Assets

Iraq has sentenced shoe-throwing journalist Muntadar al-Zeidi to three years in prison, and Afghanistan’s supreme court has upheld (in a ruling issued secretly) the sentence of 20 years given to journalism student Pervez Kambaksh after a 4-minute trial for the crime of downloading material about the role of women in Muslim societies from the Internet. Like the original court, the supreme court didn’t bother hearing from the defense. Freedom, ain’t it grand?

Chinese premier Wen demands reassurance that China’s investment in US bonds will be safe. “Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets.” Our assets. Oh good.

Speaking of Chinese “assets,” Wen also spoke about Tibet, on the 50th anniversary of the, oh what do they call it, “the abolition of slavery after a failed uprising by its feudalistic upper class.” Anyway, he said of the captive nation, currently locked off from the outside world as troops go house to house and monks are being re-educated, “Tibet’s peace and stability and Tibet’s continuous progress have proven the policies we have adopted are right.” Quod erat demonstrandum.

It doesn’t take a front seat or a back seat or a middle seat

Today Hillary Clinton met with the Chinese foreign minister and answered some questions, including the inevitable one about human rights. Here were her hard-hitting words: “Well, human rights is part of our comprehensive dialogue. It doesn’t take a front seat or a back seat or a middle seat...” And certainly not a window seat. A baby seat, perhaps? “...it is part of the broad range of issues that we are discussing. But it is important to try to create a platform for actually seeing results from our human rights engagement.”

I think we can all agree that it is ever so important to try to create a platform for actually seeing results from our human rights engagement. Whatever that means.

Obama’s education speech: This is no picnic for me either, buster

Today Obama gave a speech about education or, as he so eloquently put it, “how we will reward quality and incentivize excellence, and make a down payment on the success of the next generation,” to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

He addressed the Republican “distraction” meme, saying he can do more than one thing at a time just like Lincoln built the transcontinental railroad single-handed while fighting the civil war, and Roosevelt fought both the depression and the Japs, and Clinton... oh, I can’t be bothered making a Monica joke, I really can’t.

He started by making the surprising claim that education is actually important. “In a 21st-century world where jobs can be shipped wherever there’s an Internet connection, where a child born in Dallas is now competing with a child in New Delhi, where your best job qualification is not what you do, but what you know”. In comments, what does a child in Dallas know that one in New Delhi does not?


STOP CONFUSING US WITH NUMBERS, BARACK, WE WENT TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS: “In 8th grade math, we’ve fallen to 9th place. Singapore’s middle-schoolers outperform ours three to one.”

He blamed lack of reform in education on politics and ideology. “I think you’d all agree that the time for finger-pointing is over,” he said, in what sounds like an exercise in finger-pointing if ever I heard one.


YEAH, BUT HE’S BACK IN CRAWFORD NOW: “We’ve accepted failure for far too long.”

WILL THIS BE ON THE TEST? Other nations are doing a better job educating their children because “They’re spending less time teaching things that don’t matter, and more time teaching things that do.” I’d like a list of things being taught that don’t matter.

Diagraming sentences, I’m guessing.

Do they still teach diagraming sentences?


“From the moment students enter a school, the most important factor in their success is not the color of their skin or the income of their parents, it’s the person standing at the front of the classroom.” I think he means the teacher. Of course in this country whether the teacher sucks or not might be just a little bit related to the color of skin and income of the students.

OBAMA KNOWS WHAT YOU’RE THINKING – SO WATCH IT! “To any student who’s watching, I say this: Don’t even think about dropping out of school. Don’t even think about it.”

And there were some other things about charter schools (he wants more) and pay for teachers (he wants more for good ones, but didn’t say where it would come from), a longer school year and/or day, etc etc. Also, when he was growing up in Indonesia, his mother would wake him up at 4:30 a.m. to force him to study, saying, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”

Another day, another distraction

Obama, signing his executive order for stem-cell research, gave a rather dumb reason for it: “The majority of Americans – from across the political spectrum, and of all backgrounds and beliefs – have come to a consensus that we should pursue this research.” The majority of Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs can’t correctly define the term “stem cell.”

Eric Cantor says this is all a big “distraction”: “Why are we going and distracting ourselves from the economy?” Get used to the R’s calling any item on the D agenda, or anything D’s want to talk about a distraction. Obama’s executive order was simply fulfilling a campaign promise. The Republican platform, as I recall, read, “1. Oh look, something shiny! 2. Oo, something else shiny!! 3. Shiny shiny shiny!!!” etc. I’m pretty sure Obama can do more than one thing at a time without being terribly distracted.

McCain’s #1 earmark of the day: $935,000 for Pasteurization of Shell Eggs, MI. Because a little salmonella never did anyone any harm.

More serious

Follow-up: remember that 9-year-old, 80-pound Brazilian girl, pregnant with twins, who had an abortion after being raped by her stepfather? The Catholic Church has excommunicated her mother and her doctors but not, of course, the stepfather because, according to the archbishop, abortion is “more serious” than raping a little girl for three years. Priorities, people. President Lula has publicly disagreed with the Church on this. By the way, how does the Church even know the names of these people?

Because you can’t say twitter without witter

Today McCain twittered yet more projects he doesn’t like and/or understand. #1: $75,000 for the Totally Teen Zone in Albany, Georgia. I guess because it sounds like a lame ‘70s thing. Or because McCain thinks you don’t need after-school gang-prevention programs for at-risk teenagers when you can just yell at them to get off your lawn.

Wasteful spending

McCain has continued to twitter alleged pork: science projects, the arts, anything with the word “museum” in it. Yesterday, for example, he complained about “$143,000 for the Dayton Society of Natural History in Dayton, OH.” Now if it were the Dayton, Tennessee Society of Natural History...

(The site of the Scopes Monkey Trial. Keep up, people!)

And in an email today, McCain says, “I’m asking you to join me today in supporting the effort to stop this wasteful spending. I’m urging you to make an immediate donation of $25, $50, $100, $250, $500 or whatever you can give to my re-election campaign for the U.S. Senate to continue the fight to bring an end to wasteful spending.” So send him some money, you know you’d only waste it on beaver management and natural history museums.

Of political sideshows, legitimate governments, and the fine art of Karzai-confronting

Another, late contender for Name of the Day: Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla Mandela, running for election to the South African Parliament.

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John Boehner pens an op-ed piece for the Post accusing the Obamahoovians of a “carefully calculated campaign” to distract people from their nefarious budget with all this talk about Rush Limbaugh. A budget that “increases taxes on every American”. “Something is wrong,” he says, “when the discourse in Washington is more focused on a political sideshow than, say, the fact that Congress is attempting to terminate a school choice program that serves thousands of needy children in the District of Columbia...” Oh, he does hate him some sideshows, does John Boehner.

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Hillary Clinton stood next to Mahmoud Abbas today, saying that his regime was the “only legitimate government” of the Palestinian people. Abbas’s term of office expired eight weeks ago.


She described the Israeli government’s plans to demolish scores of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem as... those of you with delicate sensibilities may wish to skip to the next paragraph... “unhelpful.”

During her trip, she said that “The two-state solution is the inevitable, inescapable outcome of any effort” but she also said that the US would support any Israeli government. So what she’s saying is that it’s okay to give unflinching support to Netanyahu while he works against the outcome she claims to be working towards, because that outcome is inevitable and inescapable. So that’s okay then.

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Speaking of legitimate governments, there’s an article in the WaPo on Karzai and the debate, largely between Karzai and the Obamatonians over the timing of presidential elections in Afghanistan (Obama clearly wants Karzai out, but it’s very unclear, at least to me, what sort of government he wants in Afghanistan and who it would be run by. Gosh, isn’t it nice that he’s learned so much from Bush’s mistakes like, for instance, not having an exit strategy in Iraq?). The WaPo author, Pamela Constable, says Karzai, while “once perceived as a charming leader and famous for wowing tribal elders and international conferences, has grown increasingly unpopular and remote as his government becomes tarred as weak and corrupt.” It’s not “tarred” as weak and corrupt, it actually is weak and corrupt. Some of that has to do with all the “wowing” of tribal leaders, many of whom are strong and corrupt.

She writes that Obama “finally confronted Karzai in a phone call about his frequent complaints over civilian casualties at the hands of coalition forces and air raids.” Which tells you something less than pleasant about Obama: he not only “confronted” Karzai over his oh so unreasonable objections to the killing of innocent Afghan civilians, but evidently leaked the fact to the press, thinking that standing tall for America’s right to bomb civilians made him look manly and presidential (or should I say preznidenshul?). I’d give a lot to see the transcript of that conversation.

Children in the news

A Brazilian girl 9 years old, pregnant with twins, no less, after being raped by her stepfather, has had an abortion. The Catholic Church says she shouldn’t have.

NYT: “Seven police officers here [Chicago] will be disciplined for failing to detect a 14-year-old boy’s impersonation of a police officer for five hours, including driving a patrol car and pulling a suspect’s arm behind his back so officers could handcuff him.”

Bogollagama v. Butts. Two names enter, one name leaves.

Name of the Day: White House deputy counsel Cassandra Q. Butts.

It’s the Q that really makes it work, really ties the whole name together.

No, I don’t know what it stands for.

Pakistan has sprung into action in response to the terrorist attack on Sri Lanka’s cricket team, creating a task force to figure out how to blame India. It also offered a reward of $125,000, which some would say is rather low for an attack which wounded 6 team members, killed 6 cops and 1 (or 2) civilians, damaged the reputation of Pakistan and threatened to make something about cricket interesting. But it’s nice to know that the US dollar is still the currency of choice for bounties.

Oh dear, that story has brought up a second Name of the Day: Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama.

But there can be only one, so

poll by twiigs.com

McCain, beaver management, mormon crickets, tattoos, and smelly pigs

John McCain is twittering. Also, he’s sending out messages on Twitter.com (see what I did there?). Currently, he’s posting the “top ten porkiest projects” in the spending bill, mostly ones that he thinks sound funny. Between them, they add up to only a bit over $10 million. One of the projects is $650,000 for beaver management. I understand he pulled his original tweet (let me say that again, just because it’s such a great phrase: he pulled his original tweet), which asked “how does one manage a beaver?” He also made fun of mormon cricket (Anabrus simplex) control, of a $200,000 program to remove tattoos from former gang members (“‘tattoo removal violence outreach program to could help gang members or others shed visible signs of their past’ REALLY?” – because John McCain can think of no choices he’s made in his own past that he’d want people not to be reminded of), a center for grape genetics, an astronomy project (“because nothing says new jobs for average Americans like investing in astronomy” – in other words, he’s making fun of astronomers for not being average enough), and $1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa. No mention of volcano monitoring.

McCain’s twitter feed has 110,327 followers.

But ours is a bond forged by shared bloodshed

Obama gave his Iraq speech yesterday. Most of what I intended to say has been written by Eli at Left I (in two posts) while I ate dinner, watched Battlestar Galactica and Dollhouse, tried to fix a corrupted file, tried to figure out what was wrong with Haloscan, etc.

What pushed both our buttons was Obama’s praising of this godawful war. He told the marines (he was speaking to one of those captive military audiences Bush liked so much): “You have fought against tyranny and disorder.” He told the Iraqi people (who unlike the marines weren’t actually there): “Our nations have known difficult times together.” Together in the sense that lots of our troops were occupying your country. “But ours is a bond forged by shared bloodshed.” Mostly yours, of course, and not so much shared as caused by our, you know, bombs and bullets and things. “We Americans have offered our most precious resource – our young men and women – to work with you to rebuild what was destroyed by despotism...” Say, Barack, can you think of anything else in Iraq in the last few years, other than despotism, that might have created the need for rebuilding? An invasion and a giant frigging war, for example? “...to root out our common enemies; and to seek peace and prosperity for our children and grandchildren, and for yours.” “In years past, you have persevered through tyranny and terror; through personal insecurity and sectarian violence.” Also, an invasion and a giant frigging war. Obama seems to keep forgetting about that war, which is odd considering he was supposed to be giving a speech about that very thing.


And from the way he describes it in those statements, you’d never know that we actually invaded Iraq. If all you had was this speech, you’d think we were invited in. Bond forged by shared bloodshed, indeed. Obama, a supposed opponent of the Iraq War, is as big an exponent of the myth of America’s innocence in the world as George Bush. “We can serve as an honest broker in pursuit of fair and durable agreements on issues that have divided Iraq’s leaders.” Yes, I’m sure if you ask the Iraqi people how they’d describe the US in relation to their country, the term they’d all use would be “honest broker.”

A tougher job

John Boehner explains that while America is a “center-right country,” voters often “don’t see us as the center-right party. I think we have to be more effective in how we communicate our principles”. See, it’s not the policies – it’s never the policies – it’s just that they’re not communicated well enough.

“We have a tougher job than our friends across the aisle. They’ve been offering Americans a free lunch for the last 80 years, rather successfully. Those of us that believe in a smaller, more accountable government, we have a tougher time making our principles relevant to the American people.”

Yes, the Democrats have been offering a free lunch and the Republicans have been offering a shit sandwich.

And not even a free shit sandwich.

Put-Down of the Day. Nay, of the Week.

“Apparently the governor of Louisiana doesn’t remember any of the major volcanic eruptions in recent history.”

The un-State of the Union Address: Nobody messes with Joe

And the State of the Union is... Obamalicious.

Transcript.

WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY: “We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.” Better, stronger, faster...

IN OTHER... OH, WAIT: “In other words, we have lived through an era where too often short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity”.


YOU RECKON? “Well, that day of reckoning has arrived”.

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING: “As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan... not because I believe in bigger government -- I don’t.”

WITH GREAT BAILOUTS COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY: “And with a plan of this scale comes enormous responsibility to get it right.”


YOU DON’T TUG ON SUPERMAN’S CAPE: “And that’s why I’ve asked Vice President Biden to lead a tough, unprecedented oversight effort, because nobody messes with Joe.”

ON ANY GIVEN DAY: “Now, I understand that, on any given day, Wall Street may be more comforted by an approach that gives bank bailouts with no strings attached and that holds nobody accountable for their reckless decisions, but such an approach won’t solve the problem.” Well, not unless you think the problem is bankers and wall street types not getting rich enough.

THE FANCY DRAPES INDUSTRY IS DOOMED, DOOMED! WHERE’S THEIR BAILOUT? DO THEY NOT BLEED? “This time -- this time, CEOs won’t be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks, or buy fancy drapes, or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over.”

WHAT IT’S ABOUT: “It’s not about helping banks; it’s about helping people.”


WADDLE, YES, WALK, NO: “I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.”

WHAT WE WON’T DO: “But this is America. We don’t do what’s easy.”

AND FALLING ASLEEP IN ENGLISH CLASS IS FALLING ASLEEP ON YOUR COUNTRY: “dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself; it’s quitting on your country.”


LINE THAT PROVOKED THE MOST MOCK-DERISIVE LAUGHTER FROM THE R CONGRESSCRITTERS: “Now, I’m proud that we passed a recovery plan free of earmarks.”

LINE THAT PROVOKED THE MOST MOCK-DERISIVE LAUGHTER FROM YOUR BLOGGER: “I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture. We can make that commitment here tonight.”

Evidently one Ty’Sheoma Bethea, the obligatory little girl who wrote a letter, says “We are not quitters.”


BIG FINISH: “And if we do, if we come together and lift this nation from the depths of this crisis, if we put our people back to work and restart the engine of our prosperity, if we confront without fear the challenges of our time and summon that enduring spirit of an America that does not quit, then some day, years from now, our children can tell their children that this was the time when we performed, in the words that are carved into this very chamber, ‘something worthy to be remembered.’” And those children will say, Yeah, whatever, grandpa, and roll their eyes. These kids of the future today, they got no respect I tell ya.

Speaking of kids of the future, here’s the response of Slumdog Governor Bobby Jindal.

...No, I can’t do it. I made the mistake of looking at other blogs, and now I can’t get the Kenneth the Page thing out of my head.

Bobby makes fun of magnetic levitation high-speed trains and of a provision in the stimulus bill for “something called volcano monitoring.” He’s never heard of such a thing. Here’s Bobby Jindal’s idea of a knee slapper: “Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, DC.” He is the future of the Republican party.

Caption Contest, now with more Clooney

George Clooney went to the White House yesterday. Although he met with both Biden and Obama, the White House seems only to have released this picture (I can’t be sure, because the search feature at the White House website is as sucky as it was under Bush, returning 0 hits for Clooney, but asking “Did you mean rooney?” No, I really didn’t).


So, what are they saying here? It probably won’t help to stimulate your comedic juices, but I guess I should mention that The Clooney was there to talk about Darfur.

Willy Pete and the paper of record

Ah, there it is. They tried to hide it, but today’s New York Times does mention Amnesty International’s report that the white phosphorus which Israel used to burn Palestinians last month was supplied by the United States. And when I say the NYT “mentions” it, what I mean is that they stuck it ten paragraphs into a story on page A7 entitled “Netanyahu Rebuffed Again in Efforts to Form Coalition,” and then said only

In a separate development, Amnesty International issued a report on Monday accusing Israel and Hamas of misusing foreign-supplied weapons to “attack civilians” during the recent 22-day Gaza war.

Amnesty called on the United Nations to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on both parties, and it urged the Obama administration to suspend American military aid to Israel.

Sort of kinda neglects to mention little details like what sort of weapons we’re talking about and which foreigners supplied them (there are plates with serial numbers and “manufactured in the United States” on the shells).

The WaPo mentions the Amnesty report in paragraph 9 of an AP story about Olmert firing his own negotiator. Here’s what it says: “Also Monday, a statement by the human rights group Amnesty International called on the United States to stop supplying Israel with arms that the group said were used in the killing of civilians in Gaza.” The words “white phosphorus” appear nowhere (and the LAT seems to skip the story altogether). We do get Israel’s response that the report is “unbalanced” (im fact, it does also condemn Hamas attacks on civilians and castigates its foreign suppliers, calling, as the NYT said, for an arms embargo on both sides) and ignores “the basic fact that Hamas is a terror organization”.

Compare this with the Guardian and the London Times, which seem to take chemical warfare (and American complicity) rather more seriously than the American press.

Far be it for this blog not to pass on fun facts. We all like fun facts, right?

From the White House blog: “Fun fact: the President loves scallops.”

Slooow news day contest

Another human-rights-whadda-ya-gonna-do quote from Hillary Clinton, from just before this week’s trip to China: “When you think about the drastic rise in unemployment in China, many would argue that that’s a human rights issue. There’s going to be a lot of suffering that will come from that.” So that puts those prisoners of conscience firmly in their place. It’s all about perspective, people.

So George Bush visited that hardware store in Dallas that offered him a job as a decider greeter, because he’s so very lonely. He wandered the store for an hour, talking to anybody who couldn’t get away fast enough, and bought, according to the AP, some flashlights, batteries, night lights and some WD-40.

Contest: what is he planning to do with those items?

We pretty much know what they’re gonna say

The Obama administration, like the Bushies, says that prisoners held at Bagram have no rights and cannot appeal to US courts.

Hillary Clinton says that issues like Tibet and human rights “can’t interfere with [engaging China on] the global economic crisis, the global climate-change crisis and the security crises.” I’m sure the political prisoners in Beijing dungeons and provincial re-education-through-slave-labor camps, the parents arrested for asking why the schools that crushed their children were built so shoddily, the Buddhist monks nursing broken bones in Llasa, etc. will be happy to hear that they won’t be interfering with the really important items on Hillary’s agenda – they’re very polite that way.

Anyway, Hillary says, there’s really no point in bothering talking to China about human rights because “we pretty much know what they’re gonna say.” I don’t know if the Chinese authorities know what Hillary is gonna say, but they certainly now know that they won’t have to pay very close attention to it.