Political abnormality illness. Do you think Blue Cross covers that?

Evidently homicide rates are down not because homicidal violence is down, but because emergency medicine has gotten better.

Tom Tomorrow points out that conservatives now refer to the invasion of Afghanistan as the War for the Liberation of Afghanistan. Presumably because the whole capturing-bin-Laden thing failed so miserably.

The Chinese now keep as many of their political prisoners in psychiatric asylums as the Soviets used to. “Political abnormality illness.”

Speaking of political abnormality illness, some younger members of the British Tory party are considering splitting off to form their own libertarian party. Tentative name: the Start Again Party. What a bunch of saps! Doesn’t really bode well for their future, does it?

Rumsfeld wants military special forces (assassination squads, as the Guardian puts it) to perform covert operations in countries with which the US is not at war, without telling the locals. Didn’t that sort of thing used to be considered an act of war?

Would American foreign policy have been more competent in the past year if anyone in government actually knew Arabic? Well, there’s one group trying to break down the barriers between Americans and Arabs by translating key newspaper pieces and documents. Unfortunately, it seems to be a front for Israeli intelligence, and its translations are a bit lop-sided, as are its selections. But through the use of email, it’s become influential in influencing the media as well as politicians.

Guardian on how Mugabe’s seizure of white farms is nothing like as harmful as the land policies foisted on Africa by the IMF. Yeah, yeah, land reform, I can see your eyes glazing over. Read it anyway, it’s an important article.

This does not conform to the task of civilisation

A major sponsor of the evil bankruptcy bill, Rep James Moran (D-VA), had credit card debt trouble himself. Until, of course, he sponsored a certain evil bankruptcy bill. He is the recipient of loans not only from one of those companies, but also a pharmaceutical company whose patent he tried to get extended, and from AOL (You’ve got corruption). For the more ordinary, overly optimistic type, there’s always something like this.

So in contrast to Mr. Moran, I present a story of politicians who do live by their own rules, the Milton Friedman-loving British Tory party, which is selling tickets to a gala dinner at this year’s party conference for less than half what the more successful Labour Party are able to charge in the open market.

Next month Ariel Sharon will go to Florida to stump for Jeb Bush.

Website of the day: http://polygamypoetry.tripod.com/songs.html

Yes, that’s songs celebrating the magic that is polygamy. And as if "The Poly Man Can" isn’t icky enough, there’s some accidental humor from the ads provided by the host site.

Speaking of which, two Japanese teenagers in a student exchange program were placed in a polygamist home in Salt Lake City.

Christian pickup lines, each one creepier than the last. Be sure to shower afterwards. So unclean, so very unclean.

If you were unaware that John Lennon was actually shot by Stephen King on the orders of Richard Nixon, you didn’t spend any time in Sproul Plaza in the early 1990s, when Steve Lightfoot was plying his trade there (and you didn’t read every third word of Newsweek, which is roughly how Lightfoot was able to detect the conspiracy). Steve didn’t get the help he so desperately needed, but he did get online. Did you know that if you fold the $20 bill lengthwise, you can see the Twin Towers on fire? After all 9+11=20.

Thanks to an especially brilliant change in the tax laws making non-physical-injury awards taxable, a Chicago policewoman who won her case for sex discrimination will owe the IRS $100,000 more than she was awarded by the jury.

Silly season British stories:

The Queen will be asked if she wants to meet two teenagers to explain how she felt after they hurled eggs at her car during her Golden Jubilee visit to Nottingham. The request is part of a new scheme in England and Wales under which victims of youth crime are offered the chance to come face to face with their tormentors.

3-year old nursery schoolers will be asked to rate their teachers by government inspectors, using a system of smiling, frowning, or unemotional (i.e., British) faces.

Also, a dolphin caught some jewel thieves off Dorset, and UFOs are destroying crops in Greece.

Gurbansoltan-edzhe is the cruelest month

I grow old... I grow old... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Here’s some advice (from “The Producers”): “When you’re down and out, and everybody thinks you’re finished, that’s the time to stand up on your two feet and shout ‘Who do you have to fuck to get a break in this town?’”

According to Saddam, "Darkness shall be defeated," he vowed in a 20-minute address. "The forces of evil will carry their coffins on their backs to die in disgraceful failure." Well, that’s be convenient, because they’ll already be carrying their coffins on their... no, no, I guess it really doesn’t make much sense.

Tonight is the deadline for Zimbabwean white farmers to leave their farms, which will then be turned over to Moammar Qaddafi, who’s been loaning them a lot of oil lately. It was supposed to go to poor black people, but shit happens.

If you’re wondering what sort of government we imposed on Nicaragua, well, the former president Arnoldo Alemán is being charged with theft of $100 million. The system works.

Niyazov was named president for life of Turkmenistan. He celebrated by renaming all the months. April is named after his mother (Gurbansoltan-edzhe), isn’t that sweet? And January for himself. He’s also renaming the days. The Times says “Mr Niyazov is not a man renowned for his modesty”.

Sharon calls the Palestinian leadership a “terror posse,” which I thought was very “street” of him.

Just Gooder

I wish to point out a new genre of telephone advertising, the sincere answering machine message. This is the message that you’re reasonably sure was recorded (today’s is from a satellite tv installer) but is intended to sound spontaneous and un-salesmanlike. The keynote of the form is the Columbo-like, “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you...” towards the end.

New Israeli tactic: stripping Palestinians it doesn’t like of citizenship.

I’m enjoying the vicious Republican primary race in Georgia. Bob Barr (who I can never mention without pointing out his possession of the world’s creepiest mustache) actually managed to condescend to Georgians, something hitherto believed impossible. His commercial (available on Babar, I mean Bob Barr’s website, but it’s a long download for not much) features a hayseed farmer saying “Linder’s good, Barr’s just gooder.”

From the This Life from the 7/21 London Sunday Times, which I had to type myself, because Rupert Murdoch got greedy:

A man in India beats the world record for having the most cement blocks smashed on his groin at once.

A CD by an Amazon parrot who impersonates Ethel Merman. Did the whole session in two takes.

Priests in Milan discovered that a couple who regularly prayed in front of a statue of the Madonna were actually recharging their mobile phone from the socket behind the statue.

Happy Hiroshima Day!

Kofi Annan rejects Iraq’s offer to talk about arms inspections, saying he was waiting for a formal invitation. So the answer to “What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation,” would in fact be yes. Fine, it’s most likely a ploy, but so what? Inspections either happen or they don’t, and it’s not like seeing which would interfere with anyone’s precious bombing schedule, since we’re not invading a desert country in August.

Although I am suddenly reminded of some invasion, I can’t remember which, that I figured out was about to start precisely because the president, Bush or Clinton, went on vacation. La la, nothing to see here. But Bush actually vacations more than he invades, which is saying something.

Furthermore, on this balmy Hiroshima Day, comes a report that the US can’t possibly take out all of Iraq’s missiles in the first days, so if Iraq goes after Israel, the war will go nuclear, because restraint, you may have noticed, is not big on the Israeli agenda lately.

Speaking of Israeli restraint, Sharon wants to try peace activists for treason, for telling military personnel that they could be prosecuted for war crimes. And the High Court rules that it’s ok to demolish homes without any right of judicial appeal. Which is a war crime.

Kevin points out that the Indonesia-ExxonMobil story has run in the Wall Street Journal. But not on McNeil-Lehrer, the NY Times, or the Washington Post. And I’ll bet this is nothing that will ever be a Nightline or the subject of angry speeches on the floor of Congress. Just another non-story about American complicity with repression of dark-skinned foreigners in an oil-producing country. Colin Powell will never be asked a penetrating question about this, or any question.

Thanks to stepped-up border patrols, the number of Mexicans dying in the deserts of California and Arizona trying to cross the border have reached record numbers. That’ll teach ‘em.

The "spirit of America": trapped in a coal mine with the water rising. That's about right

Congress rejected Iraq’s offer to let them and any experts they wanted investigate any site they wanted in Iraq. Evidently that wasn’t acceptable because it wouldn’t be humiliating enough. Sure, Iraq is being threatened with war, but given that Iraq is already being bombed twice a week (including yesterday), they could be forgiven for thinking that the last war never actually ended. A Guardian piece on this is appended below.

The Guardian also has a story about Palestinian children who hire themselves out as human shields. Specifically, they get paid to get into cars with strangers (where are these kids’ parents?), who drive to Israeli checkpoints, to prove that these cars are not suicide bombs. Israelis shoot at cars with only one occupant--something that would really speed up the Bay Bridge, if you ask me.

WaPo on how the Republican control of the House since 1994 shifted federal funding from D to R districts.

The Financial Times ran a piece, that no one else has picked up, that the State Dept is trying to kill a lawsuit on behalf of Indonesian villagers against Exxon Mobil, which paid the Indonesian security forces to run a campaign of terror on its behalf. State says it would hurt national security in the war on terrorism. You know, the bad kind of terrorism, not the good kind.

NY Times columnist Paul Krugman notes that when he originally run a quote from Bush in which Bush said that he had earlier said that the promise not to run deficits would only be broken if there was war, recession, or national emergency and “Lucky me, I hit the trifecta,” Krugman was accused of making the quote up. The trifecta quote was real, but the thing about war, recession or nat. emergency, no one can find Bush ever having said that during the election campaign. His promise not to run deficits was never qualified. He lied.

Signing an abortion restriction bill, Bush said, "Today, through sonograms and other technology, we can see clearly that unborn children are members of the human family. They reflect our image, and they are created in God's own image." He also signed a bill banning children from tearing the heads off of Barbie and GI Joe dolls, which also reflect our image.

The pope excommunicates several women who were ordained priests. Evidently that’s a bigger sin than male priests who fuck choir boys. Or did I miss those guys being excommunicated?

Bush meets those coal miners and says that they represent the “spirit of America”, a phrase he used 11 times. The Washington Post notes that he spoke 13 minutes to them, and 30 at a fundraiser.

Not drowning, but waving

Someone at the NY Times wasn’t paying attention to its front page today. 2 of the 3 headlines above the fold are: “Wave of Attacks by Palestinians Kills at Least 14” and “Wave of Pupils Lacking English Strains Schools”. Maybe their headline writer went to the beach this weekend.

While the Bushies are complaining about Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons, Donald Rumsfeld used to be Reagan’s middle east envoy, and was literally in Iraq while it was using poison gas in its war with Iran. And helped broker the deals by which Iraq was sold the helicopters it later used to drop poison gas on the Kurds. Rumsfeld never publicly expressed any concern whatsoever about chemical weapons until the Gulf War.

By the way, did you know that Rumsfeld thought about running for president in 1988?

Israel is preparing for a smallpox attack by Iraq in event of war. They are stockpiling vaccine, but not actually vaccinating. Do you think Sharon is capable of withholding vaccine from the Palestinians? I’m not sure, although I tend to think he is, enough that I hope someone is going to put the pressure on him. During the last Gulf War, gas masks filtered down to the Palestinians very slowly, and...let’s see if I can remember this exactly...certain Orthodox males, unwilling to shave their beards, commandeered some of the masks intended for children.

As Israel bans any travel in the northern West Bank, a report comes out that 1/4 of Palestinian children are experiencing malnutrition. The Israeli “Health Minister” says they brought it on themselves.

A new bizarre law in France allows students as young as 13 to be jailed for dissing their teachers.

Seems I gave Bush too much credit. He did not in fact put down his golf club while deprecating Middle East violence.

Bolivia obeyed the US’s orders and elected our candidate (a millionaire, natch) president. Evidently this is not news.

Ah, France. Where else would vineyard owners sue the Transport Ministry for its campaign against drunken driving.

Bush comments on the latest attack in Israel: "I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killings." To show his sincerity, he put down his golf club before saying that.

Quickies: Turkey abolishes the death penalty. Taiwan’s president supports a referendum to declare Taiwan independent. The US resumes training Indonesian death squads, I mean the military. Gerhard Schroder says a vote for him is a vote against war in Iraq (unfortunately, he has no chance in hell).

A very attractive idea

A federal district judge rules that the gov must say how many people it has detained without trial since 9/11 and name them. Ashcroft continues to claim that he is only protecting their privacy rights. Which is especially amusing in the week of the executive perp walks.

Heard Dubya yesterday, talking about how evil Saddam Hussein was, and how he poisoned his own people. With arsenic in the drinking water, no doubt.

The rescued coal miners have sold their story to Disney: hi ho hi ho...

OK, I know I shouldn’t be laughing at this, but... a 12-year old in a wheelchair goes to Lourdes hoping for a cure. Instead, a bus belonging to the Catholic group (I won’t use the word “charity” from the newspaper story, if all it does for people is send them to Lourdes) Handicapped Children’s Pilgrimage Trust, ran him over. The mother is suing.

Joseph Biden’s daughter was arrested outside a bar. Man, that Biden family: even the daughter is plagiarizing from the Bush twins. (Or am I hoping for too long a memory with that joke?)

Percy wouldn't have made that mistake

So Katherine Harris, running for Congress against Percy the dog, again demonstrates her ignorance of Florida election law by not resigning as secretary of state when she started running. And she’s gonna win the election anyway.

The FBI, investigating leaks of its intelligence failures, tried to get the 37 Congresscritters and Senators on the two houses’ intelligence committees to take polygraphs. The Post says that most refused, citing separation of powers, but doesn’t say who gave in. I want names.

They are, however, less protective of their powers to consider treaties, voting unfettered fast-track trade negotiating powers to the president for five years. This is clearly unconstitutional, and not just because it is removing power from Congress and putting it into the hands of trade representatives, who are usually wholly owned subsidiaries of big business. No, the major problem is that the current Congress is voting away the power to amend any treaty which is inherent in the Congresses elected in 2002, 2004 and 2006, as if greater sovereignty inheres in this Congress than in those. No Congress may bind its successors, no temporary congressional majority may partially annul the results of the next 3 elections. This is a constitutional issue of the highest order. And yes, I am the only person in America who cares about this.

Iraq has offered to restart negotiations with the UN on inspection. The US says there is nothing to negotiate with except complete surrender. So now the US is also writing the UN’s press releases.

The US is evidently now pressuring other countries to promise not to turn US citizens over to the International Criminal Court. Romania is the first to give in.

If tyranny is to prevail, you must first kill all the lawyers

A federal judge rules that US courts have no jurisdiction over prisoners in Guantanamo. This is fascinating. That means that there are places in the world that are literally beyond any law, in which no courts and no legal code operate. Imagine, a society that has no lawyers: Guantanamo must be heaven itself.

Not only were no non-alarmists called to testify to the Senate on Iraq, but the Bush admin didn’t send anyone either. Evidently it’s “too early.” The one good thing about this Bush is that he doesn’t call Saddam Hussein “Sad-dammm” in that obnoxious sneering way his father had.

Speaking of one-sided, even though Israel barred UN representatives investigating the Jenin Massacre, a report was somehow still issued, derived entirely from secondary sources. In other words, they issued a report under the name of the UN with no better evidence than you or I could get from the internet. This is unconscionable given that the news reports have, predictably, mostly said that “The UN clears Israel of massacre.” (Actually I’m told it never uses the word massacre, but the UN web server is currently not working, like the UN itself). Moreover, it seems to give equal blame to the Palestinian militants, who shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Where they should have been--and not get slaughtered instantly, I mean--the report fails to say. It’s not quite a whitewash, but enough so that it rewards Israel’s refusal to cooperate.

I feel a little sheepish about quoting another UN report after trashing that one, but what the hell: human beings now use up 40% of all plant and marine growth.

Bush says “We must collectively get after those who kill in the name of some kind of false religion." Ari Fleischer says he didn’t mean all Muslims, just the ones who “distort” Islam, which Georgie considers “a religion of peace.” Given that Bush also considers Ariel Sharon a man of peace, you have to wonder how all those people keep getting killed. Well, as another George once wrote, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is George W. Bush.

No more easy money? But I haven't had any yet, as Alice said to the Mad Hatter.

For the second time, a New York Times editor lets a reporter (I presume the same reporter) juxtapose a story about a Bush plan to screw the poor with how much money he was raising (I reported the last one Saturday). This time he wants to punish those on welfare still more, and raised $1 million, including from people who paid $10,000 to have their pictures taken with him. Bush is horrified at the notion that people on welfare might go to college instead of work--he calls it a loophole. “Now that’s not my view of helping people become independent. And it’s certainly not my view of understanding the importance of work and helping people achieve the dignity necessary so they can live a free life, free from government control.” But first, evidently, government has to squash their dreams, aspirations and chances of ever making more than $8 an hour, like a bug.

Yesterday a study came out that welfare reform is increasing the number of children living with neither parent.

Bush signed the corporate fraud bill that he refused to support earlier this month and seems already to be taking credit for. “No more easy money for corporate criminals, just hard time,” he said. What, they’ll be sentenced by the Supreme Court to serve as president or vice president? He also said that auditors will be audited, accountants will be held to account, and executives...

Guandong province, China, has increased the fines for having a second child to 8 times the couple’s annual income. Now, that’s welfare reform.

The State Department clears itself of any impropriety in its support for the failed coup in Venezuela.

The UN suppresses a report on the US air strike on that wedding, the very report that said that the US removed evidence from the scene. Amazingly, the report was submitted to the US and Afghan governments to release or not. UN investigations are beginning to have all the credibility of an Arthur Anderson account book. Also, Mary Robinson has finally openly accused the US of ordering her fired as head of the UN Human Rights Commission (which I said back in March).

So the Israeli government was going to send an exhibition about Albert Einstein to China. But China suggested they remove all references to Einstein being a Jew, so it’s going to Taiwan instead. The story on this mentioned an incident I hadn’t heard of before, but gave no date: pissed that an arms deal had fallen through, China served an Israeli delegation pork and shrimp. Anyone hear of this?

The US has declared victory in the Philippines and our troops are coming home. God knows what they’ve been doing, although they did rack up the highest death count of the year (helicopter crash). The group they went there to fight still possesses its leadership, the hostage rescue was badly fumbled, but by damn isn’t victory great!

The Congressional hearings on Iraq began today, and they were a poor meek thing indeed. Not a single opponent of war was asked to testify, and there seemed to be none in Congress. The thing is, since the Gulf War, containment has worked (not for the people of Iraq, of course, except for the Kurds, but nobody really cares about them, as the ongoing sanctions show). And you know there is no evidence whatsoever of Hussein having serious weapons capability left when they start talking about how easy it is to hide such programs--evidence, we don’ need no stinking evidence. In fact, the desire to bomb alleged underground labs and bunkers is behind the US’s plan to develop new “bunker-buster” nuclear weapons, and break the Test Ban Treaty in order to test them. I don’t want to see biological and nuclear weapons in the hands of the mustached-one either, but US hypocrisy on this begins to look like the laws they used to have in the South outlawing teaching slaves to read.

A draft national walking strategy

Remember the wedding in Afghanistan that the US bombed earlier this month? The Pentagon is kind of hoping you don’t, of course. They sent in “investigators” to find evidence. And remove it, to make sure no one else could see it, according to a preliminary UN report. I always wondered how you could bomb people and then send in more military to question witnesses (after securing the scene and tying up the women, of course) and expect much cooperation. One might also wonder why we haven’t seen any film from the cameras on the wings of the planes that were supposed to have been shot at.

You may remember the Beijing Evening News printed as true a piece from the Onion about Congress threatening to leave DC unless it built them a brand-new capitol with a retractable dome & luxury boxes, and then it refused to accept that it had made a mistake, challenging an LA Times reporter to prove that it was true. Eventually, they did retract, but they never quite got that the Onion is intended to be satirical. The paper said that some American newspapers make up news in order to make money. “According to congressional workers, the Onion is a publication that never ceases making up false reports.”

The British transport minister has become worried about a study saying that British people are walking less than they used to. “A draft national walking strategy is being prepared,” he said. The Sunday Times headline was “Minister of Sensible Walks.”

This week, the first Tory MP ever to announce his own homosexuality, without being, you know, caught at it, does so. Alan Duncan. And to tie this story in with Monty Python as well, it seems that Duncan’s constituency includes the grammar school that Graham Chapman went to. When he announced his own homosexuality:

the Python team received a letter from a woman outraged that he had confessed to being homosexual. She enclosed several prayers for his salvation and a quotation from the Bible. Eric Idle wrote back stating simply that the rest of the team had “taken him outside and killed him”. She did not write back.

Mr. Duncan has received the support of his party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, whose head looks remarkably like a penis. Other Tory MPs quoted were less supportive, including one called Crispin Blunt, whose name gives a decidedly mixed message.

A rather good “This Modern World” cartoon this week (find it at Salon)

Israel assassinates Ollie North

Bush proposes limiting pain & suffering compensation for malpractice to $250,000. By a mathematical coincidence, he was in North Carolina, where he plans to raise $750,000 for the state Republican party & Elizabeth Dole--that’s one amputation of the wrong leg, one blinding and one accidental death.

The censored Homer Simpson.

On this page there is a picture of the Hamas leader assassinated by Israel. Tell me this guy wasn’t Ollie North in a beard. Oh, and read the story, too. Also, it contains another picture which was on the front page of every European newspaper last week, but didn’t make it into any American source I saw.

Good piece in the NY Times magazine on the future of Afghanistan.

The Times also reports that Colin Powell is urging talks between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Note that he is not urging anyone to speak to those most irrelevant of people, the Kashmiris.

Well, almost the most irrelevant, because that would be the Iraqi Kurds (all Kurds, really), which another story points out are currently enjoying a golden age, because the US is keeping the Iraqi government off their backs--at least until we install the next military dictatorship (one of our top choices is being investigated in Denmark for crime crimes, by the by) and turn it loose on them once again.

The pope visits Canada for World Youth Day. Actually, for the Catholic Church, every day is world youth day, if you know what I mean.

Headline in today’s NY Times: “Bishops Select Lay Board on Sexual Abuse Review.” Double entendre heaven, I hardly know where to begin, with the “lay board” or with “sexual abuse review,” which I see as a Siskel-Ebert sort of thing--the thin priest gives “Father Brian Sodomizes Little Jimmy the Choir Boy” a big thumbs up, but the fat priest thinks it was derivative and doesn’t compare to Father Brian’s early, funny sodomies. (OK, maybe not the place for a Woody Allen reference, or maybe the perfect place.)

Actually, the board has no members of victims groups and just one psychiatrist, who is a founder of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation and regularly testifies in court that victims are just making it up. Another member is Robert Bennett, last seen as Bill Clinton’s lawyer. I think I preferred his early, funny sex scandals.

Alaska’s Lt. Governor Fran Ulmer, according to a badly written AP sentence, “took a break from her campaign to become the state’s first female governor to shop for a smaller handgun.” They have really specific elections up there.

The old one didn’t fit in her purse, in case you were wondering.

The House votes to ban “partial-birth abortions.” With no exception for the health of the mother. The bill actually states as fact that it is never necessary for the health of the mother. Congress should be prosecuted for practicing both medicine and assholery without a license.

A gay couple got married in Vermont. Their home state, Connecticut, doesn’t recognize the marriage. So they can’t get a divorce, because while Vermont will marry people who don’t live there, it won’t give divorces to them.

A gift to the poor

The Homeland Security Agency debate goes on. I want to point again to the exclusion of the ATF and my suspicion, which no one else has joined in, that this was a sop to the gun lobby. Today’s NY Times notes that when Ashcroft ordered the FBI not to use gun ownership background checks to investigate terrorism after 9/11, and ordered the records destroyed, he was ignoring Justice’s legal advisers, who said it was perfectly legal to use those records, and then lied to Congress about it.

In 1992 Valentine Strasser took power in a coup in Sierra Leone to become the world’s youngest leader at 25. Today he is broke and lives with his mother. Good.

Under Alberto Fujimori, upwards of 230,000 poor rural Peruvians were forcibly sterilized. Betcha we don’t ever hear much more than that.

Ariel Sharon has been forced by world revulsion to reverse himself and say that if he’d known all those civilians would be killed when he ordered a plane to drop a bomb on an apartment building in the middle of a very crowded city at night (a 10th child’s body was found today, by the way) he wouldn’t have ordered it. This would be more credible if he hadn’t crowed about the great success of the operation yesterday, when he already knew of the deaths. It’s almost enough to sully the reputation of assassinations. “Infanticidal tit-for-tat,” the Guardian calls it.

The Guatemalan government is to make payments to members of the old death squads for their glorious service (the death squads have recently been quietly reactivating). This is the government that acts as a figleaf for former dictator and scum Efrian Rios Montt, one of many, well ok, two, scummy leaders forced out on my birthday.

This is the FBI. Back away from the pizza

As I write, I’m listening to the Senate hearings on Priscilla Owen, or St. Priscilla, as Mitch McConnell dubbed her. She doesn’t actually seem to be listening, which some would consider a problem in a judge. The number of times in which she answered a question that wasn’t actually asked, including the softball ones, and had to be herded back towards what was actually asked, suggested she wasn’t paying that much attention but was, perhaps, looking out the window, watching a squirrel frolic, or waiting for recess, or thinking about boys.

So how much information about us is being handed over to the government by companies we do business with? According to the Village Voice, one unnamed supermarket chain (actually a relatively low-level employee on his own) handed over data from those loyalty cards. So they can profile what a terrorist shops for. Hotels, car rental agencies, travel agencies have handed over information. They are trying to figure out what “normal” patterns are, and what marks you as a terrorist (ordering a lot of pizza delivered and paying with a credit card is a major indicator of terrorist activity. And if you want pineapple or anchovies on your pizza, you have no taste. According to the FBI.). The FBI was handed a list of 2 million certified divers. Without a subpoena even, because no one wants to be seen as uncooperative. Nor did the supermarket chain, or the travel companies or anyone, feel obligated to tell anyone what they did.

Today, a court in Florida finds Salvadoran generals responsible for torture and orders them to pay damages (if you pay for pizza the wrong way the FBI will be all over your ass, but don’t look for these thugs to be deported any time soon). Tomorrow, the US plans to block an enforcement protocol for the treaty against torture, because it might involve inspection of US prisons and detention centers, including Guantanamo.

Only Ariel Sharon would think it wise to call his assassination-by-air-strike a “great success” despite the deaths of 9 children.

Bush’s hubris grows. He now intends a “regime change” in Iran.

The new Right-wing Dutch government runs into a little trouble. The minister for emancipation and family affairs (!), a follower of the dead bald gay guy, turns out to have once worn a uniform and toted a gun in the militia on the former Dutch colony of Suriname, back when said militia was merrily murdering opposition activists. Not the sort of emancipation they had in mind. She has had to resign.

Remember the 1980 Iranian embassy siege in London? It was stormed by the SAS, which evidently had orders directly from Thatcher that there be no “problems” left over. In other words: take no prisoners. Or, as it turned out, execute the prisoners. No word on when Thatcher will be arrested.

If God wanted you to have a tattoo...

I find I haven’t previously mentioned Bush’s nominee to the 5th Circuit, Priscilla Owen. She can probably best be destroyed by tarring her with Enron. When she ran for the Texas Supreme Court, she took a few thousand of their money, and then ruled for them in a tax case worth $225,000 for them. The White House defends this behaviour by noting that 7 of the 9 justices took Enron money and that she had to raise millions to run for the court. So it’s the system that’s corrupt, not her. I know I feel better. But the real reason to destroy her is her fierce anti-abortionism. In a case on judicial bypass of parental notification, she wanted pregnant girls to show an awareness of the physiology of what would happen to the fetus, that they would suffer psychologically and that there were religious objections to abortion. The last, of course, is why she is not fit to serve on any bench. But it’s still the piddling Enron thing that could actually get her, so I say go for it.

Israel looks like backing off deporting the families of suicide bombers. Was this because the militant groups threatened to go after the families of Israeli officials? Was it because they finally realized how bad it made them look, like last week’s apartheid plan, like 2000's attempt to pass a law legalizing the taking of hostages by the government? Is it worse that they actually consider these things to be reasonable steps, or that they’re so out of step with the rest of the world that they don’t even realize how morally repulsive these ideas are to, you know, sane people?

A line from a Daily Telegraph story, which I think it would be more fun to present without explanation: A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents said: “This is not something we’ve come across before. It’s not a good idea to put parts of your body into a computer scanner, but then kids will be kids.”

From the Times, news that there are some things people do with their bodies that Ken Starr does consider sacred and private:


July 23, 2002
Starr switches from Monica to body art
From Tim Reid in Washington

KENNETH STARR, the Republican lawyer who hounded President
Clinton with his exhaustive investigation of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, has a new case that this time goes to the heart of the Constitution: the right to get a tattoo.

Mr Starr, a solicitor-general when President Bush Sr was in the White House and a man known for his conservative bent, has taken up the fight of Ronald White, a body artist and punk rocker, who has fallen foul of South Carolina’s anti-tattoo law.

Mr White, 33, is taking his crusade to the US Supreme Court, claiming that needling skin with his designs of dragons, gargoyles and angels should be entitled to the same First Amendment free expression rights as other artists enjoy. In 1999, frustrated by the failure of South Carolina’s politicians to repeal their 1966 law - Oklahoma is the only other state to retain a ban - Mr White tattooed a man on television. The South Carolina authorities took a dim view. He was arrested, fined $2,500 (£1,620) and put on five years’ probation. For that time Mr White cannot carry pistols or rifles, get a drink in a bar or leave the state without informing his probation officer. He appealed to the state’s highest court, citing his constitutional rights, but lost.

Now, with the help of Mr Starr, who views his case as a serious First Amendment issue, he is asking the highest court in the land to decide the vexed issue of tattoos. “It’s our personal right as Americans to choose how we will express ourselves - on our bodies especially - and that is of the upmost importance to me,” Mr White said.

Mr Starr told the court, which is deciding whether to hear the case in full, that it was wrong to outlaw Mr White’s art “in a society that protects liquor advertising and pornography”. He told reporters, however, that he does not himself wear a tattoo, and has no intention of getting one.

Mr White’s nemesis thus far has been J. M. “Jake” Knotts, a South Carolina congressman and a former policeman and Vietnam veteran, who reached the House in 1994 on an anti- tattoo ticket, claiming that they are unclean, ungodly and bad for his state’s image.

“If God wanted you to have a tattoo, he’d have put your name on you,” Mr Knotts, known in the tattoo world as “Thou Shalt Knotts”, declares. [Personally, I feel the same thing about pants, but the police don’t agree with me.]

The tattoo ban dates from the 1960s, when a parlour in New York was blamed for a hepatitis outbreak. Most states banned the practice, but have since relented.

With remarkably little discussion, we are soon going to see the start of Operation TIPS, which stands for Tyrannical Informants Program... Oh, the only thing I can think of for S is Stasi, which is highly appropriate, but doesn’t really work. This is the brilliant idea of getting every postal carrier, cable guy, meter reader, truck driver and possibly crack dealer to report “suspicious behavior” to the government. 1 million informers. Which some say means you have the right to keep meter readers the hell off your property unless they have a warrant, since they’ve been deputized (the Post Office backed out of the program). So the next time you see a meter reader looking in your bathroom window, don’t worry, he’s probably just looking for Al Qaeda. And here’s me writing political manifestos on my computer at 5 in the morning; that’s not suspicious, is it?

Speaking of fascism, Israel has been rounding up the families of suicide bombers to deport them into the vast concentration camp that is the Gaza Strip. Speaking of Israeli responses to terrorism, I caught a couple of minutes of the tv movie of the Antebbe raid on cable tonight, looking to spot my great-uncle, who played Scared Jew #3, before I gave up. OK, that has nothing much to do with anything, but it’s these personal touches that distinguish these writings from Mother Jones.

Yet another use for cow shit

Bush predicts--or possibly orders--that the SEC will clear Cheney.

Bush is firing (or kicking sideways) his gay AIDS adviser. It is suggested that this was because he advocated that gay & bisexual men use condoms. Well, that’s what it says in the NY Times. He was also a critic of the ridiculous abstinence-only sex ed. policies this admin loves (chastely of course) so much.

London Times headline: “Horses Mark Bomb Anniversary.” These are horses, Echo and Yetti, who survived an IRA bomb attack 20 years ago.

Americans, many of them, are claiming political asylum in Canada, from persecution for their use of medical marijuana. 800 Canadians have permits to grow or use marijuana. In the 1960s the Flying Burrito Brothers sang of
“heading for the nearest foreign border/ Vancouver may be just my kind of town/ ‘Cos they don’t need the kind of law and order/ That tends to keep a good man underground.”

From the Belfast Sunday Life, a response to the IRA’s apology this week for accidentally killing and wounding a few hundred people:

A statement issued by a spokesman on behalf on the ‘non-combatant’ people of Northern Ireland:

“‘During several years of armed conflict waged on our behalf by a variety of paramilitary groups, there were many incidents during which we civilians severely inconvenienced our tireless freedom fighters and jeopardised their vital operations. These incidents include: people setting off booby traps which were not intended for them, bearing a slight similarity to ‘legitimate targets’, living in the wrong area, obscuring the targets of snipers by walking recklessly across their own streets, and generally being in the wrong place at the wrong time. While it was never our intention to be killed or seriously wounded, the reality is that on a number of occasions, this was the consequence of our actions. We would therefore offer our sincere apologies’.”

A Hindu nationalist group says people can protect themselves against nuclear attack by smearing themselves with cow dung.

And the new Indian president, as predicted, is fake-Doctor A P J Abdul Kalam, nuclear scientist and vegetarian (because it’s bad to kill a pig, but not to kill 30 million Pakistanis). In fact, President Kalam is on tv right now. Oh my god, he’s covered in cow shit, run for the hills everybody, save yourselves, oh the humanity!