, so in addition to the normal credit card company come-on’s, I get solicitations for “starter” credit cards. This one was instantly recognizable as the latter rather than the former because it offered as one of its benefits, “discounts on cool stuff.”
Along the lines of the Classmates Reunited website have been Bullies Reunited (to reunite bullies with their victims), a satire, and Cell-mates Reunited, which only sounds like a satire, there is now www.geocities.com/talibanreunited.
Saw a clip of Halle Berry’s Oscar speech on McNeil-Lehrer. So how exactly does winning an Oscar (in the same year that she pulled down an extra $500,000 for showing her boobs in another movie, but I don’t think she mentioned that in her speech) make her the new Rosa Parks?
Still, even she wasn’t as self-important as the representatives of the Catholic church on the same program. I was in the kitchen, but did I really hear someone say that the real victims are the good priests whose reputations are now tarnished? As opposed, say, to all the thousands of kids who got diddled. The spokesmonk for one American archdiocese, Denver I thinkk, said that the problem was solved there because priests had to sign a piece of paper saying they wouldn’t punk out the choir boys. And I’m not particularly exaggerating that, either. Reminds me of a Dave Allen joke: a nun asks a priest if he thinks the clergy will ever be allowed to marry. Not in our lifetimes, he replies, nor in our children’s lifetimes, but maybe in our children’s children’s lifetimes...
Sunday, March 24, 2002
The Tom Ridge color of the day is, oh let’s say chartreuse, have I done chartreuse yet? : And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Bush rolls back Clinton rules on medical secrecy, coincidentally giving parents access to minors’ medical treatments for birth control, abortion, drugs, etc.
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Bush rolls back Clinton rules on medical secrecy, coincidentally giving parents access to minors’ medical treatments for birth control, abortion, drugs, etc.
Saturday, March 23, 2002
The Tom Ridge color of the day is burgundy: Mein fuhrer, I can walk!
Margaret Thatcher has been told never to speak in my public again. By her doctors, who presumably saw that thing about how Britain should leave the EU. It’s like nails that have been scratching a blackboard for decades have suddenly been silenced. Peace, ain’t it grand.
The New York Times’s most entertaining movie reviews are always those of bad movies, and sometimes the best part is in the parental advisory part: “Sorority Boys is rated R. It has profanity, nudity and crude sexual humor, and I still wanted to walk out after 10 minutes.”
The Whaling Commission is due to meet again, and the Japanese will again argue that whale meat is an integral part of their culture, hampered only by the fact that it isn’t. So they’re sending, like ice cream trucks up and down the country trying to encourage people to eat whale meat, handing out free samples and whale sausage and so forth. Why this is so important to them is a rather interesting question, to which I have no answer.
The EU has announced its first targets in the response to Bush’s new steel terriers--I mean tariffs and barriers. It’s a motley assortment of products including various textile and citrus products and Harley Davidsons. What they’ve done, since the steel tariffs were intended to bolster the R’s in marginal states, is target the products of marginal states: the Carolinas, Florida, Wisconsin, etc. Rather clever, really.
Margaret Thatcher has been told never to speak in my public again. By her doctors, who presumably saw that thing about how Britain should leave the EU. It’s like nails that have been scratching a blackboard for decades have suddenly been silenced. Peace, ain’t it grand.
The New York Times’s most entertaining movie reviews are always those of bad movies, and sometimes the best part is in the parental advisory part: “Sorority Boys is rated R. It has profanity, nudity and crude sexual humor, and I still wanted to walk out after 10 minutes.”
The Whaling Commission is due to meet again, and the Japanese will again argue that whale meat is an integral part of their culture, hampered only by the fact that it isn’t. So they’re sending, like ice cream trucks up and down the country trying to encourage people to eat whale meat, handing out free samples and whale sausage and so forth. Why this is so important to them is a rather interesting question, to which I have no answer.
The EU has announced its first targets in the response to Bush’s new steel terriers--I mean tariffs and barriers. It’s a motley assortment of products including various textile and citrus products and Harley Davidsons. What they’ve done, since the steel tariffs were intended to bolster the R’s in marginal states, is target the products of marginal states: the Carolinas, Florida, Wisconsin, etc. Rather clever, really.
Thursday, March 21, 2002
The Tom Ridge color of the day is peach: all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
So the US is back in the Middle East peace negotiation biz, if you count only talking to one side as negotiations. I just want to pause for a minute to reflect on the incredible realpolitik of a nation only willing to do this in exchange for Arab countries acquiescing in its forthcoming attempt to overthrow the Iraqi government.
An Arab newspaper apologizes for saying that the secret ingredient in Jewish cooking is the blood of Christian or Muslim babies. The secret ingredient, as my grandmother would have told you, is love: you use the *hearts* of Christian babies.
After months of trying to fix the modem problem with my computer, I broke down yesterday and spent $5 buying a new one. It doesn’t work either, of course, and now neither do my mouse, keyboard, or Windows. Fortunately, by the time all that had happened, I no longer needed such sophisticated forms of interface with my computer, having been reduced to shouting at it.
So the US is back in the Middle East peace negotiation biz, if you count only talking to one side as negotiations. I just want to pause for a minute to reflect on the incredible realpolitik of a nation only willing to do this in exchange for Arab countries acquiescing in its forthcoming attempt to overthrow the Iraqi government.
An Arab newspaper apologizes for saying that the secret ingredient in Jewish cooking is the blood of Christian or Muslim babies. The secret ingredient, as my grandmother would have told you, is love: you use the *hearts* of Christian babies.
After months of trying to fix the modem problem with my computer, I broke down yesterday and spent $5 buying a new one. It doesn’t work either, of course, and now neither do my mouse, keyboard, or Windows. Fortunately, by the time all that had happened, I no longer needed such sophisticated forms of interface with my computer, having been reduced to shouting at it.
Wednesday, March 20, 2002
The Tom Ridge color of the day is black: the horror, the horror.
An Australian lifesaving competition was disrupted by the arrival of 50 sharks. The competitors all ran away.
The US, not re-elected to the UN human rights commission last year, and deeply committed to human rights, has ensured that the next election is as open and fair as Zimbabwe’s, forcing all competitors to drop out. And fired the head of the commission, former Irish president Mary “Here’s to you” Robinson, for actually criticizing the US on civil rights.
Lloyd’s List will no longer refer to ships as “she” but as “it.”
The US is to provide $98 million to Colombia to protect Occidental Petroleum’s pipelines there. I forget, why was it a good idea not to raise the CAFE standards?
Peace Now says that 34 new settlements have been erected in the West Bank since Sharon took over.
On Thursday a man is to be executed in Texas without his final request being granted. 8 months ago his left leg was amputated and he says they’ve been delaying fitting him with a prosthetic all this time to save on the cost. The Cowboy Gulag strikes again.
The Pentagon says that Operation Anaconda was a complete success, although it refuses to issue any numbers supporting that claim. At first it gave numbers, but soon had claimed to have killed more people than it had said were there in the first place: Robert MacNamara’s 5 O’Clock Follies by way of Arthur Anderson by way of Katherine Harris. And it claims to have killed all of them, with only 10 of the estimated 1,000 having gotten away. Except they can only find 20 bodies. Well, they say, Muslims like to bury their dead, so those 10 guys who later escaped, must have first buried 970 bodies, yeah, that’s the ticket.
Tuesday, March 19, 2002
The Tom Ridge color of the day is silver: Keep watching the skies!
The FDA has decided to stop testing drugs for their safety for children, so doctors will have to go back to guessing. This one has Shrub’s smell all over it, since they prefer to bribe drug companies with longer patents if they do it than to require it.
The FDA has decided to stop testing drugs for their safety for children, so doctors will have to go back to guessing. This one has Shrub’s smell all over it, since they prefer to bribe drug companies with longer patents if they do it than to require it.
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