Super Baby Rooney!
Yes, once again, the headlines of Desultory Turgescence scream no political obscenities as we continue our sabbatical from reality and plunge into the warm bath of the Euro 2004.
Last night, England's dreams were acknowledged as their 18 year old phenom, Wayne Rooney scored two brilliant goals to lead them past Croatia 4-2 and advanced to the quarterfinals of the tournament where they will face the hosts, Portugal.
So here is what the Italians think about Super Rooney
while speculation, the hypsters favourite tool, runs rampant as some ask the absurdist question du jour, Better than Pele?
Wayne Rooney: The Nation's Hero (well, certainly a cut above Blair, isn't he then?)
In other words, Roo-Mania Takes Hold:
THERE are no words left to describe Wayne Rooney — the dictionary has run out."
"more the teenage wonderkid inspired England to victory with a sensational double and won us a place in the quarter-finals of Euro 2004 against hosts Portugal.
Rooney was once 50-1 to be the top scorer in the tournament but, this morning, he leads the way — ahead of a string of illustrious strikers — with four goals to his name.
Well done to anybody who put a tenner on him.
After his brilliant performances against France and Switzerland, Rooney was again unstoppable — earning his second man-of-the-match award in a row."
Perhaps in a pique of jealousy, Iran Seizes 3 British Navy Boats and Detains 8 Sailors in a Territorial Dispute on Iraqi Border. Not playing very fair, the little bastids. See if they're invited to the next World Cup.
Oh yeah, arch-rival France are also through after a 3-1 victory over the hapless Swiss who will go home to their cows and chocolates and secret bank accounts, yodel a lament and eat some cheese fondue.
dinsdag, juni 22, 2004
maandag, juni 21, 2004
Olé!
30 years of hegemony defeated as Portugal eliminates archrivals, Spain, 1-0 to advance to the Euro 2004 Quarterfinals.
(Sorry - it is difficult to discern whether there is a true dearth of legitimate "news", if the reruns of the same old "news"; ie, terorrism, Bush, 9/11, EU backroom politics, etc, are just too boring to contemplate OR if all such trivialities and work of others pale in comparison to the only events of interest these days in the world -
EURO 2004.
So yes, enough depressing information. Allow the depression and anxiety to creep forward in the form of eleven men running around in shorts kicking a ball around a pitch. Tonight, England have at it again, this time against the Croatians.
And thus, Desultory Turgescence jumps OFF the bandwagon of international news, the symantical, cryptic bullshit of politicos and partisanship, and officially joins the parade of misinformed, disinterested, futbalisticos.
Besides kids, it's summer for crissakes. Let's have a break!
donderdag, juni 10, 2004
Bush Says Chirac's the Cat's Meow and The Great Satan's Eight Are Back In Business
If we are to believe the propaganda, The Great Satan's Group of Eight Summit, where three quarters of the evil in the world is painstakingly plotted out, has been a smashing success. Everyone is so goddamned happy being with each other, rolling naked in blood and oil and a variety of currencies, that they even considered extending the meeting into an all summer long orgy of happiness and comraderie.
The headlines might want to sing hosannas about the new love affair between President Chirac and President Jesus Bush, but this unphotoshopped photo clearly demonstrates the degree of disdain Chirac holds for President Jesus Bush.
Just examine the look of nausea in his face, the squinting revulsion as he spies Bush leaning forward and extending his right hand in offer of a shake as though Chirac were Bush's dog being called upon to perform a trick.
C'mon Jacques-y-boy! Put her there! Let's have that paw!" Bush whispers through the right corner of his mouth, the corner of the mouth that is out of the camera's line of vision.
Chirac's face, no I've got it wrong. It isn't a look of nausea, it is a look of amused disbelief perhaps, as though a quadriplegic had just risen from his chair and performed a brief dance for the President of France. Perhaps Chirac is wondering to himself what this American cowboy, the true spawn of Ronald Reagan, is trying to prove with his idiotic look of sincere, begrudged friendship in his pinched, evil eyes that stare down at his own, firmly proferred hand as though he doesn't believe himself that he is actually going to offer his hand to this cowardly French paper shuffler. Chirac is no man. By Christ, he's almost a woman! What did HE do to fight terrorists like me? Bush is likely reminding himself. I'm killing all the bastards and this French faerie wants to make love to them! Chirac doesn't even deserve to LICK my hand, let alone shake it, Bush is muttering to himself with his inner voice.
And look how tightly Bush's left hand is gripping the arm of his chair. By God, he looks like he's afraid that if he lets go, his entire reality will go spinning out of control and the Frenchman across from him will suddenly smear lipstick all over his face.
More humiliating still, Chirac had the temerity to note that the food served at the three-day gathering was "certainly on a par" with French cuisine.
What French cuisine is that, Frenchy, Bush was certain to have thought to himself. Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast??!!
But it wasn't all fun and games, oh no. President Jesus Bush made a plea on Wednesday for a continued, even expanded, NATO presence in Iraq. "C'mon Frenchy," Bush was alleged to have urged. "give us some of those troops of yours, we need a few weaklings to kick around now that Abu Ghraib is off limits!"
At that time, Mr. Chirac said he saw no "mission" that would warrant his sending French troops there, a position that he has long maintained with President Gerhard Schröder of Germany.
"Why should we have our own troops killed and sniped at every day when the Americans are doing such a good job of it?" the French leader asked rhetorically.
It was a good joke both he and President Bush can share. That one, and the one about the Weapons of Mass Destruction. That one still causes even the hardened members of The Great Satan's Eight to break into hysterical waves of laughter every time.
"Have you actually SEEN President Bush do that act where he looks under the table, in his shoes, under the lampshades, for Weapons of Mass Destruction and can't find them anywhere?" President Gerhard Schröder of Germany swooned. "This is almost as funny as that time when Hitler was going around the Reichstag looking in ashtrays saying, where are all the Chews? Has anyone seen the Chews?...by god, I thought I was going to pee myself in laughter!"
The meetings will likely be available video tape and DVD in the fall and will be entitled "Great Satan Eight Summer Bash, Part Deux"
If we are to believe the propaganda, The Great Satan's Group of Eight Summit, where three quarters of the evil in the world is painstakingly plotted out, has been a smashing success. Everyone is so goddamned happy being with each other, rolling naked in blood and oil and a variety of currencies, that they even considered extending the meeting into an all summer long orgy of happiness and comraderie.
The headlines might want to sing hosannas about the new love affair between President Chirac and President Jesus Bush, but this unphotoshopped photo clearly demonstrates the degree of disdain Chirac holds for President Jesus Bush.
Just examine the look of nausea in his face, the squinting revulsion as he spies Bush leaning forward and extending his right hand in offer of a shake as though Chirac were Bush's dog being called upon to perform a trick.
C'mon Jacques-y-boy! Put her there! Let's have that paw!" Bush whispers through the right corner of his mouth, the corner of the mouth that is out of the camera's line of vision.
Chirac's face, no I've got it wrong. It isn't a look of nausea, it is a look of amused disbelief perhaps, as though a quadriplegic had just risen from his chair and performed a brief dance for the President of France. Perhaps Chirac is wondering to himself what this American cowboy, the true spawn of Ronald Reagan, is trying to prove with his idiotic look of sincere, begrudged friendship in his pinched, evil eyes that stare down at his own, firmly proferred hand as though he doesn't believe himself that he is actually going to offer his hand to this cowardly French paper shuffler. Chirac is no man. By Christ, he's almost a woman! What did HE do to fight terrorists like me? Bush is likely reminding himself. I'm killing all the bastards and this French faerie wants to make love to them! Chirac doesn't even deserve to LICK my hand, let alone shake it, Bush is muttering to himself with his inner voice.
And look how tightly Bush's left hand is gripping the arm of his chair. By God, he looks like he's afraid that if he lets go, his entire reality will go spinning out of control and the Frenchman across from him will suddenly smear lipstick all over his face.
More humiliating still, Chirac had the temerity to note that the food served at the three-day gathering was "certainly on a par" with French cuisine.
What French cuisine is that, Frenchy, Bush was certain to have thought to himself. Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast??!!
But it wasn't all fun and games, oh no. President Jesus Bush made a plea on Wednesday for a continued, even expanded, NATO presence in Iraq. "C'mon Frenchy," Bush was alleged to have urged. "give us some of those troops of yours, we need a few weaklings to kick around now that Abu Ghraib is off limits!"
At that time, Mr. Chirac said he saw no "mission" that would warrant his sending French troops there, a position that he has long maintained with President Gerhard Schröder of Germany.
"Why should we have our own troops killed and sniped at every day when the Americans are doing such a good job of it?" the French leader asked rhetorically.
It was a good joke both he and President Bush can share. That one, and the one about the Weapons of Mass Destruction. That one still causes even the hardened members of The Great Satan's Eight to break into hysterical waves of laughter every time.
"Have you actually SEEN President Bush do that act where he looks under the table, in his shoes, under the lampshades, for Weapons of Mass Destruction and can't find them anywhere?" President Gerhard Schröder of Germany swooned. "This is almost as funny as that time when Hitler was going around the Reichstag looking in ashtrays saying, where are all the Chews? Has anyone seen the Chews?...by god, I thought I was going to pee myself in laughter!"
The meetings will likely be available video tape and DVD in the fall and will be entitled "Great Satan Eight Summer Bash, Part Deux"
Mayor Bans Noise In NYC
Noting that he wants New York to become "the quietest place on earth", the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, has vowed to make sure that anyone who makes any noise, from barking dogs, chirping birds, car horns, pounding music and ice cream vendors to cheering fans at Shea and Yankee Stadiums, people speaking aloud and wind blowing, will face heavy penalties.
Echoing his idiotic smoking ban to destroy the nature and pace of what was once the world's finest city, he has proposed a series of measures ranging from the practical to the preposterous, covering everything from how long a dog may be left yapping to the jingles permitted on ice cream vans to whether people will be allowed to voice their opinions louder than sotto voce.
"Complaints about noise are not frivolous," he said. "Noise disturbs my sleep and I don't like noise anymore. I used to like noise, but ever since I quit smoking, like everything else in my life, I've started to become more and more intolerant of it."
So his 45-page proposal includes allowing dogs a one hour window between the hours of 10 and 11 in the morning, to bark for a period of up to, but no longer than five minutes. Violators will be taken away to the pound and put to sleep. He also proposed a ban on birds chirping and pigeons cooing as they are "sufficient distractions" to the well-being of every New Yorker. "We don't really need birds chirping. Just looking at them is enough." All birds caught chirping will be shot without further notification by the NYPD anti-terrorist sniper squad.
But wildlife and domesticated animals aren't the only suspects. People too, will have to learn to stop talking aloud. "When you think about it, we are many millions of people in a small area and if everyone starts talking aloud, the noise is nearly unbearable." From now on, neighbors will only be allowed to talk to one another in shifts and there will be a city-wide imposition of sign language on residents.
Lest one think all of Mayor Bloomberg's ideas are idiotic, useless and impractical, he also announced a ban on car horns to be replaced by a surge of electricity which will be propelled from the horn-honker to the offending vehicle causing the horn-honking to begin with. All vehicles registered in NYC will be required to have this new electrical shock soundless horn fitted or will face being banned from the city streets.
The police will be able to issue noise tickets and drivers with wayward car alarms are among those liable, along with barkeepers and restaurateurs who let their din spread 3 ft (1 metre) through an open door.
Vibrations are also being considered for inclusion in the same law, a relief to thousands of city dwellers tormented by footsteps in hallways and the shaking of the earth by gently rearranging the furniture and "heavy bass sounds", the last in particular, which has sparked anger among the city's minority population who decry the ban on heavy bass sounds as being "racist" and "inherently biased".
"It is not necessary for such person to determine the title, specific words or artist of such music," reads the proposed law.
"We like heavy bass in our music and whitey don't, because whitey can't dance" complained Yolanda Ramirez, of the She-Bitches Loisada Social Club. "This is a racist law against us!"
Noise is the number one complaint in New York, far ahead of problems with landlords. The city's information and help line deals with about 1,000 calls a day on the subject. The city hall defines an offensive sound as one that takes place between 10pm and 7am and is seven decibels above the general sound level of the given area.
Between 7am and 10pm, the threshold rises to 10 decibels.
The proposed regulations require noise management plans on building sites, sound barriers and noise jackets for jackhammers and other loud tools, and free earplugs for any resident requesting them.
And they will let police officers issue noise tickets without recourse to sound meters, relying on a "plainly audible" standard. "If we can hear it," Bloomberg said with a smirk as his cravings for a cigarette drives him progressively madder by the day, "Then it's too loud!" he whispered.
Noting that he wants New York to become "the quietest place on earth", the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, has vowed to make sure that anyone who makes any noise, from barking dogs, chirping birds, car horns, pounding music and ice cream vendors to cheering fans at Shea and Yankee Stadiums, people speaking aloud and wind blowing, will face heavy penalties.
Echoing his idiotic smoking ban to destroy the nature and pace of what was once the world's finest city, he has proposed a series of measures ranging from the practical to the preposterous, covering everything from how long a dog may be left yapping to the jingles permitted on ice cream vans to whether people will be allowed to voice their opinions louder than sotto voce.
"Complaints about noise are not frivolous," he said. "Noise disturbs my sleep and I don't like noise anymore. I used to like noise, but ever since I quit smoking, like everything else in my life, I've started to become more and more intolerant of it."
So his 45-page proposal includes allowing dogs a one hour window between the hours of 10 and 11 in the morning, to bark for a period of up to, but no longer than five minutes. Violators will be taken away to the pound and put to sleep. He also proposed a ban on birds chirping and pigeons cooing as they are "sufficient distractions" to the well-being of every New Yorker. "We don't really need birds chirping. Just looking at them is enough." All birds caught chirping will be shot without further notification by the NYPD anti-terrorist sniper squad.
But wildlife and domesticated animals aren't the only suspects. People too, will have to learn to stop talking aloud. "When you think about it, we are many millions of people in a small area and if everyone starts talking aloud, the noise is nearly unbearable." From now on, neighbors will only be allowed to talk to one another in shifts and there will be a city-wide imposition of sign language on residents.
Lest one think all of Mayor Bloomberg's ideas are idiotic, useless and impractical, he also announced a ban on car horns to be replaced by a surge of electricity which will be propelled from the horn-honker to the offending vehicle causing the horn-honking to begin with. All vehicles registered in NYC will be required to have this new electrical shock soundless horn fitted or will face being banned from the city streets.
The police will be able to issue noise tickets and drivers with wayward car alarms are among those liable, along with barkeepers and restaurateurs who let their din spread 3 ft (1 metre) through an open door.
Vibrations are also being considered for inclusion in the same law, a relief to thousands of city dwellers tormented by footsteps in hallways and the shaking of the earth by gently rearranging the furniture and "heavy bass sounds", the last in particular, which has sparked anger among the city's minority population who decry the ban on heavy bass sounds as being "racist" and "inherently biased".
"It is not necessary for such person to determine the title, specific words or artist of such music," reads the proposed law.
"We like heavy bass in our music and whitey don't, because whitey can't dance" complained Yolanda Ramirez, of the She-Bitches Loisada Social Club. "This is a racist law against us!"
Noise is the number one complaint in New York, far ahead of problems with landlords. The city's information and help line deals with about 1,000 calls a day on the subject. The city hall defines an offensive sound as one that takes place between 10pm and 7am and is seven decibels above the general sound level of the given area.
Between 7am and 10pm, the threshold rises to 10 decibels.
The proposed regulations require noise management plans on building sites, sound barriers and noise jackets for jackhammers and other loud tools, and free earplugs for any resident requesting them.
And they will let police officers issue noise tickets without recourse to sound meters, relying on a "plainly audible" standard. "If we can hear it," Bloomberg said with a smirk as his cravings for a cigarette drives him progressively madder by the day, "Then it's too loud!" he whispered.
maandag, juni 07, 2004
All This Useless Beauty - Elvis Costello
It's at times such as this she'd be tempted to spit
If she wasn't so ladylike
She imagines how she might have lived
back when legends and history collide
So she looks to her prince finding he's so charmingly
slumped at her side
Those days are recalled on the gallery wall
And she's waiting for passion or humour to strike
What shall we do, what shall we do with all this useless beauty?
All this useless beauty
Good Friday arrived, the sky darkened on time
'Til he almost began to negotiate
She held his head like a baby and said "It's okay if you cry"
Now he wants her to dress as if you couldn't guess
He desires to impress his associates
But he's part ugly beast and Hellenic deceased
So she finds that the mixture is hard to deny
She won't practice the looks from the great tragic books
That were later disgraced to face celluloid
It won't even make sense but you can bet
If she isn't a sweetheart or plaything or pet
The film turns her into an unveiled threat
Nonsense prevails, modesty fails
Grace and virtue turn into stupidity
While the calendar fades almost all barricades to a pale compromise
And our leaders have feasts on the backsides of beasts
They still think they're the gods of antiquity
If something you missed didn't even exist
It was just an ideal -- is it such a surprise?
It's at times such as this she'd be tempted to spit
If she wasn't so ladylike
She imagines how she might have lived
back when legends and history collide
So she looks to her prince finding he's so charmingly
slumped at her side
Those days are recalled on the gallery wall
And she's waiting for passion or humour to strike
What shall we do, what shall we do with all this useless beauty?
All this useless beauty
Good Friday arrived, the sky darkened on time
'Til he almost began to negotiate
She held his head like a baby and said "It's okay if you cry"
Now he wants her to dress as if you couldn't guess
He desires to impress his associates
But he's part ugly beast and Hellenic deceased
So she finds that the mixture is hard to deny
She won't practice the looks from the great tragic books
That were later disgraced to face celluloid
It won't even make sense but you can bet
If she isn't a sweetheart or plaything or pet
The film turns her into an unveiled threat
Nonsense prevails, modesty fails
Grace and virtue turn into stupidity
While the calendar fades almost all barricades to a pale compromise
And our leaders have feasts on the backsides of beasts
They still think they're the gods of antiquity
If something you missed didn't even exist
It was just an ideal -- is it such a surprise?
zondag, juni 06, 2004
Bedtime For Bonzo
"Facts are stupid things." --Ronald Reagan
The first man to both star in a movie involving a chimp and actually play a starring role as a chimp who became President of the United States is finally dead at the age of 93, lasting some 20 years beyond his official use as a human being.
Ronald Reagan, the Godfather to America's current conservative idiot fringe on a mission from God to destroy the dying embers of America's goodness, was the oldest man elected to the presidency at age 69 and helped turn America into a 1980s alptraum with his famed "Reaganomics" trickle down theory of economics, which involved the absurdist notion that the wealthier fat corporate pigs become, the more of the overfilled trough they were feeding themselves from, would slosh over on to the ground for the lesser peasants to enjoy. Instead, the typical crowd of fat cats got fatter, there was a burst of economic boom on Wall Street allowing a new bread of leaches to suck the blood from the life of middle class America and in all ended with a spectacular stock market crash when the world realised America was too far in debt to ever pull itself out again. (Hmmm, sound familiar?)
Among Reagan's other "accomplishments" to earn him icon status in the conservative party was to get away with the Iran/Contra scandal by feigning ignorance. For those of you too young to know or too embittered to want to remember or too distracted by the current brand of "fuck the world, I'm for me" conservatism and hysterical war mongering in the form of the War on Terrorism to be able to remember, the Iran/Contra scandal, in bitter, reductionist terms, was about his administration performing a neat little circumvention around something called democracy when it served the purposes of their ideological war in Nicaragua, by selling arms to alleged arch-enemy, Iran, in order to "free" hostages and then used the sale of those weapons and arms to fund their little war in Nicaragua after Congress had wisely cut them off. Worse still, it brought an ideological pissant like Oliver North surfacing to the light of day.
The good old President Reagan, like current conservatives, preached family values to the world in a hypocritical whinge whilst neglecting his own family. He was, after all, considered a grandfatherly figure by most Americans, time and time again escaping the wrath of an angry public opinion for his misadventures with his "awe shucks, I'm just a regular guy" style of method acting.
He oversaw the bullying invasion of the evil empire of Grenada in October, 1983, coincidentally coming just days after the humiliation and shock of the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, yet another imperialistic invasion misadventure conducted under the auspices of bringing American-style "peace and democracy" to a country that wasn't interested in it.
On the lighter side, his fantastically expansive Star Wars speech is thought by many to have been the beginning of the end of the Soviet Empire and after a disco bombing in Berlin, Reagan authorised the 1986 bombing of Libya whose success was alleged have led to the quieting of renowned terrorist Muammar Gadafi. Of course, Gadafi was so terrorised, it took him almost two years to organise the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, and then another 16 years and two invasions of Iraq later, to finally perform a questionable about face to learn to love the West. Another Reagan foreign policy success.
Ah, with this news of Ronald Reagan's death, so many memories come to the surface like bile rising from the back of the throat. Thanks for the memories, Ronny baby, as the old song I Shot Reagan by Suicidal Tendancies goes, you're forgiven in hell.
"Facts are stupid things." --Ronald Reagan
The first man to both star in a movie involving a chimp and actually play a starring role as a chimp who became President of the United States is finally dead at the age of 93, lasting some 20 years beyond his official use as a human being.
Ronald Reagan, the Godfather to America's current conservative idiot fringe on a mission from God to destroy the dying embers of America's goodness, was the oldest man elected to the presidency at age 69 and helped turn America into a 1980s alptraum with his famed "Reaganomics" trickle down theory of economics, which involved the absurdist notion that the wealthier fat corporate pigs become, the more of the overfilled trough they were feeding themselves from, would slosh over on to the ground for the lesser peasants to enjoy. Instead, the typical crowd of fat cats got fatter, there was a burst of economic boom on Wall Street allowing a new bread of leaches to suck the blood from the life of middle class America and in all ended with a spectacular stock market crash when the world realised America was too far in debt to ever pull itself out again. (Hmmm, sound familiar?)
Among Reagan's other "accomplishments" to earn him icon status in the conservative party was to get away with the Iran/Contra scandal by feigning ignorance. For those of you too young to know or too embittered to want to remember or too distracted by the current brand of "fuck the world, I'm for me" conservatism and hysterical war mongering in the form of the War on Terrorism to be able to remember, the Iran/Contra scandal, in bitter, reductionist terms, was about his administration performing a neat little circumvention around something called democracy when it served the purposes of their ideological war in Nicaragua, by selling arms to alleged arch-enemy, Iran, in order to "free" hostages and then used the sale of those weapons and arms to fund their little war in Nicaragua after Congress had wisely cut them off. Worse still, it brought an ideological pissant like Oliver North surfacing to the light of day.
The good old President Reagan, like current conservatives, preached family values to the world in a hypocritical whinge whilst neglecting his own family. He was, after all, considered a grandfatherly figure by most Americans, time and time again escaping the wrath of an angry public opinion for his misadventures with his "awe shucks, I'm just a regular guy" style of method acting.
He oversaw the bullying invasion of the evil empire of Grenada in October, 1983, coincidentally coming just days after the humiliation and shock of the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, yet another imperialistic invasion misadventure conducted under the auspices of bringing American-style "peace and democracy" to a country that wasn't interested in it.
On the lighter side, his fantastically expansive Star Wars speech is thought by many to have been the beginning of the end of the Soviet Empire and after a disco bombing in Berlin, Reagan authorised the 1986 bombing of Libya whose success was alleged have led to the quieting of renowned terrorist Muammar Gadafi. Of course, Gadafi was so terrorised, it took him almost two years to organise the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, and then another 16 years and two invasions of Iraq later, to finally perform a questionable about face to learn to love the West. Another Reagan foreign policy success.
Ah, with this news of Ronald Reagan's death, so many memories come to the surface like bile rising from the back of the throat. Thanks for the memories, Ronny baby, as the old song I Shot Reagan by Suicidal Tendancies goes, you're forgiven in hell.
zaterdag, juni 05, 2004
Pope Lectures Bush On Killing
ROME -- On Friday, Pope John Paul II, frail as a junkie going cold turkey, lectured President Jesus Bush about the conflict in Iraq, reminding the president of the long history the Catholic Church has in killing people who oppose it and advising the President that he is "not killing heretics and terrorists fast enough" to meet historically high papal standards of misery and the butchery in the name of God.
The pontiff also called for a the gradual return of sovereignty to the Iraqi people under United Nations auspices once the Iraqi oil industry has been properly and legally annexed and distributed by Vice President Dick Cheney to himself and his colleagues at Haliburton, but warned against giving Iraqis sovereignty too soon noting that they aren't well-versed in democracy and may need the occasional jackboot of foreign interventionists to help them make that all important "encouraging step" in that direction.
As a misfortunate result of Italy being a Democracy led by the most democratic and fair leader in modern Italian history Silvio Berlusconi, shortly after Bush's audience with the pope in the richly appointed halls of the Vatican, a very tiny, tiny number of Italian anarchists and fanatics, terrorists and thugs chanting anti-Bush demonstrators were allowed to parade like jackals through the streets of Rome to protest his visit and register opposition to the Iraq war. The Pope and President Jesus Bush denounced them all as bitter that democracy is taking hold in the world and the good side is winning.
Some 10,000 security officers -- some heavily armed and in full riot gear -- were mobilized to keep the marchers away from Bush as he traveled around Rome and to kill those who were out of camera view. The demonstrations were largely peaceful, although the marchers left a trail of angry graffiti, empty beer bottles and other debris in their wake because, as we well know, protestors are heathens, hippies and dangerous members of society.
In addition to meeting with John Paul, the president commemorated the 60th anniversary of the city's liberation from the Germans by spray painting swastikas at the site of a notorious Nazi massacre. He also met with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, an ally on Iraq and a fellow lover of Democracy.
Bush's activities kicked off a weeklong excursion in international diplomacy that is to take him to the Elysee Palace in Paris on Saturday, to Normandy for D-Day ceremonies on Sunday and to the annual G-8 summit of Evil in Georgia next week.
At the Vatican, after a 15-minute private meeting with Bush, the pope -- who has demonstrate the robustness of Christianity in his every spasm and eye twitch -- read a statement in a slow, halting voice. His hands trembled as he held the pages of his text.
John Paul told Bush that his visit to Rome "takes place at a moment of great concern that not enough heathens and terrorists and thugs are being killed in the Middle East, both in Iraq and in the Holy Land." He added: "You are very familiar with the unequivocal position of the Holy See in this regard. Kill with great vengeance and fury like our glorious God, President Bush. Kill"
The pope went on to praise Bush for his "commitment to the promotion of moral values, liberating the world's oil supply from heathens, and killing all those who oppose us particularly with regard to respect for life and the family," and his administration's support for not letting crazy women and anarchists the right to abortions in America.
Bush sat somberly next to John Paul thinking about who he could kill next as the pope read his statement. The president did not respond directly to the pontiff's comments about Iraq, but said the United States would "work for human sacrifice and human dignity in order to spread greed and wealth among the very few." Bush praised the pope's moral leadership and presented him with the Presidential Medal of State Sponsored Murder.
"God bless America," John Paul said in reply.
"I shall." President Jesus Bush announced.
White House officials said they took no umbrage at the pope's statement. "Nothing we'd disagree with," said Communications Director Dan Bartlett.
Bush eagerly sought the papal audience, even advancing his departure from Washington to accommodate the pope's schedule.
Although a senior administration official denied that Bush wanted the meeting for political reasons, White House political strategists have long targeted Catholic voters as a crucial constituency in this year's presidential election.
They are especially numerous in swing states such as Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Most recent polls indicate they are closely divided between Bush and Democratic candidate John Kerry, who is Catholic but has drawn criticism from some church officials over his support for abortion rights and for not embracing the Bush Administration's healthy view on killing innocent people in Iraq to save them.
*****
Kids Do The Darndest Things
"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life son"
- Dean Wormer, in Animal House
In case you missed it, a survey by the World Health Organisation shows that children as young as 11 regularly drink alcohol. It found that 13% of 11-year-old boys and 8% of 11-year-old girls drink alcohol every week.
Some 10% of boys and 6% of girls have been drunk at least twice by the age of 11. By the time they reach 15, more than half of teenagers have been drunk.
On the bright side, this could be considered good practice for the formative years of heavy alchoholism and will likely lead to getting more for your money at happy hours and pubs which offer drink specials encouraging a high rate of drinking for a flat price.
*****
Rumsfeld Says al Qaeda Will Strike Again Unless There Is More Abuse
SINGAPORE -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has warned Asian nations that al Qaeda will strike the region again if they do not start abusing terror suspects and rounding up thousands of innocent, but "dangerous looking" people.
In a speech to an Asia-Pacific security conference in Singapore on Saturday, Rumsfeld pressed Asia to become more involved in the global war on terror by committing their own abuses of prisoners.
Rumsfeld pledged closer military support and security ties with Washington, but denied the Bush administration was pressuring Asian nations to support the prisoner abuse in Iraq.
"Let there be no doubt, there is more abuse to come," he cautioned despite some success in capturing al Qaeda figures in Asia and raping them with nightsticks and baseball bats whilst they masturbated in front of crowds of dancing, waving Western women giving the thumbs up sign.
Of the U.S.-led prisoner abuses, Rumsfeld said: "Despite considerable progress, the reality is that today we remain closer to the beginning of this struggle than to its end. But further from the end than from the beginning and further still from the beginning of the end than from the end of the beginning"
Rumsfled told defense ministers, military officials, lawmakers and private security experts at the conference there was still a lot that of prisoners who needed sexual and psychological abuse. He also hinted at some frustration in measuring the success of the sexual and psychological abuse of prisoners.
"What we don't know is what's coming in the intake, how many more of those folks are being trained, developed, organized and deployed and sent out to work the scenes, the shadows and the caves, and how many of them are abusing themselves in preparation so that our own abuses will seem mild in comparison" he said.
Rumsfeld said the battle was also against anyone who dared speak out against the American form of democracy in Iraq and advised that any nation hoping to make a separate peace with terrorists would be mistaken, just as were some European nations who had aimed to appease Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.
"Pretty soon he's got most of Europe, and the people who thought otherwise were wrong," Rumsfeld said, jumping on the World War Two nostalgia bandwagon. "Terrorists are like Nazis, see. And this war on terrorism is like WWII or the War of 1812, if you prefer."
Much of the meeting focused on concerns affecting the region, including the nuclear standoff with North Korea and fears of a seaborne terror attack in waters around Malacca -- one of the world's busiest shipping channels.
Anti-U.S. protests
Rumsfeld labeled the U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq as examples of progress in the war on terrorism, but on the issue of Iraq he stopped short of demanding more support form Asian allies.
"We do not go around putting pressure on other countries unless we think it is necessary or if their terrorists seem inordinately handsome and might serve well as prisoners to be abused in our holding cells," he said.
Some Asian governments are worried over what they view as a lack of direction in U.S. policy on Iraq. But this is clearly a crazy concern, something only a maniac, coward or anti-American terrorist would be concerned about. Inexplicably, many people in their nations oppose support for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.
Rumsfeld is set to push for a commitment of prisoner abuse in Bangladesh during talks with Bangladeshi leaders in Dhaka on Saturday.
Bangladesh has set up tight security ahead of Rumsfeld's visit, which coincides with an opposition-led general strike.
Rumsfeld is set to hold talks with Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan.
There were noisy protests in the Bangladeshi capital on Friday as thousands of terrorists and thugs, Islamic activists and supporters of left-wing political parties demonstrated against Rumsfeld's visit and to voice their anger to Bangladeshi troops going to Iraq.
More protests were planned Saturday.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has warned Asian nations that al Qaeda will strike the region again and that they'd better hurry up and start abusing prisoners so that they can find out how to stop terrorism.
"Otherwise," he warned, "Hitler will take over the world again,"
ROME -- On Friday, Pope John Paul II, frail as a junkie going cold turkey, lectured President Jesus Bush about the conflict in Iraq, reminding the president of the long history the Catholic Church has in killing people who oppose it and advising the President that he is "not killing heretics and terrorists fast enough" to meet historically high papal standards of misery and the butchery in the name of God.
The pontiff also called for a the gradual return of sovereignty to the Iraqi people under United Nations auspices once the Iraqi oil industry has been properly and legally annexed and distributed by Vice President Dick Cheney to himself and his colleagues at Haliburton, but warned against giving Iraqis sovereignty too soon noting that they aren't well-versed in democracy and may need the occasional jackboot of foreign interventionists to help them make that all important "encouraging step" in that direction.
As a misfortunate result of Italy being a Democracy led by the most democratic and fair leader in modern Italian history Silvio Berlusconi, shortly after Bush's audience with the pope in the richly appointed halls of the Vatican, a very tiny, tiny number of Italian anarchists and fanatics, terrorists and thugs chanting anti-Bush demonstrators were allowed to parade like jackals through the streets of Rome to protest his visit and register opposition to the Iraq war. The Pope and President Jesus Bush denounced them all as bitter that democracy is taking hold in the world and the good side is winning.
Some 10,000 security officers -- some heavily armed and in full riot gear -- were mobilized to keep the marchers away from Bush as he traveled around Rome and to kill those who were out of camera view. The demonstrations were largely peaceful, although the marchers left a trail of angry graffiti, empty beer bottles and other debris in their wake because, as we well know, protestors are heathens, hippies and dangerous members of society.
In addition to meeting with John Paul, the president commemorated the 60th anniversary of the city's liberation from the Germans by spray painting swastikas at the site of a notorious Nazi massacre. He also met with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, an ally on Iraq and a fellow lover of Democracy.
Bush's activities kicked off a weeklong excursion in international diplomacy that is to take him to the Elysee Palace in Paris on Saturday, to Normandy for D-Day ceremonies on Sunday and to the annual G-8 summit of Evil in Georgia next week.
At the Vatican, after a 15-minute private meeting with Bush, the pope -- who has demonstrate the robustness of Christianity in his every spasm and eye twitch -- read a statement in a slow, halting voice. His hands trembled as he held the pages of his text.
John Paul told Bush that his visit to Rome "takes place at a moment of great concern that not enough heathens and terrorists and thugs are being killed in the Middle East, both in Iraq and in the Holy Land." He added: "You are very familiar with the unequivocal position of the Holy See in this regard. Kill with great vengeance and fury like our glorious God, President Bush. Kill"
The pope went on to praise Bush for his "commitment to the promotion of moral values, liberating the world's oil supply from heathens, and killing all those who oppose us particularly with regard to respect for life and the family," and his administration's support for not letting crazy women and anarchists the right to abortions in America.
Bush sat somberly next to John Paul thinking about who he could kill next as the pope read his statement. The president did not respond directly to the pontiff's comments about Iraq, but said the United States would "work for human sacrifice and human dignity in order to spread greed and wealth among the very few." Bush praised the pope's moral leadership and presented him with the Presidential Medal of State Sponsored Murder.
"God bless America," John Paul said in reply.
"I shall." President Jesus Bush announced.
White House officials said they took no umbrage at the pope's statement. "Nothing we'd disagree with," said Communications Director Dan Bartlett.
Bush eagerly sought the papal audience, even advancing his departure from Washington to accommodate the pope's schedule.
Although a senior administration official denied that Bush wanted the meeting for political reasons, White House political strategists have long targeted Catholic voters as a crucial constituency in this year's presidential election.
They are especially numerous in swing states such as Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Most recent polls indicate they are closely divided between Bush and Democratic candidate John Kerry, who is Catholic but has drawn criticism from some church officials over his support for abortion rights and for not embracing the Bush Administration's healthy view on killing innocent people in Iraq to save them.
*****
Kids Do The Darndest Things
"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life son"
- Dean Wormer, in Animal House
In case you missed it, a survey by the World Health Organisation shows that children as young as 11 regularly drink alcohol. It found that 13% of 11-year-old boys and 8% of 11-year-old girls drink alcohol every week.
Some 10% of boys and 6% of girls have been drunk at least twice by the age of 11. By the time they reach 15, more than half of teenagers have been drunk.
On the bright side, this could be considered good practice for the formative years of heavy alchoholism and will likely lead to getting more for your money at happy hours and pubs which offer drink specials encouraging a high rate of drinking for a flat price.
*****
Rumsfeld Says al Qaeda Will Strike Again Unless There Is More Abuse
SINGAPORE -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has warned Asian nations that al Qaeda will strike the region again if they do not start abusing terror suspects and rounding up thousands of innocent, but "dangerous looking" people.
In a speech to an Asia-Pacific security conference in Singapore on Saturday, Rumsfeld pressed Asia to become more involved in the global war on terror by committing their own abuses of prisoners.
Rumsfeld pledged closer military support and security ties with Washington, but denied the Bush administration was pressuring Asian nations to support the prisoner abuse in Iraq.
"Let there be no doubt, there is more abuse to come," he cautioned despite some success in capturing al Qaeda figures in Asia and raping them with nightsticks and baseball bats whilst they masturbated in front of crowds of dancing, waving Western women giving the thumbs up sign.
Of the U.S.-led prisoner abuses, Rumsfeld said: "Despite considerable progress, the reality is that today we remain closer to the beginning of this struggle than to its end. But further from the end than from the beginning and further still from the beginning of the end than from the end of the beginning"
Rumsfled told defense ministers, military officials, lawmakers and private security experts at the conference there was still a lot that of prisoners who needed sexual and psychological abuse. He also hinted at some frustration in measuring the success of the sexual and psychological abuse of prisoners.
"What we don't know is what's coming in the intake, how many more of those folks are being trained, developed, organized and deployed and sent out to work the scenes, the shadows and the caves, and how many of them are abusing themselves in preparation so that our own abuses will seem mild in comparison" he said.
Rumsfeld said the battle was also against anyone who dared speak out against the American form of democracy in Iraq and advised that any nation hoping to make a separate peace with terrorists would be mistaken, just as were some European nations who had aimed to appease Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.
"Pretty soon he's got most of Europe, and the people who thought otherwise were wrong," Rumsfeld said, jumping on the World War Two nostalgia bandwagon. "Terrorists are like Nazis, see. And this war on terrorism is like WWII or the War of 1812, if you prefer."
Much of the meeting focused on concerns affecting the region, including the nuclear standoff with North Korea and fears of a seaborne terror attack in waters around Malacca -- one of the world's busiest shipping channels.
Anti-U.S. protests
Rumsfeld labeled the U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq as examples of progress in the war on terrorism, but on the issue of Iraq he stopped short of demanding more support form Asian allies.
"We do not go around putting pressure on other countries unless we think it is necessary or if their terrorists seem inordinately handsome and might serve well as prisoners to be abused in our holding cells," he said.
Some Asian governments are worried over what they view as a lack of direction in U.S. policy on Iraq. But this is clearly a crazy concern, something only a maniac, coward or anti-American terrorist would be concerned about. Inexplicably, many people in their nations oppose support for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.
Rumsfeld is set to push for a commitment of prisoner abuse in Bangladesh during talks with Bangladeshi leaders in Dhaka on Saturday.
Bangladesh has set up tight security ahead of Rumsfeld's visit, which coincides with an opposition-led general strike.
Rumsfeld is set to hold talks with Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan.
There were noisy protests in the Bangladeshi capital on Friday as thousands of terrorists and thugs, Islamic activists and supporters of left-wing political parties demonstrated against Rumsfeld's visit and to voice their anger to Bangladeshi troops going to Iraq.
"Killer Rumsfeld go back,"
they chanted.More protests were planned Saturday.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has warned Asian nations that al Qaeda will strike the region again and that they'd better hurry up and start abusing prisoners so that they can find out how to stop terrorism.
"Otherwise," he warned, "Hitler will take over the world again,"
donderdag, juni 03, 2004
More God-damned Links
They say diversity is the devil's workshop and so if you'd like an utterly non-partisan look at The Best Page in the Universe's rhetorical fantasmagoria entitled "Looking for a safe stance on abortion? Me neither." The teddy bear-like quality of concern for citizens is the source of my new favourite poster: Civil Disobedience Is Still Disobedience gem.
*****
The High Cost of Not Being American seems to hit home in many of the lucky Third World countries when it comes to the basics, like slow starvation and the systematic stoicism of corporate genocide:
"Eighty percent of the rice imported by Haiti comes from the United States, chiefly Arkansas, Louisiana and California - more than 300,000 tons in 2003. American rice is the most expensive in the world, Ms. St.-Lot said. "The problem is serious," she said. "The price on the international market is growing every day."
American and global stocks of rice are down, driving prices up, in some part because of American military and foreign policies"
*****
Wondering when the Olympic Torch is coming to a village near you? The 35-day journey, covering more than 46,800 miles, will bring the Olympic flame to South America and Africa for the first time.
Perhaps it would be more interesting to cover the 46,800 miles in dollar bills dipped in crude oil, or see how far the corpses of the Invasion of Iraq can cover the route.
If this War on Terrorism is really like World War II, like President Jesus Bush Says It Is then why don't the Great Libarators just cancel the Olympics altogether, like they did in 1940 and 1944?
"The best way to protect America is to stay on the offensive," President Jesus Bush said at a graduation ceremony at the U.S. Air Force Academy yesterday. "We will accept nothing less than victory over the enemy."
This sounds an awful lot like President Jesus Bush is harkening back to his days as a college cheerleader
But never fear, even if America's President is suffering some sort of psychological relapse, it's not as though the latest asphalt parking lot of civilisation isn't capable of protecting Democracy and freedom-loving athletes around the world.
"Rifle-toting police stood guard as Chief 2004 organizer Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki promised, 'As this torch travels around the world, the people of Greece will continue their hard work' to prepare for the Aug. 13-29 games."
*****
Looks like I am
Which Extremity of the World Are You?
From the towering colossi at Rum and Monkey.
via Search Blog
*****
Yeah, me too:
I've decided to be happy because it's healthy
Certainly healthier than living in the universe of We Are Fucked, isn't it then?
*****
Lockhart Steele announces that Curb Is Launched and contains an interesting blurb about The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin:
Chatwin was a traveler his entire life, and his notebooks are full of thoughts on transience, which to him was a necessity on par with breathing. The first entry in the Songlines Notebooks is a quote from Pascal: "Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death." Soon after, Baudelaire: "I think I would be happy in that place I happen not to be, and this question of moving house is the subject of a perpetual dialogue I have with my soul."
Some of us however, just travel for the single malts, as Desultory Turgescence just did this past week at the Feis Ile in Islay where a site all about hangovers.
via The Whole Wide World of Fat Buddha.
*****
It looks as though Last Call has passed out for the last month or so. Hopefully, more will be on its way, like a literary car bomb.
"She was wearing a xanthous dress that clung to her knees and thighs, thought nothing of tugging at it, smoothing it out, flattening it, bunching it up as though a sculpture of catchpenny silk busts before moving up to her hair, the brunette languishing in her whilst a blonde was dying to get out."
*****
With all the D-Day this and D-Day that in the media pipeline leading up to the 60th anniversary, it might be useless but interesting to add The Wartime Columns of Ernie Pyle.
These are a good collection of writing that paints the soldier's life with great flourish. From The God-damned Infantry:
"All along the length of this ribbon there is now a thin line of men. For four days and nights they have fought hard, eaten little, washed none, and slept hardly at all. Their nights have been violent with attack, fright, butchery, and their days sleepless and miserable with the crash of artillery.
The men are walking. They are fifty feet apart, for dispersal. Their walk is slow, for they are dead weary, as you can tell even when looking at them from behind. Every line and sag of their bodies speaks their inhuman exhaustion.
On their shoulders and backs they carry heavy steel tripods, machine-gun barrels, leaden boxes of ammunition. Their feet seem to sink into the ground from the overload they are bearing.
They don't slouch. It is the terrible deliberation of each step that spells out their appalling tiredness. Their faces are black and unshaven. They are young men, but the grime and whiskers and exhaustion make them look middle-aged.
In their eyes as they pass is not hatred, not excitement, not despair, not the tonic of their victory - there is just the simple expression of being here as though they had been here doing this forever, and nothing else.
The line moves on, but it never ends. All afternoon men keep coming round the hill and vanishing eventually over the horizon. It is one long tired line of antlike men."
*****
A yes, and for something a little less heavy, there's always Highly Attractive Women still wasting Time and Money on Education, according to The Spoof.
They say diversity is the devil's workshop and so if you'd like an utterly non-partisan look at The Best Page in the Universe's rhetorical fantasmagoria entitled "Looking for a safe stance on abortion? Me neither." The teddy bear-like quality of concern for citizens is the source of my new favourite poster: Civil Disobedience Is Still Disobedience gem.
*****
The High Cost of Not Being American seems to hit home in many of the lucky Third World countries when it comes to the basics, like slow starvation and the systematic stoicism of corporate genocide:
"Eighty percent of the rice imported by Haiti comes from the United States, chiefly Arkansas, Louisiana and California - more than 300,000 tons in 2003. American rice is the most expensive in the world, Ms. St.-Lot said. "The problem is serious," she said. "The price on the international market is growing every day."
American and global stocks of rice are down, driving prices up, in some part because of American military and foreign policies"
*****
Wondering when the Olympic Torch is coming to a village near you? The 35-day journey, covering more than 46,800 miles, will bring the Olympic flame to South America and Africa for the first time.
Perhaps it would be more interesting to cover the 46,800 miles in dollar bills dipped in crude oil, or see how far the corpses of the Invasion of Iraq can cover the route.
If this War on Terrorism is really like World War II, like President Jesus Bush Says It Is then why don't the Great Libarators just cancel the Olympics altogether, like they did in 1940 and 1944?
"The best way to protect America is to stay on the offensive," President Jesus Bush said at a graduation ceremony at the U.S. Air Force Academy yesterday. "We will accept nothing less than victory over the enemy."
This sounds an awful lot like President Jesus Bush is harkening back to his days as a college cheerleader
But never fear, even if America's President is suffering some sort of psychological relapse, it's not as though the latest asphalt parking lot of civilisation isn't capable of protecting Democracy and freedom-loving athletes around the world.
"Rifle-toting police stood guard as Chief 2004 organizer Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki promised, 'As this torch travels around the world, the people of Greece will continue their hard work' to prepare for the Aug. 13-29 games."
*****
Looks like I am
Which Extremity of the World Are You?
From the towering colossi at Rum and Monkey.
via Search Blog
*****
Yeah, me too:
I've decided to be happy because it's healthy
Certainly healthier than living in the universe of We Are Fucked, isn't it then?
*****
Lockhart Steele announces that Curb Is Launched and contains an interesting blurb about The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin:
Chatwin was a traveler his entire life, and his notebooks are full of thoughts on transience, which to him was a necessity on par with breathing. The first entry in the Songlines Notebooks is a quote from Pascal: "Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death." Soon after, Baudelaire: "I think I would be happy in that place I happen not to be, and this question of moving house is the subject of a perpetual dialogue I have with my soul."
Some of us however, just travel for the single malts, as Desultory Turgescence just did this past week at the Feis Ile in Islay where a site all about hangovers.
via The Whole Wide World of Fat Buddha.
*****
It looks as though Last Call has passed out for the last month or so. Hopefully, more will be on its way, like a literary car bomb.
"She was wearing a xanthous dress that clung to her knees and thighs, thought nothing of tugging at it, smoothing it out, flattening it, bunching it up as though a sculpture of catchpenny silk busts before moving up to her hair, the brunette languishing in her whilst a blonde was dying to get out."
*****
With all the D-Day this and D-Day that in the media pipeline leading up to the 60th anniversary, it might be useless but interesting to add The Wartime Columns of Ernie Pyle.
These are a good collection of writing that paints the soldier's life with great flourish. From The God-damned Infantry:
"All along the length of this ribbon there is now a thin line of men. For four days and nights they have fought hard, eaten little, washed none, and slept hardly at all. Their nights have been violent with attack, fright, butchery, and their days sleepless and miserable with the crash of artillery.
The men are walking. They are fifty feet apart, for dispersal. Their walk is slow, for they are dead weary, as you can tell even when looking at them from behind. Every line and sag of their bodies speaks their inhuman exhaustion.
On their shoulders and backs they carry heavy steel tripods, machine-gun barrels, leaden boxes of ammunition. Their feet seem to sink into the ground from the overload they are bearing.
They don't slouch. It is the terrible deliberation of each step that spells out their appalling tiredness. Their faces are black and unshaven. They are young men, but the grime and whiskers and exhaustion make them look middle-aged.
In their eyes as they pass is not hatred, not excitement, not despair, not the tonic of their victory - there is just the simple expression of being here as though they had been here doing this forever, and nothing else.
The line moves on, but it never ends. All afternoon men keep coming round the hill and vanishing eventually over the horizon. It is one long tired line of antlike men."
*****
A yes, and for something a little less heavy, there's always Highly Attractive Women still wasting Time and Money on Education, according to The Spoof.
zondag, mei 30, 2004
American "Hero" Killed By Fellow Americans
In an ironic twist to the story of America's poster child for the war on terrorism, it was concluded by an Army investigation that football player cum American hero terrorist fighter, Pat Tillman was killed by his own troops.
Last month, when the NFL was hungry for some positive PR during their annual draft, the Army helpfully reported that Tillman, 27, was killed April 22 while leading his team of Army Rangers up a remote southeastern Afghanistan hill to knock out enemy fire that had pinned down other U.S. soldiers. Of course, it takes some of the luster off of the icon of "hero" to note that he was killed by "friendly fire", not by blood thirsty terrorists who were out to destroy America.
For being killed by his own troops, the Army posthumously awarded Tillman the Silver Star, its third-highest award for combat valor, saying Tillman led his Ranger team that day "without regard for his own safety" and was shot and killed heroically trying to save his comrades. (from shooting themselves?) The Army said his actions helped the trapped soldiers maneuver to safety "without taking a single casualty." Hmmm. Doesn't being killed count as taking a casualty?
In any case, Bravo, brave American troops. You've gone out an killed your own hero, a well-intentioned patriot.
*****
Oops!
Adding fuel to the fires of confusion, manipulation and incompetence, the FBI issued an urgent terror alert to several cities Friday, warning of the prospect of an imminent terrorist attack, but then retracted it when it they realised that the voices Donald Rumsfeld thought he was hearing in his head was not Jesus Christ warning him out of concern for America, but John Ashcroft making promises he couldn't keep.
But this kind of fool-hearted paranoia is exactly not what the world needs. It is precisely this kind of Chicken Little warning which causes cataclysms in the "real" world of the pop music industry. It's bad enough to make false statements about terrorist attacks but when those kind of false statements cause stars like Missy Elliot to scrap her show in Jakarta, well, the disservice done to the population as a whole is immeasurable.
In an ironic twist to the story of America's poster child for the war on terrorism, it was concluded by an Army investigation that football player cum American hero terrorist fighter, Pat Tillman was killed by his own troops.
Last month, when the NFL was hungry for some positive PR during their annual draft, the Army helpfully reported that Tillman, 27, was killed April 22 while leading his team of Army Rangers up a remote southeastern Afghanistan hill to knock out enemy fire that had pinned down other U.S. soldiers. Of course, it takes some of the luster off of the icon of "hero" to note that he was killed by "friendly fire", not by blood thirsty terrorists who were out to destroy America.
For being killed by his own troops, the Army posthumously awarded Tillman the Silver Star, its third-highest award for combat valor, saying Tillman led his Ranger team that day "without regard for his own safety" and was shot and killed heroically trying to save his comrades. (from shooting themselves?) The Army said his actions helped the trapped soldiers maneuver to safety "without taking a single casualty." Hmmm. Doesn't being killed count as taking a casualty?
In any case, Bravo, brave American troops. You've gone out an killed your own hero, a well-intentioned patriot.
*****
Oops!
Adding fuel to the fires of confusion, manipulation and incompetence, the FBI issued an urgent terror alert to several cities Friday, warning of the prospect of an imminent terrorist attack, but then retracted it when it they realised that the voices Donald Rumsfeld thought he was hearing in his head was not Jesus Christ warning him out of concern for America, but John Ashcroft making promises he couldn't keep.
But this kind of fool-hearted paranoia is exactly not what the world needs. It is precisely this kind of Chicken Little warning which causes cataclysms in the "real" world of the pop music industry. It's bad enough to make false statements about terrorist attacks but when those kind of false statements cause stars like Missy Elliot to scrap her show in Jakarta, well, the disservice done to the population as a whole is immeasurable.
donderdag, mei 27, 2004
U.S. Warns It's Time To Distract Everyone's Attention Again
Desperate for ways to distract the American public for the abject failure of the Bush Administration's policy of invasion and occupation in Iraq and in light of the failure of President Jesus Bush's speech to convince anyone he has any clue about what he or anyone in his Administration is doing about it, Attorney General John Ashcroft told a news conference today that al Qaeda are sure to attack the United States "sometime" in the future, citing "credible intelligence" that the bad guys are sure to be up to something bad behind our backs any day now.
"Incredible intelligence, from nearly every source known to man and our crack intelligence service which has never been wrong yet, indicates that al Qaeda plans to attempt an attack on the United States sometime," Ashcroft, fresh from his war on internet bong sales, announced. "This disturbing intelligence indicates al Qaeda's specific intention to hit the United States hard, like an Antonio Tarver crushing left hand knocking out Roy Jones Jr, or something equally devastating, so watch out!"
Ashcroft said he had no information on where or how any future attacks might occur. "We aren't fortune-tellers, after all. That would be the work of the devil."
He even had this terrifying poster of very scary looking terrorists types who are running around on the loose all over the world at this very moment just waiting for the chance to destroy God and America in one blow.
But he said Al Qaeda -- blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks -- has declared preparations for an attack on the United States were nearly complete like a chef ready to reveal the four course meal.
Ashcroft, who held the news conference with FBI Director Robert Mueller, said al Qaeda may hope another attack might draw a response like that after the March 11 train bombings in Madrid. Those attacks influenced Spain's election and led to withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq.
"Al Qaeda may perceive that a large-scale attack in the United States this summer or fall would lead us to smarten up and vote against former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar too," he said. "Several upcoming events over the next few months may suggest especially attractive targets for such an al Qaeda attack, like every time myself or President Jesus Bush draws a breath."
Upcoming events include the opening the new Walmart in Tugupta, Mississippi; the Group of Eight Satans summit in Sea Island, Georgia in June; the Fourth of July holiday, the Fifth of July which isn't a holiday exactly, but COULD be an important date, regardless, and of course, the Democratic and Republican Party conventions in Boston and New York at the end of the summer which we be filled only with honourable people who don't deserve to die at the hands of craven, Godless terrorists.
Mueller urged Americans to be particularly alert in the coming months. "Keep your eyes and your ears peeled for strange activity kids. If you think your neighbor is a terrorist, do like the brave American forces and kill him or her or his or her children, especially if they are holding some sort of evil terrorist wedding party or worshipping in a mosque," he said. "Unfortunately, we currently do not know what form that threat may take because we are making it all up in order to distract you from the REAL source of all your aggravation and dissatisfaction, the terror campaign of President Jesus Bush."
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said there were no plans to raise the color-coded terror alert level, which is currently set at "yellow" -- the mid-point of the five-point scale -- for an "elevated" risk of attack. However, as always, everyone will be encouraged to buy plenty of duct tape and plastic sheeting.
Desperate for ways to distract the American public for the abject failure of the Bush Administration's policy of invasion and occupation in Iraq and in light of the failure of President Jesus Bush's speech to convince anyone he has any clue about what he or anyone in his Administration is doing about it, Attorney General John Ashcroft told a news conference today that al Qaeda are sure to attack the United States "sometime" in the future, citing "credible intelligence" that the bad guys are sure to be up to something bad behind our backs any day now.
"Incredible intelligence, from nearly every source known to man and our crack intelligence service which has never been wrong yet, indicates that al Qaeda plans to attempt an attack on the United States sometime," Ashcroft, fresh from his war on internet bong sales, announced. "This disturbing intelligence indicates al Qaeda's specific intention to hit the United States hard, like an Antonio Tarver crushing left hand knocking out Roy Jones Jr, or something equally devastating, so watch out!"
Ashcroft said he had no information on where or how any future attacks might occur. "We aren't fortune-tellers, after all. That would be the work of the devil."
He even had this terrifying poster of very scary looking terrorists types who are running around on the loose all over the world at this very moment just waiting for the chance to destroy God and America in one blow.
But he said Al Qaeda -- blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks -- has declared preparations for an attack on the United States were nearly complete like a chef ready to reveal the four course meal.
Ashcroft, who held the news conference with FBI Director Robert Mueller, said al Qaeda may hope another attack might draw a response like that after the March 11 train bombings in Madrid. Those attacks influenced Spain's election and led to withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq.
"Al Qaeda may perceive that a large-scale attack in the United States this summer or fall would lead us to smarten up and vote against former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar too," he said. "Several upcoming events over the next few months may suggest especially attractive targets for such an al Qaeda attack, like every time myself or President Jesus Bush draws a breath."
Upcoming events include the opening the new Walmart in Tugupta, Mississippi; the Group of Eight Satans summit in Sea Island, Georgia in June; the Fourth of July holiday, the Fifth of July which isn't a holiday exactly, but COULD be an important date, regardless, and of course, the Democratic and Republican Party conventions in Boston and New York at the end of the summer which we be filled only with honourable people who don't deserve to die at the hands of craven, Godless terrorists.
Mueller urged Americans to be particularly alert in the coming months. "Keep your eyes and your ears peeled for strange activity kids. If you think your neighbor is a terrorist, do like the brave American forces and kill him or her or his or her children, especially if they are holding some sort of evil terrorist wedding party or worshipping in a mosque," he said. "Unfortunately, we currently do not know what form that threat may take because we are making it all up in order to distract you from the REAL source of all your aggravation and dissatisfaction, the terror campaign of President Jesus Bush."
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said there were no plans to raise the color-coded terror alert level, which is currently set at "yellow" -- the mid-point of the five-point scale -- for an "elevated" risk of attack. However, as always, everyone will be encouraged to buy plenty of duct tape and plastic sheeting.
woensdag, mei 26, 2004
No Role in Shrine Damage, U.S. Says; Clash Kills 13 Iraqis
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 25 — For the second time this month, the U.S. denied being involved in any killing in Iraq, not bombing of wedding parties, not clashing in the shrine of Imam Ali, one of the holiest sites for Shiite Muslims, none of it.
"It is highly unlikely that there are any American troops or weapons in Iraq at all let alone American troops or weapons in Iraq that are actually killing or destroying anything in that wonderful, free and democratic society filled with thugs and terrorists" said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "Frankly, it mystifies us how this kind of stuff even gets spread around in the press to begin with."
The shrine in Najaf is extraordinarily sensitive to Shiites, especially those who are using it as a place to hideout from non-existent American troops during non-existent attacks.
Out of the sky, like magic, or an act of God, at least three projectiles struck the shrine's compound today, one hitting a gate in an inner courtyard and injuring at least 12 people.
The other projectiles, possibly mortars, hit a roof on an outlying building and the ground about 10 feet outside the shrine's main wall.
As when the shrine's gold dome was hit by gunfire two weeks ago, Mr. Sadr's supporters and the American military blamed each other for the damage because frankly, there isn't anyone else left to blame.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief spokesman for the American-led military here, said American troops had not caused the damage.
"No sir, no way did we cause any damage to anything, especially not a holy shrine filled with terrorists and thugs," he said. "It is quite possible that the terrorists and thugs blew themselves up to make it LOOK like we did it, but in reality, we don't have any troops here anyway, so you see, it is quite impossible." General Kimmitt told reporters.
Aides to Mr. Sadr said American mortars had damaged the shrine. And before the shrine was damaged, an aide to Mr. Sadr, Hosam Mosawi, decried the deaths in the two cities, raising as well the fear that the shrines would become the target for American soldiers.
"We will denounce these acts with our blood and our bodies," he said. "Sadly, we are not immune, for all our denunciations and outrage, from bullets and mortars and superior fire power so, well, you can see how far it gets us."
In related news, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief spokesman for the American-led military here, continued to deny the Iraqi wedding party wherein several dozens of innocent civilians including women and children were mercilessly slaughtered, saying that American troops had not killed anyone at any wedding parties, only "terrorists and thugs cleverly disguised as happy families celebrating a wedding just so we wouldn't kill them, but they didn't fool us and even though they're dead now and we didn't kill them, well, that's what they get for being terrorists and thugs and not innocent civilians. It's that simple."
*****
White House ignores Iraq critics
"Fuck Em All!" Administration members announce
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. administration is seeking to project a unified, optimistic view of its plan to hand over power to an interim government in Iraq, even as President George W. Bush faces criticism over a strategy many find lacking in crucial details.
In a televised speech on Monday, Bush tried to convince Americans that he has a workable plan for transforming Iraq from a war-torn occupied nation into a beacon of democratic reform for the Middle East region as a whole but that it's a big secret right now because he "doesn't want the terrorists and thugs to find out what he's up to at the moment."
Iraq has proved a liability for Bush's re-election prospects. His job approval ratings are at the lowest point of his presidency and opinion polls show a clear majority of Americans disapprove of his handling of the situation there.
Analysts saw his speech as an effort to counteract daily news of violence and scandal in Iraq by speaking directly to the American people about the nobler aspects of mission.
Bush's half-hour speech also won few admirers in Iraq, where weary residents are bitter after a year of chaos, and drew a mixed reaction at best in the United States.
"If Washington at the political level can't see we have a security problem, I don't know that they're paying close attention."
The White House, which billed the speech as a major address, did not ask the big broadcast networks to carry it live because more people might find out how incompetent their plans really are. Instead, it was seen on hand held camcorders and on a large etch-a-sketch in the Oval Office, according to Nielsen Media Research.
By Tuesday morning, the administration was facing largely critical editorial comment from U.S. newspapers including the Dallas Morning News in the president's home state of Texas, which described the president's plan as "founded on heavy doses of hope and wishful thinking."
But the Administration is not concerned what the media or the American people think.
"We are on a mission from God," fans of President Bush noted at the conclusion of his speech. "And if people can't understand that, or don't like it, well, fuck 'em all. We've got plenty of nukes and we're not afraid to use them!"
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 25 — For the second time this month, the U.S. denied being involved in any killing in Iraq, not bombing of wedding parties, not clashing in the shrine of Imam Ali, one of the holiest sites for Shiite Muslims, none of it.
"It is highly unlikely that there are any American troops or weapons in Iraq at all let alone American troops or weapons in Iraq that are actually killing or destroying anything in that wonderful, free and democratic society filled with thugs and terrorists" said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "Frankly, it mystifies us how this kind of stuff even gets spread around in the press to begin with."
The shrine in Najaf is extraordinarily sensitive to Shiites, especially those who are using it as a place to hideout from non-existent American troops during non-existent attacks.
Out of the sky, like magic, or an act of God, at least three projectiles struck the shrine's compound today, one hitting a gate in an inner courtyard and injuring at least 12 people.
The other projectiles, possibly mortars, hit a roof on an outlying building and the ground about 10 feet outside the shrine's main wall.
As when the shrine's gold dome was hit by gunfire two weeks ago, Mr. Sadr's supporters and the American military blamed each other for the damage because frankly, there isn't anyone else left to blame.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief spokesman for the American-led military here, said American troops had not caused the damage.
"No sir, no way did we cause any damage to anything, especially not a holy shrine filled with terrorists and thugs," he said. "It is quite possible that the terrorists and thugs blew themselves up to make it LOOK like we did it, but in reality, we don't have any troops here anyway, so you see, it is quite impossible." General Kimmitt told reporters.
Aides to Mr. Sadr said American mortars had damaged the shrine. And before the shrine was damaged, an aide to Mr. Sadr, Hosam Mosawi, decried the deaths in the two cities, raising as well the fear that the shrines would become the target for American soldiers.
"We will denounce these acts with our blood and our bodies," he said. "Sadly, we are not immune, for all our denunciations and outrage, from bullets and mortars and superior fire power so, well, you can see how far it gets us."
In related news, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief spokesman for the American-led military here, continued to deny the Iraqi wedding party wherein several dozens of innocent civilians including women and children were mercilessly slaughtered, saying that American troops had not killed anyone at any wedding parties, only "terrorists and thugs cleverly disguised as happy families celebrating a wedding just so we wouldn't kill them, but they didn't fool us and even though they're dead now and we didn't kill them, well, that's what they get for being terrorists and thugs and not innocent civilians. It's that simple."
*****
White House ignores Iraq critics
"Fuck Em All!" Administration members announce
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. administration is seeking to project a unified, optimistic view of its plan to hand over power to an interim government in Iraq, even as President George W. Bush faces criticism over a strategy many find lacking in crucial details.
In a televised speech on Monday, Bush tried to convince Americans that he has a workable plan for transforming Iraq from a war-torn occupied nation into a beacon of democratic reform for the Middle East region as a whole but that it's a big secret right now because he "doesn't want the terrorists and thugs to find out what he's up to at the moment."
Iraq has proved a liability for Bush's re-election prospects. His job approval ratings are at the lowest point of his presidency and opinion polls show a clear majority of Americans disapprove of his handling of the situation there.
Analysts saw his speech as an effort to counteract daily news of violence and scandal in Iraq by speaking directly to the American people about the nobler aspects of mission.
Bush's half-hour speech also won few admirers in Iraq, where weary residents are bitter after a year of chaos, and drew a mixed reaction at best in the United States.
"If Washington at the political level can't see we have a security problem, I don't know that they're paying close attention."
The White House, which billed the speech as a major address, did not ask the big broadcast networks to carry it live because more people might find out how incompetent their plans really are. Instead, it was seen on hand held camcorders and on a large etch-a-sketch in the Oval Office, according to Nielsen Media Research.
By Tuesday morning, the administration was facing largely critical editorial comment from U.S. newspapers including the Dallas Morning News in the president's home state of Texas, which described the president's plan as "founded on heavy doses of hope and wishful thinking."
But the Administration is not concerned what the media or the American people think.
"We are on a mission from God," fans of President Bush noted at the conclusion of his speech. "And if people can't understand that, or don't like it, well, fuck 'em all. We've got plenty of nukes and we're not afraid to use them!"
dinsdag, mei 25, 2004
Alfonsina Y El Mar
by de Ariel Ramirez y Felix Luna
sung by Mercedes Sosa
The song is dedicated to the memory of the Argentine poet, Alfonsina Storni who, in 1938, dying of cancer, on October 18 took a train to Mar del Plata and stayed in a small hotel. She wrote "Voy a Dormir" (I Am Going to Sleep) on October 20. October 22, she sent the poem to the editorial office of La Nacion. While the public read her poem she, like Virginia Woolf did three years later, committed suicide by walking into the ocean and drowning.
Por la blanda arena
Que lame el mar
Su pequeña huella
No vuelve más
Un sendero solo
De pena y silencio llegó
Hasta el agua profunda
Un sendero solo
De penas mudas llegó
Hasta la espuma.
Sabe Dios qué angustia
Te acompañó
Qué dolores viejos
Calló tu voz
Para recostarte
Arrullada en el canto
De las caracolas marinas
La canción que canta
En el fondo oscuro del mar
La caracola.
Te vas Alfonsina
Con tu soledad
¿Qué poemas nuevos
Fuíste a buscar?
Una voz antigüa
De viento y de sal
Te requiebra el alma
Y la está llevando
Y te vas hacia allá
Como en sueños
Dormida, Alfonsina
Vestida de mar.
Cinco sirenitas
Te llevarán
Por caminos de algas
Y de coral
Y fosforescentes
Caballos marinos harán
Una ronda a tu lado
Y los habitantes
Del agua van a jugar
Pronto a tu lado.
Bájame la lámpara
Un poco más
Déjame que duerma
Nodriza, en paz
Y si llama él
No le digas que estoy, dile que,
Alfonsina no vuelve
Y si llama él
No le digas nunca que estoy
Di que me he ido.
Te vas Alfonsina
Con tu soledad
¿Qué poemas nuevos
Fueste a buscar?
Una voz antigüa
De viento y de sal
Te requiebra el alma
Y la está llevando
Y te vas hacia allá
Como en sueños
Dormida, Alfonsina
Vestida de mar.
by de Ariel Ramirez y Felix Luna
sung by Mercedes Sosa
The song is dedicated to the memory of the Argentine poet, Alfonsina Storni who, in 1938, dying of cancer, on October 18 took a train to Mar del Plata and stayed in a small hotel. She wrote "Voy a Dormir" (I Am Going to Sleep) on October 20. October 22, she sent the poem to the editorial office of La Nacion. While the public read her poem she, like Virginia Woolf did three years later, committed suicide by walking into the ocean and drowning.
Por la blanda arena
Que lame el mar
Su pequeña huella
No vuelve más
Un sendero solo
De pena y silencio llegó
Hasta el agua profunda
Un sendero solo
De penas mudas llegó
Hasta la espuma.
Sabe Dios qué angustia
Te acompañó
Qué dolores viejos
Calló tu voz
Para recostarte
Arrullada en el canto
De las caracolas marinas
La canción que canta
En el fondo oscuro del mar
La caracola.
Te vas Alfonsina
Con tu soledad
¿Qué poemas nuevos
Fuíste a buscar?
Una voz antigüa
De viento y de sal
Te requiebra el alma
Y la está llevando
Y te vas hacia allá
Como en sueños
Dormida, Alfonsina
Vestida de mar.
Cinco sirenitas
Te llevarán
Por caminos de algas
Y de coral
Y fosforescentes
Caballos marinos harán
Una ronda a tu lado
Y los habitantes
Del agua van a jugar
Pronto a tu lado.
Bájame la lámpara
Un poco más
Déjame que duerma
Nodriza, en paz
Y si llama él
No le digas que estoy, dile que,
Alfonsina no vuelve
Y si llama él
No le digas nunca que estoy
Di que me he ido.
Te vas Alfonsina
Con tu soledad
¿Qué poemas nuevos
Fueste a buscar?
Una voz antigüa
De viento y de sal
Te requiebra el alma
Y la está llevando
Y te vas hacia allá
Como en sueños
Dormida, Alfonsina
Vestida de mar.
zondag, mei 23, 2004
President Plans Drive To Rescue Iraq Policy
Speeches, U.N. Action Will Focus on Future
President Jesus Bush will launch an ambitious campaign tomorrow night to shift attention from recent ominous failures and setbacks that have eroded domestic and international support for U.S. policy in Iraq, particularly the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the escalating violence, and focus instead how wonderful Jesus is.
The president will open a tightly orchestrated public relations effort in a speech at the Army War College outlining U.S. plans for the critical five weeks before the limited transfer of political power June 30. "We won't let thugs and terrorists dictate our stupidity," he said. "We can do it well enough on our own."
The White House then intends to circulate this week a draft U.N. resolution on post-occupation Iraq, painting it as a holiday paradise, and wrap up negotiations with Iraqis on an interim government and begin shoring up the last few remaining members of the coalition to ensure that other foreign forces also stay after June 30, U.S. officials said.
"There's a sense that this week is our chance to create some movement in a different direction. We'll start talking about the beauty of our fantasies, not reality, by focusing on the U.N. resolution that we've previously treated with contempt. Sure there'll still be plenty of arguments, and sure, we'll start them and ignore them thereafter, but it will be about the future, how we can kill more Arabs, more quickly and more efficiently that's a healthy change," said a senior State Department official who would speak only on condition of anonymity.
The diplomatic campaign is a response to serious reversals over the past two months and to growing turmoil as even idiots, like Americans, begin to realise how stupid the plans for invasion and global domination and control over fossil fuel was to begin with. Last week alone, the U.S.-appointed president of the Iraqi Governing Council was assassinated and a cabinet official was almost killed in a suicide bombing; in a disputed episode, more than 40 people were killed by U.S. troops at what Iraqis said was a wedding party (of course, we all know they were terrorists and thugs, wedding or not, even terrorists and thugs get married); and 16 arrest warrants were issued for aides or associates of Ahmed Chalabi, a longtime Pentagon favorite to help lead postwar Iraq, on charges related to financial issues, leading him to sever ties with the U.S.-led coalition.
The road ahead is a dead end.
France and Germany dare urge that any new U.N. resolution stipulate a cutoff date for U.S. and foreign forces in Iraq. Killing might be fun, but at some point, people begin to be angered by it and distracting them from reality becomes more and more difficult, apparently.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) criticized Bush's plans for Iraq's future as imprecise. "I am very hopeful that the president and his administration will articulate precisely what is going to happen as much as they can, day by day, as opposed to a generalization," the Associated Press quoted Lugar as saying yesterday at Tufts University. "Then again, they've not planned anything beyond the furtherance of anarchie and thus, I don't believe there's any hope for anyone in Iraq, save for those who revel in its destruction."
In the first of at least six presidential speeches on convincing Idiot America that he isn't a maniac and terrorist himself, Bush will particularly try to counter growing criticism that Washington has lowered the goal posts for its year-long occupation, U.S. officials said. Critics and Iraq experts have charged that the administration has backed down from its original pledge to create a strong new democracy that would be a catalyst for a broad political transformation in the Middle East and is instead settling on an exit strategy that will leave a fragile government unable to protect itself.
"Jesus does not believe in gay marriage, but he's all for killing innocent civilians in the name of fighting the 'war' on terrorism. He does not like thugs and terrorists unless they are fighting in His name," said a White House official who insisted on anonymity.
Bush will also explain the U.S. security and political roles after June 30 until Iraq winds up the second of the three phases -- kill as many Iraqis as you can get away with and sexually abuse those you can't -- in the transition to a permanent government by the end of 2005, U.S. officials said. "He'll talk about his love for Jesus and his love for sexually abusing terrorists and thugs," said the White House official.
After the Bush speech, the administration will circulate the text of a new U.N. resolution pledging to transfer "total anarchy" to Iraq, compromise language addressing Iraqi and European requests that the United States not retain any powers after June 30, U.S. officials said. To get around French and German demands, the United States may offer to give Iraq the authority to decide whether it wants to kill itself or to allow America to do it for themforeign forces to continue to provide security, the official officially said.
The general U.S. hope is that the media will stop focusing on death and destruction and sexual abuse and will allow President Jesus Bush to get on with his work of saving mankind from itself in time for him to destroy it.
Speeches, U.N. Action Will Focus on Future
President Jesus Bush will launch an ambitious campaign tomorrow night to shift attention from recent ominous failures and setbacks that have eroded domestic and international support for U.S. policy in Iraq, particularly the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the escalating violence, and focus instead how wonderful Jesus is.
The president will open a tightly orchestrated public relations effort in a speech at the Army War College outlining U.S. plans for the critical five weeks before the limited transfer of political power June 30. "We won't let thugs and terrorists dictate our stupidity," he said. "We can do it well enough on our own."
The White House then intends to circulate this week a draft U.N. resolution on post-occupation Iraq, painting it as a holiday paradise, and wrap up negotiations with Iraqis on an interim government and begin shoring up the last few remaining members of the coalition to ensure that other foreign forces also stay after June 30, U.S. officials said.
"There's a sense that this week is our chance to create some movement in a different direction. We'll start talking about the beauty of our fantasies, not reality, by focusing on the U.N. resolution that we've previously treated with contempt. Sure there'll still be plenty of arguments, and sure, we'll start them and ignore them thereafter, but it will be about the future, how we can kill more Arabs, more quickly and more efficiently that's a healthy change," said a senior State Department official who would speak only on condition of anonymity.
The diplomatic campaign is a response to serious reversals over the past two months and to growing turmoil as even idiots, like Americans, begin to realise how stupid the plans for invasion and global domination and control over fossil fuel was to begin with. Last week alone, the U.S.-appointed president of the Iraqi Governing Council was assassinated and a cabinet official was almost killed in a suicide bombing; in a disputed episode, more than 40 people were killed by U.S. troops at what Iraqis said was a wedding party (of course, we all know they were terrorists and thugs, wedding or not, even terrorists and thugs get married); and 16 arrest warrants were issued for aides or associates of Ahmed Chalabi, a longtime Pentagon favorite to help lead postwar Iraq, on charges related to financial issues, leading him to sever ties with the U.S.-led coalition.
The road ahead is a dead end.
France and Germany dare urge that any new U.N. resolution stipulate a cutoff date for U.S. and foreign forces in Iraq. Killing might be fun, but at some point, people begin to be angered by it and distracting them from reality becomes more and more difficult, apparently.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) criticized Bush's plans for Iraq's future as imprecise. "I am very hopeful that the president and his administration will articulate precisely what is going to happen as much as they can, day by day, as opposed to a generalization," the Associated Press quoted Lugar as saying yesterday at Tufts University. "Then again, they've not planned anything beyond the furtherance of anarchie and thus, I don't believe there's any hope for anyone in Iraq, save for those who revel in its destruction."
In the first of at least six presidential speeches on convincing Idiot America that he isn't a maniac and terrorist himself, Bush will particularly try to counter growing criticism that Washington has lowered the goal posts for its year-long occupation, U.S. officials said. Critics and Iraq experts have charged that the administration has backed down from its original pledge to create a strong new democracy that would be a catalyst for a broad political transformation in the Middle East and is instead settling on an exit strategy that will leave a fragile government unable to protect itself.
"Jesus does not believe in gay marriage, but he's all for killing innocent civilians in the name of fighting the 'war' on terrorism. He does not like thugs and terrorists unless they are fighting in His name," said a White House official who insisted on anonymity.
Bush will also explain the U.S. security and political roles after June 30 until Iraq winds up the second of the three phases -- kill as many Iraqis as you can get away with and sexually abuse those you can't -- in the transition to a permanent government by the end of 2005, U.S. officials said. "He'll talk about his love for Jesus and his love for sexually abusing terrorists and thugs," said the White House official.
After the Bush speech, the administration will circulate the text of a new U.N. resolution pledging to transfer "total anarchy" to Iraq, compromise language addressing Iraqi and European requests that the United States not retain any powers after June 30, U.S. officials said. To get around French and German demands, the United States may offer to give Iraq the authority to decide whether it wants to kill itself or to allow America to do it for themforeign forces to continue to provide security, the official officially said.
The general U.S. hope is that the media will stop focusing on death and destruction and sexual abuse and will allow President Jesus Bush to get on with his work of saving mankind from itself in time for him to destroy it.
donderdag, mei 20, 2004
Link and the Whole World Links With You
Ah, so the savoury bits of rural Warwickshire life are too tantalising to completely masticate in one mouthful and world events seem predictably renewable (days without picking up a newspaper without interruption are inevitably interrupted by a peeping tom curiosity of the world's reported events, "oh, that again", before putting it back down and returning to the idle gaze at sheep and cattle going about their grass eating and subtle noises) so we must now shake up the hi-fi and let the world of links back into the picture, rely upon others to yank us through the vodka-starry nights of a Siberian Soul Express...
*****
**For those who have grown weary of neither parody nor all things Friedman, global expert of his own opinion, there is the create your own Thomas Friedman Op-Ed column brought to you by McSweeney's, discovered via Maud Newton...
**I like this idea, good news Saturdays 2004 from Winds of Change:
"Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath. In that spirit, our Saturday posts to this blog will always be "good news". We'll share wisdom from groups like the Sufis, Hasidim and Zen Masters, highlight the acts of good and decent people, laugh at humourous events, and point to amazing discoveries that could benefit humanity. It's a great break from the week, and something I think the blogosphere could use more of."
But since I already celebrate Saturdays snout first in a pint of beer, leering over at the Premiership match unfolding on a large screen television in the village pub as the rain pours down outside and I thank God again for hops and football and days away from wretched news of the human capacity for self-destruction and Saturdays become little more than an anesthetiser of Sundays, I will celebrate the Good News Saturdays in ordinary fashion because it pleases my masses...
**Goddamnit! I knew there was something wrong with Modern Literature!
"Stendhal once famously compared the novel to a mirror being carried down the road, innocently catching all the angles of life. By contrast, Wood argues, contemporary novelists too often treat their pages more like flypaper, ready to cling on to any randomly floating bits of cultural debris: 'How to make the best Indonesian fish curry! The sonics of the trombone! The drug market in Detroit! The history of strip cartoons!'
**Poemas de Pablo Neruda:
Para que tú me oigas
mis palabras
se adelgazan a veces
como las huellas de las gaviotas en las playas.
**Always interesting, through the eyes of Satan's Laundromat
**SPAM
Jaapstijl Looking to buy cheap affordable medications?
Looking to buy cheap erections?
Looking to buy cheap, unaffordable medications?
Looking to buy sheep on medication?
Looking to buy expensive affordable lifestyles cut out of magazines?
Looking to buy cheap explosives?
Looking to buy terrorists hiding in caves?
Looking to buy cheap whores?
Looking to buy cheap sheep hormones on affordable wives?
Or just looking?
**For those long drawn out evenings at home, the eyes still blurrily sodden with Cognac and sunset, draw down the shades and get ready for Bush vs Kerry Bareknuckle Boxing!
**From the Plot Never Seems To Thicken and The Broken Record Keeps Skipping Department:
A GLIMPSE OF WAR'S HELL-SCENES
by Walt Whitman (from *Memoranda During the War*, 1875.)
"In one of the late movements of our troops in the valley, (near Upperville, I think,) a strong force of Moseby's mounted guerillas attack'd a train of wounded, and the guard of cavalry convoying them. The ambulances contain'd about 60 wounded, quite a number of them officers of rank. The rebels were in strength, and the capture of the train and its partial guard after a short snap was effectually accomplish'd. No sooner had our men surrender'd, the rebels instantly commenced robbing the train and murdering
their prisoners, even the wounded. Here is the scene or a sample of it, ten minutes after. Among the wounded officers in the ambulances were one, a lieutenant of regulars, and another of higher rank. These two were dragg'd out on the ground on their backs, and were now surrounded by the guerillas, a demoniac crowd, each member of which was stabbing them in different parts of their bodies. One of the officers had his feet pinn'd firmly to the ground by bayonets stuck through them and thrust into the ground. These two officers, as afterwards found on examination, had receiv'd about twenty such
thrusts, some of them through the mouth, face, &c. The wounded had all been dragg'd (to give a better chance also for plunder,) out of their wagons; some had been effectually dispatch'd, and their bodies were lying there lifeless and bloody. Others, not yet dead, but horribly mutilated, were moaning or groaning. Of our men who surrender'd, most had been thus maim'd or slaughter'd. . . .
Multiply the above by scores, aye hundreds -- verify it in all the forms that different circumstances, individuals, places, could afford -- light it with every lurid passion, the wolf's, the lion's lapping thirst for blood -- the passionate, boiling volcanoes of human revenge for comrades, brothers slain -- with the light of burning farms, and heaps of smutting, smouldering black embers -- and in the human heart everywhere black, worse embers -- and you have an inkling of this war."
**1/0 the birth of a comic strip becoming a comic strip becoming a comic strip...via Left Blank
**It doesn't really matter that Super Size Me won the Best Director of the Sundance Film Festival 2004. What really matters is that the website has a very very familiar little game called Burger Man.
And so on it goes. The missing links.
Ah, so the savoury bits of rural Warwickshire life are too tantalising to completely masticate in one mouthful and world events seem predictably renewable (days without picking up a newspaper without interruption are inevitably interrupted by a peeping tom curiosity of the world's reported events, "oh, that again", before putting it back down and returning to the idle gaze at sheep and cattle going about their grass eating and subtle noises) so we must now shake up the hi-fi and let the world of links back into the picture, rely upon others to yank us through the vodka-starry nights of a Siberian Soul Express...
*****
**For those who have grown weary of neither parody nor all things Friedman, global expert of his own opinion, there is the create your own Thomas Friedman Op-Ed column brought to you by McSweeney's, discovered via Maud Newton...
**I like this idea, good news Saturdays 2004 from Winds of Change:
"Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath. In that spirit, our Saturday posts to this blog will always be "good news". We'll share wisdom from groups like the Sufis, Hasidim and Zen Masters, highlight the acts of good and decent people, laugh at humourous events, and point to amazing discoveries that could benefit humanity. It's a great break from the week, and something I think the blogosphere could use more of."
But since I already celebrate Saturdays snout first in a pint of beer, leering over at the Premiership match unfolding on a large screen television in the village pub as the rain pours down outside and I thank God again for hops and football and days away from wretched news of the human capacity for self-destruction and Saturdays become little more than an anesthetiser of Sundays, I will celebrate the Good News Saturdays in ordinary fashion because it pleases my masses...
**Goddamnit! I knew there was something wrong with Modern Literature!
"Stendhal once famously compared the novel to a mirror being carried down the road, innocently catching all the angles of life. By contrast, Wood argues, contemporary novelists too often treat their pages more like flypaper, ready to cling on to any randomly floating bits of cultural debris: 'How to make the best Indonesian fish curry! The sonics of the trombone! The drug market in Detroit! The history of strip cartoons!'
**Poemas de Pablo Neruda:
Para que tú me oigas
mis palabras
se adelgazan a veces
como las huellas de las gaviotas en las playas.
**Always interesting, through the eyes of Satan's Laundromat
**SPAM
Jaapstijl Looking to buy cheap affordable medications?
Looking to buy cheap erections?
Looking to buy cheap, unaffordable medications?
Looking to buy sheep on medication?
Looking to buy expensive affordable lifestyles cut out of magazines?
Looking to buy cheap explosives?
Looking to buy terrorists hiding in caves?
Looking to buy cheap whores?
Looking to buy cheap sheep hormones on affordable wives?
Or just looking?
**For those long drawn out evenings at home, the eyes still blurrily sodden with Cognac and sunset, draw down the shades and get ready for Bush vs Kerry Bareknuckle Boxing!
**From the Plot Never Seems To Thicken and The Broken Record Keeps Skipping Department:
A GLIMPSE OF WAR'S HELL-SCENES
by Walt Whitman (from *Memoranda During the War*, 1875.)
"In one of the late movements of our troops in the valley, (near Upperville, I think,) a strong force of Moseby's mounted guerillas attack'd a train of wounded, and the guard of cavalry convoying them. The ambulances contain'd about 60 wounded, quite a number of them officers of rank. The rebels were in strength, and the capture of the train and its partial guard after a short snap was effectually accomplish'd. No sooner had our men surrender'd, the rebels instantly commenced robbing the train and murdering
their prisoners, even the wounded. Here is the scene or a sample of it, ten minutes after. Among the wounded officers in the ambulances were one, a lieutenant of regulars, and another of higher rank. These two were dragg'd out on the ground on their backs, and were now surrounded by the guerillas, a demoniac crowd, each member of which was stabbing them in different parts of their bodies. One of the officers had his feet pinn'd firmly to the ground by bayonets stuck through them and thrust into the ground. These two officers, as afterwards found on examination, had receiv'd about twenty such
thrusts, some of them through the mouth, face, &c. The wounded had all been dragg'd (to give a better chance also for plunder,) out of their wagons; some had been effectually dispatch'd, and their bodies were lying there lifeless and bloody. Others, not yet dead, but horribly mutilated, were moaning or groaning. Of our men who surrender'd, most had been thus maim'd or slaughter'd. . . .
Multiply the above by scores, aye hundreds -- verify it in all the forms that different circumstances, individuals, places, could afford -- light it with every lurid passion, the wolf's, the lion's lapping thirst for blood -- the passionate, boiling volcanoes of human revenge for comrades, brothers slain -- with the light of burning farms, and heaps of smutting, smouldering black embers -- and in the human heart everywhere black, worse embers -- and you have an inkling of this war."
**1/0 the birth of a comic strip becoming a comic strip becoming a comic strip...via Left Blank
**It doesn't really matter that Super Size Me won the Best Director of the Sundance Film Festival 2004. What really matters is that the website has a very very familiar little game called Burger Man.
And so on it goes. The missing links.
woensdag, mei 19, 2004
The Next Sound You Hear Will Be The Shit Hitting The Fan
"Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do"
Slowly but surely a different sort of truth is emerging about the Roots of Torture as uncovered by a Newsweek investigation:
"But a NEWSWEEK investigation shows that, as a means of pre-empting a repeat of 9/11, Bush, along with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, signed off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods. It was an approach that they adopted to sidestep the historical safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, which protect the rights of detainees and prisoners of war. In doing so, they overrode the objections of Secretary of State Colin Powell and America's top military lawyers—and they left underlings to sweat the details of what actually happened to prisoners in these lawless places. While no one deliberately authorized outright torture, these techniques entailed a systematic softening up of prisoners through isolation, privations, insults, threats and humiliation—methods that the Red Cross concluded were "tantamount to torture."
"The Bush administration created a bold legal framework to justify this system of interrogation, according to internal government memos obtained by NEWSWEEK. What started as a carefully thought-out, if aggressive, policy of interrogation in a covert war—designed mainly for use by a handful of CIA professionals—evolved into ever-more ungoverned tactics that ended up in the hands of untrained MPs in a big, hot war. Originally, Geneva Conventions protections were stripped only from Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. But later Rumsfeld himself, impressed by the success of techniques used against Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay, seemingly set in motion a process that led to their use in Iraq, even though that war was supposed to have been governed by the Geneva Conventions. Ultimately, reservist MPs, like those at Abu Ghraib, were drawn into a system in which fear and humiliation were used to break prisoners' resistance to interrogation."
Jumping on the same band wagon, or a band wagon with very similar wheels, and coming on the heels of this revelation is more details about the sort of business the War on Terror was busy negotiating:
The Denver Post has broken a story from documents obtained from the Pentagon regarding the brutal interrogation techniques by U.S. military personnel are being investigated in connection with the deaths of at least five Iraqi prisoners in war-zone detention camps
"In the case of Iraqi Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush, who headed Saddam Hussein's air force, intelligence officers' role was documented in abuse that soon turned fatal, documents show,
Mowhoush, considered a "high-priority target," turned himself in for questioning in November, according to documents. After two weeks in custody at an Al Qaim detention facility, northwest of Baghdad, two soldiers with the 66th Military Intelligence Company, slid a sleeping bag over his body, except for his feet, and began questioning him as they rolled him repeatedly from his back to his stomach, the documents show.
Then, one of the soldiers, an interrogator, sat on Mowhoush's chest and placed his hands over the prisoner's mouth, according to the report: "During this interrogation, the (general) became non-responsive, medics were called and he was later pronounced dead." According to the documents, "The preliminary report lists the cause of death as asphyxia due to smothering and chest compressions."
Immediately after Mowhoush's death was reported, U.S. military officials released a statement acknowledging he died during an interview.
"Mowhoush said he didn't feel well and subsequently lost consciousness," read the press statement, which is still posted on a Pentagon website. "The soldier questioning him found no pulse, then conducted CPR and called for medical authorities. According to the on-site surgeon, it appeared Mowhouse died of natural causes."
Geneva Convention, anyone?
Thanks to Empire Notes for the lead to the Denver Post article.
"Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do"
Slowly but surely a different sort of truth is emerging about the Roots of Torture as uncovered by a Newsweek investigation:
"But a NEWSWEEK investigation shows that, as a means of pre-empting a repeat of 9/11, Bush, along with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft, signed off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods. It was an approach that they adopted to sidestep the historical safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, which protect the rights of detainees and prisoners of war. In doing so, they overrode the objections of Secretary of State Colin Powell and America's top military lawyers—and they left underlings to sweat the details of what actually happened to prisoners in these lawless places. While no one deliberately authorized outright torture, these techniques entailed a systematic softening up of prisoners through isolation, privations, insults, threats and humiliation—methods that the Red Cross concluded were "tantamount to torture."
"The Bush administration created a bold legal framework to justify this system of interrogation, according to internal government memos obtained by NEWSWEEK. What started as a carefully thought-out, if aggressive, policy of interrogation in a covert war—designed mainly for use by a handful of CIA professionals—evolved into ever-more ungoverned tactics that ended up in the hands of untrained MPs in a big, hot war. Originally, Geneva Conventions protections were stripped only from Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. But later Rumsfeld himself, impressed by the success of techniques used against Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay, seemingly set in motion a process that led to their use in Iraq, even though that war was supposed to have been governed by the Geneva Conventions. Ultimately, reservist MPs, like those at Abu Ghraib, were drawn into a system in which fear and humiliation were used to break prisoners' resistance to interrogation."
Jumping on the same band wagon, or a band wagon with very similar wheels, and coming on the heels of this revelation is more details about the sort of business the War on Terror was busy negotiating:
The Denver Post has broken a story from documents obtained from the Pentagon regarding the brutal interrogation techniques by U.S. military personnel are being investigated in connection with the deaths of at least five Iraqi prisoners in war-zone detention camps
"In the case of Iraqi Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush, who headed Saddam Hussein's air force, intelligence officers' role was documented in abuse that soon turned fatal, documents show,
Mowhoush, considered a "high-priority target," turned himself in for questioning in November, according to documents. After two weeks in custody at an Al Qaim detention facility, northwest of Baghdad, two soldiers with the 66th Military Intelligence Company, slid a sleeping bag over his body, except for his feet, and began questioning him as they rolled him repeatedly from his back to his stomach, the documents show.
Then, one of the soldiers, an interrogator, sat on Mowhoush's chest and placed his hands over the prisoner's mouth, according to the report: "During this interrogation, the (general) became non-responsive, medics were called and he was later pronounced dead." According to the documents, "The preliminary report lists the cause of death as asphyxia due to smothering and chest compressions."
Immediately after Mowhoush's death was reported, U.S. military officials released a statement acknowledging he died during an interview.
"Mowhoush said he didn't feel well and subsequently lost consciousness," read the press statement, which is still posted on a Pentagon website. "The soldier questioning him found no pulse, then conducted CPR and called for medical authorities. According to the on-site surgeon, it appeared Mowhouse died of natural causes."
Geneva Convention, anyone?
Thanks to Empire Notes for the lead to the Denver Post article.
Revised Arab Interrogation Guidelines
In the wake of the growing scandal over prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced new guidelines for the interrogation of Iraqi/Arab prisoners.
Among them are changes in the punitive feminization of prisoners. Instead of addressing bra and panty-clad prisoners as "my bitch" or "little slut", interrogators must use phrases such as "missus" and/or "milady"
Who says this isn't a kinder, more compassionate conservatism?? Eh?!
*****
Is Jihad Already McJihad?
It is if you are Slovenian pop philosopher Slavoj Zizek, who asks In These Times the 25,000 Euro question, at the brink of the expansion of the EU, What Does Europe Want?
"How many fanatical defenders of religion started by ferociously attacking the contemporary secular culture and ended up forsaking any meaningful religious experience? In a similar way, many liberal warriors are so eager to fight anti-democratic fundamentalism that they will end by flinging away freedom and democracy themselves if only they may fight terror. They have such a passion for proving that non-Christian fundamentalism is the main threat to freedom that they are ready to fall
back on the position that we have to limit our own freedom here and now, in our allegedly Christian societies. If the "terrorists" are ready to wreck this world for love of another world, our warriors on terror are ready to wreck their own democratic world out of hatred for the Muslim other. Some of them love human dignity so much that they are ready to legalize torture, the ultimate degradation of human dignity,to defend it."
In the wake of the growing scandal over prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced new guidelines for the interrogation of Iraqi/Arab prisoners.
Among them are changes in the punitive feminization of prisoners. Instead of addressing bra and panty-clad prisoners as "my bitch" or "little slut", interrogators must use phrases such as "missus" and/or "milady"
Who says this isn't a kinder, more compassionate conservatism?? Eh?!
*****
Is Jihad Already McJihad?
It is if you are Slovenian pop philosopher Slavoj Zizek, who asks In These Times the 25,000 Euro question, at the brink of the expansion of the EU, What Does Europe Want?
"How many fanatical defenders of religion started by ferociously attacking the contemporary secular culture and ended up forsaking any meaningful religious experience? In a similar way, many liberal warriors are so eager to fight anti-democratic fundamentalism that they will end by flinging away freedom and democracy themselves if only they may fight terror. They have such a passion for proving that non-Christian fundamentalism is the main threat to freedom that they are ready to fall
back on the position that we have to limit our own freedom here and now, in our allegedly Christian societies. If the "terrorists" are ready to wreck this world for love of another world, our warriors on terror are ready to wreck their own democratic world out of hatred for the Muslim other. Some of them love human dignity so much that they are ready to legalize torture, the ultimate degradation of human dignity,to defend it."
dinsdag, mei 18, 2004
Kaboom!
Not that anyone was really expecting the June 30th sham of a transfer of power to go off smoothly but so far, after yesterday's suicide bombing, they won't have Izzadine Saleem, president of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, to kick around any more.
Saleem's murder set off the typical, blustering cliches of business as usual and nothing getting "derailed" and "staying the course" from all of our favourite sources of bluster and cliches, the Bush Admin and the Blair Conspiracy. It even touched off a tumbling of the Almighty Dollar.
"The Governing Council ... has not been intimidated, it has not been defeated," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in an appearance at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, happy to find something else other than abused prisoners to talk about. Talk about your rose coloured glasses. Whew. In addition, the Bush administration insists abuse in Abu Ghraib prison, shown in images published around the world, was confined to low-level guards, though the Red Cross said it was systematic.
The latest allegations came from the New Yorker magazine, which said abuses resulted from a secret plan approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for tougher interrogation methods in the U.S. "war on terror".
Citing current and former U.S. intelligence officials, the report said tougher questioning was part of a plan giving prior approval to kill, capture or interrogate terrorist leaders.
The Bush administration naturally derided the report, called Hirsch, the other of the report, a "terrorist and intellectual thug" and the Pentagon said the abuses had not been sanctioned. Nobody knew about it. Just the prison guards, who talk it up all on their own without any hints or prods or orders from the higher ups.
European Union foreign ministers were set to condemn the abuses, according to a draft text obtained by Reuters. "Such actions are contrary to international law," it said.
Well, Tony Blair didn't say that. He was too busy fighting off his own full blown crisis at home.
The Prime Minister was given the stark ultimatum to find an urgent "exit strategy" for our troops or risk being forced out of office. One of Mr Blair's loyal allies has warned that the PM faces the stark possibility of being "last man standing" if President Bush is thrown out of the White House in the November election.
But this recent killing won't deter him in the slightest because he is a man of "resolve" and with "no reverse".
Prime Poodle Blair says the suicide bombing and subsequent killing will not deter the coalition from its work in Iraq. As he puts it, "there will be no cutting and running."
There will be no cutting and running - you hear that terrorist dogs? You haven't scared Tony Blair one bit and Rummy and President Jesus Bush aren't scared neither!
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw adds the murder won't stop the June 30th transfer of power to the Iraqis.
Not this one anyway.
Not that anyone was really expecting the June 30th sham of a transfer of power to go off smoothly but so far, after yesterday's suicide bombing, they won't have Izzadine Saleem, president of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, to kick around any more.
Saleem's murder set off the typical, blustering cliches of business as usual and nothing getting "derailed" and "staying the course" from all of our favourite sources of bluster and cliches, the Bush Admin and the Blair Conspiracy. It even touched off a tumbling of the Almighty Dollar.
"The Governing Council ... has not been intimidated, it has not been defeated," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in an appearance at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, happy to find something else other than abused prisoners to talk about. Talk about your rose coloured glasses. Whew. In addition, the Bush administration insists abuse in Abu Ghraib prison, shown in images published around the world, was confined to low-level guards, though the Red Cross said it was systematic.
The latest allegations came from the New Yorker magazine, which said abuses resulted from a secret plan approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for tougher interrogation methods in the U.S. "war on terror".
Citing current and former U.S. intelligence officials, the report said tougher questioning was part of a plan giving prior approval to kill, capture or interrogate terrorist leaders.
The Bush administration naturally derided the report, called Hirsch, the other of the report, a "terrorist and intellectual thug" and the Pentagon said the abuses had not been sanctioned. Nobody knew about it. Just the prison guards, who talk it up all on their own without any hints or prods or orders from the higher ups.
European Union foreign ministers were set to condemn the abuses, according to a draft text obtained by Reuters. "Such actions are contrary to international law," it said.
Well, Tony Blair didn't say that. He was too busy fighting off his own full blown crisis at home.
The Prime Minister was given the stark ultimatum to find an urgent "exit strategy" for our troops or risk being forced out of office. One of Mr Blair's loyal allies has warned that the PM faces the stark possibility of being "last man standing" if President Bush is thrown out of the White House in the November election.
But this recent killing won't deter him in the slightest because he is a man of "resolve" and with "no reverse".
Prime Poodle Blair says the suicide bombing and subsequent killing will not deter the coalition from its work in Iraq. As he puts it, "there will be no cutting and running."
There will be no cutting and running - you hear that terrorist dogs? You haven't scared Tony Blair one bit and Rummy and President Jesus Bush aren't scared neither!
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw adds the murder won't stop the June 30th transfer of power to the Iraqis.
Not this one anyway.
vrijdag, mei 14, 2004
Chop, Chop
The high cost of being a Bush supporter was driven home to Nick Berg a few days ago when, after one of a group of masked men who were presumably, not part of the President Jesus Bush fan club, read out a statement, they pushed Berg to the floor and shouted "God is greatest" above his screams as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a top ally of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden of them sawed his head off with a large knife then held it aloft for the camera.
Berg was a supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and of Bush administration policy. Well done.
Gruesome? Psshaw. One dead, dumb American who voluntarily went to a war zone like Iraq to "find work" and because he wanted to lend support to Bush's idiotic policy of invasion and destruction. Now multiply it by tens of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, killed as a result of the American invasion, people who didn't "volunteer" to live in the middle of a war zone but who had it brought to them to "save" them from the morally bankrupt leadership of Saddam Hussein and to give them puppet leaders of a morally bankrupt American government, and then maybe we can strike up the violins.
In case you haven't seen it and want to, the video, as well as stills and stories, are provided by Information Clearning House.
As Kurt Vonnegut notes in Cold Turkey:
"One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us."
*****
Save The Truth!
In an unrelated event, Stratford Upon Avon - The Truth announced it's last post on Wednesday.
"Owing to the never-ending search for spondolicks plus the nut-crunching pressure I’m experiencing from Mrs G and her iron fist in a velvet glove, I think the time has come to give my baby, ‘Stratford upon Avon – The Truth’ a much needed rest."
We hope this is a temporary aberration, a moment of frustration or temporary insanity, but if not, hurry and get a final look as the site will only be up for another week.
The high cost of being a Bush supporter was driven home to Nick Berg a few days ago when, after one of a group of masked men who were presumably, not part of the President Jesus Bush fan club, read out a statement, they pushed Berg to the floor and shouted "God is greatest" above his screams as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a top ally of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden of them sawed his head off with a large knife then held it aloft for the camera.
Berg was a supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and of Bush administration policy. Well done.
Gruesome? Psshaw. One dead, dumb American who voluntarily went to a war zone like Iraq to "find work" and because he wanted to lend support to Bush's idiotic policy of invasion and destruction. Now multiply it by tens of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, killed as a result of the American invasion, people who didn't "volunteer" to live in the middle of a war zone but who had it brought to them to "save" them from the morally bankrupt leadership of Saddam Hussein and to give them puppet leaders of a morally bankrupt American government, and then maybe we can strike up the violins.
In case you haven't seen it and want to, the video, as well as stills and stories, are provided by Information Clearning House.
As Kurt Vonnegut notes in Cold Turkey:
"One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us."
*****
Save The Truth!
In an unrelated event, Stratford Upon Avon - The Truth announced it's last post on Wednesday.
"Owing to the never-ending search for spondolicks plus the nut-crunching pressure I’m experiencing from Mrs G and her iron fist in a velvet glove, I think the time has come to give my baby, ‘Stratford upon Avon – The Truth’ a much needed rest."
We hope this is a temporary aberration, a moment of frustration or temporary insanity, but if not, hurry and get a final look as the site will only be up for another week.
maandag, mei 10, 2004
I DON'T HAVE A HORSE IN THAT RACE."
Prime Minister "didn't know" there was a war in Iraq
****NEWS BULLETIN****
Tony Blair today denied that he or his ministers knew
about "a war in Iraq" or that British troops were even
in Iraq, before they read about them in the
newspapers.
Speaking ahead of this afternoon's Commons statement
on the issue from the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon,
the prime minister insisted that all allegations of
British troops being involved in an invasion of Iraq
have been either "fully investigated or are being
investigated".
He told reporters at the launch of Labour's European
election campaign that there was "absolutely no basis"
for the allegation that there are British troops in
Iraq, adding that the idea sounded "very much" like
some sort of Tory Conspiracy to upset the apple cart
of the referendum on the EU Constitution.
Mr Blair's comments come after he apologised to any
Iraqi people who may have been "killed or mistreated"
by these fictitious British troops on French
television last night and amid speculation about when
ministers were told of the abuse allegations.
The International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC]
and Amnesty International both insisted yesterday that
they had passed on their concerns about evidence of an
invasion more than a year ago.
Briefing reporters after this morning's press
conference, Mr Blair's official spokesman insisted
that the prime minister did not know about any
invasion of Iraq by British troops "or anyone else".
"He did not know. These issues were dealt with at an
operational level," he said "Our prime minister is not
in charge of every soldier in this country, nor in
charge of every country being invaded on earth. These
are matters that are dealt with at an appropriate
level."
"We have reported to the people who were in charge of
these countries and they know and they need to take
measures and make serious inquiries if there were
reports of invasion," she said.
The prime minister went on: "All I ask people to do is
to remember that the majority of British troops are
not really British troops and we seriously doubt
whether there is even a country called Iraq to begin
with. I am as disgusted as anyone else by these
allegations that have been made."
More apropos at the moment:
John Berryman's Dream Song 74
Henry hates the world. What the world to Henry
did will not bear thought.
Feeling no pain,
Henry stabbed his arm and wrote a letter
explaining how bad it had been
in this world.
Old yellow, in a gown
might have made a difference, ‘these lower beauties’,
and chartreuse could have mattered.
“Kyoto, Toledo,
Benares–the holy cities–
and Cambridge shimmering do not make up
for, well, the horror of unlove,
nor south from Paris driving in the Spring
to Siena and on . . .”
Pulling together Henry, somber Henry
woofed at things.
Spry dissapointments of men
and vicing adorable children
miserable women, Henry mastered, Henry
tasting all the secret bits of life.
Prime Minister "didn't know" there was a war in Iraq
****NEWS BULLETIN****
Tony Blair today denied that he or his ministers knew
about "a war in Iraq" or that British troops were even
in Iraq, before they read about them in the
newspapers.
Speaking ahead of this afternoon's Commons statement
on the issue from the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon,
the prime minister insisted that all allegations of
British troops being involved in an invasion of Iraq
have been either "fully investigated or are being
investigated".
He told reporters at the launch of Labour's European
election campaign that there was "absolutely no basis"
for the allegation that there are British troops in
Iraq, adding that the idea sounded "very much" like
some sort of Tory Conspiracy to upset the apple cart
of the referendum on the EU Constitution.
Mr Blair's comments come after he apologised to any
Iraqi people who may have been "killed or mistreated"
by these fictitious British troops on French
television last night and amid speculation about when
ministers were told of the abuse allegations.
The International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC]
and Amnesty International both insisted yesterday that
they had passed on their concerns about evidence of an
invasion more than a year ago.
Briefing reporters after this morning's press
conference, Mr Blair's official spokesman insisted
that the prime minister did not know about any
invasion of Iraq by British troops "or anyone else".
"He did not know. These issues were dealt with at an
operational level," he said "Our prime minister is not
in charge of every soldier in this country, nor in
charge of every country being invaded on earth. These
are matters that are dealt with at an appropriate
level."
"We have reported to the people who were in charge of
these countries and they know and they need to take
measures and make serious inquiries if there were
reports of invasion," she said.
The prime minister went on: "All I ask people to do is
to remember that the majority of British troops are
not really British troops and we seriously doubt
whether there is even a country called Iraq to begin
with. I am as disgusted as anyone else by these
allegations that have been made."
More apropos at the moment:
John Berryman's Dream Song 74
Henry hates the world. What the world to Henry
did will not bear thought.
Feeling no pain,
Henry stabbed his arm and wrote a letter
explaining how bad it had been
in this world.
Old yellow, in a gown
might have made a difference, ‘these lower beauties’,
and chartreuse could have mattered.
“Kyoto, Toledo,
Benares–the holy cities–
and Cambridge shimmering do not make up
for, well, the horror of unlove,
nor south from Paris driving in the Spring
to Siena and on . . .”
Pulling together Henry, somber Henry
woofed at things.
Spry dissapointments of men
and vicing adorable children
miserable women, Henry mastered, Henry
tasting all the secret bits of life.
Abonneren op:
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