The fact that they’re voting, in itself, is successful

OK, one final stab at Bush’s press conference:

Can I ask a follow-up, sir? What would be a credible turnout number?

THE PRESIDENT: The fact that they’re voting, in itself, is successful.

So... one?

Really, if there are more parties on the ballot than there are electors, something has gone a little bit awry.

There is a nice piece in the Indy, behind the usual obnoxious pay barrier, by British comedian Mark Steel on the Iraqi elections, which he thinks are a bit of a farce since real power will continue to lie with the occupiers.

They won’t have any say on who runs the country, owns the country, or arms the country. So it won’t be a governing body, it will have the powers of a parish council, making pronouncements such as, “With regard to the incessant artillery fire behind the Burger King, we can’t alter the military situation. But we can come up with suggestions for how to deal with the congestion this is causing at the traffic lights on Rumsfeld Street. Now, Mrs Aziz has proposed a special lane for suicide bombers, with hefty fines for anyone blocking their way, and I for one think that’s jolly clever. But most importantly, it’s that time of year where we invite all those who wish to have stalls for the Baghdad Village Fayre. And I can tell you that Mr Mohammed has very kindly offered once again to take responsibility for the guess the weight of the hostage’ competition.”

The over-riding issues in Iraq are the occupation and the mass privatisation, which the new body will be unable to have any say in. Half of Britain goes berserk if the European Union interferes with British law by recategorising whelks or insisting we can’t set fire to asylum-seekers. So imagine what the Tories and the Daily Mail would say if we were told that, in line with EU regulations, our parliament no longer had the right to oppose the French riding tanks through our cities or the Italians swiping all our oil.

The elections only make sense in the context of the whole war, having been set up by the Americans as part of their process of controlling the region. It’s as if a pack of burglars came into your house, robbed you, then set up an election so you could vote for which member of the family filled out the form for the insurance.

So on the night of the elections in Iraq, there ought to be the shortest Election Special programme ever. Peter Snow will yell, “On the board behind me is a huge map of the country. There are hundreds of candidates, so let’s see what happens if this one over here gets 86 per cent, or if he gets absolutely none at all. All this region, from right up here to way down there, will still be run by the Americans. So there’s the result - goodnight.”

Any time we lose life it is a sad moment

In the opening remarks of his press conference (there’s a link to the transcript in my earlier post on it), Bush failed to mention the transport helicopter that had crashed, leaving it up to one of the reporters to bring up the topic. Similarly, a White House that is pathological about controlling spin, as we have seen in their insistence that the media stop using the term privatization, failed to announce that the search for Iraqi WMDs had been abandoned, leaving the timing and manner of the inevitable leak up to fate (and it was in December, a perfect time to bury a story). I’d also like to include this week’s revelation that 23 Guantanamo prisoners made a mass attempt at suicide, but since that occurred in 2003, perhaps they were right in thinking they could cover up that particular tidbit.

What I’ve concluded is that Bush especially, but also his merry minions, cannot deliver bad news; they don’t know how. Maybe it’s a psychological thing. We know that they lie, of course, deny that bad things have happened, that bad things are bad (increased violence in Iraq spun as a sign that the baddies are becoming “desperate,” etc), but when it’s undeniable and unspinnable, like a helicopter crash, and there isn’t a culprit to hunt down, they haven’t a clue how to talk about it. When he was asked about that crash, here’s what he said: “And, obviously, any time we lose life it is a sad moment.” And later he added that the American people “value life. And we weep and mourn when soldiers lose their life,” a line delivered in a very once-more-without-feeling style (three seconds later he was joking with a reporter).

I’m not looking for Clintonesque mawkishness, but he is not just any other life-valuing American experiencing a sad moment, he is the commander in chief of the armed forces, at the top of the chain of command that included those 31 dead troops. Some acknowledgment of that would be appropriate.

A Bush line I somehow missed earlier: “I will remind [Putin] that if he intends to continue to look West, we in the West believe in Western values.”

---

Douglas Feith announced his resignation today. The WaPo describes him as “a principal architect of the Defense Department’s postwar strategy in Iraq” who “devis[ed] the Pentagon’s overall counterterrorism strategy, including that used in Iraq and Afghanistan,” and quotes him:

“I don’t have any definite plans,” he said of his post-Pentagon life. “I just have some notions.”

Wasn’t that always the problem?

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. What’s that you say, Mr. Feith? The door would never hit you in the ass, but will greet you as a liberator? Whatever you say, Mr. Feith.

Getting out the fanatic vote

Four days before Iraqi elections, and the locations of polling stations still haven’t been released, but we now know that there will also be fake polling stations, to lure suicide bombers. Good, because it wasn’t going to be confusing and chaotic enough.

Personally, I doubt there will be all that much violence on election day, but you’d be a fool to count on it, so the threats have done one thing: skewed the participating electorate heavily towards the fanatics. Some of them will be the brave pro-democracy fanatics Bush keeps invoking, some will be other varieties of fanatics; Iraq has rich and diverse assortment of fanatical fauna. But in much of the country, the lack of security has already determined that the electorate will consist of an unrepresentative minority: those willing to risk their lives for their beliefs. Left out will be the “afraid of all the violence” majority.

I passed on a suggestion months ago, I think from a letter to the New York Times, that adding on a referendum on whether the US occupation should end would increase turnout dramatically. Since that didn’t make it onto the ballot, if we are to understand Sunday’s results we need to ask how the voters who are most concerned with that are going to vote. I’m unclear on this. Will they vote for anti-American parties, or will they vote for Allawi and other American puppets on the theory that if the US gets the result it wants it will leave the country alone, much the same way that the Sandinistas were voted out in Nicaragua by a country weary of years of American attacks and economic pressure.

The 4 Brits who were held in Guantanamo for 3 years have been released by the British police, and are now looking forward to selling their stories of American torture (one was told that his wife was being tortured in the next room) to the tabloids. And in response the Pentagon rolled out a spokesmodel new to me, because I think I would have remember the name: Lieutenant Commander Flex Plexico. That’s better than my previous faves, Carter Ham and Michael Formica.

Ah, I’ve just googled him. Flex is a nickname, though not so identified in the news stories. Real name: Alvin Plexico.

The Blair government, responding to a Law Lords decision that its detention of foreigners without trial was illegal because it was discriminatory, will change the law (and opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights) to expand it to include British citizens (which means they can also go after animal rights activists, who are regularly demonized by right-wing newspapers), and allow the government to order house arrest, monitoring bracelets, etc. And there’s surprisingly little outrage evident.

“I firmly planted the flag of liberty”: I blog Bush’s press conference so you don’t have to

Transcript.

our own freedom is enhanced by the expansion of freedom in other nations

You make it sound like a condiment.

We anticipate a lot of Iraqis will vote. Clearly there are some who are intimidated. ... I urge all people to vote. I urge people to defy these terrorists.

I assume he’ll be setting an example by going to Fallujah and walking people to the polls. He is so brave when others’ lives are at stake. Bring it on!

I appreciate the hard work of the United Nations, which is providing a good leadership in the ground.

Freudian slip, transcription error?

And I anticipate a grand moment in Iraqi history. If we’d been having this discussion a couple of years ago and I had stood up in front of you and said the Iraqi people would be voting, you would look at me like some of you still look at me, with a kind of blank expression.

That’s a mirror, George.

And it’s exciting times for the Iraqi people.

Terrifying, George, the word is terrifying.

Iraqi insurgents lack the “vision thing”:

These terrorists do not have the best interests of the Iraqi people in mind. They have no positive agenda. They have no clear view of a better future.

That’s also a mirror, George.

Asked what a credible turnout would be, he astonishingly fails to answer, except with the standard Special Olympics line:

The fact that they’re voting in itself is successful. Again, this is a long process. ... It’s a -- it is a grand moment for those who believe in freedom.

in the long term, our children and grandchildren will benefit from a free Iraq.

How long, George, got a time frame?

In his inaugural speech, he said something about America standing with victims of oppression, “Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there” sort of thing. So today a reporter asked about a Jordanian arrested for an anti-American speech.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I am unaware of the case. You’ve asked me to comment on something that I didn’t know took place.

If reporters only ask about stuff Shrub knows took place, press conferences would be very short affairs indeed.

Describes the Social Security crisis as “dictated by just math,” “the math shows that we have an issue,” and then tries to figure out how old a reporter’s son (who he refers to as “she” even after being corrected) will be when the system goes broke. To give him credit, he almost got his sums right. Further on Social Security:

we have a duty to act on behalf of their children and grandchildren.

We’re already giving them the benefit of a free Iraq, what more do they want?

About his mission to spread freedom everywhere:

There won’t be instant democracy.

Isn’t that we were promised in Iraq? Just add saturation bombing and stir?

And I remind people that our own country is a work in progress.

Explains all the scaffolding and visible butt cracks.

You know, we -- we -- we declared all people equal, and yet all people weren’t treated equally for a century. We said, you know, everybody counts; but everybody didn’t count.

Very zen.

He undeftly evades a question about Gonzales’s confirmation hearing remarks “that cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of some prisoners is not specifically forbidden so long as it’s conducted by the CIA and conducted overseas. Is that a loophole that you approve?”

THE PRESIDENT: Listen, Al Gonzales reflects our policy, and that is we don’t sanction torture. He will be a great Attorney General, and I call upon the Senate to confirm him.

On how wonderful his second inaugural speech was:

I firmly planted the flag of liberty

Enough with the phallic imagery already.

Peaceful nations cannot close their eyes or sit idly by in the face of genocide

I’ve been meaning for some time to swipe this quote from the website of a Grinnell College professor whose personal page links to this blog: “I wept because I had no answers, until I met a man who had no questions.”

Four British citizens are released from Guantanamo, flown back to the UK at British expense, and were then arrested. They are expected to be released in a day or two (they did confess during their 3-year sojourn at Gitmo, but that evidence can’t be used in a British court), but the UK gave some sort of promise to the US that they would be prevented from posing a threat again, one of the conditions of their release. How the UK is supposed to do that with citizens unconvicted of any crime is not clear. Yet again, the US has demanded that other countries act with as little regard for the law as we do.

Several bloggers have asked just how Iraqi voters are supposed to know where their polling stations will be. I’m rather curious about this myself. Follow the sound of gunfire? The trail of blood?

Australians are losing their accents.

You may remember stories about the last two Jews in Kabul, who were engaged in a decades-long feud. Last week one of them died.

Margaret Spellings started as secretary of education yesterday; it took her one whole day before she decided to gay-bash a PBS children’s program which will show cartoon Vermont lesbians, and demand that PBS return the federal money used in producing the program. I’m a little unclear on how PBS distribution works, but evidently PBS plans to pull the episode, but WGBH will distribute it. Unbanned in Boston. Pretty good for WGBH, which used to censor the episodes of Upstairs Downstairs that might offend the delicate ears of Boston bluebloods.

R’s have been attacking Barbara Boxer for mentioning her questioning of Condi Rice in a fundraising letter. A spokesmodel for Rice, who last week didn’t think it was legitimate for her integrity to be impugned, said the letter “puts to rest any doubts some may have had that this is all about politics.”

The last Italian veteran of World War I dies, at 110.

Paul Wolfowitz, in a speech trying to yoke the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps to Bush foreign policy objectives, says that “peaceful nations cannot close their eyes or sit idly by in the face of genocide,” but allows as how people might want to close their eyes during the comb-licking scene in “Fahrenheit 911.”

Have you accepted oppression of the crusader harlots and the rejectionist pigs?

The Justice Dept gives Arizona permission to implement the parts of an anti-immigrant initiative passed in November that require voters to present proof of citizenship and other i.d. DOJ permission is required under the Voting Rights Act because of the Arizona Republican Party’s historical practice of using “literacy challenges” to intimidate and harass black and Hispanic voters, a practice William Rehnquist was involved in back in the day. But I’m sure they’d never do anything like that with these provisions now....

Speaking of voter suppression, the tape issued by Zarqawi (supposedly) asks Iraqis the question, “Have you accepted oppression of the crusader harlots and the rejectionist pigs?”

Well, have you?

Really, though, it’s nice to see Iraqis practicing coalition politics, with the crusader harlots reaching out to the rejectionist pigs in a spirit of bipartisanship. Rainbow politics, Iraqi style.

Maybe Saddam’s plumber still has some of those gold bidets in stock

While doing my evening trawl through the British press tonight, I’ve seen articles about scared Iraqi election workers who hide their identities, scared Iraqi security men (“even in the hospital ward they refused to remove their black ski masks as they were treated by doctors”), and scared Iraqi candidates (“They are being told how to campaign for the election without getting killed. The instructions are simple - avoid public places and do not reveal your identity, the cleric advised. Most candidates should stay at home as much as possible, he added.”) The entire country is in witness protection.

The Indy points out the problem with banning all cars before and during the elections: insurgents know that any moving car is likely to contain people connected with the election. There really is a very fine line in Iraq between elections and free-fire zones, isn’t there?

Shrub used to like to say that Saddam Hussein built palaces instead of schools and hospitals. Today, the US announced plans for a new $1.5 billion embassy.

Back in the continent no one’s paying attention to right now, the former head of the US Army’s Southern Command accused Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez of funding Bolivian opposition parties and providing a haven for (Colombian) FARC training camps, while Chávez accuses the US of being behind Colombia’s kidnapping of a FARC leader from Caracas. This reminds me so much of the mid-1980s, when it was the US, Nicaragua, Honduras and Costa Rica.

I was going to write something asking why Yushchenko should be “wooing” Putin, when Putin should be apologizing for interfering in Ukrainian elections (see if you think this counts: “we did only that which was asked of us by the Ukrainian Government”). But then Pock-Faced Mr. Y appointed as his prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko, the “Gas Princess,” who is actually wanted in Russia on charges of having bribed officials, and has talked about exporting the Orange Revolution to Russia. Interestingly, though, her first language is Russian rather than Ukrainian.

Not bending any statutes

DOD spokesmodel Lawrence DiRita, whose special way with a weasely “rebuttal” of reports of Pentagon malfeasance has won him a special place in all our hearts, responds to reports that Rumsfeld set up a clandestine spy unit thusly: “There is no unit that is directly reportable to the secretary of defense for clandestine operations”. You’ll have spotted the key word. He also says the Pentagon isn’t “bending” any statutes. For once, I agree with him.

Speaking of plausible deniability, Richard Nixon’s secretary Rose Mary Woods, seen here attempting to demonstrate how one could accidentally delete 18½ minutes of secret tapes with one’s foot while answering the phone, has died.



Speaking of uncomfortable positions, this is from the Sunday Times:

An eight-month pregnant Russian woman wanted to give her baby the thrill of its life before it was even born by going parachute jumping near Moscow. But she got more of a rush than she bargained for when she went into labour before reaching the ground. “I was already in the air when I felt a massive pain,” Marija Usova said. “I cried out, ‘Oh, God, help me’ and kept my legs tightly together, but beyond that there wasn’t much I could do.” She said she was close to passing out but managed to control her descent. The baby girl was born minutes after she landed.

Her name is Larisa, which means seagull.

Speaking of keeping your legs tightly together, James Dobson’s Focus on the Family sells packages of materials to help deal with the after-effects of abortion, because they are such loving Christians. Here, for example, is the Post-Abortion Grandparents’ Kit, because “Your heart still aches for the grandchild you’ll only hold in heaven.”

The Cardinal of Madrid says that in that city there is “sinning on a massive scale.” Plan your vacations accordingly.

At least American civil and military officials have stopped claiming that the Iraqi voters will be safe. Proconsul John Negroponte does say that “I believe in a preponderance of the country it will be safe for people to go and vote.” He doesn’t specify in which areas it is not safe. US officials keep citing polls which say Iraqis want to vote, as if supporters of a boycott would nonetheless choose to participate in Western polls.

Exterminate! Exterminate!! Exterminate!!!

The Pentagon is planning on deploying killer robots in Iraq. This puppy, named Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems or SWORDS by the folks at the Pentagon’s Department of Mindbogglingly Bad AcronymS (Dumbass), comes with cameras, machineguns, and absolutely no desire to rise up and destroy humanity.



Fortunately, like its...predecessor...it doesn’t look like it can deal with stairs. So I’d get started building some stairs, if I were you. Just in case.



(Update: evidently the military’s little toy can’t go faster than 4 mph, which makes its range especially limited given its short battery life (or fuel or whatever runs it). No word on the price tag.)

Unless someone wants to make a major strategic blunder

My head would have melted if I’d had to compile this: “The Beast 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2004.” I agree with much of the list. Best line, re Rumsfeld (who is number 2, in more ways than one): “Carries himself in press conferences like a cranky grandfather who is sick of hearing his daughters whine about how he molested them every now and then.”

The real problem with Rumsfeld is that people overestimate his intelligence. For example, today a spokesmodel for the Iranian foreign ministry dismissed American talk of invading Iran as merely psychological warfare: “We think the chance is very low unless someone wants to make a major strategic blunder.” What he neglects to take into consideration is that Rummy, Cheney, etc live to make major strategic blunders. It’s their thing.

The Bush Doctrine of...wait for it...Liberty

The “Bush doctrine of liberty.” It is just too early on a Sunday morning to raise the amount of outrage that phrase requires.

An LA Times story, “Torture Becomes a Matter of Definition,” features the execrable John Yoo and others saying that the US shouldn’t publicly rule out specific torture methods because that would allow future torturees to better resist interrogation. Besides administration officials, you know who else knows what techniques are used: the people they’re used on. The corollary of Yoo’s argument, therefore, is that people who have been subjected to interrogation must never be released or allowed to speak to someone like a lawyer who might tell the world. The Bush doctrine of liberty.

Seeds of liberty

The military operation to “secure” Iraq so that elections can be held has the vaguely condescending name “Operation Seeds of Liberty.” Here, Charles Graner shows off his green thumb.



The announced security measures, UnFairWitness notes, seem to involve a ban on both driving and walking near polling places, necessitating the use of “pogo sticks of liberty” by would-be voters.

An Austrian Green Party official wants Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Austrian citizenship revoked for signing the death warrant in the execution that took place this week, on the grounds that he brought Austria into disrepute. I don’t suppose we can revoke his American citizenship on the same grounds.

The Sunday Times of London has details, leaked by South African intelligence, of the plans the British investors including Mark Thatcher (currently awaiting news on whether his American visa will be re-issued) had for Equatorial Guinea if their “time-share coup” had succeeded. The plan was to create a company on the model of the East India Company to run the country (and its oil). They planned to put an exiled opposition leader in nominal charge while keeping him in virtual house arrest; their greatest worry was that he actually become popular and hence less controllable.

I support breast equality

When Arafat was alive, the State Department (and Thomas Friedman, who just thinks he’s the State Department) frequently issued fiats demanding that he say this or that... in Arabic. The charge being that he said one thing to the West in English and another to his own people. So what the WaPo story headlined “Arabs Say U.S. Rhetoric Rings Hollow” is really asking is, will the US say the same thing in Arabic that it says in English. Another article, “Bush Speech Not a Sign of Policy Shift, Officials Say,” answers that question with a resounding “No.”

In fact, Dan Bartlett insists, “it is not to say we’re not doing this already. It is important to crystallize the debate to say this is what it is all about, to say what are our ideals, what are the values we cherish.” In other words, it’s all about--and only about--re-branding. Which we all knew, but I didn’t expect to hear a Bushie admit it just a day later.

By the way, all those commentators who are so impressed with Shrub’s “bold,” “sweeping” proclamation of a crusade to end tyranny everywhere, his shift from opposing “nation-building” to advocating Utopia-building, should note that this is actually a narrowing of focus. After 9/11, Bush said he would “rid the world of evil” (like Kane in “Kung Fu,” I said at the time). So just restricting that to tyranny is really a step down.

Speaking of ending tyranny, the LA Times has an article about a public defender fighting for the right of women to go topless in California’s beaches and parks, where now only man-boobs are allowed free rein. Her slogan: “I support breast equality.” Women convicted of indecent exposure have to register as sex offenders.

How to speak to baboons

Emily Latella Memorial Editorial: I agree with Bill Thomas that Bush’s Social Security privatization plan is a dead whore.

Speaking of the elderly, the power of the people, or at least the power of pissed-off old people, turns out not to be completely dead in Russia. Huge protests have made Putin back off the elimination of various benefits for pensioners and veterans. Instead, to reduce the cost of those programs he’ll have to go back to the policy of the last few years: steadily reducing Russia’s life expectancy.

Oh give me a fucking break [Indy link no longer working]:

International aid agencies in India have been horrified to find, even amid the suffering caused by the tsunami, some survivors being refused access to basic relief because they are considered “Untouchables”.

Accounts have emerged of members of the former Untouchable castes not being allowed to drink clean water from a tank provided by Unicef because other castes believed it would pollute the water in the tank. Dalits, as the former Untouchables are known today, have been thrown out of government relief camps by the other survivors staying there ....

Zoo keepers in Kent, England, are having to learn French in order to communicate with their baboons.

Fired

I probably spent too much time yesterday analyzing Bush’s speech, considering that his only contribution was to read it out loud, but one last observation, or a question really, about the use of metaphor: he referred to the “untamed fire of freedom,” and called 9/11 the “day of fire.” Is this just sloppy writing, or does it mean something?

Classic good news/bad news: the FBI has shelved its Carnivore program for surveilling the entire internet... because over-the-counter commercial software does the job just as well.

If we can avoid it

Consecutive stories listed on the Nation & Politics page of the WaPo: 1) “An Ambitious President Advances His Idealism,” 2) “Cheney Warns of Iran As a Nuclear Threat.”

Cheney says, “We don’t want a war in the Middle East, if we can avoid it.”

We don’t want to fight
but by jingo if we do...
We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men,
and got the money too!

Avoid. Like “war in the Middle East” is a runaway truck. Of course you can “avoid” war, it’s easy: don’t invade, don’t bomb, no war.

As Viktor Yushchenko clears the last legal challenge and is sworn in as Ukraine’s president, Vladimir Putin finally admits defeat and sends a telegram looking forward to “good-neighborly and equal relations,” adding “or we will crush you.”

Speaking of good-neighborly and equal relations, Bush in his speech said, “We have known divisions.... and I will strive in good faith to heal them,” adding, “Or we will crush you.” “Yet those divisions do not define America. We felt the unity and fellowship of our nation when freedom came under attack”. What’s he saying, that in order to heal divisions, he’ll engineer another terrorist attack?

Independent editorial title: “Let Us Hope That Mr Bush’s More Nuanced Words Could Be Heard above the Gunfire in Iraq.” (No link, as the article is behind a pay barrier, but other than the title it’s nothing special).

Another Indy op-ed piece, by Johann Hari, says, “George Bush presented America as the armed wing of Amnesty International.” Also pay or Lexis-Nexis only.

Speaking of spreading freedom, the WaPo says that the prison camps maintained by the US in Iraq are almost full, with about 9,000 prisoners, and more every day. If Venezuela, say, arrested thousands of opponents in advance of an election, what would the US say about that?

The Colombian “bounty hunters” who kidnapped a FARC rebel in Venezuela, turn out to be members of Venezuela’s security forces, who will be charged with treason. I was right that there was no extradition request; but also, Interpol had rejected Colombia’s request to put the man on its wanted list because they saw the charges against him as political.

Israeli troops in Gaza shoot dead a Palestinian boy playing with a toy gun he’d been given for Eid, presumably by people who didn’t like him much. You have to ask why toy guns are even on sale there.

Freedom blah blah liberty blah blah freedom again blah blah...

One of my favorite Daily Show segments is when they have children read transcripts of tele-pundits tele-punditting at each other. Bush’s second inaugural speech reminds me of that, in that none of it was in his own voice. Phrases like “multiply in destructive power,” “pretensions of tyrants,” etc do not roll trippingly off his tongue.

(Who are the idiots yelling “four more years”?)

Before I forget, I want to call attention to the coded anti-abortion language: “Even the unwanted have worth.”

He used the word “freedom” 893 times in 20 minutes, and “liberty” 562 times. These are essentially negative words, at least the way Bush used them, in contradistinction to tyranny and oppression. It’s hard to say what the features are of a place with freedom and liberty, except that they lack the secret police, punishment of dissidents etc of tyrannies. Even Norman Rockwell had a more sophisticated vision of freedom:



Did Bush use the word “democracy” even once? By his choice of words--and wouldn’t you like to see him forced to define them?--he set the bar pretty low; hell, he thinks Iraq and Afghanistan have freedom now.

I was definitely right in my last post about his use of “freedom” as a threat, a dagger aimed at the heart of any regime he doesn’t like, members of the “axis of evil” or the “outposts of oppression.” I mean, really: “one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.” It’s a top-down view of freedom, something that applies to nations or regions and only as an afterthought to individuals.

Other words that stand out, although less obviously, are words like “permanent,” “eternal” and “always,” applied to the values of America, which evidently have something to do with liberty and freedom. OK, it doesn’t sound sinister when I write it like that, but there’s something rigid and unexamined in his invocation of the permanence of his alleged values. Coming out of his mouth, the notions of freedom and liberty take on his own personal characteristics: stubbornness, lack of reflection. Read the speech, if you have the stomach for it, and see if you don’t see what I mean.

All that remains is to observe that Chimpy’s tie was ugly, and that there was a wide variety of amusing hats on view. Rehnquist’s little beret, or whatever that was, went so well with the Gilbert and Sullivan robes, and Rummy’s consiglieri hat.

After interpreting omens

Inauguration, from the Latin inauguratus, meaning “consecrated after interpreting omens.” And, indeed, His Fraudulency said yesterday that “We have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom”. You know, George, I hear a tin-foil hat will block the flying-saucer messages. He also called for “the expansion of freedom in all the world.” Only Shrub could make “freedom” sound so much like a threat.


I may just spend the day hiding under the bed.

The dangly bits

Condi is voted out of committee 16-2.



Sharon’s government secretly decided 6 months ago to seize the East Jerusalem property of Palestinians who live in the West Bank, without compensation. This has been applied to Palestinians who own agricultural property on what is now the wrong side of the Wall. So the Wall has turned out to be a land grab after all, who’d have guessed?

As you may remember, police in Inglewood, CA. were filmed in July 2002 beating a black 16-year old in what it was feared would be another Rodney King incident.



The white officer who did most of the beating was fired, but two hung juries failed to convict him. Another white officer on the scene was suspended for 10 days for failing to report the incident and then lying about it, while a black cop received only 4 days’ suspension for beating the kid with a flashlight. So the 2 white cops sued for...wait for it... discrimination, and were awarded $1.6 million and $810,000 respectively.

New Zealand has put out a series of stamps in recognition of New Zealand’s unique cultural contrib... well, all right, sheep. But one stamp featuring a male merino sheep has been denounced as an insult to rural NZ because it doesn’t show “the dangly bits.”

Rocks

I guess someone thought twice about the name “America Rocks the Future: A Call to Service,” and changed it to “America’s Future Rocks.” And nothing says rock & roll like George & Laura in their most rockin’ party togs.