Double standards

Bush, in an act of typical imperial arrogance (oddly combined with furtiveness, since he announced it when most people are celebrating Festivus), will renominate 20 of his crappiest failed judicial appointments. I’ve previously written about Priscilla Owen here and William Pryor here and here (see also this Salon article on Pryor). Press secretary and constitutional scholar McClellan insists that, “The Senate has a constitutional obligation to vote up or down on a president’s judicial nominees,” but failed to specify where in the Constitution that “obligation” is to be found.

France has outlawed insulting homosexuals (as a group) and sexist comments. There goes the whole basis of French culture. The Guardian notes that the law could mean that “devout Christians who denounce homosexuality as ‘deviant’ would be prosecuted; comedians can no longer make mother-in-law jokes; the producers and distributors of the camp comedy film La Cage Aux Folles could end up in the dock; and parts of the Old Testament might be banned.” So, yeah, I support free speech and shit, but wouldn’t that be just cool?

Putin complains that the US has double standards for saying that occupied Iraq is ready for elections but occupied Chechnya is not. OK, fair enough, Vlad, but how does your saying exactly the opposite not mean that you also have double standards?

He also accused the West of fomenting “permanent revolution” in Ukraine and elsewhere in the ex-Soviet Union. Dubya = Trotsky?

And Putin says he can work with Yuschenko, as long as he doesn’t appoint any “people who build their political ambitions on anti-Russian slogans” to his administration. So by “work with,” he means “dictate to.”

Ricky Gervais of “The Office” will write an episode of The Simpsons.

Rummy’s core

Rumsfeld says he is “truly saddened” that anyone thinks he isn’t doing his very best to protect the troops in Iraq. In fact, when you think about it, being attacked by those criticisms is just the same as those troops being blown up and shit. “You get up in the morning and you think about what our troops are doing, and I must say, if they can do what they’re doing, I can do what I’m doing.” I’m sure the troops felt equally inspired by watching you survive the suicide attack by that guy who asked you about the lack of adequate armor on humvees. Prick.

He says that the “grief [of relatives of dead troops] is something I feel to my core.” Oddly enough his “core” is composed of the same material he will find in his stocking this Xmas: hard, black coal.

Conducting offensive operations to target specific objectives

In response to the bombing/rocket attack/whatever it was in Mosul, the entire city is shut down, with residents banned from the bridges, schools closed, etc. US military spokesmodel Lt. Col. Paul Hastings gave us this example of military-speak: “We are conducting offensive operations to target specific objectives.” So informative.

Speaking of offensive operations, the documents the ACLU has released reveal that prisoners in Guantanamo were wrapped in an Israeli flag. Clearly, this required someone actually to plan this bit of psychological pressure in advance, and transport an Israeli flag to Gitmo (I presume US military bases don’t have Israeli flags just lying around). Someone really put some thought and some work into this childishness.

Not a nation of quitters

Leftist FARC rebels in Colombia have rejected the government’s deal/threat that if they didn’t release 63 hostages, including 3 US “contractors,” their leader would be extradited to the US. FARC denounces this as blackmail, and it’s always so good to hear kidnappers taking the moral high ground, isn’t it?

Speaking of the moral high ground, Israeli settlers in Gaza have taken to wearing Stars of David, orange rather than yellow, in protest at the possibility that they might some day be forced out of the land they stole.

Blair went to Iraq today, unexpectedly, and enunciated the strongest reason for not leaving Iraq (British troops not leaving Iraq, obviously; Tony himself left Iraq almost immediately): “Whatever people feel about the conflict, we British are not a nation of quitters.”


Trying just a little too hard.



I can fly!



Here I just find the plastic forks amusing for some reason.

The pride is back

Putin, visiting Schleswig, Germany, tells protesters against the war in Chechnya, “There has been no more war in Chechnya for three years. It is over. You can go home. Merry Christmas.”

Hey Putin, shouldn’t that be happy holid... ah, fuck it.

Actually, a word of compromise to the Christers: you can say Merry Christmas all you like, provided you only do it on fucking Christmas itself. 24 hours, that’s it. I’ll just hide under the blankets that day.

Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, possessor of the most WASPy name in all Christendom, puts a positive spin on the bombing of the US base in Mosul, in which at least 24 US & Iraqi soldiers, as well as contractors, were killed: “In the chaos that followed that attack, there was no differentiation by nationality; whether one wore a uniform or civilian clothes, they were all brothers-in-arms taking care of one another. And I think that’s something that all Americans and, indeed, all Iraqis can be very proud of.”

Evidently the British Parliament only has 93 Luddites

The 9th Circuit upholds a Clinton-era law criminalizing people giving funds to “terrorist” organizations. The Court ruled that no one can challenge the State Dept decision to list an organization as terrorist, a decision that in recent years has often been made as a gift to America’s good liberal friends like Putin, or as part of a quid pro quo.

I had forgotten that Germany was allowing Jews to immigrate from the former Soviet Union--not Germans, so this is a penance thing, and really the least they could do. This year more Jews went there than to Israel. But now after 15 years Germany has decided to scale back the program and only admit those who know German, are under 45 and self-supporting. So was it necessary for the Daily Telegraph to report this under the chilling headline, “Jews to Face New Rules in Germany”?

Bark mitzvah.

The new British home secretary, Charles Clarke, described by the Times parliamentary sketch writer as “arrogance on legs,” calls opponents of compulsory ID cards “Luddites.” Yes, they oppose ID cards because they are against the mechanization of cotton spinning. Clarke added that it would make renting videos easier, which is probably why Parliament passed the bill 385 to 93.

The Bill Clinton Presidential Library is negotiating a joint tourist package with Graceland. Plan your vacations accordingly. You know, that could be an entirely different experience just depending on which one you went to first.

Speaking of vacations, a French magistrate went to the Conference of European General Prosecutors in Germany, where he delivered an hour-long speech on ethics, and then stole a German prosecutor’s credit card and used it in a brothel.

At today’s Ukrainian presidential debates, square-headed Mr. Y told icky-faced Mr. Y, “If you think you can win and be president of all of Ukraine, you are deeply mistaken. You will be president of part of Ukraine. I am not struggling for power; I am struggling against bloodshed.” Damn self-sacrificing of ya, square-headed Mr. Y!

It’s in our long-term interest that we succeed: I watch Chimpy’s press conference so you don’t have to

Transcript.

GeeDubya started off with a lie, “Now I’ll be glad to answer some questions,” and just continued lying from there.

On Kerik, “We -- we’ve vetted a lot of people in this administration, and we -- we vetted people in the first term. We’re vetting people in the second term. And I’ve got great confidence in our vetting process.” It just sounds so dirty when he says it.

Asked who he’d pick as national intelligence director: “I’m going to find somebody who knows something about intelligence.” Sorta like Diogenes. Which raises the question how Shrub, of all people, would recognize somebody who knows something about intelligence.

Rummy shouldn’t be fired because he provides “comfort and solace” to the soldiers who his policies put in Walter Reed in the first place. And I’m guessing he even signs their casts with an autosigner. Shrub believes Rummy’s job is complex: “It’s complex in times of peace. And it’s complex even more so in times of war.”

“We have a vital interest in the success of a free Iraq. You see, free societies do not export terror.” Afghanistan is free now, according to Shrub, I believe, and it exports what again?

I like the idea that asking him to speak in other than vague generalities about Social Security is a trick question, trying to get him to “negotiate with myself in public, to get me to negotiate with myself in public, to say, you know, ‘What’s this mean, Mr. President, what’s that mean?’” Yeah, heaven for-fucking-fend anyone ask him what he means. He won’t negotiate with himself but he will negotiate with Congresscritters, he said. Implicit in this answer is that the American people have no part in these decisions, which will be made behind closed doors and presented to them as a fait accompli.

Reporters really have to stop with the multiple-part questions, which Bush uses to answer neither. One asked a two-parter about Social Security, the first part being something fairly general about how he could fix it without raising taxes or cutting benefits, and the second part a good specific one about how he defines people “near retirement” whose benefits he’s promised to preserve. Shrub whittered on for a bit, but given the opportunity to follow up, the reporter didn’t press him on the specific one. Better to have asked only that one, and followed up on it.

And I defy anyone to find any meaning in this:

Now the benefits, as far as I’m concerned, of the personal savings account is, one, it encourages an ownership society. One of the philosophies of this government is if you own something, it is -- it makes the country a better -- the more people who own something, the country’s better off. You have a stake in the future of the country if you own something.

On Iraq, Americans watching tv see thousands--he quickly backtracked to hundreds--of innocent Iraqis getting killed, many of them not by indiscriminate US bombing, but they don’t see small businesses starting.

About Guantanamo hurting America’s reputation, he pointed to the court decisions requiring hearings as proving that America is “a nation of laws,” without saying that those decisions overturned his policy of not being a nation of laws. But there’s a “dilemma”: “And I want to make sure before they’re released that they don’t come back to -- (laughs) -- kill again.” Amputation, I’m guessing.

Donating cigarettes to monks is a sin

Time magazine chooses Bush as man of the year for “sticking to his guns (literally and figuratively)”. I’m pretty sure that’s a metaphor having something to do with masturbation.

In his interview with Time, Bush as ever chooses his word-thingies with the utmost care, saying “we’ve got a shot” for peace in the Middle East. I’m pretty sure this gun reference is not a metaphor.

The pope warns against getting caught up in the materialism of Christmas, speaking from a window in his big honking palace.

Three election workers were killed in Iraq. Presumably someone recognized their feet. A spokesmodel for the electoral commission responds: “Every day the people are dying, okay. If there are no elections, are they going to stop? No, so we have to make it.” I’m pretty sure he was quoting the preamble to the US Constitution or Magna Charta or something.

Some of the electoral lists for the Iraqi elections: the Assembly for the Grandchildren of the Twentieth Revolution, the Niche Martyr Foundation for Islamic Notification, the Movement of Farmers and Oppressed Peoples of Kurdistan. The London Times observes that some of them haven’t gotten the whole campaigning thing down yet:

Asked by The Times about his manifesto, the leader of one small group, The Justice and Democratic Advancement Party, refused to divulge any information. “There are some people who want to steal our programme and I can’t give this to anybody,” he said.

Saddam Hussein’s lawyer passes on a message that Iraqis should boycott the elections. You’d think Saddam would support elections, since the last ones held in Iraq went in his favor 11,445,638 to 0, with a 100% turnout.

Speaking of elections, in Ukraine Yanukovych’s wife has been saying that Yushchenko’s supporters have become addicted to “narcotic-injected oranges” passed out to them.

I’ve said it before: the English will bet on anything. That said, the current odds on there being a white Christmas have been cut to 11:4 for London, so get your bets in.

Thailand will add a new warning to cigarette packages: “Donating cigarettes to monks is a sin.”

You know what they say: big feet, big election

Iraqi judges question “Chemical” Ali. Possibly about the Periodic Table.

Pinochet has a really conveniently timed “stroke.”

Telling detail: “Iraqi television shows only the feet of election officials rather than their faces, because they are terrified of their identity being revealed.”

The American Muslims have stripes

Yeah I’ve seen the Cornell study (pdf file) about attitudes to Muslims, and I’d be a lot more worried if I trusted the methodology more. But I don’t, so I’d advise the leftyblogosphere (I just made that up) to chill.

That said, I’d like to point to the part where 27% think that Muslim-Americans should be required to register and ask, what do those people think Muslims are? If this were a legal requirement, it would presumably be enforced by a punishment, so you’d have to prove that a non-registrant believed that there was no god but Allah and that Mohammed was his prophet etc etc etc. What’s worrying is that the 27% evidently do not think of Islam as a religion, a system of beliefs, but rather believe that there is something intrinsic and immutable about a person being “Muslim,” something which is visible, detectable by the authorities, like the sketches of Jews the priest shows the boyhood version of Woody Allen’s character in “Love and Death”: “Do they all have horns?” “No, those are Russian Jews; the German Jews have stripes.” Imagine the debates we could have if we passed the Compulsory Registration of Muslims Act of 2005: do we use the Nazi standards to determine who is a Muslim or the Old South’s “one drop” rule, do we subject people we suspect are “passing” to a test involving the consumption of pork products?

Strong leadership

In Britain, the Law Lords, the highest judicial body, ruled 8-1 that the law allowing indefinite detention of terrorism suspects violates their civil rights. No duh. The ruling is not binding, given parliamentary supremacy, so those locked up without trial under the law (12 of them) will not be released, although the British gov is thinking about reducing the standard of evidence, or making up new crimes, like “acts preparatory to terrorism” that these people could be tried for. Foreign Minister Jack Straw calls the decision “strident” and “simply wrong” and throws away Britain’s moral right to criticize the human rights record of any other country by adding, “On this dilemma of how to balance liberty and order, the most important liberty is the right to life. If that liberty is taken away by the terrorists, then we have not met our prime obligation as a government.”

And in the US, a federal district judge ruled that American courts have jurisdiction when the US has convinced foreign governments, in this case Saudi Arabia, to lock up Americans in their own prisons and torture them for information. The US government, in arguing the case, did not deny that it had done that, just that the legal system had no sway in such cases, or, in the words of the judge, “the United States is, in effect, arguing for nothing less than the unreviewable powers to separate an American citizen from the most fundamental of his constitutional rights merely by choosing where he will be detained or who will detain him.”

The US State Dept has designated al-Manar television, the Lebanese Hezbollah station France just banned, a terrorist organization. That’s right, a tv station = a terrorist organization. Insert obvious Fox News or Lifetime joke here. The real-life consequences of this designation is that any foreigner supporting it or associated with it can be banned from the US. The State Dept is using the word “incitement” to describe al-Manar’s nefarious, um, programming.

Hitler was a tax dodger. The bastard!

Earlier this month, I mentioned that Bush, whenever he meets a foreign leader, goes out of his way to describe him or her as a “strong leader.” He did the same with Berlusconi this week. But here’s a picture of “Comical” Allawi opening the election campaign with a bunch of candidates on the “Iraqi List,” keffiyah guys on the left, ill-fitting business suits and right-hand-holding-left-wrist guys on the right, with a big brotherish picture of Allawi behind them and the words “strong leadership” in Arabic.

I have directed that in the future I sign each letter

SCHIZOPHRENIC MUCH? Secretary of War Rumsfeld, caught using an autosigner in letters to the families of troops killed in Iraq, says “I have directed that in the future I sign each letter.” So he’s issued a directive to his right hand. But did he sign that directive personally, and wouldn’t his right hand feel as insulted as the families did not to receive a personally signed directive? Rummy’s statement adds, “I wrote and approved the now more than 1000 letters”. So he (or possibly just his right hand) wrote the letters and then he got his own approval for what he (or possibly just his right hand) had written. Get help, Rummy.



This is the banner the White House website has been using on every economic summit story, and it’s been driving me crazy. Does anyone have the faintest idea what’s supposed to be going on in the second image?

Challanges

How reassuring and, yet, not: article on the Pentagon website: “All Trucks in Iraq Have Some Form of Armor.” Some form.

The same article says that convoys are now called “combat logistics patrols.” We got us a combat logistics patrol, rocking through the night...

Speaking of jargon, I was evidently a little late in noticing the new practice of the mentally “challanged” one


calling Social Security an “unfunded liability.” Shrub of course is the biggest unfunded liability there is.

At the economic conference, Bush explained what he thinks about when he masturbates: “And I know that a million, a billion, a trillion sort of gets lost on the average listener, so I always like to explain that if you're looking at a trillion dollars, just imagine spending a dollar every second, and it would take you 32,000 years to spend a trillion dollars.”

The world’s tallest building, which will open in Taipei next year, will have the fastest elevator, capable of taking people to the top in 37 seconds.

Not connected to any decisions about operational capability

Cranky old man Zell Miller has been hired by Fox, despite the fact that Grandpa Simpson already works for the network. Just seems redundant, really.

A lawsuit has been filed in Germany against Secretary of War Rumsfeld over the torture of Iraqi prisoners. Pentagon spokesmodel Larry DiRita--last seen here saying he didn’t know if tasering prisoners was torture or not--called the lawsuit “frivolous.” Yeah, those frivolous Germans, at their frivolity again. He threatens Germany with dire consequences if the lawsuits “were ever to see the light of day,” which is a fairly insulting way to speak about the independent judicial system of a sovereign nation, made even more insulting when it comes from a talking head like DiRita instead of a policy player--like sending your secretary to tell your girlfriend you’re breaking up with her.

DiRita also made this comment today about the failure of the latest Star Wars test: “the test was not connected to any decisions about operational capability.” Sure, cuz who cares if it actually works.

Jargon alert: talking about Social Security today, Bush several times referred to the program as “unfunded.” I predict we’ll be hearing that word a lot.

Today a report was released demonstrating that students at charter schools don’t do any better than those in regular public schools (and worse at lower income levels). Outgoing Secretary of Education Rod Paige says the study “should not be used as a red flag by those with an agenda to stop the charter school movement in its tracks”. Sure, cuz who cares if they actually work. Paige added that charter schools serve students “left behind years ago” by regular schools, which is precisely what the study disproves. What I like is that on the very same day this report came out, it was reported that Jenna Bush would teach at a charter school, despite having no qualifications beyond a BA in English.

Freedom is on the march

The woman who killed her baby by cutting off her arms cites the bit in the bible about if thy right hand offend thee etc. The LA Times felt some weird journalistic obligation to call a theology teacher to find out if this was a correct reading of the passage.

It isn’t.

Chimpy presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to George Tenet, Tommy Franks and Paul Bremer. No wonder “they” hate us for our freedom. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is good for one medium serving of Freedom Fries in the White House commissary.

And I still think “Kerik” sounds like a Klingon’s name

Bush handed the D’s a powerful weapon, if they have the street smarts to use it: Bernard Kerik. Scottie McClellan said today, “Commissioner Kerik withdrew his name. The matter is closed, and now we’re moving forward on another nominee.” He wishes. The matter is not closed, because the nomination was an intelligence failure of epic proportions, given how many black marks and red flags (I’m going with color-related metaphors as an homage to Tom Ridge) Kerik had against him, including ones like the affairs and the abandoned illegitimate child, which don’t affect his ability to do the job or matter to me or probably you, but which should have been embarrassing to Bush after all the talk during the election about the sacred institution of marriage.

And as an intelligence failure, that nomination negates Bush’s claim to have his other nominees go through on the nod. Every time the R’s talk about going to a “nuclear option” to prevent filibusters and every time they talk about D “obstructionism,” the D’s need to respond “Kerik Kerik Kerik,” pointing to the object lesson, if another one was needed, why Shrub’s judgment of people doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.

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.