Slither slither slither slither went the tongue

THIS BUSINESS WE CALL SHOW TRIAL: “Comical” Allawi has announced that the war crimes trials of Baathist officials--or as he tellingly phrased it the “symbols of the former regime”--will begin next week, although no one else thinks they’re anywhere near being able to proceed. Interesting to see what actually happens next week, if anything.

There’s an odd war of words going on over Turkey’s application to join the EU. A couple of days ago the Turkish PM threatened that there would be an escalation of Islamicist terrorism unless the Europeans proved they weren’t just a Christian club. Today, the French foreign minister said that Turkey must acknowledge the 1915 genocide of Armenians (Christians) before entry, and Turkey said hell no, because there was no genocide.

France showed its own approach to creating religious harmony through censorship (actually, much the same approach as that of Turkey, which is also hostile to Islamic headscarves) by banning a Lebanese/Hezbollah satellite cable channel for antisemitism. The station had claimed Jews were spreading AIDS to Arabs and that sort of thing, but was also shut down for accusing Israel of crimes against humanity; the French FCC-equivalent pedantically said that this statement was not allowable because Israel had never been convicted of crimes against humanity by an international judicial body.

Tom Wolfe wins the annual bad sex in writing award. I remember a year or two ago, it was won by an Indian writer, whose publishers actually flew him in to accept the award. Wolfe does not plan to show up. Excerpt:

Hoyt began moving his lips as if he were trying to suck the ice cream off the top of a cone without using his teeth. She tried to make her lips move in sync with his. The next thing she knew, Hoyt had put his hand sort of under her thigh and hoisted her leg up over his thigh. What was she to do? Was this the point she should say, "Stop!"? No, she shouldn't put it that way. It would be much cooler to say, "No, Hoyt," in an even voice, the way you would talk to a dog that insists on begging at the table.

Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns - oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest - no, the hand was cupping her entire right - Now! She must say "No, Hoyt" and talk to him like a dog. . .

. . . the fingers went under the elastic of the panties moan moan moan moan moan went Hoyt as he slithered slithered slithered slithered and caress caress caress caress went the fingers until they must be only eighths of inches from the border of her public hair - what's that! - Her panties were so wet down. . . there - the fingers had definitely reached the outer stand of the field of pubic hair and would soon plunge into the wet mess that was waiting right. . . there-there”

“Otorhinolaryngological” means ear, nose & throat.

The most relentless persecution this country has ever seen against one person

London Times headline: “13 Killed in Car Bomb on Saddam Anniversary.” I thought the first anniversary was paper.

Spanish PM Aznar lost the last election in part because he lied when he blamed the Madrid train bombings on ETA. And before leaving office he paid a computer company €12,000 to make sure the government’s computer records related to the bombings were completely wiped.

Speaking of cover-ups, after Human Rights Watch announced that it knew of 3 prisoners who had died in American custody in Afghanistan that had never been publicly announced, the Pentagon admitted to 2 of them. My favorite is the Afghan soldier they mistakenly captured and then mistakenly murdered.

Speaking of prisoners being disappeared, Pinochet was indicted today, but not sent to prison while awaiting trial for the murders/disappearances of 10 human beings, just given house arrest, and even that order didn’t last out the day. One of Pinochet’s lawyers denounced the proceedings as “no more than a new episode of the most relentless persecution this country has ever seen against one person.” Oh, the injustice of it all.

And Pinochet’s idiot son was also sentenced today, 1½ years for receiving stolen property (a car), and illegal possession of a gun.


Evil, but such a snappy dresser

Captain, the pop culture metaphor cannae take much more of this!

I was a day premature in announcing the anniversary of Saddam’s capture, one of the pitfalls of reading tomorrow’s British papers today. I just looked back at my own post written after the success of “Operation Red Dawn.” I wrote, “The Resistance will have to find something better to fight for, assuming that just fighting against the American occupation isn’t enough.” Evidently it is enough. And I asked if Iraqis would begin taking hostages and demanding Hussein’s release. It’s interesting that that hasn’t happened, despite the many, many western hostages taken since that date.

The Department of Homeland Security, which was created so that intelligence would be better coordinated, had nominated as its head Bernie Kerik, without anyone being aware that he had violated immigration and Social Security laws, had an arrest warrant sworn out against him, and numerous red flags related to ethics and competency.

Remember when they said that irony was dead after 9/11?

Also, his name sounds like a Klingon’s.

That was intended as a joke, but it occurs to me that aside from all the nanny problems and whatnot, there was a more fundamental problem with Kerik: Bush chose a Klingon to fill a job that required a Vulcan. Bush always chooses Klingons for jobs that require Vulcans.

He sounded white on the phone

Bush has had his physical, and has gained some weight. Too many donuts, he says. Is it wrong of me to think that his problem is actually too few pretzels?

Today was the one year anniversary of the capture of Saddam Hussein, which, as we were told it would at the time, has ended the insurgency and brought about a new era of peace, prosperity and cute puppy dogs.

821 American soldiers have died in that period.

From the Sunday Times (London):

Members of the far-right British National party walked out of their own Christmas party after organisers accidentally hired a black DJ. “We had to be careful what we said when we did the raffle so we didn’t offend the guy,” said BNP official Bob Garner. The party, at a London hotel, was organised by the party central London branch. “He sounded white on the phone,” said Garner.

They don’t know what democracy is

Writing about the incident in October when the Israeli military shot a 13-year old Palestinian girl and an officer then shot her 10 more times to “confirm the kill,” the NYT repeats the Israeli army’s first excuse, which has been completely discredited by audio tapes, that they thought her book bag was a bomb.

I’ve wondered before how the Pentagon names its military operations, usually combining two unrelated but tough-sounding elements. Mad Libs? Porn name generator? Anyway, in Afghanistan, “Operation Lightning Freedom” has commenced.

The Russian Orthodox church is considering naming a patron saint of the Internet. The choice is between Saint John Chrysostom and...wait for it...Saint Feofan the Hermit.

The Sunday Times (London) has an article on the know-your-enemy training given to some US Marines etc. They get to be pretend Muslims for a week, wearing Arab garb, praying to Mecca, eating with their hands, play-acting kidnapping and executing westerners, planting car bombs, etc. One student said, “It’s helped me to know how the enemy thinks and appreciate how sophisticated they are.” And the lesson he draws from this? “I’d kill them all. They don’t know what democracy is.”

Disney is building a new disneyland in Hong Kong. They consulted a master of feng shui in designing the park, presumably so that kids on the roller coasters will throw up in the most propitious direction. Now they just need to attract Chinese families, not especially familiar with Mickey, Donald, Winnie the Pooh etc, to the Magic Kingd... uh, Magic People’s Republic. So they have struck up a partnership with the Communist Youth League to indoctrinate Chinese children in Disneyana.

Psst, kid

WaPo: “[American] troops use soccer balls and school supplies, candy and small talk to win over Iraqis”. Great, now we’re copying the techniques of child molesters.

I was right to be serene

Charles Pickering, who Bush recess-appointed to the 5th Circuit when his racist past prevented his nomination succeeding in the Senate, has decided to retire, less than a week before his term was up, issuing a statement attacking those who opposed him as “extreme special-interest groups” hostile to people with religious views. The self-important twit ascribed the defeat of some unnamed D Senators to their opposition to his nomination.

Silvio Berlusconi escapes jail yet again on two charges of bribing judges, back in the 1980s before he could simply restructure the entire judiciary and change any law he wanted to break. He was acquitted on one charge, and on the other the charge was dismissed, although it was proven, because of the statute of limitations. This is somewhat confusing, actually, because there is a discretionary element to the statute of limitations if the defendant has no criminal record. So the judges today decided to halve the statute of limitations from 15 to 7½ years (the bribe was paid in 1991). Also, there was a delay in the trial when Berlusconi got a law passed making himself immune from criminal prosecution; the trial resumed when the law was overturned. Berlusconi is smugly pretending that he was exonerated: “I was right to be serene, knowing full well that I had done nothing wrong.”

Credibility and cohesion

Colin Powell castigates certain members of NATO for refusing to participate in the training of the Iraqi military. Bush frequently says that he won’t seek “permission slips” from foreign bodies for military actions, but when other countries assert what Powell belittles as their “national caveat or national exception,” he accuses them of “hurting [NATO’s] credibility and cohesion”. Yes, how dare Germany and France have their own foreign policies.

Still, you could see how Powell might identify with poor NATO’s plight, since after 4 years as Chimpy’s sock puppet, he himself has no credibility or cohesion.

At that NATO meeting, the German foreign minister gave Powell two cases and a keg of German beer, which won’t help with the credibility and cohesion problem, but should ease his retirement: I foresee Powell doing a lot of drinking to forget the last 4 years of his life. The NATO Secretary General with the amusing name Jaap de Hoop Scheffer (just say it out loud a few times; it will make your whole day: Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer) gave him some Belgian beer and a model of a Volvo.

Bush says of Spc. Wilson’s question to Indefensible Secretary Rumsfeld, “if I were a soldier overseas, wanting to defend my country, I’d want to ask the secretary of defense the same question.” Rising Hegemon comments: “If you had asked the question, the troops would not have had to do it for you. Asshole.”

“In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.”-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge. What does it say about this country’s post-9/11 willingness to exchange civil liberties for security that even Russ Feingold voted for the intelligence reform bill despite the scary powers it gives the feds to lock people up without trial, knowing full well that “This Justice Department has a record of abusing its detention powers post-9/11 and of making terrorism allegations that turn out to have no merit.” Unlike most senators, who should know better, Feingold actually does.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

There were questions that were highly complimentary and very friendly and very interested and very supportive

Maureen Dowd writes that Shrub prefers people who feed him “swaggering fictions” rather than uncomfortable facts.

I haven’t (hitherto) piled on to Bernie Kerik, Chimpy’s nominee to head the Dept of Heimat Security, mostly because everyone else was doing it. And every article and blog post seems to have some other detail: the Village Voice has articles about the crappy job he did in NY; Talking Points Memo has been trying to figure out what happened while he was supposed to be training Iraqi police that made him leave prematurely; there have been stories about questionable business connections, using NYPD personnel for personal business, thuggery in Saudi Arabia, an illegitimate child he abandoned in Korea, etc. It’s too much for any one story, but this one is a good brief overview. Kerik’s appointment suggests to me that Bush has no intention of making the DHS, whose establishment he opposed, work. Which is good and bad news because, like the intelligence reform bill just passed, you’d like to see coordination improved to prevent a future 9/11, without all the police-state add-on’s.

For me, though, one single sentence of Kerik’s disqualifies him from the post: “If you put Senator Kerry in the White House, I think you are going to see that [terrorist attacks] happen.” He has proven his willingness to politicize the issue of terrorism for partisan purposes.

Speaking of people in jobs they are unfit for, Secretary of Defensiveness Rumsfeld says he is surprised that the media focused on the questions posed to him by troops yesterday about vehicle armor, and National Guard units getting stuck with antiquated equipment, and the stop-loss program, and why soldiers weren’t being paid and why National Guards now doing the exact same job as the regular military are being paid less, and whether they couldn’t just all go to Disneyland instead (really), when otherwise “[i]t It was a very fine, warm, enjoyable meeting. There were lots of questions; they covered the full spectrum. There were questions that were highly complimentary and very friendly and very interested and very supportive.” Incidentally, the armor question was fed to Spc. Wilson by Edward Lee Pitts of the Chattanooga Times, frustrated by Rummy’s refusal to answer questions from actual journalists.

Australian PM and racist swine John Howard says it is “common sense” to condition aid to aboriginal communities on things like making their children wash their faces twice a day.

Bush attended a Hanukkah ceremony today, although he was heard to comment that the lamps wouldn’t have needed to burn for eight days if there had been enough oil wells in Alaska. Note that in the picture in this story of the menorah-lighting (performed by the children of an army rabbi (“one of our Jewish chaplains”) deployed in Iraq, because even Hanukkah is actually about his stupid war now, Shrub’s chimplike head is uncovered.

Tantamount to discipline?

As we know, US soldiers never “torture” prisoners, they “abuse” them. But when the WaPo says that 4 Special Forces soldiers have been “disciplined” for “abusing” prisoners with tasers (the NYT uses the same wording in its headline), we know that “disciplined” isn’t a euphemism for, say, going to prison but for...wait for it... receiving letters of reprimand. Jolly strict letters of reprimand, I’m sure. Pentagon spokesmoron Lawrence Di Rita was asked whether the use of tasers was tantamount to torture and replied, “I have nothing to say on that. I just don’t know.” Don’t know? Well I have a suggestion for how to dispel Di Rita’s lack of clarity on whether tasering is torture, and it involves another press conference, 4 reporters (perhaps including Helen Thomas), 4 taser guns, and my VCR recording the whole thing.

What is the WaPo trying to say when it includes the story “Chicken Genome Decoded” in the “Washington in Brief” section?

From Knight Ridder: “There is no comprehensive way to quantify how rebel activity has been affected nationwide by the Fallujah assault. American officials no longer make available to reporters a daily tally of the number of incidents reported around the country.” Not that reporters should consider Pentagon figures to be “comprehensive” in the first place, of course.

The Bush admin files a friend-of-the-Lord brief asking the Supreme Court to allow displays of the 10 Commandments in court houses. Evidently they are “historic symbols of law” and not of religion. Who knew?

Hamid Karzai calls for a “jihad” against opium. Jihad, Afghanistan, that always goes well.

I don’t want people going out inciting people against devil worshippers

Europe continues a move away from freedom of speech. The British government is introducing a bill to punish the incitement of religious hatred. Which is subjective enough to potentially cover criticizing or making fun of religions (Rowan Atkinson is campaigning against the bill). Any religion. The Tories think it shouldn’t cover Satanists but Home Sec David Blunkett, who likes raising a bit of hell himself, says, “I don’t want people going out inciting people against devil worshippers.”

And the French are passing a law to ban anti-gay or sexist insults. The Catholic Church is not happy. In the interests of improving your vocabulary, this is The Times’s translation from France Soir: “Calling a woman mal baisée (sexually frustrated) or uttering a homophobic enculé (a***hole) could cost you six months’ jail.” [That’s not one * too many--the Times means arsehole] The group SOS homophobie plans to prosecute soccer fans who chant pédés (queers) at players. Although it is expected to be dropped at the conference stage, there is also a provision against making fun of the handicapped, which was inserted by a homophobic MP trying to imply that homosexuality, and presumably being a woman, were also handicaps (the MP is a woman). Job discrimination against homosexuals will also be banned. This is the country which is busily expelling Muslim girls wearing headscarves, and Sikhs, from public schools, so a bit of a mixed message really.

You go to war with the Army you have

In Kuwait, a US soldier asked Secretary of War Rumsfeld why, after 3 years of warfare, “we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles.” Rummy’s callous, dismissive response: “You go to war with the Army you have.” Also, he added, who needs armor anyway? “You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and it can (still) be blown up.”

To recap: North Korea finally admitted kidnapping Japanese citizens, but claimed they had almost all died, and their remains conveniently washed out to sea in floods. Last month they gave back what they said were the remains of a Japanese woman, who they said had committed suicide 17 years after her kidnapping. The DNA shows that the remains are not hers.

The British Tory party is pushing an issue they hope to ride back into power: letting homeowners kill burglars.

The myth that the terrorists are fighting a foreign occupation

Bush went to Camp Pendleton today, in his spiffy new Kim Jong Il/Bond villain uniform.


Despite it being December 7, he made only one glancing reference to Pearl Harbor. He did, however, talk about 9/11, once again linking it to Iraq: “Our success in Iraq will make America safer for us and for future generations. As one Marine sergeant put it, ‘I never want my children to experience what we saw in New York, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania.’” He also went on and on about how wonderful soldiers are, which would be fine if he ever did the same--and meant it--for teachers or doctors.

He also said that “When Iraqis choose their leaders in free elections, it will destroy the myth that the terrorists are fighting a foreign occupation and make clear that what the terrorists are really fighting is the will of the Iraqi people”. “Myth” is too silly to need a comment from me, so let’s focus on the notion of a single, undivided “will of the Iraqi people.” There is no such thing, and the concept is actually dangerous in an ethnically, religiously and politically divided polity like Iraq’s, because it treats dissent, compromise and pluralism as illegitimate. There is no room for a Kurd, a Shiite or indeed a secularist in this “will of the Iraqi people.”

Also, he said all this just three days after praising general slash president slash dictator Musharaf as proving that Muslim societies can “self-govern.”

Speaking of champions of democracy, Vladimir Putin says he “cannot imagine” how elections will take place in Iraq.

The Serbian military is paying a pension to indicted war criminal Ratko Mladic (remember him?). Mladic is of course in hiding, and his check is picked up by a relative.

Pakistan’s federal law banning the execution of minors has been overturned, allowing Punjab province to hang criminals as young as... 7. But at least they can self-govern.

Karzai explains his strategy for hiding male pattern baldness.

Or maybe the Cookie Monster didn’t want to be seen with Chimpy

Monday George Bush met the presidents of Senegal and Iraq, the king of Jordan and the Cookie Monster. Also, Elmo. No pictures were taken, or none I could find, which happens when US presidents meet controversial figures like Salman Rushdie or the Dalai Lama.

Karzai was inaugurated as president of Afghanistan, after swearing to uphold Islam. Cheney and Rumsfeld were on hand, Cheney telling US troops occupying the country that “For the first time the people of this country are looking confident about the future of freedom and peace.” And then he and Rummy ran for their lives, having been advised not to let the sun set on them in Kabul because it was too dangerous.

The WaPo does a very respectable job of discrediting Bush’s claim that the attack on the US embassy in Saudi Arabia had anything to do with elections in Iraq. If only they had fact-checked him so assiduously before the election.

Practicing the 3 F’s in Fallujah

(Updated at end)

A shopping center in Wales is using a webcam to assure parents that Santa isn’t molesting their children. Ho ho ho.

The US military’s plans for Fallujah show a surprising familiarity with the works of Michel Foucault. They will take DNA samples and retinal scans from every Fallujahovian, make them wear badges with their addresses at all times, and perform forced labor cleaning up the messes the US made in the city. Says a colonel quoted by the Boston Globe, “You have to say, ‘Here are the rules,’ and you are firm and fair. That radiates stability.” Firm, fair, and I think you’re leaving out “fascist.” The colonel says they should stop trying all that “Oprah shit” in Iraq, because Iraqis just want to “figure out who the dominant tribe is” and follow it. So we’re modeling our strategy on wolf packs now. Explains all the territory-marking.

Firm and fair.... fucker
(Update: Bush said today, “The American people must understand that democracy just doesn’t happen overnight. It is a process. It is an evolution. After all, look at our own history. We had great principles enunciated in our Declarations of Independence and our Constitution, yet, we had slavery for a hundred years.” So he’s establishing slavery in Fallujah because it’s part of a process, an evolutionary process, yet. In 100 years they’ll be ready for a major civil war and then another 100 years of segregation and the denial of civil rights and then.... See, and you thought Bush didn’t have a plan.)

Better than Christmas

US Marine Colonel Ron Johnson, on Iraqi elections: “The idea of being able to vote is so exciting to these people, it’s better than Christmas.” What, even better than the birth of our Lord and Savior? Johnson’s a regular Lawrence of frickin’ Arabia.

Speaking of military morons, Mark Kimmitt, M.M., reappears, telling Al-Jazeera that the new photos of prisoner abuse will be used as a “tool” to show the US military in a negative light. And that’s Kimmitt’s job.

Still speaking of military morons, Pakistani’s General Musharaf shows, in a WaPo interview, how deeply he has entered into underwear-shall-be-worn-on-the-outside territory. His nation presided over an irresponsible spread of nuclear technology, but it would show “a lack of trust” in him personally to demand to interview A Q Khan. And there is “total democracy in Pakistan” because he personally holds the country together--how very Sun King of him; no wonder he gets along so well with the Texas Twit. And Bushies are briefing the press that his refusal to give up his army post is of no significance.

Carl Hiaasen notes that before the election FEMA spent a lot of money compensating people in the Miami-Dade area for hurricane damage, despite the fact that the Miami-Dade area was not hit by any hurricanes.

Responding to Tommy Thompson’s rather belated warning about the danger of the US food supply being poisoned, Bush says, “We’re doing everything we can to protect the American people.” Don’t you feel reassured by that vague statement from a man who once survived an attack by a hostile pretzel?

The Thai government has gone ahead with its plans to end the civil war with Muslim separatists by dropping litter on them, folded into origami birds. Said the military, one of these puppies dropped from 10,000 feet can take out a farm house. OK, they didn’t say that, but it still seems like a transparent PR stunt to me, from a government simultaneously planning to give itself the power to detain people without trial.

I'm going to Disneyl... I mean Tora Bora!

The Scottish Parliament has its own website now, and “We hae producit information anent the Pairlament in a reenge o different leids tae help ye tae find oot mair.” So that’s convenient.

Note that the announcement that Secretary of War Rumsfeld will be staying on came the day after he appeared on Fox trash-talking Iran.

Afghanistan is planning to turn the Tora Bora caves into a tourist destination.

An Israeli bank issues a credit card that doesn’t work on the Sabbath.

More pictures of tortured Iraqi prisoners surface.

The position of our government is that the will of the people must be known and heard

The US government says that it’s ok if evidence derived from torture is used in the Guantanamo tribunals. The argument was made in district court by Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Brian Boyle--not just any deputy associate attorney general, but the principal deputy associate attorney general. Really, if the US government is going to argue in favor of torture, the argument should be made by someone a little higher up.

Bush: “It’s time for the Iraqi citizens to go to the polls. And that’s why we are very firm on the January 30th date.” In what way does that constitute an argument? The reason the Iraqis should vote on Jan. 30 is that “it’s time.” That’s all ya got?

Chimpy really does have an extraordinary talent for making anything he says sound empty and meaningless. In that same mini-news conference he continued his discourse on democratic political theory, in the tradition of Locke, Montesquieu, Madison and “Democracy for Dummmies,” this time talking about Ukraine: “The position of our government is that the will of the people must be known and heard. ... But any election in any country must be -- must reflect the will of the people and not that of any foreign government.” Which means what, if anything, in practical terms, in policy terms? Those words literally tell you nothing about anything. He has an ability to answer a question, and the sum total of knowledge and understanding in the universe actually declines.

If you’re lucky, it’s only a pop quiz

Headline from the Press Association for a British story: “Man Released after Terrorism Quiz.” If a car bomb leaves the station going west at 30 mph....

WaPo headline: “Lesbian Minister’s Credentials Revoked.” I didn’t even know there was a lesbian licensing board.

The US Embassy in Iraq gives up on using the road to the Baghdad Airport, and the adopt-a-highway program may also be dropped.




Incidentally, I meant the thing in the post title about pop quiz as a comment on “terrorism quiz” in the first item (a pop as opposed to a bang), not as a comment on my notion of a lesbian licensing board in the second item (a pop as opposed to a bang) (I don’t know what that would mean, but it sounds dirty, which is the important thing).

Sometimes a train metaphor is just a train metaphor

Alabama, whose politics are always good for sick entertainment, has a state legislator, one Gerald Allen, who wishes to ban books with gay characters or otherwise serve the “homosexual agenda” from public libraries, including in universities (they have universities in Alabama, who knew?). Sez Mr. Allen, “Our culture, how we know it today, is under attack from every angle.” I’m sure some angles worry him more than others. Sez Mr. Allen, “It’s a small minority group of citizens who drive the train on our culture.” Some alarmist from the Southern Poverty Law Center says this sounds like Nazi book burning, but in fact Allen advocates burying the books in a big hole, so that’s ok then.