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

Sunday, February 29, 2004
 
The Haitian example

Jean Bertrand Aristide is out, Boniface Alexandre is in and conditions might be better. (But maybe they aren't.)

Oh yeah, Team Bush is probably quite pleased. "President Aristide resigned," the Aristide of the United States said today. "I would urge the people of Haiti to reject violence, to give this break from the past a chance to work. And the United States is prepared to help."

This represents a huge change in U.S. policy towards Haiti, which historically has been based on trying to control Haiti, a stance that doesn't appear to have changed recently. But Bush is a man of his word, so we all have to assume that things will be different this time.

I suspect what we see here is an example of how the U.S. would prefer to handle all of these disputes. Destabilize a country with a leader who "needs" to be replaced -you listening Hugo?-, broker a deal and allow a government that is in line with U.S. interests, and knows what the punishment for not doing Uncle Sam's business, to come into being. Then they can dance in the Oval Office or whatever Bush and friends like to do when celebrating.

See, it all works out fine for everyone!

UPDATE: Was the U.S. behind Aristide's resignation?

Jim Defede, Carol Rosenberg and Martin Merzer of The Miami Herald write:

Ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide claims he ''did not resign'' and was ''kidnapped'' by U.S. diplomatic and military officials, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters told The Herald on Monday...

Randall Robinson, former head of TransAfrica and a longtime Aristide friend, also spoke with Aristide and the Aristide's wife on Monday and relayed a similar account. He said Aristide was ''fairly impassioned'' and ``said he did not resign.''

''He said he was taken at gunpoint,'' Robinson said. ``Now I don't know that hands were laid on him. I think when you have big guns, the hands aren't necessary, you get the point.''

It was not completely clear if Aristide was using the term ''kidnapped'' in the literal sense or metaphorically, but Robinson was inclined to take the report literally.

''The point is he was taken against his will,'' Robinson said from his home on the island of St. Kitts. ``That he was clear about, so I don't think it was the metaphorical usage.''

U.S. Ambassador James Foley said in Port-au-Prince on Sunday that Aristide was told Saturday night and Sunday morning that the rebels were advancing, his security could not be guaranteed and he should strongly consider signing a resignation letter and seeking asylum.

Other U.S. officials said they ''facilitated'' Aristide's departure by arranging for a secure airplane and finding a country that would accept him. They said Aristide realized that his shaky hold on power -- and his own safety -- was threatened.

Agence France-Presse writes:
A man who said he was a caretaker for the now exiled president told France's RTL radio station the troops forced Aristide out.

"The American army came to take him away at two in the morning," the man said.

"The Americans forced him out with weapons.

"It was American soldiers. They came with a helicopter and they took the security guards.

"(Aristide) was not happy. He did not want to be taken away. He did not want to leave. He was not able to fight against the Americans."

The radio program Democracy Now says:
Multiple sources that just spoke with Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide told Democracy Now! that Aristide says he was "kidnapped" and taken by force to the Central African Republic. Congressmember Maxine Waters said she received a call from Aristide at 9am EST. "He's surrounded by military. It's like he is in jail, he said. He says he was kidnapped," said Waters. She said he had been threatened by what he called US diplomats. According to Waters, the diplomats reportedly told the Haitian president that if he did not leave Haiti, paramilitary leader Guy Philippe would storm the palace and Aristide would be killed. According to Waters, Aristide was told by the US that they were withdrawing Aristide's US security.

TransAfrica founder and close Aristide family friend Randall Robinson also received a call from the Haitian president early this morning and confirmed Waters account. Robinson said that Aristide "emphatically" denied that he had resigned. "He did not resign," he said. "He was abducted by the United States in the commission of a coup." Robinson says he spoke to Aristide on a cell phone that was smuggled to the Haitian president.

Here's the transcript of Amy Goodman's interview with Maxine Waters on Democracy Now

In a Taipei Times piece entitled "The fire this time in Haiti was US-fueled," Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University says the White House "appears to have succeeded in its long-time goal of toppling Aristide through years of blocking international aid to his impoverished nation."

In a related story, Patrick Markey or Reuters writes:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called U.S. President George W. Bush an "asshole" on Sunday for meddling, and vowed never to quit office like his Haitian counterpart as troops battled with opposition protesters demanding a recall referendum against him.

Chavez, who often says the U.S. is backing opposition efforts to topple his leftist government, accused Bush of heeding advice from "imperialist" aides to support a brief 2002 coup against him.

"He was an asshole to believe them," Chavez roared at a huge rally of supporters in Caracas.

An "asshole" he is, but perhaps one still in the minors. 2:47 p.m. 03/01/04

UPDATE #2: CNN reports that they interviewed Aristide yesterday and that he said he was effectively removed from power by the Uncle Sam.

Aristide "was not kidnaped," Powell said yesterday.

In a story published yesterday, Steven Dudley of The Boston Globe writes:

An accusation in a Miami courtroom last week that President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was personally involved in drug-trafficking apparently gave the United States more leverage to persuade Aristide to leave the country, diplomats in Haiti said yesterday.

The allegation was made Wednesday by Haitian Beaudoin "Jacques" Ketant, a convicted drug-trafficker and a former Aristide confidant, as he was sentenced to a 27-year prison term in federal court in Florida.

Aristide's lawyer angrily denied the allegation, saying Ketant was trying to save himself by making unfounded accusations against Aristide. And the United States has not accused Aristide of involvement in trafficking.

But US officials have been adamant over the last year that Haiti has become an increasingly important transshipment point for cocaine and other illicit drugs into the United States.

The most serious charges of drug-trafficking in Haiti have been leveled not at Aristide but at some of the leaders of the insurgency that had battled to unseat him in a revolt that began Feb. 5 in northern Haiti. Many analysts and diplomats remain nervous of a future Haiti government that includes these powerful rebels, many of them associated with previous, brutal Haitian regimes.

The Florida case highlighted the growth of the drug-trafficking network there. Ketant told the court: "He [Aristide] controlled the drug trade in Haiti. He turned the country into a narco-country. It's a one-man show. You either pay [Aristide] or you die."

Three diplomats based in Haiti who were familiar with the negotiations that led Aristide to leave the country at dawn yesterday said on condition of anonymity that they understood Washington had used Ketant's public words and private cooperation with US prosecutors to add to the pressure on Aristide.

In another March 1 story, Ron Howell of New York Newsday writes:
The departure of Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a victory for a Bush administration hard-liner who has been long dedicated to Aristide's ouster, U.S. foreign policy analysts say.

That official is Roger Noriega, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, whose influence over U.S. policy toward Haiti has increased during the past decade as he climbed the diplomatic ladder in Washington.

One question that Aristide needs to be asked is if he feels he faces the possibility of retaliation for speaking out. It seems odd, but by no means beyond the realm of possibility, that he would be removed and detained, but allowed to say whatever he wanted. Then again, I suppose if government officials and reporters were not able to contact him, an even bigger scandal would appear to be going on.

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Hey Haiti, Uncle Sam will tell you what to do so just shut the hell up! 9:22 a.m. 03/02/04


Saturday, February 28, 2004
 
We don't care about democracy, says Uncle Sam

Remember how creating a society "not ruled by corrupt monarchs or brutal dictators" was the real reason the U.S. had to invade Iraq since this would lead to democracy spreading throughout the Arab world?

Well, unless you want to say Arabs are inherently different from other races of people, which goes against the party line, you can scratch that one off the list of still standing reasons for invading Iraq as Team Bush has all but said they don't believe it.

Armed insurgents in Haiti, who may be a proxy army of the United States, seek to overthrow elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. This situation could have terrible results, if it hasn't already. How has the U.S. responded? By backing up democracy? By threatening to intervene in defense of democracy?

Yeah right.

Even as Team Bush promotes democracy for the Middle East, They make it clear they don't care about it in Haiti. Asked on Thursday about whether Aristide should stay in office, good cop Powell said Aristide "is the democratically elected president, but he has had difficulties in his presidency, and I think as a number of people have commented, whether or not he is able to effectively continue as president is something that he will have to examine. I hope he will examine it carefully, considering the interests of the Haitian people."

How the end of Haitian democracy would impact democracy in the Caribbean is not discussed for reasons that you will just have to guess. Personally I’m worried about tyranny coming to Puerto Rico, and you know what that would mean.

Hit a rough spot and democracy has apparently failed, if the Bush Administration wants it to fail.


 
Michigan State 67
Penn State 42

Yawn

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In last Sunday's Observer, Mark Townsend and Paul Harris write:

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..[sic]

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

More on the fun that might soon happen.

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a nice little outpost

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goddamn socialism

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lying assholes

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To paraphrase Van Halen, don't tell me what John can do.

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freedom

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fiscal responsibility

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Speaking of the good Christian freedom fighter patriots of Grand Rapids, yesterday in that town, which isn't nearly as monolithic as the story I just linked to would have you believe, I saw a "I'll Fight for Freedom" bumper sticker on some SUV. I wonder if it belongs to Jan Scott:

At a school trip to an ice skating rink in downtown Grand Rapids, three mothers said they, too, were cheering for the amendment. "Gay marriage goes against God's plan for a man and a woman to join together," said Jan Scott, a mother of six and a member of the Revenna Baptist Church. "Homosexuals are disillusioned by lies from Satan."

Still, Ms. Scott said, she was fully committed to voting for Mr. Bush even if he remained silent on the subject. "I would have been disappointed, but I still would have supported him," she said, adding, "I know what Bush is like behind the scenes, things that don't get in the press, because I read Christian publications." She recounted an episode she had read about the president touching the injured arm and kissing the forehead of an amputee returning Iraq. "That is the kind of love that comes from God."

God Damn that Satan and Bless that Bush!

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more freedom***

Here are interviews with Ken Auletta, Albert Brooks, Dave Chappelle, David Cross, Larry Flynt, Spalding Gray, Michael Hudson, Neal Pollack and Brian Vaughn.

UPDATE: Here are interviews with Roy Ayers, Barry Blaustein, Margaret Cho, Michael Davis, Janeane Garofalo and Neal Pollack. 5:14 p.m. 02/29/04

UPDATE #2: Here are interviews with Terry Jones and Craig Thompson. 6:51 p.m. 03/01/04


Friday, February 27, 2004
 
Micah Holmquist's Press Action piece "Bush to Seek Reelection" is worth a read, IMHO.

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In a story about concerns that that the Oscars might feature some political comments, Agence France Presse informs us that, "[l]ast year, liberal US documentary maker Michael Moore scandalised Hollywood and America when he lauched [sic] a vitriolic attack on US President George W. Bush for waging war in Iraq."

That seems to be a bit much but then there's this obvious lie:

At the 1993 Oscars, [Tim] Robbins and [Susan] Sarandon caused a sensation by slamming then president Bill Clinton over the treatment of AIDS-infected Haitian refugees detained at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Laughable. Everybody knows that no one on the left ever criticized Bill Clinton.

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I'm baffled by lost-in-racism.org, a project of asianmediawatch.net that attempts to argue that Lost in Translation is racist. The character Bob and Charlotte aren't supposed to be perfect and are in fact highly flawed people who we shouldn't be shocked to find out are prejudiced.

Then there's this:

The theme of traveling in a foreign land was not essential to the film.
Save for the metaphor that gives the film a greater meaning than that embedded in the narrative, that's correct.

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Mark I. Pinsky of The Orlando Sentinel says there is increased interest in Mary Magdalene.

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Susan Hogan/Albach of The Dallas Morning News reports that some Christians are questioning the significance of the Crucifixion.

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Is seethepassion.com really needed?

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jpost.com writes:

Shas leader MK Eli Yishai has demanded that Mel Gibson's new film, "The Passion of the Christ" be banned from screening and distribution in Israel.

"It is unthinkable that a movie whose sole aim is to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Jewish people will be screened in the Jewish State. The movie repeats a blood libel from the dawn of history," the Shas leader said.

Yishai also called for the film's director to be brought to trial, and he called on the Foreign Ministry to ask Jews in the US to boycott the film.

Talk about something that would inspire anti-Semitism.

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Matt C. Abbott says Hollywood hates God

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repentantnadervoter.com

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modernist and post-modernist views

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What the fuck

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prayer


Thursday, February 26, 2004
 
"You take my college money and you turn that goddamn AC on buddy!"

           
                                                                             -Bill Hicks

I'd planned to post a tribute to Bill Hicks, who passed away on this day in 1994, but time got away from me and it will have to wait for another day.

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Hicks recognized in the House of Commons


Wednesday, February 25, 2004
 

Press Release

True Catholic TraditionalistSociety

Mel Gibson Shakes Hands with the Devil to Take the Unsuspecting on a Trip to Hell

The True Catholic Traditionalist Society calls upon Mel Gibson to immediately renounce soul damning ecumenicalism and to publicly and incontrovertibly state that salvation without membership in the Church is impossible and then spend a lot of time in the Confessional. Furthermore we call up all Catholic traditionalists to boycott Gibson until Gibson denounces all heresy.

Gibson directed and produced the new film The Passion of the Christ, which documents the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. The filmmaker intends for viewers of the picture to understand "the enormity of [the] sacrifice" of Christ, but in promoting the picture Gibson has
made unholy alliances with heretics who seek to prevent people from joining the One True Church.

According to a story by Bob Baker and William Lobdell that first appeared in the January 30 edition of The Los Angeles Times, "Gibson's production company... is courting the [Christian] market by hiring several Christian marketing companies to work various segments of the potential audience. The best known is a Vista, Calif., company called Outreach Inc."

Outreach Inc. describes itself as "a non-denominational ministry that works with all Bible believing Christian churches that embrace traditional Christian theology."

There is no mention of the necessity of belong to the one true Church on either the homepage of Outreach Inc. or on the site this group of heretics have set up specifically to promote The Passion of the Christ.

The producers of the film have also screened the The Passion of the Christ to "churches" that are not part of the One True Church, according to an article in the January 31 edition of the radical leftist British newspaper The Guardian. (It cannot be ruled out that some of these outfits may even explicitly reject the One True Church.

These same "churches" are already planning to use this movie to spread their falsehoods. There is the risk that many will go from merely being disobedient to God to actively working against Him!

Like the members of The True Catholic Traditionalist Society, Gibson practices traditional Catholicism. We reject that Vatican II was infallible and condemn the many errors and heresies of John Paul II. We affirm the true and infallible traditional teachings of the Catholic Church, knowing that the Dogmas of Faith should never change.

We are adherents and members of One True Church. Most importantly, we understand, "Outside the Church there is no salvation." Non-members go directly to purgatory or whatever the hell we believe in. These facts are clear to all who can read as each appears on no less than 19% of the pages of the Bible.

Gibson was a follower of these truths until very recently. His Latin public service advertisements for us consistently rank amongst the most popular PSAs done for any group in a dead language. In an interview with The New Yorker last year, Gibson says salvation can only come through membership in the Church. "There is no salvation for those outside the Church." And, more recently Gibson has said that his wife, a heretic of the Episcopalian variety, will not be saved.

What explains Gibson's change of heart and embrace of Satan?

We have to believe that, like many men before him, Satan's promise of a little gold in his pocket has corrupted him so that he now rejects God's message. While we pray that Gibson returns to the fold, this example shows how just how dark and evil Lucifer really is. This fallen angel seeks to capture us at every point in our lives. From the pits of hell he probably saw Gibson making a movie that would bring people to Salvation and decided to tempt Gibson. It is only through God's One True Church that we can defeat this evil.


Tuesday, February 24, 2004
 
(cliched sportswriter bullshit) It wasn’t the first time this season Michigan State looked left for dead. Trailing Michigan, 52-40, it looked like a repeat of the loss to Illinois two weeks earlier. Or the loss to Kansas, or Duke, Oklahoma, Kentucky, UCLA, Syracuse, Wisconsin and Purdue. It looked like this MSU team was incapable of winning the big game.

Oh they would make it look close, but they couldn’t win. The team that Magic Johnson promised would bring MSU its third national championship could not do that or much of anything else.

Not this time.

When it mattered –the final 11 minutes- Michigan State played their best ball of the season in Ann Arbor, scoring 32 points and holding Michigan to 17.

The crowd primed on "Hail to the Victors" went home, having seen MSU prevail, 72-69. (/cliched sportswriter bullshit)

Tremendous game. Kelvin Torbert most likely was the difference. He scored 15 of his 18 points in the second half.

Never doubt Izzo.

There was a beautiful moment in the second half when Michigan missed a shot and four Spartans surrounded the basket, each closer to the ball than anybody from Michigan.

***

Funny how I can write economically about sports with far more ease than I can when the topic is more serious, or even my inability to write without including more words than I probably should include.

UPDATE: More on the win. 11:29 a.m. 02/25/04


 
Grey Tuesday

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"If Aristide must fall," I suspect that investors from the U.S. will look slightly more favorably upon the country.

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John Lahr on Bill Hicks

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"A Historical Argument Against the Separation of Church and State: The Christian Heritage of the United States, and its Woeful Destiny as a Backslidden Nation"

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CovenantNews.com and openconfrontation.com are Christian fundamentalist sites that are "interesting." Via the latter, I came across bushrevealed.com.

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What an asshole

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I take it that Frank doesn't support animal rights.

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"In its effort to relieve overstretched U.S. troops in Iraq, the Bush administration has hired a private security company staffed with former henchmen of South Africa’s apartheid regime," Marc Perelman writes in Forward.

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"’The Passion’ Poses a Unique Problem for Messianic Jews," says Max Gross of Forward.

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Jews for Jesus on The Passion of the Christ

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" Day by day, the nation's capital is becoming a fortress, turning a city known for graceful beauty into a virtual armed camp. In response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, federal security agents along with their counterparts in the Washington, Maryland and Virginia governments began a huge effort to build permanent safeguards for the capital area's most important buildings and monuments," Michael Janofsky writes in a New York Times story dated February 21.

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Margaret Cho on Rev. Jackson

UPDATE: GOD BLESS PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH FOR STANDING UP TO THOSE HOMOSEXUALS IN A POSITIVE MANNER! 6:56 P.M. 02/24/04

UPDATE #2: Norma Sherry on men of God

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"According to organisations connected with film, theatre, music, opera and dance, new American immigration and visa policies are making it extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, for foreign artists of all sorts to come to the US to perform and show their work," James Verini writes in the February 18 edition of The Guardian.

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liberation

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This really sure makes sense.

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Three cheers for Jap militarism

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God Bless America 9:56 a.m. 02/25/04

UPDATE #3: "Ten months after their 'liberation', Iraqi women have only just started to leave their houses to carry out ordinary tasks such as taking their kids to school, shopping or visiting neighbours. They do so despite the risk of kidnapping or worse. It is women and children who bear the brunt of the absence of law and order, the lack of security and the availability of weapons," Haifa Zangana writes in last Thursday's Guardian. "Ten months on, most women graduates are still unemployed. Seventy-two per cent of working Iraqi women were public employees, and the public sector is in tatters. Other workers are suffering too."

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More fruits of victory

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yes

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LOL 11:25 a.m. 02/25/04


Monday, February 23, 2004
 
The problem with this democracy or why the fact that Nader could be a "spoiler" shows there are bigger concerns than electing the non-Bush

Ralph Nader is running for president again.

From the look of the media, Nader's big campaign issue will be whether or not he can prevent the democratic nominee from beating George W. Bush.

I for one am furious at Nader for messing up the nice fun binary political system that has served us so well.

Actually, in case the sarcasm wasn't clear, no I'm not. The two-party system is a sad joke and if these enraged Democrats who are so furious about Nader running and ruining their chance of beating Bush should be, especially after 2000, pushing for electoral reform so that the impact of third-party candidates is lessened.

More importantly, isn't it odd that, despite how much they dislike Bush, none of these Democrats seem to think Bush shouldn't be running. Apparently a non-stop festival of war and corporate cronyism is a record that needs to be considered, but Nader is beyond what's acceptable.

Essentially what the Nader shouldn't run crowd is saying that the U.S. not only has a two-party political system but that it should have a two-party political system. (When will be the right time to run?)

If that's their view of "democracy" in the Uncle Sam's land, fine. But don't expect me to be satisfied by the "solutions" that come from such a limited vision.

UPDATE: The above grafs were more of a rant than most posts on this blog are. It sharply put forward my opinion on one of the main issues related to Nader's candidacy, but was not a complete assessment.

For the record, I think Nader running as an independent, as opposed to as the candidate of the Green Party, is problematic because it lessens the potential for leaving behind institutions, and Nader is delusional if he thinks he could actually win.

Nader's gambit of not running on social issues is interesting, but I'm doubtful if it will pay off politically or ethically.

Most importantly, while I think there is merit to Nader's critique of corporate power, I suspect that the "war on terror" will be the biggest issue in this campaign and I'm doubtful that Nader's criticisms of it will be particularly to the point. 2:35 p.m. 02/23/04

UPDATE #2: Last night I watched CSPAN's broadcast of Nader's responses yesterday to questions from reporters. Unlike more mainstream prez candidates Nader neither looks particularly happy nor talks as if his election would solve most of the problems they want to solve. These qualities, along with the realities of the electoral system, probably ensure that Nader will never gain much popular support.

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It would be such a shame if Kerry isn't elected. Such a shame. It might be the worst moment ever, and I do mean ever. 8:48 a.m. 02/24/04


Sunday, February 22, 2004
 
We care a lot like Faith No More

Once upon a time Al Haig was at least as much the Secretary of State as he was a punch line and the policy of the U.S. government was that fighting terrorism and protecting human rights were not one in the same, and that the former was more important.

Now, however, the U.S. knows better and fighting terrorism and promoting human rights, freedom, democracy and all sorts of other good things is seen as mutually inclusive activities.

This change hasn't been the result of a linear change. As Rodger A. Payne has noted, Bush campaigned in 2000 on the idea that the U.S. military should only be used to defend U.S. interests, not human rights as Bush said the Clinton Administration had done. At the same time, the Persian Gulf War in 1991, which was run by the current president's father, in the words of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire (Harvard University Press, 2000), "presented the United States as the only power able to manage international justice, not as a function of its own national motives but in the name of global right."

The exact course that U.S. policy took to achieve this change isn't as important as that beyond any doubt it became part of the rhetoric of the "war on terror" at the very start of that "war." This past November 6 Bush said:

Liberty is both the plan of Heaven for humanity, and the best hope for progress here on Earth.

The progress of liberty is a powerful trend. Yet, we also know that liberty, if not defended, can be lost. The success of freedom is not determined by some dialectic of history. By definition, the success of freedom rests upon the choices and the courage of free peoples, and upon their willingness to sacrifice. In the trenches of World War I, through a two-front war in the 1940s, the difficult battles of Korea and Vietnam, and in missions of rescue and liberation on nearly every continent, Americans have amply displayed our willingness to sacrifice for liberty.

The sacrifices of Americans have not always been recognized or appreciated, yet they have been worthwhile. Because we and our allies were steadfast, Germany and Japan are democratic nations that no longer threaten the world. A global nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union ended peacefully -- as did the Soviet Union. The nations of Europe are moving towards unity, not dividing into armed camps and descending into genocide. Every nation has learned, or should have learned, an important lesson: Freedom is worth fighting for, dying for, and standing for -- and the advance of freedom leads to peace.

And now we must apply that lesson in our own time. We've reached another great turning point -- and the resolve we show will shape the next stage of the world democratic movement.

Our commitment to democracy is tested in countries like Cuba and Burma and North Korea and Zimbabwe -- outposts of oppression in our world. The people in these nations live in captivity, and fear and silence. Yet, these regimes cannot hold back freedom forever -- and, one day, from prison camps and prison cells, and from exile, the leaders of new democracies will arrive.

Or so the Bush Administration wants us to believe.

Too bad they can't make this argument with any sort of consistency. In the same speech, Bush says, " For the Palestinian people, the only path to independence and dignity and progress is the path of democracy."

And, two days ago, the Haig of today said, "We hope other governments, too, like Syria, will realize that chemical weapons and other WMD programs won’t make their countries safer, their people more prosperous, or their own hold on power more secure. To the contrary. It goes in the other direction."

Lady Liberty cares about the second half of her name just enough so as to give those who are deemed to be the antithesis of what it wants tips on how to maintain their power.

It isn't just in rhetoric that the Bush Administration has problems carrying through on promoting freedom. In a statement from Monday, the International Institute for Strategic Studies writes:

President George W Bush’s administration has on many occasions, since 11 September 2001 argued that when governments respect both the rule of law and human rights, the contribute to a world where terrorism cannot thrive. For this reason, as well as the US commitment to the promotion of its values, the US claims that it will not relax its vigilance when it comes to the advancement of human rights. However, since 11 September there are many examples that suggest the US has compromised its stance in the sphere of human-rights promotion, as it searches for military bases, intelligence cooperation and political support in the struggles against terrorism.
Kim Sengupta of The Independent has more on the IISS's findings.

A February 18 report by Carl Conetta of the Project on Defense Alternatives makes it clear that the U.S. military has worked to keep knowledge of how many civilians have been killed by the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq from impacting public discourse. If Bush and friends actually cared, they would want to know what impact their actions were having and they would want others to know as well. After all, it was Bush who, in the same November 6 speech quoted above, said, "Successful societies limit the power of the state and the power of the military -- so that governments respond to the will of the people, and not the will of an elite."


Saturday, February 21, 2004
 
Two examples of why Bill Hicks would not be pleased with the world and other notes

Ten years ago this Thursday, February 26, the brilliant Bill Hicks passed away. Two examples of why Hicks would not be pleased...

-As noted yesterday, there's this story:

Jeremy Hinzman said he could barely stomach chanting "kill we will" during basic training and, as a Quaker, he didn't want to shoot anybody. But it was the thought of serving U.S. interests in Iraq that made the 82nd Airborne Division specialist flee to Canada last month.

"I would have felt no different than a private in the German Army during World War II," he said by phone from Toronto, where he is seeking refugee status...

...from the beginning, basic training bothered him. He said he was horrified by the chanting about blood and killing during marches, by the shooting at targets without faces and by what he called the dehumanization of the enemy.

"It's like watching some kind of scary movie, except I was in it," he said. "People would just walk around saying things like, 'Oh, I want to kill somebody.'"

He felt that the prospect of killing should be taken more seriously and that soldiers should not talk about death in such a cavalier way, he said.

This is they type of thing that could have been avoided if Hinzman have heard Hicks scream about the military, "Aren't you a bunch of hired killers? Shut Up! You are thugs and when we want you to kill a bunch of brown people - we'll let you know!"

(Chuck Simmins says hang Jeremy Hinzman. That seems a just a bit extreme to me.)

-In Thursday's New York Post, William Neuman writes:

Replicas of the nails used to hang Jesus on the cross have become the red-hot official merchandise linked to Mel Gibson's controversial new movie, "The Passion of the Christ."

Pendants made from the pewter, 2 1/2-inch nails - selling for $16.99 - all but flew out of the Christian Publications Bookstore on West 43rd Street as soon as they were put on display.

"A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks," Hicks once said. "Do you think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to look at a fucking cross? It's kinda like going up to Jackie Onassis with a rifle pendant on. 'Just thinking of John, Jackie, just thinking of John. Just thinking of John, baby.'"

***

Time may change my opinion but I think "The commercial war" is one of my better posts.

***

I need to move.

***

Brendan O’Neill seems oblivious to the fact that Saddam was a bad guy and that means anything bad and everything worse said about him was correct.

***

"The largest object to be discovered in the Solar System since Pluto was found in 1930 was spotted by a sky survey on Tuesday," NewScientist.com news service writes yesterday. "Tentatively called 2004 DW, the object lies beyond Neptune in the mysterious Kuiper Belt. This shadowy belt is a collection of primordial icy bodies which circle our Sun and are thought to be the remnants of planetary formation."

***

"Confronting problems on critical fronts, the CIA recently removed its top officer in Baghdad because of questions about his ability to lead the massive station there, and has closed a number of satellite bases in Afghanistan amid concerns about that country's deteriorating security situation, according to U.S. intelligence sources," Greg Miller and Bob Drogin of The Los Angeles Times write in yesterday's edition. "The previously undisclosed moves underscore the problems affecting the agency's clandestine service at a time when it is confronting insurgencies and the U.S.-declared war on terrorism, current and former CIA officers say. They said a series of stumbles and operational constraints have hampered the agency's ability to penetrate the insurgency in Iraq, find Osama bin Laden and gain traction against terrorism in the Middle East."

***

J Hoberman's "With God, and the Constitution, on His Side" is a fascinating look at the controversy that surrounded The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988.

UPDATE: Michigan State 66
Northwestern 56

Next up, a road game against Michigan on Tuesday.

***

That somebody got paid to write this is sad.

***

In a February 4 story for The Dartmouth about a speech given by Lewis Lapham, Rebecca Leffler writes:

Lapham proceeded to equate the war on terror to "declaring a war on an unknown enemy, an abstract noun. It's like declaring a war on lust." Thus, Lapham said, there is a great deal at stake in the upcoming election, which he referred to as an "urgent moment of national identity."
While I certainly agree with the first part, this election doesn't seem all that important since it doesn't appear like it will lead to a change in course as far as the "war on terror" is concerned.

This, on the other hand, seems to be on target:

Late in his speech, Lapham stunned the crowd when he said: "The government in Washington does not bear any good will to the American people." He also spoke somewhat condescendingly of news anchor Peter Jennings, saying: "You have to think of Jennings along the lines of Donald Duck. If you understand that, it won't upset you."

Lapham also spoke to The Dartmouth about his views on the relationship between "truth and ethics" and journalism.

"Truth is not something that the media is very good at," he said. "The journalist's first objective is to obtain an audience and to tell this audience more or less what it wants to hear."

***

I'd like to believe that the Iraqi Resistance Solidarity Network is a joke. 2:16 p.m. 02/21/04


Friday, February 20, 2004
 
Advice to the Department of Defense's Information Ministers

Josh Marshall has posted the Department of Defense's Talking Points - Iraq's WMD: February 12, 2004" (PDF) for all to see and not be impressed.

The DOD ought to say, "We invaded Iraq to stop the threat posed Saddam. Everybody knows Saddam was a threat, or at least they ought to since, amazingly enough, you in the press didn't challenge that contention prior to the invasion. What we don't understand is your change of heart. Don't you still love us? The American people love us!"

UPDATE: And now for some odds and ends...

In a February 15 New York Times story on the evangelization efforts of Southern Baptists in New York City, David D. Kirpatrick writes:

...New York may also present the ultimate test of the Southern Baptists' evangelism. To many evangelical Christians and more than a few New Yorkers themselves, the city occupies a special place as something close to an American Babylon, perhaps the least Christian and most secular metropolis in the country. "I don't know if I thought of it as Sin City, but I knew it wasn't the closest place to God," Mr. Rourk said, diplomatically.

The missionaries may also face some hostility. The city is home to millions of people of other religions, including Hindus, Muslims and Catholics and Jews, who may not appreciate the Southern Baptist efforts to draw others to their faith. Jewish groups, in particular, have often complained that the Southern Baptists target Jews for special proselytizing.

The missionary board has a special division for Jewish ministries and seeks to start "Messianic Jewish" churches, including one on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The Southern Baptists also support Messianic Jewish groups like Jews for Jesus that try to persuade other Jews that they can become Christians without renouncing Judaism — something most Jewish authorities reject...

The theology, however, sticks closely to the Southern Baptist tradition. "For those who are Christians, you will have eternal life," Mr. Searcy told the mostly 20-something crowd that filled the theater in a recent Sunday morning. "For those who are not, Jesus describes it as eternal punishment," he continued, warning, "You don't want to go there."

I have no idea how anybody could reconcile a loving God with this eternal damnation. The concept of "free will" sounds nice, but why does God give a damn about it? Isn't it a bit odd that an all-powerful God would be bound by the constraints that humans face when dealing with other humans? (Of course, all of this just assumes that God has a good answer for, "why bother with creating anything?")

***

This past February 15 was the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in New Jersey, Chris Newmarker reports in a February 16 AP story.

***

yet another reason to not vote for John Kerry

***

"Jeremy Hinzman said he could barely stomach chanting 'kill we will' during basic training and, as a Quaker, he didn't want to shoot anybody. But it was the thought of serving U.S. interests in Iraq that made the 82nd Airborne Division specialist flee to Canada last month," Julia Oliver writes in yesterday's The Fayetteville Observer.

***

Why not ethnic cleansing for Iraq? It isn't like Uncle Sam cares what happens to those poor fucks or anything. "We only don't kill them all," Sam says, "because we are smart enough to know that would make us look bad."

***

In a Wednesday story, the AP writes:

The Bush administration is considering a major shift in its plan for transition to Iraqi self-rule, possibly extending and expanding the U.S.-appointed Governing Council so it can take temporary control of the country on July 1, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.

The serious consideration of that option comes as the Bush administration waits for U.N. help now delayed by at least a week in settling differences among Iraqi leaders on how to meet the July 1 U.S. deadline.

Under active consideration is extending and expanding the U.S.-handpicked Iraq Governing Council so that it could take interim control in Baghdad until a legislature could be elected, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The administration is eager to see if U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan approves of the idea, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

LMDL (laughing my disgusted laugh) 4:51 p.m. 02/20/04

Thursday, February 19, 2004
 
Acceptable risk: kudos to Rummy and quit insulting my intelligence

On February 10, when asked "What does this devastating bombing today say about their ability to do that when you've trained tens of thousands of policemen to stop such attacks?" Rummy said perfect security is not obtainable:

...look at any city on the face of the Earth. Everyone's against homicide, and yet in every city -- major city on the face of the Earth, homicides occur every week...

Now why, if we have all those policemen; why, if we have everyone against homicides, do they still occur? The answer is because human beings are human beings.

Now what do we do about it? Well, we keep training the Iraqis, and we keep working with them, and they'll become more and more effective. And at that point where security responsibilities are increasingly transferred to the Iraqis, we'll find that they will have probably better situational awareness in the areas than coalition forces ever could. They'll know the language, they know the neighborhood, and they have reasons to want those areas to be secure.

Does that mean that terrorists or people who want the old regime back won't continue to try to kill them? No. They will probably do that.

I suspect this was just a way to avoid answering a question, but Rummy deserves credit for implicitly acknowledging that the rhetoric of the Bush Administration, which Rummy is a part of, is wrong when it puts forward absolute security as an obtainable goal.

The question that should arise from this is, what risk is acceptable? It won't be put forward or discussed, at least in part due to the near certainty that if it were, it would give the Democrats an easy, but unfair, way of saying that Team Bush is weak on security.

But to just blame it on "politics" is to ignore the ways in which the Bush Administration uses this rhetoric to justify specific actions. When Bush says that as a result "of September the 11th, 2001, I will not take risks with the lives and security of the American people by assuming the goodwill of dictators," he is saying that invading Iraq was justified because not doing so meant taking a risk with Saddam while ignoring that he takes risks every day with all sorts of dictators.

The Bush Administration, I suspect, believes that the general public and the mainstream media either doesn't care or can't/won't see this distortion. I suspect Bush and friends are right.

***

Josh Marshall notes the difficulty the Bush Administration is having telling the difference between a goal and a prediction.

***

The notorious anti-American radical leftist terrorist known as James Webb has some interesting things to say about Bush in yesterday's USA Today:

The Bush campaign... claims... that Bush has proved himself as a competent and daring "war president." And yet his actions in Iraq, and the vicious attacks against anyone who disagrees with his administration's logic, give many veterans serious pause.

Bush arguably has committed the greatest strategic blunder in modern memory. To put it bluntly, he attacked the wrong target. While he boasts of removing Saddam Hussein from power, he did far more than that. He decapitated the government of a country that was not directly threatening the United States and, in so doing, bogged down a huge percentage of our military in a region that never has known peace. Our military is being forced to trade away its maneuverability in the wider war against terrorism while being placed on the defensive in a single country that never will fully accept its presence.

There is no historical precedent for taking such action when our country was not being directly threatened. The reckless course that Bush and his advisers have set will affect the economic and military energy of our nation for decades. It is only the tactical competence of our military that, to this point, has protected him from the harsh judgment that he deserves.

At the same time, those around Bush, many of whom came of age during Vietnam and almost none of whom served, have attempted to assassinate the character and insult the patriotism of anyone who disagrees with them. Some have impugned the culture, history and integrity of entire nations, particularly in Europe, that have been our country's great friends for generations and, in some cases, for centuries.

Bush has yet to fire a single person responsible for this strategy. Nor has he reined in those who have made irresponsible comments while claiming to represent his administration. One only can conclude that he agrees with both their methods and their message.

Most seriously, Bush has yet to explain the exact circumstances under which American military forces will be withdrawn from Iraq.

I'm sure God is getting ready to punish Webb.

Wednesday, February 18, 2004
 
Those WMDs once again

In Saturday's edition of the Australian newspaper The Age, Mark Forbes writes:

Intelligence agencies told the Federal Government in the weeks before the Iraq war that some of the Bush Administration's claims justifying an invasion were exaggerated, according to one of Australia's most senior intelligence officials.

Assessments provided to Prime Minister John Howard stated that US Secretary of State Colin Powell's prewar address to the United Nations "went beyond the available evidence" in at least two areas, the official said.

It is believed these included claims of mobile biological weapons laboratories and alleged links between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

The official - who spoke on condition of anonymity - said the Government was told before the war that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction did not pose an immediate threat. Iraq's chemical and biological warfare capabilities were largely latent, they said.

"The head of the Defence Intelligence Organisation, Frank Lewincamp, has told a Senate committee he was the principal source for a report in Saturday's Age on assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," Brendan Nicholson writes in tomorrow's edition of The Age. "...Mr Lewincamp told a Senate committee last night that he recognised some of his statements in The Age's story. He said he did not make all the statements in the article."

A little later in the story:

Mr Lewincamp said he did not make and would never make some of the statements attributed to the official in the report.

"For example, I have never said the Bush Administration's claims justifying an invasion were exaggerated," he said. "Nor have I said that the Government was told that Iraq WMD did not pose an immediate threat."

It be interesting to know what the U.S. government told Australia.

A news.google.com search for "Frank Lewincamp" does not turn up any sources outside of Australia, FWIW.


Tuesday, February 17, 2004
 
The sport of trying to make sense of the "war on terror"

The threat posed by "the terrorists" and weapons of mass destruction has been said to have been so great that the U.S. needed to invade Iraq and set up a new government in that country.

One could be excused for being shocked by a report on 60 Minutes this past Sunday, which revealed that there is plenty of reason to believe that security at "the nine nuclear weapons factories and research labs" in the U.S. is not anywhere near what it should be:

...a recent investigation by the government's General Accounting Office found that... security at these sites is inadequate.

Richard Levernier, a senior Department of Energy nuclear security specialist, whose job it was to test how well-prepared America's nuclear weapons sites were to defend against a terrorist attack, says security is not only inadequate, but some facilities are at high risk...

These were tests in which U.S. Special Forces, playing the role of terrorists, armed with simulated weapons, would try to penetrate the facilities, steal imitation nuclear material, and then escape. The security guards there were expected to stop the attackers.

“Overall, the test results that I was responsible for showed a 50 percent failure rate,” says Levernier. “If you understand the consequences associated with the loss of that kind of material, it would make the World Trade Center event of Sept. 11 pale in comparison.”

In fairness to the Department of Energy, which is responsible for security at these plants, it isn't as if there was a Cold War or anything.

(I haven't been able to find the GAO report but POGO has done work on this topic.)

While a similar lack of interest in the dangers of weapons of mass destruction in a case where greater interest would not lead to another war on the part of the Bush Administration has been noticed before, perhaps there is a reasonable explanation for this.

It might have been necessary to divert valuable resources to the effort to make sure the invasion happened. "A joint British and American spying operation at the United Nations scuppered a last-ditch initiative to avert the invasion of Iraq," Peter Beaumont, Martin Bright and Jo Tuckman write in an important story in Sunday's Observer. (More on this story can be found here.)

Or those resources could have been put into making sure Bush doesn't read everything. In the February 12 edition of USA Today, John Diamond writes:

A classified U.S. intelligence study done three months before the war in Iraq predicted a problem now confronting the Bush administration: the possibility that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction might never be found.

The study by a team of U.S. intelligence analysts, military officers and civilian Pentagon officials warned that U.S. military tactics, guerrilla warfare, looting and lying by Iraqi officials would undermine the search for banned Iraqi weapons. Portions of the study were made available to USA TODAY. Three high-ranking U.S. intelligence officials described its purpose and conclusions.

"Locating a program that ... has been driven by denial and deception imperatives is no small task," the December 2002 report said. "Prolonged insecurity with factional violence and guerrilla forces still at large would be the worst outcome for finding Saddam's WMD arsenal."

The report went to the National Security Council but was not specifically shown to President Bush, the officials said...

The study looked at scenarios including Iraqi use of chemical or biological weapons and the possibility that no weapons would be found. The study considered but rejected the possibility that Iraq had no banned weapons.

The study said arms searchers would be "trying to find multiple needles in a haystack ... against the background of not knowing how many needles have been hidden."

Some of the obstacles outlined by the study included the expected rapid movement of U.S. ground forces over wide areas, leaving critical sites vulnerable to looting. Guerrilla warfare, the report predicted, also would make the weapons search difficult.

It would be an error to think that the answer would lie in unglamorous possibilities. A desire to crackdown on porn could be the culprit.

Richard B. Schmitt reports in Saturday's Los Angeles Times that a new appointment to the Justice Department makes it look like the "U.S. Plans to Escalate Porn Fight"

Officials said the appointment of Bruce A. Taylor, who worked in the department during the heyday of its anti-porn efforts in the late 1980s and early '90s, shows that Justice is serious about cracking down on porn after what critics called lax enforcement by the Clinton administration...

Taylor, who in recent years has headed a conservative advocacy group fighting for tougher regulation of the Internet, has been given the title of "senior counsel" within the criminal division at Justice, with a focus principally on federal adult obscenity issues.

The department's obscenity chief, Andrew Oosterbaan, who has been drawing much of the flak from conservatives, will retain his position. But instead of reporting to him, Taylor will answer to a more senior-level assistant attorney general...

The department has made other moves recently to shore up its anti-porn effort, including assigning for the first time in years a team of FBI agents to focus exclusively on adult-obscenity cases.

In his fiscal 2005 budget proposal released this month, President Bush sought increased spending to fight obscenity; it was one of the few spending increases — besides for anti-terrorist efforts — in the otherwise austere proposal.

In addition to being an overture to the Christian Right, a new effort against pornography to get the support of people who have noticed the lack of porn in post-apocalyptic stories and concluded that the utopian possibilities of this period must be tied in with that.

Then again, maybe the explanation is that securing nuclear weapons sites doesn't amount to war and thus isn't any fun for George and the boys.

***

The rest of this post is an attempt to clean out bookmarks and may lack in the area of organization.

***

Bush spent some time with the people of NASCAR over the weekend. This would be preaching to the choir if not for how ungodly those musical types can be.

***

"British soldiers called hooded Iraqi detainees by footballers' names as they kicked and beat them, The Independent on Sunday has been told," Andrew Johnson and Robert Fisk write in Sunday's Independent.

***

"Iraq's U.S. administrator suggested Monday he would block any move by Iraqi leaders to make Islamic law the backbone of an interim constitution, which women's groups fear could threaten their rights," Robert H. Reid of the AP writes.

***

John Dean doesn't think much of Bush's commission to look into WMD intelligence.

***

"The White House is declining to make public the financial histories of the commissioners President Bush appointed to investigate U.S. intelligence failures," Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times writes.

***

Jonathan Yardley on James Baldwin

***

nomediakings.net

***

In a story from Friday, Gary Schaefer of the AP writes:

Near where the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima, the faces of the victims silently appear and fade on a wall of television monitors in a relentless display of the attack's terrifying human toll.

Amid the thousands of faces, one stands apart: that of Cpl. John Long Jr., U.S. Army Air Force.

Long, who died in the blast while being held by the Japanese, last month became the first American serviceman to be enshrined at a memorial here, throwing light on the little-known story of U.S. prisoners of war who perished at Hiroshima.

***

"Iraq's deposed dictator Saddam Hussein is unlikely to stand trial for at least another two years, the Guardian has learned," Rory McCarthy writes in yesterday's Guardian. "The Iraqi special tribunal for crimes against humanity is months away from hearing its first case, and when the trials begin in October or November the first defendants to appear will be high-ranking Ba'ath party officials."

***

Tessa DeCarlo of The New York Times profiles Sophie Crumb.

***

Mahmood Mamdani's "Why the US practises double standards" is a bit weak on dates and, much more importantly, implies that the U.S. did not support authoritarian rightist regimes prior to Reagan's presidency.

***

The Central Intelligence Agency and terrorists that are part of "the terrorists"

***

Larry David's "My War" is entertaining, and I say that as someone who does not like Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm. (I strongly dislike the former, FWIW.)

***

Joy Press on Tanner '88

***

valley.vcdh.virginia.edu

***

"Christians, Let's Take Back Our Nation"

***

Jeff Jarvis is apparently unable or unwilling to see that "terrorism" and the U.S. are connected in ways that go beyond being adversaries. I just hope we can survive what Jarvis calls "Mexican soccer holligans."

***

"The teenagers of Ardoyne talk about suicide in the most shockingly matter-of-fact way, recalling the friends who have killed themselves. Many also talk of how they often think of killing themselves," David McKittrick writes in today's Independent. "The Northern Ireland war is supposed to be over but this tough north Belfast Catholic ghetto goes on counting its dead, with young people continuing to go to early graves because of the remnants of paramilitarism."

Militarism is always dangerous due to its ability to become the one thing it should not be, a way of life.

At the same time, events in Haiti show the fallacy of believing that an outside force is capable of entering and forcing a solution upon societies that have no resolved on their own. (This idea shows up in a variety of place, including the argument that democracy in Iraq will lead to democracy throughout the Arab world and Slavoj Zizek's in many ways brilliant Welcome to the Desert of the Real (Verso, 2002).

Sometimes a society has to sort its self out.

***

Daniel Gross:

With remarkable speed, renting videotapes has become passé. Instead, buying DVDs has become popular. You can play them anywhere, on portable devices, in the minivan, on your laptop. You can burn copies with a computer or digital recording device. And DVDs are comparatively cheap. By the time you go to Blockbuster, rent a movie, and pay the late fees on the video you forgot to return, you're half way to owning a DVD. Driving to a video store—twice—to deal with a single movie is a supremely inconvenient transaction.
I don't understand people.

***

Bryan Curtis of Slate on "The roots of Bush's Daytona strategy"

***

The BBC writes (February 10):

Foreign troops must target traffickers if Afghanistan is to win its war on drugs, a senior UN official says.

Antonio Mario Costa, head of the UN office on drugs and crime, said a rare US raid on an Afghan opium-processing lab last month should be repeated.

US and Nato-led forces have so far resisted calls to tackle drugs traffickers, saying their first responsibility is to maintain security.

Three-quarters of the world's opium was produced in Afghanistan last year.

Mother Jones has more.

***

Jane Mayer on "What did the Vice-President do for Halliburton?"

***

Here are some interviews with Gilbert Achcar, Kathy Acker, Sami Al-Deeb, Theodore W. Allen, Tariq Ali, Isabel Allende, Martin Amis, David Aguilar, Gregg Araki, Hanan Ashrawi, Sherman Austin, Anthony Aziz, Jean Baudrillard, Greg Bear, Walden Bello, Peter Berger, William Blum, Neve Campbell, John Carlos, Margaret Cho, Larry Clark, Sofia Coppola, Roger Corman, Ernest Crichlow, Barry Crimmins, Clare Danes, Gretta Duisenberg, Johanna Drucker, Umberto Eco, Ntone Edjabe, Barbara Ehrenreich, Carl Elliott, Norman Finkelstein, Joe Gage, Neil Gaiman, John Gerassi, Paul Giamatti, Terry Gilliam, Adam Goldberg, Fe'lix Guattari, Che Guevara, Günter Grass, Michael Hardt, Louise Hassing, Peter Hedges, Edward Herman, Jaime Hernandez, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Hudson, Eric Idle, Fredric Jameson, Ben Katchor, Sam Keith, Paul Krassner, Nancy Kress, Jean Laplanche, Geert Lovink, Rahul Mahajan, Sarat Maharaj, Mike Marqusee, Ray McGovern, David Meggysey, Russ Meyer, Evo Morales, Tom Morello, Johan Norberg, Tim O'Brien, Patton Oswalt, John Pilger, Melinda Rackham, George Ritzer, Edward W. Said, Danny Schechter, Hideaki Sena, Wallace Shawn, R.U. Sirius, Sam Smith, Annie Sprinkle, David Suzuki, Serj Tankian, Alex Villar, Sarah Vowell, Malcolm X, Michael Yates, Patrice Zappa and Slavoj Zizek

UPDATE: Tom Izzo once again shows himself to be a class act.

From today's Lansing State Journal, Joe Rexrode looks at Shannon Brown and "Spartan fast break: A weekly wrap-up and look ahead."

***

Robert Chalmers profiles Randy Newman in this past Sunday's Independent:

A front of cynicism - in the music, as in the man - conceals a smouldering rage at injustice and bigotry. In 1972 he released his study of US foreign policy, "Political Science": "No one likes us, I don't know why/We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try/But all around even our old friends put us down/ Let's drop the big one and pulverise them/ Asia's crowded and Europe's too old/Africa is far too hot and Canada's too cold/And South America stole our name/Let's drop the big one, there'll be no one left to blame us..."

Performing in the US, he used to introduce "Political Science" (which contains his most famous single line "Boom goes London, and boom Paree") by saying: "You know, over in Europe, they believe this song to be a joke."

Three decades ago, "Political Science" was wryly amusing song noir in the mould of Tom Lehrer. Today, after Donald Rumsfeld's remarks about "Old Europe", it reads more like Nostradamus.

"I doubt that Rumsfeld had those lines at the back of his mind when he said that," Newman says. "It's more worrying than that. He's a like-minded guy to the character in the song."

"It's a bizarre coincidence."

"It is, because he used the phrase practically word for word. 'Political Science' is closer now than ever to being something beyond jingoistic exaggeration. It's like the current US administration just don't know the rules. They don't understand that you can't consign a nation - Germany or France, say - to being part of an Old Europe that we don't need any more."

Maybe Rummy attended too many Lakers games.

Newmans's official site, randynewman.com, features a journal. "The wind is howling outside my window and I must take it to the streets," he says.

***

"As the violence continued in Iraq yesterday, the head of the American occupation administration admitted the US was waiting for the United Nations to find a way out of the impasse on handing over power to Iraqis. Speaking on two American talk shows, Paul Bremer admitted the US was now pinning its hopes on the UN, an organisation it had written off as irrelevant at the time of the invasion of Iraq. Rejected by the Americans and forced to flee Iraq last year after two bombings, the UN is suddenly back in the frame in Iraq," Justin Huggler writes in yesterday's Independent.

***

"Plans to plough up to €2bn (£1.3bn) a year of EU cash into defence and security research were presented yesterday, raising the prospect of Europe spending as much as the US Department of Homeland Security," writes Stephen Castle in today's Independent.

***

"Tony Blair's plan to lower the burden of proof for prosecuting terrorists and gangland criminals will lead to innocent people being sent to prison, the head of the body that reviews miscarriages of justice has warned," Robert Verkaik writes in yesterday's Independent. "Professor Graham Zellick, the new chairman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), said the move would mean a return to the flawed convictions of the 1970s and 1980s."

Brendan O'Neill of Spiked has more on Britain's defense of freedom, as does the BBC.

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Tara Bagrampour looks at tensions between Hasidic Jews and artist/hipster types in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in today's New York Times.

Peter M. Nichols looks at some movies that have just made it to DVD in today's New York Times.

I'm amazed that Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar (1954) is only available as a region 2 DVD. I mean I know the French love Ray, as they should, but that doesn't excuse the rest of us.

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Michael E. Grost's "Classic Film and Television homepage" is worth a look if the subject matter described in the title interests you. Grost argues that the study of auteurs and genres are can got together in "Auteurism and Genre Studies." What's interesting about this is I, a younger person, never doubted this and in fact consider some of the great genre projects such as Charlie Chaplin's mutual shorts, John Ford's The Searchers (1956) and Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de souffle (1960) to be the work of auteurs. Could there be a conflict? Yes, of course, but given the similarities of the recording material and the source material, there is plenty of room for overlap.

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In today's New York Times, Marc Lacey writes:

It was 10 years ago that members of Rwanda's ethnic Hutu majority went on a rampage, killing their countrymen in a 100-day fury that left bodies strewn along roadsides, floating down rivers and piled up in churches, stadiums and schools. An estimated 800,000 people, Tutsis and moderate Hutus, died in the frenzy of ethnic animosity, fueled by an extremist government known for the motto "Hutu Power."

To commemorate what happened, Rwanda's leaders are planning a string of memorial services across the country on the 10th anniversary of the day the killing began, April 7, 1994. There will be testimonials from survivors, the unveiling of new memorials and speeches.

Raoul Peck, the Haitian-born film director who made "Lumumba" in 2000, is at work on his own remembrance, "Sometimes in April," an HBO movie that will recreate the horror as well as the heroism of 1994. It winds up filming at the end of February and is planned for television in the United States next year.

The film follows one family, using actual events as a guide, and switches from now to 10 years ago. Mr. Peck's movies have a documentarylike edge and mix politics with engaging story lines.

Already, though, the project is bringing the events of that April back to life for many Rwandans. Survivors fill most of the acting roles in the film and make up much of the crew. Recreating the horror has been a traumatic exercise for many of them, but a therapeutic one as well...

[one] scene required the intervention of Mr. [Simon] Gasibirege, the psychologist [at the National University of Rwanda]. The special-effects crew had scattered fake cadavers in a swamp outside Kigali that had been a killing ground and hiding place for thousands of Tutsis.

In the re-creation, some of the very Tutsi survivors who had crouched in the muck to save their lives returned to their old hiding spots. They were eager for the jobs, and for the world to know what they went through. They refused the boots that the movie crew offered. They had been barefoot 10 years ago. "They made the film just like it was back then," said Joseline Uwangabe, 25, who survived a month in the swamp in 1994 with her mother and two brothers. Six other siblings were killed.

The swamp scene was too much for one onlooker, a young woman from a nearby village who thought the corpses were real. She began shouting hysterically and sobbing. Then she couldn't move. "It took two hours for her to come out of it," Mr. Gasibirege said.

There are onlookers at every scene. Some hope to be given employment, which is in short supply here. But others are drawn by curiosity. Why is that man wearing the despised uniform of the now-disbanded Forces Armées Rwandaises? What are those loud bangs? Why are those girls screaming?

"It hurts so much to remember," said Jean de Dieu Butera, 32, who was in a crowd of gawkers. He had lost his parents and seven of his brothers and sisters in 1994. What happened to him, he said, would make a horrifying movie. Although remembering was painful, Mr. Butera said he was pleased that the movie would spread the word of the fate of his relatives and so many others. "Foreigners need to know what happened here," he said. "It could happen in other places, too."

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Human cloning may still be a long way off, Stephen S. Hall reports in today's New York Times.

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I wish I could make sense of this.

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riverbend marks the Amiriyah Shelter massacre, which happened 13 years ago.

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In an AP story from this past Friday, Ken Guggenheim writes:

The Bush administration is hampering efforts to improve intelligence by clinging to the false hope that weapons of mass destruction may be found in Iraq, the former chief U.S. weapons inspector said Thursday.

"My only serious regret about the continued holding on to the hope that eventually we'll find it is that it eventually allows you to avoid the hard steps necessary to reform the process,'' David Kay said in an interview with The Associated Press.

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Afghan Freedom

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"Most members of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council no longer support the Bush administration's plan to choose an interim government through caucuses and instead want the council to assume sovereignty until elections can be held, several members have said," Rajiv Chandrasekaran writes in today's Washington Post.

They want more power. Fancy that.

I suspect they will "their way."

(more)

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Iraqi Democracy

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Nicholas Blanford looks at the structures of Iraqi democracy that are being considered in tomorrow's Christian Science Monitor:

The first is to expand the Governing Council from 25 to 100 members to make it more representative.

The second plan calls for reducing the council to around 15 members until elections are held.

The third idea is to scrap the council altogether and hold a national conference of up to 2,000 prominent people to choose a new government among themselves, a plan echoing Afghanistan's loya jirga process.

A final decision is expected toward the end of the month. The United Nations is to announce Feb. 21 the conclusions of a recent fact-finding trip to Iraq. The mission assessed the feasibility of holding national elections before the June 30 deadline.

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The Feminist Majority Foundation is calling on people to "Send a message to the Bush Administration that the recent move to cancel current family laws and to place family law under the jurisdiction of Islamic (sharia) law [in Iraq] is unacceptable."

There is undoubtedly something unsavory about feminists, or anyone else from the outside, trying to make sure that Iraq turns out as they want it to. At the same time, such a process is going on, so those who attempt to move things into a better direction are arguably not the cause of the problem so much as they are a product of U.S. control of Iraq in the same way that a vaccine is a product of a disease. It wouldn’t exist if not for which it is designed to ameliorate or destroy.

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"U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that almost all of the Iraqi defectors whose information helped make the Bush administration's case against Saddam Hussein exaggerated what they knew, fabricated tales or were 'coached' by others on what to say," Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay of Knight Ridder write in a story from Saturday. (If that link is expired, you can try to find the story by clicking here.)

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In Sunday's New York Times, Elaine Sciolino writes:

RAN is embroiled in one of the most serious crises it has faced since clerics seized the palaces of kings in Tehran and declared an Islamic republic a quarter century ago.

To protest the rejection of the eligibility of thousands of candidates in parliamentary elections this month, more than a third of parliament has resigned, and the reformists have vowed to boycott the election.

But it is a curious crisis. While parliament may not survive in its current form, there have been none of the street protests that rocked the big cities in 1999 and have occurred sporadically ever since...

"The conservatives know they face no serious challenge," said Saeed Leylaz, an economist. "They know that people will not come out into the streets for the cause of reform."

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Bushist nepotism

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"Aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian crisis in Haiti, which is on the brink of a civil war between rebel forces and armed supporters of the president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide," Tash Shifrin of The Guardian writes today. "In a joint statement, 15 UK and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including ActionAid and Oxfam, have warned that the economy is collapsing, with a threat to food supplies as transport breaks down exacerbated by a doubling in the price of petrol."

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"[M]ob rule" exists in the Haitian city of St Marc, according to Gary Younge's first-hand report in Saturday's Guardian.

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"Haitian rebels seeking to topple President Jean-Bertrand Aristide have brought in reinforcements from the neighbouring Dominican Republic, including an alleged former death squad leader [Louis-Jodel Chamblain] and a former police chief [Guy Philippe] accused of fomenting a coup, according to witnesses," Ian James writes in yesterday's Guardian. "The rebellion, which broke out nine days ago in Gonaives, 70 miles (112km) northwest of Port-au-Prince, has so far killed some 50 people. Although the rebels are still thought to number less than Haiti's 5,000-member police force, their ranks have been strengthened by paramilitary leaders and police living in exile in the Dominican Republic."

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The Guardian:

...Haiti is one of those places where the news is usually either bad, or very bad. At present, amid an upsurge in violent attempts to unseat President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, it falls into the latter category. Looked at up close, Haiti is a deeply depressed, deeply dysfunctional society. Its people live, for the most part, in abject poverty. Two-thirds of the 3.6m workforce has no formal jobs and no skills. About half the 8m population is illiterate; less than 70% complete primary education. Average life expectancy is 52 years; only 3.7% make it to 65 or over, and HIV/Aids infection rates are rising. Haiti has few natural resources; its economy is mainly agricultural. Its budget is in deficit and its external debt runs into billions of dollars. Haiti receives a mere $120m in annual economic aid. Britain chips in £125,000.

However bad or indifferent the political situation may be at any given moment, such figures provide the true measure of Haiti's tragedy. That tragedy has changed only in magnitude since Toussaint L'Ouverture led the slave revolts that won independence from France 200 years ago last month. Since then, free Haiti has never had a fair crack. The old colonial empires that helped destroy its aboriginal population turned their backs on the world's first black republic. The US ignored its existence until 1862. Later, beginning in 1915, it occupied Haiti for 19 years and then abruptly left. Years of dictatorship and coups ensued. To a degree, history repeated itself when the US intervened again in 1994 to restore Mr Aristide. Bill Clinton halted the influx of Haitian boatpeople that had become politically awkward in Florida. Then he moved on. Although the US has pumped in about $900m in the past decade, consistency and vision have been lacking. In 2000, George Bush dismissed even Mr Clinton's half-hearted approach as a misguided exercise in nation-building. Partly for that reason, another, direct US intervention is seen as unlikely.

The unpalatable truth is that Haiti just does not matter very much, strategically, economically or politically, in the world as presently organised. The Foreign Office's assessment is unusually candid on this point: "Intrinsic UK interests in Haiti are limited".

One could hope that this insignificance could open up a space for Haiti to develop and solve its own problems, but the simple fact is that self-sufficiency is impossible. Control and neglect may lead to different results, but either way the story is sad. 4:25 p.m. 02/17/04

UPDATE #2: It wasn't beautiful but Michigan State beat Purdue 62-55 tonight.

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Somebody needs to tell Jeff Shelman that even the best of Tom Izzo's teams looked left for dead at some point.

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Ward Sutton's cartoon "Bush Answers Questions With More Questions" is highly inaccurate. The press doesn't point out that Bush is dodging their questions.

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Joy Press of The Village Voice invasive t.v. programs

From the same publication, Cynthia Cotts on capaigndesk.org and J. Hoberman on The Magnificent Ambersons

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"The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, yesterday angrily accused the United States of being behind a 2002 coup and of helping continuing opposition attempts to overthrow him," Alexandra Olson writes in tomorrow's edition of The Independent "Mr Chavez said the US Government was providing millions of dollars to Venezuelan groups."

Crazy Bastard. You'll never find a good patriotic writer in a publication like The National Review who admits to America's history of controlling other countries.

I love this part of Olson's article:

A visit to Venezuela on Monday by Peter DeShazo, US deputy assistant Secretary of State for western hemisphere affairs, was part of the campaign "to try to destabilise Venezuela", Mr Chavez said. The US official urged the election authorities not to use technicalities to invalidate petitions demanding a recall referendum that could lead to a new presidential election.
Listen you stupid spics, it is not enough to have a democracy. You have to do it our way! 10:04 p.m. 02/17/04