micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links |
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Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm. Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net. Holmquist's full archives are listed here.
Archives
Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution) Aljazeera.Net English Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development) Thivai Abhor |
Sunday, November 30, 2003
Yankees in the coalition of the willing's court Richard Pryor: Live in Concert (Jeff Margolis, 1979) is perhaps the finest example of film documenting an event that was not designed for cinematic purposes, specifically a comedy concert by Richard Pryor in Long Beach, California. The lighting wasn't great, the picture quality wasn't the best (and having only seen it on dvd and vhs, I suspect it has only declined marginally since the theatrical release) and the cinematography wasn't innovative. But with only or two glaring counterexamples, the film worked because it focused primarily on Pryor from static and nearly-static positions, which allowed film viewers to see the stand-up act in a manner that was decent, although hardly perfect, substitute for the experience of seeing the performance live. (That it was shown in theaters where people could laugh in unison no doubt only heightened this quality.) Pryor's humor, pathos and social commentary come out in the frantic performance. Richard Pryor: Live in Concert documented a performance by one individual and so it was possible to record the full scope of what was happening on stage. Editing and camera location may be important to the picture but their strength comes from not being noticed. The same really isn't possible with a musical concert featuring numerous musicians. Unless an unsatisfactory static faraway shot is used, viewers of the recorded product must depend on camera shots and editing to get a view of what is going on. An impressive job in those areas means the very opposite of not being noticed. Astute viewers should realize that they are seeing the concert through the eyes of film makers since that is the only way to capture the individual nuances. An excellent example of this is the recently released two-dvd set Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live in Barcelona. Director Chris Hilson and editor Thom Zimny document a complete concert from last year with mix a fade ins and fade outs, multiple camera angles and zoom shots in a manner that's nowhere near the level of Godard but which is quite impressive compared to most of the usually dull musical concert constructions, including Hilson and Zimny's previous work Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: Live in New York City (2001). Unfortunately the release's bonus features are pointless short documentaries. A look at the process of filming the concert would have been a welcome addition. Of course nobody besides film makers and hardcore students of film would care much about the representation of the performance in such endeavors if the performance wasn't stellar. As should be expected given Bruce Springsteen's reputation as a live performer, the set doesn't disappoint in that area. Recorded last year on October 16 in Spain, Violinist Soozie Tyrell augments the by now standard E Street Band lineup of keyboardist Roy Bittain, saxophonist Clarence Clemmons, organist Danny Federici, guitarist Nils Lofgren, guitarist Patty Scialfa, bassist Garry W. Tallent, guitarist Steve Van Zandt and drummer Max Weinberg. Ten of the 24 songs they perform are off of last year's The Rising (Columbia Records), which keeps the group from sounding like a nostalgia act even if the tried and true distorted segue is used with no shame. The material not from The Rising comes from 1980's The River (Columbia) and earlier albums with three notable exceptions. "Born in the U.S.A" has been restored to a rock anthem, a style I find far more compelling than the folk version even if I do see how this bigger sound could mask the message. "Dancing in the Dark" has been updated in a spunky fashion that may make this the best version of the song ever. (Previously I'd say that nod went to Mary Chapin Carpenter's cover of it which appeared as a b-side to her 1999 single "Almost Home" (Columbia).) "Land of Hope and Dreams," in contrast, could use a rest. The crowd plays a noticeable role in this recording, humming and singing along they are the 11th band member. None of it is as awe-inspiring as the sound of the crowd during "Badlands" on Live in New York City but the effect is heard on just about every song here. Springsteen plays into this with apparent ease, giving just enough space to the audience. Live in New York City featured Springsteen proselytizing for rock and roll. On the new discs he comes across as calmer, though no less persuasive. Audience members bought a ticket. They know the music can be an experience. So Springsteen goes out and shows them and, in the process, makes it clear to all to entertaining a crowd can be amongst the highest artistic practices. *** "Lonesome Day" is second song on the dvd. First appearing on The Rising, one voice "Lonesome Day" is a person struggling to come to terms with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. "A little revenge and this too shall pass," he says. How quaint that idea sounds in light of the theoretically never-ending "war on terror" that Team Bush is pursuing. In a November 19 speech in London, U.S. President George W. Bush said one "pillar of security is our commitment to the global expansion of democracy, and the hope and progress it brings, as the alternative to instability and to hatred and terror. We cannot rely exclusively on military power to assure our long-term security. Lasting peace is gained as justice and democracy advance." Is this because non-democracies inherently create violent dislike of the United States, as Bush asserts, or is it because "democracy" doesn't literally mean a democracy but rather a country with a government that is in line with the wishes of Uncle Sam and anything else is unaceptable? With apologies to Slavoj Zizek, is even posing this question is to ask the unaskable? Saturday, November 29, 2003
Happy Iraq UPDATE: Michigan State 77 *** Matt Drudge writes: Hillary trashes Bush and war effort onHow dare she! 9:56 p.m. 11/29/03 Friday, November 28, 2003
Shopping Day notes Although they'd presumably encounter resistance from all the lobbyists who work for Adbusters, the House and Senate of these here United States of America ought to declare the day after Thanksgiving to be "Shopping Day." *** We celebrate this holiday, to commemorate the fact that we destroyed and demolished almost an entire race of people...Cho goes further and her tone isn't unique. But Thanksgiving isn't about "Native Americans" is any active way, shape or form for most who celebrate it. They are irrelevant and ignored. And, as Bill Blakemore points out in his reading of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980), perhaps that is just as bad. *** As you don't need me to tell you, U.S. President George W. Bush made a surprise appearance in Baghdad yesterday to meet with some U.S. troops on Thanksgiving. Many said they haven't been this touched since Dean Martin and Bob Hope's surprise appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Bush gave a speech and also talked with "reporters" about the trip: I thank you for honoring the confidentiality necessary to pull this off. I made the decision to go because I wanted our troops, not only that were there to have dinner, but the troops in harm's way to know that their Commander-in-Chief, and, more importantly, their country support. And I thought the best way to do that would be to spend time with them on Thanksgiving to thank them and to send a message -- you know, the message I sent, which is we appreciate their sacrifices...Bush says that his mom and dad didn't know about the trip. Matt Drudge has published what he says are "Mike Allen's [WASH POST] Private Notes" on the trip. "President Bush took a modest risk flying into Baghdad to visit U.S. troops on Thanksgiving, experts say," Dave Moniz writes for USA Today. I suppose but this risk seems small compared to the invasion of Iraq, especially if Team Bush really did believe that Saddam Hussein had the biological and chemical weapons they claimed he had. *** Via Blogdex, Jennifer Viegas of Discovery News writes in a November 25 story: A study that compared humans with other species concluded there are 1,000 times too many humans to be sustainable.There probably is somebody of equal stature who disagrees with this entire inquiry, of course. I found the website of Proceedings B but not the study. Probably doesn't make much difference as I suspect I wouldn't understand it. Nonetheless dramatic changes are needed. We shouldn't be like the commie weaklings in China with their one child policy. Nope we need a Zero Child Policy with the punishment of death dispensed to any woman found to be pregnant as soon as the father, who will also be executed, is determined. That way, non-compliance furthers the goal. Thursday, November 27, 2003
One aspect of Liberation In a story from Tuesday, which I found via Justin Raimondo's "GO F*CK YOURSELF, MR. PRESIDENT" column, the AP writes: One of four American MPs charged with beating prisoners of war at a detention camp in Iraq said Tuesday: "We were doing our jobs. ... It is war. It is not back home where everybody is safe."While perhaps not an isolated incident, this ought to be at least as big of a news story as allegations against former pop star that are extremely vague at this point in time. I mean it isn't as if those who support the "war on terror" can't say that what this case really makes clear is that the military won't tolerate this type of abuse. Smart folks of a different persuasion then could point out that yes that is true but such incidents could fuel anti-occupation sentiments and also that the desire of the U.S. military to look like it is not brutalizing the Iraqi people probably stems from the quite understandable desire on the part of Team Bush to not inflame those inclined to such sentiments. Then they could say another product of this desire is that the U.S. did not just go in and engage in regular slaughters, even though such a move could have a avoided a lot of the current problems. And the dialogue on t.v. would be far smarter than it currently is or probably will be in time soon, if ever. On a related note, Rory McCarthy writes in yesterday's Guardian: The US military has paid out $1.5m (£907,000) to Iraqi civilians in response to a wave of negligence and wrongful death claims filed against American soldiers, the Guardian has learned.McCarthy goes on to write that these incidents are creating opposition to the occupation. Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Kansas 81 Michigan State 74 The road woes of my beloved Spartans apparently didn't end with last season. The most important statistic is that Kansas scored 81 points, which is a lot of points for MSU to give up. They play Pennsylvania on Saturday in East Lansing. Soon it will come time for Tom Izzo to start questioning his decision to book the schedule that he did. Some traditions are so predictable. Tuesday, November 25, 2003
God, guns and meat The U.S. military is too strong and needs to be weakened, U.S. President George W. Bush said yesterday in the signing ceremony for the National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2004. More important than this fictional shocking change in policy, yesterday Bush took time out of his busy schedule to “pardon” –yeah it is unseemly given Bush's relationship with the death penalty- "Stars, the turkey" and "Stripes," another turkey. This traditional practice actually had a process: This year's turkey was picked from among a group of 40 birds hatched on July 10 in a turkey barn in the Carthage, Missouri area.What those "responsibilities" are or how the turkey is chosen isn't clear. Here's some of what Bush said: This year, as in other times in our history, we can be especially grateful for the courage and faithfulness of those who defend us. Every man and woman who wears our country's uniform is a volunteer, facing hardships and sometimes peril, because they believe in this country and our cause. We're thinking of them and their families. We think of the military families that have suffered loss. We can be grateful to live in a country that has produced such good and brave people who stand between us and the dangers of the world.I’m not particularly knowledgeable about science but I suspect that it is scientifically impossible for any event to be more of a symbolic ritual than this. It has the trappings of acting on the belief that turkeys are creatures who do not deserve to be killed solely for the pleasure of humans but that isn’t is the message at all. If it were, Bush couldn’t say the people of the United States have “compassion” knowing that so many of them will eat turkeys later this week, and that many do it every day. However, apparently it is fun to pretend that turkeys can feel pain and deserve to be left alone by humans so let’s do it! *** On Thursday Bush said he believes Christians and Muslims "worship the same God." "Evangelical Christian leaders expressed dismay yesterday over President Bush's statement that Christians and Muslims worship the same god, saying it had caused discomfort within his conservative religious base," Alan Cooperman writes in Saturday's Washington Post: The Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, ...issued a statement contradicting Bush.I have to love that message of love from Haggard's group: June 29, 2003They of course say that the Bible says homosexuality is wrong. Because they are probably more familiar with at least English translations of that book than me, I will take their word for it, but why? Why make such acts sins? Their God supposedly controls everything and thus has bound all of the negative qualities they say are associated with homosexuality to homosexuality, so why would he want to associate negative qualities to the act? Answering this question means either accepting that God has some limitations or is a cruel asshole, both of which go against their general worldview. The same thing could be said about a lot of "sins" that don't harm anyone else except for, in some cases, the sinner. Some like murder make sense, but that just raises the question of why would God allow so much suffering in the world? (Any religion that posits that there is a an all-powerful God pissed off at the world has this problem.) In fact, why would God need to be worshipped or have a path to salvation? This sounds like a creature with entirely too much time on her/his/its hands. Perhaps we should create a holiday based on eating the Almighty? *** I was having fun writing this entry till I recalled a passage from Joel Schalit’s Jerusalem Calling: A Homeless Conscience in a Post-Everything World (Akashic Books, 2002): …it is of utmost importance that those involved in struggles against religious conservatism grasp the whole picture and avoid indulging in the snotty hyperbole that many educated radicals tend to proffer, speaking about religious people as though they were backwards or stupid. Many of the people involved in the religious right are not ignorant so much as alienated. Like many minorities and people of color in the United States, they are disenfranchised. Their “backwards” worldview, for all of its inconsistency and prejudice, represents and attempt to compensate for their exclusion from decision-making.I guess I agree with Schalit’s general point and that the way to get around this has to be to create a better "narrative," and by "better" I mean "more attractive." Monday, November 24, 2003
I was recently talking with a nineteen-year-old woman when I made an off the cuff reference about leaving a trail of Reeses Pieces for someone to follow. It was obvious that she didn’t get the joke so I mentioned that it was a reference to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982). She said she had never seen the movie. “What!?!” I said before thinking of something that prompted me to laugh. Finally when I calmed down I explained to her that about a year ago someone a few years older than me was shocked that I had never seen Jaws (Spielberg), a movie that came out in 1975 or two years before I was born. Sunday, November 23, 2003
Related Here are some more Mr. Show related links to go with those I posted on November 4. Enjoy! *** Here are some links related to cinema. *** Here are some more links that may or may not be related to other matters. *** For good measure, here are a few more former bookmarks of mine that I hope of are at least some use to you as cleaning them out was good for your humble blogger. UPDATE: Then there are these. 11:49 a.m. 11/24/03 UPDATE #2: More virtual cleaning fun for you, me and other readers besides you to enjoy. This might continue because a lot of bookmarks remain and this forces me to read them. 12:36 p.m. 11/24/03 UPDATE #3: The path continues a bit further than before. 2:20 p.m. 11/24/03 UPDATE #4: Although these links are thrown up without description, I have visited them all and found the time well spent, or at least well spent for time spent on the web. 7:48 a.m. 11/25/03 UPDATE #5: Why am I doing this? I think the answer is I have a tendency towards obsesssive-compulsive behavoir, which is also what causes me to have so many bookmarks. Well that and too many interests. 4:01 p.m. 11/25/03 UPDATE #6: So many bookmarks eliminated. So many left to go. 4:49 p.m. 11/25/03 UPDATE #7: It is hard to stop. 5:31 p.m. 11/25/03 UPDATE #8: Some more. 10:33 a.m. 11/26/03 UPDATE #9: The deletion of bookmarks continues and actually shows no sign of ending any time soon. 9:04 a.m. 11/27/03 UPDATE #10: More of the same, except these are different from the others. Please enjoy! 2:54 p.m. 11/28/03 UPDATE #11: Here are even more former bookmarks. Then there are these. 3:33 p.m. 11/28/03 UPDATE #12: This is also a collection of former bookmarks of the person writing these words. Perhaps amongst them are one or more of the former booksmarks of someone else. Perhaps they are currently amongst someone's bookmarks and also will become the same to another person in the future. Perhaps you know one or more of these people. Might that be you? 6:39 p.m. 11/28/03 UPDATE #13: Fewer Bookmarks! Fewer Bookmarks! Fewer Bookmarks! 7:18 p.m. 11/28/03 UPDATE #14: It seems like the cleaning will never end, although the viewing is certainly most enjoyable. 9:11 p.m. 11/28/03 UPDATE #15: Stopping is not easy, but this will have to be the last batch of former bookmarks for today. Hope you enjoy them, although this hope is not all that strong. 10:21 p.m. 11/28/03 UPDATE #16: However much fun it may have been at one point in time, the process of writing these collections of words, which have no real purpose other than allowing the publishing of a bunch of links, has grown to be what could, or perhaps even "should," be termed "very tiresome." All that said, here are some more former bookmarks that just might be of some interest to some person or another. But then again... 2:25 p.m. 11/29/03 UPDATE #17: The world wide web just has too many pages. Most of them should be eliminated or something. Perhaps these former bookmarks are the final former bookmarks of today. Perhaps not. 3:52 p.m. 11/29/03 UPDATE #18: Barring some change in plans, these will be the last links in this entry. Enjoy or Else!!! 3:54 p.m. 11/30/03 UPDATE #19: Consider this a slight change in plans. Perhaps the links linked to the very words now being read are the last links (final former bookmarks) for this entry. 5:44 p.m. 11/30/03 Saturday, November 22, 2003
Today's notes The Michigan State men's basketball team opened up the season last night with a not very impressive 64-52 win over Bucknell in East Lansing. From the AP: Michigan State coach Tom Izzo was disgusted with his team's effort. The Spartans outrebounded Bucknell 42-39 but often allowed the Bison to take uncontested shots.Nex up is a road game against Kansas. UPDATE: More on the Bucknell win from The Lansing State Journal. Also from that paper, on a semi-related note, here are three pieces on the MSU football team. *** I may comment more on James Lileks' attack on Salam Pax later but right now suffice to say the message seems to be, "Hey we gave you freedom so shut the fuck up." Via the blogdex page of links to Lileks page I once again visited nicedoggie.net and saw this call for genocide: This is what sells in the streets of the terrortories.Oh I don't know, maybe BECUASE THEY ARE HUMANS or something. By the way, I followed the link and what is displayed is disgusting but the assumption about these items being common seems unfounded. Not that they care... One of them mocks the deaths of AMERICANS and they all should die! They all need to pay for the sins of the few! Now where have I heard that logic? 12:40 p.m. 11/22/03 UPDATE #2: The Michigan State football team finished up the regular season today in East Lansing with a 41-10 win against Penn State. Now awaiting a bowl bid, the team is now 8-4 overall and finished 5-3 in Big Ten play. That makes this not only the team's best season since 1999 but also the first time since that year that they did not have a losing record in conference play. 11:56 p.m. 11/22/03 Friday, November 21, 2003
Humor Yesterday evening I was in the pet food aisle of a grocery store when I see a white guy that I estimate to be within five years of 45 with a Bush/Cheney 04 hat. Thinking that my buddy Max could use one, I say, "Hey nice hat! Where do you get it?" "I bought it on georgewbushstore.com," he replies [link added, of course]. "Cool I'll have to check that site out," I say in a voice that reflected my indecision on whether to try to sound earnest or to make my sarcasm clear. "I sure hope Bush is reelected. I don't think we are going to have defeated the terrorists by the end of his current term." "That's why we have to work hard to vote Republican," said he. Not really sure why but at this point I raised a clenched fist in the air and said, "Vote Republican!" Then I walked away, unable to keep from laughing. *** More amusing is the Gen. Leon J. LaPorte and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld comedy team: LaPorte: Thank you.*** What doesn't look funny is The Cat in the Hat movie. Thursday, November 20, 2003
Towards framing the debate over what was known about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq Truth will not make us free, but taking control of the production of truth will. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Harvard University Press, 2000) John Diamond writes in yesterday's USA Today: CIA Director George Tenet has ordered investigators to substantially widen their internal probe of Iraq intelligence to consider whether the agency missed telltale signs that Iraq had gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion last March.This matter is of great controversy and it is hard to talk about without getting into debates about whether or not the invasion of Iraq was justified, something that Saragon recently made clear if it wasn't beforehand. Still keeping an eye on the government's actions is important, especially when the action involves war, and so questions do need to be asked. Before they can be formulated, some agreement needs to be reached. Specifically, there needs to be agreement that Team Bush not only said Saddam Hussein's regime had weapons of mass destruction but also that at various times they said the regime presently had the ability and the motive to strike the U.S. and that this was one of the reasons given for invading Iraq. If agreement isn't there on these points, the rest of this discussion is pointless, but if there is agreement the following are questions of great importance... 1) What did Team Bush know about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? 2) What did Team Bush believe about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? 3) If the answer to 2) is different from the answer to 1), what explains this difference? Specifically, was it a matter of the information they had and didn't have, the analysis of this information or both? 4) What did Team Bush know about "the threat" posed by Saddam's regime? 5) What did Team Bush believe about "the threat" posed by Saddam's regime? 6) If the answer to 5) is different from 4), what explains the difference? Was it a matter of the information they had and didn't have, the analysis of this information or both? 7) Did inclinations to a particular policy, set of policies, action or set of actions influence how Team Bush collected and/or analyzed data related to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the threat coming from Saddam's regime? If so, how and what particular policy, set of policies, action or set of actions were the inclinations for? 8) Were Team Bush's statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the threat posed by Saddam's regime consistent with what they knew and what they believed? If not, what were the differences? Specifically, did they say and/or imply they knew more or less about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq than they actually did and did they say and/or imply that they knew more or less about the threat from Saddam's regime than they actually did? 9) Were the actions of Team Bush consistent with regard to Iraq consistent with the answers to questions 1), 2), 4) and 5). If not, how were they different? A few things needs to be clarified. First, by Team Bush, I mean not only the Bush Administration but also those directly part of the Bush Administration's governing apparatus. For example, an assistant to Secretary of State Colin Powell might actually be an employee of the State Department but should be considered part of Team Bush due to Powell's position. Second, there almost certainly were differences amongst members of Team Bush on the matters touched upon in these questions. This doesn't mean that there are not answers to these questions but rather that the answers need to take this into account when applicable. There are also going to be issues time -when did they know what they knew?- that complicate answers. Finally, it is very possible that answers to all of these questions will not be forthcoming and/or that the answers that do become available are lacking in terms of clarity. While unfortunate, this does not mean that the pursuit of answers to these questions is misguided as any answers that do come out will be important in developing an historical evaluation of the Team Bush's level of honesty and their drive towards invading Iraq. Wednesday, November 19, 2003
None I deal with this here but it deserves to be said more forcefully... In the final paragraph of The Weekly Standard piece about the memo suggesting ties between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda, "Case Closed," Stephen F. Hayes writes, "...there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to plot against Americans." Complete and utter bullshit. Nothing in his article documents that Saddam's regime and al Qaeda worked together "to plot against Americans." If the ties turn out to in fact be true (hardly a given, especially since other intellignece looks to have been less than without fault), is it possible? Certainly. Likely? Maybe. A given? No, and the excuse for logic that suggests otherwise is very similar to the “logic” behind the idea that any weapons of mass destruction that Saddam ever had or may have ever had existed only for him to use against the U.S. and any ambition for such weapons was certainly an ambition to attack the U.S. UPDATE: Via Matthew Barganier of antiwar.com, here's a bit from a Daily Mirror report by Bob Roberts (snicker) on U.S. President George W. Bush's cancellation of a speech before the British Parliament: The US president planned to give a joint address to the Commons and Lords during his state visit to Britain."How dare they!" important intellectual Max Standard said. "How dare anyone even think about breaching ettiquete in the presence of the Grand Leader in the Global Fight for Freedom and Fun! I hope they assign [Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J.] Feith to look into how widespread this sentiment in this European country and determine what bit of Nazi nomenclature is necessary to eliminate this fifth column." 12:35 p.m. 11/19/03 UPDATE #2 Saragon has responded to this entry in the comments section of this post. His objections were that any relationship with al Qaeda could be considered to amount to a "plot against Americans" and that, independent of the previous argument, a number of points in the memo did indicate something of a plot. My response: If any cooperation with any person linked to al Qaeda constitutes plotting against �Americans,� o.k. But I don�t buy that statement. Too little is known about what was done. If you want to say Saddam�s regime was �with the terrorists,� fine but that difference that actively plotting against. I don�t think it is unreasonable to leave open the possibility that al Qaeda was told by Saddam�s regime not to use certain weapons against the U.S., although I�m not saying any evidence exists that this was the case, as survival on Saddam�s part very well could have looked to him to amount to not pissing off the U.S. Could he prevent such attacks? Probably not but that doesn�t look like a �plot� to me. If someone sells a gun to Mulder Murder and MM goes out and kills someone, the seller may be negligent in selling to a suspicious character but in and of itself the sale was not a plot.*** *** Joe Rexrode's Lansing State Journal preview of this year's Michigan State men's basketball team doesn't adequately consider that basketball is about more than just raw skills and talents. A lot of it is, to sound cliched, grit and determination. There was no doubt that the 1999-2000 team had that as they won 22 straight games before losing to Duke in the national semi-finals. A lot of those games were on the road and/or involved comebacks. Last year's team didn't do that and if they are to win a national championship they are likely going to have to grow just a bit more as players. *** Sarah Schmidt of the CanWest News Service reports on the popularity on of The Simpsons amongst children in Canada. The Simpsons is the most popular television show among Canadian children, according to a new survey of kids aged 8 to 15 to be released today.Who did the survey isn't clear from the story, although it turns out to be the Canadian Teachers' Federation. 1:54 p.m. 11/20/03 UPDATE #3: Part of me doesn't want to make fun of Hayes because I do think the publication of his story is a good thing, but I've spent enough time with the piece that the majority of me says, "Do It." ...reporting, from... [a] "well placed" source:That's analysis?10. The Director of Iraqi Intelligence, Mani abd-al-Rashid al-Tikriti, met privately with bin Laden at his farm in Sudan in July 1996. Tikriti used an Iraqi delegation traveling to Khartoum to discuss bilateral cooperation as his "cover" for his own entry into Sudan to meet with bin Laden and Hassan al-Turabi. The Iraqi intelligence chief and two other IIS officers met at bin Laden's farm and discussed bin Laden's request for IIS technical assistance in: a) making letter and parcel bombs; b) making bombs which could be placed on aircraft and detonated by changes in barometric pressure; and c) making false passport [sic]. Bin Laden specifically requested that [Brigadier Salim al-Ahmed], Iraqi intelligence's premier explosives maker--especially skilled in making car bombs--remain with him in Sudan. The Iraqi intelligence chief instructed Salim to remain in Sudan with bin Laden as long as required. ...few people in the U.S. government are expressly looking for such links. There is no Iraq-al Qaeda equivalent of the CIA's 1,400-person Iraq Survey Group currently searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction.Yeah like that's been a serious search. *** Hayes gives more details on the memo in "The Saddam-Osama Memo (cont.)" In it Hayes mentions some comments from former Central Intelligence Agency Director during the Clinton era James Woolsey's comments on last Sunday's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. Here is the relevant exchange: BLITZER: Let me go -- Director Woolsey, wrap up this segment for us. There's an article in the Weekly Standard that came out, referring to a memo that Doug Feith wrote, a top Pentagon official, to the chairman and the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, suggesting that the linkage, the evidence, the intelligence evidence involving al Qaeda's relationship with Saddam Hussein, goes back more than a decade.This is even more proof that idiocy is a bipartisan quality. *** More on this general topic can be found here, here, here and here. At this point, I think this discussion has pretty much hit a dead end and this is where it will remain unless, or perhaps until, more data comes out. The Weekly Standard could certainly help this along by releasing the memo, although it is understandable if they don't want to. 3:12 p.m. 11/20/03 Tuesday, November 18, 2003
Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction were a threat but aren't any longer, got it! By Max Standard Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction were once a deadly threat America. Well Operation Iraqi Freedom took care of that. I'm not sure how since Saddam is still unaccounted for and the weapons of mass destruction have not been declared non-existent, but President George W. Bush said on April 24 that "one thing is for certain: Saddam Hussein no longer threatens America with weapons of mass destruction" so it must be true. And there is no reason to concern yourself with Sunday's Associated Press report by Dafna Lizner: The Iraqi scientist who headed Saddam Hussein's long-range missile program has fled to neighboring Iran, a country identified as a state sponsor of terrorism with a successful missile program and nuclear ambitions, U.S. officers involved in the weapons hunt told The Associated Press.Nope, President Bush said on May 2, "[o}ne thing is for certain: Terrorists will no longer have a source of weapons of mass destruction in the regime that used to be in Iraq." Nor should you worry about what Josh Marshall's reporting on inadequate steps being taken by the occupying force in Iraq to make sure that knowledge about weapons of mass destruction does not spread. On August 14 President Bush said, "Because of our military, catastrophic weapons will no longer be in the hands of a reckless, unstable dictator. Because of our military, Middle Eastern countries no longer fear subversion and attack by Saddam Hussein," which means that he is right. Max Standard is an important intellectual who always tells the pro-American truth. His piece "Troops" appeared in yesterday's edition of this blog. |
