The farce of democracy

Note to London Times: was it necessary that a story about a move towards employing fashion models with more normal weights be headlined “Purge on Anorexics”?

Most useful information of the day: the NYT says that while pressing 0 in automated phone systems usually no longer gets you a live human being, hitting it 3 or 4 times may.

From the Daily Telegraph:

Two women aged 34 and 38 have been charged with prostitution for offering sex from their hot-dog stand in Long Island, New York, which traded under the name Double Delicious.

"We’ve never seen hot-dogs mixed with sex before," said a police spokesman. "There are so many jokes, so little time."

The Massachusetts Lottery Commission went to court to defeat a lottery winner’s wish to be paid in a lump sum. So instead, 94-year old Louise Outing will get her $5.6m in installments over 20 years.

Several Sunni groups describe polling stations as “centers of atheism” and warn Iraqis against “the farce of democracy.” They’re not so big on farce; they prefer more sophisticated forms of entertainment like public stonings.

All the election workers in Mosul have quit following death threats.

Whatever Happened To...?

Welcome to the annual
“Whatever Happened To...?” Awards for 2004,
in which I pick out a few news stories, individuals, phrases, etc. that were seen briefly, if you were alert enough (like Janet Jackson’s nipple), and then dropped out of sight with major questions still unanswered (unlike Janet Jackson’s nipple).

Let’s begin:

What was the US’s precise role in the Haitian coup in February? What did we know and when did we know it? Did we actually require Aristide to resign the presidency as a condition for saving his life?

In October 2003 the Toledo Blade ran a series about a US military unit that went on a mass killing spree in Vietnam in 1967. In February, the Pentagon announced it would investigate. So?

Before Yushchenko, there was President Chen of Taiwan, who during that country’s elections (March 2004), claimed to have been the victim of a weird assassination attempt, with homemade bullets, and no one was really sure what actually happened if anything, then nothing.

Abu Ghraib: Seymour Hersh and even Rumsfeld said that there was much worse to come in the way of photographs and film, so where is it? Rummy said (in May) that he would really love to release all the pictures, but the darned lawyers wouldn’t let him. Guess the lawyers still have him all tied up, metaphorically speaking, with a hood over his head, pointing at his genitals and laughing, metaphorically speaking (or not). Also, weren’t we supposed to have torn down Abu Ghraib by now?

The lists of casualties in Iraq issued by the Pentagon never include contractors, security guards, and mercenaries of all sorts. It continues to be the case that we rarely find out who any of these people (alive or dead) are, just where the US, Halliburton etc are recruiting these people who are then imported into Iraq, given guns and immunity from the local law, and turned loose. However in April there was this article about one who had been a death squad assassin for South Africa’s apartheid government.

May: the Sunday Times (London) reported that one of the intended 9/11 hijackers, Niaz Khan, had turned himself in to the FBI a year and a half before 9/11, was questioned and then let go. Silly me, I expected a shit-storm of vituperation and investigations. When an FBI person told the Independent, “Every effort was made,” I wrote, “Hopefully, that phrase will be very slowly, very firmly shoved up the FBI’s collective ass over the next few months.” Didn’t happen. The Sunday Times article is here; there are links to other articles here and here.

Friendly militias. In August, Paul Wolfowitz proposed to the House Armed Services Committee that the Pentagon build a “global anti-terrorist network of friendly militias,” death squads, warlords and the like. There were no angry editorials, denunciations by John Kerry, nothing, so in October they slipped it into a Pentagon authorization bill, and away we go.

September: Insurgents took over a school in Beslan, and Russia let loose a blizzard of lies that remain unresolved, even while Putin used the incident to tighten his authoritarian grip on all of Russia and eliminate democratic election of governors. Two reporters who might have negotiated with the rebels were, respectively, poisoned and arrested. Russia low-balled the number of hostages, then claimed with no proof that the rebels were Arab rather than Chechen, and kept their demands, which were related to Chechnya, out of the media, even while the authorities took hostages of their own, the families of Chechen rebel leaders.

September: did N Korea test a nuclear device, or what?

October: the Al Qaqaa Cock-Up. 380 tons of explosives were looted from a military base after US forces searched it, then left the doors unlocked.

October: bombed a wedding in Fallujah. Never admitted it was a wedding.

November: The Marine who shot the unarmed wounded prisoner in the mosque, was he ever, like, arrested, or given a stern talking to, or something?

November: Colombia claimed there was an attempt to assassinate Bush while he was in the country.

Did we ever find out who was responsible for the provision in the appropriations bill allowing committee chairs the right to look at anyone’s tax returns?

I’d like to give a special blogger’s fond farewell to two phrases that helped make 2004 so much fun: “weapons of mass destruction-related program activities” (from the State of the Union Address) and “member of the reality-based community.”


And then there are the people of 2004:

A.Q. Khan, we hardly knew ye.

That woman sterilized by Tom Coburn.

Vincent White. American adviser to the Afghan government, tossed in prison on trumped up sex charges when he interfered with corrupt contracts.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. At the beginning of the year we’d never heard of him, then he was the biggest terrorist ever, although the US seemed unsure even about the number of legs he possessed, then the US military razed a city to the ground for refusing to hand him over, before admitting he had probably left Fallujah before the bombing started, then evidently stopped caring where he was or what he was doing.

Also riding the roller coaster that is the American attention span: Achmed Chalabi, “hero in error”: he was under indictment for money laundering, then he wasn’t; he was America’s bestest bud, then Bush said he might have met him on a rope line one time; he was on the governing council, then it looked like they reduced the number of seats in the National Council just to get rid of him, then he showed up anyway, and now he’s reinvented himself as a Shiite anti-American, and no one’s even mentioning the whole spying-for-Iran thing anymore.

Chalabi’s nephew. The head of the war crimes trial of Saddam, then wanted for murder, now... still in exile, I think.

Iyad “Comical” Allawi, catapulted into power by the US without some basic questions about his past being answered. In London in the ‘70s, did he just spy on Iraqi exiles for Saddam, or did he kill them? I don’t know the answer, does George Bush? Does he care?

Mary Cheney. She’s still a lesbian, right?

We will prevail over this destruction

Bush’s emptiest piece of phrase-making about the Tsunami Tsuris (missed it earlier): “We will prevail over this destruction.”

Speaking of empty swaggering rhetoric, Yanukovich is refusing to resign as prime minister of Ukraine (the parliament’s vote to fire him was non-binding, and the presidential election hasn’t been certified yet), saying, “It is my firm position that I have no intention of resigning. They are insisting on this because, before as now, they are quaking in their shoes.” There should be some sort of three strikes law on cowboy rhetoric by politicians, punishable by exclusion from all public offices. Also, wrong week to be talking about “quaking.”

For the sake of Iraq’s children

China passes a law making it illegal for Taiwan to declare itself independent.

If someone doesn’t come up with a proper name for the disaster soon, I’m going to start using Tsunami Tsuris, and none of us want to see that.

The London Times describes a cartoon being used to recruit Iraqis to join the police:

an evil foreigner — a cigar-smoking bald thug with a handlebar moustache — wants to blow up Iraq’s electricity pylons. To do so, he hires a bug-eyed junkie, a jailbird who will do anything for money. Armed with sticks of dynamite, the drug addict carries out his mission, plunging hospital surgeries and terrified children into darkness. Angry locals, tired of the chaos, call in a squad of super-muscled policemen, who race to the scene, guns blazing, on motorcycles. The baddies are handcuffed and the final message from the hero is to call the police — “for the sake of Iraq’s children”.

They have only this one (hilarious) image from it. If anyone comes across more, please drop me an email.

I’m trying to set an example

Patt Morrison on why Bush should run for president of Iraq:

• Bush could wear his "mission accomplished" flight suit all the time.
• Iraq is running out of its own politicians.
• Unmarried daughters have to live at home and stay out of trouble.
• No term limits.
• Iraqis love faith-based initiatives.

More.

Shrub finally talks publicly about the earthquake (I guess he got all that brush cleared--first things first), but his statement seemed fuzzy even for him. Bush being Bush, his notions of how to respond were very top-down, both domestically and internationally. Domestically, there is no call for Americans to help, although I gotta think American generosity would provide a little more than the $35 million Bush has promised. In the q&a, he does say, “the American people will be very generous... there’s... a lot of individual giving in America.” Not exactly a rousing rallying cry, and he doesn’t say that he’s setting an example, not in the generosity department anyway:

Q Any plans for New Year’s Eve?

THE PRESIDENT: Early to bed.

Q New Year’s resolutions?

THE PRESIDENT: I’ll let you know. Already gave you a hint on one, which is my waistline. I’m trying to set an example.

As I said, first things first.

Internationally too, it’s all about government action: “This morning, I spoke with the leaders of India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia... I praised their steadfast leadership during these difficult times” (the White House website even has a carefully posed picture of him speaking on the phone to the Sri Lankan president); “The United States will continue to stand with the affected governments as they care for the victims.” If he has also called the International Red Cross or any other relief organization to ask what they need, offer to stand with them and praise their steadfast leadership, he doesn’t mention the fact. I’m especially worried about this because so much of the devastation was in the Indonesian province of Acheh, where the government has been fighting separatists ruthlessly, and I don’t trust it not to take advantage of this situation. Ditto Sri Lanka.

In the q&a, a reporter asked about the Sunnis pulling out of the Iraqi elections, and while Bush correctly pointed out that it was actually just a Sunni party (albeit the largest one), he then said that he’d talked to Prez Yawer, “who happens to be a Sunni,” and he’d rather take the word of, well, the only Sunni he can actually get on the phone (and that’s only because Bush appointed Yawer to his current position).

Bush also quoted Osama bin Laden’s statement, even though the tape hasn’t been authenticated yet. Also, you can tell that the American elections are over, because Bush actually said out loud the name of He Who Must Not Be Spoken Of.

The United States is not stingy

Ron Suskind refers to the Bush cabinet as an “anti-meritocracy.” Spread it around.

YOU’RE SO VAIN, YOU PROBABLY THINK THIS IMPUTATION OF STINGINESS IS ABOUT YOU: Colin Powell asserts that “The United States is not stingy,” in response to a comment by the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator that didn’t actually mention the United States. Bush, by the way, hasn’t said a word about the disaster in public. (Update: the White House says it doesn’t want to be all touchy-feely like Clinton, and that “actions speak louder than words.” For example, Bush expressed his concern with the victims today by riding a bicycle and clearing brush.)

On the one hand, Russia is saying that it could work with Yushchenko, provided he not get too uppity, but it’s also claiming that Sunday’s re-run was as fraudulent as the first two rounds, and has failed to acknowledge Pock-Faced Mr. Y as the winner.

Detail from a story in the London Times about life in Baghdad:

When the vehicle was 15m away, the soldier opened fire and shot the two occupants dead. The children down the street did not even stop their game.

After World War II, Pope Pius XII opposed returning Jewish children whom the church had protected to their families unless they promised to bring up as Christian those who had been baptized.

Missouri legalizes fishing with bare hands (and feet).

Appropriate

Bush’s immediate response to the earthquake + tsunami (does anyone have a name for the disaster yet? I haven’t been watching CNN, but they must have a name and graphics and theme music by now, that’s what CNN is there for) was to offer “all appropriate assistance”. Turns out, this was just $15 million. Will some intrepid reporter ask Scottie McClellan to give the administration’s definition of “appropriate”? (Later: they’ve added another $20 million. Color me unimpressed.)

Election fun ’n games

The largest Sunni party in Iraq is very careful to state that is withdrawing from the election, not boycotting it. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean either. With barely a month left, Americans are still talking about tinkering with the system so that the Sunnis won’t feel left out. They might have seats set aside in the “transitional assembly” (which in practice would give vastly disproportionate influence to the few Sunni voters who were both willing and able to vote, like they were Vermont or something), or they might be given a share of seats in the administration, in which case why bother having an election at all? Either way, January 30 is likely to be run on the basis of an election law written on the back of an envelope the night before, which doesn’t inspire that much confidence, even if it’s a really nice envelope.

Yanukovich is refusing to accept that he lost the Ukrainian election, claiming there were at least 5,000 irregularities, not counting the ones he was responsible for. He’d be a bit more credible if he hadn’t announced before the first vote was cast that he wouldn’t accept any results which didn’t show him winning. He clearly thinks he can do the “people power” thing that Yushchenko did, but he lacks a color. Orange did so well for Yushchenko, but he doesn’t even seem to have thought about his color.


Maybe he can hire Tom Ridge; he’s got a lot of free time now.

I don’t expect it to be nobody at all

The White House issued a statement that Bush expressed his “sincere condolences” over the earthquake + tidal waves disaster. Isn’t it nice that they specify when he’s being sincere? Wonder how they know?

9.0! I mean, I live in California, where the state sport is guessing the exact magnitude of earthquakes within the shortest time possible after they occur, but 9.0, shit.

Dave Barry’s year in review.

The WaPo has a story about the US increasing its aid for Laos’s efforts to clean up unexploded bombs from “laughable” to “a pittance.” Now when I last wrote about this, nearly 6 years ago, I had the tidbit that the US (whose bombs these are, not only because we made Laos the most bombed nation in the history of the world but because American pilots that aborted their bombing runs to North Vietnam simply dropped their bombs on Laos so they wouldn’t have to land with bombs on board) had consistently refused to tell Laos how to defuse the bombs, making the process that much more difficult.

Uzbekistan’s elections were today and were very exciting, except for the no-opposition-parties-allowed-on-the-ballot thing. But according to President-for-Life Karimov, there is no “real” opposition anyway: “When someone artificially argues that we have not registered some opposition parties that were claiming to do something, let’s be objective.” Think that would work in Iraq?



Asked about the Sunni boycott, which seems to be increasingly worrisome to the very American officials who wrote the very Iraqi election laws that are creating all the problems (distributing seats not according to population but according to votes cast), Colin Powell voices his optimism: “If it was nobody at all [voting in Sunni regions], I think that would be problematic. But I don’t expect it to be nobody at all.” They really don’t know how to respond to a boycott that was predictable. Here’s one unnamed US official: “The Sunnis would have to live with their own decisions if they boycott. Do they really want … a civil war against a Shia population that outnumbers them 3 to 1?” They’re willing to take on the US military, so yeah, I don’t think they’re that worried about, say, the guys we’ve recruited into the Iraqi police and military.

Visible minority ethnics

After a day without British newspapers (they all took Xmas off), I was just panting for the Boxing Day resumption, so this post is entirely British.

The Queen’s Christmas message today was all about tolerance and how wonderful diversity is. I assume she’s planning to keep Prince Philip locked in the basement this year.

And to fuck that message up, Britain is having a “white” Christmas. Brits who placed bets on a white Xmas (I gave the odds in a previous post) are expected to take more than £500,000 off the bookies.

As part of the new tolerance, London’s Metropolitan police will now officially refer to the, um, tolerated ones as “visible minority ethnics.” However this PC term is being challenged by the Queen’s English Society for its grammatically incorrect attempt to pluralize an adjective.

Still, this brand-new racial euphemism is my gift to you all, because you can never have enough racial euphemisms. Or socks.

Planted

Rummy went to Iraq to show that his soft gooey heart indeed bleeds for the wounded troops (Americans, anyway; with all the talk of the Coalition of the Willing, you never see an American political or military leader visit the wounded of other COW countries--don’t forget Poland!), but gave the game away when he observed that a softball question from one of the troops certainly hadn’t been “planted” by reporters. Yes, Rummy’s alleged heart bleeds only for himself, the true victim of a sneaky Improved Explosive Question (IEQ). He does not GET to dismiss Spc. Wilson’s question as “planted.” Prick.

Santa’s retarded brother goes to Iraq

The Pentagon website has a story with the least likely headline ever: “Rumsfeld Cheers Troops.”

Tells those troops, “you will look back when you are about my age, and you will be proud.” And they should ignore the “naysayers and the doubters,” keeping in mind that there have been doubters “throughout every conflict in the history of the world”, and you gotta figure they’re right only about half the time.

The Pentagon denied that this trip had anything to do with the armor thing or the autosigner thing, and denies that the Rumsfeld seen in Iraq was actually a robot.

Rummy, who didn’t even bother putting on the red costume, gives Sgt Chris Scott, who had been hoping for a pony, a Purple Heart.

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.”