Mission inedible

From the Sunday Times: “A bucket of manure from an Olympic-gold-winning horse has fetched £760 in an internet auction. Leslie Law, who won individual gold on Shear L’Eau in Athens, put the bucket up for sale on eBay. It attracted 35 bids before being won by a sports memorabilia store in Southport, Merseyside.”

The Anglican church in Uganda is sending a missionary to Britain. You know, it’s Labor Day, so why don’t you all make up your own joke here, utilizing the elements: 1) missionaries being eaten, and 2) lousy English cuisine.

That story is actually about African evangelicals hating the liberalism (i.e., women and gay priests) of the mother church.

I’ve been referring, like everyone else, to the TWO kidnapped French journalists, whose kidnappers demanded the lifting of the headscarf ban. Evidently we’ve forgotten someone: their driver/interpreter/fixer, a Syrian refugee, was kidnapped with them, but, typically, none of the media reports have mentioned him. Oops.

Carefree Russians

If you’re looking for a voice on the web supportive of the Beslan kidnappers, this is probably the closest, at least in (broken) English: Kavkaz Center, evidently located in Turkey, a site supposedly close to the guy behind Beslan. It’s nutty, but oddly hard to refute. It’s focused on Putin personally as the enemy, but Putin indeed originally came to power on anti-Chechen rhetoric. The site points out that thousands of Chechen schoolchildren have been killed in the invasion of Chechnya, which explains, while of course not excusing, their inhumanity to the Beslan children. Would you care to explain to Chechens why this incident was so horrible but the world has largely ignored a decade of wholesale murder and rape by Russian troops in their country? The website is full of conspiracy theories, but Russia is, in fact, full of conspiracies and lies and unanswered questions about terrorist acts: the mysterious apartment bombings, the Moscow theater siege, etc.

2 reporters who have negotiated with Chechens in the past were prevented reaching Beslan. One may have been poisoned, the other was first stopped at the airport for suspicion of carrying explosives, then when he was released, 2 airport parking attendants came up to him and picked a fight, all 3 were arrested, and he was imprisoned for 5 days for “hooliganism,” not the first time he’s been seized while trying to cover Chechnya for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Russia is claiming that 10 of the rebels were from Arab countries, but this is almost certainly a fabrication. The implication isn’t that these Arabs are wandering jihadists, but mercenaries paid for by dark forces trying to dismember Russia. Putin’s speech to the nation yesterday thus made no mention of “Chechnya,” and it sounds from the WaPo like the Russian people still haven’t been told that the rebels’ demand was for an end to the war in Chechnya. Pay no attention to the genocide behind the curtain.

Putin told Russians that they can’t “live in as carefree a manner as before.” Yes...Russians...carefree. Beslan is being described as “Russia’s 9/11.” It’s certainly being used as an excuse for Putin to make his already authoritarian government authoritarianer, just as the Bushies used 9/11 to enact the FBI’s wish list in the Patriot Act, take out Saddam, and silence domestic critics.

Israel is trying to get the EU and other foreign donors to pay for an apartheid road system in the West Bank. Given the settlements and the Wall, Palestinians are banned from roads the settlers use, so Israel wants someone else to pay for separate but equal roads for Palestinians.

Iraq: Going Pretty Much According to Plan

After the Iraqi puppet gov’s one-month ban on Al Jazeera raised no particular objections internationally, or indeed from their American overlords, they have, predictably, followed it with an indefinite ban.

It’s still not clear exactly how many people the Iraqi National Council actually has, and whether Chalabi is a member or not. Anyhow, it just elected 4 VPs, described by Juan Cole as showing that “the US invaded Iraq to install in power a coalition of Communists, Islamists and ex-Baathist nationalists.” Mission accomplished, then.

It’s getting so you can’t tell the hostages without a scorecard. The French journalists haven’t been released, but US-installed PM “Comical” Allawi decided that this was the perfect time to taunt the French, informing them that their anti-war stance had not protected their nationals from terrorist acts. And yes, it’s always a good time to taunt the French, but if Allawi had a diplomatic bone in his body, he might have realized that you don’t give what sounds an awful lot like tacit approval for attacks on French people, especially if you give it at the same time as the terrorists are deciding whether to kill or release the hostages.

Some want to tear a juicy bit of flesh off us (Russia tastes just like chicken)

Subtle this ain’t: the Pentagon is going to investigate Kerry’s medals.

Nor this: Putin in his address to the nation: “Some want to tear a juicy bit of flesh off us ... others are helping them, assuming that Russia ... still represents a threat to them. And that the threat needs to be eliminated. Terrorism is an instrument for achieving these aims.” In other words, this has nothing to do with Chechen independence, but is part of a Sinister Plot to dismember Russia. Rather like pretending that Iraq was behind 9/11, but rather more nebulous. “The terrorists believe they are stronger than us, that they will intimidate us with their cruelty”. Funny, didn’t you try to intimidate Chechens with your cruelty?

It’s not clear whether they’ll lie about the number of dead hostages at Beslan. It won’t be as easy to get away with that as after the Moscow theater siege. But they are claiming to have killed all the hostage-takers, which is simply not true.

The civil trial in Fresno over the assassination of Archbishop Romero (which I discussed here has finished, with Alvaro Rafael Saravia, still a fugitive, ordered to pay $10 million.

We demonstrated our weakness

The print NYT has a somewhat unfortunate jump. Quoting Hillary Clinton: “‘My husband is doing very well,’ she said, noting that he had beaten her” (continued on page A13)

at cards.

By the way, did you know that Bill Clinton is younger than George Bush?

The people who took over the school in Beslan, North Ossetia, loaded with explosives, depriving little children of food and water and threatened them with 15 people being killed if they moved or cried, have obviously reached an unimaginable level of inhumanity. But... Bush said--I can’t find the exact quote, but it was on the BBC World News--something about the lengths “they” will go to attack civilization. A Chechen might ask, what civilization? Stalin forcibly removed the entire Chechen population, Yeltsin and Putin have waged wars of extermination and atrocity.

Putin, of course, takes from this incident the lesson that Russia has been too civilized towards Chechnya: “we failed to react to them adequately. We demonstrated our weakness, and the weak are beaten.” And he will go after those who “foment interethnic hatred.” Have you heard the way Russians speak about Chechens as a group? A combination of the way Hitler spoke about the Jews and Europeans still speak about the Roma.

In this incident, Russia exhibited an impressive level of incompetence, failing to do things as simple and obvious as securing the area and making sure there were ambulances. None of which is what Putin means by failing to react adequately.

Escape train

The London Times says, “Mr Bush had an escape train waiting at Penn Station, underneath Madison Square Garden, in case he had to flee during his speech”

China has been putting censorship viruses on computers without their owners’ knowledge (the “Great Firewall of China”), rendering those computers incapable of googling for certain terms, or using them in instant messages, including liberty, the Tiananmen square massacre, human rights, democracy, truth, sex, brassiere.... I know this site has been accessed from China, although maybe not after this post.

Here a nation rose

Let’s return to the Bush line, “for as long as our country stands, people will look to the resurrection of New York City and they will say: Here buildings fell, here a nation rose.” When composing my last post, that line, which I had scribbled down assuming I would be making a joke about, was just too disquieting. Chris Suellentrop’s subsequent Slate dispatch, which doesn’t mention the line, suggests the reason: the R convention was full of sepia-toned nostalgia for those days after 9/11 when the nation supposedly united as it did after Pearl Harbor. Good times, good times.

The R’s are busily constructing a new vision of American nationhood based on victimhood. This is why the passengers who brought down Pennsylvania flight 93 and saved whatever target Al Qaida planned to fly it into (can you imagine how much worse the American backlash would have been had it hit the White House or Capitol Building? or Three Mile Island, which some early reports suggested was its target?) have gone unmythologized, and why the only soldier whose name you’re likely to know from either war of “liberation” (excluding relatives, friends, etc) wasn’t someone who, for instance, pulled a buddy out of the line of fire, like Kerry did in Vietnam, or performed some other act of bravery, but another victim, Private Jessica Lynch.

Nations that rise out of tragedy and victimization are not lovely things. You do not endear yourself to the world by constantly insisting that you are fighting wars to save their lazy, ungrateful asses, and indeed Western Civilization itself, from the heathen barbarians, alone and indeed vilified by them for doing the hard work that must be done. I’m not referring to the US now; I’m describing Serbia.

A calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom

Immediately after the Moscow theater siege in October 2002, the authorities claimed 127 people had died. This suspiciously low figure became more suspicious when they never changed it, although obviously some must have died of their injuries in the subsequent days, and many were listed as “missing.” So it’s a bit worrying that they’re claiming there are only 354 hostages in that school in Beslan, North Ossetia, when locals are saying it’s a lot more.
(Update: the shits stormed the school. They said they wouldn't, I always knew they would. As I write, still pretty confused.)

The convention was a race from competence and from content. It’s not just that we heard few details about Bush’s agenda, if any, for a second term; the details of the last 3½ years were also discarded as irrelevant. What mattered, they told us over and over, was Bush’s determination and vision (or vision thing, as his father used to phrase it). He “sees world terrorism for the evil that it is,” as Giuliani put it; he knew we were at war; he knew Saddam was a threat, etc etc. No one defended the way he actually conducted the “war on terror” or the war in Iraq, just his convictions. Likewise, no one talked about his policies in the future, except in the vaguest of terms. Thus, all the talk about a “hopeful America” and optimism. Hope for what? Doesn’t matter.

(Later:) ok, there were a few semi-specifics in Bush’s speech, but nothing we’ll ever hear about again. Rural health centers will go in the filing cabinet next to the mission to Mars.

Repeatedly heard during the Convention: that Saddam Hussein was a “weapon of mass destruction.” Only the most facile mind would take that pathetic rhetorical trick as an answer to the charge that Bush lied about WMDs.

By the way, the use of the presidential seal on that platform--is he supposed to be using a national symbol at a partisan event? That was one of many violations of the rules of political decency, usually to portray the D’s as un-American in the sense of being somehow not authentic Americans. Another was Cheney’s claim that Kerry was “unfit” for office. Not that his policies or qualifications are inferior to Bush’s, but that he is an illegitimate candidate.
(Later: Kerry has responded to the word unfit with what passes for outrage for him [I'm reminded of the parody John Major diary Private Eye used to run during his premiership, in which Major frequently described himself as "not inconsiderably incandescent with rage."])

Wed. night’s brilliant Daily Show mock-RNC film, "George W. Bush: Words Speak Louder Than Actions," is available here. And there’s a Lewis Black video blog, and other web-only Daily Show material (some played audio only, probably not intentionally).

The Bush speech:

He actually cites the 10 million registered voters in Afghanistan, which should be an embarrassing mockery, as if it were a triumph. Yay for ballot stuffing! Huzzah and kudos for electoral fraud! Why don’t we make Katherine Harris ambassador to Afghanistan?

The terrorists are afraid because “freedom is on the march.” Freedom does not march. It may walk, hop, skip, traipse, mosey, even flounce, but it does not march.

Also, funny to be talking about bringing freedom to Afghanistan and Iraq, when the NYPD were illegally holding hundreds of demonstrators without charge, possibly in naked human pyramids.

“Here buildings fell, here a nation rose.” Yick.

“a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom” Is he getting messages from outer space on his fillings again?

“we will extend the frontiers of freedom”. Hear that Canada? We’re coming after you, like you always knew we would. Yeah, there’s nothing like using the language of imperialist expansionism to convey your attachment to freedom.

Holy monkeys

Headline you don’t see every day: “Menaced by Holy Monkeys, Indian Villagers Call in the Contract Killers.”

Speaking of holy monkeys, Zell Miller, the Last Democrat, followed his cranky old man speech with interviews I did not see, because I have a reception problem with cable news channels. Well, not so much a reception problem, more that after a minute I start loudly bemoaning the state of American democracy and journalism, which makes it hard to hear, with all the bemoaning. So I missed seeing Zell-boy threaten to punch out Chris Matthews.

After 18 days, the Palestinian hunger strike ends as it began, with both sides calling each other liars. The Palestinians say that concessions were granted, Israel denies there were even negotiations.

Wherein I discuss the Republican Convention, somehow mentioning fascist Italy twice

Today we were exposed to that most odious of all sights in American politics: Dick Cheney looking pleased with himself after uttering an attack line. It was like watching a Mussolini speech, where he’d fold his arms and tilt his head back while the crowd cheered. The delegates loved Cheney, just loved him, and I think it was their reaction that will make this speech so harmful to the R’s. First, the constant applause made it long and tedious. Second, it gave the uncommitted voters at home time to think about the speech, and the relationship of thought to a Cheney speech is that of salt to a slug. Third, if any viewer at home was inclined to react favorably to a line, the cult-like over-reaction of the delegates will turn them right off again, like they’re all laughing at a joke you don’t get, and don’t want to get. And then they did that “flip flop” wave thing, which they should have practiced first.

Earlier, there was another repugnant sight: Republicans trying to be humorous. There was a little film about Barney the dog, which featured him debating Kerry’s dog, which was, oh my sides are splitting, a French poodle.

Good Toles cartoon.

William Saletan of Slate points out that even Rick “I’m not holier than thou, I’m holier than YOU” Santorum didn’t mention gays while talking about marriage, although he obviously wouldn’t have been talking about marriage at all if not for the gay marriage issue. So they’ve got even the Pennsylvania bully boy to abstain, for once, from overt gay-bashing, in favor of coded gay-bashing. Try to think of it as progress. The R’s are attempting to put a smiley face on it by talking about heterosexual marriage, which is evidently the basis of society, “the most fundamental institution of civilization.” Where does that leave gays? Un-persons, excluded by definition from society and civilization. Although they still have “selfish hedonism,” as Alan Keyes puts it, which is a pretty good compensation.

And Mel Martinez just won the R primary for US Senate after accusing Bill McCollum, of all people, of being a secret fag-lover for supporting an anti-hate-crimes bill.

Zell Miller is introduced as “the conscience of the Democratic party.” So who would that make the conscience of the Republican party, John Wilkes Booth?

T-shirt at anti-Bush rally: “Think. It’s patriotic.”

All the comparisons between Bush and Churchill. A reminder to the R’s: before World War II was even over, the voters booted Churchill out, in one of the finest moments for the principle of democracy. Also, the comparison is about how Churchill kept warning against the dangers of fascism in the 1930s, holding to his convictions while being ostracized from mainstream politics, while Bush recognized the dangers of terrorism...after several rather large buildings were damaged or destroyed and the dangers of terrorism were pretty fucking obvious. Yes, his breadth of vision is astonishing. Although, since I’m told that Osama bin Laden’s name hasn’t been mentioned once during the convention, you’d have to think that if Shrub had been around in the 1930s, he’d have recognized the dangers of fascism and tried to launch a pre-emptive attack on...Italy.

"Only" the global war on terrorism?

Tom DeLay to the Republican Jewish Coalition: “My friends, there is no Palestinian-Israeli conflict. There is only the global war on terrorism.”

French Muslims have condemned the taking of hostages to force a reversal of the headscarf ban, but went too far in asking Muslim schoolgirls to adhere to the ban instead of resisting it, as had been planned before the hostage-taking (Thursday is the first day of school). If the state is right not to give up its (despicable) policies to appease the terrorists, neither should the other side give up their legitimate resistance. Yadda yadda yadda, or the terrorists win. It’s like a teenage girl dating that guy with the piercings and the motorcycle not because she likes him, but to piss off her parents. Speaking of teenage girls, it’s nice to see the French government taking on that dangerous segment of the population. And putting the burden of having to choose between their principles and their futures on teenage girls.

Similarly, Russia wants the UN to condemn terrorism by Chechens and declare it part of the world-wide war on terrorism, but doesn’t want the outside world to condemn its vicious and bloody crushing of the Chechen people and its imposition of a fake president through an even faker election. Well, fuck that.

Comical Allawi, and not for the first time, has unilaterally halted peace talks just at the point of agreement, this time in Sadr City. Sure, since he’s planning to fight using American troops. In fact, the sticking point on this one was whether American troops could conduct military operations in the Baghdad suburb without Allawi’s permission; Allawi wanted them to be able to kill Iraqis without his permission.

It looks like the charges against Achmed and Salem Chalabi will be dropped (some stories are saying that they have already been, but this is wrong).

GUEST POST: Bush's Upcoming Post-Convention Drop

I've heard that "ABBA, The Movie" is rather entertaining to watch -- if you're stoned. But if you watch it again, this time with a clear head, the general reaction is considerably less positive. In New York now, the Republicans are busily replaying "The Great Unflinching Bush," a production that got great reviews during its out-of-town tryouts in the wake of the attack on the twin towers. But it's been three years, and our minds have cleared from the state of altered consciousness induced by 9/11. It's not just that we know Bush's first response to news of the attacks was to re-read his favorite passages from My Pet Goat. Nor is it just that we know he ignored the Presidential Daily Briefing, warning of such attacks. It isn't even that we as a nation have become quite disenchanted with his war in Iraq -- the fictitious WMDs, the lost lives, the dubious links to bin Laden. It's simply that we're no longer in the attack-induced stupor. "The Great Unflinching Bush" isn't much to watch if one isn't scared shitless and blindly jingoistic. So my prediction is that the replaying of this production is going make many viewers wonder, "Why did I think this was so good when I saw it a few years ago?" Watch his approval rating drop.

May never sit down at a peace table

Bush changes his mind, now does plan to “win” the war on terror after all. But he adds, “in this different kind of war, we may never sit down at a peace table.” Well I’m sure you can find something to fit your needs.

There’s a famous British newspaper headline from I believe the 1950s, which is always quoted to demonstrate British insularity and their sense that they are the center of the universe, something like “Fog over the Channel, Continent Cut Off.” Compare and contrast with this WaPo headline: “Zell Miller: A Democrat Who Insists His Party Left Him.”

Don’t be economic girlie-men: the Republican convention on steroids

Day 2 of the Republican convention was brown people, black people, immigrants, and the most downtrodden of all, stem cells. I believe the R platform proposes giving the vote to stem cells.

That would be more of a joke if the platform didn’t actually say that the 14th Amendment applies to the unborn.

Missed Liddy Dole’s speech, but she praised Bush for restoring “honor and dignity” to the White House. Elizabeth Dole, whose husband did Viagra ads. Also, not the best line for anyone to use the day the prime speaker is the Gropenführer. Liddy also said that marriage, by which she meant heterosexual marriage, is important, “not because it is a convenient invention or the latest reality show. Marriage is important because it is the cornerstone of civilization, and the foundation of the family.” Once again, she ignored her husband, who once told his first partner in the institution which is the cornerstone of civilization, “I want out.”

Ed. Sec Rod Paige accused Kerry & Edwards of wanting to “water down” No Child Left Behind. By which he means altering the rigid testing requirements, and by which he did not mean failing to provide adequate funding, a form of watering down he and his boss support.

Jenna mentioned her grandmother and sex in the same sentence, and by the time I came out of the fetal position, it was an hour later.

But before that was the main broken-English speaker of the convention, my governor, representing the immigrants who come to this country “full of dreams, full of determination, full of desire,” full of steroids, and end up fucking a bony Kennedy. He told a story about how he arrived in 1968, heard Hubert Humphrey speaking, heard Nixon speaking, and decided he was a Republican. He told this story when he was running for governor, when he claimed he was watching the famous Nixon-Humphrey debates, so it’s nice to see he didn’t feel obligated to drop his made-up story just because its central factual component never actually happened (like his reference to seeing Soviet tanks in Austria). There were a bunch of movie references, of course; an “economic girlie men” line; he explained how voting for the Republicans despite disagreeing with them was what was great about this country; then something about America standing with political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, which means whoever vetted his speech forgot that Dick Cheney once voted against a resolution that Mandela should be freed; and there was a line that “leadership isn’t about polls,” about which I’m still undecided whether to make a pun about Austrians and Poles. Then he pinched Laura Bush’s butt and left the stage.

There was something demeaning about George Bush the Elder having been given an Arnold! sign to wave.

The big “surprise” was a video appearance by Shrub, speaking for no particular reason in front of a softball game. Which meant he was interrupted by applause when someone got a hit.
Update: it's been suggested that the game was staged.

Declaring victory over a figure of speech, and going home

Bush said that Kerry will nationalize health care. Which is the sort of lie you can tell when your lies never seem to have consequences.

Of course when he does tell the truth... Today Bush said that the war on terrorism can’t be won in the conventional sense. This is of course true, since “war” was always an inappropriate metaphor. I think Bush has finally realized that all the “war on terrorism” talk does not leave him with an exit strategy from that war. This is a follow-up to that weird comment no one understood early this month: “We actually misnamed the war on terror, it ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world.” John Edwards went on the attack, saying that of course he and Kerry believe that the war on terrorism is winnable, and it’s defeatism to say otherwise. I can’t wait to see what he says when someone asks how you know when the war is over.

And yes, I did just say that Bush was right and his opponents wrong. Even a stopped clock is right once every 58 years.

The Secret Service has issued subpoenas trying to find the person who posted on the internet the names, addresses, phone numbers & NY hotels of R convention delegates (you’ll remember that Florida decided that the names of its delegates to this largely-taxpayer-funded convention was a trade secret). The feds are pretending this amounts to voter intimidation.

The R platform, on which those I’d-tell-you-my-name-but-then-I’d-have-to-kill-you delegates voted, included a provision to withdraw the jurisdiction of federal courts over the Defense of Marriage Act, which Congress can do under the stupidest, but little-used, provision of the Constitution (Article III, section 2, clause 2).

A Sadr spokesman on why the Mahdi army won’t give up its weapons: “Don’t most families in America keep a weapon?”

Convention report, or it would be if I could stand to listen to those people

At the R. convention, a woman in a headscarf from the American Islamic Congress just began by saying she would greet the convention with the traditional Islamic greeting. Sadly, it was "alaikum salaam." I had thought she was going to do one of those ululations Arab women do. Would have been fun to watch 10,000 people dive to the floor at one time.

Followed by George & Laura Bush talking about how they liberated the women of Afghanistan. By the way, the Times of London ran a story on Saturday, "Wife-Burning Survives Taleban Terror."

McCain could not get off that stage fast enough, could he?

Anti-gay-marriage Rep. Ed Schrock (R-VA) decides not to run for re-election after being outed. His call to a gay dating line ("I just like to get together a guy from time to time, just to, just to play. I'd like him to be in very good shape, flat stomach, good chest, good arms, well hung, cut, uh, just get naked, play, and see what happens...") may be found online.

Giuliani is just going on and on. I couldn’t listen to a word, he’s just too irritating.

Evolutionary rather than revolutionary

McCain says that ads attacking Kerry’s Vietnam record are dishonest and dishonorable, but it is ok to talk about his anti-war activities when he got home. I think Skull and Bones has the same rules. Also Fight Club (The first rule of Fight Club is - you do not talk about Fight Club).

Speaking of don’t ask, don’t tell, the Log Cabin Republicans... you know, I’m not going to pretend I really want to say anything about those idiots beyond repeating Tom Carson’s old line that their symbol should be a pink Bermuda triangle.

An RNC official says that Shrub’s acceptance speech will be “evolutionary rather than revolutionary.” Of course, the oddly chimplike GeeDubya doesn’t actually believe in evolution....

And the naked human pyramids? “Members of [Lynndie] England’s unit testified about critical supply shortages that forced them to keep prisoners naked for long stretches and to give male detainees female underwear.” (Catch by Under the Same Sun .

Wherein John McCain is compared, unfavorably, to a 60-year old Thai hooker with leprosy

The hunger strike by Palestinian political/security prisoners may end today, after a bit over two weeks. I was never clear on whether this supposed to be a fast to the death (if the strikers ever issued a formal statement, I didn’t see it), but the Israelis certainly attempted to speed along the process of physical deterioration, denying them milk, juice and salt, which they were willing to take.

My off-the-top-of-my-head, middle-of-the-night theory that Larry Franklin was passing operational intel to the Israelis is supported by no one else. Fine. If it was about influencing policy towards Iran, as seems to be the case, and influencing it in the direction of war, maybe the opposition party, if the US had one, or the press, if it weren’t so tame, could use this to lever the Pentagon the hell out of the business of formulating foreign policy.

This incident will also serve to make a war against Iran harder to undertake in a 2nd Bush term, by making it appear to the Muslim world like--well, more like--the product of a US-Israeli cabal.

The US was given advance notice of the coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea, and chose to do nothing, according to the Sunday Times (London), for the usual reason: oil. The government of EG is a rather nasty one, and the US was afraid it would have to impose sanctions, depriving itself of EG’s precious, precious oil.

I don’t know how much of the R convention I’ll be able to stand to watch, especially since they failed to invite the entertaining lunatic right-wingers to speak. Instead, while the RNC disinvited Britney Spears because she’s too big of a whore, McCain and other R moderates-on-some-issues will be peddling their asses onstage for smaller change than that charged by a 60-year old Thai hooker with leprosy. This convention is Shrub’s version of “kinder and gentler,” the phrase his father used to distance himself from Reagan, which as often as not became “kindler” and gentler. Actually, the 2000 convention did the same thing, with Newt Gingrich, as I wrote at the time, “locked in the basement until it’s over.”

Expressing themselves through violence and violent behaviour

NY protest sign: "What if Barbara or Jenna were impregnated by Willie Horton?”

I dislike seeing terms which should only be used to describe genuine elections being used for blatant shams, such as that in Chechnya today. General Alu Alkhanov was not “elected.” He did not “win” an election--the election was fixed, not won.

Then there’s Iraq’s Comical Allawi, quoted in the WaPo directing more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tut-tutting towards the insurgents. “They are not knowing how to express themselves but through violence and through violent behavior,” says the man who was installed by the US military’s violence and violent behaviour. Allawi also likes to talk about the law and bringing people to justice, but the only law written in Iraq in decades was written by Saddam Hussein or Paul Bremer.

Come for the free dental care, stay for the naked human pyramids

The Pentagon is following James Schlesinger in fashioning its propaganda about the torture of prisoners. It’s ignoring everything we know about torture during interrogation (as I noted before, Rumsfeld even flatly denied the existence of that type of torture). What this strategy amounts to is focusing on the torture we’ve seen pictures of, and trying to explain away those pictures as the result of the famous “few bad apples,” the night shift, just doing it for fun. At a background Pentagon briefing Wednesday, an unnamed “senior army official” insisted that the prisoner in the famous picture, standing on a box with a hood over his head, wasn’t even interrogated.

And there’s a lot of talk about the “chilling effect” on current interrogations of insisting on rules against abuse. The same official claims that because prisoners know these limits, they no longer fear imprisonment by the Americans (in other words, they won’t fall for the if-you-fall-off-the-box-you’ll-be-electrocuted ploy): “They know that if the United States captures them, they will get a medical exam. They’ll get their teeth fixed. They will get essentially a free physical and they will be released if they don’t talk after a certain amount of time.” The WaPo says that the CIA has even stopped refusing pain medication to and “feign[ing] suffocation” of prisoners.