When life hands you lemon revolutions...

Kyrgyzstan had not terribly fair elections today, complete with my favorite recent example of misuse of election rules: a rule prohibiting anyone running for parliament who had not lived in the country for the previous five years is being used against an opposition politician who was Kyrgyzstan’s ambassador to Britain.

Oh, and I’m hearing suggestions of “lemon revolution” as well as “tulip revolution” for Kyrgyzstan.

Evidently Turkish prisons are more fun than the movies led us to believe. Two prisoners were just discovered to have made a hole between their cells in order to have sex (the woman has given birth), and have been convicted of damaging prison property. The London Times headline: “Wall-to-Wall Sex.”

The Indy has a good article on the hell that Haiti has descended into since the US collaborated, tacitly or otherwise, with death squads to depose Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Why this blog is better than the New York Times

Condi Rice cancelled a visit to Egypt to punish it for its arrest of opposition politician Ayman Nour. But in order not to humiliate Egypt, even thought that was kinda the point, she also cancelled her planned visits to every other country in the region. That’s the kind of logic that only the State Department could muster.

Egypt has followed up with an announcement that there will be something like real elections. According to the WaPo,

Mubarak, 76, said the decision was rooted in his “full conviction of the need to consolidate efforts for more freedom and democracy.”

Translation: “What the hell, I’m old, I’ll be dead soon anyway.” The government will decide which opposition parties get to run. Bush will wax smug about this one, but if Egypt moves closer to democracy I’m willing to let him; it’s not like he wouldn’t find something else to feel smug about if he didn’t have this.

Speaking of smug, I’d like to point out that I wrote about Bush taking a Camus quote way out of context 5 days before the New York Times caught up to me. Eat my electronic dust, NYT!

That’s not why this blog is better than the NYT: this blog is better than the NYT because I use phrases like “wax smug.”

The fact that we are just sitting here is a good thing

And speaking of democracy, Togo’s neighbors have peacefully forced a reversal of the military coup that imposed the son of its late president on the country. Congrats, West Africa.

Mostly unregarded by the MSMMM (Main Stream Mickey Mouse Media), Operation River Blitz continues in Anbar province. And so does that godawful name. I just assumed someone in the Pentagon would rethink the whole naming-operations-after-Nazi-stuff policy, but I guess it’s Rumsfeld’s way of reconciling with “Old Europe” (although there is pre-Rummy precedent).

The problem with River Blitz is that it can’t seem to find any enemies to fight. In Iraq. But that’s ok:

[Lt Col. Greg Stevens] was not discouraged that the guerrillas had failed to appear and take on his tanks.

“The fact that we are just sitting here is a good thing. It means that they don’t have the free rein of the place.”

Way to lower the bar.

We are not going to make up -- to invent any kind of special Russian democracy

In the past few months, GeeDubya has embraced a rhetoric of freedom and democracy, terms which remain as nebulous and ill-defined in that rhetoric as they probably are in his own head. But this week you could see that rhetoric taking on a life of its own, and since freedom and democracy are, you know, good things, it would be nice to encourage that process. Putin was visibly put out, pissed off, and defensive over his own record of slowly crushing the life out of Russian democracy. Good; he should be on the defensive. Clearly Putin feels that he was scolded and criticized, and the media view of the summit was that he was scolded and criticized.



But that didn’t actually happen, at least not publicly and I’m sure not in private either. Here’s the strongest statement Bush made at the Thursday press conference with Putin: “I was able to share my concerns about Russia’s commitment in fulfilling these universal principles.” He talked about some of those principles, the attributes of a functioning democracy--protection of minorities, a free press, a viable opposition, etc--but failed to say if he considered Russia deficient in any or all of them. When Putin compared his plan to personally appoint regional governors to the American Electoral College, Shrub didn’t say whether he found that comparison valid.

But every answer Putin gave was an uncomfortable riposte to some non-existent attack:

“Russia has made its choice in favor of democracy....independently, without any pressure from outside”

“we are not going to make up -- to invent any kind of special Russian democracy”

“If we talk about where we have more or where we have less democracy is not the right thing to do. But if we talk about how the fundamental principles of democracy are implemented in this or that historic soil, in this or that country, is an option, it’s possible. This does not compromise the dignity of The Netherlands or Russia or the U.S.”

“we do have freedom of the press. Although we’re being criticized often of that, this is not the case.”

“I, in particular, do not think that this has to be pushed to the foreground, that new problems should be created from nothing”

With all his democracy happy-talk, Bush may have started something he won’t be able to control so easily.

All power to the crabgrass revolution

Immediately after Canada announced its decision not to participate in the US’s Star Wars program, the American ambassador said that the US would fire its missiles over Canada without permission, and that Canada’s decision therefore amounted to giving up its sovereignty. Sovereignty consists, and evidently solely consists, of voluntarily choosing to do what we tell you to do and giving us permission to do what we’re going to do whether we have permission or not.

The Russian Duma has voted to imprison anyone who sings the national anthem disrespectfully.

With an election coming up, Tony Blair has announced an increase in the minimum wage; at the press conference to announce this, some reporter asked him if he would wipe someone’s bottom for £5 an hour. He did not answer. I’m taping the event off C-SPAN even as I write, for later viewing. I want to see if the reporter was wearing pants at the time; just from the transcript you can’t be sure the question was just hypothetical. Possibly the questioner was Jeff Gannon.

Putin says he and Bush had a “very useful, very substantive discussion.” You know how you can tell this is a lie? Because no one has ever had a useful, much less a substantive discussion with George W. Bush.

While in Slovakia, Bush, in a rhetorical ploy, compared the elections just held in Iraq to the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. “For the Iraqi people, this is their 1989, and they will always remember who stood with them in their quest for freedom.” He went on to use a phrase I think we’ll be very sick of very soon, dubbing those elections-under-occupation a “Purple Revolution,” like the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia. Kyrgyzstan’s opposition, by the way, is talking about a “tulip revolution” there. I believe “crabgrass revolution” is still available.

After 1,300 suicides from the Golden Gate bridge, the authorities have decided that maybe a barrier of some kind would be a good idea.

No deposit, no return

The Illinois Appeals Court ruled that a man who claims his former lover stole his sperm during oral sex and used it to impregnate herself can sue for mental distress but not for theft. According to the court, “She asserts that when plaintiff ‘delivered’ his sperm, it was a gift. There was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request.” They are both doctors.

Al Kamen of the WaPo notes that while Bush wants to get the UN to impose sanctions on Iran because “they were caught enriching uranium after they had signed a treaty saying they wouldn’t enrich uranium,” the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in fact allows uranium enrichment.


Bush trying to peer once again into Vladimir Putin’s soul. Then they fucked.

I live in a transparent country

Bush says of European leaders, “We have a common objective, which is to convince the Ayatollahs not to have a nuclear weapon.”

Bush has been explaining democracy to Putin. Things like checks and balances. On a totally unrelated note, Afghanistan, which elected a president last October, today missed the deadline for announcing parliamentary elections in May. Like 6 months with only one functioning branch of government being elected wasn’t bad enough, it could now be a year.

Actually, the White House website doesn’t headline Bush & Putin talking ‘bout democracy, but rather “President and President Putin Discuss Strong U.S.-Russian Partnership.” They make it sound so exciting, just sitting around discussing the strong US-Russian partnership:

Bush: You know, Pootie Poot, the US-Russian partnership is really strong.
Putin: Yes, is strong like Russian women weightlifter at Olympics.
Bush: Strong like Condi’s thighs.
Putin: Strong like Yeltsin’s breath.
Bush: Strong.
Putin: Strong.
Bush: Lunch?
Putin: Fuck yes.

Bush: “the sign of a healthy and vibrant society is one where there’s an active press corps”. But enough about Jeff Gannon’s sex life. He added, “democracies have certain things in common: They have a rule of law and protection of minorities, a free press and a viable political opposition.” For example, we’ve got Guantanamo, a ban on gay marriage, Fox News, and the Democratic Party. So we’re set.

He adds, “I live in a transparent country.” Dude, you’re back on the weed again, aren’t you?

He says of his relationship with Putin, “we’ll have a very frank and candid and open relationship. ... a relationship where, when a person tells you something, you know he means what he says, and, ‘yes’ means yes, and ‘no’ means no. Sometimes in politics yes means ‘maybe,’ and no means ‘if.’ This is the kind of fellow who, when he says, yes, he means, yes, and when he says, no, he means, no.” ‘Cuz he knows Bush only understands words of one syllable.

On democracy in Russia, Putin said that the guarantee for democracy is the Russian people, while Bush said that the guarantee was Putin’s statement of support for democracy. OK, neither of those is particularly confidence-inspiring, but you’ll note who has the clearer grasp of what democracy means. If the health of a democracy depends on the support of its president, it’s fucked.

Putin added that his decision to replace the system of popular election of regional governors with appointment by Putin himself is just like the US Electoral College, “and it is not considered undemocratic, is it?”

And here’s Bush on the press: “Obviously, if you’re a member of the Russian press, you feel like the press is free. And that’s -- feel that way? Well, that’s good. (Laughter.) But I -- I talked to Vladimir about that. And he -- he wanted to know about our press. I said, nice bunch of folks.” Putin adds, “I’m not the minister of propaganda.”

Pictures of Bush, out and about in Slovakia:

Liberalism, Iraqi style

Comical Allawi is still in the race to be Iraqi prime minister, running as a secularist (“we believe in a liberal Iraq and not an Iraq governed by political Islamists”). Yes, Baathist-rehabilitating, CIA & MI6-connected, secret-police loving, attack-on-Fallujah green-lighting Iyad Allawi is running as the the liberal candidate. The LIBERAL candidate.



Allawi and Jaafari.

Murder in the Mosque redux

Everyone will be happy to know I passed my smog check today. So did my car.

The FBI issued a warning against a computer virus being spread through emails purporting to come from the FBI. Said the FBI, the giveaway is that everyone knows the FBI doesn’t have email yet.

Following his revelation yesterday that “I believe Russia is a European country,” Bush today informed a stunned world that “Iran is not Iraq.” Presidential geography lessons haven’t paid off so well since Ronald Reagan visited Central America and announced “they really are all different countries down here.”

Remember the wounded, unarmed Iraqi prisoner shot dead last November by an American soldier in a mosque for no particular reason? “He’s fucking faking he’s dead. He faking he’s fucking dead.” Bang. “He’s dead now.” That. Today, UnFairWitness informs us, the decision was announced that he would not be charged (he’s never been named, I believe). Lack of evidence. Too bad no one was filming the incident. Oh wait, they were. UnFairWitness has the video, too. A couple of days after the incident, I asked if Bush or Rumsfeld or a single member of Congress would go on the record as being against summary executions. The answer has been a resounding no. On this issue, they’re faking they’re fucking dead.

By contrast, today the British Army convicted 3 soldiers for the far less...permanent... abuse of Iraqi prisoners in January (this abuse), including surfer dude and forklift boy. Their officers, however, have been promoted.

By contrast, even in near-fascist Zimbabwe:

A military court in Zimbabwe fined a platoon commander Zim$2 million (£169) after one of his subordinates accidentally shot 14 spectators during a mock battle at a fair last September. (AFP)

Oops

No wonder I get so little hate email. Evidently at some point I accidentally deleted the contact information from my template. That’d do it. So there it is again, at the top of the right-hand column. Also, please note that it’s a new email address.

I have added an Amazon search box. Use it if so inclined, or shun it as capitalist evil and the death of independent bookstores, if so inclined. Go to the library instead, or garage sales, Friends of the Library sales, the Goodwill store. Use my Powell’s link, located above the Amazon link. Shoplift from one of the big chain stores. In the future, someone will invent a “shoplift” button to click and I’ll proudly feature that on my site too, if the commission is good enough.

If it isn’t in English, it can’t be important

So I’m watching the BBC World News 3 am broadcast. They say there will be a Bush-Schröder news conference shortly, which they will cut to. They do, but Schröder is speaking in some sort of foreign language, possibly German, and no one at the BBC evidently knows German, so they cut away until Bush started speaking (there is no translator: Bush has an earpiece). CNN & Fox also have no employees who know German, so they do the same. This is pathetic.

As he did yesterday, Bush twice referred to the Iranian “ayatollahs.” Guess that’s a new thing. Delegitimize them.

Not amused

Montenegro, the last former-Yugoslav republic still associated with Serbia, has proposed independence.

This is the picture the London Times is running with the story that Queen Elizabeth is skipping Charles & Camilla’s wedding. Brrr.


In the same context, The Times describes Henry VIII as polyphilogamous. I like the picture and the word, so I’m stealing them both.

I believe Russia is a European country

Bush in Europe: “As I said in my speech yesterday, a strong Europe is very important for the United States, and I really meant that.” Oh, you really mean that, now we understand. “And the Prime Minister [Blair] is one of the strong leaders in Europe, and I really enjoy my relationship with him.” He does like that word “strong,” doesn’t he?

Russia’s ambassador to the US wrote in the WaPo today that “there cannot and should not be a sole standard for democracy”. Presumably he wants Bush to apply the same low standard for democracy that Iraq gets. In Brussels, a reporter asked Bush about that article, and Bush went on and on about his personal relationship with Putin, which is clearly so much more important to him than democracy. In fact that relationship is so good, according to Bush, that it “allows me to remind him that I believe Russia is a European country”.

Asked about Iran, he offers this helpful view of European diplomacy: “Great Britain, Germany and France are negotiating with the Ayatollahs”. Subtle characterization of the Iranian government, huh? And this helpful view of American diplomacy: “And finally, this notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table. (Laughter.)” I’m sure they’re laughing in Teheran too. And speeding up work on their nuclear program. Wouldn’t you?

Before you dismiss that little comment as another Bushism, remember Reagan’s little open-mike “joke”: “The bombing begins in five minutes”? The Russians heard that and went on nuclear alert.

Bush did say that democracy was hard

To be proper democratic elections, there should be some reasonably direct, transparent connection between how the people voted, and who takes office. In Iraq, no such thing. The nineteenth-century British prime minister and foreign minister Lord Palmerston once said that only three people understood the Schleswig-Holstein question--Prince Albert, who was dead, a professor who went insane, and Palmerston himself, “and I have forgotten.” In the case of the process by which Iraq’s next prime minister is even now being chosen, perhaps only a professor, Juan Cole, understands.

What we’re looking at is so much democracy as to be undemocratic. You can’t determine the will of the people with 111 parties running, which was the result of the electoral system the US imposed. That system put a premium on private back-room deals regarding the distribution of seats within lists, coalitions within coalitions, extra-legal rules insisted upon by Grand Ayatollah Sistani, and the endless weeks of negotiations Cole describes. Skim Cole’s post if you, understandably, don’t want to put in the time required to follow it all, and see if it sounds like anything recognizable as democracy to you.

I used the Palmerston thing as my historical allusion du jour because I couldn’t remember if it was the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the 30 Years’ War, or some other peace treaty, which was so complicated that it was described as “the peace which passeth all understanding.”

Tampering with evidence

More from the Bush speech: “The Palestinian people deserve a government that is representative, honest and peaceful.” So do we, but look what we’re stuck with instead.

The best part of this WaPo story is the last three words:

A 44-year-old Anchorage man had his penis surgically reattached after an angry girlfriend cut it off with a kitchen knife and flushed it down a toilet, police said Sunday. The pair had been arguing over an impending breakup. Water utility workers recovered the penis, which was reattached Sunday morning. Kim Tran, 35, was charged with assault, domestic violence and tampering with evidence.

My breath was delightfully redolent of freedom

Bush is in Brussels, where he addressed Europe with this threat plea for unity: “No temporary debate, no passing disagreement of governments, no power on earth will ever divide us.” I’ll bet he says that to all his ex-girlfriends. Note to Europe: get a restraining order.

You know the old joke

In heaven:
The English are the police,
The Germans are the mechanics,
The Swiss are the administrators,
The French are the lovers,
The Italians are the cooks.

In hell:
The English are the cooks,
The French are the mechanics,
The Swiss are the lovers,
The Italians are the administrators,
The Germans are the police.

Well, according to Bush, “the Afghan people know the world is with them. After all, Germany is providing vital police training. ... Italy is giving assistance on judicial reform.”

He also quotes Camus--let me repeat that: George W. Bush quotes Camus--saying “Freedom is a long-distance race.” That’s from “The Fall.” Clearly, someone in the White House found the quote by looking up Bush’s new favorite word, freedom, in Bartlett’s or wherever, to get a quote from some European. That someone failed to check the context:

Once upon a time, I was always talking of freedom: At breakfast I use to spread it on my toast, I used to chew it all day long, and in company my breath was delightfully redolent of freedom. With that key word I would bludgeon whoever contradicted me; I made it serve my desires and my power. I used to whisper it in bed in the ear of my sleeping mates and it helped me to drop them. I would slip it… Tchk! Tchk! I am getting excited and losing all sense of proportion. After all, I did on occasion make a more disinterested use of freedom and even – just imagine my naiveté -- defended it two or three times without of course going so far as to die for it, but nevertheless taking a few risks. I must be forgiven such rash acts; I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know that freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with champagne. Nor yet a gift, a box of dainties designed to make you lick your chops. Oh, no! It’s a choice, on the contrary and a long-distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting. No champagne No friends raising their glasses as they look at your affectionately. Alone in a forbidding room, alone in the prisoner’s box before the judges, and alone to decide in face of oneself or in the face others’ judgment. At the end of all freedom is a court sentence; that’s why freedom is too heavy to bear, especially when you’re down with a fever, or are distressed, or love nobody.

Gonzo, gonzo, gone

The nice thing about the Net is that someone will do the tasks you think about doing but are too lazy to do. For example, I’ve sometimes talked about the George Bush phenomenon of rubbing the heads of bald men, but the blog Rigorous Intuition has the visual documentation. The man really thinks that everyone else in the world isn’t real, just a toy for his amusement. Soon he’ll be bidding against Michael Jackson for the skull of the Elephant Man.

Hunter S. Thompson and Sandra Dee dead on the same day. There’s probably a joke in that, but it’s hard enough to imagine a world that encompassed both of them, much less a joke.

Happy Displaced Apostrophe Day (aka Presidents’ Day, President’s Day, Presidents Day, Presiden’t’s’ Day, etc).

Maybe they meant to call it Operation River Blintz

The US is reportedly about to start a Fallujah-type attack on Ramadi, which has the astonishingly stupid codename Operation River Blitz. If they really wanted to scare the Iraqis, they’d have called it Operation Riverdance. A Marine major-general says the militants of Ramadi are “intent on preventing a peaceful transition of power between the interim Iraqi government and the Iraqi transitional government.” Interim, transitional, if there are any more stages to this thing we’re gonna run out of words meaning “not a real government.”

Bush is in Europe in order to mend fences--Niall Ferguson writes in the Guardian that it’s like Nixon going to China. He will forgive the Europeans for being, well, Europeans, just as long as he doesn’t have to listen to them being, well, European, for too long. Plans for a town-hall meeting in Germany were cancelled when the Germans refused to screen participants. And he will meet the heads of Europe tomorrow for a summit, in which he will speak for 30 minutes, and 11 heads of governments will be given a maximum of 5 minutes each. I’m picturing a band starting up when Berlusconi goes over.

The king of Swaziland, Mswati III, facing criticism for having bought BMWs for each of his 11 wives, in one of the poorest and definitely the most HIV-ridden country in the world, has issued a royal decree banning photos being taken “when [the king] alights from his car”. Problem solved.

Objective reporting at its finest, from the Daily Telegraph: “Confused Spaniards Vote for EU Constitution.” Although 77% of the few people who turned out to vote supported the constitution (Spain is the first country to vote on it), what the Telegraph is referring to is that few have evidently read the 87,392-page document.

I’ve run stories before about elephants in Thailand taking up painting. One was just bought by a Thai businesswoman living in America for $39,000. The painting, “Cold Wind, Swirling Mist, Charming Lanna Number One,” is reportedly a cross between impressionism and surrealism, as is this whole story.

I’m not 100% sure that this is that painting (and how could so many news outlets run this story without showing the painting?):



Post-Impressionism, maybe, but surrealism?

In a friendly way, of course

Bush will meet with Putin and says he will discuss Russia’s re-authoritarianization (to coin a word with too many syllables) and human rights record. Sounding like Reagan talking about South Africa, or his own father declaring after Tiananmen Square that it was no time for an emotional response, Shrub says he will raise these issues only in private, “so I can explain to him as best I can, in a friendly way, of course, that Western values are, you know, are based upon transparency and rule of law, the right for the people to express themselves, checks and balances in government.” “As best I can,” indeed.

George Bush, pillock of the free world

Robin Williams, on Bill Maher’s show: “George Bush was in the same National Guard unit as Bigfoot.”

Bush says that “We do not accept a false caricature that divides the Western world between an idealistic United States and a cynical Europe.” I’m sure the Europeans will be glad to hear that, in their cynical way. He goes on, “America and Europe are the pillars of the free world.” This is, of course entirely meaningless--what does it mean to be a “pillar”?--but it’s funny to see the re-emergence under Bush of the Cold War phrase “free world.”

There are even more insulting ways to divide the world, and Secretary of War Rumsfeld used one a few days ago when he said that “China is a country that we hope and pray enters the civilized world in an orderly way without the grinding of gears”. His handlers later rushed to explain that he hadn’t actually called China uncivilized, although he obviously had.

A quote I’d missed, from the wife of John Negroponte, last year about his support of Honduran death squads: “I want to say to those people, ‘Haven’t you moved on?’ To keep fighting all that is old hat.”