Shrub rushes to make clear his horror at the most recent beheading of an American, knowing that he needs to exploit this one quickly before the next one comes. Within 6 months they won’t make the front page anymore, within a year they’ll get the same level of attention as soldiers in Iraq get now. Bush says, “America will not be intimidated by these kind of extremist thugs” but does not say what sort of extremist thugs it WILL take for him to get the fucking point. Slate notes that none of the stories on the beheading were datelined Saudi Arabia. Incidentally, Johnson was wearing another of those orange jumpsuits.
American Catholic bishops meet and almost but not quite endorse withholding sacraments from politicians who are “cooperating in evil” by supporting paedophilia. Did I say paedophilia? I meant abortion.
The Justice Department decided to ignore the condition under which a Dominican judge extradited a man to the US, that he not be subject to the death penalty. Although the US had presumably agreed to the condition, once they got their hands on the guy they decided it was “not binding.” When the Federal District judge in Brooklyn wasn’t going along with this, they reversed themselves.
What was it, a week ago that we learned there had been 50 attempts early in the Iraq war to assassinate Iraqi leaders, all failed? So today they drop bombs on Fallujah to assassinate Zarqawi, and guess what? c.22 innocent bystanders dead, no Zarqawi (and what’s Zarqawi supposed to have done that was actually worse than what we just did trying to kill him?). One reason so many died was that there was a second missile strike several minutes after the first, presumably intended to kill anyone trying to help the victims. This is a standard Israeli tactic. In terms of an inability to learn from mistakes, this reminds me of that baby bird that flew in here 20 minutes ago and kept flying against the window, which kept being solid, accomplishing nothing except to provide a metaphor. Now if I can just come up with a way to make a metaphor out of that innocent, just-looking around inspection my cat made when I let her out of the bathroom after I’d finally gotten rid of the bird, the whole experience might be worth it.
The Clinton interview to watch is not the 60 Minutes one, but one with the BBC’s David Dimbleby, not that we’ll ever get to see it, in which Dimbleby keeps asking him whether his contrition about Monica is real, until he gets really pissed off.
Since Israel announced massive bribes for Gaza settlers who leave, a bunch of the settlers who had left are trying to move back in order to be bribed to leave again.
So the civilian CIA contractor who beat a prisoner to death with a flashlight had a record of spousal abuse, shooting at his neighbor’s car, and was kicked off the Hartford PD for beating up a guy. The CIA knew this, and still hired him.
Link
Even ignoring the ineptitude on 9/11/01 that led Cheney to think two planes had been shot down as per his orders, is this the sort of phrasing that’s appropriate when discussing planes full of innocent civilians you’ve just ordered killed: “it's my understanding they've already taken a couple of aircraft out.”?
Out of nowhere, Putin says that he gave information to the US about Saddam planning terrorist attacks in the US, and it’s such a transparent lie that it gets almost no coverage on the first day, and no follow-up.
Saturday, June 19, 2004
Friday, June 18, 2004
Best evidence
A message to Shrub from out here in the land of logic regarding this statement: “The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda.” That’s not a “reason.” A “reason” involves logic, or factual evidence. It is not simple assertion or, worse, repetition. Your saying it again is not proof. (Ok, now is it really just me, or does everything this week echo British sketch comedy? Was I the only one thinking of this?
What’s Newt Gingrich up to these days? Posting reviews of novels at Amazon.com.
Bush cited the presence of Zarqawi in Iraq as the “best evidence” of a Sadam/AQ connection. The problem is that Zarqawi operated out of Kurdistan, where Saddam’s writ did not run. Also, Zarqawi is in Ansar al Islam, not Al Qaida. But other than that, it’s the best evidence.
Some rather hilarious slash pathetic attempts by Bushies to blame the media for their difficulties. Cheney blames the NYT for reporting accurately that the 9/11 commission found no AQ-Iraq tie: “The fact of the matter is, the evidence is overwhelming. The press is, with all due respect, and there are exceptions, oftentimes lazy, oftentimes simply reports what somebody else in the press said without doing their homework.” I’m sorry, WHO is accusing WHO of laziness and not doing THEIR homework?
And there’s a creepy Rummy thing about how the media is stabbing the military in the back by talking about torture. Click here
and start at “coalition forces cannot be defeated on the battlefield. The only way this effort could fail is if people were to be persuaded that the cause is lost or that it's not worth the pain, or if those who seem to measure progress in Iraq against a more perfect world convince others to throw in the towel.”
Condi today tried to spin the 9/11 Commission. When they said there was no connection at all between Saddam and AQ, what they actually meant to say, according to her, was that Iraq didn’t have operational control over AQ. Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton knocked that particular straw man down.
By the way, the vocabulary word of the week at the White House: opine.
R’s on the Senate Judiciary Committee vote not to subpoena Ashcroft for the memos he committed contempt of Congress by not handing over in the first place. They said he was so cooperative that subpoenas were not necessary. He said that he’s waiting for the subpoenas before cooperating.
I’ve always said that Bush could have been blown out of the water after 9/11 by somebody running the footage of him being told about the planes hitting the Twin Towers, then calmly reciting a book to a classroom of children (I say reciting because I still don’t believe that he can read) for, what was it, seven minutes, in a split screen with what was going on in NYC. I gather the classroom footage is used in the Michael Moore film. Bush’s explanation to the 9/11 Commission: “his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis”. If we believe this story, rather than that Bush simply failed to understood what was going on, how does he come off better? 3 or 4 weeks after 9/11, I commented on how the Bushies were trying to make Americans *feel* that it was safe to fly again, rather than trying to make flying actually safe. What Bush is now saying is that was his strategy from the start: instead of trying to find out what the situation was (especially essential since he was the only person with the authority to order civilian aircraft shot down, although he now seems to have passed that authority to Cheney, illegally I think), he immediately tried to reassure America that this situation he knew almost nothing about was nothing to be alarmed about. Bush in a nutshell.
What’s Newt Gingrich up to these days? Posting reviews of novels at Amazon.com.
Bush cited the presence of Zarqawi in Iraq as the “best evidence” of a Sadam/AQ connection. The problem is that Zarqawi operated out of Kurdistan, where Saddam’s writ did not run. Also, Zarqawi is in Ansar al Islam, not Al Qaida. But other than that, it’s the best evidence.
Some rather hilarious slash pathetic attempts by Bushies to blame the media for their difficulties. Cheney blames the NYT for reporting accurately that the 9/11 commission found no AQ-Iraq tie: “The fact of the matter is, the evidence is overwhelming. The press is, with all due respect, and there are exceptions, oftentimes lazy, oftentimes simply reports what somebody else in the press said without doing their homework.” I’m sorry, WHO is accusing WHO of laziness and not doing THEIR homework?
And there’s a creepy Rummy thing about how the media is stabbing the military in the back by talking about torture. Click here
and start at “coalition forces cannot be defeated on the battlefield. The only way this effort could fail is if people were to be persuaded that the cause is lost or that it's not worth the pain, or if those who seem to measure progress in Iraq against a more perfect world convince others to throw in the towel.”
Condi today tried to spin the 9/11 Commission. When they said there was no connection at all between Saddam and AQ, what they actually meant to say, according to her, was that Iraq didn’t have operational control over AQ. Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton knocked that particular straw man down.
By the way, the vocabulary word of the week at the White House: opine.
R’s on the Senate Judiciary Committee vote not to subpoena Ashcroft for the memos he committed contempt of Congress by not handing over in the first place. They said he was so cooperative that subpoenas were not necessary. He said that he’s waiting for the subpoenas before cooperating.
I’ve always said that Bush could have been blown out of the water after 9/11 by somebody running the footage of him being told about the planes hitting the Twin Towers, then calmly reciting a book to a classroom of children (I say reciting because I still don’t believe that he can read) for, what was it, seven minutes, in a split screen with what was going on in NYC. I gather the classroom footage is used in the Michael Moore film. Bush’s explanation to the 9/11 Commission: “his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis”. If we believe this story, rather than that Bush simply failed to understood what was going on, how does he come off better? 3 or 4 weeks after 9/11, I commented on how the Bushies were trying to make Americans *feel* that it was safe to fly again, rather than trying to make flying actually safe. What Bush is now saying is that was his strategy from the start: instead of trying to find out what the situation was (especially essential since he was the only person with the authority to order civilian aircraft shot down, although he now seems to have passed that authority to Cheney, illegally I think), he immediately tried to reassure America that this situation he knew almost nothing about was nothing to be alarmed about. Bush in a nutshell.
Thursday, June 17, 2004
For the worst possible reason--just because I could
Secretary of War Crimes Rumsfeld ordered that a detainee be hidden, at the request of the CIA because it was really important to question him about attacks in Iraq that might be linked to Al Qaida, not be registered or issued an i.d. number. This is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. And then, of course, they forgot all about him for 7 months. So he was never even questioned. Rummy today seemed rather vague as to the reasons for making someone a “ghost detainee.” Presumably he signed off on making a human being disappear without giving it 2 seconds thought or asking a reason. Rumsfeld has probably never lost a second of sleep over any decision he’s ever made. (Later:) he did suggest that one reason was to ensure that interrogation wasn’t interrupted. By what, telemarketers?
The extent of the outrage, or lack of it, can be seen in the results of attempts to make sure abuses not be repeated. The Senate voted down a provision to ban private contractors interrogating prisoners 54-43, on basically a party-line vote.
And since then, one contractor with the CIA has been indicted for assault, which seems an odd charge since he beat a prisoner to death over a two-day period.
Conservative groups have created an Ethics in Nominations Project, to press for the confirmation of right-wing judges. The head of this group is the highly ethical Manuel Miranda, who you will remember as the Frist aide who had to resign because he’d broken into the computer files of Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee. Can’t make this crap up.
Ben Affleck refused to accept his Razzie Award for Worst Actor of the Year in “Gigli,” so it was auctioned off on EBay for $1,375. Someone has too much money.
Slate (and everyone else) notes that while Bush yesterday claimed, “This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda.”, he actually did so in the letter to Congress asking it to authorize going to war with Iraq.
Also in Slate, a good analysis of the way Bush structures such statements to mislead without quite lying: putting sentences next to each other that are meant to look like part of the same thought but aren’t, phrases with multiple possible meanings, etc. This is the work of someone who has thought very carefully about how to mislead. A must-read.
You know, you expect more entertainment from a story with the headline “Eco-Terrorist Elves Are Blamed for Arson Attack.”
Clinton says he had the affair with Lewinsky “for the worst possible reason - just because I could”. In case you were wondering about the moral hierarchy of reasons for getting a blow job. He also says (this is in his interview with 60 Minutes Sunday) that the impeachment process, which he doesn’t, ahem, see “as a stain,” was “an abuse of power.” In case you haven’t gotten the equivalence Clinton is trying to create here, let me rephrase it: the Republicans impeached Clinton for the worst possible reason--just because they could.
The Daily Kos reminds us: Bush was supposed to be making a series of weekly speeches on Iraq. After the first one, where he mispronounced Abu Ghraib, there weren’t any more.
Iraq’s new defense minister says of insurgents, “We will cut off their hands and behead them.” Or maybe it was those darned telemarketers. Or eco-terrorist elves. Or Ben Affleck.
AN HOUR LATER, YOU’RE HUNGRY AGAIN: “Authorities in China shut down 215 restaurants in Guizhou province because they were mixing drug-producing poppies into meals.”
The extent of the outrage, or lack of it, can be seen in the results of attempts to make sure abuses not be repeated. The Senate voted down a provision to ban private contractors interrogating prisoners 54-43, on basically a party-line vote.
And since then, one contractor with the CIA has been indicted for assault, which seems an odd charge since he beat a prisoner to death over a two-day period.
Conservative groups have created an Ethics in Nominations Project, to press for the confirmation of right-wing judges. The head of this group is the highly ethical Manuel Miranda, who you will remember as the Frist aide who had to resign because he’d broken into the computer files of Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee. Can’t make this crap up.
Ben Affleck refused to accept his Razzie Award for Worst Actor of the Year in “Gigli,” so it was auctioned off on EBay for $1,375. Someone has too much money.
Slate (and everyone else) notes that while Bush yesterday claimed, “This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda.”, he actually did so in the letter to Congress asking it to authorize going to war with Iraq.
Also in Slate, a good analysis of the way Bush structures such statements to mislead without quite lying: putting sentences next to each other that are meant to look like part of the same thought but aren’t, phrases with multiple possible meanings, etc. This is the work of someone who has thought very carefully about how to mislead. A must-read.
You know, you expect more entertainment from a story with the headline “Eco-Terrorist Elves Are Blamed for Arson Attack.”
Clinton says he had the affair with Lewinsky “for the worst possible reason - just because I could”. In case you were wondering about the moral hierarchy of reasons for getting a blow job. He also says (this is in his interview with 60 Minutes Sunday) that the impeachment process, which he doesn’t, ahem, see “as a stain,” was “an abuse of power.” In case you haven’t gotten the equivalence Clinton is trying to create here, let me rephrase it: the Republicans impeached Clinton for the worst possible reason--just because they could.
The Daily Kos reminds us: Bush was supposed to be making a series of weekly speeches on Iraq. After the first one, where he mispronounced Abu Ghraib, there weren’t any more.
Iraq’s new defense minister says of insurgents, “We will cut off their hands and behead them.” Or maybe it was those darned telemarketers. Or eco-terrorist elves. Or Ben Affleck.
AN HOUR LATER, YOU’RE HUNGRY AGAIN: “Authorities in China shut down 215 restaurants in Guizhou province because they were mixing drug-producing poppies into meals.”
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
00000000
Oh, and a Roma was elected to the European Parliament for the first time, for Hungary.
As Paul Krugman notes in a column on Ashcroft (channeling the Comic Store Guy, he called him the worst..attorney general..ever), such is the man’s credibility that when he held a news conference Monday to announce the foiling of a dastardly plot to blow up a shopping mall, less than a day after the release of a DOJ memo justifying torture, and following his usual practice of doing this sort of thing as a distraction (the announcement came 7 months after the arrest), no one treated it seriously. If his own paper, the NYT, believed that there had been a real terrorist plot to blow up a mall, it would have placed the story on the front page, not on the bottom of page 14.
Yeah, I knew it, there’s another Confederate widow out there.
The Israeli attorney general has decided not to prosecute Ariel Sharon or his incredibly slimy son for taking bribes. Which has to piss off the guy who will still be prosecuted for bribing them. They’re essentially saying that not only did he bribe Sharon, but did it so incompetently that Sharon didn’t even know he was being bribed. Sharon, who gets to keep his job, presumably won’t mind being labeled too stupid to realize that the people giving his son all that money expected something in return.
I know it would be too much to expect this administration to actually stop terrorist acts, but now it can’t even count them? And took credit for reducing terrorism.
Article on the Pentagon’s new ability to spy secretly on Americans.
The 9/11 Commission, you will have heard, said today that there was no link between 9/11 and Iraq, despite what Bush said yesterday and Cheney a day before. Hopefully somebody will conduct a poll to determine how many Americans are still ignorant of this; the results will no doubt be depressing, but at least such a poll couldn’t be kept secret, like the one Bremer conducted of Iraqis which was suppressed when it revealed that they would feel safer if US troops would just get the hell out.
What you may have missed, given the press coverage, is the finding that 9/11 was implemented in reaction to Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000, and was originally planned to take place during a Sharon visit to the US.
An Italian senator in Berlusconi’s party is nearing the end of his trial for Mafia associations (his 3rd trial, after convictions for accounting fraud and extortion). So Berlusconi has made the man a delegate to the Council of Europe, which gives him immunity--right in the middle of the trial!
The first virus for mobile phones has been created. Heh heh heh.
Correction: Chris Bell, who is filing the corruption charges against DeLay, is not an ex-Congresscritter but a lame-duck Congresscritter, thanks to DeLay’s gerrymandering of Texas congressional districts.
Bush in support of his stem-cell research ban: "Life is a creation of God, not a commodity to be exploited by man." I’m assuming Bush is now a vegetarian.
(Insert clever segue here): the US army will charge a captain who shot a wounded Iraqi. “Military officials told NBC's Jim Miklaszewski that the soldier was apparently acting in good faith, shooting the badly wounded driver to "put him out of misery."
Time magazine discloses Cheney’s undisclosed location, and the White House is so pissed off: “One White House officials fumed Monday night: "TIME magazine would have revealed the secret location of Anne Frank, if they knew it."” This is the only known instance of Dick Cheney being compared to Anne Frank.
During the Cold War, those guys who sat in underground bunkers in Montana were prevented from launching missiles by a sophisticated 8-digit code. Unfortunately, according to one of those very guys, the military didn’t really like being slowed down and set the code to 00000000.
As Paul Krugman notes in a column on Ashcroft (channeling the Comic Store Guy, he called him the worst..attorney general..ever), such is the man’s credibility that when he held a news conference Monday to announce the foiling of a dastardly plot to blow up a shopping mall, less than a day after the release of a DOJ memo justifying torture, and following his usual practice of doing this sort of thing as a distraction (the announcement came 7 months after the arrest), no one treated it seriously. If his own paper, the NYT, believed that there had been a real terrorist plot to blow up a mall, it would have placed the story on the front page, not on the bottom of page 14.
Yeah, I knew it, there’s another Confederate widow out there.
The Israeli attorney general has decided not to prosecute Ariel Sharon or his incredibly slimy son for taking bribes. Which has to piss off the guy who will still be prosecuted for bribing them. They’re essentially saying that not only did he bribe Sharon, but did it so incompetently that Sharon didn’t even know he was being bribed. Sharon, who gets to keep his job, presumably won’t mind being labeled too stupid to realize that the people giving his son all that money expected something in return.
I know it would be too much to expect this administration to actually stop terrorist acts, but now it can’t even count them? And took credit for reducing terrorism.
Article on the Pentagon’s new ability to spy secretly on Americans.
The 9/11 Commission, you will have heard, said today that there was no link between 9/11 and Iraq, despite what Bush said yesterday and Cheney a day before. Hopefully somebody will conduct a poll to determine how many Americans are still ignorant of this; the results will no doubt be depressing, but at least such a poll couldn’t be kept secret, like the one Bremer conducted of Iraqis which was suppressed when it revealed that they would feel safer if US troops would just get the hell out.
What you may have missed, given the press coverage, is the finding that 9/11 was implemented in reaction to Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000, and was originally planned to take place during a Sharon visit to the US.
An Italian senator in Berlusconi’s party is nearing the end of his trial for Mafia associations (his 3rd trial, after convictions for accounting fraud and extortion). So Berlusconi has made the man a delegate to the Council of Europe, which gives him immunity--right in the middle of the trial!
The first virus for mobile phones has been created. Heh heh heh.
Correction: Chris Bell, who is filing the corruption charges against DeLay, is not an ex-Congresscritter but a lame-duck Congresscritter, thanks to DeLay’s gerrymandering of Texas congressional districts.
Bush in support of his stem-cell research ban: "Life is a creation of God, not a commodity to be exploited by man." I’m assuming Bush is now a vegetarian.
(Insert clever segue here): the US army will charge a captain who shot a wounded Iraqi. “Military officials told NBC's Jim Miklaszewski that the soldier was apparently acting in good faith, shooting the badly wounded driver to "put him out of misery."
Time magazine discloses Cheney’s undisclosed location, and the White House is so pissed off: “One White House officials fumed Monday night: "TIME magazine would have revealed the secret location of Anne Frank, if they knew it."” This is the only known instance of Dick Cheney being compared to Anne Frank.
During the Cold War, those guys who sat in underground bunkers in Montana were prevented from launching missiles by a sophisticated 8-digit code. Unfortunately, according to one of those very guys, the military didn’t really like being slowed down and set the code to 00000000.
Monday, June 14, 2004
F****** is F******. And it's going to stay F******
European Parliament elections today. In Britain: hammering, bloody noses, etc etc. There should be a prize of some sort for the first newspaper that says that the voters gave Tony a bitch-slapping. Actually, ruling parties just about everywhere are pounded, including in France and Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland, so it’s not just about Iraq. The Greens got 11% in Germany. Berlusconi violated electoral laws by ranting at reporters while voting was going on, outside a polling both yet, after having text-messaged everyone in Italy with a toy, I mean phone, capable of receiving text messages the day before.
In all those Eastern European countries having their first Euro-elections, turnout is under 30%.
Interestingly, Sinn Fein has won seats in the European Parliament representing both Britain and Ireland.
Britain also returned 12 members of the UK Independence Party, who plan a guerilla campaign against the Parl.
The torture story keeps moving forward, fleshing out what we already know and pushing it back further in time. Newsweek pushes torture discussions back to November 2001, when the CIA got more heavily involved. The NYT says that complaints about abuse of prisoners were made months earlier than the Pentagon has admitted.
TWO THUMBS UP: And Lynndie England isn’t going down without a fight. Her list of potential witnesses for her hearing reads like a blackmail threat: she plans to call Cheney, Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, whose 2002 pro-torture memo (warning: pdf, 2.9 mb) Marc Cooper notes will disqualify Gonzales from the Supreme Court)(I’ve only taken a quick look, but it looks even more like a smoking gun than the CIA memo), and a certain inmate whose photo we’ve already seen, for whom a witness box would be a step up. She could strip the Bush administration’s torture policy naked, put a leash on it and drag it around the courtroom, metaphorically speaking.
The West Midlands police have recruited the first ever one-legged policeman in Britain. I can’t be the only person to have read that and thought of this Peter Cook/Dudley Moore sketch.
Saw Afghan president-with-a-furry-hat Karzai on McNeil-Lehrer today, saying that elections would go forward in September. This would violate the electoral laws, since voter registration isn’t close to complete, but Margaret Warner didn’t know enough to ask him that question.
Waiting to see if the shit hits the fan over Bush trying to get the Vatican to campaign for him, and to do so by further attacks on gay marriage. The key Bush quote was “not all the American bishops are with me.” Considering he’s running against a Catholic, this is gross.
The Supreme Court refused to remove “under God” from the pledge of allegiance, by ruling that the little girl’s father may be her father, but he doesn’t “count” as her father. Fortunately Scalia had to recuse himself, or we’d probably have wound up with “one nation under our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Latest stupid unnecessary Hollywood remake: Bullitt.
In Russia, someone stole a porta-potty, loading it onto a tractor-trailer. And yes, there was someone using it at the time.
A former Congresscritter will file an ethics complaint against Tom DeLay, shattering the ethically-challenged “gentlemen’s agreement” not to file such charges. In response, Congressasshole John T. Doolittle says that he will file charges against some Democrat, but he doesn’t know who. He actually admits that this is pure retaliation--“you kill my dog, I'll kill your cat.” is how he charmingly puts it, presumably after spending too much time with Bill Frist. Link
From the Sunday Times:
In all those Eastern European countries having their first Euro-elections, turnout is under 30%.
Interestingly, Sinn Fein has won seats in the European Parliament representing both Britain and Ireland.
Britain also returned 12 members of the UK Independence Party, who plan a guerilla campaign against the Parl.
The torture story keeps moving forward, fleshing out what we already know and pushing it back further in time. Newsweek pushes torture discussions back to November 2001, when the CIA got more heavily involved. The NYT says that complaints about abuse of prisoners were made months earlier than the Pentagon has admitted.
TWO THUMBS UP: And Lynndie England isn’t going down without a fight. Her list of potential witnesses for her hearing reads like a blackmail threat: she plans to call Cheney, Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, whose 2002 pro-torture memo (warning: pdf, 2.9 mb) Marc Cooper notes will disqualify Gonzales from the Supreme Court)(I’ve only taken a quick look, but it looks even more like a smoking gun than the CIA memo), and a certain inmate whose photo we’ve already seen, for whom a witness box would be a step up. She could strip the Bush administration’s torture policy naked, put a leash on it and drag it around the courtroom, metaphorically speaking.
The West Midlands police have recruited the first ever one-legged policeman in Britain. I can’t be the only person to have read that and thought of this Peter Cook/Dudley Moore sketch.
Saw Afghan president-with-a-furry-hat Karzai on McNeil-Lehrer today, saying that elections would go forward in September. This would violate the electoral laws, since voter registration isn’t close to complete, but Margaret Warner didn’t know enough to ask him that question.
Waiting to see if the shit hits the fan over Bush trying to get the Vatican to campaign for him, and to do so by further attacks on gay marriage. The key Bush quote was “not all the American bishops are with me.” Considering he’s running against a Catholic, this is gross.
The Supreme Court refused to remove “under God” from the pledge of allegiance, by ruling that the little girl’s father may be her father, but he doesn’t “count” as her father. Fortunately Scalia had to recuse himself, or we’d probably have wound up with “one nation under our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Latest stupid unnecessary Hollywood remake: Bullitt.
In Russia, someone stole a porta-potty, loading it onto a tractor-trailer. And yes, there was someone using it at the time.
A former Congresscritter will file an ethics complaint against Tom DeLay, shattering the ethically-challenged “gentlemen’s agreement” not to file such charges. In response, Congressasshole John T. Doolittle says that he will file charges against some Democrat, but he doesn’t know who. He actually admits that this is pure retaliation--“you kill my dog, I'll kill your cat.” is how he charmingly puts it, presumably after spending too much time with Bill Frist. Link
From the Sunday Times:
Cheap laugh of the week.
The people of F******, Austria, have rejected plans to change the name of their village (pronounced Fooking and spelt with fewer asterisks). The population of 150 considered a new name to stop their road signs being stolen. "Everybody here knows what it means in English," said mayor Siegfried Hoeppl, "but for us F****** is F******. And it's going to stay F******." Similar votes have taken place in the Austrian villages of Vomitville and Windpassing.
Sunday, June 13, 2004
Ratting out the paedophiles
Have I been using the British spelling of paedophiles all this time? Anyway, some unnamed bishop (or somesuch) on McNeil-Lehrer today referred to informing the appropriate authorities as ratting out priests. Others still treat it as their personal right to decide what crimes to report to those legally responsible for enforcing the law.
That might have been the stupidest thing I heard out of the Catholic church today, but for the canonization of Padre Pio (see the London Times for Saturday on this, it’s hilarious), who died in 1968 and who had stigmata, which even the church once realized came from nitric acid, and could be in two places a the same time. Now it’s an opportunity to sell cheap trinkets to tourists.
Speaking of cheap trinkets, a crewman of the Enola Gay has auctioned off parts of the Little Boy nuclear device, 2 plugs used to keep it from going off in the plane. The lucky buyer is a scientist who paid $167,000 (after the US government lost a lawsuit trying to stop the sale because 1) it’s government property, 2) it endangers national security, 3) they wanted to use it in the Smithsonian), because Hiroshima was what inspired him to become a scientist. So amorality isn’t confined to Catholic bishops.
The queen is giving out honors to celebrate her Jubilee, including to Mick Jagger and Harold Pinter, who is to be made a Companion of Honour in a ceremony expected to be marked by long awkward pauses (what, you thought I’d make a Mick Jagger joke rather than a Harold Pinter joke?).
London Times headline: FBI and CIA Call a Truce on Leaks, or So a Leak Says.
The loya jirga is over. The UN and the Afghan government allowed war criminals to participate, women were present but had no power, there were armed thugs everywhere to intimidate delegates, and everything was decided before the thing even opened. So while it doesn’t much resemble democracy, it does look an awful like a Republican National Convention.
The partisan fighting has again postponed the start of investigations of the intelligence failures of 9/11, and all legislative measures to prevent another Enron have also stalled out (the role of Phil Gramm, whose wife worked for Enron, in preventing more transparent accountancy rules, is especially egregious). The US just cannot learn from its mistakes.
And it exports them, if you follow a Guardian columnist who blamed the current image problems of the Blair government on its having followed Bill Clinton’s spinmeistery a little too slavishly. Last week they were caught trying to find out if members of a group of survivors of the Paddington train crash, who are lobbying for better safety measures, were Tories, in order that they could smear.... train crash survivors. This week the fuss is over Blair’s evident attempts to get a bigger role in the Queen Mum’s funeral (actually, although I can’t be arsed to read the 29-page file of documents Downing Street just released, it does look like he was just trying to find out what he was supposed to do. Still, it brings him into conflict with the royal official whose title is Black Rod, and you can imagine how much fun the press is having with that).
That might have been the stupidest thing I heard out of the Catholic church today, but for the canonization of Padre Pio (see the London Times for Saturday on this, it’s hilarious), who died in 1968 and who had stigmata, which even the church once realized came from nitric acid, and could be in two places a the same time. Now it’s an opportunity to sell cheap trinkets to tourists.
Speaking of cheap trinkets, a crewman of the Enola Gay has auctioned off parts of the Little Boy nuclear device, 2 plugs used to keep it from going off in the plane. The lucky buyer is a scientist who paid $167,000 (after the US government lost a lawsuit trying to stop the sale because 1) it’s government property, 2) it endangers national security, 3) they wanted to use it in the Smithsonian), because Hiroshima was what inspired him to become a scientist. So amorality isn’t confined to Catholic bishops.
The queen is giving out honors to celebrate her Jubilee, including to Mick Jagger and Harold Pinter, who is to be made a Companion of Honour in a ceremony expected to be marked by long awkward pauses (what, you thought I’d make a Mick Jagger joke rather than a Harold Pinter joke?).
London Times headline: FBI and CIA Call a Truce on Leaks, or So a Leak Says.
The loya jirga is over. The UN and the Afghan government allowed war criminals to participate, women were present but had no power, there were armed thugs everywhere to intimidate delegates, and everything was decided before the thing even opened. So while it doesn’t much resemble democracy, it does look an awful like a Republican National Convention.
The partisan fighting has again postponed the start of investigations of the intelligence failures of 9/11, and all legislative measures to prevent another Enron have also stalled out (the role of Phil Gramm, whose wife worked for Enron, in preventing more transparent accountancy rules, is especially egregious). The US just cannot learn from its mistakes.
And it exports them, if you follow a Guardian columnist who blamed the current image problems of the Blair government on its having followed Bill Clinton’s spinmeistery a little too slavishly. Last week they were caught trying to find out if members of a group of survivors of the Paddington train crash, who are lobbying for better safety measures, were Tories, in order that they could smear.... train crash survivors. This week the fuss is over Blair’s evident attempts to get a bigger role in the Queen Mum’s funeral (actually, although I can’t be arsed to read the 29-page file of documents Downing Street just released, it does look like he was just trying to find out what he was supposed to do. Still, it brings him into conflict with the royal official whose title is Black Rod, and you can imagine how much fun the press is having with that).
Saturday, June 12, 2004
Fits like a white stetson
WaPo: “"Our 40th president wore his title lightly, and it fit like a white Stetson," said Bush, who is wearing such a hat in the main photo on his campaign Web site.”
Bush of course is most famous for wearing a flight suit, which didn’t fit especially well, even with the sock stuffed down the front.
Also, how well does a Stetson normally fit? If it doesn’t come down over your eyes it pretty much fits, right? And do white ones fit better? I’m sorry, this makes no sense at all.
The NYT says that early in the Iraq war, there were 50 air strikes aimed at assassinating various Iraqi leaders. All failed. Many killed civilians.
Frank Rich mentions something about Reagan I’d meant to contrive a way to work in: when he returned from a presidential tour of South America, he expressed amazement that they were all individual countries. Another I haven’t found a way to use: his claim that people used food stamps to buy a pack of gum and then use the change to buy vodka (food stamps don’t work that way). And about his radio baseball announcer days: someone, Bush the Elder I think, mentioned his ability to make people think they were seeing the game just as Reagan was. Except Reagan wasn’t at those games, he was making up the details based on wire reports. As good a metaphor as any. Reagan’s much-vaunted ability to make Americans feel good about themselves again--nobody ever says how he was supposed to have done that. My answer: anaesthesia. The kindly grampa act was to assure the public that they need no longer pay the sort of attention to what their government was doing in their names that had been felt necessary since Watergate.
Speaking of paying attention, here’s an articleabout the secret American gulags and the “renditions” of people, some after being found innocent by courts, to countries where they will be tortured, such as Morocco, Syria, Egypt, Azerbaijan, Thailand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman. What excellent company we are in. In Reagan’s time, it was a secret fraternity of death squads, now it’s torturers. Now, torture is bad, I’m presuming I don’t have to tell you, and encouraging other countries to torture is bad, but one of the reasons the Bushies do things this way is to keep the extent of torture secret. Which means they’ve put a blackmail weapon into the hands of, well, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, etc.
Bush in the Vatican asked that US bishops be ordered to attack gay marriage, abortion and Democrats even more.
The difference between regulation of voting machines and slot machines: Link
Of course slot machines are just a method to separate chumps from their change, while voting machines....never mind.
Bush of course is most famous for wearing a flight suit, which didn’t fit especially well, even with the sock stuffed down the front.
Also, how well does a Stetson normally fit? If it doesn’t come down over your eyes it pretty much fits, right? And do white ones fit better? I’m sorry, this makes no sense at all.
The NYT says that early in the Iraq war, there were 50 air strikes aimed at assassinating various Iraqi leaders. All failed. Many killed civilians.
Frank Rich mentions something about Reagan I’d meant to contrive a way to work in: when he returned from a presidential tour of South America, he expressed amazement that they were all individual countries. Another I haven’t found a way to use: his claim that people used food stamps to buy a pack of gum and then use the change to buy vodka (food stamps don’t work that way). And about his radio baseball announcer days: someone, Bush the Elder I think, mentioned his ability to make people think they were seeing the game just as Reagan was. Except Reagan wasn’t at those games, he was making up the details based on wire reports. As good a metaphor as any. Reagan’s much-vaunted ability to make Americans feel good about themselves again--nobody ever says how he was supposed to have done that. My answer: anaesthesia. The kindly grampa act was to assure the public that they need no longer pay the sort of attention to what their government was doing in their names that had been felt necessary since Watergate.
Speaking of paying attention, here’s an articleabout the secret American gulags and the “renditions” of people, some after being found innocent by courts, to countries where they will be tortured, such as Morocco, Syria, Egypt, Azerbaijan, Thailand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman. What excellent company we are in. In Reagan’s time, it was a secret fraternity of death squads, now it’s torturers. Now, torture is bad, I’m presuming I don’t have to tell you, and encouraging other countries to torture is bad, but one of the reasons the Bushies do things this way is to keep the extent of torture secret. Which means they’ve put a blackmail weapon into the hands of, well, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, etc.
Bush in the Vatican asked that US bishops be ordered to attack gay marriage, abortion and Democrats even more.
The difference between regulation of voting machines and slot machines: Link
Of course slot machines are just a method to separate chumps from their change, while voting machines....never mind.
Friday, June 11, 2004
Drubbing--a word you don't hear used nearly often enough
I hope everyone enjoyed the 7th day of Reagahannakuh.
Local elections in Britain. The press are divided on the results, with the Guardian saying that Labour was given a beating, the Times saying it was given a kicking, the Indy that Blair was given a bloody nose, the Guardian that he was badly mauled, and UP that he was given a drubbing. Much of the backlash is attributed to a dislike of violence...in Iraq anyway. Labour came in third in total votes.
The Dutch government also did badly in European elections because of Iraq.
Kerry really is as stupid as I thought. He evidently asked McCain to be his veep and was turned down. So now he looks desperate, uncommitted to his own alleged principles, and a loser. I’m sure Ross Perot is available.
The Israeli government, which seems to subscribe to certain stereotypes about the Jews, is offering Gaza settlers $300,000 per family to get out.
Ashcroft refused, as I’ve said, to invoke executive privilege or anything else to justify his stonewalling (not even “writ of douchebaggery”? asked Jon Stewart). American Prospect has turned up this quote from a Senator Ashcroft in May 1998: “Part and parcel of the President's abuse of executive privilege is his unwillingness to acknowledge the mere fact that he has asserted the privilege.”
Afghan elections are being postponed by at least a month. In addition to the violence now escalating against foreigners, there’s the fact that none of the countries which pledged money to pay for the elections, including the US, have paid up a single cent. Almost as if our objective there wasn’t democracy after all.
Local elections in Britain. The press are divided on the results, with the Guardian saying that Labour was given a beating, the Times saying it was given a kicking, the Indy that Blair was given a bloody nose, the Guardian that he was badly mauled, and UP that he was given a drubbing. Much of the backlash is attributed to a dislike of violence...in Iraq anyway. Labour came in third in total votes.
The Dutch government also did badly in European elections because of Iraq.
Kerry really is as stupid as I thought. He evidently asked McCain to be his veep and was turned down. So now he looks desperate, uncommitted to his own alleged principles, and a loser. I’m sure Ross Perot is available.
The Israeli government, which seems to subscribe to certain stereotypes about the Jews, is offering Gaza settlers $300,000 per family to get out.
Ashcroft refused, as I’ve said, to invoke executive privilege or anything else to justify his stonewalling (not even “writ of douchebaggery”? asked Jon Stewart). American Prospect has turned up this quote from a Senator Ashcroft in May 1998: “Part and parcel of the President's abuse of executive privilege is his unwillingness to acknowledge the mere fact that he has asserted the privilege.”
Afghan elections are being postponed by at least a month. In addition to the violence now escalating against foreigners, there’s the fact that none of the countries which pledged money to pay for the elections, including the US, have paid up a single cent. Almost as if our objective there wasn’t democracy after all.
That might provide comfort for you
After this post, I promise to stop with the “Saint Ronny” thing (unless I think of something else, of course). For a replacement, what does everyone think of “Darth Gipper”?
Marc Cooper observes the crowds lining up to look at the Gippercoffin: “Never before in human history has the funeral of any Head of State been attended by SO many people clad in tennis shoes, jeans or shorts.”, suggesting that they aren’t mourning so much as “cruising one more pop culture happening.” Like a Lord of the Rings premiere.
However let’s not underestimate the danger of pop culture. These are the top 2 stories in the Europe section of the Indy:
Best quote from one of the gawkers was someone who said that Reagan was the greatest human being who ever lived.
Elsewhere in Dress-Down Thursday news, Jacques Chirac was the only G8 leader who showed up in a tie, bucking Bush’s attempt to enforce Cowboy Casual in an attempt to achieve that natural macho crap seen in the picture of Saint Ronny of Death Valley Days featured on the covers of two newsmagazines (only to discover, just like his father did, that if you have to work at it, you’ve already failed). Bush got his own back by feeding his guests cheese burgers and forcing Chirac to pretend he liked it.
I haven’t mentioned the story about the US soldier who was told to pretend to be a prisoner at Guantanamo, just like Robert Redford in Brubaker, and was beaten into a pulp, so that he had to be invalided out. It would be funny, except it’s not.
In a story I can’t read yet, a London Times columnist says, “For the second time in a year, George Bush and Tony Blair have declared "mission accomplished" and a "victory for the Iraqi people." Another group of local people has been told to pretend to run the place.” Explains my sense of deja vu. Remember when Pete Wilson was running for president how he kept holding ceremonies announcing he was running for president, because no one had paid attention to the previous one?
Evidently there’s an antidote to chemical attacks by terrorists (mustard gas, sarin, etc). It has FDA approval, but the US Army isn’t letting anyone buy it, including local first responders, who still have to use soap and water.
PISSING CONTEST: The Post says “A military intelligence interrogator also told investigators that two dog handlers at Abu Ghraib were "having a contest" to see how many detainees they could make involuntarily urinate out of fear of the dogs”. It’s nice to have a hobby.
At Bush’s press conference at the G8, he defined his terms: “And we're waiting for the Iraqi government to assess the situation and make requests to the free world. We'll respond to their requests when sovereignty is fully transferred. That's the definition of full sovereignty. You see, when a government is fully sovereign, they then make requests on behalf of their people.” The question was about how none of the other G8 countries were offering troops, debt relief or anything else. Bush’s answer, evidently, is that they’re just waiting to be asked.
And there was this exchange:
The Post report (which is what had me search out the transcript, began, “President Bush said Thursday that he expects U.S. authorities to follow the law when interrogating prisoners abroad, but he declined to say whether he believes torture is permitted under the law.”
On that subject, Jess Bravin of the Wall St. Journal has yet another article, enumerating some of the 24 torture methods approved by Big Bad Apple Rumsfeld in December 2002 for Guantanamo: stress positions" for as long as four hours, hood them and subject them to 20-hour-long interrogations, "fear of dogs", "mild non-injurious physical contact," "deprivation of light and sound," "use of hood as long as it does not restrict breathing and under direct observation," "removal of clothing" and "forced grooming (i.e., shaving of facial hair)." The Post has an article on the use of dogs, without addressing the status of dogs in Islamic cultures, which might make them scarier (or their use more demeaning) than they already are.
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/content/showitem.cfm/issue.1108/section.D-Day
Marc Cooper observes the crowds lining up to look at the Gippercoffin: “Never before in human history has the funeral of any Head of State been attended by SO many people clad in tennis shoes, jeans or shorts.”, suggesting that they aren’t mourning so much as “cruising one more pop culture happening.” Like a Lord of the Rings premiere.
However let’s not underestimate the danger of pop culture. These are the top 2 stories in the Europe section of the Indy:
Fourth Milan death linked to Satanist rock band(Later:) Cooper’s right about the “mourners.” I know because C-SPAN ran something like 5 hours of people walking past the casket. You can always tell when the sweeps period is past. It wasn’t the most exciting television ever, but if Saint Ronny of the Jelly Beans rose from the dead, C-SPAN was going to be right there.
11 June 2004
New details have emerged this week of an alleged cabal of young Satanists connected to Milan's heavy metal scene, who are accused of murdering at least two people while drunk and high.
Woman denies part in fatal 'Jackass' stunt
11 June 2004
A British waitress working in Austria has denied charges of urging a drunken restaurant customer to ram his head into a wall, in a lethal stunt apparently inspired by the cult MTV show Jackass.
Best quote from one of the gawkers was someone who said that Reagan was the greatest human being who ever lived.
Elsewhere in Dress-Down Thursday news, Jacques Chirac was the only G8 leader who showed up in a tie, bucking Bush’s attempt to enforce Cowboy Casual in an attempt to achieve that natural macho crap seen in the picture of Saint Ronny of Death Valley Days featured on the covers of two newsmagazines (only to discover, just like his father did, that if you have to work at it, you’ve already failed). Bush got his own back by feeding his guests cheese burgers and forcing Chirac to pretend he liked it.
I haven’t mentioned the story about the US soldier who was told to pretend to be a prisoner at Guantanamo, just like Robert Redford in Brubaker, and was beaten into a pulp, so that he had to be invalided out. It would be funny, except it’s not.
In a story I can’t read yet, a London Times columnist says, “For the second time in a year, George Bush and Tony Blair have declared "mission accomplished" and a "victory for the Iraqi people." Another group of local people has been told to pretend to run the place.” Explains my sense of deja vu. Remember when Pete Wilson was running for president how he kept holding ceremonies announcing he was running for president, because no one had paid attention to the previous one?
Evidently there’s an antidote to chemical attacks by terrorists (mustard gas, sarin, etc). It has FDA approval, but the US Army isn’t letting anyone buy it, including local first responders, who still have to use soap and water.
PISSING CONTEST: The Post says “A military intelligence interrogator also told investigators that two dog handlers at Abu Ghraib were "having a contest" to see how many detainees they could make involuntarily urinate out of fear of the dogs”. It’s nice to have a hobby.
At Bush’s press conference at the G8, he defined his terms: “And we're waiting for the Iraqi government to assess the situation and make requests to the free world. We'll respond to their requests when sovereignty is fully transferred. That's the definition of full sovereignty. You see, when a government is fully sovereign, they then make requests on behalf of their people.” The question was about how none of the other G8 countries were offering troops, debt relief or anything else. Bush’s answer, evidently, is that they’re just waiting to be asked.
And there was this exchange:
Q Mr. President, I wanted to return to the question of torture. What we've learned from these memos this week is that the Department of Justice lawyers and the Pentagon lawyers have essentially worked out a way that U.S. officials can torture detainees without running afoul of the law. So when you say that you want the U.S. to adhere to international and U.S. laws, that's not very comforting. This is a moral question: Is torture ever justified?Wasn’t that a good question? Do I have to tell you the reporter wasn’t American, but British? You’ll note he specifically said it was a moral question, but Bush answered as if it was a legal one. When His Holiness George W. Bush avoids a moral question, you know you’re in trouble. At this point, he’d obviously prefer a math question to a moral one.
THE PRESIDENT: Look, I'm going to say it one more time. If I -- maybe -- maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you. We're a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at those laws, and that might provide comfort for you. And those were the instructions out of -- from me to the government.
The Post report (which is what had me search out the transcript, began, “President Bush said Thursday that he expects U.S. authorities to follow the law when interrogating prisoners abroad, but he declined to say whether he believes torture is permitted under the law.”
On that subject, Jess Bravin of the Wall St. Journal has yet another article, enumerating some of the 24 torture methods approved by Big Bad Apple Rumsfeld in December 2002 for Guantanamo: stress positions" for as long as four hours, hood them and subject them to 20-hour-long interrogations, "fear of dogs", "mild non-injurious physical contact," "deprivation of light and sound," "use of hood as long as it does not restrict breathing and under direct observation," "removal of clothing" and "forced grooming (i.e., shaving of facial hair)." The Post has an article on the use of dogs, without addressing the status of dogs in Islamic cultures, which might make them scarier (or their use more demeaning) than they already are.
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/content/showitem.cfm/issue.1108/section.D-Day
Thursday, June 10, 2004
I will gladly pay you 5 Reagans Monday for a hamburger today
It’s funny, no wait I mean sad, because it’s true.
Tried to watch McNeil-Lehrer today, but they seemed to be showing re-runs of the Princess Di funeral. Saint Ronny of AIDS, What AIDS? has been flown to DC, the city he loathed, and will then be flown back to California, which he liked in spite of the many pollution-causing trees (my mother asks who gets his frequent flier miles) for burial in Simi Valley, where I believe his pall-bearers will be the Rodney King jury.
There’s a lot of silly talk about putting Saint Ronny of the Laffer Curve on the dime or the $10 bill or something. Given the record deficits he ushered in, I say put his picture on all the imaginary money.
Zowie Alawi turns out to have been involved with terrorist bombings in the 1990s. So let’s call him a freedom fighter, in a fitting tribute to Saint Ronny of UNITA.
The British health secretary has received a bit of criticism for saying the government should leave smoking alone because it’s one of the few pleasures the poor can afford.
Florida’s secretary of state (the office used to be independent, if you can call Katherine Harris independent, but is now directly under the Jebster) is purging voter rolls of alleged felons, using highly faulty lists. Wouldn’t it be funny if it came down to Florida again?
No, no it wouldn’t.
An Austrian woman gets married with a 1.7 mile-long veil.
Tried to watch McNeil-Lehrer today, but they seemed to be showing re-runs of the Princess Di funeral. Saint Ronny of AIDS, What AIDS? has been flown to DC, the city he loathed, and will then be flown back to California, which he liked in spite of the many pollution-causing trees (my mother asks who gets his frequent flier miles) for burial in Simi Valley, where I believe his pall-bearers will be the Rodney King jury.
There’s a lot of silly talk about putting Saint Ronny of the Laffer Curve on the dime or the $10 bill or something. Given the record deficits he ushered in, I say put his picture on all the imaginary money.
Zowie Alawi turns out to have been involved with terrorist bombings in the 1990s. So let’s call him a freedom fighter, in a fitting tribute to Saint Ronny of UNITA.
The British health secretary has received a bit of criticism for saying the government should leave smoking alone because it’s one of the few pleasures the poor can afford.
Florida’s secretary of state (the office used to be independent, if you can call Katherine Harris independent, but is now directly under the Jebster) is purging voter rolls of alleged felons, using highly faulty lists. Wouldn’t it be funny if it came down to Florida again?
No, no it wouldn’t.
An Austrian woman gets married with a 1.7 mile-long veil.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Working towards His Fraudulency
More details on the torture memo. No more talk about rotten apples is permissible. A must-read, and must-vomit-afterwards.
I’ve just heard a useful phrase for attempts to blame subordinates for torture, other policies: “power-laundering.” The article was not about Rumsfeld and Bush, but Saddam. There’s a problem with trying Saddam: no written “smoking guns,” no one willing to testify against him. Or be a judge. Or a prosecutor. The only Iraqi prosecutor whose name is public is one of the Chalabis.
I was wondering who would be the 1st to use the obvious pun: Mourning in America. The winner is: Wonkette. Who notes this interview on Fox, which has run out of famous Reaganites, with a Marine guarding the coffin:
Condi Rice: “Yes, I do think that President Bush is inspired by that kind of plain-spokenness [by Saint Ronny of the MX Missile], about that willingness to tell the truth.”
Zimbabwe to nationalize all land. That should go well.
The Wall St. Journal’s follow-up article Tuesday quotes a Pentagon spokesmodel on disagreements over the torture rules: “I am sure that in any broad group like that you will have dissenting opinions that go to the left and to the right.” I quote that in order to point out that he considers the question of whether to torture people to be a “left-right” one. Others have pointed out that the head of the panel, Air Force General Counsel Mary Walker, is outspokenly Evangelical Christian. Billmon.org alternates pious quotes from an interview she gave with passages from the memo. And not to suggest that this is a religious war or anything, but William Boykin was in charge of the actual torture. And actual torturer Charles Graner: “The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the corrections officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man piss himself.'”
Ashcroft refused to release the torture memo to Congress although, psst, if you know any Congresscritters, tell them to go to
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/military_0604.pdf
PDF format, 2 mb (nothing that’s not in the articles, though).
Neither would he give the basis for his refusal (the president can order him not to give testimony or release documents he claims are covered by executive privilege, but if there is no such order, Ashcroft was in contempt of Congress, and Ashcroft refused even to say whether such an order had been given or not). It was a sorry performance, arrogant while at the same time looking like a puppy about to be hit with a rolled-up newspaper. Chuck Schumer of all people became the latest Congresscritter to defend the use of torture.
This story is taking responsibility for torture further and further up the food chain. But the Justice Dept memo has a flaw: it fails to understand political realities. Even if you agree with their position that the president has an inherent authority to authorize torture, in the real world Bush would never sign such an order. He might wink at it, who will rid me of this turbulent priest-type situation, but he’d never leave a smoking memo or sign anything, probably never have to talk about it, because Rumsfeld etc would know what he wanted done and just do it. In Germany, this was called “working towards the führer” and is the reason there is nothing directly linking Hitler to the Holocaust. In practice, this means that the legal protection that the memo claims exists for torturers acting under presidential orders can’t be invoked.
The LA Times has a story about John Walker Lindh. We saw footage more than 2 years ago of Johnny Taliban being treated much as the Abu Ghraib prisoners were. We saw a CIA agent threaten him with death, on film, and somehow it was a big surprise 2 years later that we did the same thing to people who weren’t US citizens.
The Bush campaign has been trying to get churches to campaign for him. This would endanger their tax-exempt status, it was pointed out, so the R’s have decided to fiddle with the law by letting them break the law a few times (two deliberate endorsements per year and one “unintentional,” whatever that might mean) without being punished. Well, as they like to say about torture, if the president orders it, how can it be illegal?
Today is the 50th anniversary of Joseph Welch’s “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” response to Joseph McCarthy.
The UN resolution gave the Iraqi “government” no veto over the activities of US troops except to kick them out altogether, but gave it control of its own alleged army. What happens if they decide to invade the Kurdish areas (the Kurds got screwed, which was so inevitable and was done so parenthetically that I’ve put the fact in parentheses) while the US military is still in the country, we don’t know.
I’ve just heard a useful phrase for attempts to blame subordinates for torture, other policies: “power-laundering.” The article was not about Rumsfeld and Bush, but Saddam. There’s a problem with trying Saddam: no written “smoking guns,” no one willing to testify against him. Or be a judge. Or a prosecutor. The only Iraqi prosecutor whose name is public is one of the Chalabis.
I was wondering who would be the 1st to use the obvious pun: Mourning in America. The winner is: Wonkette. Who notes this interview on Fox, which has run out of famous Reaganites, with a Marine guarding the coffin:
Fox: Did you ever meet Reagan?Wonkette: Clearly, things are getting desperate; at some point, they may have to interview someone who didn't like the guy.
Marine (who appears to be approximately 18 years old): Uh, no, sir.
Fox: How much of an honor is it to be doing this duty?
Marine: It's a great honor.
Condi Rice: “Yes, I do think that President Bush is inspired by that kind of plain-spokenness [by Saint Ronny of the MX Missile], about that willingness to tell the truth.”
Zimbabwe to nationalize all land. That should go well.
The Wall St. Journal’s follow-up article Tuesday quotes a Pentagon spokesmodel on disagreements over the torture rules: “I am sure that in any broad group like that you will have dissenting opinions that go to the left and to the right.” I quote that in order to point out that he considers the question of whether to torture people to be a “left-right” one. Others have pointed out that the head of the panel, Air Force General Counsel Mary Walker, is outspokenly Evangelical Christian. Billmon.org alternates pious quotes from an interview she gave with passages from the memo. And not to suggest that this is a religious war or anything, but William Boykin was in charge of the actual torture. And actual torturer Charles Graner: “The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the corrections officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man piss himself.'”
Ashcroft refused to release the torture memo to Congress although, psst, if you know any Congresscritters, tell them to go to
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/military_0604.pdf
PDF format, 2 mb (nothing that’s not in the articles, though).
Neither would he give the basis for his refusal (the president can order him not to give testimony or release documents he claims are covered by executive privilege, but if there is no such order, Ashcroft was in contempt of Congress, and Ashcroft refused even to say whether such an order had been given or not). It was a sorry performance, arrogant while at the same time looking like a puppy about to be hit with a rolled-up newspaper. Chuck Schumer of all people became the latest Congresscritter to defend the use of torture.
This story is taking responsibility for torture further and further up the food chain. But the Justice Dept memo has a flaw: it fails to understand political realities. Even if you agree with their position that the president has an inherent authority to authorize torture, in the real world Bush would never sign such an order. He might wink at it, who will rid me of this turbulent priest-type situation, but he’d never leave a smoking memo or sign anything, probably never have to talk about it, because Rumsfeld etc would know what he wanted done and just do it. In Germany, this was called “working towards the führer” and is the reason there is nothing directly linking Hitler to the Holocaust. In practice, this means that the legal protection that the memo claims exists for torturers acting under presidential orders can’t be invoked.
The LA Times has a story about John Walker Lindh. We saw footage more than 2 years ago of Johnny Taliban being treated much as the Abu Ghraib prisoners were. We saw a CIA agent threaten him with death, on film, and somehow it was a big surprise 2 years later that we did the same thing to people who weren’t US citizens.
The Bush campaign has been trying to get churches to campaign for him. This would endanger their tax-exempt status, it was pointed out, so the R’s have decided to fiddle with the law by letting them break the law a few times (two deliberate endorsements per year and one “unintentional,” whatever that might mean) without being punished. Well, as they like to say about torture, if the president orders it, how can it be illegal?
Today is the 50th anniversary of Joseph Welch’s “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” response to Joseph McCarthy.
The UN resolution gave the Iraqi “government” no veto over the activities of US troops except to kick them out altogether, but gave it control of its own alleged army. What happens if they decide to invade the Kurdish areas (the Kurds got screwed, which was so inevitable and was done so parenthetically that I’ve put the fact in parentheses) while the US military is still in the country, we don’t know.
Monday, June 07, 2004
Stupid things
2 leftist radio stations in semi-fascist Italy that planned to broadcast the protests against the Bush visit had their power mysteriously cut for 4 hours.
Amidst the eruption of what Wonkette calls Gipperporn, it’s nice that Christopher Hitchens hasn’t turned into a complete loser after all. He reminds us of something I’d forgotten, the single most terrifying moment of the Reagan lurch towards world annihilation, when it became clear that he didn’t know that once you launched the ICBMs, they couldn’t be called back. And that he claimed the Russian language had no word for freedom, which would presumably mean that no matter how mad they got at France, they’d still have to call French fries French fries.
And Marc Cooper gives another vitriolic obit for Saint Ronny of Bitburg. “The mask of equanimity was ripped off American politics, and the winners in our society were finally given permission to publicly gloat. All of a sudden it was socially acceptable to denounce the poor, to blame the victims, to celebrate and even promote inequality.” I’m beginning to recall the 8-year long ulcer that man gave me. One thing I now realize is that Bush’s lies about the threat of WMDs falls into a pattern of pretending that imperialist wars are about the defense of the Heimat from direct threat. Remember the air strips in Grenada? And just how far was El Salvador (or was it Nicaragua?) from Harlingen, Texas? But then even Hitler pretended that Poland had actually attacked Germany first.
Here’s that Wall St. Journal story on the torture memo.
Clinton’s memoirs are out in 2 weeks. It’ll be interesting to watch his memory and that of Saint Ronny of Voodoo Economics fight it out.
A fake family planning center in Louisiana is being sued for trying to dupe women into delaying abortions until it became illegal for them to have one. Link
Bremer bans members of “illegal militias” like Sadr taking part in Iraqi elections for at least 3 years. People whose militias are now pretending to be members of the Iraqi military, like Alex’s droogs in Clockwork Orange, don’t count, of course.
Germany’s government is moving towards gay marriages, although it will be a fight. And France just had its first one.
Iraq has nearly as many people in its Facilities Protection Service (which guards oil pipelines, not toilets), as it does in the entire police force (75,000 v. 90,000).
Amidst the eruption of what Wonkette calls Gipperporn, it’s nice that Christopher Hitchens hasn’t turned into a complete loser after all. He reminds us of something I’d forgotten, the single most terrifying moment of the Reagan lurch towards world annihilation, when it became clear that he didn’t know that once you launched the ICBMs, they couldn’t be called back. And that he claimed the Russian language had no word for freedom, which would presumably mean that no matter how mad they got at France, they’d still have to call French fries French fries.
And Marc Cooper gives another vitriolic obit for Saint Ronny of Bitburg. “The mask of equanimity was ripped off American politics, and the winners in our society were finally given permission to publicly gloat. All of a sudden it was socially acceptable to denounce the poor, to blame the victims, to celebrate and even promote inequality.” I’m beginning to recall the 8-year long ulcer that man gave me. One thing I now realize is that Bush’s lies about the threat of WMDs falls into a pattern of pretending that imperialist wars are about the defense of the Heimat from direct threat. Remember the air strips in Grenada? And just how far was El Salvador (or was it Nicaragua?) from Harlingen, Texas? But then even Hitler pretended that Poland had actually attacked Germany first.
Here’s that Wall St. Journal story on the torture memo.
Clinton’s memoirs are out in 2 weeks. It’ll be interesting to watch his memory and that of Saint Ronny of Voodoo Economics fight it out.
A fake family planning center in Louisiana is being sued for trying to dupe women into delaying abortions until it became illegal for them to have one. Link
Bremer bans members of “illegal militias” like Sadr taking part in Iraqi elections for at least 3 years. People whose militias are now pretending to be members of the Iraqi military, like Alex’s droogs in Clockwork Orange, don’t count, of course.
Germany’s government is moving towards gay marriages, although it will be a fight. And France just had its first one.
Iraq has nearly as many people in its Facilities Protection Service (which guards oil pipelines, not toilets), as it does in the entire police force (75,000 v. 90,000).
An indelible stamp
Billmon on Saint Ronny of Star Wars: “Yes, he was as ignorant and stubborn and incapable of rational thought as our current president, but he wasn't arrogant - or at least, he didn't come across as arrogant. He lacked Bush's infuriating sense of entitlement, and his nasty temper. Reagan smiled, he didn't smirk.” Billmon goes on to remind us of Saint Ronny of Plausible Deniability’s bloody foreign policy, etc. Reagan was arrogant, by the way, being as unwilling to listen to opposing views as Bush. Marc Cooper comments in his blog that the tv coverage has been adulatory and unthinking in a way appropriate to a monarchy with state-controlled media.
Me, I’ve watched none of it (except with the sound off while talking on the phone). I said to people yesterday that there were only two ways to deal with this: unplug the tv and go into hiding until it’s all over, or plunge into the cheese-fest, searching out the worst of it (George Will on Fox, say) and just wallowing in it, yelling sarcastic comments at the tv. You’d think I’d be doing the latter, looking for material to use here and enjoying myself; hell, I would have expected me to do that. But I just couldn’t face the possibility of hearing Reagan described as America’s most popular president.
Also, a little error at my cable company gave me temporary access to HBO, and there was a whole season of the Sopranos to watch, and can you believe that ( ) got whacked? I thought about flipping back and forth between that and Fox News for a compare and contrast between Tony S. and Saint Ronny of Arms for Hostages, but decided not to do that to myself.
Really, can you fuckin’ believe that ( ) got whacked?
Actually, who needs Fox when you have John Kerry planting big wet ones on the dead ass of Saint Ronny of I Can’t Recall. Some excerpts from his statement: “he taught us that there is a big difference between strong beliefs and bitter partisanship.” “He was our oldest president, but he made America young again.” (yeah, crying and shitting itself). “Our prayers are with his family, and the wife he loved in a way all the world could see.” (No that was Al Gore, and it still makes us shudder). “Today, from California to Maine — 'from sea to shining sea' — Americans will bow their heads in prayer and gratitude that President Reagan left such an indelible stamp on the nation he loved."” (Something like the stain Clinton left on a certain dress). And Kerry has decided that the respectful thing to do is not to campaign this week (you mean he was campaigning before?).
The word of the week continues to be “optimism,” which is short-hand for “leftists run down the United States.”
Sharon gets his cabinet to pass his alleged Gaza disengagement plan, which requires the removal of not a single settlement or settler, each of which will require a separate cabinet vote. It’s a recipe for failure, you have to assume deliberately so. In exchange for the crappy original plan, now watered down to nothing, Bush gave in to Israeli demands on several key points, including denying the Palestinians a right of return. Someone needs to ask him whether that still holds.
Bush admin lawyers issued a brief before the invasion of Iraq saying that it was ok for Bush to order torture as part of his “inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign”, and anyone who followed such an order would be immune from prosecution. They could argue that they were just following orders or claim good faith. (Note, however, that the Wall St Journal has only seen a draft version). The brief includes a list of approved torture methods, which the Journal doesn’t have, although it does allow for the use of drugs. It also says that torture could be justified as self-defense, and that mere infliction of pain and suffering doesn’t necessarily even count as torture.
Another Al Qaida operative turned himself in in 2000, offering to give information, only to be told to go away. Link
LeftI says that John Walker Lindh’s plea bargain included him signing a statement that he had never been mistreated by the US military, which he obviously had been.
Me, I’ve watched none of it (except with the sound off while talking on the phone). I said to people yesterday that there were only two ways to deal with this: unplug the tv and go into hiding until it’s all over, or plunge into the cheese-fest, searching out the worst of it (George Will on Fox, say) and just wallowing in it, yelling sarcastic comments at the tv. You’d think I’d be doing the latter, looking for material to use here and enjoying myself; hell, I would have expected me to do that. But I just couldn’t face the possibility of hearing Reagan described as America’s most popular president.
Also, a little error at my cable company gave me temporary access to HBO, and there was a whole season of the Sopranos to watch, and can you believe that ( ) got whacked? I thought about flipping back and forth between that and Fox News for a compare and contrast between Tony S. and Saint Ronny of Arms for Hostages, but decided not to do that to myself.
Really, can you fuckin’ believe that ( ) got whacked?
Actually, who needs Fox when you have John Kerry planting big wet ones on the dead ass of Saint Ronny of I Can’t Recall. Some excerpts from his statement: “he taught us that there is a big difference between strong beliefs and bitter partisanship.” “He was our oldest president, but he made America young again.” (yeah, crying and shitting itself). “Our prayers are with his family, and the wife he loved in a way all the world could see.” (No that was Al Gore, and it still makes us shudder). “Today, from California to Maine — 'from sea to shining sea' — Americans will bow their heads in prayer and gratitude that President Reagan left such an indelible stamp on the nation he loved."” (Something like the stain Clinton left on a certain dress). And Kerry has decided that the respectful thing to do is not to campaign this week (you mean he was campaigning before?).
The word of the week continues to be “optimism,” which is short-hand for “leftists run down the United States.”
Sharon gets his cabinet to pass his alleged Gaza disengagement plan, which requires the removal of not a single settlement or settler, each of which will require a separate cabinet vote. It’s a recipe for failure, you have to assume deliberately so. In exchange for the crappy original plan, now watered down to nothing, Bush gave in to Israeli demands on several key points, including denying the Palestinians a right of return. Someone needs to ask him whether that still holds.
Bush admin lawyers issued a brief before the invasion of Iraq saying that it was ok for Bush to order torture as part of his “inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign”, and anyone who followed such an order would be immune from prosecution. They could argue that they were just following orders or claim good faith. (Note, however, that the Wall St Journal has only seen a draft version). The brief includes a list of approved torture methods, which the Journal doesn’t have, although it does allow for the use of drugs. It also says that torture could be justified as self-defense, and that mere infliction of pain and suffering doesn’t necessarily even count as torture.
Another Al Qaida operative turned himself in in 2000, offering to give information, only to be told to go away. Link
LeftI says that John Walker Lindh’s plea bargain included him signing a statement that he had never been mistreated by the US military, which he obviously had been.
Saturday, June 05, 2004
Every effort was made
I hope you people aren’t looking to me to say anything bad about Saint Ronny. Oh dear god my poor heart is breaking. We shall not see his like again.
OK, I’ll stop that now. Really, how lucky for Reagan’s memory that the current “president” is the only human being on the planet that could make Reagan look, well okay not good, obviously, but not the worst president ever. I mean, Reagan is up there with the worst of them (Coolidge and Buchanan), but holy shit. Bush says of Reagan (who he doesn’t really remember, having spent the ‘80s sniffing coke off a hooker’s ass in the backroom of a Houston bar)(but then again, Reagan’s popularity came at the height of crack cocaine. Coincidence? I think not): “He always told us for America the best is yet to come.” Wrong again, oh orange-haired one.
Some, but by no means all, of the British papers avoid using the word “cowboy” in the headlines about Reagan. And the Telegraph has a story “Reagan and Thatcher: ‘It Would Take a Crowbar to Get Them Apart’”. Or you could turn the hose on them.
Speaking of Reagan and cowboy, here’s the news.google search. My favorite hit is this headline from the Dallas Morning News: “He Liked Texans.” Possibly the most nauseating (although I’m accepting nominees): “Republicans, Democrats Hail Reagan’s Optimism.” (WaPo)
That does seem to be the word of the day. Via Bartlett’s: “Optimism is the content of small men in high places.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald). “Optimism. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.” (Ambrose Bierce). “Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.” (Voltaire).
Since Murdoch got greedy(greedier), I have to wait 10 to 24 hours after seeing Times headlines before I can get the actual stories off Lexis-Nexis. One can only hope that “Bush and Chirac Best Buddies for Cameras” is as snarky as it sounds. (I’m told that CNN Headline News called Bush & Chirac opponents in the war on terror.) Then there’s “Scalp Hunters Take Cool Look at Cheney,” written by someone who hasn’t seen a recent picture of Cheney.
FRANKLY MY DEAR...: Just as with the Tenet, the British MI6’s new head John Scarlett, who I mentioned is the guy behind the 45-minutes claim, is facing a report on pre-Iraq war intelligence failures. The report will be written by Lord Butler.
An Iraqi judge has issued an arrest warrant for Achmad Chalabi’s right-hand man, the consultant Francis Brooke, for obstructing the police when Chalabi’s hq was raided. The judge said, “He stopped the raid by telling the police they didn't have the legal power to do it because he was an American and they were Iraqis.” Brooke was once paid by the CIA to work with Chalabi, and is now paid by some private company owned by a Republican. He is an Evangelical Christian who boasted to the New Yorker that he faked WMD intel he passed to the Americans. “I'm a smart man. I saw what they wanted, and I adapted my strategy.”
The Indy has a story about Niaz “I’d rather lose all my money in a casino than fly a plane into one” Khan, which notes that the US government did indeed take action against him: they put him on the list of people banned from commercial airplanes. Just in case. The Indy talked to an (anonymous) FBI spokesmodel, who says they didn’t think he was crazy, they just couldn’t substantiate his story. “Every effort was made.” Hopefully, that phrase will be very slowly, very firmly shoved up the FBI’s collective ass over the next few months.
Oh, and Congress was told about this in 2002.
Having failed to get the FBI or MI6 to listen to him, Khan proceeded to call Crimestoppers. No luck there either.
The story is beginning to move--hope the Reagan thing won’t hurt it.
Radio ad for Vernon Robinson, running for Congress in NC. This will be the most racist ad of the election cycle, I predict, and must be listened to to be believed. And Robinson is black.
OK, I’ll stop that now. Really, how lucky for Reagan’s memory that the current “president” is the only human being on the planet that could make Reagan look, well okay not good, obviously, but not the worst president ever. I mean, Reagan is up there with the worst of them (Coolidge and Buchanan), but holy shit. Bush says of Reagan (who he doesn’t really remember, having spent the ‘80s sniffing coke off a hooker’s ass in the backroom of a Houston bar)(but then again, Reagan’s popularity came at the height of crack cocaine. Coincidence? I think not): “He always told us for America the best is yet to come.” Wrong again, oh orange-haired one.
Some, but by no means all, of the British papers avoid using the word “cowboy” in the headlines about Reagan. And the Telegraph has a story “Reagan and Thatcher: ‘It Would Take a Crowbar to Get Them Apart’”. Or you could turn the hose on them.
Speaking of Reagan and cowboy, here’s the news.google search. My favorite hit is this headline from the Dallas Morning News: “He Liked Texans.” Possibly the most nauseating (although I’m accepting nominees): “Republicans, Democrats Hail Reagan’s Optimism.” (WaPo)
That does seem to be the word of the day. Via Bartlett’s: “Optimism is the content of small men in high places.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald). “Optimism. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.” (Ambrose Bierce). “Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.” (Voltaire).
Since Murdoch got greedy(greedier), I have to wait 10 to 24 hours after seeing Times headlines before I can get the actual stories off Lexis-Nexis. One can only hope that “Bush and Chirac Best Buddies for Cameras” is as snarky as it sounds. (I’m told that CNN Headline News called Bush & Chirac opponents in the war on terror.) Then there’s “Scalp Hunters Take Cool Look at Cheney,” written by someone who hasn’t seen a recent picture of Cheney.
FRANKLY MY DEAR...: Just as with the Tenet, the British MI6’s new head John Scarlett, who I mentioned is the guy behind the 45-minutes claim, is facing a report on pre-Iraq war intelligence failures. The report will be written by Lord Butler.
An Iraqi judge has issued an arrest warrant for Achmad Chalabi’s right-hand man, the consultant Francis Brooke, for obstructing the police when Chalabi’s hq was raided. The judge said, “He stopped the raid by telling the police they didn't have the legal power to do it because he was an American and they were Iraqis.” Brooke was once paid by the CIA to work with Chalabi, and is now paid by some private company owned by a Republican. He is an Evangelical Christian who boasted to the New Yorker that he faked WMD intel he passed to the Americans. “I'm a smart man. I saw what they wanted, and I adapted my strategy.”
The Indy has a story about Niaz “I’d rather lose all my money in a casino than fly a plane into one” Khan, which notes that the US government did indeed take action against him: they put him on the list of people banned from commercial airplanes. Just in case. The Indy talked to an (anonymous) FBI spokesmodel, who says they didn’t think he was crazy, they just couldn’t substantiate his story. “Every effort was made.” Hopefully, that phrase will be very slowly, very firmly shoved up the FBI’s collective ass over the next few months.
Oh, and Congress was told about this in 2002.
Having failed to get the FBI or MI6 to listen to him, Khan proceeded to call Crimestoppers. No luck there either.
The story is beginning to move--hope the Reagan thing won’t hurt it.
Radio ad for Vernon Robinson, running for Congress in NC. This will be the most racist ad of the election cycle, I predict, and must be listened to to be believed. And Robinson is black.
Friday, June 04, 2004
But I never apologized to the Arab world
An interview Bush gave to Christian Republican newspaper editors includes this remark about Abu Ghraib: “I said I am sorry for those people who were humiliated. That's all I said. I also said, "The great thing about our country is that people will now see that we'll deal with this in a transparent way based upon rule of law. And it will serve as a great contrast." But I never apologized to the Arab world.”
Adnan Pachachi blames a “shabby conspiracy” led by Chalabi for wrecking his presidential candidacy. And insists that he was never the US’s fave. Which he was.
Saturday is the 15th anniversary of Tiananmen Square. The LA Times has a story on the confrontation between the guy and the line of tanks. We still don’t know who he is, and no one in China, the LAT exaggerates, has ever seen the film or photos.
Speaking of anniversaries, next week is the 10th anniversary of OJ Simpson killing his wife and that guy. He says the media convinced people he is guilty because he is black, but that he has given up the search for the real killers because he is too busy raising his sons. He says he has never discussed the murders with them, because they never asked. Probably afraid to.
In a travesty of parliamentary democracy, Sharon is trying to stack his government, firing members of the cabinet who oppose his Gaza plan, which is being watered down still further even as I speak. This might get it through cabinet (might: one of them has literally gone into hiding so that he won’t receive the notification), but it would be a cabinet without backing of a majority of the Knesset. The people being fired, by the way, are racist pigs who don’t belong in public life.
Bush met the pope today (and showed up 15 minutes late). Hard to make out what was said because of the barely recognizable, mumbled, badly pronounced English....and the pope’s wasn’t that good either.
Hey, just because a joke is obvious doesn’t mean it’s not worth making.
Kerry says he would expand the military by 40,000, but, the NYT notes, won’t specify how he would attract 40,000 new troops. Or to put it another way, how do you ask the last 40,000 men to die for a mistake? I’m guessing a radio in the shape of a football.
And Rumsfeld is in Bangladesh trying to get them to send troops (for money, of course).
A federal judge rules unconstitutional a federal law banning ads on the sides of buses, train stations etc advocating legalizing marijuana.
The first former head of government tried in an American court since Noriega has just been convicted. Did you even know that Pavlo Lazarenko, former PM of Ukraine, was being tried? Money laundering, wire fraud & extortion.
The story of the Al Qaida hijacker who turned himself in to the FBI has reached NPR NBC, and the Wall Street Journal. His name is Niaz Kahn. The story I sent out was published by the Sunday Times on May 9th. Nice of the big boys to catch up.
2 cartoons:
http://www.msnbc.com/comics/daily.asp?sFile=bo040604
http://www.ucomics.com/tomtoles/2004/06/03/
Reuters: “Tesfaye Gebre Kidan, who ruled Ethiopia for a week in 1991 and then spent 13 years in hiding in Addis Ababa's Italian embassy, has died. He died after a fight with an ex-minister who also took refuge, a hospital source said.”
Adnan Pachachi blames a “shabby conspiracy” led by Chalabi for wrecking his presidential candidacy. And insists that he was never the US’s fave. Which he was.
Saturday is the 15th anniversary of Tiananmen Square. The LA Times has a story on the confrontation between the guy and the line of tanks. We still don’t know who he is, and no one in China, the LAT exaggerates, has ever seen the film or photos.
Speaking of anniversaries, next week is the 10th anniversary of OJ Simpson killing his wife and that guy. He says the media convinced people he is guilty because he is black, but that he has given up the search for the real killers because he is too busy raising his sons. He says he has never discussed the murders with them, because they never asked. Probably afraid to.
In a travesty of parliamentary democracy, Sharon is trying to stack his government, firing members of the cabinet who oppose his Gaza plan, which is being watered down still further even as I speak. This might get it through cabinet (might: one of them has literally gone into hiding so that he won’t receive the notification), but it would be a cabinet without backing of a majority of the Knesset. The people being fired, by the way, are racist pigs who don’t belong in public life.
Bush met the pope today (and showed up 15 minutes late). Hard to make out what was said because of the barely recognizable, mumbled, badly pronounced English....and the pope’s wasn’t that good either.
Hey, just because a joke is obvious doesn’t mean it’s not worth making.
Kerry says he would expand the military by 40,000, but, the NYT notes, won’t specify how he would attract 40,000 new troops. Or to put it another way, how do you ask the last 40,000 men to die for a mistake? I’m guessing a radio in the shape of a football.
And Rumsfeld is in Bangladesh trying to get them to send troops (for money, of course).
A federal judge rules unconstitutional a federal law banning ads on the sides of buses, train stations etc advocating legalizing marijuana.
The first former head of government tried in an American court since Noriega has just been convicted. Did you even know that Pavlo Lazarenko, former PM of Ukraine, was being tried? Money laundering, wire fraud & extortion.
The story of the Al Qaida hijacker who turned himself in to the FBI has reached NPR NBC, and the Wall Street Journal. His name is Niaz Kahn. The story I sent out was published by the Sunday Times on May 9th. Nice of the big boys to catch up.
2 cartoons:
http://www.msnbc.com/comics/daily.asp?sFile=bo040604
http://www.ucomics.com/tomtoles/2004/06/03/
Reuters: “Tesfaye Gebre Kidan, who ruled Ethiopia for a week in 1991 and then spent 13 years in hiding in Addis Ababa's Italian embassy, has died. He died after a fight with an ex-minister who also took refuge, a hospital source said.”
Analytical, magical skills
British American Tobacco has been testing yummy chocolate-flavored cigarettes. On rats.
North Korea bans mobile phones, possibly because the mysterious train bombing was set off by one.
Debate continues in the UN over authorizing the US to continue occupying Iraq. A major concession: permission won’t be open-ended, with the US able to veto a retraction. The Russians want to know who will be responsible for continuing the search for WMDs.
So the CIA installs its own puppets at the top of the Iraqi fully-sovereign-we-mean-it-why-don’t-you-believe-us government, finally winning one over Rummy, and the DCI is forced out a few days later. For personal reasons, said Bush. So many reasons for Tenet to have been forced out (fewer than the reasons for doing the same to Rumsfeld, Powell, Wolfowitz, Rice, but comparing your level of incompetence to those clowns is like saying your torture wasn’t as bad as Saddam’s torture), trust Bush to claim he’s leaving for none of those reasons, but to spend more time hanging out with his son (did you hear Tenet’s speech, it was an intentional parody of such resignation speeches, a big fuck-you to Bush, I think: “Anyway, the point is, John Michael is going to be a senior next year. I'm going to be a senior with him in high school. We're going to go to class together. We're going to party together. I'm going to learn how to instant message his friends--that would be an achievement!”). Because Bush couldn’t admit an error to save his life. Of course, as Juan Cole notes in his blog, there are any number of reasons why Tenet should have resigned in protest long before now, if he had had any honor.
Uh, huh. And on the same day, Rumsfeld blames 9/11 on Tenet.
In fact, it’s not worth my effort to find the transcript (my back hurts), but I think when Bush said today that he’d never been angry with France and Chirac could come to the ranch and see some cows, he had completely forgotten that last year he’d testily announced that Chirac was banned from that edenic paradise.
Bush himself is going to Paris and Rome, requiring only that both cities be totally shut down and no demonstrations of any kind be held. Because if he doesn’t see people who disagree with him, they must not exist.
A WaPo headline shows what happens when reporters are allowed to see the Harry Potter movie, even though it gets them all over-excited: “CIA's New Acting Director Is Known for His Analytical, Magical Skills.”
North Korea bans mobile phones, possibly because the mysterious train bombing was set off by one.
Debate continues in the UN over authorizing the US to continue occupying Iraq. A major concession: permission won’t be open-ended, with the US able to veto a retraction. The Russians want to know who will be responsible for continuing the search for WMDs.
So the CIA installs its own puppets at the top of the Iraqi fully-sovereign-we-mean-it-why-don’t-you-believe-us government, finally winning one over Rummy, and the DCI is forced out a few days later. For personal reasons, said Bush. So many reasons for Tenet to have been forced out (fewer than the reasons for doing the same to Rumsfeld, Powell, Wolfowitz, Rice, but comparing your level of incompetence to those clowns is like saying your torture wasn’t as bad as Saddam’s torture), trust Bush to claim he’s leaving for none of those reasons, but to spend more time hanging out with his son (did you hear Tenet’s speech, it was an intentional parody of such resignation speeches, a big fuck-you to Bush, I think: “Anyway, the point is, John Michael is going to be a senior next year. I'm going to be a senior with him in high school. We're going to go to class together. We're going to party together. I'm going to learn how to instant message his friends--that would be an achievement!”). Because Bush couldn’t admit an error to save his life. Of course, as Juan Cole notes in his blog, there are any number of reasons why Tenet should have resigned in protest long before now, if he had had any honor.
Uh, huh. And on the same day, Rumsfeld blames 9/11 on Tenet.
In fact, it’s not worth my effort to find the transcript (my back hurts), but I think when Bush said today that he’d never been angry with France and Chirac could come to the ranch and see some cows, he had completely forgotten that last year he’d testily announced that Chirac was banned from that edenic paradise.
Bush himself is going to Paris and Rome, requiring only that both cities be totally shut down and no demonstrations of any kind be held. Because if he doesn’t see people who disagree with him, they must not exist.
A WaPo headline shows what happens when reporters are allowed to see the Harry Potter movie, even though it gets them all over-excited: “CIA's New Acting Director Is Known for His Analytical, Magical Skills.”
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Not everyone has a burning bush, period.
Creepy, creepy, creepy: WaPo report a Dept of Labor pamphlet telling religious groups how to apply for gov money for job training because “Not everyone has a burning bush to tell them their life's calling.”
Chalabi might have told Iran that the US had broken its codes, it certainly sounds like him. But the story about how we know this is hinky, and if you wanted to throw an enemy into confusion, one way would be to claim that you’d broken its codes and been reading its secret messages for some time. This could be a CIA dirty trick to get two birds with one stone. Just a possibility.
Juan Cole (juancole.com) disputes the notion that Iran used Chalabi to get the US to invade Iraq, repeating what I’ve heard elsewhere, that Iran wouldn’t have wanted to be surrounded, with the US also occupying Afghanistan. Except that if Iran was using Chalabi, it started years before then. Also, the US, as we now know even if Rumsfeld couldn’t figure it out a year ago, the US couldn’t possibly occupy Iraq and Iran at the same time. The real threat to Iran was always fairly slight, but enough to unify the country behind the hardliners. Not that I’m necessarily buying it (though the idea is amusing), but I don’t find the arguments against the theory convincing.
More convincingly, Cole floats the theory that Chalabi peddled his stories about Iraqi WMDs to Iran as well as to the US, thus impelling Iran to escalate its nuclear program.
CNN is suing Florida to get a copy of the list of supposed felons who will be purged from the electoral rolls. Although the list is public, in the sense that parties can make copies of it and journalists can see, but not copy it, Florida is claiming that letting CNN make copies would violate the privacy rights of the many people who are on the list but aren’t really felons. Really, they said that.
In case you missed it, today Bush gave the 2nd of his speeches on Iraq policy. It was emptier than the first one. He says that America is always more secure when freedom is on the march. Should freedom really be marching? And he talked about the dangers of terrorists taking up residence inside failed states. He gave this speech at the Air Force Academy in Colorado, well-known for the rapists who took up residence...oh, you do the rest, I’m tired.
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
A sparkle in their eye
There’s a film floating around on the web of Bush during the commercial when he appeared on Letterman, wiping his glasses on some CBS employees’ sweater. Which can’t be good for the glasses, as well as being rude. But this is the guy who goes around patting the heads of bald people. You live in a bubble that long, everyone turns into Michael Jackson.
The NYT says that the US military will no longer perform offensive operations in Iraq--y’know, going after the “bad guys,” destroying the Mahdi Army, capturing Sadr, capturing the guys who killed the mercenaries in Fallujah, and all the other stuff they promised to do--and just guard buildings and oil pipelines. So they should be able to catch up on their reading. We’ve officially surrendered. Billmon.org has a good analysis of this. He says we have the power to go in and hold any area we want, but lose it again the minute we leave. He compares this to the French efforts to hold Vietnam 1946-54, although most of us have been in classrooms like that. As I’ve said, we lost the battle for hearts and/or minds some time back. On any given day we alienate some number of Iraqis and win over exactly none, and this has gone on for months. There is no Iraqi who disliked us in January who likes us now.
Bush today on how he never had relations with that man, Achmad Chalabi: “My meetings with him were very brief. I mean, I think I met with him at the State of the Union and just kind of working through the rope line, and he might have come with a group of leaders. But I haven't had any extensive conversations with him.”
Both Bush and Rice insisted that the new Iraqi government are not puppets. No reporter asked the obvious follow-up: marionettes?
He also says that intelligence sources report to him that people in Afghanistan “have got a sparkle in their eye.” Presumably he doesn’t mean women, who aren’t allowed to show their eyes in public.
Does anyone remember the Republican candidate for Congress in Santa Cruz in 1982, Gary Richard Arnold? Slogan: “Looks like Lenin, Talks Like Lincoln.” It was a very safe D seat (Leon Panetta’s), of course, but this guy came to our attention because at a meeting of R Congressional candidates at the White House, Reagan told him to--and I’m quoting--shut up. This got him a lot of votes in Santa Cruz from people who didn’t realize he was attacking Reagan from the right, a piece of real estate undreamt of by Cruzians, and was in fact a conspiracy nut (Trilateral Commission). This is an exaggerated version of the love some people on the left have found for John McCain, disregarding 90% of his actual personal beliefs and policies. Anyway, the Voice brings up a possibility: if Bush wanted to stop his nosedive... Bush/McCain 2004.
If you read the WaPo story I linked to a couple of days ago about Bush lies, you must read the humorous reply by the Bushies. My favorite is where they “prove” that Kerry accused Bush of personal responsibility for Abu Ghraib, quoting Kerry thus: “It is an attitude that comes out of how we view the prisoners. It is an attitude that comes out of an overall arrogance and policy.” You’re so arrogant, I’ll bet you think this song is about you.
Trent Lott on Abu Ghraib: “Interrogation is not a Sunday-school meeting.”
Too early for the Alabama election results, but here’s a depressing AP headline: “Ten Commandments Influence Ala. Primary.” Seems unlikely; can Alabamans actually count to ten? It’s hard to count on your fingers or toes when they’re webbed.
White smoke in Baghdad. No, sorry, just another oil pipeline blowing up
The last, honest to God, we really mean it this time, widow of a Civil War veteran dies. She was 97. She married the guy when she was 21 (and already a widow), and he was 81. After he died, she married his grandson.
Despite all previous denials, Cheney was indeed involved in arranging contracts for Halliburton (Time magazine has the smoking email).
(Monday:) The wrangling over the Iraqi interim presidency is still going on. Bremer is threatening to veto any vote by the Governing Council that isn’t for his nominee. Of course, it’s supposed to be Brahimi who makes the decision, so Bremer would be vetoing a non-binding, irrelevant vote by a puppet government for a ceremonial, temporary office in another puppet government. About as important as winning a Golden Globe award. Today Bremer is offering a compromise candidate, a general who was imprisoned by Saddam. But before that, he was slaughtering Kurds, so...
(Later:) Wrangling over, Pachachi steps aside. The IGC is certainly throwing its political weight around effectively, considering it’s not supposed to have any. Ghazi Yawar. The last name sounds like a yawn.
Today a council member suggested that the first act of the new president should be to establish a “de-Bremerisation” committee.
Freedom returns to Gloucestershire, where the forces of oppression have allowed the resumption of the annual Chasing of a Giant Wheel of Cheese Down a Hill. And there was a streaker. Which would have livened up the dedication of the World War II memorial.
Bob Herbert in Monday’s NYT notes that a law passed in 1996 prevents prisoners in the US from suing for “mental or emotional injury,” i.e., the sort of thing that happened in Abu Ghraib, unless they were also physically harmed.
Another good Dana Milbank piece, on Bush’s use of straw men.
Despite all previous denials, Cheney was indeed involved in arranging contracts for Halliburton (Time magazine has the smoking email).
(Monday:) The wrangling over the Iraqi interim presidency is still going on. Bremer is threatening to veto any vote by the Governing Council that isn’t for his nominee. Of course, it’s supposed to be Brahimi who makes the decision, so Bremer would be vetoing a non-binding, irrelevant vote by a puppet government for a ceremonial, temporary office in another puppet government. About as important as winning a Golden Globe award. Today Bremer is offering a compromise candidate, a general who was imprisoned by Saddam. But before that, he was slaughtering Kurds, so...
(Later:) Wrangling over, Pachachi steps aside. The IGC is certainly throwing its political weight around effectively, considering it’s not supposed to have any. Ghazi Yawar. The last name sounds like a yawn.
Today a council member suggested that the first act of the new president should be to establish a “de-Bremerisation” committee.
Freedom returns to Gloucestershire, where the forces of oppression have allowed the resumption of the annual Chasing of a Giant Wheel of Cheese Down a Hill. And there was a streaker. Which would have livened up the dedication of the World War II memorial.
Bob Herbert in Monday’s NYT notes that a law passed in 1996 prevents prisoners in the US from suing for “mental or emotional injury,” i.e., the sort of thing that happened in Abu Ghraib, unless they were also physically harmed.
Another good Dana Milbank piece, on Bush’s use of straw men.
Monday, May 31, 2004
GeeDubya playing with a gun. Can't see how that could go wrong. Say, haven't seen Laura lately
Gen. Mark Kimmitt, M.M., on the BBC saying that the people of Iraqi will forgive the US for torturing some of them at Abu Ghraib. His current estimate of bad apples = 20.
The June 30th fake-deadline for Iraq may be used domestically as a way to declare victory in order to safely fire some of the architects of that victory. In other words, DC rumor is that Secretary of Bad Apples Rummy Rumsfeld will be retiring shortly after that date.
News reports say that Bush has a toy, I mean souvenir: the gun Saddam had when he was captured. He likes to show it off to visitors. The Secret Service has to quietly dispose of the remains of some of these visitors, because, well, Bush with a gun. I mean all the work they had to go through to child-proof the electrical outlets so George wouldn’t hurt himself, and then someone just gives him a gun. He keeps it in the study off the Oval Office where Monica used to blow Bill.
This articlelists all the Bush campaign lies about Kerry’s records in one place. And they never stop when they’re disproved, either. It’s kind of awe-inspiring.
The bloggers have been commenting for days that the Bush campaign website has 4 pictures of Kerry on it, none of Bush. It’s true, and a little jarring (go look). There’s also a picture of Laura Bush and one of the secretary for veterans’ affairs, who this week said that soldiers fight better under a Republican president.
You know how Yowie Wowie Allawi is the guy who wants to bring Baathists back into office in Iraq? Well guess who Afghan Prez Karzai is negotiating with? Actually, everyone. He is in talks with former Taliban officials, including Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the former Taliban foreign minister, who was in the custody of Americans, who mysteriously released him. And a fundamentalist/warlord party whose leader is on the US Most Wanted list. There is now at least one minister the US previously tried to capture. Karzai, who plans to run for his office again, hasn’t bothered campaigning, or forming a political party, he’s just negotiating with every warlord and zealot in sight.
The Post says this war has surpassed the death toll (only Americans count, of course) of the Spanish-American War and is catching up with the War of 1812 and Mexican-American Wars (wounded is higher than for both those wars).
In Iraq, someone’s been handing out flyers saying that Sadr was killed by the Iraqi police while resisting arrest. It’s not true, evidently they prematurely released the flyers printed up for when Sadr is killed “resisting arrest.” Oops.
We still don’t know what happened with Brahimi and Allawi. I’m sticking with my theory: naked pictures, with a goat, two chickens, and a Jew. The NYT reporter with the unfortunate name thinks Bremer pressured the IGC which pressured Brahimi. Which doesn’t explain what’s happening now, when the Council is trying to pre-empt the choice of president. Although the role is supposed to be ceremonial, the Council and Bremer are fighting over it. Bremer told them not to hold a vote at all, they told him to fuck himself. Bremer wants an 81-year old who won’t make a fuss, the Council wants one of its own members, who’s already calling for the US to go away. The IGC is clearly trying to make the supposed transitional gov permanent. Since the transitional admin organizes the January elections, what happens in the next few days matters, like having your kid brother in place as governor of Florida when you’re running for president.
The June 30th fake-deadline for Iraq may be used domestically as a way to declare victory in order to safely fire some of the architects of that victory. In other words, DC rumor is that Secretary of Bad Apples Rummy Rumsfeld will be retiring shortly after that date.
News reports say that Bush has a toy, I mean souvenir: the gun Saddam had when he was captured. He likes to show it off to visitors. The Secret Service has to quietly dispose of the remains of some of these visitors, because, well, Bush with a gun. I mean all the work they had to go through to child-proof the electrical outlets so George wouldn’t hurt himself, and then someone just gives him a gun. He keeps it in the study off the Oval Office where Monica used to blow Bill.
This articlelists all the Bush campaign lies about Kerry’s records in one place. And they never stop when they’re disproved, either. It’s kind of awe-inspiring.
The bloggers have been commenting for days that the Bush campaign website has 4 pictures of Kerry on it, none of Bush. It’s true, and a little jarring (go look). There’s also a picture of Laura Bush and one of the secretary for veterans’ affairs, who this week said that soldiers fight better under a Republican president.
You know how Yowie Wowie Allawi is the guy who wants to bring Baathists back into office in Iraq? Well guess who Afghan Prez Karzai is negotiating with? Actually, everyone. He is in talks with former Taliban officials, including Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the former Taliban foreign minister, who was in the custody of Americans, who mysteriously released him. And a fundamentalist/warlord party whose leader is on the US Most Wanted list. There is now at least one minister the US previously tried to capture. Karzai, who plans to run for his office again, hasn’t bothered campaigning, or forming a political party, he’s just negotiating with every warlord and zealot in sight.
The Post says this war has surpassed the death toll (only Americans count, of course) of the Spanish-American War and is catching up with the War of 1812 and Mexican-American Wars (wounded is higher than for both those wars).
In Iraq, someone’s been handing out flyers saying that Sadr was killed by the Iraqi police while resisting arrest. It’s not true, evidently they prematurely released the flyers printed up for when Sadr is killed “resisting arrest.” Oops.
We still don’t know what happened with Brahimi and Allawi. I’m sticking with my theory: naked pictures, with a goat, two chickens, and a Jew. The NYT reporter with the unfortunate name thinks Bremer pressured the IGC which pressured Brahimi. Which doesn’t explain what’s happening now, when the Council is trying to pre-empt the choice of president. Although the role is supposed to be ceremonial, the Council and Bremer are fighting over it. Bremer told them not to hold a vote at all, they told him to fuck himself. Bremer wants an 81-year old who won’t make a fuss, the Council wants one of its own members, who’s already calling for the US to go away. The IGC is clearly trying to make the supposed transitional gov permanent. Since the transitional admin organizes the January elections, what happens in the next few days matters, like having your kid brother in place as governor of Florida when you’re running for president.
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