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

Wednesday, June 30, 2004
 
The good folks at MTV aired the final episode of The Real World: San Diego last night. Towards the end southern belle Cameran said that if she ever hears people saying racist things that she is going to say she lived in a house with a black person and "they are cool as hell."

Good thing Cameran wasn't in the second season.


Tuesday, June 29, 2004
 
The Wall Street Journal calls yesterday's Supreme Court decisions are "a modest but important victory for the Presidency."

They don't seem worried about how the "war on terror" could go on forever and all of these powers become a permanent part of the presidency.


Monday, June 28, 2004
 
The key to the country has been given to a group of Iraqis earlier than expected.

This had to be the idea of people who have never been a New Year's Eve party after the New Year had begun, either that or the CPA didn't want to explain where the billions are.


Sunday, June 27, 2004
 
My review of Fahrenheit 911 is up at Press Action.

Reviews by Jordy Cummings, Jonathan Rosenbaum and Daniel Patrick Welch are also worth your time.


Saturday, June 26, 2004
 
The Greens have nominated Cobb.

Friday, June 25, 2004
 
Viva Rage!

What the hell's so wrong with "pessimism" and "rage"? If you watch a new Bush campaign commercial, you get the idea that not believing Bush's policies are going to work out is "pessimistic" while being angry about Team Bush's deceptions is "rage." Both of those things are true, but so what?

Bush may want you to believe otherwise, but everybody's pessimistic about some matters, while people have a right to be angry about being lied and manipulated. Instead of confronting even the mildest forms of these charges, Team Bush just ridicules them and plays off people's reluctance to thinking of themselves as having been manipulated. And in the process they manipulate the public one more time.

Just so it is clear, Mr. Bush, an avid reader of this blog, if you want to see real rage, get in a room with me for five minutes. The offer is also extended to Democrats.

Beyond the politics, I don't mind anger and rage. In fact the Bush Administration's "war on terror" should make people angry.

***

Wolfie says Iraqis are more worried about security than abuse, which makes sense as insurgents killed 100 Iraqis yesterday. Excuse me, I shouldn't call them "insurgents" because as Wolfie says:

By the way, it's not insurgency. An insurgency implies something that rose up afterwards. This is the same enemy that butchered Iraqis for 35 years, that fought us up until the fall of Baghdad and continues to fight afterwards. It was led by Saddam Hussein up until his capture in December. It's been led, in part, by his No. 2 or 3, Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, since then. It's been led by Zarqawi, who was a terrorist working for bin Laden in Afghanistan, who fled to Iraq in 2002. It's not an insurgency, in the sense of an uprising. It is a continuation of the war by people who never quit.
***

Rummy is never one to avoid tough questions.

***

Bill O'Reilly can say a lot of shit, but when starts making fun of Drew Barrymore, it is time to break out the blackjack...

***

I'm so glad the media keeps me from reading the dirty word used by an asshole like Dick Cheney!


Thursday, June 24, 2004
 
These imperfect links, all former bookmarks of mine, are for thinking about.

Wednesday, June 23, 2004
 
Six days ago I wrote but didn't publish:
Stupid dumb Iraqis

Neal Pollack may be the Greatest Living American Writer, but the Greatest Voice of Truth in America and really the world is Bill O'Reilly. Unwilling to spend all his time producing for seedy bookstores and apparently unable to get any more Jenna Jameson action, O'Reilly has turned his attention to the most vile of ungrateful creatures - the Iraqi.

Back before we liberated them, remember how the Iraqis were such a delightful cast of characters. They'd dance and shit if we gave them a nickel or said we wouldn't bomb their village. Those were good times but not anymore. According to a by Anne Penketh in today's Independent, a poll of Iraqis commissioned by the CPA reveals:

Asked whether they would feel safer if the 138,000 US troops left immediately, 55 per cent agreed, nearly double the 28 per cent who held that view in a poll carried out in January.
O'Reilly magnificently puts this in context in a statement from yesterday:
I bet that some time in your life, you've done a favor for somebody and suffered because of it. Well, that's what's happening to the USA right now. We did a favor for the world by removing a brutal dictator and giving millions of people a chance for freedom in Iraq. And now we're paying a huge price.

Take a look at these Iraqi morons, celebrating the murders of 13 people, an American, eight Iraqis and four others. A terrorist bomb killed those poor souls. And the disgusting people you are looking at in Baghdad think it's just great.

It is beyond me how these morons fail to see that America has the unquestionable right to kill Iraqis in pursuit of what is at the very best an abstract goal but that Iraqis don't have the right to celebrate the deaths of Americans, Iraqis and others in the pursuit of a good time.
That entry eventually lead to "My Iraqi Week ('Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me,' Uncle Sam Screams In Pain)."

And that didn't even cover the more fucked up shit to have recently come from Bill.

***

From the "full sovereignty" for Iraq file, we this June 22 Financial Times story by Nicolas Pelham:

The US-led occupation authority in Baghdad has warned Iraq's interim government not to carry out its threat of declaring martial law, insisting that only the US-led coalition has the right to adopt emergency powers after the June 30 handover of sovereignty.
Patrick Cockburn of The Independent and Amitai Etzioni in The LA Times have more.

Tuesday, June 22, 2004
 
Nader-Camejo

Monday, June 21, 2004

Sunday, June 20, 2004
 
Watching season four of a certain show on DVD makes it clear that Homer J. Simpson is the greatest t.v. father ever.

Saturday, June 19, 2004

Friday, June 18, 2004
 
Television shows on DVD have done much to improve the world. I don't know where I'd be without the long lost episodes of A Simple Life, but who exactly is buying Who's the Boss?

Thursday, June 17, 2004
 
Rummy was in fine form today:
Now, we're in a war, and I can understand that someone who doesn't think they're in a war or aren't in a war, sitting in an air-conditioned room someplace can decide they want to be critical of this or critical of that, or misstate that or misrepresent something else, or be fast and loose with the facts. But there's an effect to that, and I think we have to be careful. I think people ought to be accountable for that, just as we're accountable.
I guess a lot of troubles are the result of Bush never springing for AC in Rummy's office, but as far as this "accountable" thing goes, this is the same asshole who once said, "sometimes I overstate for emphasis." There is no accountability worthy of the word.

***

"Read one piece on FrontPage today and found..."


Wednesday, June 16, 2004
 
Five more reasons for God to Bless America

"A key investigator in the espionage case against a Syrian-American translator at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo has been charged with raping and sodomizing children, officials said on Tuesday," Adam Turner of Reuters writes in a story published yesterday. "The charges were made public during a pretrial hearing for Senior Airman Ahmad Al Halabi, who is accused of carrying jail maps, letters and other documents from Guantanamo Bay where he worked an Arabic translator with suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters who are being held there."

***

"Sexualized violence and harassment of women is a widespread problem within the US armed services, but according to a government investigation and testimony from numerous female soldiers who have been raped, assaulted and harassed by male soldiers, the Pentagon’s response has been woefully inadequate," Chris Shumway writes in a New Standard piece published yesterday.

***

"The torture and mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was the predictable result of the Bush administration's decision to circumvent international law, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today," Human Rights Watch says in a June 9 statement.

***

"like dogs"

***

Jim Lobe of IPS reports that plans continue to made for the U.S. to continue to run the world.


Tuesday, June 15, 2004
 
The tributes to Ronnie keep rolling in

-"[T]he USDA now defines frozen French fries as 'fresh vegetables,'" Andrew Martin writes in a Los Angeles Times story published today.

Add ketchup to the mix and you have a double dose of vegetables

-"Instead of becoming a Middle Eastern model of pro-Western democracy, as the Bush administration had hoped, Iraq is being swept by Sunni and Shiite Muslim extremism," Hannah Allam of Knight Ridder writes in a story dated June 14. "High unemployment, little visible progress toward rebuilding the country and dissatisfaction with leaders appointed by foreigners are herding thousands of disenchanted Iraqis into the hands of hard-liners, according to political parties, Islamic scholars and social scientists."

Reagan supported Islamic "extremists."

-The Center for Economic and Social Rights says in a June 10 statement:

The Bush Administration is committing war crimes and other serious violations of international law in Iraq as a matter of routine policy, according to a report released today by the Center for Economic and Social Rights. The report, Beyond Torture: U.S. Violations of Occupation Law in Iraq, documents... war crimes and rights violations regularly committed by U.S. forces...

"Torture is only the tip of the iceberg," said Roger Normand, an international lawyer who directs the Center. "From unlawful killings, mass arrests, and collective punishment to outright theft and pillage, the U.S. is violating almost every law intended to protect civilians living under foreign military occupation."

The report blames the Bush Administration for misusing the war against terrorism to exempt itself from the Geneva Conventions and other legal norms, creating a climate of impunity in which ordinary soldiers feel free to torture and abuse Iraqis. Rather than scapegoat those caught on camera, the report recommends that George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and other responsible U.S. officials be held accountable for war crimes resulting from their policies.

According to the report, these crimes are so entrenched in U.S. policies towards Iraq that they will end only when the occupation itself is ended. This would require withdrawal of U.S. troops and an end to U.S. control over Iraq's political, economic and military affairs. Absent these fundamental changes, the purported June 30th "transfer of sovereignty" to Iraqi authorities is "a form of political theatre with no legal effect" on U.S obligations as an occupying power, notwithstanding the diplomatic fig leaf provided by yesterday's UN Security Council resolution.

Reagan was no slouch when it came to war crimes.

(By the way, William F. Buckley Jr. has said that commanders who allowed troops to abuse Iraqis should be punished.)


Monday, June 14, 2004
 
Saudi sand

An excellent piece by William Dalrymple in today's Guardian says the Saudi Arabian government has been responsible for much of the growth of what could be termed "al Qaeda" style Islam:

Far more than the secular Ba'athist regimes targeted by the Washington neo-cons, the Saudis have turned the face of Islam against the west. The war on Iraq has only provided a rallying cry for al-Qaida supporters. The country that has played by far the greatest role in advancing global Islamist militancy was never listed in Bush's "axis of evil" speech, and is a major US ally.
Obviously the solution is to "pick up [that] small crappy little country and throw it against the wall," but then that's the solution to everything.

Dalrymple doesn't highlight how the U.S. has propped up the Saudi government, but Uncle Sam has.

In what appears to be an example of a phenomenon identified by Slavoj Zizek in Welcome to the Desert of the Real (Verso, 2002), few in the U.S. have been willing to confront this relationship and what it has lead to without suggesting that U.S. power has the ability to resolve the situation. Zizek contended that the surge of relatively friendly U.S. interest in Islam and the area around and including the Middle East was clouded by an inability to see how the U.S. had been a major player in creating this world. Similarly, the Bush Administration doesn't want to press Saudi Arabia, at least in part, because doing so would likely mean admitting that U.S. intervention doesn't always bring all good things. The hawkish intellectual class wants to avoid bringing it up for a similar reason.

On the other hand, people like me who are opposed to the U.S. trying to run the world may be uncomfortable –I certainly am- bringing it up, because I am afraid that it will be interpreted as merely a call for taking over Saudi Arabia and setting them straight.


Sunday, June 13, 2004
 
Apparently Ronnie is no worse for the wear.

Saturday, June 12, 2004
 
The John Hinckley Award

Yesterday's coverage of President Ronald Reagan's funeral was a shining moment for television news. I didn't see any of it but television news excels at nothing if it doesn't excel at interjecting the same thing they have been saying without end for days to coverage of pre-planned events.

Still I think we aren't paying enough attention to one of the true heroes of the Reagan Era, John Hinckley.

As everybody should know Hinckley shot and almost killed Reagan in 1981 in an attempt to meet to Jodie Foster. I'd say this is a great argument for legalizing prostitution and requiring Harvey Keitel to be a pimp, but that would have most likely have prevented us from ever hearing the noble "I am in control here" from the great patriot named Alexander Haig.

Hinckley didn't get the job done, but if we can "remember the good stuff" about Reagan, I say we do the same for Hinckley and vow from this point on, anybody who kills a member of the Bush Administration gets to meet the celebrity of their choice, save for Winona Ryder. You have to get Bush for that honor.


Friday, June 11, 2004
 
Sadistic Rummy

I have so much contempt for the Bush Administration that it is almost a tribute to them that they can still outrage me.

A June 9 Los Angeles Times editorial says that Rumsfeld approved of attempts to rough up John Walker Lindh.

For the sake of the argument, let’s say Lindh was guilty of treason and deserved to be executed for this crime. Lindh still wasn’t that important and any attempt to rough him up in particular is just cruel.

If true, this is indisputable proof that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is a sadistic asshole.


Thursday, June 10, 2004
 
Tributes to Ronnie

I turned on the telly last night and found out that someone named Ronald Reagan had recently passed away. Apparently this guy was a president, the reason the Soviet Union did not defeat the United States and a servant of God.

You would think that the death of such a great man would provoke non-stop coverage on the cable news distractions, segments on talk radio and maybe a note or two on the net, but it hasn't. Even Micah Holmquist hasn't written anything funny about this tragedy.

What the fuck's up?

The answer is that the liberal media is doing its best to keep the greatness of Reagan from being known to all.

***

Fortunately there are some people who haven't forgotten. Amongst them may be the Bathists fighting coalition forces in Iraq.

Jim Mannion of the AFP writes in a June 9 story:

United States soldiers now fighting the remnants of Saddam's regime can look back to the early 1980s for the start of a relationship that fostered the rise of the largest military in the Middle East, one whose use of chemical weapons set the stage for last year's invasion.

Reagan, determined to check arch-foe Iran, opened a back door to Iraq through which flowed US intelligence and hundreds of millions of dollars in loan guarantees - even as Washington professed neutrality in Baghdad's war with Tehran.

It was complemented by French weaponry and German dual-use technology that experts say wound up in Iraq's chemical and biological warfare programmes...

The aid came despite clear evidence as early as mid-1983 that Iraq was using chemical weapons on Iranian forces.

Washington said nothing publicly, but noted "almost daily" Iraqi use of chemical weapons in internal reports...

The Reagan administration opened full diplomatic relations with Baghdad in November, 1984. Iraqi chemical attacks continued not only on Iranian forces but also on Kurdish civilians, notably at Hallabja in 1987.

Then there's the Afghans.

***

The State Department is doing a subtle tribute.

Less than two months ago when The State Department said that "terrorism" ("premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.") had declined in 2003 when compared to the 2002 numbers.

Well... Josh Meyer writes in yesterday's Los Angeles Times:

The State Department is scrambling to revise its annual report on global terrorism to acknowledge that it understated the number of deadly attacks in 2003, amid charges that the document is inaccurate and was politically manipulated by the Bush administration.

When the most recent "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report was issued April 29, senior Bush administration officials immediately hailed it as objective proof that they were winning the war on terrorism. The report is considered the authoritative yardstick of the prevalence of terrorist activity around the world...

But on Tuesday, State Department officials said they underreported the number of terrorist attacks in the tally for 2003, and added that they expected to release an updated version soon.

Several U.S. officials and terrorism experts familiar with that revision effort said the new report will show that the number of significant terrorist incidents increased last year, perhaps to its highest level in 20 years...

On Tuesday, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) applauded the State Department for deciding to reissue the report, a step he requested in a letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell three weeks ago. But Waxman said the Bush administration so far had refused to address his allegation that it manipulated the terrorism data to claim victory in the U.S.-declared war on terrorism...

"This manipulation may serve the Administration's political interests," Waxman wrote in his May 17 letter to Powell, "but it calls into serious doubt the integrity of the report."

Several State Department officials vehemently denied their report was swayed by politics. "That's not the way we do things here," said one senior official.

Another senior official characterized the errors as clerical, and blamed them mostly on the fact responsibility for the report recently shifted from the CIA to the administration's new Terrorist Threat Integration Center.

Maybe the mistakes was "clerical" in nature, but Team Bush ("the lying assholes") gives you no reason to believe them.

***

Reagan would no doubt be proud of the behavior of our brave fighting men...

Luke Baker of Reuters writes in a May 25 story:

Besides the prisoner-abuse scandal, there is another, more pervasive problem Iraqis say they suffer daily at the hands of U.S. troops -- theft of money and other property during aggressive American raids.

Over the past 14 months of occupation, U.S. forces have carried out literally thousands of raids on homes across the country, routinely seizing money, jewelry and other property from Iraqis suspected of "anti-coalition activities."

Items are generally confiscated on suspicion they could be used to finance attacks against U.S.-led forces, and the U.S. military says it has had some success in cutting off funding for insurgents via the policy.

But Iraqis say the raids often target the wrong people, are carried out in an aggressive, even destructive manner and complain that lifetime savings, precious jewelry and family heirlooms are regularly stolen in the process.

Adel Alami, a lawyer with Iraq's Human Rights Organization, says the majority of the cases his group deals with involve Iraqis seeking compensation for lost property and cash.

***

Ronald Reagan increased military spending and so he'd no doubt be pleased to know that military spending by the world as whole increased last year, with Reagan's beloved America remaining the largest dealer.

***

I'm sure I'm missing out on some of the many tributes to Reagan. If I were a man as great as Reagan, I would no doubt include them, but Reagan had faith in both America and God, and so I tell you, GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!


Wednesday, June 09, 2004
 
Important issues

Your humble blogger trys to avoid commenting on every little matter. Most of them don't interest me. I don't care if John Kerry needs to cut his hair or if Bush can manage to convince people of something.

And yet there are times when my public just demands that I comment and so I must say that I am opposed to any person ever being allowed to do anything unless they have signed a loyalty oath to the legacy of President Reagan.

***

A less important matter is the new U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq.

This is important because if the best argument against the Uncle Sam's conquest of Iraq is that a subsection of the United Nations didn't support it, it is time for you to get in line behind this generation's Ronald Reagan, President George W. Bush.

That or admit that your opposition was intellectually shallow.

***

"The Bush administration routinely bypassed or overruled Pentagon experts on international law and the Geneva convention to construct a sweeping legal justification for harsh tactics in the war on terror, the Guardian has learnt," Suzanne Goldenberg writes in today's Guardian. "In one instance, President George Bush's military order of November 13 2001, which denies prisoner-of-war status to captives from Afghanistan and allows their detention without charge or access to a lawyer at Guantánamo, was issued without any consultations with Pentagon lawyers, a former Pentagon official said."

"A classified Pentagon report, providing a series of legal arguments apparently intended to justify abuses and torture against detainees, appears to undermine public assurances by senior U.S. officials, including President George W. Bush, that the military would never resort to such practices in the 'war on terrorism,' Jim Lobe of IPS writes in a June 7 story. "Short excerpts of the report, which was drafted by Defence Department lawyers, were published in the Wall Street Journal Monday. The text asserts, among other things, that the president, in his position as commander-in-chief, has virtually unlimited power to wage war, even in violation of U.S. law and international treaties."

These stories aren't worth my time, but thanks to James Benjamin for the links.

And here's Kate Zernike and David Rohde in yesterday's New York Times:

In the weeks since photographs of naked detainees set off the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, military officials have portrayed the sexual humiliation captured in the images as the isolated acts of a rogue night shift.

But forced nudity of prisoners was pervasive in the military intelligence unit of Abu Ghraib, so much so that soldiers later said they had not seen "the whole nudity thing," as one captain called it, as abusive or out of the ordinary.

While there have been reports of forced nakedness at detention facilities in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the practice was apparently far more aggressive at Abu Ghraib, according to interviews, reports from human rights groups and sworn statements from detainees and soldiers. The detainees said leaving prisoners naked started as far back as last July, three months before the seven soldiers now charged and their military police company arrived at the prison. It bred a culture, some soldiers say, where the abuse captured on film could happen.

Detainees were paraded naked past other prisoners and guards; some were ordered to do jumping jacks and sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in the nude, according to a several witnesses. Also, a father and his grown son were stripped, then forced to stand and stare at each other. The International Committee of the Red Cross, visiting in October, found prisoners left naked in their cells for days, modestly trying to shield themselves behind cardboard from meals-ready-to-eat boxes.

Some liberal Reagan haters will no doubt be bothered by this shit by I say it is just more reason for God to Bless America.

Tuesday, June 08, 2004
 
lack of interest in the usual subjects

Monday, June 07, 2004
 
Elite members of the elite media such as Bill Blum, Susan Davis, Phil Gasper, Mark Hand, Christopher Hitchens, Greg Palast, Ben Tripp and Mickey Z have decided to confuse people and try to convince them that the greatness of Ronald Reagan is not a fact.

Also, read my endorsement of Kerry.


Sunday, June 06, 2004
 
The mourning surrounding the death of Ronald Reagan is obscuring the fact that Robert McNamara, Henry Kissinger and Oliver North are all alive. This means there's still time to liven up history classes by putting them in a cage and allowing school children to poke them with a stick.

Saturday, June 05, 2004
 
Dave Dellinger, Elvin Jones and Steve Lacy all passed away recently.

Friday, June 04, 2004
 
Pat Boone shouldn't shut up and sing

One of America's greatest entertainers, Pat "I don't think censorship is a bad word, but it has become a bad word because everybody associates it with some kind of restriction on liberty" Boone, appeared on Fox News' Day Side yesterday to criticize the media for talking way too freaking much about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. It was noticeable that nobody, including host Linda Vester, said anything along the lines of "aren't you just an entertainer? Why should anybody care what you think?"

Compare that with the much more hostile treatment Janeane Garofalo received when she appeared on the FNC last year.

I consider this further evidence for my theory that complaints about celebs speaking out on politics really mean "shut up, unless you are going to say something I agree with!"


Thursday, June 03, 2004
 
stuff

Wednesday, June 02, 2004
 
Why not?

Bush outlined his latest strategy for fighting "terrorism" today. You can read the points for yourself, but notice Bush doesn't mention anything about oh I don't know ending the United States' abuses of human rights, U.S. support of repression or even improving security at nuclear facilities in the home of the brave.

To bring up those things is to bring up something that doesn't make Americans feel all goddamn great about their country. And why would Bush want to inspire that?


Tuesday, June 01, 2004
 
These are what is called links.