Bill Maher has described Bush’s aggressively virtuous appointees as men whose sole claim to office is that they “read the Bible and fuck their wives.”
I’ve been reading Hugo Young’s book about the history of British attitudes towards European union. Which was always skittish to say the least, but then there’s this (from today’s Indy): “Tony Blair believes that he may have triggered his heart scare by drinking too much strong coffee at the European Union summit in Brussels.”
A cute detail from day 2 of the Toledo Blade exposé: a panel was created after My Lai to prevent cover-ups in war crimes cases. The panel never actually met.
Fortunately, we’re so much more diligent about investigating war crimes now. The Human Rights Watch report out yesterday says that of 94 civilians killed by the US military in Baghdad alone since May 1 that it knows about (one lesson learned from Vietnam: stop counting), a full 5 have been officially investigated (4 exonerations). HRW’s head says, “Right now soldiers feel they can pull the trigger without coming under review.” The report notes that units went from combat duty to security details and, quoting an anonymous officer, “It takes a while to get the Rambo stuff out.” (Later:) and then there’s this AP story that US soldiers executed a prisoner in Iraq whose hands were tied with those plastic thingies Tiger Force would have loved to have had.
George Monbiot considers the implications of the export of phone support jobs, soon to be followed by middle management jobs, to India.
After 4 days of the summit, Bush finally “confronts” Malaysian PM Mahathir on his anti-semitic remarks. See, he was right, the Jews always do manage to get others to do their work by proxy.
Kidding, kidding. I kid because I love.
I hadn’t realized that Bush has never attended the funeral of a soldier killed in one of his wars (this in a Post story that the military has banned tv cameras showing the return of coffins).
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Water pollution
A Voice writer suggests that Joe Lieberman’s tactics, which entail attacking his opponents as dangerous leftists whose “old, big-government solutions” would lead to a “Dean recession,” etc etc, is an if-I-don’t-win-nobody-wins strategy. He compares this to the hatchet job Al Gore did on Dukakis in 1988. He also comments that when he tried to find a Lieberman event to cover, Holy Joe’s press office wouldn’t tell him any, and his website indicates that he pretty much only shows up at fundraisers.
Sy Hersh on just how the Bush admin got its intelligence on Iraq, etc, so horribly wrong, and some speculation on the origins of the yellowcake forgeries.
Harper’s on Bush abroad: “Bush said that the Philippines, which he called "the oldest democracy in Asia," should be seen as the model for a new democratic Iraq, and then quickly left the country because of security concerns.” Hey, that’s a model for any country: one where Bush doesn’t dare stay more than 6 hours.
The Florida legislature rushes through a bill allowing Jeb Bush to overturn a court order and order doctors to keep alive the body of a brain-dead woman against the wishes of her husband.
Chirac supports a ban on the wearing of Islamic headscarves in school: “We cannot allow people to shelter behind a deviant idea of religious liberty in order to defy the laws of the republic.” Especially the really petty, vindictive laws of the republic.
Re “Jerry” Boykin, David Corn asks what the reaction would be if he had said that Judaism was a false religion. I think as long as Rumsfeld keeps him in his job, any non-Christians in the military get to go home if they want. Rummy’s response to a question today was that he’d only heard difficult-to-understand video tapes, so he doesn’t really know what Boykin said. Corn comments that the Pentagon did seem to have the ability to analyze the supposed Osama bin Laden tapes, so this shouldn’t have been that difficult, but Boykin works for Rumsfeld, so why can’t he just ask him what he said? This is the Yellowcakegate (Weapons of Mate Destruction won the WashPost name-the-scandal contest) strategy of pretending Bush can’t order the leaker to reveal his or herself.
Boykin has asked to be investigated by the IG. Josh Marshall: “This, of course, rather begs the question of which “rules and procedures” his comments would have violated. Conduct unbecoming an officer from this millennium? Use of hellfire in violation of the Geneva Convention?”
Also from Harper’s: “Thai protesters captured the soul
of George W. Bush, imprisoned it in a clay pot, and then
drowned it in the Ping River.”
And this: “In France, a judge was caught masturbating in court. A penal inquiry was underway.” (Sorry)
Sy Hersh on just how the Bush admin got its intelligence on Iraq, etc, so horribly wrong, and some speculation on the origins of the yellowcake forgeries.
Harper’s on Bush abroad: “Bush said that the Philippines, which he called "the oldest democracy in Asia," should be seen as the model for a new democratic Iraq, and then quickly left the country because of security concerns.” Hey, that’s a model for any country: one where Bush doesn’t dare stay more than 6 hours.
The Florida legislature rushes through a bill allowing Jeb Bush to overturn a court order and order doctors to keep alive the body of a brain-dead woman against the wishes of her husband.
Chirac supports a ban on the wearing of Islamic headscarves in school: “We cannot allow people to shelter behind a deviant idea of religious liberty in order to defy the laws of the republic.” Especially the really petty, vindictive laws of the republic.
Re “Jerry” Boykin, David Corn asks what the reaction would be if he had said that Judaism was a false religion. I think as long as Rumsfeld keeps him in his job, any non-Christians in the military get to go home if they want. Rummy’s response to a question today was that he’d only heard difficult-to-understand video tapes, so he doesn’t really know what Boykin said. Corn comments that the Pentagon did seem to have the ability to analyze the supposed Osama bin Laden tapes, so this shouldn’t have been that difficult, but Boykin works for Rumsfeld, so why can’t he just ask him what he said? This is the Yellowcakegate (Weapons of Mate Destruction won the WashPost name-the-scandal contest) strategy of pretending Bush can’t order the leaker to reveal his or herself.
Boykin has asked to be investigated by the IG. Josh Marshall: “This, of course, rather begs the question of which “rules and procedures” his comments would have violated. Conduct unbecoming an officer from this millennium? Use of hellfire in violation of the Geneva Convention?”
Also from Harper’s: “Thai protesters captured the soul
of George W. Bush, imprisoned it in a clay pot, and then
drowned it in the Ping River.”
And this: “In France, a judge was caught masturbating in court. A penal inquiry was underway.” (Sorry)
Monday, October 20, 2003
Not true followers of Islam
General William “Jerry” Boykin non-apologizes to any heathens offended by his remarks. "I do believe that radical extremists have tried to use Islam as a cause for attacks on America," he said. "As I have stated before, they are not true followers of Islam." Right, and as you’ve also stated before, followers of Islam are idol-worshippers. So the militants are not TRUE followers of FALSE gods, but rather FALSE followers of FALSE gods, who should try instead to be TRUE followers of their FALSE gods.
Boykin, I don’t think I’ve said before, was also an adviser on the Waco siege.
As I’ve pointed out in the past, the British will bet on anything. Anyway, if you want to bet on the outcome of the BBC’s competition for the UK’s favorite book, the bookies are favoring Pride & Prejudice 4:1, although if it turns out to be Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, the internet will be to blame. Great Expectations is 8:1, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy 25:1.
Job opening for our outgoing governor?
From the WashPost: “President Bush said Sunday that he is willing to commit to a written guarantee not to attack North Korea in exchange for steps by the country toward abandoning its nuclear weapons programs.” So Bush made NK nervous with that whole axis-of-evil business, which as we know, but the Northies don’t, was just a rhetorical thing so the entire “axis” wouldn’t be Muslim, made them more nervous by refusing to sign a simple non-aggression pact, and now he wants to bargain about it. Regardless of whether NK should have nukes, if a paranoid nuclear power we don’t intend to attack asks for us to write down that we don’t intend to attack it, why not just fucking do it? They are using an implicit threat of military attack to leverage NK on nukes. Also, Bush is talking about NK disposing of its nuclear program in a verifiable way, which would be ok, even realizing that he means he wants to be given information on NK that the CIA can’t get, except for one thing: NK is almost certainly lying about or exaggerating its nuclear capacity, so we could wind up demanding that they eliminate weapons they don’t have. Sound familiar?
Must-read on massacres by the US Army in Vietnam in 1967 of hundreds of civilians, the killing and torture of prisoners, burning of villages, accessorizing with cut-off ears, etc etc. Six months before My Lai, ten miles away. No one was punished. The army ran a secret investigation years later, even then taking a year to get started. And the whole thing remained a secret, although hundreds if not thousands of Americans and no doubt one or two Vietnamese and the entire hierarchy of the Pentagon knew about it. Soldiers did complain, and were told to shut up. The year before, Ward Just wrote in a book that a Tiger Force soldier had mailed ears of dead soldiers home to his wife. Read the story and think about what else has happened in recent decades that we know nothing about. The story was broken by the Toledo Blade, which will continue through Wednesday. The Post has a good overview, the Blade has interviews and much more detail, and excerpts in MP3 files, which I can’t listen to. A lot of ex-soldiers talked, 137 of them, suggesting they were just waiting to be asked. Here’s a cute tidbit: the 327th battalion was given an order to achieve a body count of, wait for it, 327. Another key fact: the time it took US soldiers to descend into total brutality after setting up in the province: one week.
The racist Swiss People’s Party got 28% of the vote, making it the largest party.
Boykin, I don’t think I’ve said before, was also an adviser on the Waco siege.
As I’ve pointed out in the past, the British will bet on anything. Anyway, if you want to bet on the outcome of the BBC’s competition for the UK’s favorite book, the bookies are favoring Pride & Prejudice 4:1, although if it turns out to be Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, the internet will be to blame. Great Expectations is 8:1, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy 25:1.
Job opening for our outgoing governor?
From the WashPost: “President Bush said Sunday that he is willing to commit to a written guarantee not to attack North Korea in exchange for steps by the country toward abandoning its nuclear weapons programs.” So Bush made NK nervous with that whole axis-of-evil business, which as we know, but the Northies don’t, was just a rhetorical thing so the entire “axis” wouldn’t be Muslim, made them more nervous by refusing to sign a simple non-aggression pact, and now he wants to bargain about it. Regardless of whether NK should have nukes, if a paranoid nuclear power we don’t intend to attack asks for us to write down that we don’t intend to attack it, why not just fucking do it? They are using an implicit threat of military attack to leverage NK on nukes. Also, Bush is talking about NK disposing of its nuclear program in a verifiable way, which would be ok, even realizing that he means he wants to be given information on NK that the CIA can’t get, except for one thing: NK is almost certainly lying about or exaggerating its nuclear capacity, so we could wind up demanding that they eliminate weapons they don’t have. Sound familiar?
Must-read on massacres by the US Army in Vietnam in 1967 of hundreds of civilians, the killing and torture of prisoners, burning of villages, accessorizing with cut-off ears, etc etc. Six months before My Lai, ten miles away. No one was punished. The army ran a secret investigation years later, even then taking a year to get started. And the whole thing remained a secret, although hundreds if not thousands of Americans and no doubt one or two Vietnamese and the entire hierarchy of the Pentagon knew about it. Soldiers did complain, and were told to shut up. The year before, Ward Just wrote in a book that a Tiger Force soldier had mailed ears of dead soldiers home to his wife. Read the story and think about what else has happened in recent decades that we know nothing about. The story was broken by the Toledo Blade, which will continue through Wednesday. The Post has a good overview, the Blade has interviews and much more detail, and excerpts in MP3 files, which I can’t listen to. A lot of ex-soldiers talked, 137 of them, suggesting they were just waiting to be asked. Here’s a cute tidbit: the 327th battalion was given an order to achieve a body count of, wait for it, 327. Another key fact: the time it took US soldiers to descend into total brutality after setting up in the province: one week.
The racist Swiss People’s Party got 28% of the vote, making it the largest party.
Saturday, October 18, 2003
Wherein I out a British prime minister
The newest in doggie accessories: sunglasses. About a hundred bucks for the high-end ones.
Sunday’s elections in Switzerland may return the Swiss People’s Party as the largest party, after a racist anti-immigrant campaign featuring a poster, quickly withdrawn under fire, that said either “The Swiss feel like niggers” (Daily Telegraph), or “Swiss are the negroes of Switzerland” (Time Magazine’s European edition). These are the only English-language references to the poster, and my German isn’t up to trying to find it in the original. I’d also like to see the poster. Anyone?
Almost a year after the Moscow theater siege, the government is still lying about the number who died and the causes of their deaths.
The first governor of Najaf, a holy city in Iraq, because they’re all fucking holy cities aren’t they?, appointed by the US occupation authorities went on trial, very quietly indeed, last week. They could ignore the massive car theft ring he ran, but not so much the kidnappings, at least not when 3 kidnapped boys, sons of a political rival, were found in the guv’s offices--in the Coalition’s hq. I mentioned his arrest June 30, but there’s been nothing in the press since.
The Observer on the great increase in torture by Russian police. Torture is not illegal in Russia.
A book is coming out this week on the Oscar Wilde trial. Evidently the Marquis of Queensberry blackmailed the government into it: while his younger son was having sex with Wilde, his older son had had a two-year affair with the Earl of Rosebery, who by 1895 was the prime minister.
Sick tv project of the week, from Britain’s Channel 4: they will ask American death row prisoners to record a song before their execution, which will be incorporated into a musical.
Bush in the Philippines says that the US liberated the country from colonial rule. (And then wouldn’t leave for nearly 50 years.)
Sunday’s elections in Switzerland may return the Swiss People’s Party as the largest party, after a racist anti-immigrant campaign featuring a poster, quickly withdrawn under fire, that said either “The Swiss feel like niggers” (Daily Telegraph), or “Swiss are the negroes of Switzerland” (Time Magazine’s European edition). These are the only English-language references to the poster, and my German isn’t up to trying to find it in the original. I’d also like to see the poster. Anyone?
Almost a year after the Moscow theater siege, the government is still lying about the number who died and the causes of their deaths.
The first governor of Najaf, a holy city in Iraq, because they’re all fucking holy cities aren’t they?, appointed by the US occupation authorities went on trial, very quietly indeed, last week. They could ignore the massive car theft ring he ran, but not so much the kidnappings, at least not when 3 kidnapped boys, sons of a political rival, were found in the guv’s offices--in the Coalition’s hq. I mentioned his arrest June 30, but there’s been nothing in the press since.
The Observer on the great increase in torture by Russian police. Torture is not illegal in Russia.
A book is coming out this week on the Oscar Wilde trial. Evidently the Marquis of Queensberry blackmailed the government into it: while his younger son was having sex with Wilde, his older son had had a two-year affair with the Earl of Rosebery, who by 1895 was the prime minister.
Sick tv project of the week, from Britain’s Channel 4: they will ask American death row prisoners to record a song before their execution, which will be incorporated into a musical.
Bush in the Philippines says that the US liberated the country from colonial rule. (And then wouldn’t leave for nearly 50 years.)
Thursday, October 16, 2003
A plague of Jerry’s
You know, I want proof that Paul Bremer’s nickname was ever actually “Jerry.” I think Bush just got the name wrong, couldn’t admit that they ever gets anything wrong, and his handlers told Bremer that his name was now Jerry.
There’s been some complaint from librarians about a doll modeled on one, that puts its finger to its mouth and goes shush. Librarians deplore that stereotype. Yesterday I was driven out of the periodicals and microfilm section of the public library because of loud conversation. By two librarians. Mostly, skilled librarians have been replaced by unskilled machines. I went to the library in the first place because one machine phoned me to tell me I had something overdue; I went in to find the item on the shelf and show it to a human after another machine had failed to register it when I returned it two weeks before. I only had to rant at them for a couple of minutes before they wiped out that charge, plus another one from July when the same thing happened, and another one where I was charged because the person who had checked out a magazine before me had dropped it in a bathtub (I presume). Still, there’s a certain sense of shame when one is charged with a library crime, isn’t there, even when one didn’t actually commit it, I presume because it’s the first responsibility we’re given outside of the home. I’ve been reading a discard--every so often my library tosses several hundred books in the parking lot and you can just take them, including hard-covers from as recently as last year--with one of those see-through wrapper things only libraries use, and I feel guilty every time I underline something. I hope you’re not waiting for this paragraph to have a point.
Mark Hertsgaard has a good piece in Salon which says that Bush needs to admit that he might have been wrong, or his presidency is in trouble. He’s right that Bush’s method of governing has become visibly brittle and inflexible. He is so committed to the idea that the world will react to his initiatives in exactly the way he expects it to, that there is no Plan B, and he starts floundering. The arrogance with which he exercises power makes him very vulnerable to looking bad when the least little thing goes wrong, and the things that have been going wrong are not the least nor are they little.
Another problem that will become more visible when Bush shifts completely into campaign mode is that he has no popular surrogates to campaign for him. There are creepy, cranky old men (Cheney, Rumsfeld), tone-deaf zealots (Rice, Ashcroft), discredited fig-leafs (Powell), and no one else the average voter has even heard of, because Bush likes to take all the credit. Bush pretty much only speaks to military audiences or Republican fundraisers, and the lesser lights don’t dare appear in events open to the public. Cheney had to go to the Heritage Foundation to find a congenial audience that wouldn’t care that everything he told it about Iraq has been controverted. Laura Bush has begun to campaign for him, really for the first time, because there is simply no one else, and I haven’t seen any indications that she’s America’s sweetheart either. So it’s just Shrub, circumventing the “filter” of people who might contradict him by giving interviews to very local tv stations, the last resort of a politician afraid of too-tough questioning by Larry King.
And he’s raising money, $84 million so far, to put his face on tv right between Will & Grace, Regis & Kelly, etc. Christ, $84 million, that’s $50m beyond shitloads, $30m beyond obscene and $10m past unholy.
Actually, it’s also an insult to democracy for a sitting president to think (possibly correctly) that he needs that much money. It does not cost $84m, plus what they can raise in the next year, to run on one’s record. Is there something to tell us we don’t already know?
Speaking of expensive mis-communication, the Bush budget includes $100m for Iraqi media, to be dispersed by Rumsfeld and DOD. Rummy with a $100 million megaphone. Shudder. The call for private bids actually uses the phrase “fair and balanced.”
Independent headline: “Three Americans Killed in Diplomatic Convoy Blast.” I just don’t see what’s so diplomatic about a convoy blast.
The German who taught his dog to do the Hitler salute has had the charge against him dropped. (Daily Telegraph headline: In Paw Taste)
Several R. Senators just returned from Iraq, reporting on how swimmingly everything is going. D. Senators like Chris Dodd, who wanted to go, were told there were no facilities.
California R’s have decided to try to change the reapportionment process here. In the reverse of R policy in Texas, they want to remove it from the legislature and give it to judges. Subtle, aren’t they? Actually, despite strong D control of the legislature, the R’s have nothing to complain about from the last redistricting, either at the state lege or congressional levels. The voters do, since every seat was drawn as a safe seat for whichever party held it. They have removed the risk from the electoral process; also the politics, issues, interest, democracy. Of course when Californians do get interested in elections, look what happens.
Governor Terminator seems to plan to rule by threatening the legislature with the wrath of the people, by taking every point of disagreement to the ballot in the form of ballot initiatives. A limit to the size of the budget, for example, and massive bond indebtedness to pay for his refusal to consider raising taxes to pay for the existing spending. Well, we could hardly expect him to be bound by legislators operating in a representative democratic system, now could we? I’d make a witty comparison between The Arnold and Napoleon III, but maybe this ain’t the audience.
Here’s a major shocker, in an AP headline: “Halliburton Allegedly Overcharges in Iraq.” Say it ain’t so. Next you’ll be telling me that the Azerbaijani dictator’s son was only elected to replace him by a fraudulent election. This is for gas, for which the army pays Halliburton California prices, which are $1 a gallon more than the average Middle Eastern price. It was a no-bid contract.
Bill Hemmer, whoever that is, was hosting a CNN program and suggested that Bush might be right that the situation in Iraq was improving, but it didn’t get coverage because reporters were scared away by all the shooting and bombs going off. Evidently, this was not said in irony.
Someone else I hadn’t heard of, deputy undersecretary of defense General William “Jerry” Boykin (I swear I read this article after writing my above comments about “Jerry” Bremer), who is in charge of tracking down Osama and Saddam and such, is an evangelical who speaks a lot at churches about how the US is at war with Satan, how Muslims hate us because we’re a Christian nation, how God chose Bush to be president, etc etc. A quick google search shows that except for a brief mention in a Nation article, this wingnut just snuck in under the radar.
There’s been some complaint from librarians about a doll modeled on one, that puts its finger to its mouth and goes shush. Librarians deplore that stereotype. Yesterday I was driven out of the periodicals and microfilm section of the public library because of loud conversation. By two librarians. Mostly, skilled librarians have been replaced by unskilled machines. I went to the library in the first place because one machine phoned me to tell me I had something overdue; I went in to find the item on the shelf and show it to a human after another machine had failed to register it when I returned it two weeks before. I only had to rant at them for a couple of minutes before they wiped out that charge, plus another one from July when the same thing happened, and another one where I was charged because the person who had checked out a magazine before me had dropped it in a bathtub (I presume). Still, there’s a certain sense of shame when one is charged with a library crime, isn’t there, even when one didn’t actually commit it, I presume because it’s the first responsibility we’re given outside of the home. I’ve been reading a discard--every so often my library tosses several hundred books in the parking lot and you can just take them, including hard-covers from as recently as last year--with one of those see-through wrapper things only libraries use, and I feel guilty every time I underline something. I hope you’re not waiting for this paragraph to have a point.
Mark Hertsgaard has a good piece in Salon which says that Bush needs to admit that he might have been wrong, or his presidency is in trouble. He’s right that Bush’s method of governing has become visibly brittle and inflexible. He is so committed to the idea that the world will react to his initiatives in exactly the way he expects it to, that there is no Plan B, and he starts floundering. The arrogance with which he exercises power makes him very vulnerable to looking bad when the least little thing goes wrong, and the things that have been going wrong are not the least nor are they little.
Another problem that will become more visible when Bush shifts completely into campaign mode is that he has no popular surrogates to campaign for him. There are creepy, cranky old men (Cheney, Rumsfeld), tone-deaf zealots (Rice, Ashcroft), discredited fig-leafs (Powell), and no one else the average voter has even heard of, because Bush likes to take all the credit. Bush pretty much only speaks to military audiences or Republican fundraisers, and the lesser lights don’t dare appear in events open to the public. Cheney had to go to the Heritage Foundation to find a congenial audience that wouldn’t care that everything he told it about Iraq has been controverted. Laura Bush has begun to campaign for him, really for the first time, because there is simply no one else, and I haven’t seen any indications that she’s America’s sweetheart either. So it’s just Shrub, circumventing the “filter” of people who might contradict him by giving interviews to very local tv stations, the last resort of a politician afraid of too-tough questioning by Larry King.
And he’s raising money, $84 million so far, to put his face on tv right between Will & Grace, Regis & Kelly, etc. Christ, $84 million, that’s $50m beyond shitloads, $30m beyond obscene and $10m past unholy.
Actually, it’s also an insult to democracy for a sitting president to think (possibly correctly) that he needs that much money. It does not cost $84m, plus what they can raise in the next year, to run on one’s record. Is there something to tell us we don’t already know?
Speaking of expensive mis-communication, the Bush budget includes $100m for Iraqi media, to be dispersed by Rumsfeld and DOD. Rummy with a $100 million megaphone. Shudder. The call for private bids actually uses the phrase “fair and balanced.”
Independent headline: “Three Americans Killed in Diplomatic Convoy Blast.” I just don’t see what’s so diplomatic about a convoy blast.
The German who taught his dog to do the Hitler salute has had the charge against him dropped. (Daily Telegraph headline: In Paw Taste)
Several R. Senators just returned from Iraq, reporting on how swimmingly everything is going. D. Senators like Chris Dodd, who wanted to go, were told there were no facilities.
California R’s have decided to try to change the reapportionment process here. In the reverse of R policy in Texas, they want to remove it from the legislature and give it to judges. Subtle, aren’t they? Actually, despite strong D control of the legislature, the R’s have nothing to complain about from the last redistricting, either at the state lege or congressional levels. The voters do, since every seat was drawn as a safe seat for whichever party held it. They have removed the risk from the electoral process; also the politics, issues, interest, democracy. Of course when Californians do get interested in elections, look what happens.
Governor Terminator seems to plan to rule by threatening the legislature with the wrath of the people, by taking every point of disagreement to the ballot in the form of ballot initiatives. A limit to the size of the budget, for example, and massive bond indebtedness to pay for his refusal to consider raising taxes to pay for the existing spending. Well, we could hardly expect him to be bound by legislators operating in a representative democratic system, now could we? I’d make a witty comparison between The Arnold and Napoleon III, but maybe this ain’t the audience.
Here’s a major shocker, in an AP headline: “Halliburton Allegedly Overcharges in Iraq.” Say it ain’t so. Next you’ll be telling me that the Azerbaijani dictator’s son was only elected to replace him by a fraudulent election. This is for gas, for which the army pays Halliburton California prices, which are $1 a gallon more than the average Middle Eastern price. It was a no-bid contract.
Bill Hemmer, whoever that is, was hosting a CNN program and suggested that Bush might be right that the situation in Iraq was improving, but it didn’t get coverage because reporters were scared away by all the shooting and bombs going off. Evidently, this was not said in irony.
Someone else I hadn’t heard of, deputy undersecretary of defense General William “Jerry” Boykin (I swear I read this article after writing my above comments about “Jerry” Bremer), who is in charge of tracking down Osama and Saddam and such, is an evangelical who speaks a lot at churches about how the US is at war with Satan, how Muslims hate us because we’re a Christian nation, how God chose Bush to be president, etc etc. A quick google search shows that except for a brief mention in a Nation article, this wingnut just snuck in under the radar.
The enemy is a guy named Satan
Sometimes, great minds think alike. And then, at other times, Thomas Friedman thinks like me. His column today (Thur.) also talks about Bushies being afraid of speaking before non-picked audiences. I didn’t know that even the Heritage Foundation wasn’t allowed to ask Cheney any questions.
On the same page, Maureen Dowd says of Rep George Nethercutt’s comment that reconstruction in Iraq “is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day” puts the casual back in casualty.
Also giving with the happy talk, the Commerce Secretary visits Iraq and calls for investors to ignore the violence. See if you can detect any sarcasm in this NYT story (excerpted): “At a heavily guarded warehouse at the Baghdad airport, which ordinary Iraqis cannot enter without American permission, Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans said on Wednesday that violence in Iraq is isolated and that foreign investors should seize opportunities here. .... Mr. Evans said, "You have to look beyond these isolated incidents that are occurring." Asked what advice he would give potential investors, he said, "Tell 'em to come here like I did."” They would, but they can’t afford to have a whole army protecting them.
The Texas Court of Appeals says that a motorist giving another motorist the finger is not illegal. There was an actual jury trial in this case.
Cute Michael Kinsley piece on Bush’s news habits.
The British report on GM test crops says that they lead to the disappearance of wildlife. Especially butterflies. And flowers. In part from the extra-strength pesticides, in part from the lack of seeds for animals to eat. And Monsanto is pulling out of Europe, which pleases the Europeans no end.
The right-wing Daily Telegraph denounces the fear-mongers, under the contradictory but no doubt irresistible headline “Frankenstein Knows Best.”
At an Islamic conference, Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad said: “1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews. The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today they rule this world by proxy.” “(Jews) invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy, so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong; so that they can enjoy equal rights with others. With these they have gained control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have become a world power.”
The Chinese have put a man into space, and I can’t think of a good tasteless joke about it. It was supposed to be good for Chinese stature and pride, and was up until the minute a tv interviewer asked him to confirm the old chestnut about the Great Wall being the only man-made thing that can be seen from space. No, actually it can’t.
I mentioned William Boykin yesterday, the guy at the Pentagon you don’t want showing up on your doorstep to talk about Jesus. Rumsfeld says he has a right to speak his mind. Whether he has a right to speak it to a religious group while wearing a military uniform--a detail I didn’t have yesterday--is another matter. We do know that 500 soldiers stationed in Iraq were given the right to speak their commanding officer’s mind. Boykin said that Muslims worship an idol, and not “a real god.” Even without this, why would you put him in charge with the operations to capture Saddam, Osama, etc, when what Rummy calls his “outstanding record” is one of being in charge of failed operations: rescuing the hostages in Iran in 1980, the raid on Somalia in 1993, the search for Pablo Escobar... Incidentally, 2 days ago I joked that Scalia was recusing himself from the pledge of allegiance case because he thinks he is god. So evidently does Boykin, who said that god chose Bush to be president.
Tanzania has banned imports of used underwear.
“Bush told his senior aides Tuesday that he "didn't want to see any stories" quoting unnamed administration officials in the media anymore, and that if he did, there would be consequences, said a senior administration official who asked that his name not be used.” I give the URL because when I read that I thought it was a joke.
There are riots in Azerbaijan over the fraudulent election letting Aliyev’s son succeed him. That could never happen here. The riots, I mean, not the fraudulent election letting one leader’s son succeed him.
On the same page, Maureen Dowd says of Rep George Nethercutt’s comment that reconstruction in Iraq “is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day” puts the casual back in casualty.
Also giving with the happy talk, the Commerce Secretary visits Iraq and calls for investors to ignore the violence. See if you can detect any sarcasm in this NYT story (excerpted): “At a heavily guarded warehouse at the Baghdad airport, which ordinary Iraqis cannot enter without American permission, Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans said on Wednesday that violence in Iraq is isolated and that foreign investors should seize opportunities here. .... Mr. Evans said, "You have to look beyond these isolated incidents that are occurring." Asked what advice he would give potential investors, he said, "Tell 'em to come here like I did."” They would, but they can’t afford to have a whole army protecting them.
The Texas Court of Appeals says that a motorist giving another motorist the finger is not illegal. There was an actual jury trial in this case.
Cute Michael Kinsley piece on Bush’s news habits.
The British report on GM test crops says that they lead to the disappearance of wildlife. Especially butterflies. And flowers. In part from the extra-strength pesticides, in part from the lack of seeds for animals to eat. And Monsanto is pulling out of Europe, which pleases the Europeans no end.
The right-wing Daily Telegraph denounces the fear-mongers, under the contradictory but no doubt irresistible headline “Frankenstein Knows Best.”
At an Islamic conference, Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad said: “1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews. The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today they rule this world by proxy.” “(Jews) invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy, so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong; so that they can enjoy equal rights with others. With these they have gained control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have become a world power.”
The Chinese have put a man into space, and I can’t think of a good tasteless joke about it. It was supposed to be good for Chinese stature and pride, and was up until the minute a tv interviewer asked him to confirm the old chestnut about the Great Wall being the only man-made thing that can be seen from space. No, actually it can’t.
I mentioned William Boykin yesterday, the guy at the Pentagon you don’t want showing up on your doorstep to talk about Jesus. Rumsfeld says he has a right to speak his mind. Whether he has a right to speak it to a religious group while wearing a military uniform--a detail I didn’t have yesterday--is another matter. We do know that 500 soldiers stationed in Iraq were given the right to speak their commanding officer’s mind. Boykin said that Muslims worship an idol, and not “a real god.” Even without this, why would you put him in charge with the operations to capture Saddam, Osama, etc, when what Rummy calls his “outstanding record” is one of being in charge of failed operations: rescuing the hostages in Iran in 1980, the raid on Somalia in 1993, the search for Pablo Escobar... Incidentally, 2 days ago I joked that Scalia was recusing himself from the pledge of allegiance case because he thinks he is god. So evidently does Boykin, who said that god chose Bush to be president.
Tanzania has banned imports of used underwear.
“Bush told his senior aides Tuesday that he "didn't want to see any stories" quoting unnamed administration officials in the media anymore, and that if he did, there would be consequences, said a senior administration official who asked that his name not be used.” I give the URL because when I read that I thought it was a joke.
There are riots in Azerbaijan over the fraudulent election letting Aliyev’s son succeed him. That could never happen here. The riots, I mean, not the fraudulent election letting one leader’s son succeed him.
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
The Texas R’s passed their little redistricting, and it’s so blatantly partisan and yes, racist, that they may have over-reached themselves. Midland has a congressional district and the capital Austin doesn’t, and the districts are all funny shapes. So it might be thrown out in court. Especially since the panel that the D’s are appealing to is the one that drew up the current districts.
The Supreme Court is to decide whether “under God” can be in the pledge of allegiance. Scalia is recusing himself, presumably because he thinks he is God, or possibly that he is above rather than under God (actually because Fat Tony has publicly expressed himself on this issue).
The Onion says “Schwarzenegger Elected First Horseman Of The Apocalypse.” Actually, Der Arnold becoming the highest-paid “actor” in the world was the first sign of the apocalypse, so I think it’s just greedy for him to have become a second sign. Incidentally, asked after the election about his promise to reveal all about his sexual escapades after the election, he said “Old news.” A Voice reporter calls him the Human Hummer. I have also heard Teflon Terminator.
Evidently Bush is on a partial fast, not eating sweets as long as troops are in Iraq. Sounds silly, but given his extremist religiosity, I’d go with creepy as a more apt description.
As was his attempt to reassure us about his Iraq policy: “The person who is in charge is me.” Do you feel reassured now, I know I do.
The real James Bond died today at 90.
From the Guardian: “A German who trained his dog to raise his right paw in a Hitler salute is to appear in court tomorrow, German prosecutors said last night.” A black (ahem) mongrel (ahem) sheepdog, no prizes for guessing its name.
The Supreme Court is to decide whether “under God” can be in the pledge of allegiance. Scalia is recusing himself, presumably because he thinks he is God, or possibly that he is above rather than under God (actually because Fat Tony has publicly expressed himself on this issue).
The Onion says “Schwarzenegger Elected First Horseman Of The Apocalypse.” Actually, Der Arnold becoming the highest-paid “actor” in the world was the first sign of the apocalypse, so I think it’s just greedy for him to have become a second sign. Incidentally, asked after the election about his promise to reveal all about his sexual escapades after the election, he said “Old news.” A Voice reporter calls him the Human Hummer. I have also heard Teflon Terminator.
Evidently Bush is on a partial fast, not eating sweets as long as troops are in Iraq. Sounds silly, but given his extremist religiosity, I’d go with creepy as a more apt description.
As was his attempt to reassure us about his Iraq policy: “The person who is in charge is me.” Do you feel reassured now, I know I do.
The real James Bond died today at 90.
From the Guardian: “A German who trained his dog to raise his right paw in a Hitler salute is to appear in court tomorrow, German prosecutors said last night.” A black (ahem) mongrel (ahem) sheepdog, no prizes for guessing its name.
Monday, October 13, 2003
An orgy of legislation
Guests at a wedding in Serbia celebrated in the time-honored manner, shooting guns in the air. They shot down a plane.
As we know, when Bush promised cheap AIDS drugs for Africa, he didn’t actually mean it. At the WTO the US insisted on making any country that wished to import or export cheap generics jump through many many hoops. But Canada plans to try. The Guardian (oh, originally a Nation story) asks whether the US will use NAFTA provisions to stop them. Last week the Senate approved Bush’s choice for head of his AIDS initiative, a former CEO of Eli Lilly, one of the Canada plan’s enemies.
Among the many laws signed by incredibly lame duck Gray Davis includes one prohibiting companies retaliating against employees who refuse to break state or federal laws. Did you know that was legal up until now? One requires people who own or possess kiddie porn to register as sex offenders, which is stretching the term. Soda is banned from school vending machines. School restrooms should be clean. Schools previously called “low-performing” in state laws will now be called “high priority,” in order to build morale (Ralph Wiggum: “I’m special!”). It is now a crime punishable by 1 year in prison to record a movie in a movie theater; talking, cell phone use, teenagers, over-loud crunching of popcorn, etc etc, are still not subject to the death penalty. Domestic partnerships as of 2005. Transgendered people are protected from housing and work discrimination, which is all very well, but doesn’t that put the state in the business of deciding what clothes are gender-appropriate, in order to decide who is “transgendered”? AB 663 bans doctors and med students performing pelvic exams without consent on unconscious women. The execution of retarded people is banned. Unsolicited email is banned, although I’m not sure how the mailer is supposed to know who’s a Californian.
George Monbiot is suggesting that the US military is being dragged into politics by the politicians. Bush uses them as back-drop. Since June 2002, 14 of his major speeches were delivered to captive military (or veteran) audiences. “The marines were the first to be told about his interstate electricity grid; he instructed the American Legion about the reform of the Medicare programme; last week he explained his plans for the taxation of small businesses to the national guard. The troops may not have the faintest idea what he's talking about, but they cheer him to the rafters anyway. After that, implementing these policies looks like a patriotic duty.” He started this well before 9/11, so it’s not that. The military is now getting spending it’s not even asking for, and if you include the $87 billion and the $19 billion hidden in the Dept of Energy for new nukes, the federal gov is spending more on it than on education, public health, housing, employment, pensions, food aid and welfare put together. “You would expect this sort of allocation from a third world military dictatorship.” “Bush's reverse coup has meant that the Democrats must suck up to the armed forces as well, in order to be seen as a patriotic party. Wesley Clark's campaigning slogan is "a new American patriotism".”
The claim that Israel has submarine-based nuclear weapons may in fact have been a lie.
As we know, when Bush promised cheap AIDS drugs for Africa, he didn’t actually mean it. At the WTO the US insisted on making any country that wished to import or export cheap generics jump through many many hoops. But Canada plans to try. The Guardian (oh, originally a Nation story) asks whether the US will use NAFTA provisions to stop them. Last week the Senate approved Bush’s choice for head of his AIDS initiative, a former CEO of Eli Lilly, one of the Canada plan’s enemies.
Among the many laws signed by incredibly lame duck Gray Davis includes one prohibiting companies retaliating against employees who refuse to break state or federal laws. Did you know that was legal up until now? One requires people who own or possess kiddie porn to register as sex offenders, which is stretching the term. Soda is banned from school vending machines. School restrooms should be clean. Schools previously called “low-performing” in state laws will now be called “high priority,” in order to build morale (Ralph Wiggum: “I’m special!”). It is now a crime punishable by 1 year in prison to record a movie in a movie theater; talking, cell phone use, teenagers, over-loud crunching of popcorn, etc etc, are still not subject to the death penalty. Domestic partnerships as of 2005. Transgendered people are protected from housing and work discrimination, which is all very well, but doesn’t that put the state in the business of deciding what clothes are gender-appropriate, in order to decide who is “transgendered”? AB 663 bans doctors and med students performing pelvic exams without consent on unconscious women. The execution of retarded people is banned. Unsolicited email is banned, although I’m not sure how the mailer is supposed to know who’s a Californian.
George Monbiot is suggesting that the US military is being dragged into politics by the politicians. Bush uses them as back-drop. Since June 2002, 14 of his major speeches were delivered to captive military (or veteran) audiences. “The marines were the first to be told about his interstate electricity grid; he instructed the American Legion about the reform of the Medicare programme; last week he explained his plans for the taxation of small businesses to the national guard. The troops may not have the faintest idea what he's talking about, but they cheer him to the rafters anyway. After that, implementing these policies looks like a patriotic duty.” He started this well before 9/11, so it’s not that. The military is now getting spending it’s not even asking for, and if you include the $87 billion and the $19 billion hidden in the Dept of Energy for new nukes, the federal gov is spending more on it than on education, public health, housing, employment, pensions, food aid and welfare put together. “You would expect this sort of allocation from a third world military dictatorship.” “Bush's reverse coup has meant that the Democrats must suck up to the armed forces as well, in order to be seen as a patriotic party. Wesley Clark's campaigning slogan is "a new American patriotism".”
The claim that Israel has submarine-based nuclear weapons may in fact have been a lie.
Sunday, October 12, 2003
Dog’s Breath corn dog
Israel has nukes on submarines, thanks to the US. The news seems to have been leaked by the US as a warning to Syria that it had better take any bitch-slapping Israel feels like handing out. (Later: Ha'aretz says in almost as many words that the LA Times story on this was planted by the Mossad, in an article on how the Syria-is-acquiring-WMDs stories in the American press have been managed by the spy agency.
Also, last week bombastic loudmouth John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control, said the US doesn’t care about Israel’s nukes because Israel isn’t a “threat” to the US. I’d like to see the job description for under secretary of state for arms control.
The Indy reports that the US is copying Israeli collective-punishment tactics in Iraq, bulldozing the crops of farmers who don’t inform on the Resistance.
Australian PM John Howard, recently censured by the Senate, as I reported, is also under criticism for recalling Parliament just to hear a speech to be given by Dubya, at a cost of well over $1m. He won’t be pleased to hear that White House briefing papers given the press refer to him as John Major. They also say that Canberra is major-league boring (really)(I mean they really say that, although I’m sure it’s also true that Canberra is boring). The only restaurant it recommends is fast food. Evidently in Oz that means the Hog’s Breath Cafe, evidently a chain serving the Dog’s Breath corn dog (hogsbreath.com.au).
If you don’t believe that Iraq is going swimmingly, there’s probably a letter from a US soldier stationed in Iraq in your local paper informing you of the fact. The military seems to be writing such letters, and asking soldiers to sign them, and sending them to their hometown newspapers. The Olympian noted two such identical letters. For extra fun, in a few days time run the quotes from those letters through news.google to see how many papers fell for it.
An analysis of the Texas redistricting written for US Rep. Joe Barton (R-Deep in the Heart of Texas) says, “This has a real national impact that should assure that Republicans keep the House no matter the national mood.”
Also, last week bombastic loudmouth John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control, said the US doesn’t care about Israel’s nukes because Israel isn’t a “threat” to the US. I’d like to see the job description for under secretary of state for arms control.
The Indy reports that the US is copying Israeli collective-punishment tactics in Iraq, bulldozing the crops of farmers who don’t inform on the Resistance.
Australian PM John Howard, recently censured by the Senate, as I reported, is also under criticism for recalling Parliament just to hear a speech to be given by Dubya, at a cost of well over $1m. He won’t be pleased to hear that White House briefing papers given the press refer to him as John Major. They also say that Canberra is major-league boring (really)(I mean they really say that, although I’m sure it’s also true that Canberra is boring). The only restaurant it recommends is fast food. Evidently in Oz that means the Hog’s Breath Cafe, evidently a chain serving the Dog’s Breath corn dog (hogsbreath.com.au).
If you don’t believe that Iraq is going swimmingly, there’s probably a letter from a US soldier stationed in Iraq in your local paper informing you of the fact. The military seems to be writing such letters, and asking soldiers to sign them, and sending them to their hometown newspapers. The Olympian noted two such identical letters. For extra fun, in a few days time run the quotes from those letters through news.google to see how many papers fell for it.
An analysis of the Texas redistricting written for US Rep. Joe Barton (R-Deep in the Heart of Texas) says, “This has a real national impact that should assure that Republicans keep the House no matter the national mood.”
Friday, October 10, 2003
Bumps on the road
Here in Kallyfohrnia, Ahnuld is getting a few lessons in how state government actually functions. For example, the Gropenführer does not have the power to reduce the car tax unilaterally (even if he did, he’d find that the Kallyfohrnia voters would still be pissed, because they probably think he promised to eliminate the tax altogether). He also asked Gray Davis politely not to keep filling vacancies and signing bills (like Pete Wilson and every other outgoing governor did). What Ahnuld didn’t know: even if Davis didn’t sign the bills, they’d still pass into law. So steroids-for-brains doesn’t even how the veto power works.
With all the talk in Israeli circles about those pilots who refuse to bomb people, it seems that as a general, Sharon himself refused to obey an order in 1973 to evacuate a settlement (or advised someone else to disobey such an order, I’m not clear).
From the Daily Telegraph: “A man accused of stealing a penis by sorcery was beaten to death in the Gambia yesterday. Police said tricksters appear to make genitals vanish then extort cash for a cure.” (In 1997 I had several stories about this happening in Ghana.)
Bush’s drug czar wants to drug test all school children.
The Australian Senate censures Prime Minister John Howard for lying about the reasons for Oz joining the war on Iraq.
But don’t they know that the Iraq situation is “a lot better than you probably think,” as Bush put it on a day in which 3 American soldiers, 8 Iraqi police and a Spanish spy were killed. “There will be bumps on the road,” said Paul Bremer, which some editorial cartoonist will, or should, rapidly turn into an image of a jeep driving over a lot of dead bodies.
Slate on the slush fund buried in the $87b. Not that buried, since it’s more than 1/10th of the total. Includes a blank check for Rummy to spend in bribing foreign countries for military aid in Iraq, and to transfer large sums of money from one bit to another, without Congressional oversight. Which they don’t really want to exercise, because with specific amounts, they’d have to explain voting for X million for Iraqi schools but not American schools, etc.
The Vatican really thought the pope was going to get the Nobel Peace Prize. Heh heh.
So to prove America’s even-handedness in killin’ people, a court in Arizona sentences to death a guy who took revenge for 9/11 by killing a Sikh (Sikh, Ayrab, what’s the diff?). Voices in his head told him to kill the devils. The jury chose to disregard his insanity defense, pointing out that George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld hear the same voices (to be fair, the voices may just be Fox News).
That guy was a Boeing airplane mechanic, which should give you some pause. But even he could have answered the questions on which airport screeners are tested, at least if he, like they were pretty much given the answers in advance, because otherwise how could they answer these:
How do threats get on board an aircraft?
a. In carry-on bags.
b. In checked-in bags.
c. In another person's bag.
d. All of the above.
Another question asked why it was important to screen bags for "improvised explosive devices."
a. The I.E.D. batteries could leak and damage other passenger bags.
b. The wires in the I.E.D. could cause a short to the aircraft wires.
c. I.E.D.'s can cause loss of lives, property and aircraft.
d. The ticking timer could worry other passengers.
At no point were they tested on their ability to find actual dangerous stuff in baggage.
With all the talk in Israeli circles about those pilots who refuse to bomb people, it seems that as a general, Sharon himself refused to obey an order in 1973 to evacuate a settlement (or advised someone else to disobey such an order, I’m not clear).
From the Daily Telegraph: “A man accused of stealing a penis by sorcery was beaten to death in the Gambia yesterday. Police said tricksters appear to make genitals vanish then extort cash for a cure.” (In 1997 I had several stories about this happening in Ghana.)
Bush’s drug czar wants to drug test all school children.
The Australian Senate censures Prime Minister John Howard for lying about the reasons for Oz joining the war on Iraq.
But don’t they know that the Iraq situation is “a lot better than you probably think,” as Bush put it on a day in which 3 American soldiers, 8 Iraqi police and a Spanish spy were killed. “There will be bumps on the road,” said Paul Bremer, which some editorial cartoonist will, or should, rapidly turn into an image of a jeep driving over a lot of dead bodies.
Slate on the slush fund buried in the $87b. Not that buried, since it’s more than 1/10th of the total. Includes a blank check for Rummy to spend in bribing foreign countries for military aid in Iraq, and to transfer large sums of money from one bit to another, without Congressional oversight. Which they don’t really want to exercise, because with specific amounts, they’d have to explain voting for X million for Iraqi schools but not American schools, etc.
The Vatican really thought the pope was going to get the Nobel Peace Prize. Heh heh.
So to prove America’s even-handedness in killin’ people, a court in Arizona sentences to death a guy who took revenge for 9/11 by killing a Sikh (Sikh, Ayrab, what’s the diff?). Voices in his head told him to kill the devils. The jury chose to disregard his insanity defense, pointing out that George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld hear the same voices (to be fair, the voices may just be Fox News).
That guy was a Boeing airplane mechanic, which should give you some pause. But even he could have answered the questions on which airport screeners are tested, at least if he, like they were pretty much given the answers in advance, because otherwise how could they answer these:
How do threats get on board an aircraft?
a. In carry-on bags.
b. In checked-in bags.
c. In another person's bag.
d. All of the above.
Another question asked why it was important to screen bags for "improvised explosive devices."
a. The I.E.D. batteries could leak and damage other passenger bags.
b. The wires in the I.E.D. could cause a short to the aircraft wires.
c. I.E.D.'s can cause loss of lives, property and aircraft.
d. The ticking timer could worry other passengers.
At no point were they tested on their ability to find actual dangerous stuff in baggage.
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
I like to play the leader
Some religious authorities don’t like gay marriage, and some REALLY don’t like it. For example, the Russian Orthodox Church defrocked a priest that performed one. And demolished the church in which it was performed.
Bush’s idea of the way to get the bottom of the Plame Game is to get Justice right on it. Well, after a 12-hour period before people are ordered not to destroy documents. Oh, and the White House Counsel’s office will just hold on to all the evidence for a couple of weeks before it goes to justice. National security, you know.
Today’s Top Five list is changes under Governor Arnie. Maybe it’s too early to find our displacement of Florida as national laughing stock especially funny, but it didn’t seem a very good list. I did like:
6> California Department of Food and Agriculture now classifies steroids as a vegetable.
Ariel Sharon is getting increasingly paranoic about opposition. He accused the pilots who refuse to go on bombing-assassination missions of trying a coup, now he’s accused the Labor party of working with Palestinians to topple the government.
The Guardian: “The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which the HIV virus can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk.”
The Guardian also explains the Schwarzenegger victory to Brits, sort of: “Putting Arnie in charge of the world's fifth largest economy is like making Benny Hill chancellor of the exchequer: quirky but unreal - and not very funny.” More: “myth and reality may continue to collide. For some, Mr Schwarzenegger was a classic out sider, an immigrant-made-good, an heir to the American dream. But in truth he needed the Republican party, big business backing and $21m to beat Mr Davis. These debts will be called in in the normal way.”
For goober results. None of the 135, including the alleged murderer, got fewer than 172 votes. Bad luck, Todd Richard “The Bumhunter” Lewis (position on the budget crisis: “We need to spend less.”), but someone had to come in last. (If I never know what “the Bumhunter” means, it will be too soon.)
Führerprinzip: Last night the Game Show Network ran an episode of the Dating Game from the early to mid-1970s, in which Arnie had to choose between 3 bachelorettes (a word they did not make him try to pronounce). “Ya, girl number three, I am new to this country, can you explain to me what means ‘hanky panky’?” Asked where they would go on a date, one said wherever he wanted. He said that was goot, because “I like to play the leader.” She was the one he chose. They got to go to Hawaii with a Dating Game chaperon. Yeah, that’ll work. A chaperon. To paraphrase Richard Dreyfus in Jaws, I think we’re gonna need a bigger chaperon.
Bush’s idea of the way to get the bottom of the Plame Game is to get Justice right on it. Well, after a 12-hour period before people are ordered not to destroy documents. Oh, and the White House Counsel’s office will just hold on to all the evidence for a couple of weeks before it goes to justice. National security, you know.
Today’s Top Five list is changes under Governor Arnie. Maybe it’s too early to find our displacement of Florida as national laughing stock especially funny, but it didn’t seem a very good list. I did like:
6> California Department of Food and Agriculture now classifies steroids as a vegetable.
Ariel Sharon is getting increasingly paranoic about opposition. He accused the pilots who refuse to go on bombing-assassination missions of trying a coup, now he’s accused the Labor party of working with Palestinians to topple the government.
The Guardian: “The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which the HIV virus can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk.”
The Guardian also explains the Schwarzenegger victory to Brits, sort of: “Putting Arnie in charge of the world's fifth largest economy is like making Benny Hill chancellor of the exchequer: quirky but unreal - and not very funny.” More: “myth and reality may continue to collide. For some, Mr Schwarzenegger was a classic out sider, an immigrant-made-good, an heir to the American dream. But in truth he needed the Republican party, big business backing and $21m to beat Mr Davis. These debts will be called in in the normal way.”
For goober results. None of the 135, including the alleged murderer, got fewer than 172 votes. Bad luck, Todd Richard “The Bumhunter” Lewis (position on the budget crisis: “We need to spend less.”), but someone had to come in last. (If I never know what “the Bumhunter” means, it will be too soon.)
Führerprinzip: Last night the Game Show Network ran an episode of the Dating Game from the early to mid-1970s, in which Arnie had to choose between 3 bachelorettes (a word they did not make him try to pronounce). “Ya, girl number three, I am new to this country, can you explain to me what means ‘hanky panky’?” Asked where they would go on a date, one said wherever he wanted. He said that was goot, because “I like to play the leader.” She was the one he chose. They got to go to Hawaii with a Dating Game chaperon. Yeah, that’ll work. A chaperon. To paraphrase Richard Dreyfus in Jaws, I think we’re gonna need a bigger chaperon.
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Lo and behold
Today I got another recorded call against the recall, this time from Joe Lieberman. Who would this convince?
The State Dept calls on Israel to “avoid actions that heighten tensions.” And that was AFTER they bombed Syria. I guess the US considers bombing to be a way of releasing tensions. Hell, these days it’s the only way Ariel Sharon can... no, I won’t go there. Anyway, Israel is blaming Syria, and Arafat, natch, for a suicide bombing by a woman who had several family members recently killed by Israel. Not to justify her response, but really we don’t need to look any further for who “sent” her. (Later:) here’s Robert Fisk saying the same thing: “No one asks what these "training bases" are. Do Palestinian suicide bombers really need to practice suicide bombing? Does turning a switch need that much training? Surely the death of a brother or a cousin by the Israeli army is all the practice that is needed.” What seems to have happened is that after the threat a couple of weeks ago to expel/assassinate Arafat, this time Sharon had to do something big, or his buds would call him a weenie, so he bombed a country that had nothing to do with anything. Anyway, Shrub spoke to Sharon, and didn’t criticize the bombing of Syria. (Later:) and said something nonsensical about Israel protecting “the homeland.”
www.awfulplasticsurgery.com. (Views right only in Internet Explorer). Go snicker at celebrities.
I suppose we could always just try to derive what amusement we can from Governor Terminator’s accent. Today he was campaigning in Huntington “Beetch”, saying how much he liked “beetches.” Yup, that’s what I keep reading.
Exsscellent: An Italian tv poll shows PM Berlusconi to be the person Italians are most sick of. I wouldn’t ordinarily mention this, but there’s a great picture of him looking like Montgomery Burns’s younger but just as evil brother, here.
France has launched a campaign against noise pollution, with police given the power to confiscate noisy scooters and motorbikes, and so on. Yappy little dogs will remain sacrosanct, of course.
Colin Powell has an op-ed piece in the WashPost trying to spin the Kay report. He even uses the phrase “Lo and behold”. The Bushies are making an awfully big deal about some botulism left in a scientist’s refrigerator for a decade and evidently forgotten by the government. First, (insert pathetically obvious joke about the state of my own refrigerator here), second, knowing what we do about the reliability of the Iraqi power grid even before we bombed the crap out of it, how good could it be, 3rd, whether this is serious would depend on exactly what strain it was. Oh, I could debunk the rest of Powell’s article point by point, but why bother?
Congress finally decides not to build quite so many prisons. In Iraq. It also deleted Bush’s $153m. budget request for garbage trucks at $50,000 each. When you’re through wondering why Iraq would need $50,000 garbage trucks, do the math on how many of them. Also, no money to establish ZIP codes ($13m).
A Schwarzenegger rally drew 10,000 people, a Davis one 35. Said one D. Party spin doctor, yeah but he doesn’t draw as big a crowd as Hitler did.
The State Dept calls on Israel to “avoid actions that heighten tensions.” And that was AFTER they bombed Syria. I guess the US considers bombing to be a way of releasing tensions. Hell, these days it’s the only way Ariel Sharon can... no, I won’t go there. Anyway, Israel is blaming Syria, and Arafat, natch, for a suicide bombing by a woman who had several family members recently killed by Israel. Not to justify her response, but really we don’t need to look any further for who “sent” her. (Later:) here’s Robert Fisk saying the same thing: “No one asks what these "training bases" are. Do Palestinian suicide bombers really need to practice suicide bombing? Does turning a switch need that much training? Surely the death of a brother or a cousin by the Israeli army is all the practice that is needed.” What seems to have happened is that after the threat a couple of weeks ago to expel/assassinate Arafat, this time Sharon had to do something big, or his buds would call him a weenie, so he bombed a country that had nothing to do with anything. Anyway, Shrub spoke to Sharon, and didn’t criticize the bombing of Syria. (Later:) and said something nonsensical about Israel protecting “the homeland.”
www.awfulplasticsurgery.com. (Views right only in Internet Explorer). Go snicker at celebrities.
I suppose we could always just try to derive what amusement we can from Governor Terminator’s accent. Today he was campaigning in Huntington “Beetch”, saying how much he liked “beetches.” Yup, that’s what I keep reading.
Exsscellent: An Italian tv poll shows PM Berlusconi to be the person Italians are most sick of. I wouldn’t ordinarily mention this, but there’s a great picture of him looking like Montgomery Burns’s younger but just as evil brother, here.
France has launched a campaign against noise pollution, with police given the power to confiscate noisy scooters and motorbikes, and so on. Yappy little dogs will remain sacrosanct, of course.
Colin Powell has an op-ed piece in the WashPost trying to spin the Kay report. He even uses the phrase “Lo and behold”. The Bushies are making an awfully big deal about some botulism left in a scientist’s refrigerator for a decade and evidently forgotten by the government. First, (insert pathetically obvious joke about the state of my own refrigerator here), second, knowing what we do about the reliability of the Iraqi power grid even before we bombed the crap out of it, how good could it be, 3rd, whether this is serious would depend on exactly what strain it was. Oh, I could debunk the rest of Powell’s article point by point, but why bother?
Congress finally decides not to build quite so many prisons. In Iraq. It also deleted Bush’s $153m. budget request for garbage trucks at $50,000 each. When you’re through wondering why Iraq would need $50,000 garbage trucks, do the math on how many of them. Also, no money to establish ZIP codes ($13m).
A Schwarzenegger rally drew 10,000 people, a Davis one 35. Said one D. Party spin doctor, yeah but he doesn’t draw as big a crowd as Hitler did.
Whatever means is necessary
R’s have responded to Der Arnold’s little “he said, she she she she she she she she she she she she she she she said” problem by telling the media that Gray Davis has a temper problem and once threw an ashtray at an aide. Like anybody would believe there are still ashtrays in California.
The Turkish Parliament gave permission for its army to march into Iraq, as per the request of the US, which is putting Bush’s political need to start pulling troops out over the need of his puppet government, which is objecting fiercely, to maintain even a hint of credibility. The US claims that the Turks, subsidized as I mentioned before at a cost of $950,000 each, won’t be targeting Kurds, but this is not what the Turkish foreign minister is saying.
An article in the Tues. NY Times says that executions by lethal injection often use drugs that do nothing to lessen suffering, but do disguise it from observers (and seem to be used for that purpose, or at least serve no other obvious function). And they use chemicals that are banned in some places for the euthanization of animals because they are considered cruel.
Bush said “In order for there to be a Palestinian state, the Palestinian Authority must fight terror and must use whatever means is necessary to fight terror.” That’s what I like about Bush, his idealism. Maybe they can put that in their constitution: “We the people, in order to use whatever means is necessary to fight terror...” James Madison would be proud. It should make the constitution a lot shorter, too, since there need be none of that fair trial, search warrant, 5th amendment crap, just “whatever means is necessary.” Or should that be “am necessary”? Jesus, George, six-year olds are better at subject-verb agreement than you are.
In horrendous Supreme Court decisions, we have two today: 1) it let stand the conviction of a pregnant woman for murder for “delivering drugs” to the fetus through the umbilical cord. 2) it let stand Arkansas forcing an insane guy to take drugs to make him sane enough to be executed.
Another good analysis of the Kay Report, again showing that it doesn’t say what the Bushies say it says.
At an economic summit in Thailand later this month, Bush’s food will be tested for poison on mice.
Ariel Sharon says Israel will strike at its enemies “in any place and in any way.” Well, probably not in any way. I doubt they’ll be throwing cream pies at their enemies, for example, a method of protest I’ve always favored. Bush said that Sharon’s moves are “valid decisions. We would be doing the same thing.” Which would make anybody else rethink their position, but probably not Sharon. Israel releases a bombing map of Damascus, what it claims are homes and offices of Palestinian militants. Plan your vacations accordingly.
Haaretz says that in 1973, the US (Kissinger) gave Israel a secret green light to keep fighting Egypt and Syria after the official cease-fire went into effect, even if those countries stopped fighting. And it did.
The Turkish Parliament gave permission for its army to march into Iraq, as per the request of the US, which is putting Bush’s political need to start pulling troops out over the need of his puppet government, which is objecting fiercely, to maintain even a hint of credibility. The US claims that the Turks, subsidized as I mentioned before at a cost of $950,000 each, won’t be targeting Kurds, but this is not what the Turkish foreign minister is saying.
An article in the Tues. NY Times says that executions by lethal injection often use drugs that do nothing to lessen suffering, but do disguise it from observers (and seem to be used for that purpose, or at least serve no other obvious function). And they use chemicals that are banned in some places for the euthanization of animals because they are considered cruel.
Bush said “In order for there to be a Palestinian state, the Palestinian Authority must fight terror and must use whatever means is necessary to fight terror.” That’s what I like about Bush, his idealism. Maybe they can put that in their constitution: “We the people, in order to use whatever means is necessary to fight terror...” James Madison would be proud. It should make the constitution a lot shorter, too, since there need be none of that fair trial, search warrant, 5th amendment crap, just “whatever means is necessary.” Or should that be “am necessary”? Jesus, George, six-year olds are better at subject-verb agreement than you are.
In horrendous Supreme Court decisions, we have two today: 1) it let stand the conviction of a pregnant woman for murder for “delivering drugs” to the fetus through the umbilical cord. 2) it let stand Arkansas forcing an insane guy to take drugs to make him sane enough to be executed.
Another good analysis of the Kay Report, again showing that it doesn’t say what the Bushies say it says.
At an economic summit in Thailand later this month, Bush’s food will be tested for poison on mice.
Ariel Sharon says Israel will strike at its enemies “in any place and in any way.” Well, probably not in any way. I doubt they’ll be throwing cream pies at their enemies, for example, a method of protest I’ve always favored. Bush said that Sharon’s moves are “valid decisions. We would be doing the same thing.” Which would make anybody else rethink their position, but probably not Sharon. Israel releases a bombing map of Damascus, what it claims are homes and offices of Palestinian militants. Plan your vacations accordingly.
Haaretz says that in 1973, the US (Kissinger) gave Israel a secret green light to keep fighting Egypt and Syria after the official cease-fire went into effect, even if those countries stopped fighting. And it did.
Saturday, October 04, 2003
Any time, any place
My last email/post mentioned pussy cats in the subject line, as you will recall. SOMEbody’s over-zealous work computer bounced it: (reason: 553 5.0.0 Offensive E-mails not allowed at this site.)
The California, if not the federal, Do Not Call list went into effect this week. But just when I thought I didn’t need to screen my calls any more, who calls today but Al Gore, who wants me to vote against the recall.
The US has accepted Serbia’s offer to send troops and police to deal with the Muslims of Afghanistan. The US sees nothing wrong with this.
Yesterday I mentioned an Israeli tank commander being charged with negligence. The NY Times said he was charged with manslaughter. Wrong: just negligence.
Robin Cook, who resigned the Labour government over the Iraq war, says that Blair admitted Iraq had no WMDs 2 weeks before the war started. Might have been nice if Cook had mentioned that before. Resigning over principle is one thing, screwing up your book deal over principle is another matter entirely, evidently.
“U.S. Rep. Cass Ballenger [R-NC] blames the breakup of his 50-year marriage partly on the stress of living near a leading American Muslim advocacy group that he and his wife worried was so close to the U.S. Capitol that ‘they could blow the place up.’”
If you’re apt to believe Bush when he claims that David Kay’s report says the exact opposite of what it says, read here:
There hasn’t been much talk about David Kay himself. He’s actually been so much an advocate of attacking Iraq for so many years, has made repeated predictions about the nature of Iraq’s arsenal identical to those made by Bushies, sanctified those 2 mobile labs as signs of a biowar program well in advance of the facts, etc, that he actually seems the perfect man to front a Bush cover-up, which is not what he’s actually done.
Headline in the Sunday Times (London): “Arnie Gropes for Those Last Key Votes.” (And the NY Times says “Governor Davis Struggles to Hold His Base”--Arnold, of course, always tries to hold someone else’s base). And the Observer (London) has an editorial titled: “Arnie Did What? And We're Like... That's Amazing!”
The Arnold has continued attacking the integrity of the 11 women, who never even asked him to apologize, and blamed their statements on Davis dirty tricks and “sleaze politics.” There’s a lot of talk about the leftie LA Times too. And there’s this: “Meanwhile a group of young Republican women calling themselves Babes for Arnold are preparing to counter feminist demonstrators picketing his rallies across the state. They will hold banners reading: ‘I am yours, governor Arnold, any time, any place.’”
The California, if not the federal, Do Not Call list went into effect this week. But just when I thought I didn’t need to screen my calls any more, who calls today but Al Gore, who wants me to vote against the recall.
The US has accepted Serbia’s offer to send troops and police to deal with the Muslims of Afghanistan. The US sees nothing wrong with this.
Yesterday I mentioned an Israeli tank commander being charged with negligence. The NY Times said he was charged with manslaughter. Wrong: just negligence.
Robin Cook, who resigned the Labour government over the Iraq war, says that Blair admitted Iraq had no WMDs 2 weeks before the war started. Might have been nice if Cook had mentioned that before. Resigning over principle is one thing, screwing up your book deal over principle is another matter entirely, evidently.
“U.S. Rep. Cass Ballenger [R-NC] blames the breakup of his 50-year marriage partly on the stress of living near a leading American Muslim advocacy group that he and his wife worried was so close to the U.S. Capitol that ‘they could blow the place up.’”
If you’re apt to believe Bush when he claims that David Kay’s report says the exact opposite of what it says, read here:
There hasn’t been much talk about David Kay himself. He’s actually been so much an advocate of attacking Iraq for so many years, has made repeated predictions about the nature of Iraq’s arsenal identical to those made by Bushies, sanctified those 2 mobile labs as signs of a biowar program well in advance of the facts, etc, that he actually seems the perfect man to front a Bush cover-up, which is not what he’s actually done.
Headline in the Sunday Times (London): “Arnie Gropes for Those Last Key Votes.” (And the NY Times says “Governor Davis Struggles to Hold His Base”--Arnold, of course, always tries to hold someone else’s base). And the Observer (London) has an editorial titled: “Arnie Did What? And We're Like... That's Amazing!”
The Arnold has continued attacking the integrity of the 11 women, who never even asked him to apologize, and blamed their statements on Davis dirty tricks and “sleaze politics.” There’s a lot of talk about the leftie LA Times too. And there’s this: “Meanwhile a group of young Republican women calling themselves Babes for Arnold are preparing to counter feminist demonstrators picketing his rallies across the state. They will hold banners reading: ‘I am yours, governor Arnold, any time, any place.’”
Friday, October 03, 2003
Then let a father explain to his daughter why her beloved pussy cat has gone
A study that correlates people being wrong about Iraq (connections with Al Qaida, WMDs actually being found, the world supported us) and their primary source of news. Guess where Fox viewers fit? Of people with 1 of the 3 misconceptions, 53% supported the war. Among those with 2, 78% percent supported it, and among those with all 3, 86%. Of those with none of the misconceptions, 23% supported the war.
From the table of contents of today’s Daily Telegraph:
Canadian PM Chretien will retire in February. What will he try next? Marijuana. “I will have my money for my fine, and a joint in the other hand.”
An Israeli tank commander is actually going to be charged for “negligence” in the deaths of 4 Palestinians, 3 of them children aged 5, 6 and 13, during the Jenin Massacre. He negligently opened fire on civilians with tank shells and machine guns. Oops. He’s being charged only because someone videotaped as a tank fired a shell at a group of children on bicycles who had just bought chocolate bars. I’d like to use the word negligence sarcastically again, but I’m too pissed off. Let’s take it as read, shall we?
Bush on the slide in his poll numbers: “Sometimes the American people like the decisions I make, sometimes they don’t. But they need to know I'll make tough decisions based upon what I think is right.” Yeah, that’s what’s worrying us. Hell, he doesn’t even get his news from Fox, he gets what Karl Rove tells him was on Fox.
When Valerie Plame’s name was leaked, a snowball was started down a hill. There are public documents which listed her employer as a company called Brewster-Jennings & Associates. So when Rove or whoever also exposed that firm as a CIA front. Although more specifically, that idiot Novak exposed it today, saying he didn’t believe it was real. It is, and no doubt was the cover for other agents.
The Arnold says he can’t remember making pro-Hitler comments. Anyone else in the world would say that they hadn’t, he says he can’t remember. Which means he did, and just hopes that he has the only copies of the out-takes from Pumping Iron. And returning to the sexual assault issue, he does the “a little bit nutty, a little bit slutty” thing: “One wonders what the motivation is. Why am I getting all this stuff thrown at me now? No one complained.” About another incident in which the victim has gone public (there are now 11 women), he doesn’t remember that either. Several of the actresses he’s worked with have come forward to say that he was a perfect gentleman to them. Of course he was, it’s the powerless women he likes to humiliate.
At an event today he dropped a wrecking ball on a car. This had something to do with the car tax. Gubernatorial candidate Gallagher could not be reached for comment.
From the table of contents of today’s Daily Telegraph:
Pets pamperedThe head of the company says, “Then let a father explain to his daughter why her beloved pussy cat has gone.” There’s no picture, but I assume he was twirling long mustaches while he said this.
An authoritative magazine published by the Jesuits lashed out at the culture of pampered pets yesterday, saying animals had no souls or rights. [As the Jesuits like to say, give me the puppy for a year (that’s 7 dog years), and I will give you the dog. I don’t know how exactly that joke relates to that particular story, but it popped into my head.]
Pets face kidnap for debt
The power company that supplies Russia's far eastern port of Vladivostok is threatening to kidnap the pets of customers who fail to pay their bills.
Canadian PM Chretien will retire in February. What will he try next? Marijuana. “I will have my money for my fine, and a joint in the other hand.”
An Israeli tank commander is actually going to be charged for “negligence” in the deaths of 4 Palestinians, 3 of them children aged 5, 6 and 13, during the Jenin Massacre. He negligently opened fire on civilians with tank shells and machine guns. Oops. He’s being charged only because someone videotaped as a tank fired a shell at a group of children on bicycles who had just bought chocolate bars. I’d like to use the word negligence sarcastically again, but I’m too pissed off. Let’s take it as read, shall we?
Bush on the slide in his poll numbers: “Sometimes the American people like the decisions I make, sometimes they don’t. But they need to know I'll make tough decisions based upon what I think is right.” Yeah, that’s what’s worrying us. Hell, he doesn’t even get his news from Fox, he gets what Karl Rove tells him was on Fox.
When Valerie Plame’s name was leaked, a snowball was started down a hill. There are public documents which listed her employer as a company called Brewster-Jennings & Associates. So when Rove or whoever also exposed that firm as a CIA front. Although more specifically, that idiot Novak exposed it today, saying he didn’t believe it was real. It is, and no doubt was the cover for other agents.
The Arnold says he can’t remember making pro-Hitler comments. Anyone else in the world would say that they hadn’t, he says he can’t remember. Which means he did, and just hopes that he has the only copies of the out-takes from Pumping Iron. And returning to the sexual assault issue, he does the “a little bit nutty, a little bit slutty” thing: “One wonders what the motivation is. Why am I getting all this stuff thrown at me now? No one complained.” About another incident in which the victim has gone public (there are now 11 women), he doesn’t remember that either. Several of the actresses he’s worked with have come forward to say that he was a perfect gentleman to them. Of course he was, it’s the powerless women he likes to humiliate.
At an event today he dropped a wrecking ball on a car. This had something to do with the car tax. Gubernatorial candidate Gallagher could not be reached for comment.
Where there's smoke there's Arnold rubbing a waitresses' breasts together
Israel decides to extend its wall, but will leave gaps to be filled in at some point when the US is distracted. The US, which had vaguely threatened to withhold a fraction of one percent of the aid it gives Israel, does nothing. Then Israel announces the building of hundreds more units in Ariel and elsewhere, and Colin Powell says the US has “concerns.”
The LA Times published accounts of several of the no doubt innumerable times in which Arnold has committed sexual battery on women. Arnold both denied the reports (“trash politics”) and apologized for them, sort of. “Playful,” indeed. Actually, as I re-read it, it looks more and more like a non-apology apology, sorry if you took my grabbing your ass in the wrong way, sorry if you took offense at my little request--described by the Daily Show as a cross between a gynaecological exam and a wine tasting. The Post has him saying, after the “apology,” “Now, let's go from the dirty politics back to the future of California.” Dirty politics? Oh good, now we know who the real victim is here. Poor Arnold, misunderstood even when he isn’t mangling the language, just some waitresses’ breasts. “Women voters should know that I always have strong women around me.” Sure, if they weren’t strong you’d break them.
If you’re not taking this seriously, as relevant to his qualifications to be governor, consider this phrasing of the story, from the Guardian: “Schwarzenegger has admitted that he used his celebrity to humiliate women sexually.” It’s not just boorishness towards women, it’s that he abuses any power he has (and many of these stories were from a time when he was just a C-list celebrity).
Also, some old quotes surfaced today about how much he admired Hitler. Who also abused his power a little, if I may engage in some dirty historiography.
Ok, and maybe it doesn’t seem like much after the Hitler thing, but the man, who started running saying he’d use his own money and be beholden to nobody, has decided to loan his campaign a few million. This is the classic rich candidate’s method of hiding his backers, who can contribute after the election is safely over. This violates Prop 34, which was passed in 2000. 2000 is of course ancient history--we know because the most recent of the gropings we know about occurred then, so it must be ancient history, huh?
Bustamante is now running ads saying that even if you vote against the recall, you have a responsibility to vote for a candidate. Several newspapers, I think including the Times, have recommended skipping the second part of the ballot.
And Davis again reminds us why no one likes him:
Some tests of genetically-modified crops in Britain, which were supposed to be pro forma before Blair gives in to US demands that GM be allowed in, have shown that the crops are the major threat sane people always knew they were, killing off weeds, insects and endangering biodiversity.
It’s been 10 years since Boris Yeltsin bombarded the parliament building. Evidently since then it’s become clear that his dirty tricks squad created much of the violence he used as an excuse for his coup.
British foreign minister Jack Straw somehow claims that the war is justified by the finally released Kay report, which says no WMDs have been found in Iraq but Saddam “had not given up his aspirations and intentions.” Orwell imagined a Thought Police; even he never imagined that a Thought Army would invade because of aspirations and intentions.
The LA Times published accounts of several of the no doubt innumerable times in which Arnold has committed sexual battery on women. Arnold both denied the reports (“trash politics”) and apologized for them, sort of. “Playful,” indeed. Actually, as I re-read it, it looks more and more like a non-apology apology, sorry if you took my grabbing your ass in the wrong way, sorry if you took offense at my little request--described by the Daily Show as a cross between a gynaecological exam and a wine tasting. The Post has him saying, after the “apology,” “Now, let's go from the dirty politics back to the future of California.” Dirty politics? Oh good, now we know who the real victim is here. Poor Arnold, misunderstood even when he isn’t mangling the language, just some waitresses’ breasts. “Women voters should know that I always have strong women around me.” Sure, if they weren’t strong you’d break them.
If you’re not taking this seriously, as relevant to his qualifications to be governor, consider this phrasing of the story, from the Guardian: “Schwarzenegger has admitted that he used his celebrity to humiliate women sexually.” It’s not just boorishness towards women, it’s that he abuses any power he has (and many of these stories were from a time when he was just a C-list celebrity).
Also, some old quotes surfaced today about how much he admired Hitler. Who also abused his power a little, if I may engage in some dirty historiography.
Ok, and maybe it doesn’t seem like much after the Hitler thing, but the man, who started running saying he’d use his own money and be beholden to nobody, has decided to loan his campaign a few million. This is the classic rich candidate’s method of hiding his backers, who can contribute after the election is safely over. This violates Prop 34, which was passed in 2000. 2000 is of course ancient history--we know because the most recent of the gropings we know about occurred then, so it must be ancient history, huh?
Bustamante is now running ads saying that even if you vote against the recall, you have a responsibility to vote for a candidate. Several newspapers, I think including the Times, have recommended skipping the second part of the ballot.
And Davis again reminds us why no one likes him:
"I don’t know if any of you are parents," says Mr Davis to the small gathering of firefighters, teachers and police officers. "But I am, and I have difficult conversations with my children all the time: like when they want to stay out all night. Those conversations aren't much fun, are they? And if your child at that moment could recall YOU, what do you think he would do?" For a second, the Governor of California, the world's fifth largest economy, population 35 million, looks close to tears.That was from the London Times, which also says something I’d missed before: the only previous governor to be recalled, Lynn Frazier of ND in 1921, was elected to the US Senate the following year, where he stayed for 3 terms.
Some tests of genetically-modified crops in Britain, which were supposed to be pro forma before Blair gives in to US demands that GM be allowed in, have shown that the crops are the major threat sane people always knew they were, killing off weeds, insects and endangering biodiversity.
It’s been 10 years since Boris Yeltsin bombarded the parliament building. Evidently since then it’s become clear that his dirty tricks squad created much of the violence he used as an excuse for his coup.
British foreign minister Jack Straw somehow claims that the war is justified by the finally released Kay report, which says no WMDs have been found in Iraq but Saddam “had not given up his aspirations and intentions.” Orwell imagined a Thought Police; even he never imagined that a Thought Army would invade because of aspirations and intentions.
Thursday, October 02, 2003
8%
Robert Fisk says that the Proconsulate in Iraq is suppressing news of the number of times the oil pipelines are attacked, which is several times a day. In fact, from the start the US had it all wrong, protecting the oil fields, when the sabotage, which Fisk thinks is operating according to a pre-set plan, was always aimed at the export pipes. He also says that half the $20 billion for Iraqi “development” is actually allocated for security. So we’ve got control of the oil, and no way to get it to American SUVs.
And another $600 million to search for Iraqi WMDs. That’s a lot of dowsing rods.
With some members of the Iraqi “governing council” demanding that the US turn over power very quickly, it is interesting that the same council is saying that 6 months is way too soon for them to draw up a constitution. I think what they’re actually saying is they don’t want a constitution to be drawn up by an elected conference, which would then be the only body in Iraq with any sort of democratic legitimacy. The US won’t want elections either, because the Islamists would win and impose sharia. So good luck with that, guys.
In today’s White House press conference, with the reporters still piling on Leakgate--well, they should be rested and ready after that 2½ months of not following up--a reporter pointed out that since Bush says he doesn’t bother reading newspapers or watching tv news, the question of what the president was told and when he was told it is of unusual relevance.
Re “Leakgate,” DailyKos asked for suggestions. I like “the Plame Game.”
Even Philip Agee, whose naming of CIA names led to the 1982 law, thinks that this was kind of scummy. He was principled, this is just revenge. Something I didn’t know, or forgot: Agee sued Barbara Bush in 1995 for defamation when her autobiography said he was responsible for the assassination of the Athens head of station in 1975; he got her to admit he wasn’t to blame.
It seems that the reason the Justice Dept didn’t issue the order for the White House to save documents/email/etc for a day, is that the White House asked for the delay. No, nothing to hide--not any more.
Wesley Clark tells Joshua Marshall that he voted for Clinton. Now someone needs to ask about the elections in between 1980 and 1996.
The LA Times poll that shows Arnold with an 8-point lead over Bustamante, 40-32, also has a grand total of 8% who think he’s actually the most qualified for the job or was more knowledgeable than his opponents in the debate (that’s 2 separate questions, the same result in both). I looked at the poll, and can’t figure why those 40% are voting for him; really, they didn’t ask. They also didn’t ask the 8%: “You’re kidding, right?”
And another $600 million to search for Iraqi WMDs. That’s a lot of dowsing rods.
With some members of the Iraqi “governing council” demanding that the US turn over power very quickly, it is interesting that the same council is saying that 6 months is way too soon for them to draw up a constitution. I think what they’re actually saying is they don’t want a constitution to be drawn up by an elected conference, which would then be the only body in Iraq with any sort of democratic legitimacy. The US won’t want elections either, because the Islamists would win and impose sharia. So good luck with that, guys.
In today’s White House press conference, with the reporters still piling on Leakgate--well, they should be rested and ready after that 2½ months of not following up--a reporter pointed out that since Bush says he doesn’t bother reading newspapers or watching tv news, the question of what the president was told and when he was told it is of unusual relevance.
Re “Leakgate,” DailyKos asked for suggestions. I like “the Plame Game.”
Even Philip Agee, whose naming of CIA names led to the 1982 law, thinks that this was kind of scummy. He was principled, this is just revenge. Something I didn’t know, or forgot: Agee sued Barbara Bush in 1995 for defamation when her autobiography said he was responsible for the assassination of the Athens head of station in 1975; he got her to admit he wasn’t to blame.
It seems that the reason the Justice Dept didn’t issue the order for the White House to save documents/email/etc for a day, is that the White House asked for the delay. No, nothing to hide--not any more.
Wesley Clark tells Joshua Marshall that he voted for Clinton. Now someone needs to ask about the elections in between 1980 and 1996.
The LA Times poll that shows Arnold with an 8-point lead over Bustamante, 40-32, also has a grand total of 8% who think he’s actually the most qualified for the job or was more knowledgeable than his opponents in the debate (that’s 2 separate questions, the same result in both). I looked at the poll, and can’t figure why those 40% are voting for him; really, they didn’t ask. They also didn’t ask the 8%: “You’re kidding, right?”
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
A shortage of cement
The NYT has a story about how states are cutting back on the cost of prisons by feeding the prisoners less food. That way you can fit more in a cell, too.
David Corn has a column on McClelland’s evasions on Plame-gate, which unless someone comes up with a name that isn’t crap is how I’ll be referring to the leaking to Robert Novak of the name of the wife of Amb. Joseph Wilson. (Later: the Post has Leakgate. We can do better.) Corn says “Pity McClellan. He has a tough task--to depict the president as caring about the leak even though he is doing nothing about it.” The lefties trying to use Plame-gate to damage Bush, like Corn, have their own difficulties. I haven’t checked his other columns on this subject (Corn was on this one early and often--I cited him on this subject July 22--my, it took the mainstream media a long time to catch up), but this column seems to make a point of not using Valerie Plame’s name, I guess to prove that he’s more patriotic than Novak (Later: Jim Lehrer did the same thing today). Corn and the bloggers who are all over this also have to pretend that they care about the damage to the career of a CIA officer--oh dear, she won’t be able to secretly meet with moles inside the governments of nations we’re trying to overthrow--and consider violation of the 1982 law to be akin to treason. Funny, I was opposed to that law in 1982 and I’ll bet Corn was too. Here’s some really overblown rhetoric from TomPaine.com: “The facts of this story are singularly grotesque. Taken at the top layer, you have a White House that appears perfectly willing to go after the family members of its critics. Valerie Plame's career is destroyed, period. The act itself displays a level of viciousness that is dangerous to the functioning of this, or any, democracy.” Me oh my. Look, by all means go after the Bushies for their vindictiveness and sneakiness and hypocrisy, make McClellan squirm, bring up the Shrub quote about people who release agents’ names being lower than the lowest of the really pretty darn low, attack Ashcroft’s ability to conduct a fair investigation (he already gave the White House a day’s head start to destroy evidence before issuing an order not to), and let’s find out if Rove really was fired by Bush the Elder for sliming Mosbacher to Robert Novak in 1992, but let’s not be quite so hypocritical.
Krugman’s column today (Tues.) does something in discussing the cronyism behind the contracts to rebuild Iraq that no one else has done: since the Bushies are comparing this to the Marshall Plan, Krugman talks about the special efforts Truman took to make sure there was no post-war profiteering.
Something I missed: when Paul Bremer was asked in Congress why he was asking for $400m. to build a 4,000-bed prison, he said that there was a shortage of cement in Iraq and it needed to be imported. A shortage of cement. They could mine his head and get all the cement they need.
With my memories of the Reagan administration thankfully fading somewhat, it’s hard to compare whether Ed Meese was more godawful an attorney general than Ashcroft is, but his reaction today to a question about the Patriot Act may give a clue: “Librarians are more interested in pushing pornography on kids than fighting terrorism!”
Sydney Schanberg (ya know, Sam Waterston in The Killing Fields) has read Wesley Clark’s forthcoming book, which says some interesting things about how badly the Bushies screwed up in their wars on terrorism, Afghanistan, etc. Sam, I mean Sydney, asks the question: so why didn’t you mention any of this before, Wes?
Just saw an ad for McClintock. It cites a poll to show that he is gaining momentum and has a chance of winning. When you spend your hard-earned (well ok, Indian casino) money trying to prove your viability rather than your competence, not to convince people but to convince people that other people are convinced, you don’t deserve to win. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a campaign ad citing favorable polls before. And, as usual, there’s an Onion piece that relates to this point.
Of course Arianna’s withdrawal in favor of Gray Davis is worse, and sillier, and I could say more but at this point it feels like a waste of words to use them on her. And we know how she hates waste.
David Corn has a column on McClelland’s evasions on Plame-gate, which unless someone comes up with a name that isn’t crap is how I’ll be referring to the leaking to Robert Novak of the name of the wife of Amb. Joseph Wilson. (Later: the Post has Leakgate. We can do better.) Corn says “Pity McClellan. He has a tough task--to depict the president as caring about the leak even though he is doing nothing about it.” The lefties trying to use Plame-gate to damage Bush, like Corn, have their own difficulties. I haven’t checked his other columns on this subject (Corn was on this one early and often--I cited him on this subject July 22--my, it took the mainstream media a long time to catch up), but this column seems to make a point of not using Valerie Plame’s name, I guess to prove that he’s more patriotic than Novak (Later: Jim Lehrer did the same thing today). Corn and the bloggers who are all over this also have to pretend that they care about the damage to the career of a CIA officer--oh dear, she won’t be able to secretly meet with moles inside the governments of nations we’re trying to overthrow--and consider violation of the 1982 law to be akin to treason. Funny, I was opposed to that law in 1982 and I’ll bet Corn was too. Here’s some really overblown rhetoric from TomPaine.com: “The facts of this story are singularly grotesque. Taken at the top layer, you have a White House that appears perfectly willing to go after the family members of its critics. Valerie Plame's career is destroyed, period. The act itself displays a level of viciousness that is dangerous to the functioning of this, or any, democracy.” Me oh my. Look, by all means go after the Bushies for their vindictiveness and sneakiness and hypocrisy, make McClellan squirm, bring up the Shrub quote about people who release agents’ names being lower than the lowest of the really pretty darn low, attack Ashcroft’s ability to conduct a fair investigation (he already gave the White House a day’s head start to destroy evidence before issuing an order not to), and let’s find out if Rove really was fired by Bush the Elder for sliming Mosbacher to Robert Novak in 1992, but let’s not be quite so hypocritical.
Krugman’s column today (Tues.) does something in discussing the cronyism behind the contracts to rebuild Iraq that no one else has done: since the Bushies are comparing this to the Marshall Plan, Krugman talks about the special efforts Truman took to make sure there was no post-war profiteering.
Something I missed: when Paul Bremer was asked in Congress why he was asking for $400m. to build a 4,000-bed prison, he said that there was a shortage of cement in Iraq and it needed to be imported. A shortage of cement. They could mine his head and get all the cement they need.
With my memories of the Reagan administration thankfully fading somewhat, it’s hard to compare whether Ed Meese was more godawful an attorney general than Ashcroft is, but his reaction today to a question about the Patriot Act may give a clue: “Librarians are more interested in pushing pornography on kids than fighting terrorism!”
Sydney Schanberg (ya know, Sam Waterston in The Killing Fields) has read Wesley Clark’s forthcoming book, which says some interesting things about how badly the Bushies screwed up in their wars on terrorism, Afghanistan, etc. Sam, I mean Sydney, asks the question: so why didn’t you mention any of this before, Wes?
Just saw an ad for McClintock. It cites a poll to show that he is gaining momentum and has a chance of winning. When you spend your hard-earned (well ok, Indian casino) money trying to prove your viability rather than your competence, not to convince people but to convince people that other people are convinced, you don’t deserve to win. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a campaign ad citing favorable polls before. And, as usual, there’s an Onion piece that relates to this point.
Of course Arianna’s withdrawal in favor of Gray Davis is worse, and sillier, and I could say more but at this point it feels like a waste of words to use them on her. And we know how she hates waste.
Monday, September 29, 2003
Is Bush clairvoyant?
The recall is now a foregone conclusion. There are tv commercials against the recall of “the governor” by “the Republicans,” because Davis doesn’t dare mention his own name and so that he can fight an archetypal Republican who would abolish abortion and repeal gun laws, rather than the only actual Republican who could win. If you can’t mention your own name in your own ads, if even you realize that you are despised by your own state, it’s time to resign. I still intend to vote against the recall, and it would still be wrong, I think, to vote for the recall, but if anyone wants to abstain, they have my permission. Voting no on the recall was always going to be a decision based on theory rather than practice--which I’m normally more than ok with--but voting to retain Davis no longer seems like a defense of the democratic process. “Vote for the really really unpopular guy in the name of democracy” doesn’t seem like such a viable slogan. Which is not to say that we shouldn’t change the rules to make recalls much harder to initiate, but I don’t know that an arbitrary calendrical cycle is really that much less capricious a grounds on which to schedule elections than getting 5% of the population to sign a petition.
As for candidates, you’re on your own. If I never tell you who I voted for, it probably means I voted for Thong Girl and am embarrassed to admit it, which will also mean I couldn’t bring myself to vote for the wishy-washy Camejo or the increasingly hollow Arianna, both of whom are suggesting that they might back out or ask their supporters vote for Bustamoney. Busty was always out of the running for me because he supports the death penalty, and the crap he’s pulled with illicit campaign spending (I saw one of those ads last night he was ordered a week ago not to spend laundered money on) hasn’t made him more attractive.
Of course I may change my mind after the Game Show Channel’s Who Wants to Be California Governor Wednesday.
Others have been having fun with the Census Dept’s list of names. In 2000, there were 11 children named Bentley, 5 Jaguars, and ironically, just 1 Xerox (although there were 24 Unique’s), and 49 Canons. Also, a Gouda and a Bologna, and they are not named after the places.
Indonesia is updating its criminal code, which is largely the same as when the Dutch left. For example, those Gouda-eaters (that only works as a segue if I’m right that Gouda is Dutch) (so I’m not going to look it up) somehow neglected to outlaw black magic, homosexuality and premarital sex.
A new $20 bill comes out next week. It’ll have peach and blue coloring. $33 million will be spent on PR for the bill, because we know how unpopular $20 bills are in this country. They will pay for product placement in movies and Jeopardy and such.
White House spokesdickhead McClellan says, three times no less, that he has “no specific information” about the source of the leak about Ambassador Wilson’s wife. And we all know about the high standards this administration puts on the information it uses to make decisions. Of course what he’s saying is that nothing will be done to find the felonious leakers, but hey if you guys want to violate your professional ethics, coming down to our level, and name them.... He also says that Bush knows that Rove didn’t do the leak, but refuses to say how Bush knows this, and if you read the transcript, refused in the face of a very long barrage of questions. If he didn’t ask Rove, then he is either clairvoyant (a reporter asked McClellan this), or he already knew who leaked. They’re stonewalling, of course, which actually worked nicely for them for the past 2 months, when this should have been on front pages but wasn’t. (Incidentally, if anyone knows what reporter asked the clairvoyant question, I’m curious).
As for candidates, you’re on your own. If I never tell you who I voted for, it probably means I voted for Thong Girl and am embarrassed to admit it, which will also mean I couldn’t bring myself to vote for the wishy-washy Camejo or the increasingly hollow Arianna, both of whom are suggesting that they might back out or ask their supporters vote for Bustamoney. Busty was always out of the running for me because he supports the death penalty, and the crap he’s pulled with illicit campaign spending (I saw one of those ads last night he was ordered a week ago not to spend laundered money on) hasn’t made him more attractive.
Of course I may change my mind after the Game Show Channel’s Who Wants to Be California Governor Wednesday.
Others have been having fun with the Census Dept’s list of names. In 2000, there were 11 children named Bentley, 5 Jaguars, and ironically, just 1 Xerox (although there were 24 Unique’s), and 49 Canons. Also, a Gouda and a Bologna, and they are not named after the places.
Indonesia is updating its criminal code, which is largely the same as when the Dutch left. For example, those Gouda-eaters (that only works as a segue if I’m right that Gouda is Dutch) (so I’m not going to look it up) somehow neglected to outlaw black magic, homosexuality and premarital sex.
A new $20 bill comes out next week. It’ll have peach and blue coloring. $33 million will be spent on PR for the bill, because we know how unpopular $20 bills are in this country. They will pay for product placement in movies and Jeopardy and such.
White House spokesdickhead McClellan says, three times no less, that he has “no specific information” about the source of the leak about Ambassador Wilson’s wife. And we all know about the high standards this administration puts on the information it uses to make decisions. Of course what he’s saying is that nothing will be done to find the felonious leakers, but hey if you guys want to violate your professional ethics, coming down to our level, and name them.... He also says that Bush knows that Rove didn’t do the leak, but refuses to say how Bush knows this, and if you read the transcript, refused in the face of a very long barrage of questions. If he didn’t ask Rove, then he is either clairvoyant (a reporter asked McClellan this), or he already knew who leaked. They’re stonewalling, of course, which actually worked nicely for them for the past 2 months, when this should have been on front pages but wasn’t. (Incidentally, if anyone knows what reporter asked the clairvoyant question, I’m curious).
Connecting the dots
The NY Times runs a fairly devastating article about the quality of intelligence supplied by Iraqi defectors, but fails to say exactly how that intelligence related to decision-making by the Bush administration, and arguments made by it. It says that the Defence Intelligence Agency concluded early this year that no more than 1/3 of the information was potentially useful, but we need a more specific date, obviously. Half way through the article even sorta kinda almost apologizes for the Times’s many many articles by the laughable Judith Miller that passed on this crap. Nor did the paper announce when it would change it’s slogan to All the News That’s No More Than One Third Potentially Useful.
The Monday WashPost has a bunch of stories about bad and misused intelligence.
The new Bushie phrase about intelligence, intended to immunize them when their sources and claims are discredited one by one, is that it is a matter of “connecting the dots.” Mary Matalin, now Cheney’s spokesmodel, used the phrase, so did Condi: "There were many, many dots about what was going on in the Iraqi programs after 1998." George Seurat or Jackson Pollack, you be the judge.
The Monday WashPost has a bunch of stories about bad and misused intelligence.
The new Bushie phrase about intelligence, intended to immunize them when their sources and claims are discredited one by one, is that it is a matter of “connecting the dots.” Mary Matalin, now Cheney’s spokesmodel, used the phrase, so did Condi: "There were many, many dots about what was going on in the Iraqi programs after 1998." George Seurat or Jackson Pollack, you be the judge.
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