Flirtshirt

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show had the best reaction to Bush’s speech on corporate crime. After each proposal, they cut to Stewart’s stunned face--You mean convicted CEOs could become CEOs again? You mean they don’t have to attest to the accuracy of accounts now? You mean auditors can have conflicts of interest now? You mean if they profit from false accountancy, they can keep the money now? Are there are rules on Wall Street, he asked, can they just kill a guy for lookin’ at them?

Maybe it would be safer not to test that out.

By the way, Chimp Boy, we want to see the SEC case file on your role in Harken.

It’s been, what, 2 days since the Israeli Cabinet voted to institute racial segregation. Notice the wave of indignation from American politicians? Didn’t think so.

On news today, saw an Arthur Anderson promotional video from 1996 in which the company is praised by Dick Cheney. Priceless (although Arthur Anderson would put it in the plus column).

In US planning for war with Iraq, there arises the problem of what to do with Saddam Hussein, if he’s ever captured. Obviously not the international court. Another country-specific war crimes court? Current thinking is to let our Iraqi puppets set up a kangaroo court. Don’t expect the UN Security Council to have much to say about this: evidently the US is already parceling out the contracts to Iraqi oilfields like so many party favors.

London Times headline Thursday: Jordan to Let US Use Bases for War on Iraq. Daily Telegraph headline Thursday: Jordan Rejects Invasion Plan. The fix is only half in, I guess (man, I’m talking in nothing but clichés today). The hope seems to be that US troops will use Jordan, but that the Jordanian people don’t notice.

Mafiosi in prison in Italy are going on hunger strike to protest the prison regime. Joke for fans of The Sopranos: What, no fuckin’ ziti?

Daily Telegraph article:

T-shirts with hidden appeal

A Berlin designer has launched a range of T-shirts impregnated with pheromones, hormone-based scents said to attract the opposite sex. Anna Figoluschka, 26, says her “flirtshirt” gives its wearer an advantage when trying to stand out in a crowd. T-shirts with a blue anchor design contain male pheromones and those with a pink heart have female pheromones. Hannah Cleaver, Berlin

Confidence Game

Bush used the word “confidence” 5 times in his press conference. And many more in today’s speech. Which as I understand it put all the blame for corporate greed on the “late 90s.” I suppose that in the era-bashing department it makes a refreshing change from Republicans bitching about the 1960s.

Here’s a sentence you don’t see everyday, from a Daily Telegraph story:

A passenger who tried to smuggle her pet chameleon into Britain by wearing it as a hat was foiled by customs officers.

At his press conference, Bush was asked why he was not showing up at the NAACP annual meeting. He said, “Let’s see. There I was sitting around the table with foreign leaders looking at Colin Powell and Condi Rice...” before tailing off. Think Colls and Condi will set him right on why that was a stupid response? Me
neither.

The first article following is on Bush’s personal finances, the second compares the same to the standards he claims to be setting for others.

Restoring Confidence

New Yorker cartoon: 2 dogs looking at bowls filled with paper. Oh no, not homework again.

The German Christian Democrats are going after the gay vote, including a proposal I’ve never heard of in this country: giving gay partners spousal immunity from being forced to testify against each other.

The Israeli Cabinet votes 17-2 in favor of banning Palestinians buying houses in Jewish communities.

Hopefully, tonight’s news will juxtapose images of WorldCom executives refusing to testify before Congress with Bush calling questions of his own immoral and indeed illegal dealings with Harken Oil old-style politics. (That they were illegal is undeniable, whatever Bush might say.)

Look at the reporting of the hearings and of Bushs alleged plan to crack down on corporate malfeasance, and you will notice a lot of talk about the need to restore confidence. In fact, let me pause here and use that new-fangled Internet thingy to do a count.

OK, too early for a transcript. The White House site does have this headline, though: President Urges Congress to Support Nation’s Priorities. You’d think in a proper democracy, what the Congress supported would automatically constitute the nations priorities, wouldn’t you? Ah, just kidding.

At least twice, though. The problem is that confidence, for Bush as for the CEOs, is something to be manipulated. Harken, for example, used false accountancy methods (fuzzy math, if you will) to over-inflate its value, and Bush took advantage to sell his stock just before more accurate figures came out and the stock tanked. If he were selling anything other than stocks, that would count as fraud, selling something by pretending it is something else, like when they told me buying a computer would make my life easier. And since Bush was on the audit committee--and try picturing Chimp Boy on the audit committee of anything--this constitutes actual fraud. He doesnt want honesty in business, he wants confidence in business. How hard can that be to create, when the polls suggest that the American people have confidence in the leadership abilities of George W. Doofus? As I wrote this, I was reminded of something I wrote here last September 22:

The problem with Bush’s jihad is of course the one Republicans saw in every one of Clinton’s military adventures: no end strategy. Asked about that 2 days ago, Rumsfeld hemmed and hawed and then said that the end would be when Americans were persuaded that they were safe. Actually, much of what we’ve heard about security the last 2 weeks has been entirely about PR. Listen to it the next time someone talks about planes or skyscrapers: the language most of the time is about making people *feel* they are safe, not actually making people safer, except inasmuch as it is necessary to the goal of altering perception.

Indeed, much of Bush activity has been about creating the illusion of activity, given the complete inability to capture bin Laden or the Al Qaida leadership. Although as weve seen with the dirty bomb scare (remember that? just 4 weeks ago today) and vague terror alerts, perception can be altered in the other direction too when it suits the administrations needs.

So remember, when they talk about restoring confidence in the markets, what they mean is what they always mean: You are getting sleepy, sleepy, and when you wake up you will feel secure and confident and that your president isnt a mindless dipstick.

The Observer reports that teenage girls are using webcams to solicit gifts. [Oh good, my new, up to date word processor’s spellcheck has never heard of webcams. Um, or spellcheck, which is a bit worrying.] 14-year olds getting CDs in exchange for pictures of themselves. Also, some of these camgirls sell advertisement to hardcore websites. What a world! And how do you find these sites? Kidding, just kidding.

I mentioned the dog running against Katherine Harris. The website is www.percyforcongress.org. Putting the lick back into Republican.

The US has finally admitted that it killed civilians in Afghanistan, but still seems to be insisting that its planes came under anti-aircraft fire from the wedding party.

Looking at both print and television news sources, I sometimes conclude that a picture is worth zero words. Yesterday or the day before the BBC ran film from that incident a couple of weeks back where Israeli tanks fired on civilians, killing many, including children. The film shows the tank having a clear view of who it was it fired on (of their backs anyway--they were running away at the time) at close range. Nothing in any newspaper since.

The wisdom and the blessing of Divine Providence

I trust everyone saw the July 4 event in which everyone inc Shrub shouted the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance. Makes you proud to be a Christian, I mean American. Bush talked about how “the wisdom and the blessing of Divine Providence” have guided the nation. Oh good, I’d hate it to think it was you, George.

Japan’s farm minister says that whales cause (human) starvation by eating a lot of fish.

The US is planning to resume helping Peru and Colombia shoot down drug-smuggling planes, having passed the statute of limitations on fuckups just 14 months after participating in Peru’s little mishap with all the American missionaries. You may remember that the Americans working with the Peruvians at that time a) worked for a private contractor, b) didn’t speak very good Spanish. The contractor was actually a CIA front company, now defunct, which I assume means they were doing an end-run around Congressional undersight [see, I said I’d use that one at some point]. No one’s explaining why it’s a good idea to shoot down planes and kill people over drugs (it’s also against international law), as 38+ planes have been in Peru under this program, much less because they don’t respond to their radios; I mean, if I don’t answer your emails in a timely fashion, please don’t fire a missile at me. The CIA has taken its balls-up and gone home, so the State Department will be in charge of the resumed program and, once again, private contractors, mostly the same ones the CIA used. I don’t actually know which is worse, having the spooks telling foreigners when to shoot down planes, having diplomats do it, or having private contractors do it.

Those poor foreigners: we’re guided by the wisdom and the blessing of Divine Providence, all they get are lowest-bid contractors with bad Spanish-language skills.

I think I deserve some sort of credit for “taken its balls-up and gone home.”

Not knuckling under to Johnny Foreigner’s International Court

I reported some time back that a couple of months before 9/11, John Ashcroft took reports of terrorist threats seriously enough to stop flying commercial flights. I expected some degree of outrage, but instead the story was completely ignored. I think my original source was British, and the only attention its gotten in the American media has been in the Tom Tomorrow cartoon This Modern World.

Speaking of the media, CNN has been caving in to the Israeli government on how it reports on terrorists. This is after the local satellite company introduced Fox News & threatened to kick CNN off the air, and the Israeli gov. threatened reporters. CNN will stop reporting statements by suicide bombers (taped beforehand, obviously) and their families. Israelis have been complaining about moral equivalence in CNN reporting. Fine, let's balance out the terrorists with interviews with Israeli soldiers who bulldozed homes in Jenin with people inside (hey, I wonder how that UN inquiry is going. Oh, yeah.), or fired rockets from helicopters, etc etc. And their proud mothers as well.

Moral equivalency. Sheesh. I remember listening to the BBC in the 1980s, when Thatcher had declared IRA leaders unpersons in the media (following South African precedent), and they got some actor to dub Gerry Addams’s voice.

Since writing that, Ive seen a McNeil-Lehrer debate on the subject, in which a CNN flack talked about moral equivalency & not upsetting the families of Israeli victims of terrorist attacks. Just in case you thought of CNN as being in the news business.

Britain has been experimenting locally with loosening enforcement of marijuana laws. Headline in Daily Telegraph: Blair Under Pressure on Cannabis. And you know what could take the edge off that pressure...?

Bush looks like realizing that threatening to halt the UN peacekeeping mission in Bosnia in order to get his way on the International Court does not look good to the rest of the world. I don’t know, Bosnia occupied by soldiers from a nation which puts its own nationalistic goals ahead of international human rights standards, well at least its what they’re used to over there. Bush’s idea of a compromise would leave the court intact but give the US a permanent veto over its citizens actually having to appear before it, or to use his words, prevent them being drug in front of
it. The Unilateral States of America rides again.

The bridge & groom of that wedding party did survive, if anyone cares (the US media sure didn’t). The US media also, according to one British paper, gave far less time to this than to the one soldier in Afghanistan who got shot in the foot during a fire-fight. Moral equivalency, I guess. The US still hasn’t gotten its story straight on this one, no doubt in part because of the little detail that if the rocket was dropped by a B-52, as the original reports said, well a B-52 flies too high to be under any
threat from the anti-aircraft fire they claim it was under fire from.

Israel dismantles some settlement outposts. Empty ones. Big woop.

Note to Julius Caesar Watts: don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Katherine Harris, known as Cruella, will be running against a border collie named Percy in the Republican primary for Congress in Sarasota. We’ll know there have been more shenanigans if it appears that cats have voted for Percy.

Norway is introducing a scheme whereby anyone stopped by the police and asked for ID or frisked will be issued a receipt. It’s to cut down on racism.

Rumsfeld wants no rush on deciding whether dropping a missile into the middle of a wedding was a good or bad thing. And the Pentagon is refusing to issue an apology. Although to be fair, the newlyweds, assuming they’re still alive, probably won’t be issuing any thank you notes for the gift.

A NY Times columnist seems very sure he knows who was behind the anthrax attacks, and all but names him in an effort to get the FBI (his informant is clearly a Fibbie) off its ass. There really has been amazingly little pressure on the agency to solve this one, compared with, say, the Jon Benet Ramsey case.

Just as historic

Jiang Zemin rebukes the government of Hong Kong for failing to keep it as rich as it was when it was handed over to China five years ago. That’s probably because Zemin had Tung too busy suppressing democracy, such as the protesters who Zemin never saw during his visit. Hong Kong has actually become less open in many ways than China is.

The head of Kabul TV is fired--except that he refuses to go, which has worked for him in the past. He banned women from tv, especially women singing.

Maybe someone should suggest to the Afghans that they stop shooting into the air to celebrate weddings, since sometimes, these days, the air shoots back.

The Telegraph explains why American intelligence agencies can't track Arab terrorists: they have no single standard on how to spell (transliterate) their names. For example in the CIA computers, Muammar Gaddafi’s name is spelled no less than 60 different ways.

The Post reports that in April we reached a milestone I had missed: the 100th innocent person released from death row since the death penalty was reinstated. Hope he got a cake. The article also says that Ashcroft has been on a major death penalty push, which was inevitable but has gone unreported up until now. He overrides his own prosecutors to insist on going for death.

I’m going to give this quote without any comment:

The Supreme Court in 1954 declared that our nation cannot have two education systems, and that was the right decision,” Bush said. “Last week, what’s notable and important is that the court declared that our nation will not accept one education system for those who can afford to send their children to a school of their choice and for those who can’t, and that’s just as historic.”

Leka Zog, the pretender to the throne of Albania and son of the last king, returns home after a life-long exile. At the airport, the police find hand grenades and other weapons, 90 of them, in his luggage.

NY Times headline: “Gore Vows More Spontaneous Campaign.” Of course, he vows this two years in advance.

Washington Post headline: “Bush Resumes Power After Test.” Really easy graders, then.

Bush speaks against the false accountancy used by WorldCom, Xerox, etc. Reached for comment, Al Gore just sighed.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of vouchers for religious schools, saying they were neutral because they went to many types of religious school, ranging from Catholic all the way to Protestant. Evidently, aiding one religion is bad but aiding a bunch of religions is good, on the venerable legal principle that two wrongs don't make a right, but three do.

Bush very very quietly signs a law granting benefits to the gay partners (and/or other survivors named by the deceased) of cops and fire-fighters killed in the line of duty. The law is called the Village People Survivors Act of 2002.

The Supreme Court also ruled in favor of expanded drug testing in schools from athletic to other competitive extracurricular activities like Spanish club, choir, Future Homemakers of America (that can't really still exist, can it?) etc. Clarence Thomas writes that the drug problem is big enough to justify interfering with privacy rights, but that places without drug problems shouldn't have to wait for it to get bad (the Bush Doctrine in practice, a preemptive War on Drugs), and that suspicion isn't required, because to require suspicion would burden unpopular groups. Much of this is premised on the theory that schools act in loco parentis, and I think any theory that treats a part of the government as if they were parents is dangerous, not to mention creepy. My advice to students: destroy this policy by making it prohibitively expensive. Drug tests cost $30-60 each, so if they're drug-testing the chess club, everybody join the chess club.

Possible the stupidest comment on the pledge of allegiance decision, by Governor Gray Davis: “With troops overseas, this is the wrong decision at the worst possible time.”

Kevin asked me, regarding the Israeli security fence, who they'd get to build it. In fact, the contractor for the first stage actually is Palestinian, according to The Times, so there.

Bush supports keeping the pledge of allegiance just as it is because it is a confirmation that we receive our rights from God. Oh good, so it has nothing to do with religion then.

The Palestinians, of course, are much less lucky. They receive their rights, if at all, from George W. Bush. I rather thought yesterday that he might have shot himself in the foot by talking about democracy for the Palestinians, when he actually meant a highly circumscribed version of democracy, where there is freedom of choice only after the really good or popular candidates are eliminated from contention--the American version of democracy (and French, German...). He seemed to have left himself the problem of what to do when the Palestinians democratically reelect Arafat. Today he made it clearer: I’ve got confidence in the Palestinians, when they understand fully what we're saying, that they'll make the right decisions. Georgie, I’ve spent years trying to figure out what the hell you're saying.

That sentence is a variation of one of the most obnoxious Bush verbal traits, describing his own wishes as a necessity for the rest of the world, as in What Saddam Hussein needs to do is...

[Note: the spell-checker on Netscape suggested that for Saddam I actually might mean “sadism” and for Hussein “hussies.”]

The pledge of allegiance decision shouldnt bother anyone much longer, since the Supreme Courts school voucher decision today should ensure that there wont be any functioning public schools in which children might be forced to recite it. Problem solved.

On the way home with my new computer (did I mention I have a new
computer?), the decision was mentioned on NPRs Market Place program, someone saying that it meant the introduction of market economics into public schools. Oh, were already there. The focus on test result numbers, inflated by fair means and foul, means the schools are already fully WorldCom’d.

Add to that the NY Supreme Court decision of this week (note to Kevin: read Bob Herbert’s NY Times column on this) allowing the state to fund schools in a way that seriously screws NYC public schools. The Courts appellate panel ruled that the state is not obligated to provide more than a minimally adequate opportunity to get a decent education. Justice Alfred Lerner wrote: Society needs workers in all levels of jobs, the majority of which may very well be low level.

Michael Moore on Politically Incorrect tonight (last show Friday) said that every day is Roger and Me now, with corporate malfeasance finally right out in the open. Of course the pro-capitalists will say that the other corporations you dont hear about are perfectly fine and upright and honest, but Ive noticed that when we hear about corps for other reasons, like when theyre associated with politicians such as Haliburton, the Carlyle Group, Ross Perots EDS, etc etc, theyre equally problematic. Heres another one: Barrick Mining, a Canadian corp on whose board George Bush Sr sits, or actually a company that Barrick bought up, which mines for gold in Tanzania. Including in a place called Bulyanhulu, where it claimed to have a mining permitactually the permit was for an area 150 miles away and Bulyanhulu was reserved for mining by self-employed local miners. So there was a dispute, and the company used bulldozers to seal the mines to stop them being occupied--with more than 50 men inside.

The Vatican--the country--bans smoking indoors. If you must smoke after diddling a choir boy, go outside.

What, like you weren’t thinking the same thing?

I listened to some of the Senate “debate,” if something can be so called when no one argues the other side, on the pledge of allegiance. I needed something in the background not requiring much attention while I backed up some files, and this certainly fit the bill. Robert Byrd called the judges “stupid,” and the level of eloquence never rose above that. Then C-SPAN’s viewers called in, and they were worse. Worse than whatever Congresscritter that was who would have said that the judges should go back to Russia, but in these days that doesn’t apply and he couldn’t think of anywhere else, so he just said they should leave the country. The amount of emotion on this is incredible, and rather makes the point of how coercive the practice of saying the pledge must be. (Although I will say that no one even commented on my refusal, much less beat me up; I took more crap for my poem in the next year’s HS literary magazine--whose editor is on this list-- satirizing the schmalz of others writing on the death of John Lennon.)

WorldCom looks like going bankrupt because of fraudulent bookkeeping. Bush chastises executives for not looking after stockholders’ interests, completely forgetting to mention the thousands of employees about to lose their jobs.

FAIR has a report about Israel’s partly successful attempts to get news organizations to stop using the word “settlement.” The preferred term is Jewish “neighborhood.” Like Mr Rogers, but with uzis.

A funny correction in the NY Times today. An editorial had said that joining us in executing the retarded were only Japan and Kyrgyzstan. Evidently they were wrong about the latter [don’t make me type that again].

A funny moment as I listened to the news about the 9th circuit banning the pledge of allegiance: I heard them say that the guy who filed the suit lived in sacramental. Turned out to be our state capital, of course. Which might suggest his next lawsuit. Well, I feel vindicated for my principled refusal to recite the thing in the 11th grade.

I was reading about an attempt to get gay marriages in New Jersey (I’m picturing two women with really big hair), and it suddenly occurred to me how deeply offended I was by Catholic marriages. I think those people’s values--su Subject: misc
bjugation of women, enforced multiple pregnancies, ham--should not be given credence by having their so-called marriages endorsed by the state.

A day later, Bush’s speech looks worse than ever, even more of an unleashing of Sharon than I’d realized. Arafat amusingly said that Bush’s words didn’t apply to him, which Bush deserved for not using his name, and that Palestinian leadership was up to the Palestinians to decide. He diplomatically failed to mention Florida or the popular vote. A Guardian writer says that it’s refreshing to hear an American president enunciate so clearly his opinion that it is up to him to pick the leaders of other countries.

Bush is completely isolated in his “Turn yourself into Sweden before giving us a call” policy. Even Tony Blair won’t lapdog for him on this one.

So between 1998 and 2001 background checks for gun purchases prevented 200,000 felons acquiring weaponry. While letting through only 9,000 felons plus 3,000 convicted of domestic violence. By government standards a good job. Why are all those felons even applying?

The Supreme Court rules against judges deciding on death-penalty sentencing, which involves findings of fact rather than law (ie, aggravating factors), which are properly determined by a jury. Can’t disagree with that, although the very next case allowed judges to determine whether someone “brandished” or merely held a gun. Consistency never being a big thing with this Court. It seems that in states with elected judges, the judges are much more likely to fry ‘em than are juries, and the reverse where judges are non-elected. No one evidently is going to question whether there are other ways in which elected judges give different results, just as no one ever asks how many innocent people are convicted of non-death-penalty offenses that we consequently never hear about, how many court-appointed lawyers sleep through trials, etc etc.

In a hilarious opening paragraph, a Washington Post article says
“Fireproofing failures--rather than the impact of the plane
crashes--probably caused the World Trade Center towers to quickly
collapse”. My, what an unfortunately coincidence!

And I won’t even mention the split infinitive.

Germany and Austria seem to be increasingly assertive in favor of the ethnic Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia after the war, and now, future German chancellor Edmund Stoiber, whose wife was an expelled Sudeten German, is saying that Poland should also let its German population back in.

Speaking of unwelcome visitors, Israel is about to unleash the dogs of war on Gaza, which is so densely packed that the death count among civilians could be much higher than in the West Bank.

Which didn’t bother Bush when he gave his speech and failed to mention it. There are good analyses by the Washington Post, in the Guardian (guardian.co.uk/worldlatest) and by William Saletan in slate.com. I’m still making up my mind. Noticeably, Bush’s plan for Middle East peace in our time involved as small an American role as possible. In fact, I think this speech was it.

He did call on Israel to stop “settlement activity,” which I assume means a freeze rather than a withdrawal, and for a pull-back of troops. This is all to the good, although the second half was undermined by other statements by him recently and by the rest of the speech. Calling for Arafat to be removed immediately after Israeli troops put him under siege again looks like endorsement of Sharon’s policy. Which it is, of course. Bush probably foresees another loya jirga, where he gets to call for democracy, but only after the US pressures anyone it doesn’t like into not running. Sharon, as the Guardian piece suggests, foresees another Bashir
Gemayel, the man he foisted on Lebanon as its “president” in 1982 after a remarkably similar invasion. Sharon wanted a force to do the dirty work while Israelis looked on, and yes, I’m talking about Sabra and Shatila again.

I could swear I heard Bush say both that Israel would have secure and recognized borders, and that Palestine would be provisional, without actual borders. How those two things are possible at once is beyond me.

Bush also quietly endorsed Sharon’s policy of witholding Palestinian funds from the Palestinian government, effectively using the money to prop up this democratic-but-not-Arafat government that will magically spring up out of nowhere. This violates international law. And Bush has to recognize that there can be no elections while Israeli soldiers are occupying the country. My favorite bit was when he inserted that Palestine has to be based on market economics. Yes, that’s what the Palestinians need, market-based incentives.

Or did he mean the market the Israelis shelled yesterday?

The new, more liberal Iran raises the minimum age for marriage to 13 for girls, 15 for boys (unless court permission is given).

Monday is International UFO Day, which is celebrated by, I’m guessing, anal probes. The highest concentration of UFO sightings in the world occur in Scotland, at .004 per square kilometer and 1 per 17,000 people. Something to do with winning Wimbledon, I believe.

Jesus is back, and boy is she pissed. A sect exists in China called Lightning from the East. One method it uses to convert people is to kidnap them, especially underground Christians and Christian missionaries, 32 of whom were just released. Evidently, Jesus has come back as a Chinese woman, age 30.

Mixed messages out of Israel as to what exactly it plans to do with all that land it says it’s going to occupy until the terrorism stops, that is, whether it will reestablish an occupation government or not. This seems a fairly important detail not to have worked out in advance. They were evidently planning to fudge it, being willing to make sure Arafat’s government can’t govern, but not willing to take responsibility by declaring it dissolved. Hopefully, the Palestinians can make sure the Israelis don’t actually resume taxing them (which was also always done in a way that violated international law), but they should start demanding services from the Israelis.

The Israeli Cabinet has just approved exiling the families of suicide bombers (and blowing up their homes, of course) to Stalag Gaza Strip. This is, of course, against international law and is defined as a war crime.

A statement from Al Qaeda warns the US to “fasten its seat belt,” as there is more terrorism coming. Evidently they’ve spent the last 9 months hiding out in the gay district of Kabul, watching Betty Davis pictures. Which should make them very dangerous indeed.

Speaking of Afghanistan, everything about the new government suggests that the US won the war but lost the peace. As I’ve said, the warlords are back in charge and the modernizers lost. The international community that was willing to blow up every wedding party and banana stand in the country is not willing to help disarm the warlords, so there cannot be a real central government. The new government is called “Islamic”; the new chief justice believes in sharia law. And most Americans will know no more about this than they do about the current governments of Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama....

Thankfully

So now every gas chamber in the country will have to have a picture of George W. Bush and the words “You have to be at least this smart to be executed.” It’s hard to get worked up about the Supreme Court decision that this week it’s unconstitutional to execute the retarded, because it should be self-evident, like the new study showing that fat people like food too much. Although the morally retarded three, Rehnquist, Thomas and Scalia, are actually probably correct that this sort of thing shouldn’t be decided by opinion polls. But then neither should it be done by counting the number of states that ban the practice, like they want, as if what legislators think is reflective of public opinion. As the last 9 months have shown, civil rights should be put beyond the immediate reach of a panicked majority anyway. Which was rather the point of having a Bill of Rights to begin with.

If you haven’t already read the dissent by Fat Tony Scalia, you simply must. It’s Archie Bunker with a law degree, on acid. It’s the tone of moral and intellectual superiority that’s amazing. Even if you believe that there’s some sort of case for executing the retarded, you should at least treat it as a regrettable necessary evil, not be so, well, joyous, at the prospect. He and Rehnquist are especially scornful of the notion of treating world opinion as having any bearing, leading to my favorite sentence in the Scalia dissent: “Equally irrelevant are the practices of the ‘world community,’ whose notions of justice are (thankfully) not always those of our people.” That “(thankfully)” is priceless.

The US just gave up its right to seize the whole of Bermuda and several other places, I think including Newfoundland, in event of an emergency, like the need for a really good tan. It was part of the Lend-Lease deal with Britain. Speaking of which, those deadbeat Brits are expecting to pay off their war debt to us by the end of 2006.

In his ongoing battle to stay to the right of, well, everybody, Tony Blair tried to get the EU to cut off aid to countries that didn’t prevent refugees fleeing to European countries or refused to take them back. The EU didn’t bite, but views on immigration keep moving to the right, and the German conservative leader, who is the only Bavarian who does not drink beer, says that immigration will be the key issue of the next German elections, so this is a wedge issue now.

On the day Israel implemented its new policy of seizing Palestinian land after bombings, Israeli troops fired a “warning shot” into a crowded market, killing 4 people, including 3 children. Therefore Israel will now have to give land back to the Palestinians. “Fair is fair,” says Ariel Sharon. The state of Israel should be the size of a postage stamp by the end of 2003.

The Observer says that the mass funerals Iraq holds for children
supposedly killed by US weapons and sanctions are a fake, although it actually sounds like the bodies in the little coffins are real, but they store them up (contrary to Islamic law and the parents’ wishes) and bring them in to Baghdad periodically for the event.

The Italian supreme court, whose rulings no one reports unless sex is involved, or possibly that is all it ever rules on, says that sexual demands of a sado-masochistic nature are grounds for divorce. Unless someone’s actually *been* a naughty boy who needs to be punished.

Headline: “Bush Declares War on Fat America.” I accept. Where do I go to get an extra-large uniform? I’m planning to do my military service by beating up a super-model. Or, to keep with a theme, by spanking a super-model.

As its part in the war, Southwest Airlines is making fat people buy two seats. One person interviewed, it sounds like they tried to sell her two non-adjacent seats. And in case you’re wondering, no extra air-miles. But I’m assuming two meals.

How many debates do you want?

Bravely marching backwards, Israel is planning to re-occupy Palestine bit by bit as a collective punishment for terrorism. Hey Ariel don’t turn the clock back too far or you may find yourself trying to sing while crossing into Switzerland.

The new Hungarian prime minister turns out to have been a spook. In the spirit of openness, he has threatened to sue any newspaper that discloses any more, because, he says, he is under legal obligation not to talk about it. Should make that lawsuit difficult then, shouldn’t it?

Also threatening to sue is John Gotti Jr. With the interest in his father’s death, Uncle Junior is worried that memorabilia will be sold without him getting a piece of the action. This is what we call a copyright protection racket.

Karzai names his cabinet and sort of submits it to the loya jirga, not for individual vote, or indeed any vote, except by hands, since if votes were actually recorded, he’d have been voted down. Nor did he allow discussion (I’ve been meaning to mention that every time the former king tried to address the nation, the tv transmitter suddenly cut out--three times, and that when the only other candidate for president, a woman, tried to speak to the assembly, Karzai bounced onto the stage and cut her off. Which is an improvement over the old Afghanistan, in which he would have cut off one of her body parts.), saying “There was debate. I told them do you agree? And they said yes. How many debates do you want.” Say what you will, his democratic instincts are at least superior to Dubya’s.

As I understand it, the new cabinet is considered a failure because it doesn’t contain enough warlords with blood on their hands. Really. Karzai asked them all to join, but they refused, preferring their regional fiefs, calculating that Kabul will not have any power worth mentioning.

Headline: “Spam Museum Set to Open in Minnesota.” Hey, I’ve got news for you: the entire state of Minnesota is a spam museum.

Interesting but semi-comprehensible piece in Salon on the recent expansion of the FBI’s phone-tapping capabilities. It seems that as of the end of this month it will have access to more information than before (they’re using the increase in digital over analog technologies to quietly acquire much more data while pretending it’s the same thing as the old pen taps), despite it’s previous attempt having lost in court. This time it did it the old fashioned way, through bribery. Seems Congress appropriated $500 million to help phone companies make changes under the US Patriot Act, but left disbursement up to the FBI, which used it to leverage deals with phone companies giving it information the court had ruled it couldn’t have.

The Hindu nationalist ruling party of India will nominate as the next president (which makes him a certainty) a Muslim. The guy who was in charge of the nuclear bomb program, who has no political experience, but the office doesn’t really require it. Presumably his designing a weapon to kill lots of Muslims makes up for him actually being one, like Werner von Braun (if you don’t get that reference, feel free to call up Kevin, who will be happy to sing you the song).

The NY Times says that Pakistan is holding American citizens, and has US permission not to check their identities too quickly, to give them more time to torture information out of them. I believe I said some time ago that most of the torturing was going to be sub-contracted, and so it has proved.

The Supreme Court rules 6-3 that it’s ok for cops boarding buses to conduct random searches not to tell people that they have a right to refuse. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, entirely from the perspective of non-criminals, who are always happy to cooperate with the police for their own safety and for the safety of others, and so certainly don’t feel coerced. Hell, in San Francisco guys go up to cops all the time and ask to be searched, purely in the interests of public safety, but maybe that’s not what Kennedy had in mind. Now anyone with the brains god gave gravel understands that someone concealing cocaine, as in this case, would only
have allowed a search if he did in fact feel coerced and/or did not know his rights. Since the decision was not about the searches themselves, it was only about whether cops are permitted to conceal the lack of a legal mandate for their actions, to actively deceive people. And now the Supes are in collusion with this deception, because really why should it ever decide against informing people of their rights--if only just to be safe? Why would it ever be a good thing for people not to know their rights?

Condoleezza Rice says the Palestinian government is “corrupt and cavorts with terror.”

Cavorts?