Extry, extry, read all about it

Many news sites (according to news.google.com) used this Reuters story, but only the Washington Post had the flair to headline it “Pakistanis Find Bloodied Head of Suicide Bomber.” Really, let’s all take a moment to bask in the exquisite gruesomeness of those words.

The Democrats who are clamoring for this have already voted against John Bolton

The White House is determined to distance itself from any attempts at bipartisanship, refusing to hand documents over to the Senate which the D’s say bear on John Bolton’s fitness to serve as ambassador to the UN. Sez Scotty McClellan, “The Democrats who are clamoring for this have already voted against John Bolton. This is about partisan politics, not documents. They have the information they need.” What Scotty is forgetting is that the Senate is supposed to be a deliberative body, in which decisions arise out of open discussion and debate: the “clamoring” D’s may have made up their own minds, but they still have a perfectly legitimate need for information they can use to try to convince others to reconsider. That would be how it would work in a truly deliberative body where decisions weren’t based on party label, where congressional members of the president’s party are not expected to support his every decision mindlessly and automatically.

While the anti-immigrant lobby in the US talks about making driver’s licenses “real” identity cards, a London School of Economics study estimates that Tony Blair’s plan to introduce mandatory identity cards, with those neat biometrics and all the Orwellian bells and whistles (by the way, Eddie Albert’s obit says he played Winston Smith in a 1953 tv version of 1984; there’s probably a joke in that), would cost £300. Can you say “poll tax?” And the American government is insisting that it be able to read those cards too.

A NYT article about a federal case being tried in Vermont says that John Ashcroft overturned a deal reached by the US attorney to avoid the death penalty in this case, but fails to mention that it was Ashcroft’s policy to go for the death penalty in states that did not have it at the state level (the Clinton admin was more or less deferential to states’ policies). Remember, the next time Bush talks about the “culture of life,” that states which oppose the death penalty are being forced to host trials and provide jurors for these death-fests.

Speaking of the culture of life, Bush, in his weekly radio address, said: “Throughout our history, America has fought not to conquer but to liberate. We go to war reluctantly, because we understand the high cost of war.” Oh dear God I’ve gone blind! The glare of the whitewash has blinded me!

Do they really want to get this done

The WaPo stuffs some intriguing but underdeveloped Iraq stories inside a less interesting Iraq story, so you might have missed them: after a suicide car-bomb attack on an Iraqi military unit, American forces shot an Iraqi policeman and an ambulance driver arriving at the scene, the latter fatally.

Also, an Iraqi was shot dead “during the Marine and Iraqi forces sweep at Haditha, Lt. Col. Guy Rudisill, a military spokesman, said by e-mail.” The thing is, the Iraqi was a prisoner inside Abu Ghraib when he was hit. More details, please. Which reminds me: I read a brief item a day or two ago that said 3 prisoners had escaped Abu Ghraib; haven’t seen anything since. I’m not specifically blaming the WaPo, which went with what it had today, but the American media in general seem to have lost all interest in covering the details of military operations in Iraq.

The US turned down Venezuela’s request for the detention of Luis Posada Carilles Friday, despite the fact that he is under detention. Eli at Left I On the News was (justifiably) outraged that a State Department official who told the media that Venezuelan documents requesting the detention of Luis Posada Carilles were inadequate, did so anonymously. It was worse than Eli knew: a Saturday WaPo article quotes the official as suggesting Venezuela deliberately did this as part of a cunning plan:

But the Posada arrest request was so inadequate, the official said, that some U.S. diplomats believe Venezuela purposely drafted it so the United States would reject it.

“It leads one to ask the question, ‘Do they really want to get this done or is this in some way a public relations issue?’” said the State Department official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The official trashes another country this way from the shadows because of sensi-fucking-tivity? And lets him attribute opinions to “some US diplomats”: the person with such high standards of proof is allowed by the Post to give anonymous hearsay evidence. The Post calls this clown a “high-ranking” State Department official, which narrows it down considerably: I’d bet cash money it was Roger Noriega.

The US claims Venezuela gave no statement of evidence against Posada, which is just as insulting as the “Do they really want to get this done” speculation, since the US is in possession of much more evidence of ex-CIA employee Posada’s crimes than Venezuela is. If Venezuela has “inadequate” information, whose fault is that?

Give this turd a knock

In Hebron, an Israeli patrol stopped a Palestinian youth and asked if his family had satellite tv, then took over that house and kept the family locked in one room while they watched a soccer final in which Liverpool beat AC Milan.

Another day, another military acquittal for prisoner abuse in Iraq. Today it was Navy SEAL lieutenant Andrew Ledford who led a platoon which beat a prisoner who died a little later, but probably because of torture in Abu Ghraib (for which no one has been charged) rather than from the beating. Prosecutors suggested that he had failed as a leader because he not only didn’t order his men to stop the beating, but took his turn when asked to “give this turd a knock,” then posed for pictures (which don’t seem to be available). Although the other men didn’t testify to seeing him hit the prisoner, he had confessed to it himself in a sworn statement; on the stand, he recanted. His lawyer, who was also Sabrina Harman’s lawyer, asked, “Were they supposed to give (al-Jamadi) tea and cookies on the way from his apartment to a CIA interrogation?” Ledford will now be promoted.

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Censorship returns to South Africa. The Mail & Guardian, which used to run afoul of the apartheid regime, has been hit with a pre-censorship order, preventing the publication of the second part of a story about the ANC’s relations with an oil management company which funneled funds to it from a parastatal oil company. The judge found this story to infringe on the company’s privacy and dignity.

I can’t believe no one thought of it before: paid product placements (from Pepsi, as if more alliteration were needed) in a political ad. Schwarzenegger is a genius, I tell ya, a genius. I think all of us bloggers need to convince Arnie to start his own blog, ‘cause if anyone can figure out how to make blogging profitable...

The Poor Man on media balance:

1) I don’t know how many sides there are to each story. I know that a cube has six sides, and a record has two, but I don’t really know how many sides a story has, and I suspect it depends rather strongly on the particular story. If you decide that there are two sides to every story, remember that the two sides you are looking at are just the two loudest sides, and volume is very poor measure of quality.

2) There is a natural tendency to think that all opinions have some validity, and, by carefully plotting a conservative course somewhere between two representative arguments, you can make a serviceable approximation to something you could call “truth”. This is an admirable impulse, and often a constructive one, except if one (or both) of the positions is horseshit. Then, you’re fucked.

Credible, redux

A front-page article in the Thursday NYT said that the Guantanamo prisoner who made the Koran-flushing charge had been interviewed by the FBI but “was not able to substantiate the charge.” When I read that, I was going to make fun of it here, asking what sort of proof they were expecting, and then I realized, oh yeah, the smoking gun would be a soaking Koran. So I dropped the matter like, well, a soaking Koran, until I saw some military type on McNeil-Lehrer saying the prisoner had recanted. Gee, he’s being held without the benefit of any legal process in the “gulag of our times,” and he failed to repeat charges against the people who’d be watching over him, possibly for the rest of his life, far away from the eyes of the world. Quel surprise. The Pentagon repeats yet again that it has seen no “credible” allegations of Koran-dumping, and still fails to say what makes the allegations not credible. What I’m asking here is, what is the standard of evidence? A Pentagon spokesmodel quoted in the NYT disparaged the accuser as an “enemy combatant,” not to be believed. By that standard, you could do pretty much anything to an enemy combatant without fear. And indeed, am I right in thinking that the only soldiers convicted of prisoner abuse are the ones stupid enough to have done it while being photographed?

I’ve been enjoying the Pentagon’s flourishing of instructions it issued on the proper handling of the Koran. Reminds me that in the early days of Gulag Guantanamo, a lot of the interrogators were using a scholarly book from the 1970s about Islamic culture, which was used, to the horror of the family of the guy who wrote the book, who had quite liked Muslims, as a guidebook on what things to do to upset Muslims. The instructions no doubt served the same function.

Thursday two separate courts martial, one in the Army, one in the Marines, acquitted men who had killed unarmed Iraqis who had supposedly made threatening moves (in separate incidents). The killings may have been lawful acts of perceived self-defense, let’s assume they were. But the Marine also got away with having pumped 60 bullets into his two corpses and leaving them as an example with a sign saying “No better friend, no worse enemy,” and the Army sgt got away with having planted a gun on the body to make it look more like self-defense.

Maybe somebody will run on a war platform -- you know, vote for me, I promise violence

Meeting with Palestinian President Abbas, Bush makes the Palestinian elections sound like a Medieval mystery play: “Palestinians voted against violence, and for sovereignty, because only the defeat of violence will lead to sovereignty.” Later he speculated, “The President ran on a peace platform; you know, maybe somebody will run on a war platform -- you know, vote for me, I promise violence. I don’t think they’re going to get elected, because I think Palestinian moms want their children to grow up in peace just like American moms want their children to grow up in peace.”

When it came to Israeli actions, he was rather more muddled, making what Palestinians would see as distinctions without differences: “unauthorized outposts” must go, but not settlements, the Wall is ok only if it’s a security barrier, not a political barrier.

Shrub explains that he has a unique understanding of the Middle East: “You know, one of the things when you are in the position I’m in, I’m able to observe attitudes and opinions, and clearly there’s a lot of mistrust, and you can understand why.” Yes George, only you can see that there’s a lot of mistrust between the Israelis and the Palestinians, we bow before your superior insight.

He continues, “The only way to achieve all the objectives is for there to be a democracy living side-by-side with a democracy. And the best way to see -- to solve problems that seem insoluble now is for there to be a society which evolves based upon democratic principles.” If this means anything more than a string of his usual clichés, it’s that he’s placing the whole burden on the Palestinians to change their society before there can be peace, since Israel is already supposedly a democracy. Abbas responded strongly: “But democracy is like a coin; it has two sides. On one side is democracy; on the other side of the coin is freedom. It’s true, now we lack freedom and we are in dire need to have freedom. We do not live in freedom in our homeland. This will weaken the hope to continue this democracy, and will weaken the democratic march.”

Reuters and AFP photographers agree: Bush and Abbas look so much more impressive when shot from below.

The Americans have sold us out

In a story about the reintroduction of the death penalty in Iraq, the WaPo points out the irony that Coalition of the Willing (COW) countries like Britain which don’t have the death penalty, are fighting and dying to install and keep alive Iraqi politicians who then start executing their subjects. No executions have been carried out yet, legal executions I mean, but all the COW countries will be complicit in them.

A couple of days ago Laura Bush endorsed Egyptian President Mubarak’s plan to reform the electoral law by the smallest amount humanly possible, just prior to a referendum on those changes. This sort of intervention in another country’s elections is strictly verboten in international relations, and whoever it was — Condi Rice I assume — who fed Laura her words should not be sending messages to the Egyptian electorate through the First Lady, who was probably just lucky no reporter asked her to describe any details of the changes she was praising. Since then, demonstrators protesting the referendum, who evidently hadn’t gotten the word about Laura’s stamp of approval, and who were chanting “The Americans have sold us out” (which is simply incorrect: the Americans don’t care enough about them to sell them out; they gave them away) (also, were they really surprised to be sold out?) were beaten up by police. Robert Fisk has a useful article on Egypt in the Indy behind a pay barrier, but this search or this link should bring it up within a day or so.

The Post’s article on the centralization of power in fewer and fewer hands in both the executive and legislative branches in the Bush years, and the increase in secrecy and lack of transparency, is a good summary of these trends. I would have liked a longer analysis of the greatly increased practice, which I consider unconstitutional, of legislation being rewritten in conference committee. These process issues keep getting bound up with policy issues and they’re at least as important for the long-term health of the republic, but they’re harder to get the American people interested in. I was heartened that the polls consistently showed support for the right to filibuster; I was afraid that the R’s would successfully spin it as unfair and undemocratic, the minority threatening the majority, but Americans still like an underdog and dislike a bully, which is good to know.

And my government strongly supports stem cells

Since I keep seeing Google hits here from people looking for New York Magazine competitions, I’ve put all of the ones I ever excerpted in one place. These were comps very much like the Washington Post Style Invitational (something like the New Statesman comps, for my British readers).

A reporter asked Bush today why discarding 400,000 frozen embryos or leaving them frozen was better than using them for scientific research. He sidestepped completely: destruction of life, federal dollars, yadda yadda. Didn’t suggest what should be done with the 400,000. No one’s mentioning the millions of orphans that will be institutionalized until they’re 18 while Christian couples donate to other Christian couples their leftover (but Christian) embryos. Indeed, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the amusingly named president of Indonesia, a country with a much larger orphan population thanks to the tsunami, was standing right next to Bush while all this discussion was going on, possibly bemused by which ethical issues do or do not exercise the minds of the rich people of the West.


Evidently they don’t have milk cartons in Indonesia.

Here, George moves in to see if Bambang means what he thinks it means.




Later, and sweatier, Bush added, “And my government strongly supports stem cells.” He meant research on adult stem cells, but it’s still a telling slip. I’ve said before that by the end of his second term, fetuses (and now embryos) will have the right to vote, but their mothers won’t.

He went on, “there must be a balance between science and ethics.” By ethics, he of course means religion, and his use of the word balance shows once again that he thinks of science as being something intrinsically unethical, amoral, and irreligious, which must be balanced, i.e., kept in check by, ethics/religion.

It is not funny. It is cruel.

William Saletan makes at greater length the same point I did yesterday, that Bush’s rationale for opposing stem-cell research is precisely the opposite of his rationale for supporting the death penalty. And he’s got Bush quotes on each subject in neat parallel columns.

As you all must know, a hitherto obscure congresscritter from Alabama who rejoices in the name Spencer Bachus has issued a fatwa against Bill Maher, demanding that HBO cancel his show, which “is not funny. It is cruel,” without also telling them to get the next season of the Sopranos on the air sooner than 2006, the motherless motherfucks.

Do feel free to contact his office and tell them that his behavior is not funny, it is fascistic. If you need a few adjectives to add to that, you might watch an episode or two of Deadwood first.

An embryo is a person

Discussing the stem-cell bill, a lot of R’s have declared a principle in which they do not actually believe: that taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund practices they find morally repugnant. First, opinion polls show that more Americans support stem-cell research than, fer instance, the ongoing war in Iraq. Second, government does lots of things that various people find morally repugnant; if you’re not morally repelled by something government does, you have no morals to begin with. The reason the R’s are enunciating this principle, which they wouldn’t apply to the death penalty, nuclear weapons, Guantanamo, etc etc and Jesus Christ already etc, is so that they can explain how stem-cell research is awful and icky and Tampering in God’s Domain (Tom DeLay said today, “An embryo is a person.”), but they’re not actually outlawing it.

Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) has turned against the Iraq war. Here’s why you give a shit: he’s the guy behind the “Freedom fries” campaign.

Andre Gunder Frank has died, if that means anything to y’all.

In London an apartment in Notting Hill is being rented for only £135 a week. It is a converted storage closet measuring 5.7 square meters (2.2 X 1 meter), with the bed raised on a platform, a shower and kitchenette, emphasis on the -ette, I’m guessing.

Oh wait, I’ve found pictures (which the Guardian didn’t have, because who would want to see the tiny apartment the article is about). The guy who looks like he knows he’s getting away with something is the estate agent. The woman is the tenant. She’s 5’ 2”.

If a sperm is wasted, George gets quite irate

In order to emphasize his opposition to embryonic stem-cell research, Bush held an odd little photo op today, meeting with people who had donated left-over embryos to a Christian embryo adoption group with a somewhat creepy logo,



and families whose children were created from such embryos (Bush calls them “reminders that every human life is a precious gift of matchless value”). “Rather than discard these embryos created during in vitro fertilization, or turn them over for research that destroys them, these families have chosen a life-affirming alternative.” Yes, to Bush medical research is the exact opposite of “life-affirming.” Incidentally, destroying human life in order to save human life, which he rejects for stem-cell research, is precisely his rationale for supporting the death penalty, to say nothing of “preventive” warfare.

Catapulting the propaganda

Syria announces that it is suspending all military and intelligence links with the United States. Um, ok. I think means they’ll no longer torture people for us.

Yesterday Karzai repeated the Rummy line that “individual acts [of torture/beating/murder of prisoners] do not reflect either on governments or on societies.” So how many “bad apples” does it take before it does reflect on them? Really: five, ten, twenty, a thousand?


(Chan Lowe, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 3/17/05)

Another question I’d like to hear asked, of the supporters of parental notification for abortions (the Supreme Court is going to hear a case on it; California will vote on it in Schwarzenegger’s special election), is whether their concern for parental involvement would entail supporting parents of, say, a knocked-up 14-year old, who wished her to abort.

Bush at one of his we-have-to-destroy-Social-Security-in-order-to-save-it rallies:

If you’ve retired, you don’t have anything to worry about -- third time I’ve said that. (Laughter.) I’ll probably say it three more times. See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.

Catapult the propaganda? Sort of Goebbels meets “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

Speaking of holy hand grenades, the Georgian authorities are offering a reward for information about the attempt to kill Bush with one: 20,000 laris, which is $10,949.90.

A man who lived in a tent for two weeks waiting for Star Wars tickets was arrested because, as a registered sex offender, he was supposed to tell the police when he changed addresses.

An uneasy nuclear armistice

Hurrah, a compromise on judicial nominees. Give three cheers and one cheer more. The R’s have agreed to allow the D’s to keep the right to filibuster, unless they actually try to use it. A couple of Bush’s nominees will bite the dust, but not the worst of them, such as William Pryor, Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen. Presumably if these bozos are considered acceptable people to hold lifetime judgeships, then the “extraordinary circumstances” under which D’s can filibuster would involve candidates who are actually worse than those three. The deal therefore suggests that it is illegitimate for D’s to oppose judges with extreme anti-abortion views, like Pryor and Owen. (Links to previous posts and outside articles on Pryor & Owen are at the top of this old post of mine.)

Although R’s have been complaining about a minority of senators trying to dictate to the majority, this deal was arranged by 14 senators. Including Joseph Lieberman, which is the Suckiness Seal of Approval.

Still, a quick look at the National Review Online suggests that the right-wing aren’t any happier than I am, which is some comfort.

The British Tory party, trying to pick a new leader who isn’t such a loser, has decided the people really holding the Tory party back are Tory party members, who will no longer be allowed any say in the choosing of the party leader.

Bumper sticker seen today: “What Would Scooby Do?”

It’s not just Bush: Scotty McClellan in today’s Gaggle said several times that American troops are in Afghanistan at its “invitation.” The Gaggle is also fun for Scotty’s unwillingness to admit that “consultation” does not mean that the government of Afghanistan, which he keeps calling a sovereign nation, has any say over American military operations there. Must be a definition of sovereign with which I am not familiar.

Bush & Karzai: Afghanistan society is peaceful and optimistic

Bush today met Hamid Karzai, who is usually kept stored in a closet just off the Mural Room.



Speaking of coming out of the closet, Hamid tells George that he has just the softest hands.



George, on the other hand, is mesmerized by Hamid’s hat.



Bush: “Increasing numbers of low-level Taliban are getting the message that Afghanistan society is peaceful and optimistic.” Although just a minute later he says that in this peaceful and optimistic society there is a need to “continue to train the Afghan army so that they’re capable of defeating the terrorists.” Maybe the terrorists are peaceful and optimistic too.

Asked whether US troops would take orders from Karzai’s regime, as Karzai suggested a couple of days ago, Bush said fuck no. OK, he said “our relationship is one of cooperate and consult,” but it amounts to the same thing. When Bush says “cooperate and consult,” it means the same thing as “advise and consent”: shut up and do what I tell you. Actually, pretty much everything Bush ever says means shut up and do what I tell you.

Bush continues:

It’s a free society. There is a democratically-elected government. They’ve invited us in, and we’ll consult with them in terms of how to achieve mutual goals, and that is to rout out the remnants of al Qaeda, to deal with those folks who would come and like to create harm to U.S. citizens and/or Afghan citizens.

Invited us in?

Karzai generously forgives America for torturing and beating his country’s citizens to death: “So the prisoner abuse thing is not at all a thing that we attribute to anybody else but those individuals.” The prisoner abuse thing? “The Afghan people are grateful, very, very much to the American people.” Well, the ones in Guantanamo are just grateful very much, not very very much. “They recognize that individual acts do not reflect either on governments or on societies. These things happen everywhere.” Sure, Norway, Canada, Antarctica, everywhere. “And I’m glad to tell you that I was reading today somewhere that one of those persons has been given a sentence of prison for three months and removed from his job, and that’s a good thing.” And a jolly stiff fine, too. A soldier beats a prisoner from his country to death for, supposedly, spitting at him, and Karzai has to pretend that’s sufficient. It’s the puppet thing taken to the next level: instead of speaking while Bush drinks a glass of water, he has to speak while eating whatever shit is handed to him.

Then it’s state fair time. Bush: “President Karzai was talking about how the quality of the pomegranate that used to be grown in Afghanistan, evidently it’s quite famous for -- the country is quite famous for growing pomegranates.” I know that’s what I always think of. Bush thinks they should grow those (I don’t think he actually knows what a pomegranate is) instead of poppies. Oh and honeydews, those are nice too. “After all, Afghanistan has had a long history of farming.”

A reporter asks Chimpy about whether we’re losing in Iraq; he says, “I think they’re being defeated. And that’s why they continue to fight.” Clears that right up.

The shadow of repression

Daily Variety headline: “The Sith Hits the Fans.”

There was a meeting of dissidents in Cuba, which was treated to a smuggled-in tape-recording of George W. Bush, congratulating them on coming out from under the “shadow of repression,” a metaphor perhaps more appropriate to cooler climates.

I can’t find a transcript on the White House website or anywhere else. I know he said something about keeping the pressure on Cuba, which may play less well in Havana than it does in Miami. I think if he’s going to encourage the overthrow of a government, commit the US to support a country’s opposition, that sort of thing, he should let the rest of us in on it.

Repetitive administration of legitimate force

The NYT follows up its Bagram story with one on the army’s failure to investigate in more than a quarter-assed fashion. It figured the dead prisoners had been beaten so many times by so many guards that it was impossible to determine which blow was the fatal one. Doesn’t the military have the concept of “felony homicide”? Sez Bagram’s then senior staff lawyer, “It was reasonable to conclude at the time that repetitive administration of legitimate force resulted in all the injuries we saw.” And thus a new euphemism for beatin’ a guy to death is born.

Now, they’re after Tom DeLay and the free-market values he defends

The WaPo quotes a pro-Tom DeLay ad: “The media, the liberals, they’re in a frenzy. Last year, they went after President Bush... Now, they’re after Tom DeLay and the free-market values he defends.” It took me a couple of seconds to realize that “they went after President Bush” referred to the election campaign, when that arch-seditionist John Kerry dared to be mildly critical of the Emperor Chimpy, He Who Is Without Error. Also, I don’t know about “the media, the liberals,” but the problem I have with Tom DeLay is less his free market values than his free golfing vacations and all the other freebies he’s snagged from lobbyists.

From the Sunday Times:

Artist of the week

Staff at the British Museum failed to notice that an early cave painting, exhibited in one of the galleries, showed a man pushing a supermarket trolley. The 10in by 6in piece of rock, and slipped into the museum by a practical joker known as Banksy, was accompanied by a sign which explained: “Early man venturing towards the out-of-town hunting grounds. This finely preserved example of primitive art dates from the post-catatonic era”.

The same practical joker recently hung one of his own paintings in Tate Modern. Officials only noticed when it fell off the wall.

There’s some interesting maneuvering going on. The NYT story about the murder of prisoners at Bagram Air Base appeared just before a scheduled visit by Karzai to America, and there was the Koran-in-the-toilet thing. So Karzai has been forced to act all non-puppety and talk tough, demanding the transfer of Afghan prisoners from our torturers to his torturers and the end of raids by American troops unless they have a search warrant (!) and so on. In response, the Americans are leaking that Karzai isn’t doing enough about opium eradication. What the BBC story I hyperlinked doesn’t say is that Karzai still controls only a few blocks in downtown Kabul, so when he’s accused of not cooperating in poppy-producing areas in which has no actual, ya know, power, what is meant is that he’s resisting American demands to drop huge amounts of defoliants from the air willy nilly.

I was going to write “indiscriminately,” but I thought I’d see if I could get away with “willy nilly.” Sadly, I don’t think I can quite carry it off.

I don’t think they really have the sense of Americans being religious

Laura Bush, to reporters: “I hope that the Middle East, the broader Middle East, get to know Americans like we really are. I don’t think they really have the sense of Americans being religious.” Yeah, that’s why they hate us, they think we’re not Christian enough.

A correspondent suggests that the Sun’s pun yesterday, which stumped me, was one that was simply too infantile for me to grasp, a play on “ants in his pants.”

I said or implied that the Uzbek demonstrators were only the recipients of murderous violence. In fact, they also (or at least the organized portion of them who planned the prison break-in which began the week’s events) were not averse to killing people themselves, on a smaller scale of course. Both the Sindy and the Sunday Times talk of the military finishing off the wounded. The Sunday Times finds 3 distinct massacres. I still don’t know what happened to the 23 businessmen broken out of prison.

Guantanamo is building a psychiatric ward. Insert obvious and not very funny joke here.

Well done, Sister Suffragette!

Somewhere I saw an article on reaction by fans to the Stars Wars movie in which one was quoted saying “I have closure now.”

Bush will be meeting Hamid Karzai Monday. When he talks about Afghanistan having an “elected government,” as he did in his weekly radio thing, remember that parliamentary elections are a couple of years late. I once had a life insurance policy, I think it came free for a year from my credit card, that included a benefit of $500 if I lost an eye and $1,000 if I lost both, which is evidently exactly twice as bad as losing one in insurance-company math. It isn’t, and neither is the election of just one branch of a government a democracy; half a democracy is no democracy.

Speaking of half a democracy, Laura Bush (R-Stepford) is in the Middle East talking about the rights of women, including voting. But not — and you can bet the omission is intentional, and that women in the Middle East will recognize it even if Western media do not — running for office, which is evidently too radical a concept for Laura to be pushing. Not that someone whose influence and visibility derive entirely from being married to a president is the poster child for women’s empowerment. Also because the former teacher and librarian is dead ignorant: Laura, stop saying that American women didn’t vote until 1920, it’s not true.