How to make a member of the House of Lords spit out his soup

The supplemental military spending bill which just passed the Senate includes all sorts of goodies, such as giving the feds back the old McCarren-Walter ability to exclude foreigners from the US merely because of their speech or writings, and, on the other side, a ban on the government spending money to torture people, including non-Americans, who Alberto Gonzales claimed had no constitutional right not to be tortured. No doubt more details will be revealed in the days to come, and no one will be more surprised by them than the hundred senators who voted for the bill without reading it.

Oklahoma’s lower house passed a (non-binding) resolution demanding that libraries hide away books with homosexual content in adult-only sections. The resolution’s sponsor, Eagle Forum fixture and homophobe Sally Kern, the wife of a Baptist pastor, was especially incensed by a children’s book, King & King, about a prince whose mother the Queen tells him he must marry, but he’s “never cared much for princesses”... Ages 6 & up, according to Amazon.

Afghanistan erupts in rioting over claims that Americans flushed Korans down the toilets in Guantanamo as part of their sophisticated interrogation tactics. The story is no sillier than similar rumors that started the Indian Mutiny in 1857, but I tend to doubt it. Americans have much more respect for... plumbing.

Karzai said the riots were proof that freedom of speech and democracy were taking hold in Afghanistan, an exercise in making lemonade out of lemons spoiled only by the addition to that beverage of the blood spilled from at least 4 protesters shot to death by Afghan police, and yes I just nauseated myself with that imagery too. Karzai also gave this as another reason why the American occupation must go on and on and on.

A London Times story begins by asking “Is Kirsty Sword Gusmao the first woman to unbutton her shirt in the House of Lords dining room? It is hard to be sure. What is clear is that when she did so to breast-feed her five-month-old son, their lordships noticed.” The breasts of Ms Gusmao, the Australian wife of East Timor’s president, turn out to be the least interesting things about her in this fascinating article.

Knowledge is power, and yet the “president” is a moron. Go figure.

The US Court of Appeals for DC rules, unanimously yet, that Dick Cheney can keep the records of his energy task force secret, saying in its opinion that “The president must be free to seek confidential information from many sources, both inside the government and outside.” Why must he? In a democracy where the government is theoretically accountable to the people, the people must have the necessary information to judge the actions of the government, but the Bushies want to preserve a monopolistic hold on that information. Judge Raymond Randolph’s unstated assumptions about how executive functions should be carried out — “free” not just to seek information, but free from accountability — are anti-democratic; they assume that a president is like a king.

Randolph also cites the need to preserve the “separation of powers,” but c’mon, no actual powers are threatened in any way, except in the sense that “knowledge is power.” This is about data, not power. What the Court’s ruling actually preserves is separation of information, since Congress will be asked to vote on the administration’s proposals without having access to the data the task force had, or the ability to judge whether that data might have been distorted by having come only from representatives of industry, unchallenged.

Much the same thing went on in the court. The judges ruled that the plaintiffs hadn’t proven that the energy companies’ flacks had acted as de facto members of the secret task force, writing an energy policy to suit themselves, but wouldn’t let the plaintiffs have access to the names of those people in order to prove that they were. I’m not even sure the court itself was given the task force’s records.

In the Bush administration, knowledge is power, and they’re both fossil-fuel based.

Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition

Spain’s stock market regulator has ruled that directors of corporations must disclose not only their own economic dealings, but also those of their spouses, children and, oh yes, mistresses, boy toys, gay lovers. Twice a year.

The invaluable National Security Archives has documents about Luis Posada Carrile, including FBI reports connecting him to the 1976 plane bombing, CIA records showing his relationship to the Agency.

The Taliban say they don’t need any steenking amnesty. The head of the Afghan committee overseeing the amnesty suggested yesterday that it be expanded to include all Taliban, right up to Mullah Omar, if they lay down their arms. But Pentagon spokesmodel Col. James Yonts responded, “Our position all along has been that those guilty of serious crimes must be responsible for their actions. We believe the government of Afghanistan understands and supports that.” So now an American colonel can over-rule the Afghan government and inform it of what it “understands and supports.” In the chain of command, the “sovereign” Afghan government must be the equivalent of, what, a corporal?

Tierney outdoofuses Brooks

John Tierney’s NYT column today displayed such a level of assholery that I feel compelled to violate my usual policy of ignoring the paleo-pundts (every so often I start writing a withering refutation of something David Brooks has said, but I always delete it because life is too short and Brooks is too self-evidently a doofus). Tierney says that suicide bombings in the Middle East are a dog-bites-man story about which there’s nothing new to say and when you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all and he always gets bored and stops reading before the end and the media should just stop reporting them except for the “box score.” Just two points: 1) What is new in each new attack is the unique individuality of the human beings who are its victims; Tierney is treating those victims with the same callous disregard as do the terrorists; 2) Tierney makes the same assumption the terrorists do, that publicity for suicide bombings serve their ends. A less pessimistic view of human nature would be that viewing scenes of carnage would produce disgust for the people who caused them and an increased determination to defeat them.

British archaeologists have found a 2,500-year old leather shoe. Lace-up, size 9 or 10. This is an incredible find, given that half the stuff you’re served in British restaurants looks and tastes like a 2,500-year old leather shoe.

The King of Jordan will pardon Chalabi, without even asking him to return the money he embezzled.

Bush in Georgia: What I find on his mind is very refreshing

This story, sent in by an alert reader, about a man who changed his name to Jesus Christ and now can’t get a driver’s license, is full of great quotes, like “Christ is moving to West Virginia to enjoy a slower lifestyle.” His lawyer says, “This all started with him expressing his faith and his respect and love for Jesus Christ. Now he needs to document it for legal reasons.” And “Christ is not speaking to the press at this time.”

Which reminds me: yesterday I kept checking the White House website for material from Chimpy’s trip to Russia, but there was none. Bush, who resembles Christ only inasmuch as he also got his job through nepotism, wasn’t speaking to the press either. Or at all, in public. He may claim to be promoting democracy in Russia, but the only Russian he’s willing to promote it to is Vladimir Putin. One man, one vote.

Happily for this blog, Bush is speaking in public in Georgia, land of many stairs,



alongside the country’s president, whose name (Mikhail Saakashvili) he either can’t remember or can’t pronounce, but with whom he’s been having frank and sophisticated discussions:

We had a very frank discussion. That’s what I like about the President. He speaks his mind. If he’s got something on his mind, he’ll tell you. What I find on his mind is very refreshing; he loves democracy and loves freedom, and he loves the people of Georgia.

Asked about the continuing presence of Russian military bases in Georgia, Bush said, well, something:

So this isn’t the first time I’ve had this conversation with President Putin on this issue. -- (inaudible) -- an agreement in place -- (inaudible) -- said to the Russians, we want to work with the government to fulfill -- (inaudible) -- and I think that is a commitment, an important commitment for the people of Georgia to hear, and it’s a -- it shows there’s grounds for work to get this issue resolved.

Guess the press conference went into a tunnel.

It suddenly dawns on George that he should have listened more carefully to what Condi was saying about there being two different Georgias

Compromising its principles

Eli at Left I on the News has said almost everything I would have about anti-Castro terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and the NYT’s front-page story about him today, which displays a reflexive instinct — call it a Cold War Tourette’s — to challenge anything Cuba says just because Cuba says it, right down to questioning in its headline whether this admitted bomber of hotels and commercial airplanes is actually a terrorist. The flip side of this Cold War Tourette’s is a refusal to take the United States at any but its own self-examination. The NYT’s Tim Weiner writes, “A grant of asylum could invite charges that the Bush administration is compromising its principle that no nation should harbor suspected terrorists.” Its principle? That’s like Bush & Rumsfeld claiming that the US doesn’t practice torture, except for those dozens and dozens of rotten-apple cases, which don’t count (to quote the Daily Show, “Just because torturing prisoners is something we did, it doesn’t mean it’s something we would do.”). The US has been a safe haven for nearly 50 years for violent anti-Castro Cubans, not to mention the Nazis recruited by the OSS and CIA, Haitian and Salvadoran death squad leaders, Vietnamese war criminals, including the one who shot the prisoner in the famous photo (he owned a pizza parlor in Virginia) etc etc.

About Posada, the Bushies would rather look incompetent than stick to their so-called principles. “Roger F. Noriega, the top State Department official for Western Hemisphere affairs, said he did not even know whether Mr. Posada was in the country.” Sure you don’t, Rog, sure you don’t.

Elsewhere on the Monday NYT front page is a story about the lax security at chemical plants in New Jersey, in which the reporter is horrified that he was able to take pictures of those plants while driving by in his car without being stopped and interrogated. So now reporters want to be harassed when they’re taking pictures? There’s no pleasing some people.

Condi Rice takes a leaf from Richard Nixon’s Big Book o’ Stonewalling, saying that giving Senate Democrats the information they want about John Bolton’s distortions of intelligence re Syria and Cuba would have a “chilling effect” on internal debates. How are Bolton’s qualifications supposed to be evaluated if the last 4 years of his life is ignored? Rice also says that she “does not believe these requests to be specifically tied to the issues being deliberated by the Committee in connection with the nomination.” It’s not really her decision what evidence is necessary. Committee chair Richard Lugar also refused to back up the Democrats’ requests, saying that the documents weren’t essential, and again, that’s not his call to make.

The Sunni who turned down the cabinet post of human rights minister this weekend, Hashim al-Shibli, says he first heard about his appointment in a tv news report, which suggests Jaafari was trying to bounce him into the job by handing him a fait accompli. Not very deftly handled.

Ariel Sharon has announced that he won’t release 400 Palestinian prisoners as promised, because Abu Mazen hasn’t done enough against Hamas. Since those 400 men were not convicted by any court of any crime, and since their release is being predicated on Mazen’s actions, the correct word for them is not prisoner but hostage. You could look it up.

For students of blogging’s effects on the art of writing, the term for what I did in the last sentence, which I just made up, is “the sarcastic hyperlink.”

Sharon says “Everyone asks me to strengthen Abu Mazen, but I tell them, not at the expense of Israeli lives.” Any sane person would recognize that undermining Abu Mazen will have a far higher cost in Israeli lives.

The Russian spirit never died out

Bush, speaking in Moscow of World War II, says “The people of Russia suffered incredible hardship, and yet the Russian spirit never died out,” adding, “Not like the fucking French.”

Bush is of course in Moscow to celebrate the anniversary of V-E Day. The Moscow police are advising everyone else to celebrate by staying home because there will be “frequent document checks and other unprecedented security measures”. The Russian spirit really does never die out. This picture of a freedom-loving Katyusha rocket, ready for its role in the parade, is from the Moscow Times.



Shrub failed to bring up that whole occupation-of-the-Baltics thing with Putin, or Putin’s contention that the collapse of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” and what I especially enjoy is the spectacle of Stephen Hadley (who has Condi Rice’s old job) first refusing even to say whether Bush agreed with that assessment or not, then calling the reporter back to say that of course the end of Communism was a, ya know, good thing.

The WaPo gets some reactions by other members of Congress to poor Tom DeLay’s ethics problems. But while it contextualizes Barney Frank’s comments by noting that he was “embroiled in an ethics contretemps of his own in the 1980s,” they quote Henry Hyde without mentioning any of his “youthful indiscretions.”

The world’s tyrants learned a lesson; George, well, not so much

In the Netherlands, we finally get an answer to the question how dead does an American soldier have to be before Bush visits his grave: 60 years.



Naturally, he tried once again to equate the struggle with fascism with the fight against Al Qaeda, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. Evidently, they’re both about freedom: “The world’s tyrants learned a lesson: There is no power like the power of freedom and no soldier as strong as a soldier who fights for that freedom.” Then, to celebrate the power of freedom properly, he went to Russia, whose Red Army killed 3/4 of the Germans killed during World War II, under the leadership of Josef Stalin.

In Russia, Putin let Chimpy drive his, uh, vintage 1956 Volga. “I’m having so much fun. We’re going for another lap,” Bush said, adding, “I’m an excellent driver, excellent driver. Pootie Poot lets me drive slow on the driveway. But not on Monday, definitely not on Monday.”

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.