Saddam Hussein offers Arafat a safe haven if he gets expelled from Israel. Right, cause in Baghdad he could get away from having rockets dropping all around him.
Ben-Gurion: “whoever approaches the Zionist problem from a moral aspect is not a Zionist.”
The first sentence of a wire story: “A Japanese faith healer was sentenced to death for beating 6 people to death with a drumstick during a 1995 exorcism ritual.” So is that a stick used to beat a drum or a chicken part? Enquiring minds want to know.
This week may have seen the last use of Old Sparky.
In 1999 the Pakistani army “mobilized” its nuclear weapons (whatever exactly that means) against India, and the prime minister wasn’t told, although he was informed by Clinton. Before Sharif, Benazir Bhutto had to ask for US intelligence briefings about her country’s nuclear capability, because the army wouldn’t tell her. And we’re continuing to support military rule for what reason now? Well, one reason is that it’s so much better on women’s issues than some other Muslim countries, although when informed about a woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery because she reported being raped, he seemed a little surprised and said that he’d never given much deep thought to changing the country’s ridiculous adultery laws.
Friday, May 10, 2002
Enough with the Amish already. Put the fucking orange triangle on the fucking carts already. Call it the new black. If you want to stay away from modernity so much, keep the carts off the asphalt, which you won’t find in the bible either. Do you believe they’re actually talking about leaving Pennsylvania for Ohio to escape the oppressors?
A couple of days ago, the CIA tried to assassinate an Afghan warlord (that’s what the news stories called him--you might never have known he used to be prime minister). He had no connections with the Taliban or with Al Qa’eda. To show how little critical attention is paid to American foreign policy, you’ll note that there has been no mention of this in today’s newspapers, or any hint as to the justification, or who ordered this.
The Bush administration is planning to interpret the laws against discrimination to allow public schools to set up separate, but no doubt equal, schools for each sex. Add to this the growth in compulsory school uniforms, and abstinence-only sex ed., well, all you have to do is add nuns with rulers...
Speaking of the dark ages, Bahrain just had its first election in which women could vote. Bahrain never made it on to the list of countries in which women couldn’t vote--like Kuwait--because no one else has voted since 1973. Women ran for office, too, but none were elected or made it run-offs.
Maryland suspends the death penalty while it investigates why most people on its death row are black and why all their victims, but one, were white.
The House Appropriations Committee adds another unasked for $200 million on for aid to Israel. No wonder Sharon looks like the cat who’s swallowed a 350-pound canary.
Actually, the happiest-looking person I’ve seen on tv lately has been that kid who put all the bombs in the mailboxes. A smiley face? A SMILEY FACE?
A couple of days ago, the CIA tried to assassinate an Afghan warlord (that’s what the news stories called him--you might never have known he used to be prime minister). He had no connections with the Taliban or with Al Qa’eda. To show how little critical attention is paid to American foreign policy, you’ll note that there has been no mention of this in today’s newspapers, or any hint as to the justification, or who ordered this.
The Bush administration is planning to interpret the laws against discrimination to allow public schools to set up separate, but no doubt equal, schools for each sex. Add to this the growth in compulsory school uniforms, and abstinence-only sex ed., well, all you have to do is add nuns with rulers...
Speaking of the dark ages, Bahrain just had its first election in which women could vote. Bahrain never made it on to the list of countries in which women couldn’t vote--like Kuwait--because no one else has voted since 1973. Women ran for office, too, but none were elected or made it run-offs.
Maryland suspends the death penalty while it investigates why most people on its death row are black and why all their victims, but one, were white.
The House Appropriations Committee adds another unasked for $200 million on for aid to Israel. No wonder Sharon looks like the cat who’s swallowed a 350-pound canary.
Actually, the happiest-looking person I’ve seen on tv lately has been that kid who put all the bombs in the mailboxes. A smiley face? A SMILEY FACE?
Thursday, May 09, 2002
The Bush administration does not, contrary to what I said in my last, support the right to own machine-guns. Sorry: badly written wire service report.
Bush calls the latest suicide bombing (or perhaps the one before that) a “wanton taking of innocent life”. Presumably, the wanton taking of guilty life, say in 152 executions, is just tickety boo. No one ever applies the term wanton to sex any more, I kind of miss it.
Sharon has been saying that he got permission from the US to bypass Arafat. The White House denies it, but you gotta wonder. Sharon has been talking about reforming the Palestinian administration, as have some unnamed Bushies, and the minute they all move to Palestine and take out citizenship I’m sure their opinions will be taken with all the seriousness they deserve. Clearly the plan is to “reform” Arafat into a figure-head role like the president of Israel. Or the Queen of England, but without the dress sense.
Bush calls the latest suicide bombing (or perhaps the one before that) a “wanton taking of innocent life”. Presumably, the wanton taking of guilty life, say in 152 executions, is just tickety boo. No one ever applies the term wanton to sex any more, I kind of miss it.
Sharon has been saying that he got permission from the US to bypass Arafat. The White House denies it, but you gotta wonder. Sharon has been talking about reforming the Palestinian administration, as have some unnamed Bushies, and the minute they all move to Palestine and take out citizenship I’m sure their opinions will be taken with all the seriousness they deserve. Clearly the plan is to “reform” Arafat into a figure-head role like the president of Israel. Or the Queen of England, but without the dress sense.
Tuesday, May 07, 2002
The comedian Reno is quoted as describing Dubya’s ad lib speaking as like a drunk trying to look sober. Today you could see him desperately trying to remember what you call the place where the Palestinians live, finally settling on “the Palestinian world.”
I assumed that Israel had forged the documents it claims link Arafat to terrorism. Instead, it seems that they just lied about the content of those document. Speaking as an academic, there’s nothing as annoying as shoddy scholarship.
Sharon pissed off the Bush admin by hinting to the ADL while in the US that the Bushies had helped him in preventing the Jenin inquiry.
We got trouble: and while Sharon is in the US a suicide bomber blows up a snooker hall. Which I wouldn’t have mentioned, but I wanted to make the We got trouble joke.
Hilariously, the Israelis and Palestinians were proposing to exile people from the Church of the Nativity to Italy without asking Italy first. Italy says no, meaning it wants a present. Like being the location of the proposed Middle East conference.
Sharon is now making demands about restructuring the Palestinian authority. I thought the Israeli army already did that. And where Powell proposes a conference in which neither Sharon nor Arafat go so they don’t have to meet, Sharon proposes that he go and Arafat not.
I’d been wondering why the US was planning to un-sign the treaty setting up the war crimes court, which seemed like an unnecessary symbolic gesture. But actually, under the Vienna Convention of 1969, if a country has signed a treaty, even if it hasn’t ratified it, it’s not supposed to actively undermine that treaty. So now we can.
The London Times claimed yesterday that Pim Fortuyn’s assassination robbed European politics of its innocence (that was an op-ed headline). Yes, innocence, that was exactly the word I was looking for to describe European politics. A Dutch paper applied the same phrase to the Netherlands, which at least makes more sense. Although if your assassinated politician is a racist, you might wish to rethink the whole innocence angle there too. He was killed by an animal rights activist, which makes it that little bit sillier.
If the NY Times seemed completely unsure what position Fortuyn actually held in the Rotterdam government, it also failed to explain how Chirac was able to just pick a new prime minister in what is supposed to be a parliamentary system (I don’t know the answer to this one myself). He will serve only 6 weeks, but plans to pretend to crack down on crime in a big way to secure the Le Pen voters, acting by decree rather than legislation. Explain to me again how this was a victory for democracy?
The Bushies have now *officially* taken the position that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of individuals, not in a militia, to own guns, evidently including machine guns.
I assumed that Israel had forged the documents it claims link Arafat to terrorism. Instead, it seems that they just lied about the content of those document. Speaking as an academic, there’s nothing as annoying as shoddy scholarship.
Sharon pissed off the Bush admin by hinting to the ADL while in the US that the Bushies had helped him in preventing the Jenin inquiry.
We got trouble: and while Sharon is in the US a suicide bomber blows up a snooker hall. Which I wouldn’t have mentioned, but I wanted to make the We got trouble joke.
Hilariously, the Israelis and Palestinians were proposing to exile people from the Church of the Nativity to Italy without asking Italy first. Italy says no, meaning it wants a present. Like being the location of the proposed Middle East conference.
Sharon is now making demands about restructuring the Palestinian authority. I thought the Israeli army already did that. And where Powell proposes a conference in which neither Sharon nor Arafat go so they don’t have to meet, Sharon proposes that he go and Arafat not.
I’d been wondering why the US was planning to un-sign the treaty setting up the war crimes court, which seemed like an unnecessary symbolic gesture. But actually, under the Vienna Convention of 1969, if a country has signed a treaty, even if it hasn’t ratified it, it’s not supposed to actively undermine that treaty. So now we can.
The London Times claimed yesterday that Pim Fortuyn’s assassination robbed European politics of its innocence (that was an op-ed headline). Yes, innocence, that was exactly the word I was looking for to describe European politics. A Dutch paper applied the same phrase to the Netherlands, which at least makes more sense. Although if your assassinated politician is a racist, you might wish to rethink the whole innocence angle there too. He was killed by an animal rights activist, which makes it that little bit sillier.
If the NY Times seemed completely unsure what position Fortuyn actually held in the Rotterdam government, it also failed to explain how Chirac was able to just pick a new prime minister in what is supposed to be a parliamentary system (I don’t know the answer to this one myself). He will serve only 6 weeks, but plans to pretend to crack down on crime in a big way to secure the Le Pen voters, acting by decree rather than legislation. Explain to me again how this was a victory for democracy?
The Bushies have now *officially* taken the position that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of individuals, not in a militia, to own guns, evidently including machine guns.
Sunday, May 05, 2002
If you’ve been paying attention to the Bush admin’s Middle East rhetoric the last few days, you’ll have noticed that they have found something new with which to beat up Yasir Arafat: corruption, a word that now makes its way into every speech. I’m not sure what the point of this is.
I read a story told by one of those Israeli reservists who refused to serve in the Re-Occupied Territories (of whom there have been almost none in the last month and a half, if you were wondering). When he was previously serving on roadblock duty, the army asked if the platoon needed anything. Washing water, they said, so a digger fractured a pipe, giving 10 Israelis the ability to wash on duty, while a village of 5,000 had no water for 5 days.
The World Cup is being held in Seoul this year and there is a major push on to promote the eating of dog, with lots of free samples for the tourists, including some sort of liquid dog that is expected to make them forget about Pepsi forever.
Hurrah, hurrah, Jacques Chirac is reelected. Bush has not used the word corruption about him, but surely a “victory for democracy” would have meant that this corrupt embezzler would have been hounded out of public life and into a jail cell.
I read a story told by one of those Israeli reservists who refused to serve in the Re-Occupied Territories (of whom there have been almost none in the last month and a half, if you were wondering). When he was previously serving on roadblock duty, the army asked if the platoon needed anything. Washing water, they said, so a digger fractured a pipe, giving 10 Israelis the ability to wash on duty, while a village of 5,000 had no water for 5 days.
The World Cup is being held in Seoul this year and there is a major push on to promote the eating of dog, with lots of free samples for the tourists, including some sort of liquid dog that is expected to make them forget about Pepsi forever.
Hurrah, hurrah, Jacques Chirac is reelected. Bush has not used the word corruption about him, but surely a “victory for democracy” would have meant that this corrupt embezzler would have been hounded out of public life and into a jail cell.
Friday, May 03, 2002
For a good time, call...
212-479-7990. (This is a number intended to be given to people in bars in NY). Oh, just call it.
The Israelis let Yasir Arafat out. He immediately saw his shadow, meaning six more millennia of intractable turbulence. [Daily Show joke]
God created war to teach Americans geography. [European joke]
The golf ball martyr is out of prison pending an appeal.
However South Carolina just executed someone who probably didn’t do it. He’s supposed to have killed a state trooper, and was convicted on the evidence of his hitch-hiker, who is a loon and has since confessed. The state Sup Court had a judge check it out and he said that she told so many stories, her confession can’t be believed. As opposed to her original testimony.
Dick Armey says that it’s ok if Israel grabs the entire West Bank and expels all the Palestinians. And the Senate and House both pass resolutions taking Israel’s side, the House saying that Arafat is not “a viable partner for peace.” Unless you use Bush’s dictionary, in which Sharon is a man of peace.
The Israelis let Yasir Arafat out. He immediately saw his shadow, meaning six more millennia of intractable turbulence. [Daily Show joke]
God created war to teach Americans geography. [European joke]
The golf ball martyr is out of prison pending an appeal.
However South Carolina just executed someone who probably didn’t do it. He’s supposed to have killed a state trooper, and was convicted on the evidence of his hitch-hiker, who is a loon and has since confessed. The state Sup Court had a judge check it out and he said that she told so many stories, her confession can’t be believed. As opposed to her original testimony.
Dick Armey says that it’s ok if Israel grabs the entire West Bank and expels all the Palestinians. And the Senate and House both pass resolutions taking Israel’s side, the House saying that Arafat is not “a viable partner for peace.” Unless you use Bush’s dictionary, in which Sharon is a man of peace.
Thursday, May 02, 2002
Just a few days after Linda Lovelace dies, we find out that Woodward and Bernstein’s Deep Throat was one Mark Felt. So now we know. Maybe.
A new site www.medialens.org, is worth checking out, for articles on subjects and perspectives ill-treated by the media. Check out, for example, the Noam Chomsky piece on the Middle East.
Follow-ups: the US was force-feeding prisoners in Guantanamo last week, but isn’t now, although it will go back to it since they still aren’t eating. Prisoners are being tortured in our name, but no one cares. It’s nice to know that American justice is better than that of Saudi Arabia, where they just extracted two teeth from a man who knocked out two teeth from another man in a fight (they also fined, flogged and imprisoned him).
And the guy with the missing leg in Texas was finally executed yesterday, and they still wouldn’t give him an artificial leg. So he was wheeled in. A proud day.
It’s always fun when Republicans’ worst instincts conflict with their other worst instincts. In this case, a bankruptcy bill written by the credit card companies to screw consumers is being held up because it may harm the ability of anti-abortion protestors to declare bankruptcy in order to avoid paying fines and damages.
A new site www.medialens.org, is worth checking out, for articles on subjects and perspectives ill-treated by the media. Check out, for example, the Noam Chomsky piece on the Middle East.
Follow-ups: the US was force-feeding prisoners in Guantanamo last week, but isn’t now, although it will go back to it since they still aren’t eating. Prisoners are being tortured in our name, but no one cares. It’s nice to know that American justice is better than that of Saudi Arabia, where they just extracted two teeth from a man who knocked out two teeth from another man in a fight (they also fined, flogged and imprisoned him).
And the guy with the missing leg in Texas was finally executed yesterday, and they still wouldn’t give him an artificial leg. So he was wheeled in. A proud day.
It’s always fun when Republicans’ worst instincts conflict with their other worst instincts. In this case, a bankruptcy bill written by the credit card companies to screw consumers is being held up because it may harm the ability of anti-abortion protestors to declare bankruptcy in order to avoid paying fines and damages.
Wednesday, May 01, 2002
5 years of Tony Blair, as of today, and 50 years of QE2. To show that British politics are no less dysfunctional than Lizzie’s family, there were endless difficulties in working up a seating chart that accommodated the 4 living former prime ministers (primes minister?), who all hate each other.
A Sunday Times poll suggested that if Britain had a party like the French Front Nationale, anti-immigrant and anti-Europe, 22% would vote for it. The suggestion is that if fascist parties weren’t unrespectable, there would be a major constituency for them. I picture it like a junior high dance, with all the guys hanging out at one end of the gym, waiting for one or two of them to cross over and make it ok. And this is everywhere. The support for the old parties and support for representative democracy, is growing thinner and thinner. Where it was never that strong, Zimbabwe and Pakistan, say, we’ve seen unsubtle parodies of the democratic process (the US says of Pakistan’s referendum today, in which anyone could vote anywhere as many times as they wished and counting was done centrally with no oversight, that it was Pakistan’s internal affair.) Hugo Chavez led a failed coup and then was actually elected, which means no one could expect that he’d necessarily leave when his term was up. But in the last decade, we’ve seen support for old ruling parties literally evaporate in Italy, Canada. Italy’s ruling party is named after a football team. 1/3 of electors in France’s presidential election voted for fascist or trotskyite candidates. A wrestler is governor of Minnesota, and the cuteness of that has rather worn off. I’m telling you, if a fascist party could get itself that first 20% of the vote in most countries of the world including this one, the next 20% would just roll in. The continuing debate on how to handle Le Pen in today’s Guardian (guardian.co.uk/worldlatest) is instructive: do you debate him, do you go out in the streets yelling No passaran, do you ignore him? There is no consensus on how to make it clear that fascism is unacceptable to an electorate that doesn’t understand that already.
A Sunday Times poll suggested that if Britain had a party like the French Front Nationale, anti-immigrant and anti-Europe, 22% would vote for it. The suggestion is that if fascist parties weren’t unrespectable, there would be a major constituency for them. I picture it like a junior high dance, with all the guys hanging out at one end of the gym, waiting for one or two of them to cross over and make it ok. And this is everywhere. The support for the old parties and support for representative democracy, is growing thinner and thinner. Where it was never that strong, Zimbabwe and Pakistan, say, we’ve seen unsubtle parodies of the democratic process (the US says of Pakistan’s referendum today, in which anyone could vote anywhere as many times as they wished and counting was done centrally with no oversight, that it was Pakistan’s internal affair.) Hugo Chavez led a failed coup and then was actually elected, which means no one could expect that he’d necessarily leave when his term was up. But in the last decade, we’ve seen support for old ruling parties literally evaporate in Italy, Canada. Italy’s ruling party is named after a football team. 1/3 of electors in France’s presidential election voted for fascist or trotskyite candidates. A wrestler is governor of Minnesota, and the cuteness of that has rather worn off. I’m telling you, if a fascist party could get itself that first 20% of the vote in most countries of the world including this one, the next 20% would just roll in. The continuing debate on how to handle Le Pen in today’s Guardian (guardian.co.uk/worldlatest) is instructive: do you debate him, do you go out in the streets yelling No passaran, do you ignore him? There is no consensus on how to make it clear that fascism is unacceptable to an electorate that doesn’t understand that already.
Monday, April 29, 2002
That poor, poor bicycle repair man
The Washington Post headline has the Israelis “retaliating” again.
A joke: Donald Rumsfeld and his top aides go to the Oval Office. Rummy tells Bush that the invasion of Iraq will kill ten million Iraqi civilians and a bicycle repairman. Bush asks, “What’s this about a bicycle repairman?” Rumsfeld turns to his aides and says, “See, I said no one cares about the Iraqi civilians.”
Madagascar may be in the process of splitting apart. I’m not sure even they care. I like Madagascar because they have great names and I know how to pronounce them, having taken African history courses.
www.fwfr.com. Movies reviewed in four words.
A cricket pitcher has broken the 100 mph barrier. I started losing you people around Madagascar and it’s just going downhill, isn’t it?
The hunger strike and forcible feeding of Guantanamo detainees, front page news 4 weeks ago, still hasn’t been worth a single follow-up. Did it end 4 weeks ago, is it still going on? And not a word in weeks or months on the anthrax investigation.
Also not making the NY Times is Mugabe’s new target of attacks in
Zimbabwe, the Asian populace. If anyone’s memories extended as far back as Uganda in the 1970s, this might be a source of some worry, but it doesn’t. A couple of weeks ago George W. was asked if his father had made a mistake in not deposing Saddam Hussein; his response: “I can’t remember that far back.” The man truly speaks for the American people. Oh well, as they say at the White House, “Don’t nuance it to death.”
A joke: Donald Rumsfeld and his top aides go to the Oval Office. Rummy tells Bush that the invasion of Iraq will kill ten million Iraqi civilians and a bicycle repairman. Bush asks, “What’s this about a bicycle repairman?” Rumsfeld turns to his aides and says, “See, I said no one cares about the Iraqi civilians.”
Madagascar may be in the process of splitting apart. I’m not sure even they care. I like Madagascar because they have great names and I know how to pronounce them, having taken African history courses.
www.fwfr.com. Movies reviewed in four words.
A cricket pitcher has broken the 100 mph barrier. I started losing you people around Madagascar and it’s just going downhill, isn’t it?
The hunger strike and forcible feeding of Guantanamo detainees, front page news 4 weeks ago, still hasn’t been worth a single follow-up. Did it end 4 weeks ago, is it still going on? And not a word in weeks or months on the anthrax investigation.
Also not making the NY Times is Mugabe’s new target of attacks in
Zimbabwe, the Asian populace. If anyone’s memories extended as far back as Uganda in the 1970s, this might be a source of some worry, but it doesn’t. A couple of weeks ago George W. was asked if his father had made a mistake in not deposing Saddam Hussein; his response: “I can’t remember that far back.” The man truly speaks for the American people. Oh well, as they say at the White House, “Don’t nuance it to death.”
Sunday, April 28, 2002
I’m writing on Sunday night, and the UN commission to investigate Jenin still hasn’t begun work. Israel, which has nothing whatsoever to hide, keeps adding conditions, which now include only allowing it to speak to Israelis the government chooses, monitoring other interviews, telling the UN where it can and can’t go, and it wants none of the evidence collected ever to be used in, oh, say, a war crimes trial.
Under the new “anti-terrorism” laws, Michigan police can keep secret the reason for a search.
The farm bill is complete, and California is getting screwed, no surprise there. After last year’s posting on the web of the billionaires getting farm aid, they’ve decided not to have any limit on the amount of aid any single person can get (ok there is one, but with a zillion exemptions), and they’re going to keep the names of recipients secret this time. Agribusiness as usual.
Under the new “anti-terrorism” laws, Michigan police can keep secret the reason for a search.
The farm bill is complete, and California is getting screwed, no surprise there. After last year’s posting on the web of the billionaires getting farm aid, they’ve decided not to have any limit on the amount of aid any single person can get (ok there is one, but with a zillion exemptions), and they’re going to keep the names of recipients secret this time. Agribusiness as usual.
Saturday, April 27, 2002
OK, I can’t hold it in any longer: a German commits mass murder, how could it be?
I’m better now.
A Guardian columnist informed his readers that his birthday was coming up and the one thing he didn’t want was the CD-ROM, just out, of the complete public statements of Margaret Thatcher, 1945-1990. 14 million words. #293.75, which the columnist thought was a suspiciously specific price.
Speaking of suspiciously specific, how about Cardinal George’s comments about there being a difference between a paedophile and someone who, say, has sex with a consenting 16-year old girl when he’s drunk? I liked the line in the policy statement about throwing out only “notorious” child-molesters. My computer dictionary says notorious means widely known, which is what they were trying to avoid by moving them around. I also liked whichever cardinal that was who said that even celibate homosexuals couldn’t be priests because they wouldn’t be giving up anything good, like marriage and heterosexual sex, but something bad, like gay sex. Yup, trust the Catholic hierarchy to turn this into an opportunity for gay-bashing.
It didn’t make it into any of the three papers I just read, but the Pakistani supreme court rejected a bid to stop Musharaf’s referendum as being unconstitutional. I don’t know how you even go about applying constitutionality to a referendum to maintain in power someone who seized it unconstitutionally in the first place.
A piece in one of the British newspaper on Bush’s pushing of abstinence-only sex ed. gives the figure that the programs postpone sexual activity by 18 months, but fails to note (and I mention it now in case any article you’ve read has done the same) that when they do have sex, they’re much more likely to have unprotected sex, presumably because they’ve never been taught any better. Bush wants to spend $135 million per year on this.
A Daily Telegraph headline, which was a lot more interesting before I realized what it actually meant: Internet Kills off Porn “Dinosaurs”.
A new trend: storing cells of umbilical blood, containing stem cells useful if baby needs a transfusion or bone marrow transplant. Cost (in pounds, though it’s mostly an American practice): #1,000 plus 70 per year.
Ariel Sharon’s approval ratings have shot up since last month from 35% to 65%. Israel is only going to get nastier, you know. There’s a fair amount of talk about the Palestinians out-breeding the Israelis, but among the Israelis, it’s the religious fanatics who out-breed rabbits, and the last decade’s immigrants have mostly been from the outer Soviet republics and transfer their existing racist antipathies from Asians to Palestinians. Right now the country is as open-minded and liberal as it’s ever going to be again.
I’m better now.
A Guardian columnist informed his readers that his birthday was coming up and the one thing he didn’t want was the CD-ROM, just out, of the complete public statements of Margaret Thatcher, 1945-1990. 14 million words. #293.75, which the columnist thought was a suspiciously specific price.
Speaking of suspiciously specific, how about Cardinal George’s comments about there being a difference between a paedophile and someone who, say, has sex with a consenting 16-year old girl when he’s drunk? I liked the line in the policy statement about throwing out only “notorious” child-molesters. My computer dictionary says notorious means widely known, which is what they were trying to avoid by moving them around. I also liked whichever cardinal that was who said that even celibate homosexuals couldn’t be priests because they wouldn’t be giving up anything good, like marriage and heterosexual sex, but something bad, like gay sex. Yup, trust the Catholic hierarchy to turn this into an opportunity for gay-bashing.
It didn’t make it into any of the three papers I just read, but the Pakistani supreme court rejected a bid to stop Musharaf’s referendum as being unconstitutional. I don’t know how you even go about applying constitutionality to a referendum to maintain in power someone who seized it unconstitutionally in the first place.
A piece in one of the British newspaper on Bush’s pushing of abstinence-only sex ed. gives the figure that the programs postpone sexual activity by 18 months, but fails to note (and I mention it now in case any article you’ve read has done the same) that when they do have sex, they’re much more likely to have unprotected sex, presumably because they’ve never been taught any better. Bush wants to spend $135 million per year on this.
A Daily Telegraph headline, which was a lot more interesting before I realized what it actually meant: Internet Kills off Porn “Dinosaurs”.
A new trend: storing cells of umbilical blood, containing stem cells useful if baby needs a transfusion or bone marrow transplant. Cost (in pounds, though it’s mostly an American practice): #1,000 plus 70 per year.
Ariel Sharon’s approval ratings have shot up since last month from 35% to 65%. Israel is only going to get nastier, you know. There’s a fair amount of talk about the Palestinians out-breeding the Israelis, but among the Israelis, it’s the religious fanatics who out-breed rabbits, and the last decade’s immigrants have mostly been from the outer Soviet republics and transfer their existing racist antipathies from Asians to Palestinians. Right now the country is as open-minded and liberal as it’s ever going to be again.
Thursday, April 25, 2002
smoking goat gonads
You might want to check out the latest Molly Ivins column (creators.com/opinions.html), which contains the phrase found in my subject line.
So Arafat had a nice little kangaroo court for the alleged assassins of the racist Israeli tourist minister, a court at which no real lawyers or judges were present, and sentenced them, and the Israelis still aren’t happy. Well, tough shit, because it still complied with the 1993 peace accords. Like it or not, Israel can no longer demand that they be handed over.
The other Trial of the Week occurred in Britain, where a man was sentenced to 6 months for stealing golf balls. He was caught emerging in a wet-suit from the water hazard of a golf club with 1,158 balls. He quite rightly argued that the balls were lost and therefore recoverable by anyone, and that no one could prove that those golf balls belonged to the golf club in which they were found. Says the Daily Telegraph, Free the Whetstone Golf Club One!
The US’s funding of the Venezuelan opposition comes out. Why does the National Endowment for Democracy still exist? You only hear about it when it’s trying to influence foreign elections or destabilize a country the US government doesn’t like.
So Arafat had a nice little kangaroo court for the alleged assassins of the racist Israeli tourist minister, a court at which no real lawyers or judges were present, and sentenced them, and the Israelis still aren’t happy. Well, tough shit, because it still complied with the 1993 peace accords. Like it or not, Israel can no longer demand that they be handed over.
The other Trial of the Week occurred in Britain, where a man was sentenced to 6 months for stealing golf balls. He was caught emerging in a wet-suit from the water hazard of a golf club with 1,158 balls. He quite rightly argued that the balls were lost and therefore recoverable by anyone, and that no one could prove that those golf balls belonged to the golf club in which they were found. Says the Daily Telegraph, Free the Whetstone Golf Club One!
The US’s funding of the Venezuelan opposition comes out. Why does the National Endowment for Democracy still exist? You only hear about it when it’s trying to influence foreign elections or destabilize a country the US government doesn’t like.
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
Something fairly remarkable happened last week. The US was applauding a coup in Venezuela, and it was supported in this by not a single Latin American country.
Some of the coup leaders have turned up in Florida (where else?). Do you suppose they will be excluded from the country? We do have laws about that, and in fact used them in the past against another Venezuelan coup leader, Hugo Chavez.
A German artist was arrested in Salzburg, Austria (as was I, once). On the municipal building is a plaque with a single sentence from Theodore Herzl: “I spent some of the happiest hours of my life in Salzburg.” The artist added the rest of the quote, which is that he couldn’t stay there because they’d never let a Jew be a judge.
This should be fun. Kofi Annan is now threatening to send the UN inspection team to Jenin despite Israel’s insistence that it not show up until, oh, October-ish, around tea time. This after letting Israel veto members of the team, including former Irish president Mary Robinson. I’m sure the US will treat this with the same indignation poured on Iraq when it tries this sort of thing.
Some of the coup leaders have turned up in Florida (where else?). Do you suppose they will be excluded from the country? We do have laws about that, and in fact used them in the past against another Venezuelan coup leader, Hugo Chavez.
A German artist was arrested in Salzburg, Austria (as was I, once). On the municipal building is a plaque with a single sentence from Theodore Herzl: “I spent some of the happiest hours of my life in Salzburg.” The artist added the rest of the quote, which is that he couldn’t stay there because they’d never let a Jew be a judge.
This should be fun. Kofi Annan is now threatening to send the UN inspection team to Jenin despite Israel’s insistence that it not show up until, oh, October-ish, around tea time. This after letting Israel veto members of the team, including former Irish president Mary Robinson. I’m sure the US will treat this with the same indignation poured on Iraq when it tries this sort of thing.
Monday, April 22, 2002
You can tell a lot about a democracy by who it blames when the results of the democratic process are profoundly unsatisfactory.
That’s a great start for an essay on the results of the first round of the French presidential election. Too bad I’m not going to write that essay. Still. The Times yesterday blamed an electoral system that allowed in too many candidates. I think we’ll get a lot of the “too much democracy” line. Lets all blame Ralph Nader again. Voter apathy is a good one, provided we not blame the voters for the failures of the politicians. Britain is facing local elections in which the neo-nazis might do well if the turnout is low, so France has focused minds on getting the voters out. I think most “democracies” have gotten way too willing to play to the committed voters and ignore how many people won’t bother to vote for the choices handed to them. But there is so much in modern politics to be cynical about. Jospin looks way too much like Dr Strangelove and has the personality of an Al Gore. The crime isn’t that he lost to Le Pen, it’s that he wasn’t ever going to beat Chirac, a man with 7 corruption investigations that he’s ducking. Or Italy, run by a man who built an empire on Mafia money and rewrites the conflict of interest laws to eliminate the crimes he likes to commit. These two should be in jail. Gerhard Schroeder is pissing away the electoral lead the SPD used to have in Germany and is more concerned with going to court against anyone who says his hair is dyed. Which it is. I mean, come on. Democracy won the ideological battle against communism, and is now daily losing it to influence-buyers and hair-dyers.
That’s a great start for an essay on the results of the first round of the French presidential election. Too bad I’m not going to write that essay. Still. The Times yesterday blamed an electoral system that allowed in too many candidates. I think we’ll get a lot of the “too much democracy” line. Lets all blame Ralph Nader again. Voter apathy is a good one, provided we not blame the voters for the failures of the politicians. Britain is facing local elections in which the neo-nazis might do well if the turnout is low, so France has focused minds on getting the voters out. I think most “democracies” have gotten way too willing to play to the committed voters and ignore how many people won’t bother to vote for the choices handed to them. But there is so much in modern politics to be cynical about. Jospin looks way too much like Dr Strangelove and has the personality of an Al Gore. The crime isn’t that he lost to Le Pen, it’s that he wasn’t ever going to beat Chirac, a man with 7 corruption investigations that he’s ducking. Or Italy, run by a man who built an empire on Mafia money and rewrites the conflict of interest laws to eliminate the crimes he likes to commit. These two should be in jail. Gerhard Schroeder is pissing away the electoral lead the SPD used to have in Germany and is more concerned with going to court against anyone who says his hair is dyed. Which it is. I mean, come on. Democracy won the ideological battle against communism, and is now daily losing it to influence-buyers and hair-dyers.
Saturday, April 20, 2002
Tom DeLay, House Majority Whip (this is from the Saturday Washington Post) tells some Baptists that God is using him to promote a “biblical worldview” in American politics and that he wanted Clinton impeached so badly because he held “the wrong worldview.” He also told parents to send their children to good Christian colleges, and not to Texas A & M and Baylor, the latter of which expelled him for drinking and carousing (did you know that? I didn’t.)
The US is going to go for the death penalty against a former Air Force guy who thought about selling secrets to Iraq and Libya. That is, he wrote letters suggesting such a deal, although he may not actually have sent them, if I understand this correctly. So there may be no actual crime, and they’re trying to use the death penalty for something that isn’t murder. This is bad. It gets worse. They plan to claim that he actually did sell secrets, but since they have no evidence of it, they’re planning to make that claim only in the penalty phase.
Yet more stories from Jenin. The considered opinions of the reporters from the Observer and the Sunday Times are that there was no massacre per se, but that it was pretty bad. My favorite story is this family of 13 people the soldiers kept confined to one room while they operated from the rest of the house (i.e., they were kept around as human shields). The soldiers fed the dog but not the children.
The US is going to go for the death penalty against a former Air Force guy who thought about selling secrets to Iraq and Libya. That is, he wrote letters suggesting such a deal, although he may not actually have sent them, if I understand this correctly. So there may be no actual crime, and they’re trying to use the death penalty for something that isn’t murder. This is bad. It gets worse. They plan to claim that he actually did sell secrets, but since they have no evidence of it, they’re planning to make that claim only in the penalty phase.
Yet more stories from Jenin. The considered opinions of the reporters from the Observer and the Sunday Times are that there was no massacre per se, but that it was pretty bad. My favorite story is this family of 13 people the soldiers kept confined to one room while they operated from the rest of the house (i.e., they were kept around as human shields). The soldiers fed the dog but not the children.
Friday, April 19, 2002
Don’t nuance it to death
Two incredibly British stories: a woman is reported to the RSPCA for neglect of her dog. Reported by a burglar. And the man who ran a marathon for charity wearing a 120 pound deep sea diver’s outfit, in only 128 hours, 29 minutes and 46 seconds. I saw the last few feet on the BBC, and it was painful just to watch. He also runs super-marathons in the Sahara (whatever those may be, I don’t want to know), has climbed Everest and is thinking of bicycling across Australia. He recovered from leukemia himself.
Bob Barr’s report on the vandalism by outgoing Clinton staffers revealed $14,000 in damage (if you include a lot of normal wear and tear). 170 members of the Bush and Clinton staffs were interviewed, at a cost of something like $200,000.
In the Times there is the diary of a 15-year old Palestinian girl in Jenin, whose house was taken over by Israeli soldiers. She got to see her father used as a human shield.
A NY Times columnist, the new guy whose name I can never remember, notes that the director of Medicare and Medicaid has defied a subpoena to testify before Congress. See, the Bush admin figures on future health-care spending are ridiculously low, too low to stand up to any questioning at all. This is in order to bolster the Bush claim that tax cuts can be afforded.
Everyone’s still trying to figure out what Bush meant yesterday when talking about the failed Powell mission. He seems to have given permission for the Israelis to keep doing what they’re doing, but an official, unnamed, told the press “Don’t nuance it to death.” I think George W. has just been given a new motto.
Bob Barr’s report on the vandalism by outgoing Clinton staffers revealed $14,000 in damage (if you include a lot of normal wear and tear). 170 members of the Bush and Clinton staffs were interviewed, at a cost of something like $200,000.
In the Times there is the diary of a 15-year old Palestinian girl in Jenin, whose house was taken over by Israeli soldiers. She got to see her father used as a human shield.
A NY Times columnist, the new guy whose name I can never remember, notes that the director of Medicare and Medicaid has defied a subpoena to testify before Congress. See, the Bush admin figures on future health-care spending are ridiculously low, too low to stand up to any questioning at all. This is in order to bolster the Bush claim that tax cuts can be afforded.
Everyone’s still trying to figure out what Bush meant yesterday when talking about the failed Powell mission. He seems to have given permission for the Israelis to keep doing what they’re doing, but an official, unnamed, told the press “Don’t nuance it to death.” I think George W. has just been given a new motto.
Thursday, April 18, 2002
Declaring victory and going home
Bush is actually saying that Powell made progress, although most newspapers seem to be using the words “humiliating” and “defeat” in close proximity. But then Bush is the guy whose proclamation of Jewish Heritage Week used the phrase “in the Year of Our Lord 2002,” so his engagement with these things may not entirely be trusted.
Some unnamed government leaker said that Powell was getting along well with Sharon, that they had a “general thing going” (meaning that they were both former generals, not that the “thing” was non-specific). I assume this means that they can reminisce over the times they both ordered people buried alive by bulldozers, Powell in the Gulf War and Sharon at any number of times between 1953 and this week. Ah, memories.
Israel is opening a concentration camp in the Negev desert. Oh, and it’s taking as hostages the mothers and wives of the Palestinians who took sanctuary in the Church of the Nativity.
Bush the Elder famously considered the Bill of Rights to be very much a work in progress, supporting I once counted something like 7 or 8 constitutional amendments: school prayer, abortion, flag burning, balanced budget, I can’t remember what all else. Junior not so much, but he did just come out in favor of a “Victims Rights” amendment, which wasn’t important enough for the NY Times or Wash Post to mention, but I was reading the LA Times yesterday while waiting for the idiots in the microfilm room to figure out how I could read one reel without having to resort to a mirror.
Virtual child porn is upheld by a Supreme Court in which Clarence “Long Dong” Thomas was surprisingly quiet. Various aspects passed by 6-3 or 7-2. What’s wrong with the right wing of the court was demonstrated by the dissent in the 6-3 part allowing people to use computers to stick a child head on an adult body; they said that it would allow the pornographers to pretend that real child porn was photo-shopped. That’s surely an enforcement problem which has no place in a decision on constitutionality.
See the piece in Slate on Scalia’s advocacy of the torture of prisoners.
The Bushies can’t make up their mind about what they said to the
Venezuelan coup plotters and when they said it, taking back the early statement that they spoke with the leader on the very day he took power. Now they’re claiming that in their many secret talks with these people, they advised against a coup. Yeah, that’s believable. And Otto Reich is evidently giving secret briefings to Congress claiming that Cubans were involved in shooting demonstrators, which is possible I suppose but no one
else has even suggested it.
Some unnamed government leaker said that Powell was getting along well with Sharon, that they had a “general thing going” (meaning that they were both former generals, not that the “thing” was non-specific). I assume this means that they can reminisce over the times they both ordered people buried alive by bulldozers, Powell in the Gulf War and Sharon at any number of times between 1953 and this week. Ah, memories.
Israel is opening a concentration camp in the Negev desert. Oh, and it’s taking as hostages the mothers and wives of the Palestinians who took sanctuary in the Church of the Nativity.
Bush the Elder famously considered the Bill of Rights to be very much a work in progress, supporting I once counted something like 7 or 8 constitutional amendments: school prayer, abortion, flag burning, balanced budget, I can’t remember what all else. Junior not so much, but he did just come out in favor of a “Victims Rights” amendment, which wasn’t important enough for the NY Times or Wash Post to mention, but I was reading the LA Times yesterday while waiting for the idiots in the microfilm room to figure out how I could read one reel without having to resort to a mirror.
Virtual child porn is upheld by a Supreme Court in which Clarence “Long Dong” Thomas was surprisingly quiet. Various aspects passed by 6-3 or 7-2. What’s wrong with the right wing of the court was demonstrated by the dissent in the 6-3 part allowing people to use computers to stick a child head on an adult body; they said that it would allow the pornographers to pretend that real child porn was photo-shopped. That’s surely an enforcement problem which has no place in a decision on constitutionality.
See the piece in Slate on Scalia’s advocacy of the torture of prisoners.
The Bushies can’t make up their mind about what they said to the
Venezuelan coup plotters and when they said it, taking back the early statement that they spoke with the leader on the very day he took power. Now they’re claiming that in their many secret talks with these people, they advised against a coup. Yeah, that’s believable. And Otto Reich is evidently giving secret briefings to Congress claiming that Cubans were involved in shooting demonstrators, which is possible I suppose but no one
else has even suggested it.
Tuesday, April 16, 2002
The ant war continues, with the Argentinian ants beginning to take hold in England.
OK, when I first mentioned this yesterday it was as a curiosity of the natural world. Today I’d like to propose that it is actually the end of the world as we know it. These ants displace local ants, their sudden success after 80 years since their arrival in Europe is related to global warming, and, oh yes, they don’t spread seeds. Which is where the end of the world comes in, since there goes your ecosystem. Did I mention that the same ants are taking over in California?
Speaking of the end of the world, in a sure sign of the apocalypse, some politicians take responsbility for their own actions, the Dutch government resigning over their troops’ inability to stop the massacre in Srebrenica in 1995.
Speaking of massacres, in Jenin... ah, fuck it, next topic.
The Bush administration’s fingerprints turn up on the Venezuelan coup a lot sooner than I’d guessed. Did you notice that everyone who had contact with the coup plotters was a veteran of Reagan’s Contra wars? Latin American policy is full of these Ollie North wannabes like Otto Reich and Roger Pardo-Maurer, and whatever anonymous jerk admitted to the NY Times that Chavez was elected, but added “Legitimacy is something that is conferred not just by a majority of the voters, however.” Another ironic reference to Florida, I assume. The US may have done more than wink at the plotters, since there was some sort of American plane waiting to ferry Chavez out of the country. Ari Fleischer today did not deny this but gave this somewhat confusing, where not actually false, statement: “the transportation was arranged after his resignation through the Venezuelan military.” Note that Fleischer is still peddling the lie that Chavez resigned, a couple of days after some Congresscritters complained that they had been briefed by the government to that effect, with no evidence.
OK, when I first mentioned this yesterday it was as a curiosity of the natural world. Today I’d like to propose that it is actually the end of the world as we know it. These ants displace local ants, their sudden success after 80 years since their arrival in Europe is related to global warming, and, oh yes, they don’t spread seeds. Which is where the end of the world comes in, since there goes your ecosystem. Did I mention that the same ants are taking over in California?
Speaking of the end of the world, in a sure sign of the apocalypse, some politicians take responsbility for their own actions, the Dutch government resigning over their troops’ inability to stop the massacre in Srebrenica in 1995.
Speaking of massacres, in Jenin... ah, fuck it, next topic.
The Bush administration’s fingerprints turn up on the Venezuelan coup a lot sooner than I’d guessed. Did you notice that everyone who had contact with the coup plotters was a veteran of Reagan’s Contra wars? Latin American policy is full of these Ollie North wannabes like Otto Reich and Roger Pardo-Maurer, and whatever anonymous jerk admitted to the NY Times that Chavez was elected, but added “Legitimacy is something that is conferred not just by a majority of the voters, however.” Another ironic reference to Florida, I assume. The US may have done more than wink at the plotters, since there was some sort of American plane waiting to ferry Chavez out of the country. Ari Fleischer today did not deny this but gave this somewhat confusing, where not actually false, statement: “the transportation was arranged after his resignation through the Venezuelan military.” Note that Fleischer is still peddling the lie that Chavez resigned, a couple of days after some Congresscritters complained that they had been briefed by the government to that effect, with no evidence.
Monday, April 15, 2002
The US keeps going to Arafat with proposals that match Sharon’s agenda. Today’s is Powell’s idea of a conference to which Arafat would not be invited, but instead maybe foreign ministers. Powell himself this last week has been a perfect refutation of that idea, embodying the impotence of a foreign minister with no authority to do anything.
He did, however, get Arafat to condemn the most recent suicide bombing in Arabic. Israel immediately said that they couldn’t care less, that only action mattered. Which is fair enough, but why then has the Bush admin spent so much effort trying to get a concession that Israel wasn’t interested in in the first place?
Reporters for the London Times and Guardian have been wandering around Jenin, taking in the sights and talking to the locals. Someone in the Bush administration today talked about the need to end hatred of Israel. Read the reports and tell me what the appropriate attitude is.
Speaking of impotence, the pope has summoned all the US cardinals to Rome. Yup, a bunch of octogenarians sittin’ around talking about sex with children, wouldn’t you hate to be a fly on the wall at that one?
Speaking of insects, those in Europe have gotten strangely cooperative. Evidently they’ve inter-bred some, so they no longer smell each other as enemies, and the food situation has gotten pretty good, so a billions-strong super-hive now covers Italy, France, and Iberia, and is currently at war to subjugate the last remaining hold-outs in eastern Spain.
OK, fine, but I found it interesting. War correspondents’ reports on this battle may also be found in the Times and Guardian.
He did, however, get Arafat to condemn the most recent suicide bombing in Arabic. Israel immediately said that they couldn’t care less, that only action mattered. Which is fair enough, but why then has the Bush admin spent so much effort trying to get a concession that Israel wasn’t interested in in the first place?
Reporters for the London Times and Guardian have been wandering around Jenin, taking in the sights and talking to the locals. Someone in the Bush administration today talked about the need to end hatred of Israel. Read the reports and tell me what the appropriate attitude is.
Speaking of impotence, the pope has summoned all the US cardinals to Rome. Yup, a bunch of octogenarians sittin’ around talking about sex with children, wouldn’t you hate to be a fly on the wall at that one?
Speaking of insects, those in Europe have gotten strangely cooperative. Evidently they’ve inter-bred some, so they no longer smell each other as enemies, and the food situation has gotten pretty good, so a billions-strong super-hive now covers Italy, France, and Iberia, and is currently at war to subjugate the last remaining hold-outs in eastern Spain.
OK, fine, but I found it interesting. War correspondents’ reports on this battle may also be found in the Times and Guardian.
Sunday, April 14, 2002
Well, Hugo Chavez seems to be back, and after the White House openly gloated about the coup. Oops. The US ambassador should be about as popular as the Saudi ambassador to Britain who wrote poems in praise of the suicide bombers.
The Sunday Times (sunday-times.co.uk) is full of atrocity stories from the Israeli... what’s the Hebrew for blitzkrieg? I especially like the guy they used as a human shield, shoving him through doorways until he gets shot, not by Palestians but by an Israeli sniper, in the leg, so they just leave him in the street, where he stays 24 hours until someone pulls him in. Today Sharon deliberately ruined Powell’s breakfast by showing him pictures of mangled bodies while he was trying to eat.
Here’s a story of the Queen Mum you didn’t hear much about: in 1941 she had a bunch of her more embarrassing mentally retarded relations (not by blood, at least not the niece who just died) in a home, where they stayed the rest of their lives, the last of the 5 dying this week and going to a pauper’s grave (the home was NHS). The royal family at one point claimed that 2 of them were dead, which they were not.
In our country, on the other hand, mentally retarded relations of former presidents become presidents themselves.
The UN, it seems, is supporting the families of Serb war criminals. Not intentionally, but it’s paying their lawyers such high fees that the defendants are extorting kickbacks of 1/3 to 1/2.
The Sunday Times (sunday-times.co.uk) is full of atrocity stories from the Israeli... what’s the Hebrew for blitzkrieg? I especially like the guy they used as a human shield, shoving him through doorways until he gets shot, not by Palestians but by an Israeli sniper, in the leg, so they just leave him in the street, where he stays 24 hours until someone pulls him in. Today Sharon deliberately ruined Powell’s breakfast by showing him pictures of mangled bodies while he was trying to eat.
Here’s a story of the Queen Mum you didn’t hear much about: in 1941 she had a bunch of her more embarrassing mentally retarded relations (not by blood, at least not the niece who just died) in a home, where they stayed the rest of their lives, the last of the 5 dying this week and going to a pauper’s grave (the home was NHS). The royal family at one point claimed that 2 of them were dead, which they were not.
In our country, on the other hand, mentally retarded relations of former presidents become presidents themselves.
The UN, it seems, is supporting the families of Serb war criminals. Not intentionally, but it’s paying their lawyers such high fees that the defendants are extorting kickbacks of 1/3 to 1/2.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
