Berlusconi added, and I have a mistress, but in two years...

As you know, the US has been trying to get countries to agree not to surrender US nationals to the International Court. In recent weeks, pressure and threats have been brought to bear on Caribbean nations, which I assume was necessary to ensure that Henry Kissinger has somewhere nice to vacation. This week, Sierra Leone gave the US the impunity agreement it wanted, and vice versa, which is especially significant since SL just had a civil war with the requisite crimes against humanity etc.

The Bushies may invoke executive privilege to keep documents away from the 9/11 commission.

A Baltimore Sun piece on a recent requirement that every other state adopt the centralized voter registry that worked so well in Florida, making ethnic purging of “criminals” easier. Did you know that voter registries in the South have the race of voters next to their name?

The world’s stupidest looters: the ones who took drums labeled “radioactive” from Iraqi nuclear research facilities, poured out that glowing yellow stuff and used them for storage.

Bush proposes a US-Middle East free trade zone, an idea which will never be heard of again. The idea, of course, is to coerce Arab states into dropping their boycott of Israel (an element of the plan the NY Times fails to mention).

The US releases some Guantanamo prisoners, saying they “no longer posed a threat to US security,” whatever that means, possibly that they hit puberty and are now more interested in girls. Actually, the US won’t even say whether it has released the under-16 crowd. Incidentally, they just moved yet more prisoners there from Afghanistan, more than they released.

Here’s a good headline for an op-ed piece in The Times that I didn’t actually feel the need to read: “The Vatican Should Settle for Being a Temple to Bad Taste and Stop Trying to Become the Official Church of the EU.”

James Kopp, who murdered an abortion doctor, is sentenced to 25 years to life. In this case, I find that I am actually pro-life.

PM Berlusconi told the NY Times that he is not having any fun. “‘I have a sailboat, but in two years, I’ve only been on it one day,’ he said, speaking in Italian and striking a stoic tone.” I think that last bit is sarcasm.

The Swiss are the lovers

Berlusconi is planning to freeze his trial by getting a law passed for immunity from prosecution for MPs (they floated a plan limited to cabinet ministers and their deputies, but the MPs who will have to vote on it wanted to be above the law too).

I mentioned that Poland will be given a zone in Iraq. Any German troops may be put under Polish command. Heh heh.

Low-income students are suing the state of California for equality in textbooks, teachers, classrooms, etc etc in public schools. They note that Gray Davis has set minimum standards for student progress, but no standards for school quality. Fighting this, Davis is arguing (and I’m gonna quote from the Chron because you wouldn’t believe that I wasn’t exaggerating) “that low-income students are unlikely to do any better in school even with the same educational benefits as middle-class students.” One of his experts, Caroline Hoxby, who’s at Harvard and so must be smart, or at least arrogant, says that the influence of parents and the neighborhood is much more important than that of the schools, so that if you give too much money to the schools, it reduces the influence of the parents and neighborhood relative to the schools. So far, Davis has spent $18 million fighting the suit, which reduces the influence of the schools relative to over-priced lawyers and Harvard economists. One expert on the other side quoted in the article was Kevin’s dissertation chair, who may not be smart enough to work at Harvard but owns bassets and so must be trustworthy and not embarrassed to be seen in public with a silly-looking animal (Kevin, not the basset).

And Republicans are trying to recall Davis because he’s too liberal.

Here’s a frightening WashPost headline: “1,500 Spanish Troops To Aid Iraq Recovery.” Yes, soon Iraq will be up to Spanish levels of efficiency. And will have the level of security that only the Polish army can provide. Iraq is getting to be like that joke about heaven and hell. Wait, here it is from the internet:

In heaven:
The English are the police,
The Germans are the mechanics,
The Swiss are the administrators,
The French are the lovers,
The Italians are the cooks.

In hell:
The English are the cooks,
The French are the mechanics,
The Swiss are the lovers,
The Italians are the administrators,
The Germans are the police!

I found that by searching Google for “the swiss are the lovers.” Sadly--at least it’s sad for the Swiss--the only hits were for that joke.

In recompense for the Spanish troops, the Bush admin has put a couple more Basque organizations on the terrorist list. Not that a list of officially designated terrorist organizations would be composed on the basis of political horse-trading, oh no.

The WashPost finally reports that Bush delayed the homecoming of the carrier Abe Lincoln by a day (you heard it here 5 days ago). D’s figure it cost $800,000 to $1m. Bush responds only that it was an honor to be there. An honor is something that is bestowed upon one. This is something he ordered as commander in chief: it’s no more an honor than sending flowers to yourself on your own birthday is. Ari Fleischer says criticizing the stunt is a disservice to the men and women of the military. He doesn’t say how.

I hadn’t realized that Iran gave the US overflight rights during the Afghan war--and revoked them within hours of Bush making the “axis of evil” speech. The speech also of course led N Korea to decide that the US had declared war on it, although it was added to the axis pretty much just so that it wouldn’t be all-Muslim. To date, “axis of evil” is the only memorable piece of rhetoric out of Shrub’s mouth, and it’s been way more trouble than it’s worth. He should have learned from his father, who has said 3 memorable things in his entire life. “A thousand points of light,” which is fairly unobjectionable, if vacuous; “voodoo economics” and “Read my lips, no new taxes,” which were deeply embarrassing when he had to take them back.

Notes towards Shakespeare, by six George W. Bush lookalikes

The EU is planning to require that industrial chemicals sold in Europe actually be tested for safety first. The US is complaining that this is unfair. Or, to put it another way, no such tests occur in the US, except for pesticides. Something else to worry about.

Some Dem. Senator in McNeil-Lehrer today was complaining that the Republican approach to rules is goal-oriented, i.e., if they’re losing the game, they make up new rules. That was about confirmation of judges. But here’s a new one: re-drawing the lines of Congressional districts. Silly me, I thought this could only be done every 10 years, after a census, but evidently it can be done for partisan advantage any time someone feels like it, as in Colorado and maybe, on a larger scale, Texas.

At Bush’s press conference with Prime Minister Aznar of Spain, he twice referred to him as president--again. Although at least this time he got his name right.

So will a bunch of monkeys in front of typewriters produce Shakespeare? No, but they will shit on the keyboard (as who hasn’t, at one time or another?). Someone has tried the experiment and you can buy a book (Notes Towards the Complete Works of Shakespeare) of their actual literary production, sans monkey poop.

The US occupation authority is thinking about censoring Iraqi tv. I hope my digestive problems the last couple of weeks don’t come from ingesting too much irony, since some days I pretty much live on the stuff.

Foreigners entering the Gaza (including UN aid workers) must now sign a waiver absolving the Israeli army if it shoots them. And they must declare that they are not peace activists. The autopsy on a British cameraman proves that he was shot by the Israelis, and not by Palestinians as the army tried to claim. Also, when the family of a British peace activist shot deliberately through the head when he was trying to protect a small child (and still in a coma 3+ weeks later) went to the site in the company of the British consul, they were shot at, despite having given notice of their plan and route three times.

Rome is going to test and license those guys who sit on sidewalks and sell crappy paintings to tourists, to see if they can actually paint. Evidently most of those things are actually made in China, and the “artist” sits around pretending to touch it up.

Richard Perle received a classified briefing from the Defence Intelligence Agency on Iraq and Korea, and two weeks later gave a talk to Goldman Sachs investors entitled “Iraq Now. North Korea Next?”

When is a child not a child?

A couple of stories in the Guardian on ChoicePoint, a story still ignored by American papers. A quote: Literature that ChoicePoint produced to advertise its services to the department of justice promised, in the case of Colombia, a "national registry file of all adult Colombians, including date and place of birth, gender, parentage, physical description, marital status, passport number, and registered profession". It is illegal under Colombian law for government agencies to disclose such information, except in response to a request for data on a named individual.

Also, while the company is busy denying it illegally acquired Mexican electoral registration information, its own advertising says it can offer "nationwide listing of all Mexican citizens registered to vote as of the 2000 general election - updated annually".

The US gov will also be trying to get credit card information on any foreigner entering the country.

Speaking of privacy, the State Dept’s annual report on international terrorism contains harsh criticism of Canada. Evidently it doesn’t have enough police and its citizens have too many privacy rights, inhibiting its ability to deliver up information on Canadians when the US demands it.

I saw only the excerpts from the first Democratic debate, which was more than enough. It was held in the all-important state of South Carolina, whose 3 registered Democrats are pivotal, as we know. Polled later, all 3 said that it was the first time they’d seen a Jew up close. Joe the Jew chided the other candidates for not being Republican enough. Kerry is running on his record as the only candidate to fight in the Vietnam War, which I suspect doesn’t even impress Vietnam vets all that much, much less anyone else. And if Kerry can be made that peevish by the incomparably bland Howard Dean, how on earth does he expect to be able to deal with Jacques Chirac or Kim Jong Il?

The incredibly corrupt prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, testified today at his own bribery trial, trying to implicate as many other people as possible (including former PMs Craxi and Prodi), claiming the judges are “reds,” and saying that he won’t resign even if he’s convicted. He has systematically destroyed the Italian justice system and taken over the nation’s media. And the Italian people don’t care. A good report.

The Pentagon is to release the child prisoners held at Guantanamo, or possibly just transfer them to jails in their own countries. Amazing what a little publicity can do. Rummy defended the detentions, saying the 13 to 15-year olds were dangerous and were “not children.”

Sooner or later US killers we'll kiss you

The Daily Show describes Joe Lieberman as the candidate for people who want to vote for Bush but think he’s not Jewish enough.

Still, in the First Wife category, Kerry’s wife, the ketchup widow Teresa Heinz (now renamed by his staffers Teresa Heinz Kerry, in a process known as de-Rodhamization; they also forced her to change her voter registration from Republican), seems a winner. In an interview with Elle (which I can’t find at their site), she says that the best diet for children is rabbit meat, that Hillary should have shot Bill, and something about plastic surgery being essential.

Today they’re saying that Saddam Hussein “stole” $1 billion from the central bank. Leaving aside the question of whether that really constitutes theft, since he was, you know, dictator, I have to doubt that there was really that much just lying around in cash.

The Supreme Court overturned a ruling by the Texas Court of Appeals as to whether a confession was obtained following an illegal arrest. The Texas court said that there was no arrest, just because the 17-year old was woken up in the middle of the night and hauled off in his underwear; after all, a “reasonable person...would not believe that being put in handcuffs was a significant restriction on his freedom of movement”, and he showed his consent by not resisting the non-arrest or the use of handcuffs.

The (London) Evening Standard cut and pasted in order to make a front-page photo of the crowd at the statue-toppling in Baghdad look like there were more people than were actually there.

Also from the Memory Hole, the change in widely-disseminated news reports of a sign held by Iraqi protesters from “Sooner or later US killers we'll kick you out” to “...we’ll kill you.”

Also, the LA Times changed the online archived version of a story about the US plane that fired on British tanks, to remove everything that made the US look bad.

FAIR says that a Nexis search shows that the evening news programs on the 3 networks have not used the term “depleted uranium” once since the beginning of the year.

There will be a Polish Zone in Iraq. Oh, if I only did those sort of jokes.

Seymour Hersh’s latest, on how crappy the Bush admin’s intel on Iraq actually was, and how it was manipulated by Chalabi’s people and those in the Pentagon who only wanted to hear what they wanted to hear.

Henry Waxman has demanded an accounting of the cost for Bush’s campaign ad on the USS Abraham Lincoln, as Bush staff are forced to admit he could simply have taken a helicopter.

Here’s a story you don’t see every day: “Emmanuel Gumbi, 31, ran into a South African supermarket butcher’s department, seized a butcher’s saw and started to cut off his own head.” That’s an electric saw. He got halfway through. Which was enough.

Green chili cheese grits

A week on, a report on the Americans’ lies about the massacre of Fallujah and failure to do a proper investigation. It also lists the state of play on investigations of other incidents, friendly fire, killing of journalists, that guy who confessed to murder to the Las Vegas newspaper.

Tony Blair, whose exact religious status is a little ambiguous (i.e., he’s been flirting with Catholicism for years) says that his actions in Iraq will be judged by “my Maker.” By British standards, this is effusively religious and is not the sort of thing one does in public. Former MP Matthew Parris says of Blair, “He has an unhinged belief, firstly in the purity of his own intention, secondly in the fact that his own good intentions can only lead to good results, and thirdly that he's going to win people over, that he's going to persuade people.” Which is a good description of Shrub.

The Mozarteum University in Salzburg, which once graduated Herbert van Karajan, is introducing a course in yodeling. Yodeling is becoming very popular, the Sunday Telegraph article says, including in Japan and China. Japanese people yodeling. The 4-year course will also include the zither and “the sort of dances that require the wearing of lederhosen and involve much knee-slapping.”

Speaking of cultural horrors, Bush had the Australian PM out to the ranch and fed him one of Bush’s favorite meals: green chili cheese grits.

Evidently today is the 25th anniversary of spam.

Today, Bush went out of his way to say that Tariq Aziz is giving us no useful information. Which obviously means that he is. Honestly, how stupid do they think we are?

No, don’t answer that.

The Big Shrug

From the Guardian: Later, veteran Labour MP Tam Dalyell tabled a Commons question to the prime minister asking to which Iraqis he was referring when he claimed in Warsaw that he had spoken to local people during his visit to Iraq on the subject of welcoming the American-British military action. Mr Dalyell, MP for Linlithgow and father of the Commons, commented: "From the public prints and the BBC, I understand that the only Iraqis to whom he spoke were schoolchildren."

The same story says Blair gave an “angry but opaque” denial of accusations that MI6 was told to “sex up” the dossier of accusations against Iraq. (In another bit of good writing, Polly Toynbee says that with Blair there is always a wavy line between deception and self-deception. “There is an almost childish blurring between the wish and the fact: if he says something strongly enough, his words can magic it into truth.” Sound like anyone else you know?)

Matthew Parris in The Times says that Blair’s (and by extension Bush’s) new communications tool about such things as the Big Shrug, a term I intend to use frequently. He doesn’t think it’ll work in Britain, and is surprised that the country turned out not to be so amnesiac as to have forgotten the reason given for going to war. The US, of course, is populated almost entirely by amnesiacs.

They’ve also been sexing up the March report of the UN inspectors, as proof that Iraq had WMDs. Hans Blix denies that they ever said anything of the sort.

If anyone out there cares about the Congo, they might want to read this . Here’s it’s opening sentence: “From her hiding place in the woods outside the Congolese town of Bunia, Ruta Bonabingi watched as militiamen roasted and then ate the severed arms of her dying daughters.” The paper notes that this is the deadliest war since 1945. Let’s give some credit to the French for being willing to send peacekeeping troops into the heart of darkness.

Some Burmese are suing Unocal in American courts, for the forced labor, murder, torture, rape, etc etc used by the Burmese military to provide security and free labor for the building of Unocal’s pipeline. John Ashcroft wants to eliminate the ability of foreigners to pursue such suits in US courts.

The Texas thing goes on. A restraining order was issued barring the fuzz shredding any more paperwork related to its hunt for the missing D’s, no doubt too late. A Dem. state rep on the Law Enforcement Committee, seeking to interview 4 cops, was told by the attorney general that he must first tell them who leaked that they were destroying documents.

A British soldier is being questioned for the torture of an Iraqi POW (also something about soldiers performing sex acts near POWs, details unclear at present). How do we know this? Because he took pictures. And had them developed in a shop in Britain. Which called the cops.

What is Bush’s thing with eyes? There was his comment about looking into Putin’s eyes and understanding his soul, or something, and now he says he’s going to the Middle East because “I want [Middle East leaders] to look me in the eye so they can see that I am determined to work to make this happen.” Is it the left eye or the right eye that’s the determined one? To me, they both look vacant.

Reality tv at its finest, in Britain, where the parties are competing to see who can be nastiest about and to seekers of political asylum. Viewers will be invited to vote on particular cases.

There was a major earthquake in Japan. The deputy governor of the affected region has been fired because after hearing the news, he carried on playing a pinball gambling game for 45 minutes. Actually, if it’s the game I think it is, it’s very popular in Japan and takes in huge amounts of money, which go to North Korea.

Pork--the other white blasphemy against Allah

William Saletan on Bush’s continual attempts to conflate the wars on terrorism and Iraq: http://slate.msn.com/id/2082419/
Here’s a paragraph:

But don't tell us this was a triumph in the war on terror, Mr. President. Don't tell us the defeat of a secular dictator has turned the tide against a gang of religious fanatics. And don't talk about patience. You inserted a battle that could have waited into a war that couldn't, precisely because you lacked-or thought we lacked-patience for the slow, diffuse, half-invisible struggle against the people who hit us on Sept. 11. You wanted a quick, clear victory, and you got it. But don't flatter yourself. You haven't changed the world in 19 months. You've only changed the subject.

I agree with all of that except the term “Mr. President.” Even before reading it, I was going to comment on a bit from the Bush speech: “The war on terror is not over; yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but...” yadda yadda. The problem is that he is treating the “war on terror” as if it were a traditional war, with a “day of final victory,” but fighting terrorism is at least as much like a police problem, no more winnable than the war on drugs or the war on muggings.

One problem with treating this as a traditional war is that it encourages racist responses. Let’s see if I can explain that. The Bushies are encouraging us to think of terrorists as if they were a nationality, as if they all came from one (evil) place that can be bombed, when they are in fact a dispersed group of people with diverse origins (the Brits are currently trying to figure out how they produced their very first suicide bomber), and diverse ideologies. We’re being encouraged to think of them instead as an ethnic or national group, and the only ethnic group that most of them are is Arab.

I was right about Bush’s visit to the carrier being expensive, but it also kept the sailors from their homes by an extra day, after the longest deployment of a US carrier in 30 years.

Still, it gives The Nation an excuse to talk about Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service, and remind us that we still haven’t seen evidence that he didn’t go AWOL for a year.

The article does miss one of the ways in which it was ensured that Bush would never face action: he was trained on obsolete planes about to go out of service.

The only expression of outrage I’ve seen about the R’s hijacking 9/11 for their 2004 convention. And also for failing to attack Rick “Inner” Santorum.

Labour’s loss of 800 local council seats in yesterday’s elections suggest that an electoral “Baghdad bounce” is more elusive than Bush expects. One can but hope.

US soldiers, who have finally ended their occupation of the school in Fallujah, left an English-language lesson in graffiti--“Eat Shit Iraq,” “I love pork,” etc etc. Did I mention that the locals were sure that the soldiers were using night-vision to check out their women?

The CIA wants new powers to issue demands for information from libraries, internet providers, etc etc in the US (without a warrant, of course).

Former secretary of education and upholder of the nation’s morals William Bennett is evidently a major gambler, having lost something like $8 million in Vegas.

Birmingham, Alabama’s chief of police, the office once held by Bull Connor, is a black woman.

And there is a highly entertaining obituary in the NY Times, of Boston’s last censor, that is not to be missed.

Let's kill him anyway

Just watched Bush’s little smirk-and-swagger-a-thon, on board a carrier, no less. They’re going to divert the path of the carrier so that Bush can take a helicopter from it to San Diego, so all in all a pretty expensive campaign ad. We should be thankful he didn’t give the speech in the flight suit he was wearing earlier, which I thought was very Michael-Dukakis-in-a-tank, although a middle-aged man in a suit and tie on an aircraft carrier is also pretty silly-looking.

“We have difficult work to do in Iraq,” he said, but then he considers tying his shoes difficult work and has never mastered the pronunciation of nuclear, so perhaps his definition of what constitutes difficult work is not everyone’s. Again he referred to the military as the “highest calling.” In your face, doctors and teachers! He said that Saddam built palaces instead of hospitals and schools. Of course now the hospitals are all looted, and the US military is occupying both the palaces and the schools, and this week shot up a crowd of people who wanted their school back, so possibly that wasn’t the best choice of words. He also tried hard to link the war to terrorism, still without offering any proof of the alliance of Iraq with al Qaida, which he mentioned yet again.

One major goal in Iraq is to rewrite their copyright laws, which only give a maximum of 50 years of protection.

So the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are both “over.” Also, the “no fly zones.” Of course the US always claimed that those were authorized by UN resolutions, so I’m not quite sure how the US can end them all by itself...

I mentioned the US acquiring records on the inhabitants of at least 7 Latin American countries. I hadn’t known that the company the government hired to do this was Choice Point, the same company that Katherine Harris used to purge black “felons” from Florida’s voting rolls. It claims that everything it did was legal, and that it protected itself by putting in its contract with its Mexican sub-contractors that they do nothing illegal. The problem there is that the records they acquired could not be acquired except illegally. On Friday, the Nicaraguan police raided the offices of Choice Point’s sub-contractors there.

In the ongoing comedy that is the only terrorist trial after 9/11, Moussaoui wants John Ashcroft to answer a multiple choice question as to what his actual theory of the case is: 1) 20th hijacker, 2) pilot of a 5th plane, 3) don’t know, 4) let’s kill him anyway. That’s not my joke, it’s Moussaoui’s. Terrific, a terrorist with stand-up comedy aspirations.

Actually, I think Ashcroft’s personal motto is Let’s kill him anyway.

Not spam

My server's anti-spam software has struck again. My last email, dated Tuesday at 8:39 pm, had the subject line “An enlarged prostitute.” This caused the server to add to the subject line a warning that it might be spam. Here’s the funny part: the word that set off the spam detector was not “prostitute,” it was “enlarged,” as in ads for penis/breast enlargement.

So maybe I won’t tell you that scientists have learned how to grow penis tissue in the lab. That’s laboratory, not labrador, and you should all be ashamed of yourselves.

Colin Powell’s claim that gunfire was coming from the Palestine Hotel on April 8 was discredited even more thoroughly than I realized: French tv was filming the whole time, and there was no sound of gunfire on the tape.

The Bush admin is asking the Supreme Court not to strike “under God” out of the Pledge of Blind Obedience, saying that the Constitution “does not forbid the government from officially acknowledging the religious heritage, foundation and character of this nation.” What religious foundation and character would those be? I would also note that Bush said earlier in the week (re Iraq) that freedom was a gift from God, and not from, oh, say, institutions created by man. Actually, if you put everything together, Bush is saying that freedom was a gift from God to the United States, and that freedom in places like Iraq is a gift from the US. Although Rumsfeld has emphatically ruled out Iraq ever being ruled by government that acknowledges the “religious heritage, foundation and character” of Iraq.

As expected, on Thursday Bush will declare victory. The Independent headline: “The War is Over (Except for Iraq).” And especially, except for Fallajuh, where US troops shot dead 2 more people today, who were protesting the killing of 13 or so protesters yesterday. Once again, no American soldiers were even injured. I forget, why was Saddam bad? Something about oppressing the people. The fake mayor of Baghdad, the US says, will be held for a very long time, without trial of course.

Bush has chosen a civilian administrator for Iraq, one L. Paul Bremer, former head of the State Dept’s counterterrorism office (and then in Kissinger Associates). In other words, someone whose qualifications have nothing to do with rebuilding Iraq and everything to do with the US’s interest in neutering Iraq.

Rummy is in Iraq. He broadcast to the Iraqi people, telling them all about his grandchildren (really). He said that there is more food, water and electricity in Iraq than under Saddam--remarks which would have pissed Iraqis off, had any of them had electricity with which to view the broadcast. He called for them to provide information on “foreign fighters,” who are there “seeking to hijack your country for their own purpose.” Whenever an American talks about foreign interference, I’m reminded of my stay in Cambridge in 1983. After a couple of weeks, a lot of us Americans were complaining about those noisy foreigners (i.e., Italians and Germans).

He is visiting the country for the first time since 1984, when he went to sell a pipeline to Saddam. And here’s a story about Rummy being on the board of a company that won the contract to build nuclear reactors for North Korea. Astonishingly, at the same time, he was chairing the “Rumsfeld Commission” on missile threats to the US, which concluded that NK could strike the US within 5 years (this was in, uh oh, 1998) and that it was using those reactors to build nukes. Why don’t we just find out which countries he did business with, and bomb them all?

You may remember that the BBC had Brits vote on the Top 10 Britons of all time, with Churchill beating out Shakespeare as top bulldog. The Germans will do this next, but their options will be circumscribed: Steffi Graf yes, Adolf Hitler no.

I said again recently that the Russians lied about the number killed in the theater siege. Sure enough, at least 40 more are dead. And some of the survivors are not at all well.

An enlarged prostitute

Heard a story on NPR that hasn’t made the papers: the US, working through a private company, has bought up voter registration information in a number of Latin American countries, including Mexico, Nicaragua and Colombia. Which aren’t supposed to be sold in the first place. The INS and Justice now hold lists that include addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth.

I’ve really got to get one of those tv’s with closed captioning. Last week ABC News’s closed captioning said that Alan Greenspan was in the hospital for an enlarged prostitute. I understand that’s a problem with older men, and can be very painful.

To combat SARS, the respiratory illness so dangerous that it is both serious *and* acute, Beijing has closed all schools, libraries and most hospitals. So just like California under the next budget, then. Also theaters, movies, karoake. So just like the Taliban, then.

As of this writing, it is not clear whether anyone in the crowd of Falluja protesters actually fired at the school taken over by US soldiers (what is it with all the occupations of kiddie parks and schools, anyway?). I’ve seen reports which say there are bullet holes in the school, and reports which say there are none. Quite possibly shots were only fired into the air, in the moronic but traditional custom of celebrating Saddam’s birthday (have a happy, Saddam!). What is clear is that there are scores of bullet holes in buildings opposite the school, because US soldiers fired on a crowd consisting largely of children and teenagers, with machine-guns. 15 dead by the latest count, countless wounded. The American version would be strengthened if a single soldier had a single bullet wound, but nope. They are pulling out of the school, though.

Similarly, the US is going to pull its bases out of Saudi Arabia and use Qatar instead, which leaves the burning question, do even the Qataris know how to pronounce Qatar, or do they just pretend to cough every time they have to say the name of their country aloud? Anyway, it took a year and a half after 9/11, but Osama bin Laden has finally won the most important of his goals, getting US troops away from the holy sites. Obviously the plan was pretty darned subtle.

“Jerry Springer--The Opera,” premieres in London.

The Supreme Court refuses to hear a challenge to S Carolina’s dangerous licensing laws for abortion clinics, including full access by the government to patient records, and requiring the presence of a member of the clergy. I mean, how could that last possibly be constitutional? Who is the government to say who is or who is not a member of the clergy? The mere requirement amounts to saying that some people are closer to God, if there were a God, than others, which besides going against the principles of half the major religions, including Buddhism, Islam and Judaism, entails government licensing of the clergy. The state of SC said the clergy requirement was “sensible” because “the fact that to many female believers, the potential impact of the abortion transcends secular psychology and may well have ramifications for her ‘immortal soul.’” Oh, ok, because until I saw that I was thinking it was none of the state’s business.

But is it art? Actually, who cares, as long as there are naked people

Clarification: when I said that HIV-positive men can father children, I of course meant through IVF, after a “cleaning” process. So don’t try this at home.

The Pentagon decides its troops know everything about keeping the peace that they need to know, and will close down the Peacekeeping Institute at the US Army War College.

In the Independent, “Revealed: How the road to war was paved with lies.” Pretty much what it sounds like.

Follow-up: Hamburg, NY has declined to change its name. Turns out Hamburg is where the hamburger was born, in 1885. The PETA guy says that veggie burgers are a nutritious alternative and animals don’t have to suffer. Unless you count humans as animals, and humans are the ones expected to eat the wretched things.

I’m told by a recipient of this list who can read Norwegian that that amusement park had no children in it when the US soldiers ran the naked looters through it, because it is occupied by the US military, which is using it to store weapons. And that way there are no lines for the rides. No kids, but there certainly were photographers, weren’t there? The article also explains that Iraqis find public nudity very humiliating, something which Norwegians, who enjoy being naked in public, might need explained to them, my informant points out.

Norway’s equality chief (who should start with her own job title) has urged a change in crosswalk signs to more gender-neutral stick figures. Norway’s current signs feature a man in a hat (or possibly a lesbian). No word in the Agence France-Presse story about whether the figure wears anything besides a hat.

You know, somewhere there must be a website devoted to crosswalk figures throughout the world. It might even be fun. I remember noticing that the figure in West German signals walked a lot faster than the one in East Germany.

The Day the Fake Laughter Died: Charles Douglass, inventor of the laugh track, has died.

Attorney Gen Ashcroft “rules” that illegal immigrants who aren’t criminals or terrorists or anything can be detained indefinitely, without any investigation to determine whether the individual poses any sort of threat. The case was of a Haitian, and the reason Ashcroft gives for imprisoning him is that releasing him would encourage other Haitians to come which would strain “homeland security resources.” In other words, imprison an innocent man indefinitely purely to send a message to others. How many concentration camps does this country now run, in which people are incarcerated without any legal process?

Shrub gives an interview to NBC, which I did not watch. The NY Times says it “provided rare access to the president’s thinking.” The horror, the horror.

Here’s the “president’s” thinking on the Dixie Chicks: “They can say what they want to say. And just because--they shouldn’t have their feelings hurt just because some people don’t want to buy their records when they speak out. You know, freedom is a two-way street.” True as far as it goes, but the--here come those quote marks again--“president of the United States” just endorsed a boycott of artists who speak out against his policies.

And a reminder of other blacklist activities: Martin Sheen seems to have survived the impeachment campaign against him, but he did lose a car commercial, and Janeane Garofalo, who was supposed to have a sitcom in the fall, no longer does.

Bush said that "on bended knee to the good Lord, I asked Him to help me to do my job in a way that's wise". So that would be a “no,” then.

US troops from the 422nd Irony Battalion arrest the self-proclaimed mayor of Baghdad for “exercising authority which was not his.” Those exercising authority which evidently is theirs include the so-called technocrats, the Iraqi exiles just flown in. Most of them refuse to be identified by name, because they don’t want to be killed.

Bush’s little exploitative gesture of holding the R. convention in September 2004 puts it past the deadline to be on the ballot in several states, including California, heh heh heh.

Talks over Northern Ireland, conducted entirely through the media as near as I can figure it, are still going on, with the British and (for once) the Irish governments trying to get the IRA to say that the war is over. Jeez, how hard is that, Putin has declared the war in Chechnya over half a dozen times, Bush is supposed to declare Gulf War II over this Thursday, and nobody expects that to stop us killing Iraqis. I think Gerry Adams’s statements have been as clear as anyone could expect on the subject, but they keep demanding more clarifications, which will never be enough for David Trimble. Anyway, the Northern Ireland Assembly is still suspended, which may mean that the elections scheduled for a month from now may occur, even though they will be to a body that doesn’t actually technically exist. “Vote for me, I won’t do anything.” Pretty appealing, actually.

Bush says he would invite the new Palestinian prime minister to the White House “one of these days,” but only if he wasn’t in the company of Arafat (who was actually elected to office, unlike Mr. Abbas, or indeed Bush). The thing is, that statement is pure posturing. Arafat is under house arrest, still, and if he left the country, the Israelis would refuse to let him back in. Today, Abbas said that he will refuse to go to Washington, or anywhere else, until Arafat’s freedom of movement is restored.

US forces in Iraq seize the six of clubs. Not a person, just the six of clubs.

A children’s hospital in Iasi, Romania has decided that it no longer has enough money to pay for dialysis, and so will let children with kidney failure die. What it does have money for is new armed guards to keep journalists out of the hospital.

The pope, as ever working for religious intolerance, is to make a saint of a friar who worked to keep Turks out of Europe. And in the process invented cappuccino.

From the Daily Telegraph. There is a picture in the story. I have appended a picture from the guy’s website. There is also a piece by the paper’s art critic, who participated in the piece.

If my liver makes people talk about the issues then some good will come of it

I bought a package of chicken breasts from Safeway, and found there was also what appeared to be a tentacle.

This is a Norwegian newspaper. The picture at the top is of American soldiers with some Iraqi thieves they have caught, and decided to punish by burning their clothes, writing “Ali Baba--thief” on one, and marching them naked through a park. Which looks an awful lot like a kiddie park, so you can see why marching naked men through it seemed like a good idea. (This story does not seem to run in either the NY Times or the WashPost, although a couple of British papers have it--par for the course. Only the Norwegians have pics.)

Colin Powell writes to the Spanish foreign minister defending the soldiers who shot up the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, killing among others a Spanish cameraman. He repeats the story that they were responding to fire from the hotel, which was categorically discredited more than two weeks ago. But then this is the man who first investigated My Lai and claimed nothing happened.

Headline: “Dixie Chick Regrets Choice of Words.” Which word? Dixie, or chick?

Bush finally comes out in defense of Rick Santorum several days after Senator Sanctimonious made his original homophobic remarks. Meaning that like with Trent Lott’s racist remarks a few months ago, he decided to wait until he found out whether there’d be political fallout, and in this case decided that there wasn’t. The weather vane has spoken: gay-bashing is officially acceptable. As long as it’s “inclusive,” I guess. Here’s an exchange from a Friday press conference:

Reporter: What's the president's beliefs about homosexuality?

Ari Fleischer: You know, that's a question that's been put to the president, and if you go back and you look at it, the president has said that, first of all, he doesn't ask that question about people. He judges people about who they are, their individual soul. That's not a matter the president concerns himself with. He judges people for how they act and how they relate, and that's his focus on that.

As to whether private sexual acts should be illegal, Fleischer said that he couldn’t comment about matters before the Supreme Court. (Remember that the court case is from Texas, from when Bush was governor).

The US (motto: do as we say, not as we do) has accused N Korea of blackmail. And prepares to retaliate against France for not doing exactly what we wanted. Actually, the only use to which nuclear weapons have ever been put (since August 9, 1945, anyway) is blackmail. That’s what they’re for.

The US is also blaming Iran for stirring up the Shiites in Iraq against America. You don’t think all those bombs might have something to do with why they aren’t all that thrilled with us?

Another questionable miracle of modern medical science: it is now possible for men with HIV to safely father children (because the virus is carried in the semen, not the sperm).

The president of PETA has willed that after death her body be barbecued, except her feet, which will be cut off to make umbrella stands, her skin, which will be turned into leather products, her liver sent to France, because “If my liver makes people talk about the issues then some good will come of it.” Oh, and some part of her heart buried near the Formula One track in Germany. That one’s not a protest, she just likes car racing.

In South Wales, a man in court for sending offensive emails to a company which wouldn’t hire him, produces a character reference from the pope. Which was fake. (“Papal Bull,” the Daily Telegraph headline read)

A rather impressive suicide. A builder constructed this elaborate thing involving a timer, a jigsaw cutter and a guillotine. It took three months. To build I mean, not three months to cut off his head.

One thing's for certain...

Bush says, “One thing's for certain, Saddam Hussein no longer threatens America with weapons of mass destruction.” Certain, except for the fact that we don’t know where either Hussein or the weapons actually are.

More Bush logic: “Some in Congress say the plan is too big. Well, it seems like to me they might have some explaining to do. If they agree that tax relief creates jobs, then why are they for a little bitty tax relief package?” So if we eliminated taxes altogether....

Actually, he’s used that type of argument before. On Iraq, in March: “These governments share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it.” Basically, if you show any willingness to compromise with Bush, he claims you accept all his premises and are therefore a hypocrite for not following him 100%.

Card #11 was captured today (well, turned himself in, as most of them have--we’re just not very good at finding stuff or people in Iraq). Leaving the question, where are all these prisoners disappearing to?

One place they’re not going is the witness box. The Justice Department is trying to deny Zacarias Moussaoui the right to question an Al Qaeda leader in US custody. Justice is saying that intelligence-gathering comes above, well, justice. OK, it’s actually fine for the government to decide that, but in that case it doesn’t get to have both, and Moussaoui should be free to go.

Some peace activists allege that they’ve mysteriously wound up on the FAA “do not fly” list, a list which is supposed to be for terrorists, not pacifists, and certainly not people who just happen to be critics of Bush.

The talks with North Korea are going well. Really. Remember how the talks to end the Korean War went on and on and on, taking months just to decide the shape of the table? Well here at the very first meeting, the N Korean delegate says, yeah we have nuclear weapons, we may test them, we may use them, we may sell them, and then said, and this is evidently a quote, What are you going to do about it? Now that’s rapid progress!

You’ll remember a Florida law insisting that women giving up babies for adoption recite their sexual histories for the court. This just got struck down.

Montana culture

I don’t know what it is all of a sudden with the Nigerian email scams I keep getting. Today's has a nice twist: it claims to be from the son of Laurent Kabila. In fact, the particular sum of money, 25% of which can be mine if I provide my bank account number, was intended to buy arms from South Africa. And I can tell you, people don’t just give bank account numbers--my answering machine message has asked for that information for a month and no one has yet provided it.

As predicted, Iraqi Shiite gratitude to the US lasted about a nanosecond. Either they have really short memories, or they were too busy with the pilgrimage for the anniversary of the death of Mohammed’s grandson in 640 AD.

Montana’s legislature breaks up without even voting on an open-container bill. Let me introduce you to one of the few supporters of drinking and driving, Jim Shockley (R-Denial), who says, using an odd definition of the word culture, “If they don’t like our culture, they should go somewhere else.” But if they do that, they might want to avoid driving there, cause it’s kinda dangerous.

The US says it opposes “any outside interference” in Iraq. I assume that’s a joke. [Later:] evidently a NY Times story I haven’t seen yet (damned ink on paper slowpokes) on this very subject also says that the US is trying to assist certain clerics, but, shh, don’t tell anyone. Still, there was absolutely no hint in the warning to Iran that there might be something funny about it, nor in the story in the WashPost about the unelected mayor of Kut, who simply walked into the mayor’s office and took over, like Jay Garner didn’t just do the same to a presidential palace.

Weasel words of the week: Ari Fleischer explaining why Bush hasn’t said anything about Santorum’s anti-gay comments: “the president typically never does comment on anything involving a Supreme Court case.” Bill (“The Cat Vivisector”) Frist says that Santorum is actually a voice for inclusion and compassion in the Republican Party. Richard Cohen of the Post suggests that that’s a pretty low bar.

The WHO says that people should avoid travel to Toronto. Canadians are furious, which actually looks a lot like Canadians being calm, or bored, or euphoric.

The US military (finally) admits that some of those held at Guantanamo are 13-15 years old. Guantanamo now has a juvenile wing. And we’re bitching about what the Cubans are doing with the part of the island we’ve graciously left in their hands.

Etch-a-sketch online. Literally seconds of fun. But what sort of person does it take to figure out how to use a computer to cheat at the etch-a-sketch?

The US has captured 10 of the 55 cards in Iraq, and whoever came up with that pack of cards thing must be pissing themself laughing at how the media ran with it. Forget the tv news graphics, the bloody NY Times shows a drawing of the appropriate card whenever one is captured. You know they never even issued these things to actual soldiers and only ever printed 200 sets? It was aimed right at the media from the beginning, forces them to print every time another of Saddam’s second cousins or whomever is captured, as if it were some major triumph. They still haven’t captured so much as a Saddam stunt double, but this gimmick still lets it look like progress is being made, at least in the capture of people on a list chosen by some process that no media outlet I’ve seen has even bothered trying to examine. Oh, and quite a few of the 10 have been “captured” by Chalabi’s mercenary forces, who were just airlifted into the country a week or two ago, a suspicious level of success which suggests that the cards are marked (sorry).

Bush is pressuring Congresscritters, including those of his own party, by sending Cabinet members and himself to 30 states, a tactic the Bushies are calling “flood the zone,” evidently a football term of some sort. The Daily Show notes that the Democrats will respond with their own sports strategy: the asthma note from home.

Which is really too sad to be funny. The R’s just announced plans to push their 2004 convention back a month to hold it--in New York, yet--right before the anniversary of 9/11, in a cynical attempt to exploit it for partisan advantage. So where are the howls of outrage from Democrats that should have followed? I suspect a good many Americans would share that outrage with only a little bit of prodding. I mean, I personally experienced disappointment. I used to express wonder at the fact that I expected almost nothing from Clinton and yet he still somehow managed to disappoint me, but before this week I never felt disappointment at Bush--shock, disgust, outrage, amazement, sure, but never disappointment.

You have the right to anything

A story in the Monday NY Times says that the Bush admin is making decisions about what procedures and drugs Medicare will cover based on costs. No kidding. We’d have a much more rational discussion about health care in this country if there wasn’t this fantasy that there is some system possible in which health care isn’t rationed in some way. Some of the Times’s examples, though, are new drugs that Medicare refuses to pay for because it insists they are “functionally identical” to cheaper older drugs, and this raises some questions. Either Medicare is practicing medicine without a license, or the FDA is so much the instrument of the pharmaceutical industry that it is licensing drugs it is legally required to reject (new drugs not only have to pass tests, but they are supposed to be rejected if they are not in some way an improvement on existing drugs). Either Medicare or the FDA is lying.

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Homophobia) clarifies his earlier remarks, saying that he has nothing against homosexuals, just homosexual acts. So that’s ok then. In case you missed the earlier remarks, they were: “If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.” Rick, you have the right to remain silent--use it.

The official state sport of Maryland is jousting. Oklahoma’s official state meal is okra and chicken-fried steak, which sounds suspiciously like a prisoner’s last meal. However, Pennsylvania is deadlocked on the issue of a state cookie, with the state senate supporting the chocolate chip, the house of reps the Nazareth sugar cookie. (Oddly enough, these facts derive from 2 different articles I happened to come across today, just a couple of days after Chris, using his period of unemployment to maximum effect, called to regale me with the lyrics of state songs he’d found on the web (“Here We Have Idaho,” indeed). One article went on about the politics behind making the official dance of half the states the same one, Western Square Dancing, which evidently has a particularly vicious lobbying group.

A McNeil-Lehrer piece on non-citizens in the US military didn’t quite suggest the extent to which citizenship is being held out as bait to get foreigners to fight our wars for us. Of the 1st 10 Californians who got killed in Iraq, 5 were not citizens, which is exactly in line with recruitment in southern Cal.

PETA (motto: Providing Straight Lines for Late Night Comedians Since 1987, Despite Having No Sense of Humor Ourselves) wants Hamburg, NY to change its name to Veggieburg.

Russian train conductors were hospitalized following a contest that involved smashing their heads repeatedly against a train window to determine who had the strongest forehead.

Viceroy Jay Garner (whose last nation-building effort was the highly unsuccessful Strategic Hamlets program in South Vietnam) arrives in Baghdad, finally, takes over a palace, and said "The new government of Iraq will have one leader, one army, one government." Probably sounded better in the original German. For details on the selection process, click here.

Garner also said that the new government would be a “mosaic.” My computer dictionary defines a mosaic as a picture or pattern produced by arranging together small colored pieces of stone, tile or glass. Which is I guess pretty much all the bombing left.

Note also that while Bush said that after World War II “we did not leave behind occupying armies, we left constitutions and parliaments,” we actually occupied Japan until 1952 and Germany until 1955 (Berlin a lot longer). Oh, and we currently have 69,000 troops in Germany and 40,000 in Japan.

A Times op-ed headline: “The King is Dead, Long Live the Ayatollahs.” (And a good line from that piece: “A Bechtel contract is not a constitution.”) Fascinating how much moral influence the mullahs seem to have in Iraq. Makes you wonder where they’ve been all these years. Anyway, some of the looters are returning goods because a cleric issued an edict forbidding their wives having sex with them until they did.

The ayatollahs are spreading rumors that female British troops wear very short skirts (must be an Austin Powers thing) and the male troops are distributing sex pictures to women and children.

Speaking of freedom, Pizza Hut and Burger King have already moved into Iraq (in the British bases in Basra, anyway).

I would suggest he not pop his head up

There’s nothing like the current Bush administration to make you regret the times you rolled your eyes while listening to a conspiracy theorist or told some reductionist Marxist that the world was really more complicated than that. Evidently, it’s not. Now, corporations are buying legislation directly; the US is turning its attention from Iraq to the next country on Israel’s enemy list and is planning a pipeline to deliver Iraqi oil to Israel; the only Iraqi government office in Baghdad that wasn’t bombed was the oil ministry, which was also the only place protected by troops from looters on day one of the occupation; and the media, well....

I hate to think the world is really this unsubtle, but Time magazine recently pulled from its website an article it published in March 1998 by George Bush the Elder and Brent Scowcroft, giving reasons they didn’t remove Saddam Hussein in the 1st Gulf War. It even airbrushed it from the Table of Contents for that issue (incidentally, that issue is “premium content,” meaning that you have to have paid them in order to access it, so the removal of the article is also a rip-off to whoever pays them for premium content). Anyway, if you want to read it (I didn’t), it’s archived here.

So possibly the conspiracists had it right all along. Maybe we should all take another look at the Trilateral Commission.

Here’s a nicely appalling anti-abortion parody.

Rumsfeld says that the US probably can’t find Iraq’s weapons without someone leading us to them. So what’s the point of having a CIA, NSA, DIA, etc? Let’s abolish them and just post a $1 billion reward every time we want information like this. Even the British Tories are saying that if Blair doesn’t produce evidence about WMDs there should be an investigation as to whether the intelligence services misled the government. No one is making such a demand in this country.

Trouble in paradise, or at least Baghdad: the #2 man in Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress (which is neither Iraqi nor national nor a congress) has declared in favor of an Islamic theocracy (and named himself mayor of Baghdad and lord of all the rubble he surveys). Chalabi denies any such intentions. When the CIA was giving all that money to the INC, did it know about this? According to “Mayor” Zubaidi, he was chosen as mayor not by reverse alphabetical order as you might imagine, but by “tribal leaders and educated people, the doctors of the city and other prominent leaders.”

The US is meanwhile restoring Baathists to power, if they ever left. In fact, that general who was just captured, who had been in charge of the chemical weapons program, well, the US military just offered his brother his job back. He works at the oil ministry.

Remember the restaurant the US allegedly bombed in an attempt to assassinate Saddam? It’s reopened. This is possible because all 4 bombs missed, hitting civilian houses. The restaurant turns out to be pretty down-market too, not really Saddam’s style--$1.50 chicken, not gold toilets--so he was probably never there to begin with. Bush’s advice to Saddam today: “I would suggest he not pop his head up.” Why? It’s hard to see him being in much danger from us.

Bush spent Easter with two of the POWs, like they haven’t suffered enough. Have you noticed that our designated heroes from this war are all POWs? I think it’s a post-9/11 thing that even during a war of conquest, the US celebrates its “victims.”

Bush says that Syria has gotten the message. “I'm confident the Syrian government has heard us.” Yup, those were pretty loud explosions.

Slovakia, which is not Slovenia no matter what the Bushies think, has signed a deal with the Vatican on “freedom of conscience,” which of course means no such thing. Under it, no doctor will have to give an abortion, teacher teach sex ed, judges can throw out divorce applications on religious grounds, etc etc. Like Poland, when it joins the EU it will demand an opt-out on “cultural” issues, like giving equal rights to gays.

Have I ever mentioned the tv-parody website www.tvgoto.com? If not, now I have. In the current one, I esp like the idea of a youth-oriented news programme [the site is British] called “Now ’n Shit.”

I’m going over the links archive at dead website seethru.co.uk, since it is bound to be pulled at some point. Expect some odd links over the next little while, such as:

A concentration camp made of Legos.

Or torture devices and scenes of industrial accidents, also made of Legos.

How to cure depression. You won’t believe me if I tell you the title, so just click (make sure you scroll down to the other suggested books).

How to live forever.

Saddam and the Elvis factor

Here’s a cute story that 6 Congresscritters--Reps. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn.; Bart Stupak, D-Mich.; Jim DeMint, R-S.C.; Mike Doyle, D-Pa.; and Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev. and Sam Brownback, R-Kan.--live in Washington in housing subsidized by a secretive religious group. Isn’t that special?

Lacking a DSL line, I usually keep at least 2 windows open while web-surfing and click between them while 1 is loading an article. Sometimes you get odd juxtapositions. A NY Times story on the Daily Show in the arts section quotes a segment from a couple of weeks ago:

When Mr. Stewart asked Mr. Colbert for his take on whether Saddam was dead or alive, the correspondent answered, "One thing is certain: If Saddam is dead, it greatly reduces his ability to control Iraq." But wouldn't his death end his control entirely? asked Mr. Stewart. Not necessarily, argued Mr. Colbert: "When this man appears in public no one is sure it's actually him, and yet he's held an iron grip on power since 1979 — 24 years of brutal dictatorship, all while only maybe existing. The point is we can kill Saddam Hussein but we won't win the war until we kill the idea of Saddam Hussein. So what we need to do is develop bombs that kill ideas."

And over in the Telegraph a story says that with footage of Saddam continually popping up after the US says he’s dead, no one in Iraq will believe he’s dead even if a body is produced--the “Elvis factor,” as it is called.

As worried as I was that American imperialism would be buoyed by a victory in Iraq achieved at a low cost in American lives, and with all those POWs back and happily negotiating movie-of-the-week deals, there is some hope in the attitude of the Iraqis and in the Pentagon’s staggering ability to lose the peace. If the Iraqis ever danced, it was the minute waltz, so quickly did their attitude turn from Hey, thanks for the liberation to Why are you guys still here?, and What have you done for us lately? They’re already asking why they should have to pay for contracts they never signed with American companies that were certainly not the lowest bidders and which never contributed to the election campaign of any Iraqis. I suspect we can also whistle for those four permanent bases the US wants--no Iraqi politician can survive as a perceived American puppet: just look how fast Chalabi’s star waned. This is what happens when your motives are in doubt: even the Iraqis who see this as a liberation believe that for the Americans liberation was only a happy coincidence to their real motives, oil and empire. So they see no reason for gratitude, and they’re right (also, we didn’t ask for gratitude, which they might have been willing to give, we simply imposed Bechtel and Haliburton and Jay Garner and the permanent bases on them). And Iraqi nationalism turned out to be pretty potent.

As for losing the peace, the same power vacuum that allowed all that looting has also allowed in all sorts of Iraqi power-grabbers. Like the Shiite cleric who came from Iran, marched into the government offices in Kut, declared himself the elected governor without bothering with the formality of an election, and the Marines can’t figure out how to get him out. If they ever do figure it out, I hope they tell the rest of us, since we had the same problem in 2000.

The Israeli army assassinated an AP cameraman. This sort of thing has been increasing; they have also been deliberately targeting peace activist “human shields.”

Both the NY Times and the WashPost have stories about Rumsfeld now “standing tall.” Dunno, to me he still looks like Robert MacNamara as a gnome, shorter, wider and squintier.

Some R group I’ve never heard of is attacking R moderates in tv ads digitally inserting French flags.

Here’s a creepy WashPost headline: “Bush to Worship With U.S. Troops in Texas.” Yee ha. Creepier is what Bush said in his radio address: “As a nation, we continue to pray for all who serve in our military and those who remain in harm's way. America mourns those who have been called home, and we pray that their families will find God's comfort and God's grace.” Count me out. Also, the White House Easter Egg roll (how is that different from an Easter egg hunt? [for the purposes of a joke, I will assume no difference])(or from the thing you get in Chinese restaurants?) will be closed to the public, only military families. They are expected to find none of the eggs, but claim that the Easter Bunny smuggled them into Syria.

Oh for fuck’s sake--the US plans to build a pipeline to send Iraqi oil to Israel. That shouldn’t create any sort of backlash at all. Since this isn’t mentioned anywhere else, and the story seems reasonably well sourced, I’ll give the URL.

I haven’t mentioned SARS yet, but shouldn’t China get some sort of spanking for covering up an epidemic for 3 months?

Snow day

Simon Wiesenthal, 94, has decided to retire as a Nazi hunter. Quitter.

Testing mania continues: 4th graders in Massachusetts took the state’s standardized test, and were told to write about their last snow day. This question did not take into account global warming--Boston hasn’t had a snow day in 2 years. So the superintendent ordered all 4th graders to take the test again, presumably asking them about the last time they had to take a pointless standardized test. Only the parents objected, so now parents can opt their kids out.

Cute piece on Chalabi’s first press conference in Iraq, punctuated by gunfire. Says the Indy: “he refused to explain what the flag of his movement – yellow, green and blue with what looked like red cluster bombs in the middle – symbolised.” Asked to explain why his “volunteer” Free Iraqi Forces tell reporters they are being paid $300 a month by him, he says that it’s not $300.

Oil for palaces

Now Bush wants sanctions lifted on Iraq. The problem with that is that the sanctions were not put there because the world didn’t like the old Iraqi government (and even if they had been, there isn’t any new Iraqi government, except for the US military’s occupation government). As the French helpfully point out, there is no evidence that Iraq has disarmed itself of WMDs. Thus is the Bush admin hoist on its own petard (I just looked that up; the metaphor is more violent, and appropriate, than I realized), that is the mid-war change in rationale for that war, from WMDs to “liberation.”

Of course, where it counts, sanctions still exist. For example, Save the Children accuses the US of killing Iraqi children by refusing to let a plane of medical supplies land in northern Iraq. Business as usual then.

Tommy Franks, holding a meeting in one of Saddam’s palaces, jokes that the UN program should have been called oil-for-palaces. Hilarious, Tommy. Maybe you should have thought a little more about how it looked before you decided to take over a frickin’ palace. Still, it’s always nice to take a dump in a gold toilet after you’ve taken a really big dump on an entire country. I noticed all those US colonels were wearing camouflage in the palace; given Saddam’s taste, though, they kinda stood out, which defeats the purpose of camouflage. I think they should all have been wearing Elvis’s old outfits, or Liberace’s.

In the strange allies department, the US, keeping a deal with Iran, according to the Wall Street Journal, bombed some of the guerilla groups that operated against Iran from Iraq.

Michael Kinsley has a cute column in Slate making fun of the huge no-bid contracts to rebuild Iraq. Here’s a paragraph:

It's like getting one of those cards announcing that instead of a Christmas present, someone has made a contribution in your name to some charity you aren't interested in. "Dear American Taxpayer: We are pleased to inform you that in gratitude for all the billions you're going to be pouring into Iraq, the U.S. government has made a sweetheart deal on your behalf with a company you've never heard of." Eighty billion dollars-the size of just the first expense report the Bush administration has submitted to Congress-works out to about $1,000 that needs to be kicked in by each household in the United States. Of course we're putting it all on the credit card, to be paid for in the future, with interest. But it's still real money. If we made a contribution that big to our local public broadcasting outlet, we'd qualify for a CD recording by six, nine, or even 12 tenors. From the Bush administration, we don't even get a tote bag.

He notes the widespread assumption that because we destroyed all those roads and bridges, we should get the contracts to rebuild them. Far be it for me to point out irony, but Michael Kinsley works for a Microsoft company.

A story that has the US already claiming that one reason it can’t find WMDs is that the looting destroyed the records. I of course said that this was coming.

US Marines have been ordered to hand over confiscated assault rifles to Chalabi’s stage army, mostly recently hired kids, who are using them to carjack people.

Another of Vladimir Putin’s critics, an opposition MP, is assassinated.