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Secretary of War Rumsfeld on why Iraq’s failure to form a government, 7 weeks after the elections, is actually a good thing: “I think all of the debate, discussion and politics is a healthy thing.” Sure wasn’t what the Republicans told Al Gore in 2000.
The WaPo is calling for the US to provide “outside help” to preserve democracy in Bolivia, although, as with its editorials attacking Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, you could be forgiven for thinking the Post was more concerned with energy exports to the US than with democracy. Mr. Chávez makes an appearance here too, accused of “meddling” in Bolivia (as opposed to “outside help”). Evidently Chávez, “along with Cuba’s Fidel Castro dreams of a new bloc of Latin ‘socialist’ (i.e., undemocratic) regimes that will join with like-minded states such as Iran, Libya and China to oppose the United States.”
Like-minded? Libya and China? Iran and Cuba?
The funny thing is that the Post news section has an article on John Negroponte’s stint as ambassador to Honduras, providing “outside help” by running interference for its death squads. The article is better than the editorial, although you have to wonder about their choice of words in saying that he “is still being hounded by human rights activists,” such as a woman whose brother was disappeared. Hounded indeed, like Inspector Javert chasing Jean Valjean.
Given that Bush saw fit to promote a man with that record to Intelligence Tsar, it’s hard to imagine why the Post thinks any “outside help” provided by the US to Bolivia would be in the direction of “head[ing] off the breakdown of democracy in Latin America”. Also, we have some idea of the Bushies’ commitment to Bolivian democracy from its past record, which the Post doesn’t see fit to mention: during the 2002 Bolivian presidential elections, the American ambassador and Otto Reich of the State Department issued repeated blunt threats about cutting aid — and worse — if the country elected the wrong candidate. They took the hint and our candidate won.
The editorial also defends the opening of Bolivian infrastructure to outside (i.e., American) investment, so that provision of water is run on a for-profit basis. I don’t know much about the specific situation in Bolivia, but that usually means a whopping increase in water bills, and aggressive disconnection of those who can’t afford it.
This looks like a good place to find out more about Bolivia. (Update: and here. Thanks to Josh Narins of Remain Calm for the link.)
This week the Daily Show unfairly made fun of talk show hosts who questioned Condi Rice over and over last Sunday about whether she would run for president, but the reason they did so was that it took several rounds to get her to give an answer not containing weasel words like “I have no intention of running.” So North Korea can take her assertion that the US has “no intention” of attacking it and “no desire” to do so for what it’s worth.
And this doesn’t help either:
In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea, the Bush administration told its Asian allies in briefings earlier this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya. That was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state.
But that is not what U.S. intelligence reported, according to two officials with detailed knowledge of the transaction. North Korea, according to the intelligence, had supplied uranium hexafluoride -- which can be enriched to weapons-grade uranium -- to Pakistan. It was Pakistan, a key U.S. ally with its own nuclear arsenal, that sold the material to Libya. The U.S. government had no evidence, the officials said, that North Korea knew of the second transaction.
If we didn’t already have the leaked memo about what a great issue Terri Schiavo’s brain-dead body was for the R’s, we might wonder why Congressional intervention took the form of a law moving the case to the federal courts, which just drags the whole thing out, when the law could just as easily have ordered that she be kept alive forever and ever. Tom DeLay even says that permanently preventing her feeding tube being removed is “not the point.” No, you bottom-feeding demagogic blowhard, it surely isn’t. GeeDubya will fly back to Washington specifically to sign the bill.
Favorite headline: “Boston Archbishop Will Wash Women’s Feet.” I’m sure he will.
I’m not sure which was the slimiest thing done by a politician this week, Gerry Adams warning the family of murdered Belfast man Robert McCartney not to be “manipulated” for political gain, or Bill “I’m a doctor you know” Frist proclaiming that he’d watched videotapes of Terri Schiavo for an hour and is convinced that the people who have observed her vegetating for the past 15 years have it wrong.
The Sindy reports that the US military routinely orders the release of Iraqi common criminals, including kidnappers, if they promise to spy on the insurgents. Nice.
Speaking of common criminals, does it worry anyone that Wolfowitz is going to the World Bank even though he based his understanding of Iraq on the word of Achmad Chalabi, a man convicted of bank fraud?
The idiots at the LA Times just scared the crap out of me with this misleading headline: “Policy OKs First Strike to Protect U.S.” They mean that the Pentagon’s new strategic plans codify Bush’s policy of preemption. This does not mean nuclear attack, which the term “first strike” usually means in a military context, as the headline-writer evidently does not know; thus the crap-scaring-out effect of that headline.
JARGON ALERT: This policy is known by the euphemism “active deterrence.”
My favorite sentence from the report: “Our strength as a nation-state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak, using international fora, judicial processes and terrorism.” I love how those three are just lumped together. The World Court, 9/11, pretty much the same thing. Strategies of the weak. The LA Times, by the way, so careless in its use of “first strike,” saw fit to replace the word fora with forums, in brackets, like there’s something wrong with Latin plurals.
Condolencia Rice (as Hugo Chávez calls her) in Afghanistan: “There could be no better story than the story of Afghanistan in the last several years”. I dunno, the one about the priest, the rabbi and the talking dog was a pretty good story too. She kept talking about the Afghans’ “commitment” to democracy, which remains as unfulfilled as my commitment to drop a few pounds. Condi explained the latest postponement of parliamentary elections (now 15 months behind schedule) as being because Afghanistan is a large and complicated country. Has it grown in size and complexity since it somehow managed to hold presidential elections? In the absence of a parliament, there is no democracy; without checks on his power, Karzai is by definition a dictator.
Incidentally, as an example of the State Dept’s competence and professionalism in dealing with and understanding this part of the world, note the blank spots in the transcript on the State Dept website (link in previous paragraph) whenever a reporter or Karzai spoke in their native language. Just as our new goodwill ambassador to the Muslim world, Karen Hughes, doesn’t need to know Arabic to perform that job, no one at State needs to know Pashto. If it was important, they’d say it in English.
Speaking of professionalism, Porter Goss told a Senate committee yesterday that the US doesn’t use torture because torture is not “professional interrogation.” Like not wearing a tie to work. Nice that he takes such a principled stand. Actually, what he said is that there is no torture “at this time.” Which could just refer to the time zone difference.
And just to combine the topics of Afghanistan and torture, here’s a (long) Guardian investigation of the many American detention centers/concentration camps in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
According to the London Times, Fidel Castro recently gave a “generally upbeat 5¾ hour speech, two hours of which he devoted to the merits of the pressure cooker which he is distributing cut-price to all Cuban households.”
Speaking of cut-price pressure cookers, Congress really did subpoena the late Terri Schiavo, they really really did. At least she’d be the smartest person in the room.
Speaking of the culture of life, when the Argentinian health minister recently said that he supported legalizing abortion, the Catholic bishop to the armed forces said he should have a millstone hung around his neck and be thrown from a helicopter. In the 1970s, this was a favorite method of the military in killing left-wingers in Argentina.
George shows where Dick Cheney touched him.
South Dakota has a new law requiring that, before an abortion, the doctor must tell the woman that abortion ends the life of a “whole, separate, unique, living human being.” Also that she could die or get really depressed afterwards, and that “the pregnant woman has an existing relationship with that unborn human being and that the relationship enjoys protection under the United States Constitution and under the laws of South Dakota,” whatever that means.The London Times claims to have “clear evidence” that Syria was behind the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, although there is nothing resembling evidence in its story. And Robert Fisk in the Indy, who has in recent days been rather more convincing on the subject, reports that Syria’s top Lebanese intelligence guy announced that he would sue himself, presumably in Syrian court, to prove his own innocence in the assassination. Looking forward to that one.From the Press Association: “A businesswoman paid £2,500 to fly five invisible mermaids from London to Harare to help her recover a stolen car and cash.”Will Durst suggests some slogans for Karen Hughes in improving the US’s image (edited slightly down): - When Democracy Reigns, It Pours.
- America: Just a Big Red White and Blue Teddy Bear With a Whole Lot of Guns.
- Snap. Crackle. Pow. Thud.
- Be All We Think You Should Be.
- Tastes Great. Less Torture.
- They Don’t Call Us The GREAT Satan For Nothing.
- America 2.0. Now With Improved Press Suppression.
- What’s So Bad About Bread And Circuses Anyway?
- John Wayne: Not Just an Actor. A Way Of Life.
- Don’t Like Us? Get In Line.
- Wouldn’t You Really Rather Have A Republic?
- Badges, We Don’t Need No Stinking Badges.
- Friendly Fire ‘R Us.
- Democracy: Just Do It.
- You Keep the Sand, We’ll Take the Oil.
- Sometimes You Feel Like a Crazed Tyrannical Despot, Sometimes You Don’t.
- We’re Everywhere You Want To Be. Deal With It.
- The New Improved Low-Carb, Atkins-Friendly America.
- Got Grenades?
- I Can’t Believe I Invaded The Whole Peninsula.
- Nobody Doesn’t Like Britney Spears.
Just caught the end of Bush, resplendent in ugly green tie, giving his annual St Patrick’s Day speech. I could swear he said that the US and Ireland share a common commitment to the values of St. Patrick. A dislike of snakes? (See, you thought I would go with the drinking thing, but I went another way.) I watched on Fox, whose anchor dutifully repeated O’Chimpy’s mispronunciation of Irish PM Ahern’s name.
From the Daily Telegraph: “A robber who held up a bookmaker’s shop with a banana was jailed for six years yesterday.” I’ve provided a link, but do you really want to use it? I say leave that sentence to stand there in all its perfection.
LAT columnist George Skelton says of Governor Terminator, “When a governor claims he’s not a politician, it’s time to get him a civics book or a good shrink.” That’s not quite fair. He’s also been in lots of movies, but no one would ever call him an actor.
In a ham-handed piece of agitprop, House Republicans drove a 1935 Ford Coupe, manufactured the same year as Social Security was inaugurated, to the Capitol to provide an image so compelling that I can’t actually find it online to steal in order to illustrate this post, to illustrate, in Denny Hastert’s words, “that the Social Security system is an old vehicle for retirement security.” The owner of the car was pretty annoyed at the insult to his lovingly restored vehicle.
Actually, I like the idea of using cars to represent policies. Here’s an automotive symbol of the new bankruptcy bill:
Favorite Reuters headline of the day: “Zambia: Investigators Seize Ex-President’s Shoes.” 100 pairs of them. Also 300 shirts and 150 suits. It has something to do with a corruption investigation. Says Chiluba: “What they have done is to bring my underpants out to the general public.”
Speaking of bringing his underpants out to the general public, Bush has appointed Paul Wolfowitz to be president of the World Bank. While his thrift in regard to hair care products is well known, even legendary, I see nothing in his resumé that hints at a qualification. (Later: ok, at the press conference GeeDubya explains it: “He helped manage a large organization. The World Bank’s a large organization; the Pentagon’s a large organization.” Sure, practically the same thing.) This continues the Bush fad of appointing fierce unilateralists to multinational organizations, because you can never start celebrating April Fools Day too early. Bush described Wolfy as a “compassionate, decent man,” so possibly he just mistook him for someone else.
On Social Security: “First of all, Dave, let me, if I might, correct you -- be so bold as to correct you. I have not laid out a plan yet -- intentionally.”
Q But, sir, but Democrats have made it pretty clear that they’re not interested in that. They want you to lay it out.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Well -- (chuckles) -- I’m sure they do!
Don’t you love how he makes it sound like a sneaky ploy by the D’s, but he was just too clever for them?
On “extraordinary rendition,” the first time he’s been asked this if I’m not mistaken, he just said that we receive promises from Syria, Jordan, Morocco and the like that no one will be tortured. Also, “This country does not believe in torture. We do believe in protecting ourselves. We don’t believe in torture,” adding, “Or is it elves we don’t believe in? I always get those two confused.”
On the march of democracy in Lebanon:I like the idea of people running for office -- a positive effect when you run for office, you know? Maybe some will run office, say, Vote for me -- I look forward to blowing up America -- I don’t know. I don’t know if that’ll be their platform or not. But it’s -- I don’t think so. I think people generally run for office say, Vote for me -- I’m looking forward to fixing your potholes or making sure you’ve got bread on the table.
On the march of democracy in Iraq:
First of all, obviously there will be a government formed, but I think it is interesting and to watch the process of people negotiating... It’s a wholesome process, and it’s being done in a transparent way.
Transparent? Six weeks of closed-door negotiations? Also, Juan Cole pointed out that we still haven’t seen a list of the elected representatives.
On the march of democracy in Iran: “I believe Iran should adopt democracy, that’s what I believe.” But not in elves.
Bush has been talking about Iran breaking their obligations by enriching uranium. Except there is no such obligation. So, says a David Sanger NYT article Tuesday, “Mr. Bush now argues that there is a new class of nations that simply cannot be trusted with the technology to produce nuclear material even if the treaty itself makes no such distinction.”
No country on earth is going to accept such a designation voluntarily. Still less will any nation accept that it is a “failed state,” another term that’s been bandied about lately. Nor will they accept that it is the United States which has the authority to award states passing or failing grades.
And looked at from the ground, it hardly matters. You can use the language of international legality, talk about making Iran (or Iraq) live up to its obligations or bringing Saddam, Osama, et al to “justice,” but the people on whom the bombs drop will always recognize it for the naked assertion of power that it is. The United States is not the armed wing of the IAEA, it simply wants Iran incapable of defending itself. Iranians know that and will not be fooled by the language Americans use among themselves to cloak their actions, any more than Iraqis believe that the US invaded their country for the purpose of “liberating” them or the Cambodians believed in the “secret bombing of Cambodia.” At ground zero, those things are always much clearer.
A case can be made for Iran not being a state you’d like to see with nukes, not only because of its current rulers, but because of who its rulers might be five, ten, or fifteen years from now. And we can debate the validity of that case, but let’s stop doing violence to the language and to the concept of the rule of law by pretending to be acting under any other rule than the one which states that the country with the most expensive military hardware makes the rules, including what military hardware other nations are allowed. Really, I’m just sick of the bullshit, which only Americans and maybe Tony Blair actually believe.
At the same time as Bush tries to impose obligations on “nations that simply cannot be trusted,” the number restrictions he is willing to accept on America’s freedom of action grows smaller by the day. This week alone, it repudiated its obligation to allow consular services to foreign nationals accused of crimes in the US, and made clear it intends to torpedo an international agreement to reduce illegal logging in rainforests.
In a speech, part of his campaign for chief justice, “Fat Tony” Scalia has said that unelected judges have no business deciding issues like abortion and the death penalty. I assume this means he will no longer cast a vote in cases affecting those issues.
Guardian headline: “Man Who Ate Friend’s Brain Jailed for Life.” Just as well Britain doesn’t have the death penalty anymore, because his request for his last meal but pose a bit of a problem.
Sorry, I can’t leave the cannibal story without another tasteless joke: But it was still better than most British cuisine.
And to answer the obvious question: fried in butter.
Speaking of brains fried in butter, George Bush made a slightly off-kilter statement at a joint appearance today with the tiny king of Jordan, presented without comment: “We view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, and I would hope that Hezbollah would prove that they’re not by laying down arms and not threatening peace.”
Bush also said how “heartened” he was that 2/3 of Americans think there is a problem with Social Security. Yeah, we’re all fucking heartened by that. “And I am mindful that when the public says there’s a problem, we’ve got to work to solve it.” Scare the public and when they’re scared, claim a mandate; circular logic at its finest. “I’m just getting started on this issue, Steve, and I’m enjoying every minute of it. I like to take big issues to the American people.” Should he really be enjoying this quite so much?
What turns the story about Halliburton charging $27.5m to ship $82,100 worth of heating and cooking fuel to Iraq turns from a smallish scandal into a big one, is that the Pentagon audit showing this came out in October, before the election, and was suppressed, even kept secret from Congress, which asked 12 times to see the audit. Oh, and speaking of UN oil-for-fuel scandals, more than 60% of Halliburton’s Iraq bills are paid by the UN, using Iraqi oil revenues, and the US withheld the audit from the UN too.
A new Holocaust museum opened in Israel today. After initial plans not to even mention that homosexuals were put in concentration camps, they reversed themselves a couple of months ago (too-little-known Holocaust fact: when the camps were liberated, the homosexuals were not released, but transferred into prisons; the Allies considered them not to have been put in the camps because of their identities, like the Jews and Gypsies, but because they were criminals, having broken the law — by being homosexual). Possibly this is why Elie Wiesel insisted on saying at the dedication that the Holocaust wasn’t man’s inhumanity to man, but man’s inhumanity to Jews.
(Update: just did a search at the museum’s website for “homosexual.” Nada.)
The president of Malawi insists that he is not afraid of ghosts, has never seen a ghost, and it’s all lies spread by his opponents, 3 of whom, a government official and two journalists, have been arrested.
The Tory candidate for Parliament for Slough, yes the place “The Office” is set in, has been forced out for saying the European Union is a big “Papist plot.”
The US army platoon leader, Lieutenant Jack Saville, who ordered his men to throw two Iraqi prisoners into the Tigris in January 2004 (one is presumed dead) was given a stiff sentence of 45 days for “dereliction of duty.” Saville apologized because his actions “adversely affected U.S.-Iraqi trust during critical times of reconstruction.” Ya think? And he asked to be allowed to remain in the army (it’s unclear if he will be discharged or not), and said God had forgiven him and he hopes “to use these experiences for greater good.” How one uses the experience of drowning a prisoner for greater good is beyond me.
And since this story (and a couple of other sources’ reports on this) seriously buries the lead, I’m gonna put it in red:
Lt Saville agreed to testify against his captain, who had given him a hit list of five Iraqis who were to be executed on the spot if they were captured in a raid.
Matthew Cunningham is the captain’s name (it’s not mentioned in the Guardian, AP or BBC reports).
The two guys thrown into the river were not on the hit list. Rather, two platoons had a bet (the stakes are not specified in any news report) over which one would throw an Iraqi into the river first.
Putin’s little youth movement, less than a month old, has already taken to book-burning. They are protesting a new opera being performed at the Bolshoi. Yes the whole thing is silly (including the opera itself, from the description), but the danger lies in the fact that while Putin created this organization to prevent a Borscht Revolution, in the meantime they have to be given things to do, to maintain their enthusiasm and involvement. Today they’re protesting opera. What’s next?
Compare and contrast the Chinese National People’s Congress
and the Taiwanese legislature.
Just sayin’.
The LA Times has a must-read about US soldiers in Iraq making music videos featuring pictures of dead Iraqis, with appropriate musical soundtracks. “I have a lot of pictures of dead Iraqis — everybody does,” said Spc. Jack Benson, 22. The Times actually went to a film studies professor for a review. He liked it, so at least the soldiers aren’t the only sociopaths in the article. Says a 30-year old sergeant, “It’s no more graphic than ‘Saving Private Ryan.’ To us, it’s no different than watching a movie.”
I’ve been reading Joanna Bourke’s An Intimate History of Killing, on the psychology of war, but I think the veterans of this war are going to have a collection of psychoses absolutely without precedent.
Condoleezza Rice went on three Sunday talk shows to say that she won’t run for president. Imagine my disappointment. Really, go on: imagine it.
She says that instead of running for the presidency, she wants to “get back to ... the world of ideas.” The two are, of course, mutually exclusive. Actually, my ellipsis hides that she actually said she wants to “get back to the California life and to the world of ideas,” and those are also mutually exclusive.
I guess if she’s not running, we’ll never know what being “mildly pro-choice” means.
The ghost mice problem in Malawi’s presidential palace is being taken care of. President Mutharika’s aide on Christian affairs says “No strategy designed from the pits of hell will prosper against the President because we have asked for divine intervention to cast the blood of Jesus against any evil plots against the President.” So that’s ok then.
The Israeli Cabinet decided to postpone taking any actions against 24 settlements in the West Bank that even they acknowledge are illegal (105 were listed in a recent gov report). They will wait until after the Gaza evacuation, because while the Israeli Defense Force can defeat the combined militaries of all the Arab nations in less than a week, it can’t cope with evacuating the West Bank and Gaza settlers at the same time.
The Taiwanese government has called for demonstrations to protest the Chinese law just passed allowing China to invade -- sorry, to use “non-peaceful and other necessary measures” -- if Taiwan declares independence. It doesn’t plan to declare independence, it just doesn’t like being told what to do by “the man.”
To demonstrate that Taiwan should have no fears about reunification because China is now a free, liberal, pluralistic, tolerant country, the vote in the National People’s Congress was 2,896 to 0, with 2 abstentions. Huh, huh, two abstentions, how ‘bout that?
Taiwan plans to mobilize a million demonstrators. Yeah, like a million is really going to impress China, where that many people show up for a 10%-off shoe sale.
Something only just occurred to me: if the US doesn’t recognize Taiwan, what entity is it we sell all those arms to?
You’re still imagining my disappointment that Condi isn’t running for president, aren’t you?
The president of Malawi, Bingu wa Mutharika, who a few months ago kicked the parliament out of its offices because he really needed a 300-room mansion, no longer lives there because of ghosts. Say what you will about imperialism but when the British ran the place, the ghost problem was kept pretty much under control.
A new version of the Bible will use the phrase “stoned to death” to describe the punishment popularized by Monty Python’s Life of Brian rather than “stoned,” because of fears that people will become confused and take it as an endorsement of drug use. Also, “foreigners” replaces “aliens,” in case people think the Bible is referring to bug-eyed monsters from Alpha Centauri.
The repulsive 15-year-long battle over the brain-dead body of Terri Schiavo continues. Just when you think it can’t get any more distasteful, a businessman has offered her husband $1 million not to pull the plug.
State-run Iraqi tv has a daily program featuring the confessions of captured insurgents. Some of them show signs of having been beaten up, and this week one died after his 15 minutes were up.
Tax collectors in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh, in an interesting variation on the old Indian custom of “sitting dharna,” have hired drummers to play, constantly, outside the homes of tax-defaulters. Don’t tell the Republicans, or they’ll stick a provision in the bankruptcy bill letting credit card companies do that to debtors too.
A tiny unregarded AP story Friday reported that 37 people killed themselves in 2004 under Oregon’s assisted-suicide law, which is a drop from the previous year. The average age of the... customers was 64. I support assisted suicide, but I hope someone is properly monitoring this program because the possibilities for abuse are so great.
The United States military, under the peculiar impression that it was Michael Jackson, kept children as young as 11 locked up in Abu Ghraib. Still does, for all we know.
The real Michael Jackson (which may be the first time that adjective has been attached to that person) appeared in court in pajamas. Who does he think he is, a blogger?
It has been suggested to me that my last post made unfair sport of Kofi Annan’s wish to outlaw terrorism. Actually, the early reports spun Annan’s remarks (transcript here) rather differently than the Guardian, which describes them as an attack on countries which undermine “core values” in their fight on terrorism, and (and this detail was definitely left out) called for a UN special envoy to monitor whether countries’ counter-terrorism measures -- Patriot Acts, detention without trial, etc -- violate international law.
That said, my problem with the UN addressing terrorism is that it involves defining certain people, groups, organizations as terrorists, which is an inherently political act which the UN is simply not up to.
Blair is still in the process of ramming his terrorism bill through Parliament, removing the right to a trial, the presumption of innocence, and habeas corpus all in one go, on the grounds that 9/11 trumps 1215. The Tories have been fighting for an 8-month sunset clause, but Blair insisted during Prime Minister’s Questions that Al Qaida is more likely to attack Britain if the provisions are not permanent. Comments Simon Carr in the Indy, “You didn’t think the terror situation was so finely poised, perhaps?”
Blair has steadfastly refused to release to Parliament the full legal advice he was given about whether going to war in Iraq was legal under international law. This week it turned out that even the Cabinet wasn’t shown it, and today it has come out that there was none. All there ever was was a single page.
Still, it’s better than the guide which the Labour Party is giving MPs and campaigners on how to answer questions about the war. If asked about the legality of the war, they are advised to respond, “We are where we are,” which seems a little Zen for Eastbourne, somehow.
British satellite tv service Sky is introducing a Bad Movie channel. I’m so jealous.
A federal district court judge has thrown out a civil case brought by Vietnamese harmed by the use of Agent Orange against its manufacturers. Actually, I can see the legal point that they acted according to lawful government orders, but if you know that your product is being misused, in ways that harm innocent civilians, I don’t think the “just following orders” defense is really good enough. (Update: Simon Tisdall points out that Zyklon B manufacturers were executed after World War II).
Similarly, the Pakistani government today admitted that A.Q. Khan aided the Iranian nuclear program, but will not allow him to be prosecuted. Also, according to the misinformation minister, he was acting “in his personal capacity,” and the government had no idea that several centrifuges had found their way onto a ship bound for Iran.
Looking back over this post, every item is about -- as Annan put it -- compromising core values, assuming those core values aren’t a myth. Actually, every item but one: the Bad Movie channel doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is.
