micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links

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.

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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
AlterNet (War on Iraq)
Alternative Press Review
Always Low Prices -- Always
Another Irani online
antiwar.com (blog)
Asia Times Online
Axis of Logic
Baghdad Burning (riverbend)
BBC News
blogdex.net ("track this weblog")
bobanddavid.com
BuzzFlash
The Christian Science Monitor (Daily Update)
Common Dreams
Cryptome
Cursor
Daily Rotten
DefenseLINK
Democracy Now
The Drudge Report
Eat the Press (Harry Shearer, The Huffington Post)
Empire Notes (Rahul Mahajan)
frontpagemag.com (HorowitzWatch)
globalsecurity.org
greenandwhite.com
Guardian Unlimited
Haaretz
The Independent
Information Clearing House
Informed Comment (Juan Cole)
Iranians for Peace

Iraq Dispatches (Dahr Jamail)
Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation
Iraq Occupation and Resistance Report (Psychoanalysts for Peace and Justice)
MetaFilter
MLive
Mr. Show and Other Comedy
The Narco News Bulletin (blog)
NEWSMAKINGNEWS
The New York Times
Occupation Watch
Political Theory Daily Review
Press Action
Project Syndicate
Raed in the Middle (Raed Jarrar)
random-abstract.com
Reuters
Salon
The Simpsons Archive
Simpsons Collector Sector
Slate
Sploid
Technorati ("search for mth.blogspot.com")
thi3rdeye
United States Central Command
U.S. Embassy Baghdad, Iraq
venezuelanalysis.com
War Report (Project on Defense Alternatives)
The Washington Post
Wildfire (Jo Wilding)
wood s lot
www.mnftiu.cc (David Rees)

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
As'ad AbuKhalil
Ken Adrian
Christopher Allbritton
Alli
Douglas Anders
Mark W. Anderson
Aziz Ansari
Atomic Archive
Bagatellen
James Benjamin
Elton Beard
Charlie Bertsch
alister black
Blame India Watch
Blixa
Blog Left: Critical Interventions Warblog / war blog
Igor Boog
Martin Butler
Chris Campbell
James M. Capozzola
Avedon Carol
Elaine Cassel
cats blog
Jeff Chang
Margaret Cho
Citizens Of Upright Moral Character
Louis CK
Les Dabney
Dack
Natalie Davis
Scoobie Davis
The Day Job
Jodi Dean
Dominic Duval
Steve Earle
Eli
Daniel Ellsberg
Tom Engelhardt
Lisa English
Faramin
Barbara Flaska
Brian Flemming
Joe Foster
Yoshie Furuhashi
Al Giordano
Glovefox
Rob Goodspeed
Grand Puba
Guardian Unlimited Weblog
Pete Guither
The Hairy Eyeball
Ray Hanania
Mark Hand
harveypekar.com
Hector Rottweiller Jr's Web Log Jim Henley Arvin Hill Hit & Run (Reason) Hugo Clark Humphrey Indri The Iraqi Agora Dru Oja Jay Jeff Lynne d Johnson Dallas Jones Julia Kane Blues Benjamin Kepple Ken Layne Phil Leggiere Brian Linse Adam Magazine Majority Report Radio Marc Maron Josh Marshall Jeralyn Merritt J.R. Mooneyham Michael Scott Moore Bob Morris Bob Mould Mr. Show and Tell Muslims For Nader/Camejo David Neiwert NewPages Weblog Aimee Nezhukumatathil Sean O'Brien Patton Oswalt The Panda's Thumb Randy Paul Rodger A. Payne Ian Penman politx Neal Pollack Greg Proops Pro-War.com Pure Polemics Seyed Razavi Rayne Simon Reynolds richardpryor.com Clay Richards Mike Rogers Yuval Rubinstein
Steven Rubio
Saragon Noah Shachtman Court Schuett The Simpsons Archive Amardeep Singh Sam Smith Soundbitten Jack Sparks Ian Spiers Morgan Spurlock Stand Down: The Left-Right Blog Opposing an Invasion of Iraq Aaron Stark Morgaine Swann Tapped (The American Prospect) tex Matthew Tobey Annie Tomlin Tom Tomorrow The University Without Condition Jesse Walker Warblogger Watch Diane Warth The Watchful Babbler The Weblog we have brains Matt Welch
Alex Whalen
Jon Wiener
Lizz Winstead
James Wolcott
Wooster Collective
Mickey Z

Friday, January 09, 2004
 
A conversation and other notes

Yesterday I was enjoying a fine dinner prepared by the employees of one Long John Silver's eatery when a small Chinese man with no right hand and only three fingers on his left hand used his cane to hobble up to my table and, as several dozen do each day, tell me, "Dr. Holmquist, I used to be a follower Howard Ahmanson Jr. but then, in a moment of great need, I came across your teachings and brought you into my life. I now know a perfect peace that I try to share with others."

"Thank you," I said as I always tell my faithful disciples. "That means a lot to me."

The man continued by asking two questions that millions have asked me since the posting of "Help me Dr. Zaius" yesterday. "How did you figure out that Bush was trying to emulate Dr. Zaius and is their ostensible interest in La Battaglia di Algeri (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1965) really an attempt to keep us from knowing the truth?"

"The answer to your second question my dear friend," I said, "is yes. The answer to your first question is that it is certainly possible and I have yet to see any proof that this is not a valid explanation."

***

Plenty More on The Battle of Algiers.

***

I'm thoroughly unimpressed with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's report "WMD in Iraq - Evidence and Implications." Yes it is nice to know that it appear that intelligence was likely exaggerated and distorted by the Bush Administration to bolster their case for war, but the report falls like a bad fishing analogy for the idea that Saddam/Iraq having weapons of mass destruction meant Saddam/Iraq was a threat. Furthermore it doesn't acknowledge that the continuation of the status quo was hardly a good thing for the people of Iraq and, given how things have turned out so far, the act of the U.S. removing Saddam from power was arguably better than the continuation of sanctions. Such a failure is common amongst many of those who want "peace," by which they mean anything less than an all-out war.

***

Responding to "WMD in Iraq - Evidence and Implications" yesterday, State Department head Colin Powell said, amongst other things, "[w}here the debate is, is why haven't we found huge stockpiles, and why haven't we found large caches of these weapons. Let's let the Iraqi Survey Group complete its work."

Along with ignoring a question about whether or not Iraq was an "imminent threat" to the United States, Powell addressed the issue of a connection between al Qaeda and Iraq by saying, "I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection, but I think the possibility of such connections did exist and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did."

Funny Powell had something quite different to say in September of 2002.

***

"The failure to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction looks set to dog the Bush administration in an election year amid persistent accusations it exaggerated evidence in making a case for war," Tabassum Zakaria writes in a Reuters story published yesterday.

***

Freedom? Liberation?

***

Are we safe yet? Apparently not. Rummy is said to be considering "a proposal to expand special operations forces and send them to destroy insurgency strongholds along the Lebanese-Syrian border" and actions in Somalia may happen before the shortest month of the year begins.