Bush exercises the presidential ability to heal the lame and the halt

Number 3, number 389, what’s the difference?

The reason why the supposed number 3 man in Al Qaeda with the weird skin condition, who was captured last week by Pakistani agents wearing burqas, according to a BBC report which fails to say if they were men or women, and who was then beaten and drugged, has failed to give up any usable intelligence, is that he’s not particularly high up in AQ at all. The FBI still — I mean STILL — hasn’t figured out how Arab names work, exactly the problem that allowed some of the 9/11 hijackers into the country, and this guy has a similar name to another Libyan terrorist’s. “When The Sunday Times contacted a senior FBI counter-terrorism official for information about the importance of the detained man, he sent material on al-Liby, the wrong man.”

For those who wondered about my overly succinct dismissal of George Galloway, this post at Crooked Timber (for which, thanks to Tex) exactly matches my views of the man, but brings more knowledge to bear (hey, I live in California, what would I know about demagogic politicians!).

A little test: see how many news reports on the bombings in Burma, like this one from the AP, also mention that the military is using chemical weapons on rebels.

Stronger than the will of an empire

Bush is in Latvia, talking up the Baltic love of freedom and democracy. Putin will not be best pleased. Of course Chimpy being Chimpy, for him the highest proof of the love of freedom is being willing to impose it on other nations at gunpoint, so he keeps praising the Baltic states’ membership in the Coalition of the Willing (COW):

The Latvian, Estonian, and Lithuanian people showed that the love of liberty is stronger than the will of an empire. And today you’re standing for liberty beyond your borders, so that others do not suffer the injustices you have known.

But when the Baltic presidents try to mention all the things the US did to stand for liberty in the Baltics from 1945 to 1991, all they can come up with is that the US never recognized the occupation. Way to stand for liberty beyond your borders, America! Of course Bush’s father tried very hard not to recognize their independence either, saying it would “contribute to anarchy” to do so, so really we were just trying not to recognize Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia at all, like avoiding eye contact when you run into someone on the street you owe money to.

Here’s another sentence from that speech: “Our journey from national independence to equal injustice [sic] included the enslavement of millions, and a four-year civil war.” That’s not my sic, that’s the White House website’s.

There are a couple of moves to appease Putin, including a coded call for the Baltics to stop treating their ethnic Russian populations as second-class citizens. And he insists that democracies aren’t a threat to Russia:

Stable, prosperous democracies are good neighbors, trading in freedom, and posing no threat to anyone.

Just can’t think of a stable, prosperous democracy that’s a threat to other nations, huh?

The United States has free and peaceful nations to the north and south of us. We do not consider ourselves to be encircled; we consider ourselves to be blessed.

You’ll notice he doesn’t ask if Canada and Mexico consider themselves blessed.

In another event, Shrubya goes into student-of-history mode, saying he hopes that “we’re able to learn the lessons from that painful history [the occupation of the Baltics], that tyranny is evil and people deserve to live in a free society.” If he taught history, the final would be really easy. Also, “never again should we allow Jews and gypsies to be exterminated and the world not pay close attention to it.” What more could they ask for?

Humility is something I work on every day

Tom DeLay spoke on the subject of humility at a National Day of Prayer service (I assume all of you who are Americans prayed yesterday, I’m pretty sure it was mandatory). The NYT reports

Mr. DeLay received a standing ovation for his talk. Asked afterward why he chose the topic, he replied smugly, “Humility is something I work on every day.”

I may have added a word to that excerpt.

In the world in brief section Friday, the NYT has what I can only assume was an ironic juxtaposition of two stories from South Africa, one that the government is getting annoyed with criticism of radiation leaks from a nuclear research facility and thinking about introducing legislation to ensure people “speak responsibly on sensitive matters,” the sort of legislation Peter Hain probably remembers well, and a story that SA’s health minister defended her remarks that garlic is an effective treatment for AIDS.

The British election does not bode well for the Northern Irish peace process. David Trimble, the voice of moderation-compared-to-Ian-Paisley, has been defeated for reelection and his party is down to one seat. Paisley was crowing today that “The day has come when we cannot tolerate Sinn Fein/IRA any more,” Ian Paisley being renowned for his tolerance. Sinn Fein is the second largest Northern Ireland party, after Paisley’s DUP, with 5 elected MPs, up from 4. The new Northern Irish Secretary, poor sod, is an interesting choice: Peter Hain, who has been thoroughly assimilated into Blairism, but is a South African and in the 1970s was a prominent anti-apartheid activist in Britain (he had emigrated to Britain with his parents, also anti-apartheidists).

More on the British elections: move along, move along, nothing to see here

Blair again acknowledges the depth of unpopularity of his Iraq policy, but adds “I also know — and believe — that after this election people want to move on.” This is a simulacrum of contriteness, lacking any actual contrition. Since he’s not planning to withdraw British troops, what does he mean by “moving on”? He means that he will stop responding to criticisms, so opponents of the war might as well stop making them; the “move on” formula benefits only Tony Blair. It lacks the smug triumphalism of Bush’s “We had an accountability moment, and that’s called the 2004 elections,” but its practical meaning amounts to the same thing.

During the election campaign, Blair committed several crimes against democracy — misdemeanors rather than felonies, but not insignificant ones. American politicians pay lip service to the idea that “every vote counts.” They don’t mean it, but it is important that they say it. Blair, on the other hand, told voters who might want to send him a message that a vote for the Liberal Democrats was a “wasted vote.” And, worried about a projected low turnout — and in fact Labour’s 36% tally was less than the 39% of the electorate who didn’t vote at all, which is a first in British electoral history — he insisted that the election might come down to a few thousand votes in a handful of seats, which while accurate is not something a leader in a democratic, one person one vote, country should say. And finally, by the end of the campaign he was refusing to engage with disaffected voters. In the BBC’s “Question Time” and elsewhere, I saw him shrug when confronted by people angry about Iraq, saying that he’d already made his case and they were either convinced or they weren’t. Which might be reasonable to argue, and indeed the people I saw didn’t look convinceable, but a candidate in a democracy doesn’t get to give up on trying to convince every single voter. It shows a lack of faith in democracy to do so.

The British voters accomplished exactly what Michael Howard told them to do, and what they wanted to do: they wiped the smirk off Tony Blair’s face. So the system works.

Indeed, the expression on Blair’s face last night, in the finest traditions of representative government, precisely mirrored the mood of the voters: upset, uncertain, dour, queasy and sullen. I’m telling you, the system works!

British election results: “I hope in my heart that one day the prime minister may be able to say sorry”

I’m sorry I forgot to post a prediction about the British election results, since it would have been pretty accurate; you’ll just have to take my word for it. Labour won what would be a landslide in most countries, but is such a drop from its previous two election victories that it looks very much like a defeat, and might well have been an actual defeat if there had been a credible alternative, if anyone could have imagined either the Tories or the LibDems in power without, respectively, cringing or laughing. The last 3 or 4 years were the time for a push by the LibDems to displace the Tories as the primary opposition party, as they already are in some parts of the country, but there was no such push, and the electoral system is stacked against them, so that even in seats where they increased their vote, they mostly succeeded in cutting into Labour majorities and handing those seats to Tories.

The Tories ran quite a few gay candidates (although not, as far as I know, any lesbians, but don’t quote me on that), evidently without scaring the blue-haired old ladies or upsetting the horses. Really, it was a non-issue. I’m not sure yet how many were run in seats where they had a chance of winning (although to be fair, first-time candidates are not usually given safe seats but are expected to be seasoned by losing their first race), or how many did win; I’ll try to update when all the results are in (or someone could drop me an email, hint hint). They also ran more ethnic minorities than usual, and Adam Afriyie won in Windsor, the first ever black Tory MP. However Labour’s Oona King, who is black, a woman, and Jewish, was defeated by George Galloway of the Respect party, who is fiercely anti-war, the most left-wing member of the new Parliament, but absolutely not someone we want on our side.

In his remarkably glum victory speech, Blair admitted that the country wanted the result it got, for Labour to win but with a much reduced majority (which is a way of saying that those who switched their votes to the LibDems didn’t really mean it, which is true, but he shouldn’t be the one to say it). Another way of saying that is that voters wanted to send Blair a message not to govern so far to the right of the party of which he is supposed to be the leader.

I predict that Blair will be replaced as party leader and prime minister not less than a year but not more than two years from now; the only question is whether he’ll jump or be pushed. In his own constituency of Sedgefield, 14 people ran against him, and he had to stand there with all of them as the results were read out, including the Monster Raving Loony Party candidate and the former topless model whose real name is probably not Cherri Blairout Gilham — that’s her in the hat Tony is trying so hard not to look at....



and a man named Reg Keys, who scored an astonishing 10% of the vote on an anti-war platform, after his 20-year old son, a soldier, was killed in Iraq. After the count, he gave a speech and Tony had to stand there listening. Here’s the bit I heard, before the BBC got bored and switched away: “If this war had been justified by international law I would have grieved and not campaigned. If weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq — again I would have grieved, not campaigned. ... I hope in my heart that one day the prime minister may be able to say sorry.”

Mr. Terminator, tear down this wall pink ribbon

As I hinted yesterday, Bush is heading into a minor shitstorm by attending the 60th anniversary of V-E Day in Moscow. It now seems he secretly tried to get Russia to repudiate before then the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 and the subsequent Russian annexation of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Since Bush is going to Moscow by way of Latvia, he’s right in the middle of this, and he has written a letter to the president of Latvia using the word “occupation,” which has pissed the Russians off no end. Russia has not only refused to apologize, it is insisting that there was no annexation, that it was by mutual agreement.

As part of his campaign for Tom DeLay-style redistricting in California, Governor Terminator went to Elk Grove, a Sacramento suburb parts of which are in two different districts, put up a big red length of ribbon at that dividing line down a street showing how cruelly and wantonly divided Elk Grovians had been by this senseless act of redistricting. He then tore the ribbon, to symbolize the reuniting of Elk Grove, like the breaching of the Berlin Wall, except that this wall was entirely fictional. Also, he went to the wrong street, 1/8th of a mile away from the real line, which may have been a deliberate mistake, because where he went was in a gated community, where the protesters who normally follow him around these days can be kept out.



Evidently Schwarzenegger is planning to divide California into districts without the use of lines. I can’t wait to see him try.

Emulating popular culture

Evidently today is the National Day of Prayer. George “Hey Laura, This Milk Tastes Kind of Funny” Bush had a bunch of ministers of various religions over to the White House to pray at him. It didn’t help. I’d like to have seen the look on the Catholic priest’s face (Bush called him a pastor) when Bush told him, “Kind of sounded more like a Baptist preacher to me.”

Bush declared, “From the landing of the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, to the launch of the American Revolution, the men and women who founded this nation in freedom relied on prayer to protect and preserve it.” Also, smallpox-infected blankets. Of course, he couldn’t resist mentioning that God supports our side in its more... vigorous endeavors: “Today, we pray for the troops who are defending our freedom [which he had just explained comes from God] against determined enemies around the globe.” Excellent plan, I’m sure our determined enemies didn’t think of that.

But what does God think about freedom to engage in sexually suggestive cheerleading? As you know, a bill to prohibit such foul practices passed the lower house of the Texas legislature 65-56. Cathie Adams, president of the Texas Eagle Forum, worries that “High school cheerleading was starting to emulate popular culture.” Could be worse: could be the other way around. Although it might make the next Star Wars movie more watchable.

Something is seriously wrong with the condition of Britain today. First I saw this image of a ballot box on the Tory party website, looking like it had been dropped from an airplane.



But then I saw this picture, on the Labour website, of Tony & Cherie Blair casting their ballots, evidently in a barn in Appalachia.



And an email sent out by the LibDems this morning pleaded, “If you are in a part of the country which is forecast bad weather for today, remember that you only get this opportunity to directly affect the direction of our country once every four or five years.” So vote for better weather.

Accounting and accountability

So while Congress did vote for $200m in aid to Palestine, much of it somehow wound up in Israeli hands: $20m to the Israeli electricity company, $50m for checkpoints, etc. At this point I would start a sentence “And to add insult to injury...” but there are too many ways to finish that sentence, too many insults. Very little money will go to the elected Palestinian government, but will be disbursed by non-governmental groups, preferably Zionist ones: for example, $2m goes to Hadassah. Another insult: $5m will go to audit the Palestinian budget; I don’t read that as meaning the audit will track only how American money is spent, but as a top-to-bottom audit. Or possibly it will be a thorough audit of precisely how much insult has been added to injury.

And you should all be ashamed of yourselves for the thought that just went through your heads: many accountants are not Jewish.

The Marine in the shooting of an unarmed, wounded Iraqi prisoner of war, the “He’s fucking faking he’s dead. He faking he’s fucking dead” incident (previous posts here and here) has been cleared by the Marine Corps (actually I thought he was cleared months ago) despite actual videotape of the shooting. Also, the LA Times tells us, as if to jog our memories, “The incident later was the basis for an episode of the pro-military television show "JAG" on CBS. In that story, the Marine was found not guilty.” Maybe the Marines put the wrong tape in the VCR.

Actually, most LA Times stories are assigned on the basis of things the editor saw on after-school specials and reruns of Matlock.

So with that, the rejection of Lynndie England’s guilty plea (which means that she will return to her military duties), and the whitewash of the Giuliana Sgrena shooting, it’s been quite a week for accountability. Also, Rumsfeld and Bush still have their jobs.

Options

Evidently a large number of veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars are coming home, driving really fast, and dying in crashes.

Next week George “The Horse Whisperer” Bush will attend a military parade in Red Square celebrating the 60th anniversary of V-E Day, or, as the Baltic states and possibly one or two other countries think of it, the start of 45 years of subjugation by the Red Army. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, in a Rummyesque move, told them to suck it up: “when some now argue over whether we did or did not occupy other countries, I feel like asking them: ‘And what would have become of you if we hadn’t broken the back of fascism - would you still exist as a people?’” Isn’t it nice to have options?

Speaking of options, in India, a 19 (or 22)-year old nurse was raped by an orderly, who gouged out one of her eyes in the process. Before he was sentenced, he asked the court if he could marry his victim, so the court had her hauled in to answer this beyond-obscene (but not uncommon) proposition.

She said no.

Still speaking of options, the British people will be choosing a new government in a few hours. Under Mr. Blair, the British political system has become increasingly presidential in tone and function, but not electorally. No one gets to vote directly on who will be prime minister, which creates some anomalies. For example, it has become increasingly clear that he lied to Parliament about the legal advice he had on the legality of the war in Iraq, but voters in Labour-held seats wishing to punish Blair for that would have to vote against their Members of Parliament, precisely the people Blair lied to.

A response to the infidel pesh merga forces which surrendered themselves to the crusaders and became a thorn in the side of Muslims

The Tory policy generator.

Given the repetitious nature of events in Iraq, I feel justified in recycling part of my Feb. 28 post, with the number updated:

in Iraq today anti-queuing militants struck again, killing at least 46 men applying to join the police. As we know, Sunnis believe that queues are distasteful in the eyes of Allah, while Shiites insist that forming orderly lines is a mitzvah, and require young men to form such lines NO MATTER HOW FUCKING MANY TIMES THOSE LINES GET BLOWN UP.

Says the group responsible, “This operation is in response to our brothers who are being tortured in your prisons, and in response to the infidel pesh merga forces which surrendered themselves to the crusaders and became a thorn in the side of Muslims.” Somewhere there’s a computer program, just like the Tory policy generator, that writes these messages. Surely no human could.

The attack came one day after the new interim, provisional, probationary, contingent, temporary, transient Iraqi government was sworn in, and one day after the US announced yet again that the insurgents were demoralized.

If the ethics of perfidy don’t work, why is Chalabi in office?

The WaPo characterizes these comments by Iraqi PM Jafari, addressed to Sunni insurgents as “conciliatory”: “Come back to our people with atonement and apology... The dialogue of words will take you to what the language of bullets and the ethics of perfidy failed to do.” A great big sloppy kiss, that is, straight out of the John Bolton school of diplomacy. I can’t find the whole speech, so I have only the word of the Post and a few other papers that it was specifically Sunni insurgents he meant, as opposed to the Sunni politicians who refused to join his administration, so that a Cabinet was sworn in today missing 7 members. There was a deadline of early May (the 7th?) after which, if no cabinet had been formed, a new prime minister would need to be chosen. Hard to see how a cabinet without proper ministers of defense, oil, etc counts.

A measure setting stricter standards for driver’s licenses went through the House, attached by James Sensenbrenner to a measure to fund the military in Iraq. No one has attacked him for this tactic, designed to circumvent a proper debate, because this sort of blackmail goes on in the legislative branch all the time. “Nice little supplemental appropriations bill ya got here, shame if something wuz to happen to it.” Without extortion, nothing would get done in Congress. Just wanted to point out, in the midst of all the recent talk about filibusters, that the normal processes of law-making would make Tony Soprano turn away in disgust.

Oh, and Sensenbrenner also snuck through a provision removing the right of habeas corpus for non-citizens.

A cunning plan

From the Daily Telegraph: “China offered the people of Taiwan a pair of giant pandas yesterday... But it was not clear last night if Taiwan would accept the pandas, with some members of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party denouncing it as a ploy to undermine Taiwan’s sovereignty.” I’m a little foggy on how they’d do this, but they may be super-ninja pandas.

Ann Widdecombe, Tory MP and former Employment Minister, among other things, was asked in a phone-in program how she would improve the life of the (woman) caller, said, “I would buy you a cat.”

Brazil has rejected American AIDS money, finding it to have moralistic strings attached to it. The US wanted every group receiving money, including those which work with prostitutes, to condemn prostitution.

On its opening weekend in Britain, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” earned... £4.2m.

Former Polish military ruler Wojciech Jaruzelski reveals that Erich Honecker was a lousy kisser.

Shout, show, shove, shoot

Health & Human Services Secretary Mike “Pull the Plug” Leavitt suggested that one way to save money in the Medicare program would be getting people in the program to make out living wills.

Well, I’ve been reading the Pentagon whitewash (pdf). The WaPo notes that it was posted “in a form that allowed outside computer specialists to manipulate it and reveal the deleted portions.” That arcane bit of computer “specialist” knowledge, I can reveal to you now, is called cut-and-paste.

The rules of engagement for the Iraqi checkpoint were called “shout, show, shove, shoot,” meaning a car would be successively hit by a searchlight, a green laser pointer, warning shots, and disabling shots. Sounds like a night at the strip club.

The report admits failing to have done proper forensic analysis of the scene, because when they tried, someone threw a hand grenade at them. “As a result, the forensic studies of the car could not be as conclusive as they normally would be.”

The checkpoint had no radar gun, but one of the soldiers was a NYC cop, “trained in vehicle speed estimation.” I’d accept that in lieu of a radar gun... if not for his conflict of interest.

The report confirmed something I knew about way back on March 10, but haven’t heard another word about since: the roadblock was set up around a curve which is less than, ya know, optimal if you want people to actually see your roadblock before you start shooting them. It’s a roadblock, not a speed-trap.

When oddly large burritos are outlawed, only oddly large outlaws will have oddly large burritos

The American whitewash of the shooting of Italian journalist/hostage Giuliana Sgrena’s car repeats the claim that it was driving at 50 mph. I haven’t read the report but... did the hastily set up roadblock come equipped with a radar gun? Incidentally, one part of the report I’m looking forward to seeing describes for the first time the US military’s rules of engagement at roadblocks; it was one of the ineptly redacted sections.

Once again, the Kuwaiti parliament fails to enfranchise women. I’m so glad we fought Gulf War I, the war to make the world safe for feudalism, to restore that country’s “freedom.”

In response to a British academic boycott of an Israeli university connected to the “College of Judea and Samaria” in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank (talk about a land-grant college!), Israel has decided to upgrade the college to a university. That’ll show ‘em.

Ariel Sharon says, as if it were his decision to make, that Hamas can’t participate in Palestinian elections unless they disarm.

A washing machine has been developed in Spain to deal with the problem of husbands not doing their share of the chores: using fingerprint-recognition technology, it will not allow the same person to push the start button twice in a row.

Why obesity is a danger to our young:

A call about a possible weapon at a middle school prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops, close nearby streets and lock down the school.

Someone called authorities Thursday after seeing a boy carrying something long and wrapped into Marshall Junior High. [in Clovis, New Mexico]

The drama ended two hours later when the suspicious item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapenos and wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt.

The burrito was part of Morrissey’s extra-credit assignment to create commercial advertising for a product. "We had to make up a product and it could have been anything. I made up a restaurant that specialized in oddly large burritos," Morrissey said.

In France, a man sued his ex-wife & her lover for compensation for the time he spent with the 13-year old girl he thought was his daughter. The court ordered them to pay him €23,000, almost the cost of the personality transplant he so obviously needs, because “It has not been proved that he would have voluntarily carried out his natural duties knowing that he was not the father.” To be fair, the ex-wife had married the lover and asked for legal paternity (and custody) to be changed. €8,000 of the award was for moral and psychological damage. For the non-father, of course, not for the girl.

Speaking of 13-year olds being treated as symbols rather than human beings by those who are supposed to be taking care of them, the judge in Florida has ruled that that 13-year old may have her abortion after all.

Cheng Yizhong, the editor of a newspaper in Guangdong, China, which broke stories about SARS and about a fatal police beating, was to be given a press freedom prize by UNESCO. But the Chinese government told him not to go. Not big on irony, the Chinese government.

That led me to check the availability of “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It” in China, through this helpful site, but its connection to China is down right now. I have had one or two hits from China in the past, but not in quite some time.

Vote Tory and win a date with a dentist

In the British elections, Michael Howard has taken the Clinton idea of running on small policies to laughable extremes. Sez Howard, “People don’t want a date with destiny, they just want a date with the dentist.” Insert your own oral sex/laughing gas joke here. One of his major platform planks is keeping hospitals cleaner. Possibly by closing the National Health Service and sending poor patients to die in the streets, but at least the hospitals will be clean. The latest Tory email (I also signed up for the LibDems, which sent just 1 email the whole campaign, but couldn’t find a place on the Labour site at which to do so, or indeed at the Monster Raving Loony Party’s site) promises that if the Tories win, “on 9th May plans to prevent police officers having to fill in a form every time they stop a yob in the street would be unveiled; and on 6th June NHS trusts will have agreed to put matrons in charge of delivering cleaner hospitals.” They’re also setting their sights on disruptive 8-year olds, wanting to give schools unfettered power to expel unruly students. Here’s a poster they’re running in Scotland (where they currently have 1 MP out of 72).



England being England, Howard has begun speaking in rhyming couplets:

People have had enough of spin and smirk;
they just want someone who’ll make things work.

Mostly, though, it’s all immigrant-bashing, all the time. If you saw Michael Howard on C-SPAN yesterday, you saw a questioner get him to say that he would have kept his own grandparents (Romanian Jews) from immigrating to Britain. However, there are is some sort of invisible line, and one Tory candidate got in trouble for asking “What part of ‘Send them back’ do you not understand?”

Etiquette

Here’s an AP story, verbatim:

The US military released 85 Afghans from jails at its Bagram and Kandahar bases yesterday after deciding they posed no threat. The 85 all swore loyalty to the Afghan government and were given gifts and cash. They had been held for between three months and 2 years.

I’m trying to visualize this scene, and I can’t quite do it. What sort of gift is appropriate under these circumstances? Does Hallmark make a “sorry for holding you captive for no good reason” card? And when receiving such a gift, is a thank-you card de rigeur? And were they made to recite an actual oath of loyalty, and how was it worded?

The best interest of the child

Carl Hiaasen excoriates the Florida Department of Children & Families for its insistence that that 13-year old girl not be allowed to have an abortion: “A spokeswoman for DCF Secretary Luci Hadi said the agency is doing ‘what we believe is in the best interest of the child.’ Sure. If you happen to believe that unplanned pregnancy is a real character-builder for teenage girls. Don’t be surprised if DCF uses the same cold-blooded tactics against L.G. as it did against the retarded woman in Orlando -- dragging the case out in court until it’s too late for a safe abortion.”

Condi Rice and the Monroe Doctrine: “We have a positive agenda for this hemisphere.”

Condi Rice has been on a secret tour of Latin America. Well, not really secret, but for all the media attention it’s been getting, it might as well be. A pop quiz: did she visit Ecuador? Do you know the answer? Me neither. Answer, and transcripts of her various interviews and press conferences, here.

If there is an agenda to this trip, presumably it involves Venezuela. In Colombia, Rice said, “We don’t have a problem with the Venezuelan people.” As you know, “we don’t have a problem with the ___ people” is code for “the bombing begins in five minutes.” She carpet-bombed a press conference with utterances of the word hemisphere. “This is a question of what kind of hemisphere do we want to see, what kind of hemisphere do we want to live in, and what states are going to contribute to that hemisphere and what states will not contribute to that kind of hemisphere.” First, Colombia is actually in the Southern, Northern and Western hemispheres. Second, if Venezuela doesn’t properly contribute to the hemisphere, does it get towed to another hemisphere? Third, how many times can we repeat the word hemisphere before it loses all meaning? Fourth, since when does the rather broad geographic expression that is a hemisphere impose a demand for unified institutions? “We have a positive agenda for this hemisphere,” she says. This is imperialism dressed up in the blandest, least ideological language she could find, that of geographic imperative: “You can’t nationalize your oil industry, don’t you know you’re in the Western hemisphere?”

Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh

Go to any British Sunday newspaper site, especially the Independent or the Observer, for new details fleshing out what we already knew: Bush determined on invading Iraq many months before he said so in public (I don’t think anyone now remembers how often and over how long a period of time Bush claimed that he had taken no such decision and that Saddam could avoid it if he just complied with international blah blah blah), that Tony Blair signed up immediately, and that the British attorney general believed the war would be illegal, until he was sent to Washington to be pummeled into agreeing with the American view, presented to him by, among others, Alberto Gonzales.

So let’s move on to pictures of the commemorations in Vietnam of the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. There may or may not be something comforting in the thought that the war, and all its horror and devastation, has been transmuted, like every other war 30 years after its finish, into scruffy old veterans, bored students enduring yet another assembly, hot chicks dressed up as Viet Cong, Uncle Ho waving at tourists, and a fat American veteran happily taking pictures.