Overcast In England

Because these are necessarily slow times; days without sun tend to make life seem slower, painstakingly drawn out, because of this and because the Democratic Convention is going on in America and no news is good news, I've decided it must be time to refrain from political rants and so, here is a poem from someone born in Rochester, NY:

It Must Be Sophisticated
John Ashbery

There are attics in old houses
where doubt lingers as to the corrosive
effect of night-blindness: namely
are its victims directly linkable to a chain
of events happening elsewhere? If so,
we should shrug off resemblances

to our line of work. What was said around
the house had undue influence on one of several
shapely witnesses. And, as dames do,
she started talking to any and every
interlocutor out of harm's way. One day
you wake up and they've skipped. Or was it

always empty like this? It's hard
to remember a time when it wasn't. Maybe
your memory's playing tricks on you? Maybe
there never was such a person as Lisa Martins?
Maybe it's all over when you stand up
to walk the last mile in Enna Jettick shoes,

and they draw the blind quickly to forget you.
Once forgotten you're as good as dead,
anyway. And who would help you now?
You might as well be trapped at the bottom of a well
in the Sahara. They don't know you're alive,
or that your life was anything but exemplary

when it came time for you to live.
The fashionable present keeps queening it
over the slightly dishonorable past. Your
bridesmaids are scattered on the wind.
You don't feel like having lunch. Maybe
a walk, and a cup of tea later?

We'll see you at the end of the month!
they cried. Now it keeps ticking,
there must be a mystery down there,
darn it. I'll find it if it takes all night
and then some other sleuth can solve it.
I was only hired as a go-between. My tour is ended,

and if I've a piece of advice for you, it's
check out the rafters, the moldings.
You can't tell who might have bargained
for clemency in your absence, leaving you holding
the bag when you got back, restless,
ready to start school, but the vagrant air's black,

what with the negative promise of spring.
The boys are still rehearsing their parts
they haven't been over, and really
it's none of my business. Said the table to the chair.
I was confined here. That's all I know,
truthfully. During the amnesty I walked

out through the open gate. The streets were full of people,
running back and forth, talking disjointedly. I was
supposed to be somewhere else, but no one knew it.
In the confusion I returned home.
Now the newshounds pester us daily.
What was I born for? More experiments?

Why are they fighting over a fuse? It doesn't
seem to be harmless like those people are listening to over there;
at the same time, everyone's a suspect in the new
climate and country. The wind turns a page
of the old tome, then another and another; soon
it's riffling through them too fast to stop.

There's nothing in it anyway. Time to move on
to another frontier beyond the transparent frieze
of foliage, guns, barges, to where he began.
Sure, dem days is gone forever, but it's the attention span
that's really gone. Back when they'd send for you
once they got a house built, it was clever

to hedge your bets and produce a fraternal twin
made of bedclothes with a mop for a wig
while you scaled the wall on a rope ladder
to be the next new thing that thinks
and cautions others not to. Far from the
inner city cry of conflicting attitudes, one fled with one's

holy illusions intact, one's misconceptions too, until the whole
mindset took on a largely symbolic
look, an indifferent jewel, toy
of the weather, of successive washes of light,
I can hardly believe I'm here
in this tiny republic carved out of several conflicting

principalities. It's enough, perhaps, that I was questioned
at the edge of my performance. That now I'm safe
from my own sang-froid and scores of others,
that mere forgetfulness can save up to fifty-three lives,
that they can share your power and go on glancing
upward. Because after all we were the three

original ones, the president, vice-president and treasurer
of our class. And were formed to repay
what obscure debt and be summarily
taken out of school and handed over to our parents.
It's what matters then, and after. No one
says you have to live up to principles; indeed, what are they?

What difference does it make which one came too close
in the richly darkened theater, if all
they were after was to coax you into the light,
watch you blink a minute, and then pass on, they too,
to the larger arenas, each in the wind,
in the sand, the reeds, growing? Because even if it doesn't

punish you exactly, the thing has been
lived through, the experience sealed.
O what book shall I read
now? for they are all of them new, and used,
when I write my name on the flyleaf. Look,
here is another one unread, not written. Time for you to choose.

nicked from CONJUNCTIONS:19 Fall 1992

Conjunctions

Spreading Generalised, Promiscuous Anxiety FaLaLaLaLa

As if we weren't busy enough already, it appears the business of fear-mongering is alive and well:

"Ashcroft's performance confirmed the suspicion held by many that the Bush administration is in the cynical business of spreading generalised, promiscuous anxiety through the American populace, a sense of imminent but inexact catastrophe, for reasons that may have little to do with national security and much to do with
political advantage. In the past three years, in the name of homeland security, a vast, coast-to-coast, combined surveillance and people-scaring apparatus has been assembled, on a scale, and with an intimate reach, never before seen in a democracy. The administration appears to be still learning to play this marvellous instrument, and wrong notes, such as those struck by Ashcroft, are common. But practice makes perfect."

excerpt from the Guardian's Running Scared

For those who aren't scared, thar's plenty o money in them thar hills of death and killing! (especially for specialists like, Veep Dick "Go Fuck Yourself" Cheney,:

"Meanwhile, Cheney was busy developing Halliburton's business in other parts of the world. "It is a false dichotomy that we have to choose between our commercial and other interests," he told the [public policy research foundation] Cato Institute in 1998, speaking out against economic sanctions levied by the Clinton administration against countries suspected of terrorist activity. "Our government has become sanctions-happy," he continued."

Profits of War

*****

For those of you who needed millions of dollars of bureaucratic waste, the 9/11 report is finally out and guess what?!

Much like the Butler Report detailing the failure of governments, the equally useless 9/11 Panel magically found No one is really to blame!

Whew. That was a close one.

Now you can go back to your regularly scheduled programming until the next politically expedient terrorist attack or threat thereof will snap you awake with the force of a whiplash car crash.

Blair: War 'an act of love-sick temporary insanity'

LONDON, England -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended his decision to go to war against Iraq, hinting that while intelligence at the time left "little doubt" about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction if you were a war-mongering delusionalist President Bush lapdog, there was the "slight possiblity" that he was temporarily insane during the decisions leading up to the war.

"Removing Saddam was not a war crime, although slaughering tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis MIGHT be." he told parliament to cheers from members of his ruling Labour Party. "The important thing to remember is that it doesn't matter anymore. It's done. If you were crazy for the love of President Jesus Bush like I was, you'd have done the same!"

He said everyone should now rejoice in that liberation and work together to help the Bush Administration destroy Iraq and build a future of despair and death for the Iraqi people.

Blair was facing MPs in Britain's House of Commons Tuesday in a debate on last week's Butler report into intelligence failings over Iraq.

Challenged by former Cabinet minister Clare Short, who quit her post over the conflict, Blair said confronted with the choice of backing away or making sure he was incapable of developing WMD: "I still think we made the right decision. I don't know why. Perhaps it was my girlish crush on President Jesus Bush leading me to temporary insanity that prevented any kind of reasonable, rational decision but I'm not sure. I've been on heavy sedatives for the last two years and have been treated for severe mental illness, you really shouldn't trust me, but you SHOULD rejoice in the liberation of Iraq!"

Blair said it was "absolutely clear" Saddam had every intention of carrying on developing weapons and procuring materials to do so. It was also "absolutely clear" that God was going to come down and strike us all dead if we didn't remove Saddam from power and "absolutely clear" that the world is a save and happy place and would probably be a pile of smoking ruins if Saddam hadn't been ousted.

However, much to the great suprise of everyone, the Tory leader Michael Howard, master of his own weapons of self-destruction, said he could not see how any MP, knowing as they did now that weapons of mass destruction were not likely to be found, could have backed the government war motion, which had stressed that Iraq had such arms.

Mr Howard accused the prime minister of "serial ignorance" about vital issues.

He accused himself of "grandstanding and lying" and "voting for the war even though I didn't know what I knew then or now would have known had I known what I would have known then..."

He had not known "vital" details about the claim that Iraq could use biological weapons within 45 minutes, intelligence reports being withdrawn last year and claims of abuse by coalition troops.

"The prime minister's credibility is at stake today," said Mr Howard. "My own credibility, of course, has been in the rubbish bin for years..."

He said Mr Blair "hasn't been straight with the British people today" and asked "why does sorry seem to be the hardest word?".

Indeed. So, Mr Blair, here are the lyrics to your love song to President Jesus Bush which have been ringing in your ears like tinnitus for the last 18 months:

Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word

Music by Elton John
Lyrics by Bernie Taupin


What have I got to do to make you love me
What have I got to do to make you care
What do I do when lightning strikes me
And I wake to find that you're not there

What do I do to make you want me
What have I got to do to be heard
What do I say when it's all over
And sorry seems to be the hardest word

It's sad, so sad
It's a sad, sad situation
And it's getting more and more absurd
It's sad, so sad
Why can't we talk it over
Oh it seems to me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word

What do I do to make you love me
What have I got to do to be heard
What do I do when lightning strikes me
What have I got to do
What have I got to do
When sorry seems to be the hardest word

SPICCOLI AND BUTLER REPORT AGREED: INTELLIGENCE ON IRAQ 'SERIOUSLY FLAWED, DUDE'

British intelligence reports on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction in the run up to the Iraq war were “like, totally based on, like, not reality” and “seriously flawed, dude”, the Butler Inquiry informed today, in utter agreement with an earlier report released by former Ridgemont High student Jeff Spiccoli.

Spiccoli, who earlier summed upon the premise of America's Declaration of Independence thusly: "So this Jefferson dude was like, 'Look, the reason we left this England place is 'cause it was so bogus. So if we don't get some primo rules ourselves--pronto--then we're just gonna be bogus, too.", was extensively quoted in the Butler Inquiry.

The inquiry said that when the British government began considering military action against Iraq in March 2002, the intelligence was “like, totally missing” to justify claims that Iraq was in breach of United Nations resolutions requiring it to disarm.

And it said that since the conflict, key claims based on reports from agents in Iraq including claims that the Iraqis had recently produced biological agents, were "similar to LSD-induced hallucinations minus the spiders".

The report also criticised the government’s controversial dossier on Iraqi weapons, published in the run up to war, saying that it was a little too gnarly to be credible" and "the lesson of the build up to Iraq is that people on 'ludes should not drive."

It said that Tony Blair’s statement in the British House of Commons "reinforced the impression that he is a presumptuous, arrogant and infatigable little liar who will say anything at all to maintain his exalted position as President Bush's favourite little poodle, dude."

The inquiry acknowledged that quoting Jeff Spiccoli so extensively in its report would probably tip off the source of the subtitle of the report which compared the leap to war by use of bogus intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction with the legendary Spiccoli confession that "All I need is a cool buzz and some tasty waves and I'm fine."

The report was highly critical of intelligence-gathering in Iraq but in the end, decided what's done is done and there isn't any use crying over spillt milk.

“This is US History, I see the globe right there..." it said.

*****

Tory Leader Says "If Only I Had Thought I'd Known Then What I Think I Thought I Knew Now"

Tory Party Leader Michael Howard has said that he would not have backed the Government in the crucial Commons vote on the Iraq war if he had thought he'd known what he didn't know or had known about what he would have thought if he'd have known that the intelligence was flawed.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Mr Howard said;

"If I knew then what I know now, I'd know more than I knew then and then I would have known that I shouldn't have known about voting for that resolution, I think." he said. "Unless, of course, somebody or something changes my mind again" he quickly added.

"It is difficult for someone, knowing everything we know now, to have voted for that particular resolution. But if we hadn't known everything we know now, well then, that would have changed everything of course, probably. And even if I had known that what I knew wasn't right, I'd have been wrong for not knowing what I didn't know and voting anyway."

FUNNY V. FUNNY 
  
I'm sure you're familiar with it:  there's funny and then there's FUNNY   You decide for yourself.   There's this, for example:   

Edwards Tells Bush To Act Like Blair Did:  
 
"Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards assailed U.S. President George W. Bush for lacking the courage of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who took full responsibility for the intelligence failures that led both nations into war in Iraq. "
 
And then there's this:  
 
Bush Eats Babies  
 
You just never know where the page is gonna turn.  
 
Good News
 
Stratford Upon Avon- The Truth, which once was no more, has now morphed.  You can find more Stratford flotsam bobbing around Shakespeare Wuz 'Ere
 
And The Word
 
Link often, and link hard.  
 
Lastly, the name of the band I haven't yet formed has still not been taken, if you judge by Google searches, so, it remains the name of the band I haven't yet formed:    
 
Honey, I Killed The President
 
Coming soon to a music scene near you. 
  
 

THE YOUNG BRITISH SOLDIER
Rudyard Kipling

When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East
'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast,
An' 'e wonders because 'e is frequent deceased
Ere 'e's fit for to serve as a soldier.
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
So-oldier ~OF~ the Queen!

Now all you recruities what's drafted to-day,
You shut up your rag-box an' 'ark to my lay,
An' I'll sing you a soldier as far as I may:
A soldier what's fit for a soldier.
Fit, fit, fit for a soldier . . .

First mind you steer clear o' the grog-sellers' huts,
For they sell you Fixed Bay'nets that rots out your guts --
Ay, drink that 'ud eat the live steel from your butts --
An' it's bad for the young British soldier.
Bad, bad, bad for the soldier . . .

When the cholera comes -- as it will past a doubt --
Keep out of the wet and don't go on the shout,
For the sickness gets in as the liquor dies out,
An' it crumples the young British soldier.
Crum-, crum-, crumples the soldier . . .

But the worst o' your foes is the sun over'ead:
You ~must~ wear your 'elmet for all that is said:
If 'e finds you uncovered 'e'll knock you down dead,
An' you'll die like a fool of a soldier.
Fool, fool, fool of a soldier . . .

If you're cast for fatigue by a sergeant unkind,
Don't grouse like a woman nor crack on nor blind;
Be handy and civil, and then you will find
That it's beer for the young British soldier.
Beer, beer, beer for the soldier . . .

Now, if you must marry, take care she is old --
A troop-sergeant's widow's the nicest I'm told,
For beauty won't help if your rations is cold,
Nor love ain't enough for a soldier.
'Nough, 'nough, 'nough for a soldier . . .

If the wife should go wrong with a comrade, be loath
To shoot when you catch 'em -- you'll swing, on my oath! --
Make 'im take 'er and keep 'er: that's Hell for them both,
An' you're shut o' the curse of a soldier.
Curse, curse, curse of a soldier . . .

When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck,
Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck,
Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck
And march to your front like a soldier.
Front, front, front like a soldier . . .

When 'arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch,
Don't call your Martini a cross-eyed old bitch;
She's human as you are -- you treat her as sich,
An' she'll fight for the young British soldier.
Fight, fight, fight for the soldier . . .

When shakin' their bustles like ladies so fine,
The guns o' the enemy wheel into line,
Shoot low at the limbers an' don't mind the shine,
For noise never startles the soldier.
Start-, start-, startles the soldier . . .

If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,
Remember it's ruin to run from a fight:
So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,
And wait for supports like a soldier.
Wait, wait, wait like a soldier . . .

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier ~of~ the Queen!

*****

As a matter of general principle, I believe there can be no doubt that criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government ... Too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think it will give some comfort to the enemy ... If that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned, because the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a great deal more good than it will do the enemy, and it will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur.

Sen. Robert Taft, R-Ohio (a.k.a. "Mr. Republican")
Quoted in The War on Our Freedoms
December 1941

Kerry/Edwards Gaining Too Quickly, Officials discuss how to delay Election Day

WASHINGTON -- With great panic streaking the corridors of the White House since it was revealed that John Kerry got a 5-point life in the hourly Newsweek Poll after picking John Edwards, U.S. officials immediately responded that they have discussed the idea of postponing Election Day in the event of a terrorist attack on or about that day, or, in the event it appears the Bush/Cheney ticket might not win, even if it cheats.

A Homeland Security Department spokesman said yesterday that "if we do not appear to be likely to win the election, there is a very good chance that a coincidental terrorist attack would occur in the United States causing the need for immediate postponement and/or cancellation of the Presidential Elections."

The department has referred questions about the matter to the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said.

DeForest B. Soaries Jr., chairman of the newly created U.S. Election Assistance Commission who was appointed by President Bush, requested authority to postpone indefinately or cancel altogether, the Presidential Elections in November should it appear that the Kerry/Edwards ticket has a possibility of winning.

"Naturally, some sort of "terrorist" attack would likely take place in that event because as we all know, terrorists love President Bush and do not want to see him toppled from power. If there is the combination of a Kerry/Edwards victory and a terrorist attack, even if it is somewhere else in the world, we will move immediately to cancel the elections and send everyone home where they belong." Soaries said.

President Bush, dining on human skulls with Vice President Dick Cheney, cited Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's recent warning of such an attack in a news conference last week, saying it was based on intercepted "chatter" among al Qaeda operatives.

"Terrorists, Saddam, Evil, Evil," Bush recited between bites.

What has Homeland Security officials worried is that Americans might decide at the time of the election that they no longer want Bush and Cheney teaming up to destroy the country and would be willing to let Kerry and Edwards have a chance to muck it up even further.

"We have to be prepared because Americans who vote for Kerry on Election Day are probably terrorists attempting to disrupt the election." Dick Cheney added as blood dripped from his chin. "And if you don't believe me, well, just go fuck yourself." he smiled. "Election Day is ours, baby."

Report slams John Edwards for Iraq intelligence failures

WASHINGTON -- In a highly critical report issued Friday, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee found that John Edwards was almost solely responsible for prewar estimates of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction being overstated and unsupported by intelligence because he was too inexperienced as a politician and because he's a "trial lawyer".

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, told reporters that intelligence used to support the invasion of Iraq was based on assessments given by John Edwards that were "unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available intelligence."

The committee's conclusions are contained in a 511-page report released Friday and every page is a fierce excoriation of John Edwards and how he caused all America's problems. They further concluded that we should expect nothing better from "dangerous scum like trial lawyers" and "inexperienced Vice Presidential candidates".

"Before the war, the John Edwards told the president as well as the Congress and the public that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and if left unchecked would probably have a nuclear weapon during this decade," Roberts said.

"Today we know these assessments were wrong."

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the leading Democrat on the 18-member panel, said that "bad information" from John Edwards was used to bolster the case for war and that if John Edwards had been Vice President, "there's no telling what kind of chaos would have been wraught."

"We in Congress would not have authorized that war with 75 votes if we knew what we know now," the West Virginia Democrat said. "It's all John Edwards' fault."

"Leading up to September 11, John Edwards didn't connect the dots. What did he ever have to say about The War on Terrorism before 9/11, huh? In Iraq, we are even more culpable because the dots themselves never existed and this too, is John Edwards' fault."

He also said John Edwards failed to "accurately or adequately explain the uncertainties behind the judgments in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate to policymakers."

Rockefeller said that "John Edwards" will haunt America's national security "for generations to come."

"Our credibility is diminished. Our standing in the world has never been lower," he said. "We have fostered a deep hatred of Americans in the Muslim world, and that will grow. As a direct consequence, our nation is more vulnerable today than ever before. Oh, woe is us if John Edwards becomes Vice President"

OH PLEASE, DADDY CHENEY PLEASE SAVE US FROM CERTAIN DEATH AND DESTRUCTION BY KEEPING JOHN EDWARDS OUT OF YOUR JOB!

Fourth of July

So it is, happy Independence Day, Americans.

The Cato Institute weighs in on supporting the principles of Independence Day:

"In these and countless other ways, in the name of helping us, government throws us all in a common pot and decides for us. We "pursue happiness" not as individuals but collectively -- through government. We've turned Jefferson's order on its head. Is it any wonder that so many of us are "unhappy" with the programs we get, with the choices government makes for us? Imagine if government chose our national religious program. When government chooses everything, individuals choose nothing. Look at North Korea for the extreme example of that."

*****

"It is certainly rather a curious thing, that after more than eighty years of national existence, we should have hit upon no better way of celebrating the birth-day of our nation than by a clumsy imitation of the old Roman saturnalia," a New York Times editorial complained in 1859. "By one of the most whimsical freaks imaginable," griped the editors, "the burning of powder has become the one significant ceremony of the national patriotism in keeping its highest Saint's day." --from The Patriot Act the Right's op-ed piece by Jonah Goldberg, editor at large of National Review Online

*****

"If you are one of those who love what President Bush has done for this country and believe you must blindly follow the president to deserve to fly the flag, you should ask yourself some difficult questions about just how proud you are of the America we now inhabit:

Are you proud that one in six children lives in poverty in America?

Are you proud that 40 million adult Americans are functional illiterates?

Are you proud that the bulk of the jobs being created these days are low- and minimum-wage jobs?

Are you proud of asking your fellow Americans to live on $5.15 an hour?

Are you proud that, according to a National Geographic Society survey, 85% of young adult Americans cannot find Iraq on the map (and 11% cannot find the United States!)?

Are you proud that the rest of the world, which poured out its heart to us after Sept. 11, now looks at us with disdain and disgust?

Are you proud that nearly 3 billion people on this planet do not have access to clean drinking water when we have the resources and technology to remedy this immediately?

Are you proud of the fact that our president sent our soldiers off to a war that had nothing to do with the self-defense of this country?"

-- The Patriot Act, the Left's op-ed piece by Michael Moore.

*****

Meanwhile, back in Gotham City, Some 36,000 fireworks will burst in the New York sky tonight to celebrate the nation's independence

In addition, a 20-ton chunk of granite from the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York will be placed inside the 70-foot deep foundation of what used to be the WTC, launching a five-year construction plan for a 1,776-foot skyscraper that will become an iconic symbol for the New York City skyline, The Freedom Tower, or, what might later be known as the world's largest terrorist target.

*****

Wondering how Saddam will be celebrating? Perhaps with a game of Rock, Paper, Saddam

*****

4th Of July
Chris Cornell, Soundgarden

Shower in the dark day
Clean sparks diving down
Cool in the waterway
Where the baptized drown
Naked in the cold sun
Breathing life like fire
Thought I was the only one
But that was just a lie

Cause I heard it in the wind
And I saw it in the sky
And I thought it was the end
And I thought it was the 4th of July

Pale in the flare light
The scared light cracks & disappears
And leads the scorched ones here
And everywhere no one cares
The fire is spreading
And no one wants to speak about it
Down in the hole
Jesus tries to crack a smile
Beneath another shovel load

And I heard it in the wind
And I saw it in the sky
And I thought it was the end
And I thought it was the 4th of July

Now I'm in control
Now I'm in the fall out
Once asleep but now I stand
And I still remember
Your sweet everything
Light a Roman candle
And hold it in your hand

Cause I heard it in the wind
And I saw it in the sky
And I thought it was the end
And I thought it was the 4th of July

Music: Cornell; Lyrics: Cornell

*****

And perhaps most importantly of all on this 4th of July, Todos por Portugal! as we await kickoff this evening of the Portugal-Greece final of the Euro 2004.

Go Fuck Yourself!

Desultory Turgescence, fresh from the absinthe and pilsner killing fields of Zizkov, is admittedly a little late coming to this turgid slice of Republican expressiveness, but just the other day, it appears the Vice President of the United States, the man a mere heartbeat from the Presidency, told Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, "go fuck yourself", after the vice president complained he didn't like the Vermont Democrat attacking Halliburton. The Pentagon says Halliburton, formerly headed by Cheney, overcharged taxpayers $186 million in Iraq, and Leahy calls it war profiteering.

Better still, he was almost self-congratulatory in his defence of himself, telling Mr Cavuto on the Al Jazeera of America, Fox News, "I think that a lot of my colleagues felt that what I had said badly needed to be said, that it was long overdue."

It is, in the opinions of many, the precise expression the Bush Administration has lovingly doled out to its opponents internationally at home, time and time again. If you don't like it, Go Fuck Yourself.

"Go Fuck Yourself" should become the Republican Party's Presidential Campaign Slogan. In fact, it should be everyone's official slogan.

So sing along with the editors of Desultory Turgescence in celebration of the greatest of the ruling party of America: (to the tune of "Here Comes the Bride")

Go Fuck Yourself,
Go Fuck Yourself.
Go Fuck Yourself,
you terrorist-loving surrender monkey.

(well, you get the picture)...

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.

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!

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"

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.

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?

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.

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.

"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,"

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.

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.