micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links |
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Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm. Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net. Holmquist's full archives are listed here.
Archives
Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution) Aljazeera.Net English Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development) Thivai Abhor |
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
I get so giddy when faced with good comedy I could spend the rest of my life typing "HA" and wouldn't sum up how great this is. Monday, August 30, 2004
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Reuters (August 29) writes: A U.S. soldier expected to plead guilty to charges of abusing Iraqi prisoners told a German magazine he deeply regretted his actions but said the abuses were encouraged by military intelligence services.God Bless America! Saturday, August 28, 2004
Just an observation "Conservative" talk radio hosts tend to take it as a given that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is right, while their "liberal" counterparts tend to take it as given that they are wrong. Friday, August 27, 2004
As may or may not be clear, I am burned out on this blog and plan to take a different approach to postings till the thrill comes back. *** The Bush Network Link Engine is a new project where surfers can add anti-Bush links to a big list. What's the point? It is a good way to waste time. *** It would take a long time before I got around to asking Rummy what he thought of his surroundings. *** *** Support democracy by not supporting the Democrats (Yoshie Furuhashi, August 26) Thursday, August 26, 2004
Must listen and other matters Run, do not walk, to sleater-kinney.net and check out their "Sights and Sounds" section for the mp3 of the revamp of "Rocking in the Free World" they did with Pearl Jam live in concert on April 6, 2003. The music is the same. The lyrics have updated to reflect events following the original writing of the song. It is nothing short of brillant. *** "The smell of burnt flesh filled the air and blood smeared the deserted streets of Najaf's Old City on Wednesday after heavy US air strikes on Shiite militia positions around Iraq's revered Imam Ali shrine," AFP writes (August 25). *** "A report by a panel reviewing Pentagon detention operations criticizes top officials, but fails to address government policy that may have led to the mistreatment and torture of detainees, Human Rights Watch said today," writes HRW (August 24). *** Here's the Army's report on Abu Ghraib (August 25). *** Will Dunham of Reuters writes (August 25): An Army general has acknowledged for the first time that U.S. forces tortured Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib jail and his report said a colonel who headed the military intelligence unit at the prison could face criminal charges.That appears to be it for today. Wednesday, August 25, 2004
RE yesterday's post on Uncle Sam's abuse of prisoners, I suspect that virtually nobody would believe that incidents of abuse and torture happened if not for the Abu Ghraib pictures. At the same time, I suspect that many of the same people won't believe anything happened that wasn't photographed. *** In today's Boston Herald, J.M. Lawrence writes: Bellingham history teacher fired from teaching current events because he asked seniors to write about photos of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners hit school officials with a federal lawsuit yesterday, accusing his bosses of censorship...This makes me sad for more than one reason. *** Stefan C. Friedman's article in Monday's New York Post, "Radicals Plot Bad Weather," says that the NYPD is tracking five groups in preparation for next week's anti-RNC protests including the Earth Liberation Front, Refuse & Resist and International A.N.S.W.E.R. It also says law enforcement is worried about former members of the Weathermen getting involved. This bit is hilarious: Originally called "The Weathermen," the anarchist organization came into existence in June 1969 as a radical splinter group of the Students for a Democratic Society.What is there to say? *** The National Progress Fund's "Bush-Nader, '04" commercial is a disgusting political ad. Like other NPF ads, it is dishonest and showcases a refusal to talk about anything but the clichéd horse race. *** Adam Kotsko on his thesis, which will look at how Jacques Derrida, John Milbank and Slavoj Žižek view Christianity. *** This is yet another sampling of your humble blogger's former bookmarks. And while we are at it, here are a few final ones... for now. Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Sand niggers prevent themselves from loving us I know why Iraqis are distrustful of the United States (Jackie Spinner, The Washington Post, August 23). They aren't good people. In completely unrelated news, the report from the group appointed by Rummy to look at prisoner abuses is out. I haven't read it yet, so I won't comment further, although Reuters (August 24) has some interesting things to say: Top Pentagon officials and the military command in Iraq contributed to an environment in which prisoners were abused at Abu Ghraib prison, according to a report released Tuesday by a high-level panel investigating the military detentions...That isn't all of it. Josh White and Thomas E. Ricks write in today's Washington Post: An Army investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has found that military police dogs were used to frighten detained Iraqi teenagers as part of a sadistic game, one of many details in the forthcoming report that were provoking expressions of concern and disgust among Army officers briefed on the findings.In other news (David Rising, August 24): The U.S. military judge hearing charges of prisoner abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison rejected a request Tuesday for Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to submit to an interview, but said he would reconsider if the defense could show a Rumsfeld link to the case.Now what would Rummy have to hide? Monday, August 23, 2004
"US forces renewed their assault yesterday on Mehdi Army positions in and around Najaf's old city with an early morning bombing raid and an advance which brought tanks at some points to within 400 metres of the shrine of Imam Ali," Donald Macintyre writes in today's Independent. "The renewed fighting came amid fresh violence elsewhere in Iraq and growing fears about the welfare of three Western journalists who disappeared on the road between Baghdad and Najaf. There was a prison break-out in the southern city of Amarah, the corpse of a kidnapped Iraqi intelligence agent was found in Basra and fighting flared in and near Baghdad." *** "A US bombing raid on the Iraqi town of Falluja has left five people dead and wounded six, while two US soldiers have been killed near Samarra city," says Aljazeera (August 21). "A journalist from Falluja, Abu Bakr al-Dulaimi, told Aljazeera on Friday that four Iraqi women were among the wounded when US warplanes bombed a milk factory in the town west of Baghdad in an overnight raid." God Bless America! Wait there's more... Aljazeera writes (August 21), "At least two Iraqi civilians - including a child - have been killed and five others wounded in a blast in Baquba, amid deadly clashes across Iraq." *** "Army investigators believe that some of the military interrogators who were implicated in the abuse scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were involved in earlier deaths and abuses of detainees held by U.S. forces in Afghanistan," writes Elise Ackerman of Knight Ridder Newspapers in an August 20 story. *** Johann Hari's profile of Antonio Negri (The Independent, August 17) is compelling because of just how bad it is. This graf is typical: I try to think of a polite way to remind him of the fact that every communist revolution of the 20th century lead to tyranny and mass murder. And a nice way to say that communism was a betrayal of the democratic values of the left. I fail. I blurt it out. "These communist regimes are waiting for a historical revision. They may not be seen so negatively in the next century," he says, as though this was perfectly obvious.Well Hari does admit to having not finished Empire... Sunday, August 22, 2004
Saturday, August 21, 2004
We need Janet Yes we do We need Janet How about you? Enough's enough. This Sadr shit has gone on just was too long and the only solution is to bring in Janet Reno. I mean, what the hell's taking so long? Fried Iraqis by Labor Day sounds great, but, if we want that, we gotta get this shit together and go! *** "Iran's defense minister, Vice Adm. Ali Shamkhani, has warned that Iran may resort to pre-emptive strikes to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities," Nazila Fathi writes in an August 19 New York Times story. "Admiral Shamkhani made his comments in an interview on Al Jazeera television on Wednesday in response to a question about the possibility of an American or Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear projects." As I've said before, tensions between Iran and Israel are nothing to worry about. On a related topic, this week I saw a program from Zola Levitt that was boilerplate Zionism at the expense of the Palestinians. The funny thing about this program and many other similar expressions of Zionism at the expense of the Palestinians is that those who make the argument seem to not know that Arab, Muslim and Palestinian are not words with the same meaning. I'd say these assholes need to get educated, but I can't believe they don't know the difference. They just would prefer that the words were interchangeable and in current period of time constantly implicitly communicating via the mass media that there is no difference is a good way of creating, in the realm of policy discussions, the reality that they desire. FWIW, and as a way of making a transition, Zola is a good example of Christian Zionism, an interesting phenomenon if ever there was one since the two religions, of course, are divided by the not exactly small detail of the role of Jesus. Then again, why should a disagreement over the very nature of the deity get in the way of fighting those sand nigger fucks? Or are they towel heads? *** I do find it somewhat interesting that Zola is not a believer in Bible codes. *** Uncle Sam favors growth of West Bank settlements (Steven R. Weisman, The New York Times, August 20): The Bush administration, moving to lend political support to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at a time of political turmoil, has modified its policy and signaled approval of growth in at least some Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, American and Israeli officials say.*** In an August 14 Washington Post story, Dan Eggen and John Lancaster write: In the more than two years since U.S. forces destroyed al Qaeda's haven and much of its leadership in Afghanistan, many U.S. intelligence officials and terrorism experts had come to believe that other Islamist extremist groups now posed the gravest threat...Who would have ever predicted this? *** I'm tempted to ponder, "how the fuck does this guy have a column on a well read site that presumably he gets paid to write?" but I know the answer. townhall.com knows its audience and Giles is practically an intellectual compared to most of them. *** Good responsible liberals are worried about other protesters getting out of hand at the RNC, Michelle Goldberg reports in an August 17 salon.com story. Friday, August 20, 2004
From the "no more needs to be said, although I wish it weren't true" file, Steve Earle comes out against Ralph Nader (Jim Beal Jr, San Antonio Express-News, August 18). Thursday, August 19, 2004
So, Condi says WMDs might have been moved from Iraq to Syria. Funny how that isn't now worth fighting a war over and the threat named Saddam had these fun toys but didn't actually want to use them. Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Why don't they like us? A conference of more than 1,100 Iraqis chosen to take the country a crucial step further toward constitutional democracy convened in Baghdad on Sunday under siege-like conditions, only to be thrown into disorder by delegates staging angry protests against the American-led military operation in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.Somebody needs to teach these assholes some manners, although it certainly won't be the Japs who have set a real bad example (David McNeill, The Independent, August 12): It is a baking hot day in Henoko, a tiny fishing village in Okinawa, Japan's southernmost prefecture. For 110 days, the reverend and 8,000 supporters have been coming to this sun-bleached beach to fight off government engineers trying to begin drilling surveys for a proposed offshore helicopter base for the US military...How ungrateful. Oddly Bush didn't mention getting out of these countrires yesterday when he talked about shifts in the deployment of U.S. troops. Monday, August 16, 2004
Sunday, August 15, 2004
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Friday, August 13, 2004
Why I detest the Olympics The Olympics are upon us and I don't have Olympic fever. In fact I'm quite disappointed with the Greeks for getting their act together and actually building all the stuff necessary to run this event. Why? I'd love to give a political reason, but, first and foremost, I just don't care and I detest the assumption that I should care. People in the U.S. spend 206 straight weeks not giving a single thought to track and field events but then the Olympics rolls around and every other person knows some great story about the top U.S. competitor in the shot-put event. They know how this person was born a paraplegic gang member with leprosy but faith in God and the spirit of America allowed them to overcome their weakness and be on the verge of achieving greatness. They know it all just as they saw on the t.v. About the only good part of this is that sometimes this hopeful just barely misses out on the bronze medal. I like it when that happens. Thursday, August 12, 2004
America's heroes have some fun with Afghans and other notes for August 12 In today's edition, The Age writes about more good fun GI Joe is having: American authorities have reportedly launched an inquiry into allegations of sexual and physical abuse by US marines against 35 villagers in central Afghanistan.*** "Basra Deputy Governor Salam Uda al-Maliki has said he is to announce the separation of some Iraqi southern governorates from the central Baghdad government," Aljazeera writes in an August 10 story. "Informed sources told Aljazeera that al-Maliki said the breakaway province would include Basra, Misan and Dhi Qar governorates." This could lead to regional instability, writes Erich Marquardt in a January 28 piece for The Power and Interest News Report . *** "Ordinary Iraqis, who have been suffering for decades due to the consequences of wars and UN sanctions, were more than willing to give Allawi's US-appointed government a chance to restore stability and end military occupation... However, given the fact that the US forces' military operations in Iraq have not substantially changed since the "handover of sovereignty", many Iraqis have again raised the vital question: Has sovereignty really been restored and the occupation ended?" Ahmed Janabi writes in an Aljazeera story from yesterday. "On the ground, US military deployment has not changed; the number of foreign troops is increasing and recent statements by US officials - since the so-called handover of authority on 28 June - that the US military is staying in Iraq for years to come, have led citizens to doubt whether a new life is on the horizon." *** "At least 165 people were killed and more than 600 wounded in heavy fighting across Iraq over the past 24 hours as US marines moved to wipe out Moqtada al-Sadr's militia forces in the holy city of Najaf," Nicolas Rothwell writes in an August 13 piece for The Australian. *** Patrick Cockburn says the corruption doesn't end with the Chalabis (CounterPunch, August 10). *** *** "Hands Off Najaf," says Voices in the Wilderness (August 11). *** "[T]he inspector general tasked with investigating what led to the Army's abuse of prisoners in Iraq [Vice Adm. Albert Church]... is questioning – under oath – all Army military intelligence (MI) personnel who interrogated prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo, signaling that responsibility for the Torturegate scandal is creeping up the chain of command," Paul Sperry writes in an article published on antiwar.com today. "And he's asking them some fairly pointed and relevant questions, including some regarding the use of stress positions and unmuzzled dogs during interrogations, and whether commanding officers pressured them into applying such harsh tactics on prisoners in Iraq." I'm sure there's nothing to this and it was all a bunch of bad soldiers. *** "The head of Iraq's nuclear programme under Saddam Hussein has said Iraq destroyed its nuclear weapons programme in 1991 and never restarted it," says an August 11 BBC piece. "Jafar Dhia Jafar told the BBC sanctions and inspections worked in stopping the reconstitution of the programme." Well at least we got them before they got us. *** Since the hawks were wrong about Iraq, they shouldn't be trusted on Iran, says Martin Sieff in a salon.com piece published yesterday. *** The Star nails Kerry (August 11, 2004): Rising to Bush's bait, Kerry said he would have cast the same Yes vote in Congress that he did on Oct. 11, 2002, to authorize the president to launch a pre-emptive war that began March 19, 2003, even if Kerry had known that Saddam Hussein had no ties with Al Qaeda terrorists, no weapons of mass destruction and posed no real threat to the world.*** "Iran's defense ministry said on Wednesday it had carried out a field test of the latest version of its Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile which defense experts say can reach Israel or U.S. bases in the Gulf," writes Paul Hughes of Reuters (August 11). "Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said last week Iran was working on improvements to the range and accuracy of the Shahab-3 in response to Israel's moves to boost its anti-missile capability." *** Otto Reich has said he wants to get rid of Hugo Chavez, Philip Stinard of VHeadline.com reports in a June 24 story. *** From the "Team Bush doesn't care about our safety file, "European terrorism analysts acknowledge that the U.S. and its allies are under threat by Al Qaeda, but some suggest that the White House is unnecessarily adding to public anxiety with vague and dated intelligence about possible attacks. Some in Western Europe suspect the administration is using fear to improve its chances in the November election," Jeffrey Fleishman writes in a story yesterday's Los Angeles Times. "Terrorism experts say too much publicity about possible plots and raids of Islamic extremist networks, including the arrest of 13 suspects in Britain last week, could hurt wider investigations. American politicians have called for an examination of that contention. Officials in Pakistan reportedly said Tuesday that Washington's recent disclosure of the arrest of a suspected Al Qaeda operative, Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, allowed other extremists under surveillance to disappear." *** Criminal photographer Ian Spiers has a blog, brownequalsterrorist.com. Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Goddamn, goddamn, on to Iran (and other notes for August 11) In yesterday's Guardian, Simon Tisdall writes: The US charge sheet against Iran is lengthening almost by the day, presaging destabilising confrontations this autumn and maybe a pre-election October surprise.This is not comforting news. I wouldn't have any doubt that Iran wants nukes if not for a bit of recent history, but so what? That's not a logical reason to attack a country... Whoops, I'm sorry. That is a perfectly valid reason to attack another country if you are the United States of America and the prez says it has to be done. My apologies. *** One scenario I have in my head is that Israel does strike to destroy Iran's nukes. Iran responds by attacking Israel with conventional, biological and/or chemical weapons, and we have ourselves a little war! Yee-ha and stuff, but I don't think anybody, save for those who believe this has something to do with the "end times," can say with any degree of certainty what the ultimate result of such a conflict would be. *** This section of Tisdall's piece is classic: "Iran is experiencing a gradual process of internal change," the report says. "The urgency of US concerns about Iran and the region mandate that the US deal with the current regime [through] a compartmentalised process of dialogue, confidence building and incremental engagement."If we let the Iranians decide their future, we will be appeasing them! *** Rightly or wrongly, New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof August 11 column "An American Hiroshima" seems to just scream, it was one thing when it happened to those fuckin' Japs, but it is America that now could be hurt! *** In Monday's Boston Globe, Cathy Young writes about the liberated women of Afghanistan and Iraq: ...more than two years after the fall of the Taliban and more than a year after the fall of Saddam, critics say that the situation of women has not improved much and, in some cases, may have worsened. "For many Iraqi women, the tyranny of Saddam's regime has been replaced by chronic violence and growing religious conservatism that have stifled their hopes for wider freedoms -- and, for many, put their lives in even greater peril," says a recent cover story in Time magazine. The article focuses on "honor killing" -- the murder of women by male relatives after they have "dishonored" the family by committing some sexual infraction (or by being raped). These killings may be on the rise because of the breakdown in law and order and the greater availability of weapons.It is beyond me why Destiny's Child has written a song about this yet. *** Freedom for those Iraqi fucks (AFP, August 9): The United States struggled to reconcile its normal forceful advocacy of international press freedom with a defense of the Iraqi interim government decision to close the offices of the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera television network in Baghdad.In light of these bits of news, I guess it shouldn't be shocking that Uncle Sam is still imprisoning and harming Iraqi children (Lisa Ashkenaz Croke, TheNewStandard, August 11). *** "US troops last night urged Iraqi civilians to leave the combat zones in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, raising speculation of an imminent full-scale offensive against rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Medhi Army militia," Nicolas Rothwell of AFP writes in an August 11 story. *** "A US takeover of Polish command in the restive holy city of Najaf hot on the heels of the Philippines' withdrawal of its troops from Iraq has underscored a weak multinational force in which Anglo-US domination only exacerbates insecurity, analysts said Tuesday," Jennie Matthew of Middle East Online writes in an August 10 story. *** Michelle Goldberg of salon.com on the "New York Lockdown." Isn't freedom wonderful? *** It looks like Nader won't be on the Green slate in California. *** *** Herbert Lash writes in an August 9 Reuters story that "cuddle parties" are the rage amongst at least certain New Yorkers. For more, go to www.cuddleparty.com. *** Linda Harvey's August 9 anti-gay WorldNetDaily column "Josh is taking Matt to the prom" is an unintentional comedic masterpiece. *** *** stevearle.net says: It should be cool. Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Notes for August 10 *** Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has recently ordered the arrest of political opponents, closed a prominent media outlet reporting stories that were embarrassing to the Iraqi government, and taken up aggressive tactics vis-a-vis the opposition guerrillas, including reinstating the death penalty against them.Click here for more. *** The new Iraq was on a knife-edge last night as violence and political instability confronted the regime of Iyad Allawi, the interim Prime Minister," Donald Macintyre writes in today's Independent. "In Basra, a British soldier was killed and several others were wounded. Army Land Rovers were set on fire in clashes with militia loyal to the Shia cleric Muqtada Sadr, leaving the militia in control of the city's main road junctions." *** From the humor file, Jim Lobe of IPS writes in an August 10 story: One of the greatest coups in Washington's nearly three-year war against al-Qaeda has suddenly turned sour with reports the White House prematurely exposed the identity of a key source whose contacts and communication with the terrorist group's operational masterminds had yet to be fully exploited.*** "Iran is demanding Europe's leading powers back its right to nuclear technology that could be used to make weapons, dismaying the Europeans and strengthening Washington's push for U.N. sanctions, a European Union official and diplomats said Monday," the AP writes in an August 9 story. *** "Venezuela state-owned news agency VENPRES is quoting an El Mundo de Madrid (Spain) report that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is set to put a contingency plan in motion in the (likely) event that President Hugo Chavez Frias wins next weekend's Recall Referendum," VHeadline.com writes in an August 9 story that displays a lack of understanding of the politics of John Kerry. *** Ron Paul on "Police State USA" (antiwar.com, August 10) *** Norman Mailer on Bush (Democracy Now, August 9) ***
Monday, August 09, 2004
Notes for August 9 *** "The situation in Iraq right now is not as bad as the news media are portraying it to be. It's worse," Ken Dilanian says in an August 1 Philadelphia Inquirer piece. *** Baghdad is hot at the moment and water cools people off and quenches thirst but, Ashraf Khalil writes in an August 4 Los Angeles Times article, "Typhoid and hepatitis E are running rampant through Sadr City [an area is Baghdad] this summer, as residents rely heavily on a sewage-tainted water supply to endure temperatures of 115 degrees and up. The outbreak has strained local healthcare facilities and left Health Ministry officials able to only guess at the scope of the problem." *** "Children fret because they can’t sleep. Adults grow irritable. There’s no water because electric pumps don’t work. Food spoils without refrigeration. Water stored in rooftop cisterns spurts from taps scalding hot," The Statesman Journal writes of the situation facing the people of Iraq in an August 8 editorial. "Iraqis are glad to be free of Saddam Hussein, true. In many ways, however, people’s daily lives are far more difficult than under the old regime." *** riverbend on mass death in Najaf and Al Sadir City *** Don't let the bad news get you down, however. Iraq now has the death penalty and Ariana Eunjung Cha reports in an August 4 Washington Post story the Iraqi government will pay no less than $1.9 billion to U.S. companies. (How much of this will be spent on executions or keeping the recently temporarily banned Aljazeera down is not clear.) *** *** "Construction of BP's controversial $3bn (£1.6bn) oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Turkey resumed only after the intervention of Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defense, and other senior members of the Bush administration, it has emerged," Saeed Shah writes in today's Independent. "Work on the strategically important scheme, led by BP, was halted in a region of Georgia in July while the government there sought assurances on 'security' concerns." *** Why is Anthony Gregory making such a big deal about the targeting Jap "civilians" with atomic bombs during World War II? I say they were in the wrong country and there are consequences for being in such a place. *** I love my new Sirius radio. *** What's the deal with Blogdex not visiting this page in nearly three weeks? *** The basic message of Planned Parenthood Action Fund's The Adventures of Choice Chick is that Choice Chick is nothing without the help of two men, John Edwards and John Kerry. Sunday, August 08, 2004
Think of this the next time Uncle Sam starts imploring for a war for human rights In yesterday's Oregonian, Mike Francis writes of a national reservist in Baghdad who: From his post several stories above ground level, he watched as men in plainclothes beat blind folded and bound prisoners in the enclosed grounds of the Iraqi Interior Ministry.The Iraqi government is "sovereign" when it is abusing Iraqis but not when it comes to economics. The simple fact is that Iraq is a U.S. colony even though Bush and friends do not want to micromanage the country. They especially don't want to step in and protect Iraqis from abuse. Saturday, August 07, 2004
Three things that make me laugh Lucianne Goldberg was a guest host for Laura Ingraham yesterday morning. At one point Goldberg said, "you know the truth when you see it." *** The Maoist Internationalist Movement's "Resolutions on Writing in Context" includes this graf: Although MIM recognizes that some people reference themselves as "niggers" and then call all wimmin "bitches," and then has the effect of changing the meaning of both terms, MIM reserves use of "bitch" as an enemy term and is more friendly to the position that all wimmin are " 'hos. "*** People, such as those behind Netscape music, who ask things like, " Remember when... Britney and Christina were sweet, young girls-next-door?" When exactly was that? Nobody actually remembers them till 1999 when Spears was singing, "hit me baby one more time," which either had sexual connotations or was an ode to the joys of domestic abuse, while going for the sexually available and submissive teenage tart look and Aguilera was singing, "I'm a genie in a bottle/You gotta rub me the right way." Friday, August 06, 2004
Natalie Portman was on The Daily Show last night to promote Garden State (Zach Braff, 2004). Wearing a shirt that read, "Kerry Me," Portman said that the right of U.S. citizens to vote in "unique in the world." This would bring out the usual howls from the likes of Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly about how celebs don't know anything if not for the fact that I suspect these guys, at least in their public persona, don't realize that what Portman said isn't true. *** *** The Voting Rights Act was signed into law on August 6, 1965. Twenty years to the day earlier, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. *** "Repeated abuses allegedly suffered by three British prisoners at the hands of US interrogators and guards in the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba could amount to war crimes, the Red Cross said yesterday," Vikram Dodd and Tania Branigan write in an August 5 Reuters story. *** "Officially, the U.S. occupation of Iraq ended on June 28, 2004. But in reality, the United States is still in charge: Not only do 138,000 troops remain to control the streets, but the '100 Orders' of L. Paul Bremer III remain to control the economy," Antonia Juhasz writes in yesterday's Los Angeles Times. "These little noticed orders enacted by Bremer, the now-departed head of the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, go to the heart of Bush administration plans in Iraq. They lock in sweeping advantages to American firms, ensuring long-term U.S. economic advantage while guaranteeing few, if any, benefits to the Iraqi people. The Bremer orders control every aspect of Iraqi life — from the use of car horns to the privatization of state-owned enterprises. Order No. 39 alone does no less than 'transition [Iraq ] from a … centrally planned economy to a market economy' virtually overnight and by U.S. fiat." Personally I'm glad to see that the colony is working out. Thursday, August 05, 2004
I just caught a bit of Crossfire today and it was "what the fuck" programming at its finest. Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center explained how the case of Whoopi Goldberg shows that sometimes dog muzzles on humans are a good idea. Cohost Tucker Carlson chimed in with something to the effect of that is a turn-on with some people. Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Be afraid of those who want you to be afraid Three days ago Tom Ridge announced, "we do have new and unusually specific information about where al-Qaeda would like to attack. And as a result, today, the United States Government is raising the threat level to Code Orange for the financial services sector in New York City, Northern New Jersey and Washington, DC." This info may be legit and it may not be, but, according to reports by Douglas Jehl and David Johnston of The New York Times and Dan Eggen and Dana Priest of The Washington Post, a number of people in the know say the info that triggered this isn't all that new. So what's this about? Keeping you, me and everyone else fearful. I realize this isn't an original thought -Michael Moore even did a not bad job of conveying it in a certain movie of his- but it is important. Keep people fearful and Bush gains power. In a July 29 Reuters story, Maggie Fox writes: Talking about death can raise people's need for psychological security, the researchers report in studies to be published in the December issue of the journal Psychological Science and the September issue of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.Fear certainly worked with Iraq. There was no evidence ever preseneted or revealed that Iraq was any kind of threat to the U.S. what-so-fucking-ever and yet, by mere implication, Bush and friends were able to get a nice little war and colonization project out of it. (Of course Saddam's government was theoretically a threat. Every government in the world would stand at least some chance at killing at least a few people in the U.S. of A if they wanted to give it a whirl, and yet air raid sirens probably won't be going off any time soon in Vatican City.) They identified a problem that didn't exist and presented a solution to it. It is nothing short of brillant, really, not unlike a large portion of the consumer products that capitalism produces. Slavoj Zizek notes in On Belief (Routledge, 2001) that many products produced now are designed to create a desire that they can then satisfy. The most relevant example to the matter at hand may be one that has appeared since the publication of that text, no late fees at video stores. Sure, late fees and due dates can be annoying but there was not outcry against them. It was hardly a stereotypical complaint, and yet now Blockbuster has made a big deal about its "no late fees" offer. Removing a problem that didn't really exist, I hate to say this but you know somewhere there is somebody who heard this and said, "That's so fucking wonderful. Now I won't always be a slave to late fees and come up three dollars short on the mortgage every month." As if to see how far they could take this, the Statue of Liberty reopened to the public yesterday. A look at the public line would make this an odd time. Sure they might not have any info saying the plan is to hit the Statue of Liberty, but those plans can be changed and intelligence just might not be perfect. What would anybody be out if the opening were delayed a few weeks? Most importantly, if "the terrorists" are so determined to cause "fear" what would be better than attacking the opening of the Statue of Libery? From the stand-point of wanting to cause and then remedy fear, however, opening the green giant of New York City works out just perfectly. "To stay home and lock our doors is what the terrorists want," Big Apple Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "It shows the world that liberty cannot be intimidated" were the words of U.S. Assistant Interior Secretary Craig Manson. Yep, those terrorist bastards aren't winning here, because we aren't making any changes, unless Uncle Sam and/or his various children want to make those changes. You know what would really show those stupid fucking terrorists that they aren't having a lick of impact? Doing nothing. "Shit, we ain't gonna let a bunch of goddamn towel head sand nigger camel jockey terrorist moon god worshiping fucks get in the way of us doing the same things that we always have done. Anything else would be to let those peckerheads win and that would just fucking suck and goddamnit, I ain't gonna stand for us giving in to them, not one fucking bit. "I remember getting the news on September 11 that if I turned on the teevee, I could see those shitheads strike the towers in New York City and allbedamned if that wasn't exactly what I saw. I knew then and there that we had been attacked and it was time for America to start kicking ass and taking names and we couldn't let the world walk the fuck over us any more like we had for way too fucking long. We had to make it clear who runs this goddamned planet and that we ain't gonna change for no fucking asshole from any of their shitty countries. You get my drift, man? You get my damn drift?" The rhetoric of doing nothing war hardly matched by the reality of doing a lot of things that served the interests of those running the various outlets of government in the land of the free. They want you not only fearful, but to think they have shit under control. Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Monday, August 02, 2004
If your time is valuable, you might be better off not following these links. There can be no doubt, in contrast, that these URLs ARE worth a visit. Sunday, August 01, 2004
"The Revolution Starts...Now" *** Is The Young Turks interviewing Ralph Nader great comedy or a depressing example of political discourse in the United State? |
