“It’s fun to shoot some people”

The Marine Corps decides not to punish Lt. Gen James Mattis for saying that shooting people is “fun” and “a hoot.” Possibly they’re afraid to.

If recreational homicide doesn’t bother anyone these days, we should hardly expect torture to, and indeed Waterboardin’ Al Gonzales is confirmed as Attorney Generalissimo and Grand Inquisitor by 60-36. There were no anti-torture Republicans, including John McCain, himself a former torture victim. At Condi Rice’s confirmation hearing, during a discussion of her opposition to giving legal protections against torture to foreign prisoners, Christopher Dodd told her “I’d like you to spend about 15 minutes with John McCain.” Turns out, wouldn’t have done any good.

Oh dear, the UN oil-for-food program didn’t have “Western-style budgeting and accounting procedures.”

This Guardian article deals with some of the questions I’ve been pondering about the odd collapse of the latest Northern Irish peace efforts following unlikely accusations that IRA leaders were associated with a bank robbery in December and culminating this week with the IRA’s withdrawal from arms decommissioning, evidently in a sulk about the aspersions on their hitherto unsullied honor.

So bored that I’m blogging the Annual National Prayer Breakfast

And today, Bush follows up on the SOTU address with prayer, as do all of us under 55. Specifically, at something the White House website calls the “Annual National Prayer Breakfast.” I’m having trouble sorting out those adjectives--is it the breakfast that’s national or do we have a national prayer that I don’t know about? And it was held at the International House of Pancakes, which just confuses the thing more.

The White House chooses to use this picture of Bush doing his little-boy-closing-his-eyes-real-tight thing, although whether that’s because he was praying or that’s how he always eats eggs benedict, it doesn’t say.



He said this: “You know, last night was a prayerful occasion. (Laughter.) I noticed a lot of members were praying that I would keep my speech short. (Laughter.)” Oh no stop my sides are splitting.

Don’t know if the event was filmed, because the President of Madagascar was there, and I would dearly love to hear Shrub trying to pronounce one of those great Malagasy names: Marc Ravalomanana.

He says that “prayer has always been one of the great equalizers in American life.” I thought that was the Colt revolver.

Here’s another picture. I think the circular things are the angels that follow him everywhere.

Friday Species-in-Danger-of-Extinction-from-Global-Warming Blogging

Eli at LeftI notes “the tremendous disparity in press attention between the very real global warming crisis and the bogus Social Security ‘crisis.’” We all know what’s needed to make people give a shit about environmental issues: cute animal pictures. Therefore, I hereby invite other bloggers to join in Friday Species-in-Danger-of-Extinction-from-Global-Warming Blogging, which I’m inaugurating a day early, and calling dibs on polar bears.

Evil smug scum watch

Elliott Abrams, who did such a lovely job undermining democracy here and in Central America during the Reagan administration, has been promoted to deputy national security adviser with responsibility for advancing democracy. Back then, I said that if one good thing came out of Iran-Contra, it was that that smug prick would never become secretary of state. If you’re too young to remember this supporter of death squads, dictators and Contras, do google him. The first Google hit is a David Corn article in the Nation, which should be a good place to start. But a list of his misdeeds doesn’t convey how obnoxious this guy’s smugness was, how irritating his ubiquitous appearances on McNeil-Lehrer and Nightline.

My favorite Abrams story: a Congressional committee once asked him if any foreign governments had contributed funds to the Contras. He said no, which was technically true only because when Abrams had solicited $10 million from the Sultan of Brunei, he gave him the wrong Swiss account number, so the money hadn’t technically gone to the Contras but to one temporarily lucky (until he got caught) Swiss citizen.

So Abrams’s rehabilitation continues. At a glacial pace, I suppose, compared to the near-instant whitewashing of torture apologists like Alberto Gonzales (yesterday I caught a bit of the Senate speeches, with Orrin Hatch outright accusing D’s of racism). Still, even Bush daren’t put him up for a position requiring Senate confirmation (he was after all convicted of lying to Congress, later pardoned by Bush the Elder) or make the announcement on any but a busy news day. I think the best response to this is a reminder that Bush’s father still hasn’t answered questions about his role in Iran-Contra, about which he said the Reagan administration had “erred on the side of life.” Ah, the culture of life.

Alternative caption: Republicans display fingers they had dipped in the blood of infidels.

Marc Cooper on this stunt: “These congress-twerps who spend their days and night suckling on the special interests tit braved no more than the risk of camera-light sunburn for their efforts.”

Opening the door to freedom, but not to frivolous asbestos lawsuits

The Czech Republic is going to lower the minimum wage. I can’t remember a country ever doing that before.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has boldly come out against old people having sex, which we can all agree is as icky as anything thought up by the other Stephen King. The Medicare drug plan will cover Viagra in cases of erectile disfunction, but Mr. King says “If we are going to subsidize someone’s recreational sex, I don’t think that’s what our founding fathers had in mind.” Right, they had slaves for that.

Allawi claims that all the suicide bombers caught on the day of the elections were non-Iraqis, which is not a claim I’ve heard before (nor do I believe it).

Clean-up on the SOTU post, below: Bush said “We expect Syria to end all support for terrorists and open the door to freedom.” 1) Is that what you expect, really? Megalomaniacal much? 2) I understand the ending support for terrorists bit, but what exactly are they supposed to do to comply with the door-opening part?

Really, blogging that travesty with a cold was not the funnest experience ever. I must have been coughing during the “frivolous asbestos lawsuits” line, cuz I missed it. And life is definitely too short to bother with the Democratic response. I’m ready for my nap now, I’ll tell you. Do Republicans party after the SOTU, I wonder? Tomorrow morning will D.C. call girls be scrubbing purple ink out of their various orifices?


I don’t really have a caption for this one, I just thought Bush looks particularly goofy in it.



We’re number one! No wait, we’re purple! Hey, did you say indelible?




That look of smug bemusement does not go with that tie.



Donald Rumsfeld and John Snow wait patiently to receive their kisses.

The State of the Union is private, I mean personal, I mean strong, I don’t know what I mean

6:06 Bush enters, shakes a lot of hands. I’m hoping some of that purple ink rubs off on his hand.

Oo, the state of the union is both confident AND strong. A twofer.

6:11 CNN camera finds John McCain, who is managing to both glower and look bored at the same time. He sees the camera and immediately pretends to be asleep.

Taxpayer funds must be spent wisely or not all. Guess which one he prefers.

We must raise children to meet the demands of the 21st century. Translation: troops to occupy Iran, Syria and, just for the hell of it, Togo.

6:15 Joe Lieberman doing one of those things where you look like you’re applauding but make no sound. They learn that in Senate school.

6:18 As much as his mispronunciation of nuclear annoys me, following it up with “Clean Skies policy” is even more obnoxious. And he calls for ethanol, even though last week’s West Wing was specifically designed to scuttle that.

6:20 There’s Hillary, giving the most grudging applause on record.

6:22 He has a message for everyone 55 or older: don’t let anyone mislead you. And a message to everyone younger: let me mislead you.

6:24 I don’t think I’ve heard so many voices raised in opposition (to Bush’s lies about Social Security) in one of these things before.

6:27 The Boy in the Bubble says he’ll listen to anybody with good ideas. Except increasing payroll taxes.

6:30 We have to pass on values to the next generation. Like homophobia. As he talks about a “culture of life,” CNN turns its cameras to Christopher Reeve’s widow. Awkward... . Says values don’t come from the government. Except abstinence. And faith-based programs. And...

6:35 He proposes a program to keep young men out of gangs (he’s never heard of girl gangs?). You will never hear another word about this.

Wants to focus AIDS spending on African-Americans. Not butt-fuckers. Managed to talk about AIDS without mentioning gays, just like he called for banning gay marriage without mentioning gays.

6:38 Wants competent defense lawyers in capital cases. Of course in Texas that’s defined as “awake more than 50% of the time.”

6:40 Our military operations are determined, successful and continuing. If they’ve succeeded, why do they need to continue?

Will continue to build the coalitions that will defeat the dangers of our time.

The only thing that will defeat tyranny and whatnot is “the force of human freedom.” He makes it sound like a weapon; the words “force” and “freedom” don’t belong together. I’ve said it before: only Bush can make freedom and liberty sound like a threat.

Will support democratic movements in the Middle East and beyond, with ultimate goal of defeating tyranny in the world. Is there any example of Bush now supporting the democratic opposition to an established government in the Middle East?

Evidently there’s an arc of freedom or something from Morocco to Jordan to Bahrain. Please consult your globes. It’s an arc, really it is. They’re really reaching for geometrical expressions.

6:51 Several people aren’t standing to applaud the brave Iraqi people. I’m sure Fox is taking down their names.

They’ve even got one of those voters, sitting next to Laura. She can’t decide how many fingers she’s supposed to hold up.

6:59 If he had to pick just one soldier killed in Iraq to mention by name, wasn’t it a bit tacky to pick one from Texas?

Who you gonna call?

Should it worry us that the CIA website’s Terrorism FAQ page hasn’t been updated since April 2002? And this, I swear to Allah, is an actual logo on the actual CIA’s actual website.

Complete nonsense

I may live blog the State of the Union Address, and I may not, depending on the state of my personal union, i.e., how bad my cold is. If I can’t do it live, you’ll have to amuse yourselves. May I suggest: each time Bush uses the word “personal” to describe some aspect of his Social Security plan, respond by saying “private” in a different funny voice.

A while back I said that I wanted the Gonzalez nomination to become an up-or-down vote on torture, because I really am curious how such a vote would go, how badly damaged the moral compass of this countries’ elected representatives had become. I half-way got my wish: the D’s have proclaimed this a vote on torture, but say that they intend to confine themselves to impotent squawking. This is the lead of a WaPo article by Dana Milbank: “Senate Democrats angrily denounced White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales yesterday as an advocate of prisoner torture but said they would not block his confirmation as attorney general.” Tells you everything you need to know about the D’s.

That article ends with this quote from Orrin Hatch: “To have this man, who has come from nowhere, from the most humble of circumstances, who typifies the struggle every immigrant family to this country has gone through, to not give him this opportunity when he is fully qualified for it, I think would be a travesty.” Yes, he deserves to be attorney general because he’s an immigrant. But does Hatch have a deeper agenda in that remark? Because the LA Times also quotes Hatch today, supporting a constitutional amendment overturning the ban on immigrants like Governor Terminator becoming president as “an anachronism that is decidedly un-American.”

Iraqi “President” Yawar says it would be “complete nonsense” to ask for American troops to be withdrawn. Right, like every previous action taken by the US in Iraq wasn’t based on complete nonsense. Wasn’t that Bush’s campaign slogan?: 4 More Years of Complete Fucking Nonsense.

Do as we say, not as we do

Now the bastards are taking our action figures hostage. THIS MUST BE STOPPED!

Compare and contrast:

Today’s NYT, p.9: “the State Department sharply rebuked Egypt on Monday for arresting a major opposition leader ahead of what may be a sixth referendum on Mr. Mubarak’s rule.”

And another story, on p.8 (the facing page), notes that Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca detention center have “been swollen by more than 2,500 arrests of suspected insurgents in the last month, part of a nationwide pre-election crackdown.”

The Israeli attorney general rules that the land seizures I mentioned yesterday are illegal.

Secretary of Edukashion Margaret Spellings and George Bush. Don’t tell Condi that someone’s eyeing her husband.

Western-style budgeting

Comical Allawi says he will “begin a national dialogue to guarantee that the voices of all Iraqis are present in the coming government.” Funny, I thought that’s what the fake-election was for.

If, according to the Bushies, the ideals of freedom and liberty are universal, those of accounting are evidently not. Paul Bremer responds to a report that his Proconsulship failed to keep track of $8.8 billion in Iraqi money: “Western-style budgeting and accounting procedures could [not] be immediately and fully implemented in the midst of a war.” Knowing how you actually spend money is “Western-style budgeting”?

With “only” 50 or so Iraqis killed yesterday, many Americans, such as Gen. Carter Ham, whose name really could not be more Caucasian, say that they expected many more dead. So how many dead Iraqi civilians was considered an acceptable price for the Iraqis to pay for this little exercise?

And how many dead Iraqi civilians were there, anyway? An alert reader emails to point out that we’ve seen no figure, but they claim to know what the election turnout was. Must be some more of that non-Western counting.

Bush today congratulated the Iraqi people for “supporting those who have helped make this world a more peaceful and free place.” Oh, did I say Iraqi people, I meant the Detroit Pistons.

More details on the Israeli plan to steal land from Palestinians on the wrong side of the Wall: the decision was made secretly last July, and implemented secretly, which is quite a trick. Palestinians who lived on one side of the wall and owned olive groves and whatnot on the other side were simply refused transit permits, not told until recently that Israel considered their land no longer theirs. The seizure is under a 1950 law meant to apply to lands abandoned by Palestinians who fled Israel in the war of independence, not people who can literally see their property from their houses.

What we’re seeing here is the voice of freedom

Condi Rice, who evidently processes auditory sensations through her eyeballs--which would explain a lot--says, “What we’re seeing here is the voice of freedom.”

Enough about the plucky Iraqis already. My polling station is usually in the local Methodist church, so each election I run the risk of bursting into flame and you don’t hear any CNN anchors singing my praises.

Less brave were the candidates whose names were not made public before the election. Perhaps the details of the constitution will be worked out entirely by people wearing ski masks. And how is it so many Iraqis seem to own ski masks, anyway? Does Iraq possess many ski slopes? Is Halliburton importing them?

How lazy and uninformed and easily bamboozled were the journalists who quoted turnout figures based on the number of registered, rather than eligible, voters? And which even then turned out to have been made-up.

Stick it

Bush hails the “courage” of the Iraqis who came out to vote (“They have demonstrated the kind of courage that is always the foundation of self-government”), ignoring the fact that it was his failure to create the conditions of security which some would consider the prerequisite of a free vote that made voting an act of courage in the first place.

Wednesday I predicted there wouldn’t be much violence today. Yesterday I guessed (not here in the blog, which I thought would be ghoulish) 15-20 dead. It was higher than that, but as far as we know mostly confined to Baghdad. Elsewhere, weeks of threats did their job. With the travel ban, and journalists in fear for their lives, 1) we won’t hear of some of the violence outside the Green Zone, 2) turnout figures will be inflated with little fear of discovery.

Juan Cole gives a nice summary of how these elections were forced on the Bushies against their will by Sistani and his followers, and why the cheerleading press should refrain from making this another “Mission Accomplished” moment (I think of it more as another Bush-and-the-plastic-turkey moment).

Just tuned in to Fox News, because it is both fair and balanced. It could have settled for just being fair or just being balanced, but no, nothing less than fair and balanced would do. Evidently, the Iraqi people told the insurgents to “stick it.”


To prevent fraud, voters dipped their fingers into the blood of infidels.



Bullets and ballots, like belt and suspenders.


Maybe it’s me, but this polling station in Mosul doesn’t really inspire much confidence.

Their future in the making

Iyad “Comical” Allawi: “They should take part because this is their future in the making and people have to take their fate in their own hands.” Their own hands? Interesting words, coming from a man put in office by an army of occupation.

After reading Michael Ignatieff in the NYT Magazine (the same piece appears in the Observer), I have to respond to his assertion that “antiwar ideologues can’t support the Iraqis because that would require admitting that positive outcomes can result from bad policies and worse intentions.” He suggests that those of us who denigrate tomorrow’s elections are ivory-tower purists--note the use of the word “ideologues”--to which I answer: damned straight. Even if I personally accepted on pragmatic grounds that these elections were good enough, I would not be able to tell an Iraqi who took the position that elections held under occupation were unfree that she should settle for less-than-free. If the election workers putting up banners at your polling station looked like this



and were dressed in the uniform of a foreign power, would you feel the elections were legitimate? Would you vote in them, and if you did choose to vote rather than lose your say in your country’s future, would you feel at least a little ashamed?

One thing the Americans “forgot” to enact was a McCain-Feingold campaign finance provision, and money became rather important with 111 parties, many with similar names (think People’s Front of Judea/Judean People’s Front on a larger scale) trying to distinguish themselves, and the only people able to practice retail politics being the snipers. Lots of printed matter, lots of tv commercials, lots of money paying for those things coming from the US government, from exiles, various Arab states and Iran and who knows where else.

The Sunday Times of London has an amusing parody of English history, amusing, at any rate, for the minority of you who can follow a joke in which William the Conqueror’s “battle plan hit a snag when his troops became ensnared in an enormous tapestry being woven by the embedded war reporters.” Also describes Henry VIII as the perfect Jerry Springer guest.

Since prostitution is now legal in Germany (plan your vacations accordingly), brothel-owners can advertise in their local (government-run) job centers. And under the new reforms in welfare laws, unemployed people can be sent into the sex industry, on penalty of losing their benefits. A liberalizing policy cross-fertilizes with a conservative policy to create a stupid result; there’s a lesson in that somewhere.

Speaking of stupid results in Germany, the latest reality tv program in that country: Sperm Race. The winner gets a Porsche. A red one.

The best way to ensure the success of democracy is through the advance of democracy

Appointed Iraqi President Yawer says that while the vast majority of Iraqis won’t vote, it will not be because they are boycotting the poll, but because they are afraid for their lives. So that’s alright, then.

Bush’s radio address today: “The terrorists and those who benefited from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein know that free elections will expose the emptiness of their vision for Iraq.” Funny, if anyone would know how elections reward empty visions, you’d think it would be Shrub. “The best way to ensure the success of democracy is through the advance of democracy.” Must be a Zen thing. “One Iraqi, speaking about the upcoming vote, said, ‘Now, most people feel they are living in darkness. It is time for us to come into the light.’” You sure he/she was talking about elections and not your failure to restore electricity?

Governor Terminator wants teachers in low-income neighborhoods to get “combat pay,” which he means literally, saying that they are “threatened always with their lives and their cars are stolen.”

His Muscleness is also moving ahead with a plan he claims is opposed by both major parties, to redistrict California in 2006. This is not good.

Plus ça change: Ronald Reagan, 1987: “I think it’s far better if the Iranians go to bed every night wondering what we might do”.

I know this is shocking to you

Bush, interviewed by the NYT, says little of interest, but in a follow-up to the Wednesday press conference, where he said he’d never read a 2000 article by Condoleezza Rice setting out foreign policy, he had this to add:

“I don’t know what you think the world is like, but a lot of people don’t just sit around reading Foreign Affairs,” he said, chuckling. “I know this is shocking to you.”

No I’m not shocked, Chimpy, but you’re not “a lot of people” but the leader of the most powerful country in the world, and yet you find so incongruous, so beyond your ken as to be a source of amusement, the thought that anyone would think that a president would actually read a journal about foreign policy, or indeed read the opinions of an applicant to head the NSC before hiring her, or indeed read, period.

The Foreign Affairs website, by the way, has a link at the top to the article in question.

In case you were wondering what happened to Jean-Bertrand Aristide, deposed as Haitian president by thugs and the US last year, he has been hired by the University of South Africa, Pretoria.

This Labour Party poster is being attacked as anti-Semitic (the Tory party leader and shadow chancellor pictured here are both Jewish).



The London Times’s “The Week on the Web” has directed me to the PostSecret site, which began at the Washington DC arts festival, where people were given postcards to write secrets which are posted anonymously. A mixed bag, as you’d expect: downloading porn, sex with strangers, not washing hands after going to the bathroom. Some of my favorites, for different reasons: I liked myself better as a boy; I love one of my children; I talked someone into suicide; I archive my farts in carefully labeled mason jars; I used to pee into snowballs before throwing them at friends; I’m secretly fed up with irony.

The Times also mentions this site, which mail-orders toast at ridiculous prices. It may be a joke.

Vulgar names

The LA Times’s editorial page has joined that of the Washington Post in its crusade against Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. I wouldn’t mind--they’re entitled to their opinions and I’m not a big fan of Chavez or some of his policies either--but both papers’ editorials (I analyzed the Post’s two weeks ago and in November) are egregiously biased and drip with such contempt for Chavez that they sound like me talking about Bush. If they want to take over this blog and give me control of their editorial pages I’d be happy to oblige, but in the meantime they’re supposed to be better behaved than a mere blogger. The LAT accuses the “demagogic” (fair enough) Mr. Chavez of “picking a fight” with George Bush, neglecting to mention US involvement in a coup attempt against him. The paper applauds Colombia’s use of bounty hunters to kidnap a FARC leader, neglecting to mention that the bounty hunters were actually bribed members of the Venezuelan police, and describes Chavez’s reaction to this incident as throwing a fit. And he called Bush “vulgar names.” Oh deary dear, let’s not give the LA Times the vapors by using vulgarity; after all, they’re used to the high-minded sophistication of Governor Schwarzenegger, who always gives the State of the State Address before the House of Girlie-Men in iambic pentameter.

If he votes, we leave

GOTV under occupation:

Soldiers then surrounded a two-story house. The battalion had received reports that it was being used as a meeting place for insurgents.

A paunchy, middle-aged man invited the soldiers to search the house. As they did, the 1st Platoon leader, 2nd Lt. Jason Shick of Grand Rapids, Mich., questioned the man on the second floor.

“Ask him does he know any anti-American forces or anti-coalition forces at all in this area,” Shick told the interpreter. ...

“We don’t have anything to tell you,” the man’s wife said plaintively, in halting English.

The man shook his head no.

Shick checked the man’s name against a list of suspects. Satisfied he was not a terrorist, Shick then tried to lock up his vote.

“Is he going to vote in the upcoming elections?” he asked the interpreter.

“Yes, they are going to go vote,” the interpreter said after consulting with the couple.

“Good. Tell him thank you very much,” said Shick, heading back down the stairs. “And make sure he votes. If he votes, we leave. Americans go home.”

You’ll notice he didn’t ask the wife if she was going to vote, focusing exclusively on the man even after the interpreter said that both would be voting. But what I adore about this little vignette is the utter lack of self-awareness that allows the soldiers to first terrorize and then canvass this couple.

Hi mum, having a wonderful time, wish you were here

The Times answers something I’d been wondering about, how candidates and election workers can’t appear in public in Iraq, but all those posters get put up (and torn down): street urchins. How sweet.

The British soldier who took those photos of prisoner abuse, testifies at the court-martial of other soldiers that he took them to show his mum. How sweet.



“Comical” Allawi’s election slogan: “Strong leadership, safe country.”

I may be reading too much into this, but what’s a blog for if not to read too much into things? Bush has said, roughly 12,073 times and most recently in his press conference, that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. Presumably he means without Saddam Hussein in power, but that’s not what he says. I think Bush’s grasp of reality is so attenuated that he believes that when he dismisses someone from his mind, that person is no longer present in the world in any meaningful way. Begone Saddam, begone Osama, I banish you from reality!