If you do not leave by the deadline we will shoot you

The Indy & Daily Telegraph explain how the order for foreign journalists to leave Najaf was made: they were invited to the police chief’s office on false pretenses, told that while they couldn’t be arrested, their drivers and translators would be (and that the order came from the interior ministry). When they failed to comply, armed police were sent to tell them to leave or be shot. The excuse offered for the order was that a car full of dynamite had been found outside the hotel; even the usually gullible Telegraph doesn’t buy that one. And it was the police who made their point by firing shots at their hotel.

Secretary of War Rumsfeld announces a plan to make the deployment of troops more flexible. It will take several years to implement. All the flexibility of Rummy doing the limbo. I tried to look up his speech at the DOD website, www.defenselink.mil, but it’s stuck at August 3, more of that famous Pentagon flexibility.

An Iraqi solution--shudder

I’m a little unclear about the whole Najaf thing at this point, and I’m not getting a lot of help. The WaPo was told that decisions about timing of military operations were made not by the US but by Allawi, in a blatant bit of playacting--oo, he’s so powerful he can tell the Marines to stop and they will--AND THEY FELL FOR IT! The LA Times quotes a US major, "Allawi has decided there has to be an Iraqi solution to the problem." Ah, Vietnamization. Negotiations failed; the Allawi clique (dammit I can’t call it a government, it’s not one, and I feel silly using the word puppet over and over) is blaming Sadr for refusing their demands that his forces give up their weapons and leave Najaf (it was never clear to me what the Allawiistas were offering in exchange for this complete surrender), and for Sadr failing to meet with them personally, which they were curiously insistent on, if you get my drift.

And Najaf’s police chief has ordered all foreign media to leave the city immediately. Maybe he’s just planning a surprise party and doesn’t want it ruined.

Meanwhile, the "National Conference," yet another group of Iraqi "leaders" who were actually appointed by the Americans, will meet in Baghdad today after several postponements. The 1,300 conferees will choose a 100-member national assembly, whose first task, if I understand traditional Iraqi practices, will be to bury the bodies of the other 1,200. Oh stop it, like you weren’t thinking the same thing. Shiite groups including Sadr’s are not participating, and it's not that clear who is. Al Jazeera, exaggerating only slightly, says "The names of the ‘representatives’ have not been made available, nor is it known who they represent or who has chosen them." (Correction: actually they're choosing only 80 members, the other 20 will be from the American-appointed governing council.)

McGreevey had polls done on the "I am a gay American" line. Now why would a guy resigning his office and presumably leaving political life need to do that? And I wonder what other slogans they tested. Still, it would say something about the progress of tolerance in America if he could make this about his gayness rather than corruption, if Golan Cipel could be the distraction that a black and white cocker spaniel was for Richard Nixon, and let’s not make a big deal about the "cocker spaniel" thing, sometimes a breed of dog is just a breed of dog.

Not very sensitive

John Kerry is such a limp noodle when it comes to responding to attacks. This is his answer to Dick "Mr. Sensitive" Cheney: "I don't think it's very sensitive to have a vice president who has secret meetings with the polluters who write the laws. And I don't think it's very sensitive to expect the wealthy to shift the tax burden to the average American." And Edwards’s response was that Cheney was "talking about a man who is carrying shrapnel in his body today. His is talking about a man who spilled his blood for the United States of America." What’s that, the you-can’t-hit-me-I’m-wearing-glasses defense? Honestly, wouldn’t "shove it" have been so much more effective?

The R’s in Joisey are quite correct that McGreevey is timing the date his resignation goes into effect in order to game the election laws to avoid a special election, much as Rep. Rodney Alexander timed his conversion to make sure the D’s didn’t have time before the filing deadline to replace him. And in general, I’m in favor of elected leaders actually being, ya know, elected, but the special election would have been between candidates chosen in smoke-filled rooms (which in NJ probably are actually, by-God smoke-filled) rather than by a primary process.

Both the NYT & WaPo have good, long articles on the Bush admin’s undermining of regulations on health & safety, the environment, etc etc. There isn’t much overlap between the articles (the Post’s is the 1st of a series), because there are so many examples to choose from. Compare and contrast how the powers of regulators at OSHA, the EPA, Labor, etc etc (one might add the reduction of audits of the rich at the IRS) have been reduced to nothing, while those of cops, the FBI, CIA, military interrogators and border patrol agents, who this week were given incredible autonomy to deport illegal aliens without any hearing at all, have been greatly augmented. To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, if the detention and torture don’t get you, the monoxide will.

Imperialism and imperial hubris

Giving a press conference on Al Jazeera, Muqtada al-Sadr says, "Najaf has triumphed over imperialism and imperial hubris." That would be a set-back for George Bush, whose slogan is "4 More Years of Imperialism and Imperial Hubris." I wonder how much of the timing of the start & stop siege of Najaf is related to the Republican convention. That may also be behind the ban on Al Jazeera: preventing a split-screen presentation of pictures of the convention and of the bombing of whatever Iraqi city we’ll be bombing that week, like the 1968 D convention and the protestors. The whole world isn’t watching, if our tame censors can do anything about it.

Speaking of imperialism and imperial hubris, Colin Powell, in an interview with the Atlantic Monthly, says, "The United States believes it has worldwide obligations. Our European friends have never felt that that was their destiny or their obligation." How ignorant of history do you have to be to make a statement like that. Wait, it gets better: "The average European citizen, looking around, sees some of these out-of-the-way places like Afghanistan and the Balkans and Iraq." Who do you think used to go to war with each other on a regular basis to take those areas as colonies?

Speaking of hubris, Niyazov, the dictator of Turkmenistan who has exceeded even my taste for wacky news stories, has ordered a palace entirely constructed of ice to be built in his hot central Asian country. The Indy calls him neo-Stalinist, although neo-Dr. Evil seems more like it. It quotes one of his poems: "I am the Turkmen spirit reborn to bring you a golden age. I am your saviour ... My sight is sharp - I see everything. If you are honest in your deeds, I see this; if you commit wrongdoing; I see that too." So maybe it’s neo-Santa Clausism, which would explain the ice palace.

Another nuance

Imagine an election campaign, indeed imagine a country, in which smart was considered a desirable quality (and I know that’s like Albert Brooks in "Broadcast News" wishing for a world in which insecurity and desperation made us more attractive). What if Kerry had responded to "my opponent has found a new nuance" with "I see President Bush has lost another nuance."

CACI international, which supplied interrogators to Abu Ghraib, has conducted an internal investigation and decided that none of its people did anything wrong. And they just got their contract extended. What makes this more significant than your standard corporate CYAery, as the NYT fails to make clear, is that the US military has made clear that any punishment of torture by civilian contractors is up to their employers.

I don't fancy being kidnapped again

The Bush campaign commercials are getting odder and odder. This week alone, there was "Solemn Duty," with George and his faithful robot Laura talking about parents having to choose on 9/11/01 which child to pick up first (in their case, it would be the less slutty twin). Then "Ownership," in which Shrub says, "if you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of America." Paul Krugman says roughly what I thought when I saw the ad, that Bush is unconsciously echoing arguments made in the early American republic in favor of a property qualification for the franchise (not banned until the 15th Amendment) that only those with "a stake in the nation" should vote. (Some states preferred a tax-paying qualification, but, as Chimp Boy pointed out, rich people can always figure out how to dodge taxes.) And now there’s an ad, "Victory," that will be shown on tv screens in health clubs next to the treadmills and exercise bikes, boasting that because of the Bush wars, two former dictatorships, Iraq and Afghanistan, will be represented at the Olympics. So that makes it all worthwhile. Evidently, "Freedom is spreading throughout the world like a sunrise." As a metaphor, isn’t that a little too cyclical?

In the same week that Russia eliminates almost all benefits for the elderly, veterans and the disabled in favor of tiny amounts of worthless money, IN THE SAME FUCKING WEEK, MIND YOU, Putin announces a 40% increase in the military budget.

Quote of the day, from James Brandon, the Sunday Telegraph reporter kidnapped and then released, on why he is now leaving Basra: "I don't fancy being kidnapped again."

I really like this crowd

On Larry King, Bush finally explains the 7 minutes: "I was collecting my thoughts and I was sitting with a bunch of young kids, and I made the decision there that we would let this part of the program finish." Collecting his thoughts? How long could that take? there are so few of them. On the other hand, they’re very tiny.

The attack on Najaf, which I believe is called Operation Sensitive Resolve, has been postponed in favor of trying to starve the city into submission, but sensitively, or as Colin Powell puts it, "Our forces in Najaf are squeezing the city." He says the insurgents "don't understand the spirit of peace and reconciliation" and therefore have to be starved, bombed and shot, in a spirit of peace and reconciliation.

The Vatican comes out against Turkey being admitted to the European Union, saying it should go play with the other Muslim children instead.

A detail I missed about Cheney’s speech in Albuquerque: Dick "Mr. Sensitive" Cheney told the crowd, who had been required to sign a loyalty oath, stand in lines in the hot NM sun and go through a metal detector, "I really like this crowd!" Sure, they’ll put up with massive amounts of crap, what’s for a politician not to like?

Speaking of being willing to stand in lines: I’ve suggested before that Argentinian ants might be the end of civilization as we know it. Of course we never heard another word about the ants in Europe, but a column of ants 60 miles wide was just discovered under Melbourne. As in Europe, the ants have stopped fighting among themselves, as they do in South America, so their numbers are growing exponentially. Aussies call the laid-back ants metrosexuals.

I love my dead "gay American" governor of Joisey

Jim McGreevey, the governor of the state of big hair, resigns his, ahem, post, because, to quote Keith coming out to his workmates on Six Feet Under, "I'm gay. I have a boyfriend. I sleep with men. Okay? I have a lot of sex and it's really, really gay."

A quick googling of McG’s presumed lover Golan Cipel suggests that this was an open secret. There are references in newspapers to Cipel as McG’s "special friend," questions about why he was getting special treatment, etc.

Nuance, idn’t that a French word?

William Saletan goes into Kerry’s record of statements on Iraq to find out what he means, because god knows Kerry is incapable of making it clear himself. Saletan says at length what I said in 3 sentences on Tuesday.

The frightening thing about Kerry on this issue is that he’s letting Bush run rings around him, suckering him into a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose game. Bush spent days goading him about not having said whether he’d have voted for war authorization knowing what he knows now, as if Kerry’s failure to answer a hypothetical question, something Bush always refuses to do, is a sign of wishy-washiness. When he does give an answer, Bush again attacks him, this time for finding "a new nuance." Nuance is a dirty word to the Bushies--two years ago I said that "Don’t nuance it to death," the response of an unnamed official when no one could understand a Bush comment about Israel, should be the new Bush motto.

The thing, though, about this particular nuance--that he voted to authorize war in order to give the "president" a stronger hand in negotiations--is that while the Bushies now pretend not to know the difference between voting for that authorization and voting for the actual war we got, that was their stance at the time; they kept saying that they hadn’t made any decision to go to war, remember?

If Kerry can be portrayed as agreeing with Bush, Bush wins. If Kerry can be portrayed as disagreeing with Bush, or even presenting his own position, which is what you do in an election, Bush wins, attacking Kerry for "sending mixed signals" and fucking up Bush’s glorious little war: "The mission is not going to be completed as quickly as possible if the enemy thinks we’re going to be removing a substantial number of troops in six months." Here in California, in this week’s senatorial debate, R challenger Bill Jones absolutely refused to express any opinion on the war, presumably the most important issue this election year, on these grounds.

The same heads-I-win etc logic works in the appointment of Porter Goss, forcing the D’s to give him a pass, which he does not deserve on his merits, rather than be accused of obstructionism. So the D’s acquiesced in Bush’s portrayal of any oversight, much less disagreement with his policies, as illegitimate.

Friendly militias

Wolfowitz wants to build a "global anti-terrorist network of friendly militias," bypassing insufficiently pliable national militaries in favor of building up warlords and death squads and you’ve got to be fucking kidding. He said this to the House Armed Services Committee, but of the 15 stories on this subject turned up in a news.google search ("friendly militias" or "wolfowitz +militias"), none are from an American source.

Voter registration in Afghanistan, like this year’s opium crop, has surpassed expectations. And by surpassed expectations, I mean they faked so many of them, after such a poor initial showing, that no one can keep a straight face. Except for Secretary of War Rummy Rumsfeld, visiting Afghanistan yesterday, who said "Given the campaign of intimidation and attempts to dissuade people from registering, the surge in registration has to be a very vivid demonstration that the Afghan people are determined to make democracy work." Oh yeah, it just "has to be." Couldn’t be anything else.

The WaPo’s Washington Briefing section finds that since the start of 2003, Bush has only mentioned bin Laden 10 times in public appearances, 6 of those in response to questions. The last time he spoke about him at any length was in March 2003, when he downplayed his importance--"Terror is bigger than one person." Unlike, presumably, the war on terrorism, which his campaign tells us every day is personified by one, oddly chimp-like, person.

Rich, white and wishy-washy

The White House has a pamphlet, "President George W. Bush: Friend of the American Jewish Community," which I can’t find online, although they emailed it as a pdf to Jewish leaders, some of whom were quoted, without permission, as if they supported Bush, but do not. And there’s this: "For Yasser Arafat, the message has been clear. While he was a frequent White House guest during the last administration, he has never been granted a meeting with President Bush." And evidently this was put out at gov expense, not by the campaign. Anyone know where a copy exists online?

Speaking of pandering, this is Bush’s "W Stands for Women" site. With 140 million women in this country, the 4 listed under "Women supporting W" include a former Miss America (!), and the vice president of West Group Commercial Real Estate. And it leads off with this condescending quote from Shrub: "Our country, my administration and my own life are improved and enriched by strong, capable women, from my wife, daughters and mother to senior members of my White House team. I’m proud that our administration has more women in senior positions than any administration in the history of our country. America’s wives, mothers and daughters bring strength, dignity, compassion and integrity to our communities and our country." He really does have difficulty seeing women other than as appendages of men. Would he refer to Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and Powell as "America’s husbands, fathers and sons"? Or not mention a single specifically women’s issue, as opposed to security, the economy, although it does mention education, as if women are allowed to be concerned for their children, but not for themselves.

And still speaking of pandering, here’s a WaPo article on ads that a white businessman, J. Patrick Rooney, who profits greatly from Bush policies, is running on black radio stations attacking Kerry for being "rich, white and wishy-washy", and Teresa Heinz-Kerry for having commented that with her Mozambican roots she could be called African-American, although Rooney, who I repeat is white, says in the article that he goes to an "all-black church." OK, stupid and silly, but... rich, WHITE, and wishy-washy? Is attacking a candidate’s race ok if he’s white?

We know from the recent Tigger-bad-touching case that the actors in character costume at Disney World have limited range of vision and motion. So OSHA has decided that maybe they shouldn’t be next to moving vehicles, and fined Disney a whopping $6,300 for an incident February where "Pluto" got his foot caught in a float at the "Share a Dream Come True" parade and was run over and killed, which for all we know was his dream, I mean if your job is to dress as Pluto, you must have pretty weird dreams. But my point was...$6,300. You may lose respect for me, but I have to say that fine is pretty Mickey Mouse.

Happy no matter what

I’ve gotten to the point where I can mostly ignore the banner ads Blogspot puts at the top of my site (a small price for the free hosting). Still, what’s with the one "Achieve personal freedom, learn how to be happy no matter what"? Self-help and New Agey goodness via "The Toltec Way." I guess that gets points for originality. But how did the Google program pick that particular ad? Did it analyze my site’s content, decide it was depressing as hell and that people reading it would need to "learn how to be happy no matter what"?

The British Court of Appeal will allow evidence obtained by torture, at Guantanamo, to be used to allow the home secretary to detain people indefinitely as terrorism suspects without charge or trial. The torture evidence was the sole evidence. Lord Justice John Laws (the other judge is named Lord Justice Pill; it’s like a very weak Monty Python sketch) says that if the home sec "has neither procured the torture nor connived at it, he has not offended the constitutional principle which I have sought to outline." So that’s ok then. And that he has no "duty of solemn inquiry as to the interrogation methods used by agencies of other sovereign states." Jesus wept.

Elsewhere in the British criminal justice system, a man on temporary release from prison (not clear why; he is supposed to be serving a life term for rape and sexual assaults) bought a lottery ticket. He won £7 million, so he was immediately moved from an open prison to a high-security one because with all that money, he now poses a flight risk. And his victims get to sue him for the money.

Turns out that Rep. Rodney Alexander of Louisiana, who switched parties from D to R last week at the last minute, to keep the D’s finding someone to run against him, was violating LA. election law.

A guest at a wedding in the Philippines is killed, cooked and served to the other wedding guests. The family of the bride were annoyed because he had touched her bottom.

Ok, maybe Russert is only a semi-douchebag of liberty

Paul Wolfowitz thinks Pakistan has suffered enough on the whole spreading-nuclear-technology-to-anyone-with-a-MasterCard thing (by the way, a little-reported fact that puts Pakistan’s seriousness about this into perspective: not only was A Q Khan not prosecuted, he was allowed to keep all the money he made selling nuclear secrets). Wolfy wants to resume training Pakistani military officers in US military academies because, he says, this is the best way to increase our wonderful influence and decrease that of the Islamic fundies. See, the military is really powerful in Pakistan, so we should try to influence the military and not, say, work to reduce its power and restore (semi-)democracy. About the supposed beneficial influence of military to military contacts, I have just four words: School of the Americas.

Martin Sieff in Salon has a list of 21 mistaken assumptions Neocons made about Iraq. Put all together like that, it’s kind of awesome.

OK, maybe I owe a partial apology to Tim Russert, if it’s true that all he told the special prosecutor was that he hadn’t been leaked to. That’s not the same as naming names, but even helping in a process-of-elimination investigation is wrong.

And even my credibility

The WaPo has misquoted an attack made by Bush on Kerry today. It’s the usual flip flop thing about Iraq. The Post has Shrub beginning a sentence, "After months of questioning my motives and my credibility..." Now, I saw those remarks on McNeil-Lehrer and he actually said "questioning my motives and EVEN my credibility," which is a much more revealing comment because it is so arrogant of him to think that his credibility is beyond doubt.

First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired.

Remember the scenes in Fahrenheit 911 with the military recruiters? The Post’s Sunday magazine has a good article on the subject. It’s all very Glengarry Glen Ross.

Billmon covers why Porter Goss is such a crappy choice to head the CIA for 5 months.

Saletan at Slate has an interesting article about the politicization of stem cell research, which reminds me that I meant to mention Laura Bush’s atrocious little intervention into that debate, which was to accuse proponents of stem cell research of offering false hope that cures are right around the corner. What the hell is she saying, that medical research shouldn’t be conducted unless it will produce immediate results? Where would we be if Alexander Fleming had had that short an attention span?
(Update: Good Michael Kinsley piece on this, ending "While she battles rhetorically against false hopes, he (George) works to ensure that there is no hope at all.")

The US military declares central Najaf a free-fire zone, ordering all civilians out.

Because of the reintroduction of the death penalty in Iraq, Danish troops there have stopped handing over prisoners, who might be executed for, say, "endangering national security." The British, while ostensibly opposing the death penalty decision, are not following suit. The US...actually, has anyone of significance in the US gov even been asked about capital punishment?

Dammit, I didn't get a free ice-cream sundae on my birthday

Kerry’s position on the Iraq War this week, as I understand it, is that he was right to vote to give Bush a blank check, even if he’d known that all of the intel was cooked, but Bush was wrong to use it the way he did. Kerry is obviously looking towards the future, when he might want to lie to Congress and be given absolute power. You have to keep those options open.

Tim Russert = Elia Kazan.

One-point plan.

The ACLU reports that the federal government increasingly bypasses privacy laws by using private companies to collect data on Americans. Of course we know about airlines passing along info on passengers to the gov since 9/11, sometimes without being asked. But the ACLU (in a pdf that keeps stalling when I try to download it) says the practice has grown tremendously, with the gov buying data, using court orders or simply asking for it. I remember something from early in the Reagan administration. There used to be an ice-cream parlor chain called Farrell’s, one of those olde-timey things where the staff wear straw hats and striped shirts, there are too many banjos, and you bring children on their birthdays, when they get a free sundae. Farrell’s was found to be handing its birthday list over to the Selective Service, which was harassing people who hadn’t signed up for the draft on their 18th birthday. This was discovered because people had, naturally, made up false identities to scam a free ice cream sundae.

The NYT has an editorial today against the banning of Al Jazeera in Iraq. It is against it, as am I. But the article makes some rather odd assumptions while trotting out its clichés. It says twice that "Owie" Allawi is "supposed" to be moving Iraq towards democracy (actually, the second reference is that he is supposed to be merely "pointing the way toward a more democratic Iraq," possibly in the manner of pointer breeds of dog which have been bred to indicate the location of a bird that has been shot out of the sky. And really, "more democratic Iraq"? Could you possibly set that bar lower?). He’s "supposed to" be doing that? Whose supposition is that? The NYT says that he "has begun yielding to the same kind of authoritarian mentality that has stifled democracy in too many neighboring states." Too many? What’s the right number? So are we meant to believe that Allawi was a liberal democrat who is being corrupted by power? Where’s the evidence that Allawi’s mentality was ever anything other than authoritarian? And when was democracy stifled in a Middle Eastern state; when was there ever a democracy to be stifled? The problem is that the Times is assuming that democracy is the normal state of affairs if there is no untidy interference from tyrants, ethnic strife, etc. That, I think, is what they really meant by "supposed to": that the natural flow of events is towards democracy, like one of the laws of the universe: a nation-state in motion tends to moves towards a state of representative democracy and civil rights. This is not the case. Democracy is hard, democracy is not natural or inevitable. This is not to say that Arabs are incapable of democracy--that straw man Bush keeps trotting out--but the laws of history do not ineluctably lead towards American-style democracy, and it will be much harder work to create representative democracy and, especially, liberal democratic values, than it would be to create another dictatorship. Only if you own up to that do you have any chance of accomplishing it.

The slaveholder's position

Fay Wray has died. ‘Twas old age killed the beauty.

Zambia decides that democracy is literally too expensive, postponing local government elections for 2 years.

Bush says that there’s no point in raising taxes on the rich because "the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway."

Alan Keyes says Barack Obama’s support for abortion rights is "the slaveholder’s position." No, you’re thinking of Jack Ryan, your predecessor as R candidate for Senate for Ill.; he’s the one who was into whips and chains. He also said something about a victory for him being a victory for God. Hard to believe they actually had to go out of state to find a candidate like this.

Last week I advocated smiling on passport photos to screw up the biometrics. But this is better: a German has won the right to stick out his tongue (like the Albert Einstein picture, you know the one) in his passport photo.

This business we call show trial

In my previous post, I didn’t link the two Iraq stories together as strongly as I should have. The issuing of warrants against the Chalabis while they were out of the country--and both warrants at the same time though for very different crimes, as a Daily Kos writer points out--tells you everything you need to know about the Interim Puppet Government’s willingness to use the criminal justice system against its political foes, like Karl Rove subordinating the federal government here to the dictates and timing of the Bush "re"-election campaign. Now apply that lesson to the death penalty: people willing to distort the justice system arming themselves with the ultimate sanction to use against their political, clan, ethnic and religious enemies. Roll on the show trials. (Update: shorter version of this argument, from Wonkette: "Hey, it's an unelected, unaccountable government without a functioning justice system and the ability to kill whomever it deems guilty! That seems familiar somehow.")

Also, according to the NYT, it’s broader than I realized: the death penalty applies to attacks on infrastructure, "endangering national security," and activities related to biological and chemical warfare, which I take to mean this will be applied retroactively. And the American-appointed Allawi will begin this wave of executions under the protection of the American military, which makes them our executions.

Alan Keyes figures out a way to justify running for Senate from a state not his own: Barack Obama is a bigger traitor, not to his state, but to "the declaration of principles our country was founded on," by supporting abortion rights. In fact, Keyes is a little like Abraham Lincoln: "You have to ask yourself: Are we in a position where if I do nothing the principles of national union will be sacrificed?" Pompous much? The WaPo explains why the Republicans’ cynical choice of Keyes is a travesty, and they do it without even once using the word whacko, which is the difference between a newspaper and a blog.

Apparently I threatened somebody who subsequently was killed

Iraq restores the death penalty, supposedly only until stability is restored. Because capital cases are most likely to be fairly and dispassionately tried in trials held during a civil war. The ultimate penalty (unless you count having Lynndie England laugh and point at your genitals) will be applied for murder, kidnapping and drug-running. It is unclear if it applies to Saddam Hussein.

The Iraqi government also issues arrest warrants for Ahmed Chalabi and his nephew Salem Chalabi, who is Saddam’s prosecutor, for money laundering (or counterfeiting, depending on what story you read) and murder, respectively. The murder is that of an official in the finance ministry, who had prepared a report on the Chalabis’ seizure of properties. The government’s level of seriousness about this can be seen by the fact that they announced this while both Chalabis were out of the country. Salem "Witchtrials" Chalabi told CNN that "apparently I threatened somebody who subsequently was killed." Apparently?

Newly released Nixon tapes suggest that he delayed the inevitable military withdrawal from Vietnam in order not to hurt him in the 1972 elections. Henry Kissinger talked on the tape (8/3/72) about finding "some formula that holds the whole thing together a year or two"; by January 1974, he said, "no one will give a damn." Comparisons with Iraq are obvious.

US officials are trying to shift the blame for leaking the name of the Pakistani undercover agent onto a Pakistani intelligence official.

Mexico has found 2 men on its Most Wanted list. They were in jail. One of them, according to a story which provides no further information, is known as "the bullet swallower."

Just listened to a political humor program (excuse me, humour programme), "The Now Show," on the BBC website, thanks to a mention of it in the comments at lefti.blogspot.com. Rather good. Some of the references may be too British for Americans, but even if you decide not to listen to the whole 30 minutes (the current program will be online until the next one comes out Friday), don’t miss a song by Mitch Benn about 25 minutes in about the politics of fear. "Crap your pants for America, foul yourself for freedom..."
Update: the program has now been replaced. The lyrics are available online, but it's not the same thing. It wouldn't hurt to email the BBC about putting the song online permanently; there's certainly a demand for it, as I can testify from the number of people reaching this site through Google searches for it (I've become the go-to guy for Crap Your Pants for America; I'm so proud).

Update to the update: the lyrics are no longer online anywhere, so I'll append them here:

Crap your pants for America


We live in troubled times
Our enemies surround us
We must be vigilant
To the dangers all around us
There's evil little furr'ners
And perverts here as well
It's your patriotic duty
To be as scared as hell

So crap your pants for America
Foul yourself for freedom
Soil your shorts for the USA
Crap your pants for America
Only Dubya can save us
And we'll hide beneath our beds, and quake and pray

It could happen any minute
It could happen any place
So gaze with deep suspicion
In every stranger's face
Your government is struggling
They've run out of ideas
They've run out of excuses
All they've got left is fear

So crap your pants for America
Foul yourself for freedom
Soil your shorts for the USA
Crap your pants for America
The land of the paranoid
The panic-stricken, jittery, and free

I am a Disaster Action Kid, bow down before me!

Turkmenistan, home to the looniest dictator of all the loony dictators in all the former-Soviet Central Asian dictatorships, now has the plague, possibly because most of the health-care professionals were fired, and all those with foreign credentials. The government has responded by making the word plague illegal.

In South Africa, the National Party of Verwoerd, P.W. Botha, F.W. DeKlerk and Vorster, the party that built apartheid and imprisoned Nelson Mandela, will dissolve itself and be absorbed by the ANC. It got 1.65% at the last elections. President Thabo Mbeki calls the Nats a “party of oppression” and, um, welcomes its members into his own party. I have mixed feelings about this. The Nats are, obviously, no great loss and should not let the door hit them in the ass on the way out (they used to employ black servants to hold the door open for them), but SA is moving slowly but not irreversibly in the direction of a one-party state, one result of which is an AIDS policy only slightly saner than that of Turkmenistan (which also made the word AIDS illegal, although to be fair, it made the disease illegal as well), and no proper opposition party able to hold the government’s feet to the fire on the issue.

Bob Harris at the This Modern World blog reports that September will be National Preparedness Month, nicely coordinated with the Republican convention. Harris covers that well, so I don’t need to, but while following links through government websites, I came across the FEMA for Kids website, hosted by Herman the spokescrab. I encourage everyone to get a Disaster Action Kids Certificate, by filling out the online form provided. You must fill out Two Things You Learned (mine: FEMA has nothing to do with the femoral artery; Natural disasters are a sign that God hates America.) and list One Disaster You Learned About (the Bush administration)(naturally). Oh, gyp, they don’t mail it to you, you have to print it out yourself.