D A T E L I N E : B R I S T O L

(with apologies to Walt Kelley.) here are a few of the latest homeland insecurity stories and matters somewhat related: Homeland Security opening private mail: ‘In the 50 years that Grant Goodman has known and corresponded with a colleague in the Philippines he never had any reason to suspect that their friendship was anything but spectacularly ordinary. But now he believes that the relationship has somehow sparked the interest of the Department of Homeland Security and led the agency to place him under surveillance.

‘Last month Goodman, an 81-year-old retired University of Kansas history professor, received a letter from his friend in the Philippines that had been opened and resealed with a strip of dark green tape bearing the words “by Border Protection” and carrying the official Homeland Security seal. “I had no idea (Homeland Security) would open personal letters,” Goodman told MSNBC.com in a phone interview. “That’s why I alerted the media. I thought it should be known publicly that this is going on,” he said…

‘…Goodman is no stranger to mail snooping; as an officer during World War II he was responsible for reading all outgoing mail of the men in his command and censoring any passages that might provide clues as to his unit’s position. “But we didn’t do it as clumsily as they’ve done it, I can tell you that,” Goodman noted, with no small amount of irony in his voice. “Isn’t it funny that this doesn’t appear to be any kind of surreptitious effort here,” he said…’

John at Americablog says it best: ‘Fifteen years after we defeat the Soviet Union we become them.’

hey John, 9/11 changed everything!. fave comment: ‘…we sent in our little Manchurian Candidate, and you all ate it up. A failure in his private life, a miserable shit of a man, and still almost half of you voted for him!!! Beautiful!!! Diebold did the rest. and so many of you were so happy to sell your country down the river that it was easy as apple pie. *snicker*

‘Even when we made “Free Speech Zones” and Town Hall Meetings by appointment only — the most “patriotic” of you all fell for it!!…We gave you Pravda, and the Red States gave us a hug!!! And since we have not been a part of the arms race for the last twenty years, we’ve saved a lot of money. The gap in the last five years with Comrade George’s drunken spending and ill conceived war…. HAHAHAHAHA!!!! Just wait until you realize that Russia never dissolved, it was all just smoke and mirrors. Now we own you suckers!!! Back In The U.S.aS.R. Red Dawn is coming for you all.’

and ‘…Homeland Security has 180,000 employees who can’t get a truck full of water to New Orleans! They should pay back all of their salaries! Now we have all of these people opening our mail. The money to pay them is coming from our pockets. They are making us pay to have our rights taken!…’

yup — we’re all paying for this shit of course, but dig this: MSNBC is asking people to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on ‘Do you support allowing Customs and Border Protection to open private correspondence sent to U.S. citizens from abroad?’. right now, 17% say ‘yes.’ i’ll betcha anything that the 17% are white, think they’re Christian, ’support’ the troops with ribbons and shit and live in the midwest and/or fly over country in small towns — not from our unprotected coasts or other urban areas. but truly, this is amazing to me, people — so keep on watchin’ Big Brother on TV, (and forget the real Big Bro’ snooping around in your personal shit); keep on buyin’ stuff y’all don’t need and thinkin’ that the current admin will keep US safer by taking away our rights and privacy. and totally forget what Benjamin Franklin said: ‘Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.’ forgotten? good. |-(

next up: Canuck yanked off Mexico flight: ‘A Canadian citizen on the U.S. no-fly list is demanding answers after receiving no explanation for why he was yanked off a flight his family was taking to a dream vacation in Mexico. Sami Kahil, his wife, Rima Masri, and their two sons, Karim, 8, and Adam, 6, where bound for an Ixtapa vacation to celebrate the couple’s 10th wedding anniversary when Mexican officials pulled him off the Air Transat flight on Thursday, he said after returning home early yesterday morning.

“They told me I was wanted in Canada but they didn’t tell me why,” said Kahil, 38, who was born in Lebanon but moved to Canada 20 years ago and is now a citizen and has a Canadian passport. “I said to them, ‘Canada wants me? I just came from Canada and nobody said anything to me there,’ ” the shoe store owner recounted, adding he’s never had so much as a parking ticket…’

but dude, you’re totally guilty of having a Middle Eastern-ish name, right? and your skin’s prolly brownish, so you’re guilty of that as well and so’s the rest of your family (maybe not little ‘Adam’ cause his name is English — if that’s his real name). does anybody know how much this shit costs US? who cares, right? cause we’re the world’s richest country and the money funding the DHS couldn’t be used for better things.

Author of book critical of Karl Rove can’t get off aviation watch list (i’m shocked — shocked, i tell you): ‘Houstonians familiar with the work and character of former KHOU-TV Channel 11 reporter Jim Moore will be as surprised as he was a year ago to learn that the government had placed his name on the watch list designed to keep suspected terrorists off U.S. airliners. Moore is also the co-author, with Wayne Slater, of the best-selling Bush’s Brain, a critical examination of the role of political adviser Karl Rove in George W. Bush’s ascension to the presidency.

criticising Karl Rove? guilty of treason! case closed — next! *cough* anyway, ‘As a result of his inclusion on the list, Moore cannot get pre-printed boarding passes and must submit to time-consuming security checks of his identity before boarding commercial flights. In his predicament, he joins a 4-year-old boy stopped at Bush Intercontinental Airport last month and Northfield, Minn., Police Chief Gary Gordon Smith, who also has been unable to get his name removed. Such politicians as U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, wound up briefly on the Transportation and Security Administration watch list created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The TSA watch list and a more restrictive no-fly list include the names of between 70,000 and 160,000 persons.

‘A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union caused the Justice Department to release documents indicating confusion over how names were put on the lists and how to remove them. An FBI agent characterized the lists “as virtually worthless — garbage in and garbage out.”

are there any competent people left at DHS? lemme see, once upon a time there was Paul Redmond: ‘After a long career at the CIA, Redmond became the Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. When, according to Notra Trulock of Accuracy in Media, he reported, at a congressional hearing in June 2003, “that he didn’t have enough analysts to do the job… [and] his office still lacked the secure communications capability to receive classified reports from the intelligence community… [t]hat kind of candor was not appreciated by his bosses and, consequently, he had to go.” Resigned, June 2003.’

la la laaaaah! tough shit, Paul — we can’t hear youuuuu! back to James Moore, ‘After being on the watch list for a year, Moore has yet to get an explanation of why he was put on it or how he can get his name removed. “My friends tell me it is just more government incompetence,” he wrote in an Internet posting. “A tech buddy said there’s no one in government smart enough to write a search algorithm that will find actual terrorists, so they end up with authors of books criticizing the Bush White House. I have no idea what’s going on.” Judging by the similar plight of dozens of other passengers, including children, it would seem that the TSA compilers of the no-fly watch list are equally clueless.’

James Moore in his own words: ‘…"Well, let me get this straight then,” I said. “Our government is looking for a guy who may have a mundane Anglo name, who pays tens of thousands of dollars every year in taxes, has never been arrested or even late on a credit card payment, is more uninteresting than a Tupperware party, and cries after the first two notes of the national anthem? We need to find this guy. He sounds dangerous to me…One last thing: this guy they are looking for? Did he write books critical of the Bush administration, too?”

‘I have been on the No Fly Watch List for a year. I will never be told the official reason. No one ever is. You cannot sue to get the information. Nothing I have done has moved me any closer to getting off the list. There were 35,000 Americans in that database last year. According to a European government that screens hundreds of thousands of American travelers every year, the list they have been given to work from has since grown to 80,000…’

Lean Left: ‘A critic of the president has just had his right to travel taken from him. There was no trial, he was not allowed to present a defense and to this day he can neither find out exactly why he was denied his rights or how he can have the situation rectified. Air flight is one of the primary methods of long distance travel in this country. Millions of people depend upon it to conduct their business. And yet it can be taken away with no recourse or notification and, at least in one case, in that looks to be a case of petty revenge against a critic of the government. How many others are on these lists because of their activism or public opinions? Since the process is secret, there is no way to know.

‘But we do know that peace activists have found themselves on this list before, with no way off of it. That can certainly appear to be sinister. At a minimum, it appears that the list is managed so poorly that innocent people are placed on it regularly. It is not outside the realm of conjecture to suppose that over-zealousness results in people engaging in protected activism and speech critical of the government on the list because of that activism. And if your livelihood depended on being able to fly, well, who would blame you for thinking twice about writing that op-ed or signing that petition? Especially considering that you could never get off the list?

‘Even if one assumes only incompetence, how did one terrorist attack turn us from a nation that joked about Russians showing their travel permits to a nation that took away the right of travel without justification or recourse? How did we let Bush’s fear dominate our policy to such a ridiculous degree?‘

cuz we’re all dumbasses? and serious protest was marginalised since right before Reagan a few years after ‘Nam? fave comments on this page (no direct links): ‘I am beginning to believe that George Orwell worked for the CIA and wrote all that stuff about Big Brother just to soften us up for when it really came.’ and ‘In a functioning democracy, this would be illegal. The question is, where do we look for justice when every venue is owned by BushCo?’

good question. more: ‘Can’t happen here? The lists have appeared (80,000-plus at least and growing). The willing commissars are in place (from the White House, Justice Dept, Pentagon, etc., on down to local deputy sheriffs). The military is dutiful. The pretexts are well-rehearsed. The national opinion has been conditioned into fear and submission (Do unto others…as long as it’s not done to me). It’s begun. When will it happen in full? Whenever a few people at the top feel it’s needed, if not this administration then during an even worse one. Only you can stop it — maybe.’

finally, ‘Again the illusion of security. Taking our swiss pocket knives, scissors etc. really makes us safe. Still no checking of the cargo carried on commercial flights. Our borders are as porous as swiss cheese, if in fact foreign nationals are caught, they’re given a court date and let go. A confederacy of dunces…’

The Wire-Tappers That Couldn’t Shoot Straight by Frank Rich: ‘…the White House’s over-the-top outrage about the Times scoop is a smokescreen contrived to cover up something else is only confirmed by Dick Cheney’s disingenuousness. In last week’s oration at a right-wing think tank, he defended warrant-free wiretapping by saying it could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Really? Not with this administration in charge.

did anyone bother to remind self-appointed VP ‘other priorities = five deferments’ Cheney that there was this unimportant little memo called ‘bin Laden Determined to Strike Within the US’ just about a month or so before 9/11 and the preznit was busy ‘clearing brush’ nobody gave a shit?

‘On 9/10 the N.S.A. (lawfully) intercepted messages in Arabic saying, “The match is about to begin,” and, “Tomorrow is zero hour.” You know the rest. Like all the chatter our government picked up during the president’s excellent brush-clearing Crawford vacation of 2001, it was relegated to mañana; the N.S.A. didn’t rouse itself to translate those warnings until 9/12…

‘…The highest priority for the Karl Rove-driven presidency is…to preserve its own power at all costs. With this gang, political victory and the propaganda needed to secure it always trump principles, even conservative principles, let alone the truth. Whenever the White House most vociferously attacks the press, you can be sure its No. 1 motive is to deflect attention from embarrassing revelations about its incompetence and failures…‘

speaking of incompetence and failures, whatever happened to those anthrax attacks right after 9/11? the last thing i read was ‘The government successfully has stalled legal action over its role in the 2001 anthrax death of Boca Raton photo editor Bob Stevens. That’s a criminal case…’ so i guess we caught the perps and it’s all good, right?

Frank Rich: ‘…That’s also why the White House tried in May to blame lethal anti-American riots in Afghanistan and Pakistan on a single erroneous Newsweek item about Koran desecration — as if 200-odd words in an American magazine could take the fall for the indelible photos from Abu Ghraib.

‘Such is the blame-shifting game Mr. Cheney was up to last week. By dragging 9/11 into his defense of possibly unconstitutional bugging, he was hoping to rewrite history to absolve the White House of its bungling. And no wonder. He knows all too well that the timing of Mr. Bush’s signing of the secret executive order to initiate the desperate tactic of warrant-free N.S.A. eavesdropping — early 2002, according to Mr. Risen’s new book, “State of War” — is nothing if not a giant arrow pointing to one of the administration’s most catastrophic failures. It was only weeks earlier, in December 2001, that we had our best crack at nailing Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora and blew it…

‘…We don’t know whether the Bush order relaxing legal controls on the N.S.A. was in part a Hail Mary pass to help compensate for that disaster. Either way, all the subsequent wiretaps in the world have not brought bin Laden back dead or alive. Though the White House says that its warrantless surveillance has saved lives by stopping other terrorists since then, Mr. Bush has exaggerated victories against Al Qaeda as often as he has the battle-readiness of Iraqi troops. After he claimed in an October speech that America and its allies had foiled 10 Qaeda plots since 9/11, USA Today reported that “at least” 6 of the 10 had been preliminary ideas for attacks rather than actual planned attacks.

‘The louder the reports of failures on this president’s watch, the louder he tries to drown them out by boasting that he has done everything “within the law” to keep America safe and by implying that his critics are unpatriotic, if not outright treasonous. Mr. Bush certainly has good reason to pump up the volume now. In early December the former 9/11 commissioners gave the federal government a report card riddled with D’s and F’s on terrorism preparedness.

‘The front line of defense against terrorism is supposed to be the three-year-old, $40-billion-a-year Homeland Security Department, but news of its ineptitude, cronyism and no-bid contracts has only grown since Katrina. The Washington Post reported that one Transportation Security Administration contract worth up to $463 million had gone to a brand-new company that (coincidentally, we’re told) contributed $122,000 to a powerful Republican congressman, Harold Rogers of Kentucky. An independent audit by the department’s own inspector general, largely unnoticed during Christmas week, found everything from FEMA to border control in some form of disarray…’

uh oh… y’hear that, Osama? LOL, who’s surprised here? as a totally patriotic amerikan or whatever (U! S! A! U! S! A!) i think it’s time to go after the waaay unpatriotic Frank Rich (and the rest of his treasonous ilk) for helping the enemy. do we still have laws against sedition? i dunno, but Frank Rich should totally be hung — yes, by the balls — for giving aid and comfort to Osama Saddam the enemy, whatever his/her/its name is.

finally, in other news that has nothing — on the surface — to do with Homeland (in)Security, IRS Tracked Taxpayers’ Political Affiliation about which The Unknown Candidate writes: ‘What next? Now we find out the IRS is spying on us.

‘It seems that while hunting “down tax scofflaws, the Internal Revenue Service” has been collecting the political party affiliations of taxpayers in 20 states. According to Deputy IRS Commissioner John Dalrymple, “the party identification information was automatically collected through a ‘database platform’ supplied by an outside contractor that targeted voter registration rolls among other things as it searched for people who aren’t paying their taxes.” According to Dalrymple, “This information is appropriately used to locate information on taxpayers whose accounts are delinquent.”

‘An IRS spokesman claimed the information was never used as “there are strict laws in place that forbid it.” So which is it? Used? or not used? And WHAT RIGHT DOES THE IRS HAVE TO COLLECT THIS INFORMATION ANYWAY?!!

they don’t, dude, and you and i and millions more know it. ‘Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash), a member of an appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the IRS called the practice an “outrageous violation of the public trust.” Murray was told of the practice by Colleen Kelly, president of the National Treasury Employees Union (not part of the IRS). According to Murray, the IRS “should not have that type of information.”

‘Even more troubling is that the IRS intends to start using private collection agencies later this year to go after back taxes. Kelly wants Congress to “suspend IRS plans to use private collection agencies until these questions have been resolved.” Cutting to the nitty gritty of the problem, Murray said, “No one should question whether they are being audited because of party affiliation.”

The Unknown Candidate: ‘Funny, I was audited for the first time in my life a few years ago, when I was actively campaigning for a democratic candidate…’ read the rest of his horror story here. and it is a horror story — i’m fucking totally disgusted. Digby: ‘I have long thought that privacy is a potent issue for Democrats and all these nasty revelations about Republican snooping and interefering in people’s personal decisions just make it more so. With the exception of a few sincere Goldwaterites who have all passed on, the libertarian strain in the Republican party was always just a simple cultural appeal on guns and taxes. History shows that they clearly favor big government that serves their corporate special interests and are more than willing to use the full force of the state at their discretion. (This is most vividly demonstrated by the new presidential infallibility doctrine on one hand and Terry Schiavo on the other.)

‘Between the Bedwetter Caucus and the Christian Right you also have a very large faction of the GOP that considers people with opposing views to be dangerous. The true philosophy of modern conservatism is about control and domination, not freedom and equality…this issue pertains to Republican (and, frankly, certain Democratic) partners in crime as well — the corporations and the “contractors” who are invading citizens’ privacy these days as if all information is not only public, it is also for sale.’

somewhat related in a weirdass wingnutty way, i now have absolutely no doubt that the mail-in absentee ballot for the last fucked US election arrived here late — a week after the ‘election’ — on purpose (i’d asked for one 3X, starting months before). this was apart from the fact that i had my sister in NYC mail me one ‘just in case’ and a week or so before 3. november 2004, i filled it out and sent it the fastest way from the UK to US — it cost me a bundle and i hope it was counted but i’ll never ever be sure).

Digby, again: ‘Finally, somebody in the press wakes up:

“But the climate of those years was so grim that half the Washington press corps spent more time worrying about having their telephones tapped than they did about risking the wrath of Rove, Libby and Cheney by poking at the weak seams of a Mafia-style administration that began cannibalizing the whole government just as soon as it came into power. Bush’s capos were never subtle; they swaggered into Washington like a conquering army, and the climate of fear they engendered apparently neutralized The New York Times along with all the other pockets of potential resistance. Bush had to do everything but fall on his own sword before anybody in the Washington socio-political establishment was willing to take him on.”

‘Oh sorry. Transcription problem. That was actually Hunter S. Thompson, in the October 10, 1974 Rolling Stone, writing about the Nixon administration. My bad.’

*bangs head into desk* trying to split on a somewhat upbeat ‘it’s funny cuz it’s true’ note, since i totally feel i have some halfass moral obligation not to depress people as much as i am over whatever amerikan news, check the Conservative Threat Level T-Shirt: i think we’re somewhere between orange (’church and state to merge’) and red (’return to middle ages likely’), but hey, it could be worse. i think. maybe. nah, who am i kidding? fuuuuuck.

warning: this post won’t be interesting to most normal people cause ‘it’s all about me & embracing my Asperger’s, the “geek syndrome” that causes obsessive attention to detail,’ as i wrote awhile back. but if by some wacked chance you’re so hung over bored as to be sitting at your screen on a sunday, please hang onto every precious word bear with me as this is somewhat related to me youse this very site.

my thing is that lately i’ve been obsessing over checking my stats and learnt a LOT about y’all found a lot of amusing shit, especially in the section on the ‘most popular keyphrases’ people have used to land here via search engines. and since i got the brilliant idea to collect these after i was more than halfway down the list, they’re in no particular order — i was scrolling up/down and copying shit like a madman (and then came the hard choices but that’s another story). anyway, without further ado or whatever, these are among the most popular keyphrases used to get here since new year’s day. i totally hope y’all find them as enlightening as i do:

‘anhedonic,’ ‘children fuck,’ ‘anal fucking,’ ‘insane asylums bristol,’ ’social deviant,’ ‘bush hitler,’ ‘people doing heroin,’ ‘president bush drunk,’ ‘dope fiends,’ ‘drunk president bush,’ ‘george bush drunk,’ ‘hung like a horse’ and ’she s like heroin.’

i’m totally surprised at the ‘anal fucking’ cause i would guess ‘ass fucking’ would get people here faster but whatever. at the same time, i’m particularly pleased by the ‘insane asylums bristol’ and ’social deviant’ and i’m so hoping, with every fibre of my being, that i live up to those expectations. oh, and the ‘dope fiends,’ of course. i wonder who about the people who got here with ’she s like heroin’ cause i always wanted it to be so, but hey. *preens like a proudtard*

moving right along, the ones that really resonate within my cold cold heart (all in the top 25) are ‘mercury is in retrograde the tide is gettin high,’ ‘this is what happens larry,’ ‘larry love showband,’ ‘d wayne love,’ ’shomer fucking shabbos,’ ‘hunter s thompson,’ ‘alabama 3′ and ‘a3′.

among the top keyphrases for all of 2005 were: ‘40 years of fuck,’ ‘hung like a horse,’ ‘ass fucking’ (yay, i knew it!), ‘anhedonic,’ ‘elvis hitler,’ ‘fuck clear channel,’ ‘fuck internet explorer,’ ‘fuck the south,’ ‘bristol porn,’ ‘george bush drunk’ (and many derivatives of same), ‘prostitutes in bristol,’ ‘rumors on the internets,’ ‘bristol whores,’ ’shit stained panties,’ ‘children fuck’ and ‘taking it up the ass.’

i have absolutely nothing to add to all that, apart from i’m still drinking my head off soaking my head, trying to rid myself of the series, nay, the montage of pictures those lovely terms evoked, especially the ‘elvis hitler’. actually, both ‘children fuck’ and ‘elvis hitler’ are terms that i don’t believe i ever used, but anything’s possible on the internets (*to self* and they think that i’m the one who’s fucked up, LOL).

top faves of last year include ‘hunter s thompson,’ ‘zappatista,’ ‘cunnilingus and psychiatry brought us to this,’ ’shomer fucking shabbos,’ ‘alabama 3 outlaw’ and variations of ‘alabama 3′ including ‘a3′ with and without ‘outlaw,’ many MANY derivatives of the titles of Alabama 3 albums with and without the band’s name, ‘freea3′ and ‘free a3,’ ‘this is what happens larry,’ ‘d wayne love,’ ’see what happens larry,’ ‘the meek aint gonna inherit shit,’ the big lebowski,’ ‘larry love,’ ‘jesus hates me,’ ‘larry love showband’ and ‘alma tender love’, although i’ll never understand how she got her ass in here and ‘nomad’ didn’t (‘psympleton’ made a few appearances as well). :-)

what’s blasting: ‘Disneyland is Burning‘ (Alabama 3). *walks off singing* ‘there’s a fire comin’ down through the hole in the sky… mercury’s in retrograde, the tide is getting high…’

…not the body armor y’all need. *bangs head on desk* today’s ‘holy shit!’ unbe-fuckin-lievable news, once again brought to you by our criminal crony-lovin’ DC douchbags and buried released on a friday night, when nobody’s paying attention. (thanks again, NYTimes!) read it and weep:

Extra Armor Could Have Saved Many Lives, Study Shows: ‘A secret Pentagon study has found that at least 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to their upper body could have survived if they had extra body armor. That armor has been available since 2003 but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.

‘a secret Pentagon study?’ uh oh — we better go after the traitors who leaked this shit ASAP before more aid and comfort reach the enemy. but really, i’m nearly speechless: the Pentagon declined to provide armor available since 2003? what the fucking fuck? why does the Pentagon hate our troops? the mind reels… |-(

‘The ceramic plates in vests currently worn by the majority of military personnel in Iraq cover only some of the chest and back. In at least 74 of the 93 fatal wounds that were analyzed in the Pentagon study of marines from March 2003 through June 2005, bullets and shrapnel struck the marines’ shoulders, sides or areas of the torso where the plates do not reach. Thirty-one of the deadly wounds struck the chest or back so close to the plates that simply enlarging the existing shields “would have had the potential to alter the fatal outcome,” according to the study, which was obtained by The New York Times…

‘…The Pentagon has been collecting the data on wounds since the beginning of the war in part to determine the effectiveness of body armor. The military’s medical examiner, Craig T. Mallak, told a military panel in 2003 that the information “screams to be published.” But it would take nearly two years. The Marine Corps said it asked for the data in August 2004; but it needed to pay the medical examiner $107,000 to have the data analyzed. Marine officials said funding and other delays resulted in the work not starting until December 2004. It finally began receiving the information by June 2005. The shortfalls in bulletproof vests are just one of the armor problems the Pentagon continues to struggle with as the war in Iraq approaches the three-year mark, The Times has found in an ongoing examination of the military procurement system…

‘…“Our preliminary research suggests that as many as 42 percent of the Marine casualties who died from isolated torso injuries could have been prevented with improved protection in the areas surrounding the plated areas of the vest,” the study concludes. Another 23 percent might have been saved with side plates that extend below the arms, while 15 percent more could have benefited from shoulder plates, the report says. In all, 526 marines have been killed in combat in Iraq. A total of 1,706 American troops have died in combat. The findings and other research by military pathologists suggests that an analysis of all combat deaths in Iraq, including those of Army personnel, would show that 300 or more lives might have been saved with improved body armor.

‘Military officials and defense contractors said the Pentagon’s procurement troubles have stemmed in part from miscalculations that underestimated the strength of the insurgency, and from years of cost-cutting that left some armoring firms on the brink of collapse as they waited for new orders…’

that’s how they support the troops? by ‘years of cost-cutting?’ at the same time they’re throwing tax cuts at the wealthy and reducing programmes for students and the poor? Susan G at dKos: ‘…The story reads like a classic example of total bureaucratic fucked-updom in action: increasing calls from the field wending their slow and laborious way through agencies and feet-dragging studies, as well as wrangling with cost factors.’

d r i f t g l a s s: ‘Here are the definitions: Criminal Homicide — Manslaughter by Negligence: The killing of another person through gross negligence.

‘Criminal Homicide — Murder and Non-Negligent Manslaughter: The willful (non-negligent) killing of one human being by another…

‘…it goes without saying — given the job description of “soldier” — one of the burdens you agree to take up is to stand between civilians like me and the enemies of my nation. This exchange — this willingness to interpose your mortal flesh between me and danger — deserves nothing but praise. Period.

‘But what I owe to you — what the nation owes to you — is the best protection available in your dangerous trade, and a generous measure of support to you and yours who shoulder the burden. And because sometimes I must ask you to make that ultimately sacrifice, you are also owed my solemn compact with you that I’ll never ask this of you lightly.

‘A promise — from American to American; civilian to soldier — that I will never, ever put you down on the firing line recklessly or thoughtlessly.’

Americablog: ‘…The Republicans’ number one issue is that they’re strong on defense and we’re not. And now we know for a fact that they are killing our troops. Fix it. Now. Or get out of office and make way for Democrats who can.’ i’m with this dude: ‘DEMOCRATS GET UP OFF YOUR ASSES!!!!!!!!!!’

*crickets chirping* *a lone tumbleweed rolls down the road* good point: ‘Truth number one is that the Bush administration runs war as a spoils system. Political donors and cronies get contracts…’ and ‘What’s sick is that all these breath-taking “revelations” were known long ago and certainly prior to November 2004. I can’t imagine why anyone would have wanted to keep that kind of thing secret until now. Can you?’ as well, ‘Does this country seem like a country at war? Not from the safety of all those McMansions …If rich kids faced the prospect of going, we wouldn’t be there at all, and you can bet we wouldn’t be so cavalier with equipping them properly. Bastards.’

most of all, ‘do you think that some of the contracts for the new armour could have been awarded to small companies who have difficulty filling the contracts asap because the committee members who award the money are crooks and are getting kickbacks? do you think that they may have held up the orders until they got their friends in position to fill the contracts and make money for both the contractors and those who award the contracts? do you think they put the welfare of the troops above their own pocketbooks?’

and ‘…the idiots in this country cling to their idiotic ideas of Saddam and Bin Ladin being connected. No matter how much evidence to the contrary is shown to them…our arrogance and hubris as a nation got us into this, and if that is the price of having a Republican government, so be it. Congratulations, America, you got what you wanted, but you didn’t want what you got.’

finally, ‘New Orleans? Just a buncha welfare niggers. No rush… Body armor? For PRIVATES!!!??? Whaddayou…kiddin’ me? That’s EXPENSIVE!!! We got THINGS to do!!! SUITS to buy!!! MONEY to steal!!! … WE let this happen. And now the question is…what are we going to DO about it? I can hear them now, fat and sleek in their K Street eateries. “Yeah…that’s right!! Whaddaya gonna DO about it?” Well…? What ARE we going to do about it?’

FYI, there’s a dude named David H Brooks who has the contract for supplying body armor; he’s the same shitbag who, back in november, spent ‘millions of dollars — virtually an unlimited budget — on a party so lavish it… require(d) two floors of the Rainbow Room’ (’the world’s most obscene coming-of-age party‘).

verily, it must truly $uck to be a rich-a$$ republican in fucking Jesusland bu$hCo-land now. (but it’s all good in the hood cause this is amerika!) personally, i totally believe we need to put more stickers and shit saying ’support the troops’ on our cars and SUVs cause nothin’ proves we’re supportin’ ‘em better than a magnetic ribbon or whatever, but what do i know?

in related news, ‘Paul Bremer, under whose ‘leadership’ the CPA stole 8.8 billion $ who led the U.S. civilian occupation authority in Iraq after the 2003 invasion and had to sneak outta there early to avoid getting killed, has admitted the United States did not anticipate the insurgency in the country, NBC Television said on Friday. Bremer, interviewed by the network in connection with release of his book on Iraq, recounted the decision to disband the Iraqi army quickly after arriving in Baghdad, a move many experts consider a major miscalculation.

‘When asked who was to blame for the subsequent Iraqi rebellion, in which thousands of Iraqis and Americans have died, Bremer said ”we really didn’t see the insurgency coming,” the network said in a news release…The network, which did not publish a transcript of the interview, added that Bremer’s comments suggested ”the focus of the war effort was in the wrong place”…’

‘…Asked if he believes he did everything he could do in Iraq, Bremer replied, “I believe I did everything I could do. …The president, in the end, is responsible for making decisions,” the network reported…’

The Left Coaster: ‘…Simply put, the issue of competence has raised its ugly head again with these remarks by Bremer. “We really didn’t see the insurgency coming?” Are you kidding me? Many of us have known this for two years, but now the traditional media has confirmation that these “wise men” and Condi didn’t know their asses from holes in the ground. From this point on, every time that Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Rice, Hadley, or any of the apologists in the media or blogosphere attack Democrats for not being tough enough or smart enough to deal with Iraq or terrorism, Democrats need to throw back to the cultists that their moronic heroes were too fucking stupid or arrogant to deal with an insurgency they didn’t see coming. So let’s not talk about who has more smart pills, or who is tougher, OK?

‘The GOP’s checking account is overdrawn on that matter. From this point on, Democrats should begin every statement to the media about Bush’s Iraq policy with “Why should the American people have confidence in an administration that couldn’t see the insurgency coming?”…’

The Cost of Cronyism: ‘…The explosion and deaths at the Sago mine are just the latest example of the costs to us of the cronyism of the Bush administration. Like the deaths of those who perished from lack of action in New Orleans, some folks just don’t count. Who cares about the poor of the Gulf states? Who cares about some miners in Appalachia? Who cares about U.S. troops in a far away land (or those who return and need help)? Who cares about those who are freezing this winter because they can’t pay for heat? Well it is not Bush. His top agenda, from the “war on terrorism” to opening the government to corporate cronyism, is focused towards profits and cronyism — which brings him more profits…’

and money’s all that really matters since it’s a proven fact that god doesn’t love him any poor people, right? ‘we really didn’t see the insurgency coming?’ LOL, who knew? where to begin? once more, with feeling: IF YOU’RE NOT OUTRAGED, YOU’RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION.

Noam Chomsky totally has the last word: ‘Analysts of the Brookings Institution in Washington report that in November, 80 per cent of Iraqis favoured “near-term US troop withdrawal.” Other sources generally concur. So the coalition forces should withdraw, as the population wants them to, instead of trying desperately to set up a client regime with military forces that they can control. But Bush and Blair still refuse to set a timetable for withdrawal, limiting themselves to token withdrawals as their goals are achieved.

‘There’s a good reason why the United States cannot tolerate a sovereign, more or less democratic Iraq. The issue can scarcely be raised because it conflicts with firmly established doctrine: We’re supposed to believe that the United States would have invaded Iraq if it was an island in the Indian Ocean and its main export was pickles, not petroleum.’

warning: this is a totally snark-free post since freedom is on the march! oh, wait. um… oopsy, LOL. but seriously, since i’m about to scream drinking myself to death tired of seeing all bullshit bu$hCo photo-ops and other horrors all the time, i’m revving up into semi-pedantic gear, as well as simultaneously trying for a spoingy, enthusiastic ‘this shit is great and i’d love y’all to have it’ feel, especially aimed at total information junkies like me. anyway, today i’m gonna talk about one of my fave apps, my RSS reader, mostly cause i don’t have to do shit, just scan down the longass subscriptions list to check for new posts on my fave sites. as well, i think every site should have an RSS feed, but that’s another post for another time maybe when i’m not so wasted or whatever.

anyway, enough about me whenever i visit a new site that i like, the rss button’s the first thing i look for, after i’m done reading things. everyone’s seen them before: they’re those teeny tiny (usually) orange RSS or XML buttons (well, orange apart from mine, that little thingy at above right, underneath the drunken prostitute trollop and the ‘dis me’ email). you’re supposed to copy the link into your feedreader to subscribe — not click on it (or else you’ll reach a page of geeky code and shit).

‘What is RSS? RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an XML-based format for timely content distribution. It brings the web to you.’ i won’t even bother with pretending to know about XML cause AFAIC, the only thing that matters is the ‘bringing the web to me-me-ME you’ stuff.

Wikipedia: ‘The technology of RSS allows Internet users to subscribe to websites that have provided RSS feeds; these are typically sites that change or add content regularly… Unlike subscriptions to many printed newspapers and magazines, most RSS subscriptions are free.’

Infoworld: ‘…Each RSS feed is simply a text document containing a list of content items. The text document contains the headline, description and link for content items available on a web site….’ nb: actually, most of my subs have the entire post duplicated, complete with external links, and thank fuck for that.

moving right along, whenever i rave about feedreaders lately, i’ve been asked why not use ‘live bookmarks‘ instead? well, i tested them out last year but since my memory’s fucked, today i again went subscribing to sites here and there, just to remind myself why i think they suck: clicking around to get wherever within the hierarchy of bookmarks and folders isn’t too much fun for me. if you’re on broadband or DSL, it takes the same time to check the damn site itself, so you might as well go there in the first place, right? and although i totally dig everything Mozilla, having your own feedreader is so much better than live bookmarks — easier to read, totally usable and shit-hot fast (and you control the time interval to set how often the feeds refresh themselves). nb: over the past few years, i’ve been forgetting to say that one will have a way better experience on this very site any site if y’all use Firefox or another tabbed browser, so you can check the things to which i’ve people have linked without travelling away from whatever you’re in the middle of reading.

‘A program known as a feed reader or aggregator can check RSS-enabled webpages on behalf of a user and display any updated articles that it finds. It is now common to find RSS feeds on major Web sites, as well as many smaller ones…Web-based feed readers and news aggregators require no software installation and make the user’s “feeds” available on any computer with Web access. Some aggregators syndicate (combine) RSS feeds into new feeds, e.g. take all football related items from several sports feeds and provide a new football feed.‘

you can find a lot of rss feeds right here, on all different subjects, to start y’all off. about feedreaders, i use the first one on this page (NetNewsWire) on my Mac but as with all things related, most of them on the wiki list are for PCs (i’d totally recommend the one i had on my old windoze box in Germany, but i can’t remember its name [18,30: duh me, LOL]).

if you Google ‘news aggregators PC,’ you get like a shitload of possibilities from which to choose and the best ones are all free. naturally, if you spend too much time online, it goes without saying that this’ll save you a lotta fruitless surfing around looking for updates when nothing’s been added to whatever sites you dig. then again, the capacity for going wild reading everything, thus neglecting meatspace life losing yourself is inherent — i’ve learnt from sorry-ass experience it’s not too good an idea to subscribe to every goddamn site i like, but like all things, your mileage may vary. finally, i would like to say to y’all to at least give feedreaders a test drive — i totally double dare anyone to tell me they don’t add to online goodness. :-)

fun SG fact: believe it or not, not all of my 140+ feeds are political; as i said some time back, one of my faves is the current Moon Phase (very cool for witchy pagan wotevers). and i’ve got feeds to sites like Internet Weekly (for cheapass laughs) as well as a new fave, Post Secret (the artistry and poignancy of which are amazing). as well, i’ve got some geeky feeds like Lawrence Lessig, Robert Cringely, the Reg and /. (granted, these are some of my more futile attempts to balance out the latest horrors of bu$hCo with things that don’t make me feel the need to be drinking my usual cVcVs from 10AM on [chilled Vodka + crushed Valiums]. and sometimes it actually works, kinda sorta).

what’s blasting: good news (Neurotic Outsiders). happy weekend, y’all.

shorter bu$hCo: ‘whatever’ we broke I-rak and we ain’t gonna fix it. just about a month after he emblazoned that ‘plan for victory’ message over and over into our eyeballs ad nauseum, U.S. Has End in Sight on Iraq Rebuilding: ‘The Bush administration does not intend to seek any new funds for Iraq reconstruction in the budget request going before Congress in February, officials say. The decision signals the winding down of an $18.4 billion U.S. rebuilding effort in which roughly half of the money was eaten away by the insurgency, a buildup of Iraq’s criminal justice system and the investigation and trial of Saddam Hussein…

‘…"The U.S. never intended to completely rebuild Iraq,” Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander overseeing the work, told reporters at a recent news conference. In an interview this past week, McCoy said: “This was just supposed to be a jump-start.”

‘Since the reconstruction effort began in 2003, midcourse changes by U.S. officials have shifted at least $2.5 billion from the rebuilding of Iraq’s decrepit electrical, education, water, sewage, sanitation and oil networks to build new security forces for Iraq and to construct a nationwide system of medium- and maximum-security prisons and detention centers that meet international standards, according to reconstruction officials and documents. Many of the changes were forced by an insurgency more fierce than the United States had expected when its troops entered Iraq…The heavy emphasis on security, and the money it would cost, had not been anticipated in the early months of the U.S. occupation…’

this is what happens when those who foresee ’slam-dunks’ and US being greeted as liberators strewn with flowers make their own reality collide against true as fuck, in-living-color, really real actual flesh and blood reality, not like when god talks to you. anyway, ‘In January 2004, after the first disbursements of the $18.4 billion reconstruction package, the United States planned only $3.2 billion to build up Iraq’s army and police. But as the insurgency intensified, money was shifted from other sectors, including more than $1 billion earmarked for electricity, to build a police force and army capable of combating foreign and domestic guerrillas.’

*groan* as Atrios and my Jewish mother would say, ‘OY.’ it’s not like they didn’t have enough warning that any of this shit would happen: remember Gen. Eric K. Shinseki? back to Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander for reconstruction, who ‘ cites a poll conducted earlier last year that found less than 30 percent of Iraqis knew that any reconstruction efforts were underway. The percentage has since risen to more than 40 percent, McCoy said.

“It is easy for the Americans to say, ‘We are doing reconstruction in Iraq,’ and we hear that. But to make us believe it, they should show us where this reconstruction is,” said Mustafa Sidqi Murthada, owner of a men’s clothing store in Baghdad. “Maybe they are doing this reconstruction for them in the Green Zone. But this is not for the Iraqis.” “Believe me, they are not doing this,” he said, “unless they consider rebuilding of their military bases reconstruction.”…’

LOL, he make big funny! about the above, Think Progress says ‘…it fails to ask one key question: What does this new information mean for our strategy in Iraq? The Post story neglected to mention Bush’s “National Strategy for Victory In Iraq,” which was released just one month ago. Recall, in that document, the White House stated that our “strategy for victory is clear.” It involved a three-track strategy: the political track, the security track, and the economic track. Here’s what the document said about the “economic track”:

”The Economic Track involves setting the foundation for a sound and self-sustaining economy by helping the Iraqi government:

”Restore Iraq’s infrastructure to meet increasing demand and the needs of a growing economy;

”Reform Iraq’s economy, which in the past has been shaped by war, dictatorship, and sanctions, so that it can be self-sustaining in the future; and

”Build the capacity of Iraqi institutions to maintain infrastructure, rejoin the international economic community, and improve the general welfare of all Iraqis.”

‘The Bush administration has seemingly decided to drop the economic track of its strategy all together, particularly if foreign donors and the fledgling Iraqi government do not pick up the tab for the “tens of billions of dollars of work yet to be done merely to bring reliable electricity, water and other services to Iraq’s 26 million people.”…’

fave comment: ‘Go into the antiques store, break priceless China, exit without as much as an “I am sorry for breaking this precious Ming vase”. Next store: Iran. Where we will be greeted with flowers, smiles, and kisses… We know the rest of the plot.’ as well, ‘Just like Arbusto Oil and the Rangers baseball franchise, Bush has run Iraq into the ground…and is looking for someone else to bail him out. You think maybe the Saudis/bin Ladens might have an interest in a slightly used dictatorship with lots of oil? Or perhaps the Carlyle Group could be persuaded to buy Iraq for pennies on the drachma, liquidate the capital equipment and buildings, spin off the oil business to a front company in the Caymans, take a tax loss on the war damage …then fire all the Iraqi citizens and lock them out.’

finally, ‘The front page above the fold lead article in today’s “Oregonian” newspaper is titled “Iraq on verge of Civil War”. So… we brought to Iraq the freedom and democracy to wage war themselves. Good job, Bushy!’

LMAO big duh, dudes. i’m so totally not surprised about this new shit, just even more repulsed by our drunken, medicated C-minus ‘CEO’ preznit and his history of running whatever into the ground — why should Iraq be any different? have we found WMDs? a big nuh-uh. are we spreadin’ freedom ‘n’ democracy? you tell me. the other day, they appointed their good buddy Chalabi to take charge of the could it be the oil? LOL, who knew? anyway, i’m wondering if the preznit’s gonna speechify again, this time about his brand NEW ‘plan’ for ‘victory’ and why he doesn’t give a fuck about Iraq anymore, y’know? (ah’m jes’ sayin’.)

via Blairwatch, here’s Craig Murray (formerly the UK ambassador to Uzbekistan) on the torture telegrams and the al-Jazeera memo and uses and abuses of the Official Secrets Act: ‘It has come as a surprise to some that I am not currently a guest of Her Majesty. It is plainly a disappointment to others, particularly the trolls who have been gleefully predicting on Lenin’s Tomb that the agents of the state will come and get us.

‘We have published what were, undoubtedly, classified British government documents. Under the notorious Official Secrets Act that is an offence, and everyone connected with it is plainly guilty. There is no public interest defence.

‘But there are problems with the Official Secrets Act. Despite New Labour attempts to roll them back, British criminal trials still involve juries, and they are reluctant to convict in OSA trials, where they often sympathise with the motives of the defendant. Clive Ponting was acquitted after leaking that the Belgrano was heading home when we sank it. The jury acquitted him, against the clear direction of the judge. And that was in the context of the Falklands War, which the British public supported. What chance of a conviction in the context of the Iraq war, which the British public oppose?

‘Katharine Gunn released details of GCHQ’s involvement with the NSA in bugging UN delegations in New York, and the government withdrew the charges against her rather than face a trial.

‘There is still time, but to date we haven’t even been questioned about the torture telegrams. This is sensible — no British jury is going to convict someone for campaigning against government complicity in torture, in support of George Bush. The publicity surrounding a show trial is not something the government would relish.

‘Which is why it is confusing that the government have decided to prosecute Messrs Keogh and O’Connor for their alleged involvement in the leaking of the memo about George Bush’s proposal to bomb al-Jazeera TV.

‘So why has that prosecution been brought? There are two vital factors. Firstly, the UK government has little to fear from publicity. It reveals Bush as violent and unbalanced, but we knew that already. From a No 10 point of view, it shows Blair in a good light, talking Bush out of one of his madder schemes. It is evidence that Blair is not just Bush’s bitch. This is a message No 10 are keen to get across, so publicity? No problem.

‘Secondly, the memo was not successfully leaked. If there was indeed an effort to leak it, it was made by people operating in the wrong century. The document wound up at the Daily Mirror, who were too cowardly to publish and tamely gave it back to the government. The days of heroic editors and publishers in the deadwood press are long gone. The mainstream media are completely intimidated by government — especially, let it be said, the BBC.

‘By contrast, the torture telegrams were featured on over 4,000 blogs worldwide within 72 hours.

‘Over the al-Jazeera memo the government looks to be doing the right thing in thwarting Bush, and the government looks strong and commanding in suppressing the memo. By contrast, on the torture telegrams, the government has been caught using material from the World’s most hideous torture chambers. Jack Straw and Tony Blair have been caught lying about the fact that they do this. And they have been shown to be completely impotent in their efforts to suppress the truth when faced with blogger revolt and modern technology.

‘They can still try to prosecute me if they want, but WE ARE THE PEOPLE!

‘And we cannot be suppressed.’

for more on this, please see intriguing commentary over at Blairwatch (even more here). as well, keep on fighting the good fight, people, and feel free to steal this post — especially if you’ve got a site in the UK — then publish it on your site.

check out the Unknown Candidate’s totally comprehensive Illegal Wiretapping for Dummies, Part I. as well, the Unknown Candidate, along with New Year’s Resolution: To Impeach Bush and Cheney are the newest sites added to ‘reservoir dogs’ so check ‘em out (left-hand column, after my heroes, to which i added Jane Akre).

this is me screaming: fuck, NOOOOOooooooooo! but on the other hand, FUCK, YEAH!

the brilliance of d r i f t g l a s s, with a tune i can’t stand rounding up last year in pictures: Bye Bye, 2005: ‘This is just my own set of Emotional Flashcards to be tucked away for future use should I ever need a vivid reminder of how it felt — in the belly — to be alive right here and now. A sense of how it felt to look immediately back in on that receding, centerpunching year just past and mourn it for what it might have been.’ the photos he chose for ‘And the three men i admire most, the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost‘ just killed me, totally made me cry (twice even, when i went back today to find the proper links).

The Psychotic Patriot: If You Read, the Terrorists Win: ‘I’ve come to realize something about America recently, and it’s disturbing not just because it’s out of the mainstream media, but because it by definition is caused by the mainstream media. I offer this dark scenario: If you read, the terrorists win. What I mean by this is that fewer and fewer people read, for any reason, and fewer CAN read, for any reason. So you have a continuous dumbing-down of the populace, and an equally continuous rise in wingnuttery and incredibly simplistic concepts offered as fact. Take the “ID” movement, please.

‘So the more I read, the more I disbelieve Bush and his minions. Wait. I didn’t believe him before he became the resident. Anyway. The more I read the more I refuse to accept the glowing bullshit frothing from Iraq. Insert anything intellectual, or GASP! (Liberal) after “The more I read.” So, in the parlance of conservative evangelical mindlessness: if I don’t unquestioningly devour the smallest sound-bites of Hannitian and Limbaughistic logic, leaving any curiosity at the curb, I’m Osama’s butt-buddy. It’s just that simple.

‘Now I’m talking about what is called “Critical Literacy.” Not skimming the newspaper headlines, not squinting to see the scroll at the bottom of Fox News, but the kind of critical reading done in books, as well as thoughtful reading in any format done in pursuit of a serious intellectual or educational premise. If you’ve gotten this far, you know what I mean…’ do yerselves a favor, especially if yer in the states and read the rest.

amerikan priorities via Cedwyn: ‘Some things just speak for themselves: 18 Months and Kicking and Screaming … to get an investigation into governmental responses to 9/11/01.

‘8 months and a (12 hour headstart) to get an investigation into who leaked the identity of an undercover agent.

‘1 week to start an investigation into who squealed on the President’s illegal wiretapping…’

Americablog: Exactly how has Bush made America any safer in the past 4 years?: ‘It’s one thing to give up our civil liberties in exchange for the safety of our children. It’s quite another to give them up and get little in return. Let’s examine just how much safer George Bush has made America since September 11 (cherrypicked by me):

‘Osama is still free, and Bush never even talks about him anymore.

‘Our military is bogged down in a war that had nothing to do with Osama or Al Qaeda UNTIL WE INVADED AND MADE IRAQ AL QAEDA’S NEW HOME.…

‘…Far too many of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, recommendations to make us safer, have still not been implemented…’

‘…Most of the world now hates us…‘ *cringing* check the comments as well — i dig the first, especially: ‘He’s a “war presnint.” Doesn’t that make us safer by definition?’

very bad news: kill, kill, kill for peace freedom ‘n’ democracy.

very good news: Christine Quinn, the new NYC Council speaker is openly gay, yay!

finally, a big thank you to ringverse at Blairwatch for being so kind about my shit. this was a huge surprise when i woke up this morning (so easy to tell he hasn’t met me in meatspace where i always come off as all duh all the time). but damn, with my personal life and health both in the shitter, i really needed that. *preens like a proudtard*

whoo-hoooo! brace yerselves for the war preznit’s way macho TWAT (Total War Against Timber): Down on the Ranch, President Wages War on the Underbrush: ‘On most of the 365 days he has enjoyed at his secluded ranch here, President Bush’s idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of cedars, and whack the trees to the ground. If the soil is moist enough, he will light a match and burn the wood. If it is parched, as it is across Texas now, the wood will sit in piles scattered over the 1,600-acre spread until it is safe for a ranch hand to torch — or until the president can come home and do the honors himself.

‘Sometimes this activity is the only official news to come out of what aides call the Western White House. For five straight days since Monday, when Bush retreated to the ranch for his Christmas sojourn, a spokesman has announced that the president, in between intelligence briefings, calls to advisers and bicycling, has spent much of his day clearing brush. This might strike many Washingtonians as a curious pastime. It does burn a lot of calories. But brush clearing is dusty, it is exhausting (the president goes at it in 100 degree-plus heat), and it is earsplitting, requiring earplugs to dull the chain saw’s buzz. For Bush, who is known to spend early-morning hours hacking at unwanted mesquite, cocklebur weeds, hanging limbs and underbrush only to go back for more after lunch, it borders on obsession…

damn, if only he was obsessed enough to have gone after Osama with half the same fervor, then maybe we’d all be — ah, fuck it, this is why my drugs and alcohol intake have quadrupled over the last five years i’m dreaming again.

‘For George W. Bush, clearing brush projects the image of a cowboy president, a tough rancher fighting the elements to survive. That is, of course, the White House’s projection; the president’s critics take a dimmer view. “Most likely he’s doing that to show the media he’s got a chain saw,” joked Larry Mattladge, who raises Black Angus cows three-quarters of a mile from the Bush ranch and built his fence rows out of cedar posts. “It’s a man’s thing. Brush clearing is not only for the young at heart, it’s for the young. It’s to show he’s a Texan.”…’

OK, since i’m still too fucking ripped hung over tired to absorb any real news today, let’s take a look at this easy-peasey shit: i won’t touch the 365 days of vacation time — an entire fucking year outta five! — cuz we all know that preznittin’ is haaaaard work, not for us mere mortals who, if we’re goddamn lucky enough be employed, get maybe one or two weeks of holiday each year. so we’re back to him being the cowboy preznit, his idea of what it takes for a real manly tough-ass man to reach the pinnacle of heavy-duty jockstrappy and totally masculine manliness. by this time, everyone knows that the only really truly red-blooded masculine men are born in the states, especially in beefcakey, dickswingin’ and way virile Texas, so let’s all forget the fact that AWOL-boy hails from the pussy-ass and rather feminine state of tiny penis’d Connecticut and let’s also forget that he bought that damn ranch — a former pig farm, for fuck’s sake — only six years back.

fave bits: ‘White House counselor Dan Bartlett explained it this way: “It’s therapeutic for him, I guess. There’s very few things he gets to do hands on‘ and ‘there will be times when the president drives around his property and “will see a stand of cedar trees and say ‘Let’s clear those,’ ” said Joseph Hagin, Bush’s deputy chief of staff, who has been cutting brush with his boss all week. They do not talk a lot of policy over the sound of their chain saws‘ about both of which, all i can say is WE KNOW! *groan*

Digby: ‘The president of the United States likes to spend his suburban ranchette vacation killing time cutting stuff down with a chainsaw and then torching it. Holy shit. Does it get any more symbolic than that? (It reminds me of the tales his pals told about his childhood, stuffing frogs with firecrackers and blowing them up.)…

‘…You can’t compare this to his bicycling or running obsessions, because those have a certain meditative yet thrilling physical challenge. This is something else entirely. This is the the only thing he can think of to do when he isn’t running or biking. Mindless, loud, repetitive manual labor. It’s like obsessively jackhammering sidewalks for fun…

‘…I know that it’s not considered wise to “misunderestimate” him and I’ve heard many people say that he’s got political acumen that we elitist nerds just don’t get. I don’t believe it. I know what I see. The man has been in over his head since the day he entered the presidential race and he’s still in over his head. 9/11 got him reelected in 2004, but he and his administration have been hanging on by their fingernails since the day they took office. They wear suits and ties and say sir and ma’m, but it’s all to cover for the fact that they had no idea how to govern and by now it’s clear they never will.

‘I see a man who is barely holding back his panic; a man who clings to his pathetic “war president” image like a talisman. He looks confused and hurt by the criticism he’s receiving from people who he thought bought into the program and reportedly knows on some level that he’s been duped by his advisors. He has no choice but to keep barreling along pretending that he knows what he’s doing. He barks at underlings and pretends to be in charge even as he gets more and more confused. He’s distanced from his father, the one person everyone thought could help guide this callow airhead if the shit came down. He trusts no one now.

‘So he clears brush like a madman everytime he gets the chance, hiding behind his Oakley’s, blessedly unable to hear anything over the sound of chainsaws — maybe even the voices inside his head that remind him that he’s still got three more years of this horrible responsibility he knows he cannot handle.’

fave comment: ‘Chauncey Gardiner lives! It’s clear that if George W. Bush had been born of more humble West Texas origins, he’d now be obsessing over clearing brush for a living and talking about how he found Jesus and quit drinking to anyone who would listen. If there’s a better argument against inherited wealth and power than George W. Bush, I hope to never see it.’ and ‘you know, if he likes using a chain saw and cleaning up, we have a whole lot of work for him in New Orleans’ and ‘Seriously, it’s the chainsaw. It’s like having a penis that destroys everything it touches, kind of like Freud’s vaginas with teeth.’

here’s something i found on Simpsons Neologisms, somewhere i sometimes go when the horrors of The Texas Chainsaw Madman bu$hCo get to be a bit too much. anyway, the preznit cuts brush and bullshits about coming from fucking Texas cause it totally embiggens him (and i’ll leave the tiny dick jokes to y’all). ‘anyone need some wood?‘ LOL, thank you and g’night. :-)

18,30 update: check the photo here: ‘President Bush makes a few remarks after visiting wounded soldiers at Brooke Army Medical Center, Sunday, Jan. 1, 2006, in San Antonio, Texas. President Bush is sporting a cut on the left side of his forehead from cutting down brush on his ranch.’

finally! and good fucking riddance to 2005. last night Chris cooked our dinner while i was out here at my desk drinking my first huge Absinthe and could only think of personally sad shit when thinking about 2005 (sorry in advance).

AFAIC, this year sucked balls — ‘a steady diet of misery, horror and despair, leavened occasionally by deep anxiety’ (Dave Barry). apart from the tsunami, it began pretty well but the death of Hunter S Thompson began a personal slide into even more self-absorbed depression, made worse when we learnt that my little boy Peter had bone cancer and then it was even worse, when he died. i prolly have these huge emotional scars upon scars of heavy depression and i know it’s silly (’he’s only a cat!’) but i loved him for fourteen years and am still totally gutted on top of my normal state o’ depression.

on the other hand, i’m so pleased — and lucky — to have Hunter here with me. he’s a real star of a kitty and puts a lotta joy and love into my cold, cold heart even when he’s fucking shit up every damn day. moving right along, this year i got to go to Wales twice, Scotland twice, NYC once (once too much) and Germany and Holland (yay! *thwoop*) three or four times. as well, i remet a great bunch of people in Manchester and we all partied with D Wayne Jake and Company on Saffron’s rooftop just a week after he took us backstage at Cardiff, whoo-hooo! as well, i got to spend many a weekend in London, again with good friends. oh, and the fucking Outlaw tour was way superb. however, in october i totally stressed out due to the combination of amerikan politics and personal bullshit and got even more depressed and then fell ill — had the flu for llike six weeks or more and i’m still feeling pretty weak. since then, i’ve had fever of 102F more days than not, fucking bah.

anyway, last night we watched Richard Pryor on a rental from Amazon while we laughed our asses off trying to eat dinner (while i attempted to forget that he too had died) and then we watched all of the new BBC ‘Bleak House‘ and then went outside at midnight to check the celebrations from the catwalk — the view is amazing and since we’re up high, we can see fireworks from all over Bristol to the Severn Bridge.

moving right along, i wanna thank everyone who’s mailed me due to shit they’ve read here on the site and i want y’all to know that although i don’t repost personal mails anymore, i appreciate and am flattered by everything y’all take the time to send — then again, it doesn’t take much. *preens like a proudtard* and Chris finally showed me how to read my traffic logs and i. am. fucking. totally. amazed. :-)

i don’t know where this is going, really — i guess i just wanna say Happy New Year and here’s hoping that this year my country regains its sanity, all the troops come home, the refugees and victims of Katrina, the tsunami, the earthquake in Pakistan and bu$hCo finally find $tability and comfort, we get to impeach all their asses, there’s a successful initiative for universal health care and the world finds Peace. LOL, i don’t ask for much, do i?

what’s blasting: Minesweeping (Alabama 3). happy new year, y’all. :-)

and publish them on your site — brought to you by the good folks over at Blairwatch, fighting the good fight: ‘The UK government has been quick to deny that we practice, or tolerate the practice of Torture. So it is perhaps not suprising that they are determined that you should not see the following documents:

Association for Democracy in Uzbekistan Confidential Letters (pdf warning)

Uzbekistan: Intelligence Possibly Obtained Under Torture

‘Craig Murray was the UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, until his complaints and protest at the use of intelligence gained by torture got too much for Jack Straw and the Foreign Office, who set about attempting to unsuccessfully smear him, and to successfully remove him from office:

Former British Envoy is Suspended

Timeline of Craig Murray’s posting to Uzbekistan

‘The Foreign Office has had the draft of Craig’s book for clearance for over 3 months now, and they are doing everything they can to try and prevent him from publishing his side of the story. Their latest attempt to cover their own backs was to inform him, the night before Christmas Eve, that these two documents cannot be published, and that he was to return or destroy all copies immediately.

‘What are these documents? The first document is a series of Telegrams that Craig sent to the Foreign Office, outlining his growing concern and disgust at our use of intelligence passed to the UK by the Uzbek security services. The second document is a copy of legal advice the Foreign Office sought, to see if they were operating within the Law in accepting torture intelligence, and according to Michael Wood the FCO legal adviser; it is fine, as long as it is not used as evidence.

‘Faced with this heavy handed censorship by the FCO, in an attempt to cover up our use of and complicity in torture, Craig has decided to fight back, and has asked us all to publish this information, so it cannot be suppressed:

“I am in discussion with the FCO over what I am and am not allowed to publish in my book. The FCO is seeking to gut the book of all evidence of complicity with the Uzbek regime.

“With Bliar cornered on extraordinary rendition, they are particularly anxious to suppress all evidence of our complicity in obtaining intelligence from Uzbek torture.

“In particular, they have demanded I do not publish the attached documents, and that I hand over all copies of them.

“The obvious answer to this is to post these documents as widely on the web as possible. This is also potentially very valuable in establishing that I am not attempting to make money from these documents — you don’t have to buy my book to see them, they are freely available. If you buy the book, you are only paying for the added value of my thoughts.

“This will only work if we can get the [documents] very widely posted, including on sites in the US and elsewhere outside the UK … there is a chance that those who … post this stuff will get threatened under the Official Secrets Act.

“In March 2003 I was summoned back to London from Tashkent specifically for a meeting at which I was told to stop protesting. I was told specifically that it was perfectly legal for us to obtain and to use intelligence from the Uzbek torture chambers.

“After this meeting Sir Michael Wood, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s legal adviser, wrote to confirm this position. This minute from Michael Wood is perhaps the most important document that has become public about extraordinary rendition. It is irrefutable evidence of the government’s use of torture material, and that I was attempting to stop it. It is no wonder that the government is trying to suppress this.” /Craig

Blairwatch: ‘Compare and Contrast the government’s public position on Torture, with the information they were receiving at the time from their own Ambassador, and the legal advice they were seeking. We have archived a selection of government spin and lies on the use of torture in these 4 pages:

Torture Background; Uzbekistan Background; Torture and Rendition General Links; Straw’s Oral FAC Evidence.

you can listen to Jack Straw and Tony Blair deny what you read in these hitherto ’secret’ documents here and here.

‘We have published the documents in full here, and ask that anyone who can will do the same:

Summary of legal opinion from Michael Wood arguing that it is legal to use information extracted under torture.

Confidential letters from Ambassador Craig Murray

‘If you could publish, host and link to these documents on your own webspace, then it will be harder for anybody to be prosecuted here in the UK, and ensure that they get maximum coverage.

‘Craig Murray stood up for what many of us believe, and it cost him his Job, his health, and his professional reputation. The least we can do his stand by him as he defies the UK government’s attempts at censorship, and possible prosecution.‘

‘Craig’s own post on the subject can be found here.‘

Craig Murray: ‘Damning documentary evidence unveiled. Dissident bloggers in coordinated exposé of UK government lies over torture.

‘Help us beat the British government’s gagging order by mirroring this information on your own site or blog!’

fight the good fight, y’all — steal these docs and make sure everyone reads them. (with big thanks to ringverse at Blairwatch.)

19,08 update at the Reg: Ex-envoy unleashes blog-based attack on UK’s torture denials: ‘Former ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray has harnessed the Internet in his long-running feud with the UK Government. A forthcoming book covering his time as ambassador is currently being blocked by the Foreign Office, which has demanded he remove references to two documents from the book and his web site. Murray has responded by publishing the documents in full there, and by encouraging bloggers to disseminate the documents as widely as possible…’

this shit is HUGE — here’s hoping for a torture-free New Year, y’all.

and that about wraps up my week quite nicely. :-) moving right along, i’m absolutely amazed at how the UK flips the fuck out about transport whenever there’s a bit of snow or heavy rain. last night after Alma and Nomad dragged my unwilling ass into their car drove me over to Edinburgh airport and the Easyjet check-in and fucking left me there to fend for myself, the damn plane was totally delayed ‘due to weather.’ i’m all WTF? it’s not even two inches of fucking snow in Bristol, bah. then i sat there trying to read my book and attempting to ignore the babble of normal people and their children, all freaking out around me and calling relatives or whatever it is they have on their cellphones. and each one had cellphones — even the damn kids! of course, i was totally my usual cool — i txtd everyone. :-)

unfortunately, i’ve got no time now to humiliate Alma and Nomad here but i promise i will, as soon as i get high my head back together. and some time later ASAP, i’ll be posting ‘documents that the UK Government are trying to suppress with the threat of prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. They detail our use of intelligence extracted by torture, and legal advice the Foreign Office received on the subject, and we need to get them out there as soon as possible before the government act.’ and yeah, i’m so praying my ass doesn’t land in prison here and/or deported back to the states (for more info, see the latest posts over at Blairwatch).

what’s blasting: airports (The [International] Noise Conspiracy).

faithful friends gawkers-at-the-trainwreck that’s been my life readers of this site have, over the last few months, mailed me, in essence wondering what the fuck i’ve been thinking lately and/or telling me to quit commenting on US news (3 who wouldn’t sign their chickenshit names). and then there were those complaining they miss my weekly roundup of fun links as well as the really personal shit — newsflash, dudes: so do i.

anyway, going by an old publishing adage, for every person who actually writes in to a magazine, there are 100 who don’t, so i guess i’m doing OK here, LOL. and i’ll get back to fun links &c as soon as my sense o’ humor returns in proper proportion to the agony of existence and the horrors in the news; it’s totally called ‘depression,’ y’all, something with which i’ve lived since i was like 4 or 5 and saw my first homeless person and wondered why. about everything else, all i can say is, 9/11 changed everything as long as black is the new white in fucking Jesusland the states, i won’t quit tawkin’ ’bout amerikan shite but as i said on monday, i’m totally taking a little vacation or whatever due to poor health and anxiety over US. are the two related? LOL, you tell me.

moving right along, with all this time spent smoking my brains out hanging out and ill on the sofa lately, i’ve begun to do normal offline things again, like read meatspace books. and when i first sat down here today, i saw a shitload of cut-out collage papers which, last night — in my stoned-out, drunken stupor — i idiotically left on the kitchen table and which are now still scattered all over the floor, so thank you, Hunter. (nb: about that particular photo, you really didn’t think i could resist a post without somehow alluding to the band, didja?) :-)

anyway, starting monday i’ll be visiting up in Scotland, once again to homewreck inflict my unique brand of NYC abrasion on Alma and Nomad and their child Mr Flay. (Q: who do i wanna see most? A: the furry one.) and Chris will care for Hunter while i’m gone — good luck cleaning out the catshit, Babe! *Schadenfreude-tinged laughter*

i hope y’all have a very happy christmas, hannukah, kwanzaa or whatever it is that’s good at putting love into yer cold, cold hearts now. i never really dug this time of year, what with the typically commercial aspects and obnoxious crowds going ‘gimme gimme gimme,’ totally eclipsing any holiday spirit, as well as the poverty and homelessness all over the place, but that’s just me. not for the first time, i’m with Uncle Junior Soprano — ‘i wannit to be over already’ (but your mileage may vary, and for the good of your heads, i sure hope it does). uh oh — Dragnim just mailed: ‘gonna ring you on christmas morning to say happy christmas in a non-ironic way.’ LOL, where to begin?

what’s blasting: Goodnight Lover (Fluke). peace out, y’all. :-)

recently while talking about amerikan news one morning, Chris called me a wingnut (but kind of in in a loving way, LOL). i’d never thought of myself like that before, and every so often, i kept coming back to it. yesterday i found something in a comment which sums up my feelings nicely (and told him so): almost three years back, Teresa Nielsen Hayden wrote ‘I deeply resent the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist.’ (to which i might add: especially since all the so-called ‘conspiracies’ including the biggest of all have proven out to be true).

anyway, the latest thing that i’ve been steaming over is the complicity of the NYT for suppressing news at the request of the white house (and this should really come as no surprise to anyone who knows about Echelon). but how much damage did the NYT do by holding onto this shit for more than a year? and just how many other newspapers are sitting on incriminating shit about bu$hCo? and despite the fucked electronic voting system, would the last election have turned out any differently if this new shit had come to light in time? unfortunately, we’ll never know but if Kerry won, somehow i don’t see him becoming a little dictator and flouting the law like AWOL-boy does, nor do i see the Democratic party anywhere near as vindictive as these evil fucks, nor do i see Kerry on a longass mission of destroying civil rights and freedoms in America, each successful attempt at which would totally make Osama proud — mission accomplished! but hey — that’s me (your mileage may vary).

Juan Cole today: ‘They impeached Clinton for a minor dalliance in which he didn’t even get to third base. But taking the Constitution and pushing it through the shredder, why that is just fine and dandy …The answer to Ben Franklin’s comment about what sort of government the constitution enshrined — “A republic, if you can keep it” — has been answered. We’ve lost it, folks. We’ve got George III in the White House. And, it is now often forgotten, that George was looney as the day is long, too…

‘…It was a good run, this United States of America with its Constitution and its Bill of Rights. How sad that a gang of unscrupulous criminals has been allowed to subvert its basic values altogether. Is there even a single one of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights that Bush and his henchmen have not by now abrogated by royal fiat?

‘And why? Because of a single attack by a few hijackers from a small terrorist organization? The thousands lost in the Revolutionary War did not deter the Founding Fathers from enshrining these rights in the Constitution! The fledgling American Republic was far more unstable and facing far more dangers when this document was passed into law than the unchallengeable hyperpower that now bestrides the globe as a behemoth.’

‘Have we lost our minds?’

moving right along, what i absolutely fucking resent the most, apart from that i used to be proud to be an American and i’m not anymore, is the fact that i totally used to have interests — many MANY interests, some of which were collages, the Web and usability, dance, graphic novels as literature, plain vanilla literature, art history, radical teaching, TS Eliot and other poets, philology and the language of films and on and on and on. and unfortunately over the last five years, these have all been shunted aside and nearly forgotten due to my anxiety and compulsion for reading the latest bu$hCo assaults on US.

apart from the mental wear and tear, and the absolute contempt i feel for the bushlovers, all i can say is America, fuck yeah! i think it might have damaged my physical health some — i’m just back from my GP who gave me yet another prescription and told me i might need surgery after the new year when i’ll be taking more tests. and since i’m yet again ill, i’ll be on the sofa for awhile — posting will be intermittent if not non-existent for the foreseeable future while i try to get my head together and attempt to ignore the latest news. LOL, i’m even turning my feed off so wish me luck, y’all. :-)

(or ‘we don’t need no stinkin’ warrants.’) brace yerselves for this lovely shit i found on Blairwatch this morning while you remember that 9/11 changed everything: ‘The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting…’

i trust that this casual request from Karl Rove the white house had nothing to do with the ‘04 election, cause if this shit got out before, it would’ve angered an awful lot of people, right? anyway, ‘Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

‘Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible “dirty numbers” linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.’

‘The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval represents a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches.’

constitutional limits? do we still have those? cuz i seem to remember from the very recent past, our preznit screaming ‘Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!’

Eric Alterman: ‘Just take a look at how seriously these people take civil liberties. They insist that there can be no possibility that they would ever abuse the powers they enjoy under the “Patriot Act” and yet, to take one minor example from the recently released — and barely covered — 9/ll commission report on compliance, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that is supposed to oversee this delicate balance has was deemed to have “funding [that] is insufficient, no meetings have been held, no staff named, no work plan outlined, no work begun, no office established.”…’

NYT again: ‘…Several officials said the eavesdropping program had helped uncover a plot by Iyman Faris, an Ohio trucker and naturalized citizen who pleaded guilty in 2003 to supporting Al Qaeda by planning to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches.’

LOL, where to begin? like nobody in their right minds wouldn’t notice motherfuckers crawling on the Brooklyn Bridge (’like lit-tle ants’) with blowtorches?

from the WaPo: ‘Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies at George Washington University, said the secret order may amount to the president authorizing criminal activity. The law governing clandestine surveillance in the United States, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, prohibits conducting electronic surveillance not authorized by statute. A government agent can try to avoid prosecution if he can show he was “engaged in the course of his official duties and the electronic surveillance was authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order of a court of competent jurisdiction,” according to the law.

“This is as shocking a revelation as we have ever seen from the Bush administration,” said Martin, who has been sharply critical of the administration’s surveillance and detention policies. “It is, I believe, the first time a president has authorized government agencies to violate a specific criminal prohibition and eavesdrop on Americans.”

so will we have accountability? LOL, of course not — accountability’s so 20th century and don’t you forget it. fave comment: ‘If once you wrap your mind around the fact — completely counter-intuitive as it is — that the Busheviks are not committed to the peace, prosperity, freedom or well-being of the People, that those noble and traditional goals have NO place in their Regime; but they rather have as their end and goal the complete, final alienation of the People from the institutions and instruments of their own self-governance. once one accepts that as a fact, everything else which makes no sense under any other logical scheme, finally is sensible…’

and ‘We’re not supposed to complain, just get used to it, and try to keep your eye on the road to freedom!’ finally, ‘is the NY Times complicit in the commission of a crime for sitting on the story for a year at the WH’s request?’

didn’t they try the propaganda meisters at Nuremberg, along with the rest of the war criminals? (hey! i’m just sayin’.) as well, i wanna know what other fucked-up bu$hCo stories the NYT has been hiding from the public, y’know what i mean?

but the lesson learnt here? don’t trust your own people (but $queeze as much as y’can outta them — it’s the amerikan way!). and since 9/11 changed everything, i don’t really understand what the fuss is all about — we’re destroying freedom in order to save it, right? i dunno about you, but i’m feeling much safer knowing that my mom’s increasingly frantic trans-Atlantic phone calls might have been checked out since 2002. a typical sample: ‘are you eating properly and taking your vitamins? and don’t tell me “YES!” to shut me up!’ actually last week, i remember insisting that she listen to Air America Radio only — treasonous talk? LOL, you be the judge.

Kevin at Lean Left: ‘Bush took and oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. He has broken that oath time and time again. He is a disgrace to the office. This is how people lose their freedoms; a little bit at a time, in the dark, when men who have no respect for laws or decency shape policy in secret.’ wake up and smell the fascism, y’all. |-(

or why is she not in Iraq again? ‘wholesome family values’ or whatever, LOL. Jenna Bush’s ID In Possession of Coke Dealer: ‘Jenna Bush’s infamous ID-gate videotape is raising more questions than the Zapruder film. According to a source who has seen the footage — which features a self-described downtown coke dealer relating his late-night run-in with the First Daughter, and brandishing her college ID as a souvenir — the man insinuates that the two shared more than just drinks.

‘A well-informed source, who has a DVD copy of the interview shot by tbirdshow.com’s Travis Poston, says that at one point the dealer claims that the young, blonde Jenna Bush with the Texas accent he hung out with that night (and who happened to leave behind Jenna Bush’s belongings) had been “helping [him] clean up” the bar after a long night of partying. (A publicist for First Lady Laura Bush has unequivocally denied that her daughter has ever been to the Chinatown bar, Happy Ending, even though we hear the UT-Austin ID card displayed in the film clearly shows the hard-partying political liability’s name, picture and student ID number.)

‘According to the New York Post’s Page Six, the Secret Service are reportedly taking the tape seriously enough to investigate, and we hear they’re not the only ones. When Fresh Intelligence emailed tbirdshow.com about securing selected clips to host on this site, we received the following curt response: “There are about ten top papers fighting for that footage. Get in line.” Needless to say, “if a coke dealer has your ID it doesn’t look so good,” quipped the source.’

‘Apparently, the affable salesman doesn’t limit his company to presidential offspring. “He brags on camera that he’s down with all the members of Interpol,” our source says. “And everybody in the club that walks by in the video says ‘hi’ to him.”…’

fave comment: ‘You know what this means? Jenna for Prez 2020!’

LOL, is it irresponsible to talk about this? ask me if i care — no really, ask me. there’s nothing more i can add to this shit apart from: call me, Jenna — i wanna party with you! dear christ, i do hope the DVD gets leaked worldwide ASAP and her ditzy ass lands in a well-publicised rehab. oh, and i want the commemorative T-shirt. :-)

what’s blasting in honor of Jenna: Cocaine (off Ya Basta!)

everyone’s been having a field day over the preznit’s supposed new glibness or whatever and yesterday evening, i’m reading Dan Froomkin’s ‘Bush Takes Questions’ and happened upon this: ‘Press secretary Scott McClellan said yesterday that Bush decided to take questions only hours before the Philadelphia speech began.’

my bullshit detector immediately went off — i’m thinking ‘hours before? this does not compute, no fucking way…’ and this clinched it, the first allegedly spontaneous question: ‘Q Since the inception of the Iraqi war, I’d like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed. And by Iraqis I include civilians, military, police, insurgents, translators.

‘THE PRESIDENT: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We’ve lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq.’

first of all, i totally think this is a plant, something Karl Rove dreamt up, spurred on by this Newsweek cover story to make it appear to the drooling masses that the preznit’s not in a bubble and actually awake aware of what’s going on outside the Oval Office. today i read that Susan Hu (who knows much more about these things than i ever will) agrees with me: ‘First things first: I think this was a planted question. Bush had those numbers too ready.’ as well, ‘I was listening to NPR [US radio] today, and their take was the question seemed almost to have been planted — or words to that effect. And it was SO obvious. He even paused as if thinking. (I’m surprised he didn’t put his finger to his temple and look ever so thoughtful.) … This 30,000 was fresh from his ass.’ and ‘When was the last time this fuckwad did anything spontaneous except shit his pants on 9/11? All of this was a “Jeff Gannon” spontaneous moment. I hereby bet my well-worn liver that these bastards were all plants, as were their questions. Chimpo doesn’t know his fucking dress size, let alone how many people have been killed in Iraq.’

Susan Hu again: ‘But, it doesn’t matter that he’d been prepped for the question. What mattered was that the words “I would say 30,000, more or less, …” fell so easily from his lips. It was just a number. And his self-satisfied look gave away that he was pleased with himself for remembering the correct answer. What matters is that he didn’t convey a single word of sympathy or caring for those 30,000 dead. What is odd is that the rounded number of 30,000 so closely matches the Iraq Body Count site’s numbers of a minimum of 27,383 and a maximum of 30,892.’

in an update: ‘With all due respect to the Iraqi Body Count folks, their study is nearly six months old and “is based on comprehensive analysis of over 10,000 media reports published between March 2003 and March 2005″. I personally think the Lancet study’s calculatons about how many Iraqis may have died in — or, better stated — because of this war should not be ignored. Perhaps as many as 194,000, Lancet’s authors concluded. Certainly more than 100,000. And that study was done more than 15 months ago.’ (Lancet study here; BBC estimate of 100,000+ here)

so who y’gonna trust? the Lancet (a peer-reviewed medical journal in publication for 180 years) or bu$hCo doing his old misunderestimating routine again?

The War in Numbers: From WMD to the Victims in which you’ll find things like ‘$204.4 billion the cost to the US of the war so far; the UK’s bill up until March 2005 was £3.1 billion; 2,339 Allied troops killed; 98 UK troops killed; 30,000 Estimated Iraqi civilian deaths (ed. note: yeah, right.) 0 Number of WMDs found; 8 per cent of Iraqi children suffering acute malnutrition; $35,819 million World Bank estimated cost of reconstruction; 53,470 Iraqi insurgents killed; 67 per cent Iraqis who feel less secure because of occupation…

‘…251 Foreigners kidnapped; 70 per cent of Iraqi’s whose sewage system rarely works; 183,000 British and American troops are still in action in Iraq. There are 162,000 US troops and 8,000 British with 13,000 from other nations; 90 Daily attacks by insurgents in Nov ‘05. In Jun ‘03: 8; 82 percent Iraqis who are “strongly opposed” to presence of coalition troops; 15,955 US troops wounded in action…’

Stirling Newberry: Fifth Annual National Failure Day: ‘America woke up to the post-constitutional reality of Bush v Gore. Albert Gore conceded the election, and the world, caught like a deer in the headlights, looked on at the oncoming noise show, filled with lights, marching bands and loud crashes.

‘It is a day that people will not celebrate, the real control over America did not begin until much later, with the transformation of the 9/11 attacks into our Reichstag fire — I called it that on the 12th of September 2001, I don’t know how many other people did, or have since then. It is not that I think that Bush planned 911, but the evidence is clear that he shirked his duty — as he always has — in failing to heed the warnings and prepare for it. Whether it was because those warnings were discounted (criminal negligence), because he thought it wouldn’t matter (depraved indifference) or because he calculated it would actually help his cause (complicity) I don’t know, I rather suspect it was in a hazy zone between criminally neglent and depravedly indifferent. I say this because the response to Katrina was exactly the same as 911 — ignoring the clear problem while pursuing private profit; then a stammering, halting reply; and finally muscling in for massive corruption on the path to an already established plan, taking the time to grab electoral advantage as he did so. Since Bush clearly didn’t plan Katrina, it follows that he probably couldn’t have been entirely cogniscent of 9/11 either.

‘The distance we have travelled in those five years is both enormous and very small. The United States has politically decided that it wants to be corrupt banana republic, with a corrupt government funnelling out corrupt pork and projects, and borrowing the money from its children and grandchildren…Real wages are falling, and “middle class inflation” — for health care, education and housing — is pressing families from all sides. It is only destined to get worse, as the only way to solve our budget crisis now is either to eliminate medicaid except for its use as a “nursing home benefit”, or to go to a national health care system. Since Americans are still convinced that the way to lose weight is to shoot yourself in the foot, we are likely to see a series of “easings” of medical benefits from the public, and a rising tide of sickness and poverty.

‘Politically we have seen the end of bipartisanship and the beginning of “buy-partisanship”. We have a one party state, one that corrupts everything to be an electoral arm of the party. Nothing is too small to become an organ of propaganda. Which means that everything has become suspect…

‘…If these seem like wonkish complaints, cold blooded compared to accusations of torture, or battle cries of liberty and justice, it is because it is this fabric of how the government runs is the substance of liberty and justice. Moreover, as a part of the road to the downfall of the old order, this was the day when cooked numbers were given legal standing, and that legal standing was acknowledged. In Medieval wars, the loser, if he survived, often had to kneel and swear fealty to the victor. This is the fifth anniversary of Al Gore kneeling to George W. Bush. It is why I cannot in good conscience support Gore for anything, no leader of any kind would bend his knee to King George…’

‘…like most people who thought of themselves as “sensible” I felt sure that the “system” would realize that George Bush was incapable of handling the levers of power, and would find a way to reject him, though perhaps at the last minute. Like many people who are “sensible” people, I was completely wrong about the system. It did not protect the interests of the millions who belong to it, but, instead, behaved in a manner as crass and as short sighted as possible. Corruptly looking to tax breaks and media consolidation instead of the public good. Everyone who works for a media company anywhere must realize that the end of the press as the “fourth estate” began that day…’

‘…Thus it is these reflections, and not battle field oration that spring to my fingers, and I encourage people to take a moment and reflect on their own part in this failure. Because failure is a team effort, Bush is in the White House because of the efforts of millions of people to ignore the obvious - that the Republican Party is the party of crankhead porn monkeys, darwin denying dead enders, and sandwich sign prophets. It is not sane at a very basic level, and the necessity of the past was to gather against it. But from top to bottom of the society there was failure. Gore acted like the Presidency was his plaything, to be packed with his people. The Democratic Party swung behind him only lazily, the left spent more of its time attacking Gore than understanding Bush. The press kneepadded for the would be chimperial highness. And so it goes.

‘This then is National Failure Day…’ what Stirling said — all of it (read the entire thing).

(or ‘nyuck-nyuck-nyuck.’) why is it, that the more we find out about this most secretive, double-dealing, bushleague psycho shit administration, the more we come to realise how stupid they think we (and the rest of the world) are? a coupla weeks back, i posted on how amerika’s spreadin’ freedom ‘n’ democracy over in Iraq by planting US-taxpayer financed bogus stories in Iraqi newspapers. anyway, the NYTimes finally woke up to this shit over the weekend:

‘The 1,200-strong psychological operations unit based at Fort Bragg turns out what its officers call “truthful messages” to support the United States government’s objectives, though its commander acknowledges that those stories are one-sided and their American sponsorship is hidden.’ define your terms, dude: let’s begin with ‘truthful’ in relation to ‘hidden’ and then let’s go on to ‘lie of omission.’

“We call our stuff information and the enemy’s propaganda,” said Col. Jack N. Summe, then the commander of the Fourth Psychological Operations Group, during a tour in June. Even in the Pentagon, “some public affairs professionals see us unfavorably,” and inaccurately, he said, as “lying, dirty tricksters.” The recent disclosures that a Pentagon contractor in Iraq paid newspapers to print “good news” articles written by American soldiers prompted an outcry in Washington, where members of Congress said the practice undermined American credibility and top military and White House officials disavowed any knowledge of it. President Bush was described by Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser, as “very troubled” about the matter…

oh really? i beg to differ, cause reading down a bit: ‘…the Bush administration has been conducting an information war that is extensive, costly and often hidden, according to documents and interviews with contractors, government officials and military personnel. The campaign was begun by the White House, which set up a secret panel soon after the Sept. 11 attacks to coordinate information operations by the Pentagon, other government agencies and private contractors…’ so the preznit and his gang are very troubled or whatever for no other reason than the fact that this new shit has come to light.

anyway, ‘…For an expanded stealth persuasion effort into neighboring countries, Lincoln presented plans, since rejected, for an underground newspaper, television news shows and an anti-terrorist comedy based on “The Three Stooges.”…’

oh yeah, that’s really gonna win their hearts ‘n’ minds bigtime. and even i know that religious zealots in the Middle East hate Western culture, but we’ll come back to that in a bit. anyway, ‘Lincoln’ is the Lincoln Group, about which Billmon says: ‘[the Lincoln Group] …appeared to have parlayed its Republican Party connections into a whopping big contract with the Pentagon’s special ops propaganda machine — the JPOSE (Joint Psychological Operations Support Element) to use the proper Orwellian acronym….what the Lincoln Group has been giving the taxpayers for their money — which appears to be a bunch of bribes paid to Iraqi newspapers to regurgitate official Cheney Administration talking points…’

back to the NYT: ‘…It is something of a mystery how Lincoln came to land more than $25 million in Pentagon contracts in a war zone. The two men who ran the small business had no background in public relations or the media, according to associates and a résumé…’

i’m so very weary of crap like this, especially in light of bu$hCo cutting Medicaid and other programs designed to help the poor (and not doing shit for New Orleans) while awarding huge sums to whichever republican asshat contribute$ most to the party turns up, no matter how unqualified.

Wonkette: ‘Reading the New York Times’ massive front-page story Sunday on the U.S. military’s propaganda efforts, we were charmed by these ideas generated by the now-infamous “Lincoln Group,” sadly left on the drawing board:

”…In its rejected plan, the company looked to American popular culture for ways to influence new audiences. Lincoln proposed variations of the satirical paper ‘The Onion,’ and an underground paper to be called ‘The Voice,’ documents show. And it planned comedies modeled after ‘Cheers’ and the Three Stooges, with the trio as bumbling wannabe terrorists…”

‘The latter, clearly, offers the most intriguing possibilities, including the image of a terrorist slapping his nose up and down and saying “nyuck-nyuck-nyuck” after a car bomb explodes early.’

how ’bout ‘I’m A Hostage — Get Me Outta Here!’ but to really win their hearts ‘n’ minds even more than bullshit news, we should send them programmes that truly reflect the here and now, but over here, showin’ ‘em real democracy (and freedom!) at work. how ’bout ‘The bu$hCos’ (aided by the Supreme Court, a gang of thugs loots the US Treasury and wreaks havoc on civil rights in America) or ‘The Shock and Awe Show‘ (the hilarious adventures of a $204.4 billion war in Iraq, based on botched intel extracted under torture by an already discredited informer called ‘Curveball‘). LOL, that’ll show ‘em.

as long as they can be shipped over to Iraq to die for oil for US, then hey — it’s all good. but it’s increasingly clear that eventually they’ll be shit on cause to wealthy AWOL motherfuckers like bu$hCo, when alive they’re only cannon fodder and props, so why not give them the brushoff when they’re dead? ship ‘em home Dead-Ex on the cheap, like the freight they are (but make damn sure real patriots like Donald Trump and Paris Hilton get their all-important tax cuts).

Family Upset Over Marine’s Body Arriving As Freight: ‘There’s controversy over how the military is transporting the bodies of service members killed overseas, 10News reported. A local family said fallen soldiers and Marines deserve better and that one would think our war heroes are being transported with dignity, care and respect. It said one would think upon arrival in their hometowns they are greeted with honor. But unfortunately, the family said that is just not the case.

‘Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag — greeted by a color guard. But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners — stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo. John Holley and his wife, Stacey, were stunned when they found out the body of their only child, Matthew, who died in Iraq last month, would be arriving at Lindbergh Field as freight. “When someone dies in combat, they need to give them due respect they deserve for (the) sacrifice they made,” said John Holley.

‘John and Stacey Holley, who were both in the Army, made some calls, and with the help of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, Matthew was greeted with honor and respect. “Our familiarity with military protocol and things of that sort allowed us to kind of put our foot down — we’re not sure other parents have that same knowledge,” said Stacey Holley. The Holleys now want to make sure every fallen hero gets the proper welcome.

‘The bodies of dead service members arrive at Dover Air Force Base. From that point, they are sent to their families on commercial airliners. Reporters from 10News called the Defense Department for an explanation. A representative said she did not know why this is happening.’

John at Americablog: ‘…think what the Republicans would do with this information if the shoe was on the other foot. TV commercials, election ads, press conferences, and more. Will our guys even mention it?’ what he said: ‘We have no guys…At least, that’s the way I’ve come to feel about my chosen political party and its penchant for enabling.’

damn fucking straight. as well, i’m with this dude: ‘This is sickening. Again, what more is there to say except ”if you aren’t outraged you haven’t been paying attention.” My heart goes out to that family and all of the others who are treated so despicably by this administration.’ excellent point: ‘Why does Herr Shrub hate those who actually do fight for this nation? I don’t know. Maybe their bravery highlights his cowardice.’

but who cares about little things like a preznit’s cowardice when he can stuff the codpiece in his flightsuit and strut around to approving ooohs and ahhhs from our journos? and what’s a preznit’s cowardice compared to the belief that war-hero John Kerry wounded himself to steal his Purple Hearts? anyway, 9/11 changed everything and even if it didn’t, the Monica blowjob made everything done by AWOL-boy A-OK. *thumbs up!*

moving right along, most of all, let’s not forget ‘It’s our system of government that is fucked up…not the people who exploit it. It doesn’t matter which side of the aisle they’re on, they all represent big money and not the ideology they pretend (and you believe) they represent. Until this country wakes up and realizes that we have to change the system, not just kick out these rats so that the next batch can take over, there is no hope. Take the money out of our politics …out of elections …eliminate the lobbying industry …and stop allowing elected politicians to cash in on their power …Until we start talking about changing the fucked up rules that allowed us to get into this fucked up position in the first place…nothing will change. Wake up people.’

according to the preznit, we’re stayin’ the course to honor the sacrifices already made (but forget about showing flag-draped coffins or anything). and the good part is, we’re thinnin’ out the herd — these aren’t the really valuable members of society — only poor kids who’d prolly be on unemployment or welfare or making babies every chance they got, if only they’d had the brains to stay at home, right?

*walks off singing* ‘be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a cargo-hold box.’ and don’t forget to put on those little stickers saying ‘this end UP.’ MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! (sorry ’bout yer kids.)

goddammit to fucking hell — and another morning shot to depressing shit: i wake up still ill, sneezing and coughing my fucking brains out, feed Hunter, sit down here with my first cup of coffee and cig and then read that Richard Pryor’s dead at 65 (!!! thus putting me in an even fouler mood, if that’s at all possible).

i remember the first time i saw him — my friends and i were so laughing our asses off that we thought we’d bust our ribs that night. in truth, i didn’t think of him much in latter years, apart from feeling terrible when i read he’d become ill with MS. the one teeny tiny bright note is, this morning i found out that he’s sampled on Exile on Coldharbour Lane at the very beginning of ‘Converted’ (’shoot ME, motherfucker’). it figures the band would totally dig him and have him on… *sigh*

long ago, it was Richard’s unique brand of comedy that first made me think that, when life totally sucks balls, to try to find one little thing, one little detail that’s funny, no matter the horror, even and especially if that thing is myself (and it usually is) — then go for it, laugh my ass off at whatever stupidity or dumb little irony in life. for those of you who’ve never seen him before, here’s a very old clip of Richard with Chevy Chase on the old SNL (here’s the transcript). this shit was deemed ’shocking,’ way back when, to say the word ‘nigger’ on nation-wide TV and to talk about race relations in anything but a serious way. i’m watching again and laughing and weeping at the same time now. *sigh*

some clips of Richard’s routines: Supernigger from 1968; Exorcist, 1974; Monkeys, 1978; Mohammed Ali, 1978 and Southern Hospitality, 1983. fuuuuuck… *sigh*

what’s blasting: Alabama 3’s Converted, in honor of Richard (’shoot ME, motherfucker’) Pryor: 1 Dec 1940 – 10 Dec 2005, the funniest motherfucking dude EVer. RIP, Richard — you’re already very much missed. :-(

20. january 2001: ‘I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will try to the best of my ability, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.’

yesterday: ‘Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act …GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. (ed. note: still drivin’ that train… high on cocaine…) Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

who gives a flying fuck? “Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

‘I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.” And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned piece of paper” used to guarantee…

‘…Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine — in the end — if something is legal or right.

Karen Kwiatkowski: ‘…From President Jefferson to President George W. Bush, we are witnesses to a stark and frightening intellectual devolution. But Jefferson knew well what Dubya sees through a glass darkly. The Constitution, some years after our War of Independence, was designed to establish a more centralized state, with a stronger executive — perhaps even a kingly commander. It was only reluctantly and weakly constrained by those amendments we call the Bill of Rights, and in light of Patriot Act renewals and a host of other infringements, it is primarily that part of the Constitution Bush so heartily denigrates.’

this sheds way the fuck too much light on his ‘If this was a dictatorship it would be a heck of a lot easier; just so long as I was the dictator.’ scariest comment: ‘Gee, if he doesn’t believe in the Constitution then maybe there is some validity to my fears that he won’t give up the presidency after 2008.’

in other news, here’s Mike Wallace on what he would ask the preznit, if given the chance (nb: AWOL-boy’s declined Mr Wallace’s request for an interview): ‘What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn’t want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn’t have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?’

Mark Kleiman: ‘If we stopped torturing people, directly or by proxy, then we couldn’t force them to reveal what they didn’t know and what in fact wasn’t true. And without untruths, the War on Terror would grind to a halt.’

Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim: ‘The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials. The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.

‘The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the administration’s heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Qaeda members and others detained as part of American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Mr. Libi’s accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons. The fact that Mr. Libi recanted after the American invasion of Iraq and that intelligence based on his remarks was withdrawn by the C.I.A. in March 2004 has been public for more than a year. But American officials had not previously acknowledged either that Mr. Libi made the false statements in foreign custody or that Mr. Libi contended that his statements had been coerced.’

*blood…boiling* must. not. take. it. personally… so who the fuck cares if the intel sucked? look on the bright side: we’ve got this totally cool war going on, so torture works! dig what we’ve accomplished: 2,135 US dead, 98 UK dead, 103 ‘other’ dead and countless thousands of dead Iraqis. WE FUCKING RULE — USA! USA! fave comment: ‘As for torture for intel gathering, perhaps we could use the tactic to get the war criminals to admit to their crimes. At the same time, they could demonstrate how well the tactic actually works … and how it isn’t really torture at all.’

LOL, if fucking only. anyway, on this side o’ the Atlantic, UK: Highest Court Rules Out Use of Torture Evidence: ‘The unanimous ruling by Britain’s highest court that torture evidence can never be used in court proceedings is an important milestone, Human Rights Watch said today. “This is a real victory in the struggle against torture,” said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director of Human Rights Watch, “The Law Lords have affirmed a core tenet of our values — that torture evidence is never acceptable.” A seven-judge panel of the House of Lords Judicial Committee (commonly known as “the Law Lords") ruled that even in terrorism cases, no British court can consider evidence obtained under torture. In the words of Lord Nicholls: “Torture is not acceptable. This is a bedrock moral principle in this country.”…’

Law lords ban evidence gained under torture: ‘…Lord Hoffmann, a fellow law lord, said the use of torture corrupted and degraded the state that used it and the legal system that accepted it. In a reference to Guantanamo Bay, he said that many Americans have felt their country “dishonoured” by its use of torture outside its own jurisdiction and the practice of moving suspects to countries where torture is practised…’

LOL, it’s those wacky, understated Brits again. dude, you think we feel our country’s ‘dishonored’ by its use of torture? with all due respect, Lord Hoffman, fuck that shit — we’re used to it; we were already dishonored. we’re on a five year roll of government-inflicted dishonor, shame and outrage with no end in sight: my entire fucking country’s been dishonored ever since bu$hCo and friends decided they’re above the law, took over the Supreme Court and the 2000 election, changed the definition of torture, bullshitted US into an ill-defined war-without-end, got US to switch to electronic voting machines and thus stole the 2004 election, hired big money republican contributors for government positions (for which they were totally unqualified) and went on a wild spending spree, the likes of which have never been seen, and which is still going on, even as i type. and the rest of US have all been complicit by taking the damn high road and not rioting protesting in the streets of DC or in whichever towns or cities we call home, but that’s beside the point. shit, we could write the damn book on ‘dishonored’…

Kevin Drum: ‘The damage that all this has done to our moral standing to fight radical extremism in the Muslim world is hard to calculate. The Bush and Blair administrations have probably set our cause back by a decade by refusing to take a clear and immediate stand against state sanctioned torture from the very beginning.’

but that’s part of winning their hearts ‘n’ minds, no? fave comment: ‘Nothing sells respect overseas for good old American democracy and freedom like waterboarding, beatings and the occasional suffocation administered by your friendly American or British representative’ and ‘If this administration and its intelligence community were truly results-driven, they would be sinking the millions that go to fund secret offshore prisons to some serious undercover intelligence that would yield useful information. I have always contended, Bushco really doesn’t want to know the skinny on the underground terror network, because if they find out, they might end up reducing the terror threat, which will reduce their ability to politically manipulate Mr and Mrs Redstate America.’

damn fucking straight. moving right along, i *heart* Harold Pinter, who’s totally got the last word: ‘What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days — conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three years, with no legal representation or due process, technically detained forever. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly thought about by what’s called the “international community”.

‘This criminal outrage is being committed by a country, which declares itself to be “the leader of the free world”. Do we think about the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the media say about them? They pop up occasionally — a small item on page six. They have been consigned to a no man’s land from which indeed they may never return. At present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including British residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or anaesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What has the British Foreign Secretary said about this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said about this? Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to criticise our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. You’re either with us or against us. So Blair shuts up…’

‘…I know that President Bush has many extremely competent speech writers but I would like to volunteer for the job myself. I propose the following short address which he can make on television to the nation. I see him grave, hair carefully combed, serious, winning, sincere, often beguiling, sometimes employing a wry smile, curiously attractive, a man’s man.

”God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden’s God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam’s God was bad, except he didn’t have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don’t chop people’s heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don’t you forget it.”…’

Mayor of London Calls Bushies ‘A Gang of Thugs’: ‘Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, England, threw a bash for anti-war activists this evening and denounced the Bush Administration as “a gang of thugs.” He praised the work of those present from the US and the UK who have worked to end the war, including offering high praise for Cindy Sheehan, who also spoke. “You are the majority of Londoners,” Livingstone said, referring to those who want the war ended and who view the behavior of the Bush Administration as criminal. In reference to reports that Bush wanted to bomb the headquarters of Al Jazeera, Livingstone said “Anywhere else we call that Murder Incorporated.”… (ed. note: but now we call it ‘the amerikan way.’)

‘…Before Livingstone introduced Cindy, he mentioned that the media sometimes calls him “anti-American.” He said: “I’m not anti-American. I love America. I love Americans’ competence, their lack of deference, their belief that they can achieve their best. I hope some day we can get a government as good as the American people, a government with the morality of Cindy.” Cindy began her remarks by saying “I’ve been called anti-American too! What happens is that they can’t attack our message, so they attack the messenger.” … Cindy returned the Mayor’s praise, saying that she hoped we could get his bravery and integrity into our government at home. “The Mayor did call them gangsters,” Cindy said of the Bush Administration, “and that’s right. But, ” she told the crowd, “your prime minister is an accomplice.”…

‘…Cindy discussed various US war crimes, including the admitted use of chemical weapons on Fallujah. She condemned these actions, but said she wanted Londoners to know that “Most Americans wholeheartedly oppose what our government is doing. And we’re fighting to take back our government!”

‘But, “we’re complicit,” she added. ”Why weren’t we in the streets in 2000 when the Supreme Court put Bush in the White House?”…’

‘…Cindy concluded: “We need an investigation! We are fighting for impeachment of these criminals!” That line got huge applause. The Mayor closed by quoting a remark that William Jennings Bryan made in response to Carnegie claiming he loved America: “We’re glad you love America. When you’re done with it, can we have it back?”…’

in other news that doesn’t make my blood boil (thus pushing my temperature way the fuck up), Harold Pinter Blasts Blair and Bush in Nobel Acceptance Speech: ‘Playwright Harold Pinter is ill with cancer. He was too ill to travel to Stockholm to give his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature in person, so he presented it by video. During his speech he called Tony Blair and George Bush war criminals.

”In a hoarse voice, he accused America of massacring innocent people all over the world in the name of democracy. He asked: ‘How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand?’ … Pinter said the justification for invading Iraq was based on ‘a tapestry of lies’ and went on: ‘We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it “bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East.”

”He went on to accuse America of supporting ‘every Right wing military dictatorship in the world’ since the end of the Second World War. He added: ‘It also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain.’…”

bah…i have a drippy nose, a horrible fever (102F), a sore throat and i feel like i have no energy. and that little voice inside my head is going ‘and apart from the fever, this is different from every day you’ve been living in England, how again, exactly?’ LOL, but it could be worse (and i’m trying to hold onto that little mantra of mine, since my GP didn’t gimme anything ‘good’ since in my world, ’something good’ means a renewable ’scrip for whatever heavy-duty narcotic that knocks me into a nod until the fever passes).

moving right along, something’s fucked with the site here — i posted last night and tried to post today about the new black, i mean, the new way of saying ‘catapulting the propaganda’ (in white house tawk, it’s now called ‘reinforcing the message’) but i had to delete it — it totally fucked up the formatting, making longass links and things not supposed to be italicised, italics. Chris will fix it ASAP but since he’s still working his ass off, i’ve got to wait (LOL, priorities an’ all). anyway, the good part is, i’ll be on the sofa and not reading news for awhile. cub-bere, Hudter, gibbe a kiss… *sneeze cough hack* right in his face (not on purpose) and there he goes, flying out of the living room, leaving me alone in my wretched drippy-ness. stay tuned, y’all. ka-chooey! :-)

or ‘torture is US.’ Rice to aim to defuse US prison scandal in Europe: ‘U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will seek to deflect growing European pressure over allegations that the CIA has been running secret prisons in the region on a trip to the continent next week. Faced with European demands that the United States explain a Washington Post report that secret detention centers to interrogate terrorism suspects were located in two unnamed Eastern European countries, Rice intends to remind the Europeans that they are in a joint fight against an enemy that she says obeys no laws.

‘In an interview in Tuesday editions of USA Today, Rice neither confirmed nor denied the existence of secret prisons, but defended the policy of making arrests before crimes are committed…Rice’s planned approach on next week’s trip matches the U.S. response to a scandal that has fueled — rather than defused — concerns among European governments and the public. Since The Washington Post reported this month that the CIA has held detainees in secret in Eastern Europe, the Bush administration has refused to deny or confirm the allegation. Instead, it has repeatedly insisted it is waging a war on militants who act outside of the law…’ and the usual bu$hCo ‘non-denial ‘denial’ rears its ugly head once again.

Rice ‘to talk tough on CIA claim’: ‘…"It’s very clear they want European governments to stop pushing on this,'’ a European diplomat, who has been speaking to the US officials drafting Ms Rice’s response, told the New York Times. “They were stuck on the defensive for weeks, but suddenly the line has toughened up incredibly.” Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern told the New York Times that Ms Rice told him in Washington that she expected allies to trust that America does not allow rights abuses. (ed. note: yeah, trust US — we’re the good guys.) The US has refused to confirm or deny the reports and according to the Washington Post, Ms Rice has no plans to acknowledge the prisons…"The key point will be ‘We’re all in this together and you need to look at yourselves as much as us,’ ” one official said to the Washington Post, on condition of anonymity. “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”…’

LOL, get used to it, dude. ‘…On Friday White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that the US does not violate human rights. “When it comes to human rights, there is no greater leader than the United States of America, and we show that by holding people accountable when they break the law or violate human rights,” he said.’ lying through his fucking teeth, as usual. nobody’s been held accountable for anything governmentally fucked in the last five years cause being held accountable implies that mistakes were made and bu$hCo don’t play that shit. remember Katrina and the failings of FEMA? (’Brownie, you’re doin’ a heck of a job!‘).

der Spiegel: ‘In the past, the Europeans turned a blind eye to the Americans’ human rights violations. After all, Islamist terror was considered more dangerous and, more importantly, was being committed by a common enemy. But now European politicians have had enough… (ed. note: please please please please please! *fingers crossed*) …A heated debate has broken out in the United States over whether the West’s leading power can resort to torture when it believes its national security is under threat. The Bush administration’s draconian methods have met with sharp resistance in the US Senate. US President George W. Bush, for his part, has threatened to veto an amendment that would require the CIA — like any other US government agency — to use only methods allowed under international law to extract information from its prisoners. Vice President Dick Cheney’s vehement efforts to obstruct the amendment even prompted former CIA Director Stansfield Turner to angrily label Cheney a “vice president for torture.”…’

hey, if the shoe fits and all (and unfortunately, it does fit, perfectly). AFAIC, their arrogance is (still) breathtaking: shut the fuck up, EU, lap it up and don’t forget — trust US! anyway, dig this shit:

Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Slip: ‘After the September 2001 attacks, pressure to locate and nab potential terrorists, even in the most obscure parts of the world, bore down hard on one CIA office in particular, the Counterterrorist Center, or CTC, located until recently in the basement of one of the older buildings on the agency’s sprawling headquarters compound. With operations officers and analysts sitting side by side, the idea was to act on tips and leads with dramatic speed. The possibility of missing another attack loomed large. “Their logic was: If one of them gets loose and someone dies, we’ll be held responsible,” said one CIA officer, who, like others interviewed for this article, would speak only anonymously because of the secretive nature of the subject.

‘To carry out its mission, the CTC relies on its Rendition Group, made up of case officers, paramilitaries, analysts and psychologists. Their job is to figure out how to snatch someone off a city street, or a remote hillside, or a secluded corner of an airport where local authorities wait. Members of the Rendition Group follow a simple but standard procedure: Dressed head to toe in black, including masks, they blindfold and cut the clothes off their new captives, then administer an enema and sleeping drugs. They outfit detainees in a diaper and jumpsuit for what can be a day-long trip.‘

in the words of Bill Hicks: ‘Now if that doesn’t make your blood fucking curdle…’ continuing, ‘Their destinations: either a detention facility operated by cooperative countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, or one of the CIA’s own covert prisons — referred to in classified documents as “black sites,” which at various times have been operated in eight countries, including several in Eastern Europe.’ (ed. note: check helpful Der Spiegel map here.)

‘In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the CTC was the place to be for CIA officers wanting in on the fight. The staff ballooned from 300 to 1,200 nearly overnight. “It was the Camelot of counterterrorism,” a former counterterrorism official said. “We didn’t have to mess with others — and it was fun.” Thousands of tips and allegations about potential threats poured in after the attacks. Stung by the failure to detect the plot, CIA officers passed along every tidbit. The process of vetting and evaluating information suffered greatly, former and current intelligence officials said. “Whatever quality control mechanisms were in play on September 10th were eliminated on September 11th,” a former senior intelligence official said.’

yeah, 9/11 changed everything — case closed *bang!* end of story. trying to end this with a smile (and coming up with nothing to smile about cause i’m busy praying to my godz that EU doesn’t take Condi’s bullshit), fave comment: ‘Hey, Europeans, get in line. If you don’t lie down when told to lie down, and heel when told to heel, why then Karl Rove is gonna get you Swift-Boated! Are you scared yet, Europe? C’mon. Sit up and beg.

‘Good Europe!’

Lowering the Bar: ‘There were a couple of remarkable instances today of media outfits praising Bush for utterances in his speech yesterday that, had he not already established such abysmal standards, never would have been — well, worthy of remark …How the President’s speech …in which he vowed to stay the course and offered nothing substantively new, shows that we’ve learned from our early experiences remains unclear. But, the fact is that the war has been a catastrophe.

‘What does it say for us that we expect so little of our President? (ed. note: it says ‘US is all duhhhhh — hey look, th’ TV’s on!’) Isn’t the Right supposed to be concerned with falling standards in our schools and in America more generally? If so, wouldn’t holding the President to standards appropriate to an actual grown man be a good place to start stemming that slide?’

since most haven’t noticed for five years already, why quibble now? and i’ll begin holding him to standards appropriate to an actual grown man, when he begins acting like one. anyway, meet the new speech, same as the old speech (and in front of the usual background of cannon fodder props uniforms). shorter prez: september THE eleventh, occupation insurgents, Katrina stay the course (4x), social security september THE eleventh, al Queda freedom (14x), ignorance is strength victory victory victory (14x), war is peace terror or terrorist (50x), dead or alive more terra, terra, TERRA! strategery strategy (12x) god bless september THE eleventh god bless the US, yay! choice bit: ‘…A clear strategy begins with a clear understanding of the enemy we face. The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists and terrorists…’ so the TWAT (Total War Against Terror) is now called the WARTS (War Against Rejectionists, Terrorists, Saddamists)? or does TWAT = WARTS? i’m confused (and nauseous).

moving on, i was struck by the backdrop of the stage and those Plan For Victory signs. Plan for Victory. Plan for Victory. why the repetition? think ‘catapultin’ the propaganda.’ Plan for Victory. but in this case, the repetition makes me think they want ‘Plan for Victory’ to be almost hypnotising. i’m thinking they want US to be thinking ‘Plan for Victory’ over and over and over like a mantra, until we’re convinced they actually have a damn plan, just from the signs. but hasn’t it occurred to the preznit, that seein’ how he talks to god an’ all, why in fuckall doesn’t he ask god to give him an actual Plan for Victory? or a decent goddamn exit strategy? i mean, god could totally do that while he’s all blessing US an’ stuff, right?

back to the stage-set, check the photos at BAGnewsNotes: ‘…I think the visual coverage of the White House has begun to incorporate the idea that the Bush Administration is a sitcom. Of course, Bush’s plan in search of a plan; the “Victory” branding (including the neurolinguistic tactic of positioning “victory” as the opposite of “exit strategy"); and the imperial backdrop in Annapolis (including the “Plan For Victory” term 15 times over) are all so “over the top” that the whole Iraq re-re-repositioning here more than overdoses on it’s own…’

fave comment: ‘What struck me about the first photo is its resemblance to a classic puppet theater set. I found myself trying to imagine who was squatting there behind the skirt across the front of the stage, holding up the little puppet. A quick search on Google images for “puppet theater” brought it all home.’ LOL, compare ‘n’ contrast here. the rest of the commenters do a great job of tearing apart the set (and the ’speech’) but i thought this was hilarious: ‘Jon Stewart referred to teh set as “Naval Jeopardy”. HEE!’ (Daily Show link here.) fave comment at Americablog: ‘I cant wait for the next banner: IT’S ALL CHENEY’S FAULT or DON’T BLAME ME I WAS ON VACATION.’

an editorial in the NYTimes eviscerates the preznit and his speechifyin’ and ends with: ‘A president who seems less in touch with reality than Richard Nixon needs to get out more.’ LOL, don’t forget to check Wonkette for ‘The President’s Evolving Vision.’ finally, Marshall Grossman: ‘Is there not something profoundly moving about this reversal of time in which “Mission Accomplished” precedes “Plan of Attack”?’ LOL oh, my… poor US.

so how are things really going in Iraq? freedom is on the march! pretty damn rosy according to our US taxpayer-funded rhetoric ‘information operations’ over there. Talk Left: ‘We know that the Bush administration illegally released pro-administration propaganda packaged as news, and that it gave press credentials to a gay man-whore Bush supporter masquerading as a legitimate reporter so that Bush could get softball questions at news conferences. Given the administration’s commitment to media manipulation, it should come as no surprise that the military took the administration’s pretend news campaign on the road, to Iraq.’

U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press: ‘As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq. The articles, written by U.S. military “information operations” troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

‘Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country. Though the articles are basically factual, they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the U.S. or Iraqi governments, officials said. (ed. note: so i assume there’s no mention of US torturing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib and looting the country and on and on and on.) Records and interviews indicate that the U.S. has paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of such articles, with headlines such as “Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism,” since the effort began this year.’

whoa — Iraqis insist on living? LOL, who knew? ‘The operation is designed to mask any connection with the U.S. military. The Pentagon has a contract with a small Washington-based firm called Lincoln Group, which helps translate and place the stories. The Lincoln Group’s Iraqi staff, or its subcontractors, sometimes pose as freelance reporters or advertising executives when they deliver the stories to Baghdad media outlets. The military’s effort to disseminate propaganda in the Iraqi media is taking place even as U.S. officials are pledging to promote democratic principles, political transparency and freedom of speech in a country emerging from decades of dictatorship and corruption. It comes as the State Department is training Iraqi reporters in basic journalism skills and Western media ethics, including one workshop titled “The Role of Press in a Democratic Society.”…’

oh my… define ‘democratic,’ dudes. and while yer at it, how ’bout ‘political transparency’ and ‘freedom of speech?’ ‘…Underscoring the importance U.S. officials place on development of a Western-style media, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday cited the proliferation of news organizations in Iraq as one of the country’s great successes since the ouster of President Saddam Hussein. The hundreds of newspapers, television stations and other “free media” offer a “relief valve” for the Iraqi public to debate the issues of their burgeoning democracy, Rumsfeld said.

‘The military’s information operations campaign has sparked a backlash among some senior military officers in Iraq and at the Pentagon who argue that attempts to subvert the news media could destroy the U.S. military’s credibility in other nations and with the American public… (ed. note: duh…ya think? TOO LATE!) The arrangement with Lincoln Group is evidence of how far the Pentagon has moved to blur the traditional boundaries between military public affairs — the dissemination of factual information to the media — and psychological and information operations, which use propaganda and sometimes misleading information to advance the objectives of a military campaign.

‘The Bush administration has come under criticism for distributing video and news stories in the United States without identifying the federal government as their source and for paying American journalists to promote administration policies, practices the Government Accountability Office has labeled “covert propaganda.”…’

Laura Rozen: ‘You know, this is how this administration has always approached the truth — whether it be pre-war intelligence or the issue of detainee treatment — as something to be assaulted, denied, bought, manipulated, spun … It’s amazing to see that there’s anyone left to even be surprised by this stuff. As to the possibility that US laws have been broken, because some of that US taxpayer-funded propaganda disguised as journalism is disinforming Americans … that Rumsfeld defied Congressional orders that he shut down the mission included in the Office of Strategic Influence … what of that?

‘…Let’s just face it: US credibility is shot to hell by this. The thing is, once you’re caught doing something you said you weren’t doing, no one will believe you once you stop doing it. Still, why should we be paying for the administration’s violation of our own laws? Is Congress going to do anything about it?’

Dan Gillmor: ‘There’s nothing the Bush administration won’t do to poison honest journalism, here and working with our puppet regime in Baghdad. Iraqis can, and should, tell their own stories. What the administration has done, now that the news of this propaganda is pubic, is to ensure that sensible Iraqis won’t believe anything published in those papers.’

fave comment from here: ‘Why the obsession with propaganda? Maybe, just maybe, the ‘truth’ wouldn’t be good PR…….? Hmmmmm?’

maybe the bu$hCo admin needs ethics classes? never mind. Wonkette: ‘…one of the advertorials placed by the military was entitled “Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism.” That is what you call your low bar. What were the competing stories? “BREAKING: Suicide Limited to Suicide Bombers.” Maybe, “Death Just One of Many Options for Iraqis.” I know: “Here, Have a Plastic Turkey on Us.” Is it propaganda if it’s as depressing as the news?’

hey Iraq — Big Brother amerika loves ya! it amazes me that they’re really so stupid as to think that happy shiney ‘amerika buttfucks *hearts* Iraq’ stories will drown out Al Jazeera, but whatever. moving right along, in other propaganda journamalism news, Judith Miller says she’s sorry for WMD ‘inaccuracies.’ in regards to outing Valerie Plame, ‘When pressed to confirm or deny that President George W Bush’s senior adviser Karl Rove was [a] source, she declined to do so, saying: “I can’t talk about the specifics of this case as I might be a witness in a criminal trial.” LOL, the mind reels.

TSA Would Allow Sharp Objects on Airliners: ‘A new plan by the Transportation Security Administration would allow airline passengers to bring scissors and other sharp objects in their carry-on bags because the items no longer pose the greatest threat to airline security, according to sources familiar with the plans. In a series of briefings this week, TSA Director Edmund S. “Kip” Hawley told aviation industry leaders that he plans to announce changes at airport security checkpoints that would allow scissors less than four inches long and tools, such as screwdrivers, less than seven inches long, according to people familiar with the TSA’s plans…’

all very well and good; we’re allowing pointy objects again. it sounds kinda like we’re getting a bit back to normal, right? but hang on to yer Stetsons when you read this next shit. i mean, ‘It’s like something out of that twilighty show about that zone.’

‘…Faced with a tighter budget and morale problems among its workforce, the TSA says its new policy changes are aimed at making the best use of limited resources. Homeland Security Department officials are increasingly concerned about airports’ vulnerability to suicide bomb attacks. TSA officials now want airport screeners to spend more of their time looking for improvised explosive devices rather than sharp objects.’

now just hang on there a minute, pardner, and keep yer boots on (before you’re ordered to remove them to check for bombs or whatever, but only if we’ve got the resources). how the hell do we have enough money to be shock and awein’ Iraq but ‘limited resources’ when it comes to the TSA? what the fucking fuck is that about? and i love how the article just breezes on past that ‘limited resources’ bit without further explanation.

Americablog: ‘Limited resources? We’re talking about an agency whose job it is to stop your mom’s airplane from blowing up. What limited resources and tight budget problems are they facing? Who in the GOP-controlled congress isn’t giving this vital agency the money they need?

‘Funny, but when Bush needs $300 billion to fight a war that’s a lie and a quagmire, we find the money in a snap. But when we need the money to stop our commerical airliners from blowing up, suddenly the budget is tight. The GOP, the party of treason. Osama must be so proud that the Republicans are making his job easier.’

do the terrorists know we’re shorting the TSA? well if they didn’t yesterday, they sure do now. it’s almost as if… nah… hmmpf. anyway, this is more proof that the self-professed so-called CEO presidency hasn’t a fucking clue on how to manage money. maybe someone can force Cheney to pay back his travel expenses? i mean, it’s not like he can’t afford it these days. even worse, ‘Cheney has given 23 speeches to think tanks and trade organizations and 16 at academic institutions since 2001 — apparently all at taxpayers’ expense.’ WTF? why are we paying for his bullshit?

anyway, fave comment: ‘I guess since Bush says we’re “fighting them over there,” he doesn’t see the need in protecting us “over here” anymore.’ and ‘Sorry passengers, sorry NOLA, sorry ??? We just cannot afford to protect you! We can destroy and re-build countries though.’ this is frightening: ‘Only a Fox News fed (who) whacks off to Rush / Hannity / Savage would think there was nothing strange that there was a NORAD standdown on 9/11 because the FAA “just happened” to be running country-wide “exercises” of multiple hijackings and guess who was the runner? DICK CHENEY. It was called ”VIGILANT GUARDIAN” … and DICK CHENEY ran it. DO YOUR HOMEWORK…’

what a coincidink! but gah… way too much fucking information in that last link. finally, ‘When Bush said “Bring ‘em on”..did he mean bring your scissors, knives on board a US plane? Sounds like Bush is daring those evil doers again…’

(or ‘why is the war on terror being directed at US?’) but seriously, this is some heavy shit: Pentagon Expanding Its Domestic Surveillance Activity: ‘The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world.

‘The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction…’

‘…as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence.’ hey, i just wanna know who in fuck will be doing this ‘deeming,’ dudes? and has it occurred to anyone governmentalish that all these re$ource$ would best be used to find Osama? (’dead or alive,’ my fucking ass.)

‘…”We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a recent interview…

‘…Perhaps the prime illustration of the Pentagon’s intelligence growth is CIFA, which remains one of its least publicized intelligence agencies. Neither the size of its staff, said to be more than 1,000, nor its budget is public, said Conway, the Pentagon spokesman. The CIFA brochure says the agency’s mission is to “transform” the way counterintelligence is done “fully utilizing 21st century tools and resources.”…’

so they’ll be using the internets as well as ISP info, cellphone data and fuck knows whatever else. let’s look at CIFA from one who knows: ‘I sometimes learn the most interesting things about the US government by keeping track of what sites visit Uncommon Thought. One of the more interesting to date has been the US Space Command (USSPACECOM). Who would have thunk that we have such a thing? But today I got a hit from yet another government office I didn’t know existed — the Department of Defense Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA). CIFA apparently has no publicly accessible website, but that doesn’t mean there is no information. While I can’t find a direct link, I suspect that CIFA operates out of the Defense Security Service under its Counterintelligence Unit — but I could be wrong. According to a September 2003 Report to Congress on The Role of the Department of Defense in Supporting Homeland Security (warning—> pdf) one of the restructurings of the Department of Defense was to add an Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence…

‘It is somewhat troubling to be visited by various intelligence, counterintelligence, homeland security, military, and justice organizations (to name a few areas). It seems to indicate that I may be under suspicion for something. However, if I am an “adversary” of anything, it is of fascism, totalitarianism, and silencing of critical thinking and critical information. I welcome and attempt to foster an informed dialogue. If that is “subversive,” then it shows exactly how far the United States has drifted from its moorings, and just how perilous the current course is.’

Democratic Veteran weighs in with Welcome to Germany 1933: ‘OK, wait a fucking minute here…this is the US of A, right? We are supposed to have civilian oversight of military activities unless I misunderstood 9th grade civics. So now the 1600 Crew has succeeded in bringing us one step closer to Grampaw Prescott’s carefully supported, chosen government, Nazi Germany. We have laws like Posse Comitatus for a reason, and here we’re getting a circumvention by the military being it’s own self-propelled judge, jury and executioner against American Citizens. Fuck that.’

fave comment: ‘In the year 2001 there was a palace coup in the USA. The Pentagon has been in charge ever since. This has been an item of speculation in my family circle since the spring of 2002. The thing that amazes me is that people are still wondering how we went so wrong. This is my little conspiracy theory that I sincerely hope history debunks.’ and ‘So, this program encourages Americans to engage in surveillance on their fellow Americans. Be alert for suspicious activity! And the Number One suspicious activity to watch out for? Surveillance!!! You can’t make this shit up.’ (check the rest of the comments on this page — they’re fucking scarey.)

moving right along, in other Eye of Sauron Orwellian ’someone to watch over me’ news, i got a very nice mail from Blairwatch over the weekend, thanking me for stepping up and adding this site to the others who promised to publicise the ‘bu$hCo: me bomb Al-Jazeera’ memo. the pertinent part:

‘We have been told that we, and many of you that have pledged your support are on the UK government’s “required surfing list”, apparently they like to keep a close eye on the blogosphere these days. So the level of support for this will have been noted…’ and to which, all i have left to say, is: hey y’all *bats eyelashes* in the words of the preznit: bring it onnnnn. :-)

Attaturk: ‘Welcome to the world of George Walker Bush, Stuffer of flight suits, Faux scourge of terrorists, Commander Coo-Coo Bananas, inerrant by decree of God, the Chimperor Disgustus…’

All Disquiet on West Wing Front: ‘…Even as his poll numbers tank, however, Bush is described by aides as still determined to stay the course. He resists advice from Republicans who fear disaster in next year’s congressional elections, and rejects criticism from a media establishment he disdains. “The President has always been willing to make changes,” the senior aide said, “but not because someone in this town tells him to — NEVER!” For the moment, Bush has dismissed discreetly offered advice from friends and loyalists to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and bring back longtime confidant Karen Hughes from the State Department to shore up his personal White House staff. “He thinks that would be an admission he’s screwed up, and he can’t bring himself to do that,” a former senior staffer lamented…

‘…A card-carrying member of the Washington GOP establishment with close ties to the White House recently encountered several senior presidential aides at a dinner and came away shaking his head at their “no problems here” mentality. “There is just no introspection there at all,” he said in exasperation. “It is everybody else’s fault — the press, gutless Republicans on the Hill. They’re still in denial.”…’

how much longer is this denial gonna go on, dudes? until every last Iraqi and way more troops are dead? after reading Seymour Hersh, i’m thinking ‘could be.’ bummer: ‘…“The President is more determined than ever to stay the course,” the former defense official said. “He doesn’t feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage ‘People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.’ ” He said that the President had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney. “They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,” the former defense official said…Four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson, who was also confronted with an increasingly unpopular war…knew he was a prisoner in the White House,” the former official said, “but Bush has no idea.”…’

sorry, i can hardly believe that now he’s ‘even more detached’ than he was a few months back when they had that evacuation at the white house and the preznit was falling off off riding his bike and nobody bothered to warn him. now he’s even more detached than that? i’m almost speechless, again. and i’m not gonna touch that shit about the ‘grey world of religious idealism, where he wants to be’ apart from WTF? what about US?

Seymour Hersh and Wolf Blitzer on CNN via Daily Kos: HERSH: ‘Suffice to say this, that this president in private, at Camp David with his friends, the people that I’m sure call him George, is very serene about the war. He’s upbeat. He thinks that he’s going to be judged, maybe not in five years or ten years, maybe in 20 years. He’s committed to the course. He believes in democracy. He believes that he’s doing the right thing, and he’s not going to stop until he gets — either until he’s out of office, or he falls apart, or he wins.’ (ed. note: falls apart! falls apart! LOL, decisions, decisions…)

Juan Cole: ‘…a word to W. As for your legacy two decades from now, George, let me clue you in on something — as a historian. In 20 years no Iraqis will have you on their minds one way or another. Human beings don’t have good memories for these things, which is why we have to have professional historians, a handful of people who are obsessed with the subject. And I guarantee you, George, that historians are going to be unkind to you. You went into a major war over a non-existent nuclear weapons program. Presidents’ reputations don’t survive things like that. Historians are creatures of documents and precision. A wild exaggeration with serious consequences is against everything they stand for as a profession. So forget about history and destiny and the divine will. You are at the helm of the Exxon Valdez and it is headed for the shoals. You can’t afford to daydream about future decades.’

back to BLITZER: ‘But this has become, you’re suggesting, a religious thing for him?’ HERSH: ‘Some people think it is. Other people think he’s absolutely committed, as I say, to the idea of democracy. He’s been sold on this notion. He’s a utopian, you could say, in a world where maybe he doesn’t have all the facts and all the information he needs and isn’t able to change. I’ll tell you, the people that talk to me now are essentially frightened because they’re not sure how you get to this guy.

‘But I’m talking about sort of a crisis of management. That you have a management that’s seen by some of the people closely involved as not being able to function in terms of getting information it doesn’t want to receive.’

fave comment at dKos: ‘Scariest damn thing I’ve read in a long time. It’s 1945 all over again, Adolf’s hunkered down in the bunker with the true believers waiting for Providence to summon the miraculous SS army from out of nowhere and drive the godless Communists back into the Russian wastes. And if not — Goetterdaemmerung!’ another at Eschaton: ‘ I used to think this administration was inspired by “1984,” but now it’s looking more like “Dr. Strangelove.” and ‘ Can someone get the 25th Amendment fired up? Thanks…’ and ‘where have you gone lee harvey oswald? a nation turns it’s lonely eyes towards you…’

LOL, ‘Somebody hold me, I’m a scared!‘) yeah, me too — i’m way too freaked to add anything more about the ‘borderline insane religious freak who believes that he and his actions are divinely mandated, and who is therefore immune from criticism and thus allows his aides to keep him shielded from any “facts” which might undermine his God-inspired certainty’ apart from wanting to say ‘la la LAAAAH! i can’t heeeeear you!’ ‘will somebody wake me when the nightmare’s over?’

Blairwatch: ‘After Blair’s threat to jail any editor who reports the Bomb Al-Jazeera memo, we thought there would be an outcry. Who would stand up for press freedom, or at least the freedom not to be bombed to buggery?

“If someone passes me the document within the next few days I will be very happy to publish it in The Spectator, and risk a jail sentence. The public need to judge for themselves. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. If we suppress the truth, we forget what we are fighting for, and in an important respect we become as sick and as bad as our enemies.”

Blairwatch: ‘We’re with you Boris. Here’s the deal. If you get it, send it to us and we will also publish it. We will also risk jail.’

i’m totally cool with risking prison time or whatever, in order to get to the bottom of this shit. as anyone who’s been through airport security in the last four years can attest, making a ‘joke’ like that will immediately get them yanked out of the queue and into the nearest strip search cubicle along with heavy personal background data investigation. why should preznit AWOL be treated differently? i, personally, wanna know just how frequently he has these bombing fantasies, for my own good, the good of my country and for the good of the rest of the world.

Blairwatch is calling for others to step up and join them — add your site by email, comment (whether you’ve got a site or not) or trackback. let’s find out the truth and fast. (thanks, ringverse :-)

Karl Marx would be proud of Tyler Durden’s lovely anti-consumerism diatribe in Fight Club: ‘You are not your bank account. You are not the clothes you wear. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your bowel cancer. You are not your grande latte. You are not the car you drive. You are not your fucking khakis… I say, let me never be complete. I say, may I never be content. I say, deliver me from Swedish furniture. I say, deliver me from clever art. I say, deliver me from clear skin and perfect teeth… I say, evolve, and let the chips fall where they may.’

Americans try to shop their way to fulfillment: ‘In this capitalist society, our function is consumption. Everyday, thousands of advertisements bombard our senses, validating our lives with a higher purpose. Whether it is an event or a product, these ads strive to convince us that our lives are incomplete without their product … Ultimately, we are all walking advertisements. We don’t have to sport name brands in order to tell the world who or what we are endorsing. Even our words and actions have become commodities.

‘In our commercial culture, each of us lives our own “Truman Show.” Our religions and belief systems are commodities endorsed by our culturally choreographed behavior. Consumerism becomes an important social mechanism connecting us to one another and, paradoxically, disconnecting us from one another … Consumption itself has become America’s primary cultural commodity. Many of us actually buy that buying is therapeutic and an essential part of this human existence. Mottos such as ‘the one who dies with the most toys wins’ and ‘shop till you drop’ epitomize our materialist paradigm.’

according to bu$hCo, shopping is patriotic but i must be a really unpatriotic citizen since i never fell for that shit. and so, i totally endorse today as Buy Nothing Day (it’s tomorrow here in the UK): ‘For 24 hours, millions of people around the world do not participate — in the doomsday economy, the marketing mind-games, and the frantic consumer-binge that’s become our culture. We pause. We make a small choice not to shop. We shrink our footprint and gain some calm. Together we say: enough is enough. And we help build this movement to rethink our unsustainable course.’

from the UK site: ‘Buy Nothing Day exposes the environmental and ethical consequences of consumerism. The developed countries — only 20% of the world population are consuming over 80% of the earth’s natural resources, causing a disproportionate level of environmental damage and unfair distribution of wealth.

‘As consumers we need to question the products we buy and challenge the companies who produce them. What are the true risks to the environment and developing countries? The argument is broad and deep — while it continues we should be looking for simple solutions — Buy Nothing Day is a good place to start. Of course, Buy Nothing Day isn’t about changing your lifestyle for just one day — we want it to be a lasting relationship — maybe a life changing experience? We want people to make a commitment to consuming less, recycling more and challenging companies to clean up and be fair. The supermarket or shopping mall might offer choice, but this shouldn’t be at the cost of the environment or developing countries…’

i’m gonna copy this from last year cause it’s still right on the money — Brad Pitt as Jeffrey Goines in The 12 Monkeys:

‘There’s the television. It’s all right there, all right there. Look, listen, kneel, pray. Commercials! We’re not productive anymore. We don’t make things anymore. It’s all automated. What are we *for* then? We’re consumers, Jim… Buy a lot of stuff, you’re a good citizen. But if you don’t buy a lot of stuff, if you don’t, what are you then, I ask you? What? Mentally *ill*. Fact, Jim, fact — if you don’t buy things — toilet paper, new cars, computerized yo-yos, electrically-operated sexual devices, servo systems with brain-implanted headphones, screwdrivers with miniature built-in radar devices, voice-activated computers…’

in the immortal words of the ‘pharmaceutically-assisted Brixton rebels,’ the Alabama 3, ‘Comrades, people of the world, we ain’t got nothing to lose but the goddamn bourgeoisie blues…’ LOL, think about it, y’all. :-)

wishing y’all a very happy thanksgiving from Hunter and me while i try not to think of all the delicious food i’ll be missing tonight. oh, woe is me, LOL. what will i do today? i’m definitely not going outside again — no, no, Mr Dope Fiend… *cough* anyway, in a little while, i’m gonna curl up on the sofa with some Absinthe, my pipe fulla thwoop and the new Banksy book as i try to ignore Hunter tearing the flat down around me.

the last thanksgiving dinner i had in the states must’ve been five years back in 2000. i totally don’t remember where it was or who exactly was there (and when my mom and sister read this, they’re gonna be really disappointed about this particular fucked memory malfunction). the thing of it is, what i do remember clearly was that i was just back from San Francisco after seeing Alabama 3 for the second time and i remember talking my head off about them, going on and on to a small crowd of totally uncomprehending people (the first time i got the feeling that, in my old age, i appeared as a demented groupie, but i thought ‘fuck it’). and way back then, the idea i’d be living first in Europe, and then in England was like some distant impossible dream. hmmpf… *thinking hard: wood burning*

moving right along, i do remember that this was definitely my fave American holiday (as long as i’m not thinking about all the Native Americans we wiped out way back when). after age 15 or so, my thanksgiving ritual would start the night before when i landed at my parents’ house. the next morning, i’d begin smoking enough reefer to choke a horse (and to get into a decently sociable mood) before i went downstairs to meet up with the straights family and motley others. and then, when i wasn’t totally laughing my ass off (and drawing raised eyebrows and worried looks), i’d eat my brains out for the next few hours. every year, Daddy used to ask ‘where do you put it all?’ and i’d just sit there grinning away, like a jerk.

anyway, before i go off down memory lane even further, please think on this: ‘We often find it hard to be as thankful as we should be these days. For so many Americans, it is no longer a question of having too little or having enough. It’s the difference between having too much and having way, way too much…There is no shame in the poverty Americans suffer today. The shame adheres to those who do nothing to change it.’

i hope it’s all safe travelling for youse, both going to wherever and again coming home. remember that 30 years back, one out of every 50 drivers coming toward you was ‘alcoholically impaired’ so imagine how many are fucked up today (drugs as well as booze), so please drive defensively. try to be kind to each other and think of others less fortunate than you, not only on this day of excess but every damn day. happy eating!

what’s blasting: my fave version of God’s Unchanging Hand, with extra added politics, LOL (the plain one’s here). peace out, y’all. :-)

yesterday: Memo: Bush wanted Aljazeera bombed: ‘US President George Bush planned to bomb Aljazeera, British newspaper the Daily Mirror has reported, citing a Downing Street memo marked top secret.’ (ed. note: damn, yet another one of those pesky, way inconvenient Downing Street Memos.) The five-page transcript of a conversation between Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair reveals that Blair talked Bush out of launching a military strike on the station, unnamed sources told the daily. The transcript of the pair’s talks during Blair’s 16 April 2004 visit to Washington allegedly shows Bush wanted to attack the satellite channel’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar. Blair allegedly feared such a strike, in the capital of Qatar, a key Western ally in the Gulf, would spark revenge attacks…’

today: UK gags paper over Aljazeera memo: ‘Britain’s Daily Mirror newspaper has been ordered to cease publishing further details from an allegedly top secret memo revealing that US President George Bush wanted to bomb Aljazeera. The gag order from Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith came nearly 24 hours after the paper published details of what it said was a transcript of talks between Bush and the British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

“We have essentially agreed to comply,” the paper reported. “We made No 10 fully aware of the intention to publish and were given ‘no comment’ officially or unofficially, Daily Mirror Editor Richard Wallace was quoted as saying. “Suddenly 24 hours later we are threatened under Section 5 [of the Official Secrets Act].” According to Britain’s Guardian newspaper, it is the first time that the Blair government has threatened to prosecute a newspaper for publishing the contents of leaked government documents…’

Paper Says Bush Talked of Bombing Arab TV Network: ‘…In 2003, during the invasion of Iraq, a U.S. missile hit the network’s office in Baghdad, killing a correspondent. U.S. officials called the incident an accident. In 2001, American bombs exploded in its bureau in Kabul, Afghanistan. Washington said the targeting officers did not know that the site was an office of the television service, believing instead that it was used by al Qaeda…

‘…According to a source quoted in the Daily Mail, Blair told Bush that bombing al-Jazeera “would cause a big problem.” (ed. note: gotta love those wacky, understated Brits!) The source was also quoted as saying: “There’s no doubt what Bush wanted to do — and no doubt Blair didn’t want him to do it.” … “If the report is correct, then this would be both shocking and worrisome not only to al-Jazeera but to media organizations across the world,” the statement said. “It would cast serious doubts in regard to the U.S. administration’s version of previous incidents involving Al Jazeera’s journalists and offices.”…’

no shit, Sherlock, and ’shocking and worrisome’ as well, to the rest of US who don’t tow the party line and actually — gasp! — dare to talk about, and worse yet, publicise, their anti-bu$hCo seditionary views. :-)

Kevin Drum: ‘So take your pick. Either Bush seriously tossed out the idea of bombing a TV station in a friendly country because he didn’t like their coverage of the war, or else this was his equivalent of Ronald Reagan’s “The bombing will begin in five minutes.” There’s no way to know which unless someone leaks the transcript itself. I’d sure like to see whether Tony Blair treated it like a joke when Bush proposed it.’

fave comment: ‘Really, now….does any of this surprise anyone? Isn’t it painfully clear that the boy/man is psychotic!!??!! Narcissistic, tendencies toward paranoia, pathologic lies completely rationalized within the framework of divine appointment????!!! The sad/scary part is that this individual is supposed to be the most powerful man on the planet for the next three years BUT his world that is built not on reality is starting to crumble. We all get to suffer the consequences of his forthcoming mental breakdown. Now, you may say that this is an extremist position to take, but it seems like the natural course of things to me. His is a job that is nothing but stress and pressure. Clearly, he does not have the stuff to psychologically navigate through. Bombing a civilian institution because it does not portray him as he wants to be portrayed. People, it’s not rocket science!!!’

and ‘Al Qaeda can commit the largest mass murder in American history and Bush lets them go. Al Jazeera gives him some bad press and them he actually has a plan to go after. Shows you his priorities, I guess, and illustrates why Republicans can’t be trusted with our national security.’ and: ‘At last! We now know why US media outlets have been so timid in criticizing this lunatic administration — they are worried about being bombed.’

as well: ‘No debate needed as to if Bush would attack a friendly nation. Just go read the the PNAC manifesto. (the neocon constitution) It openly states that we will attack anyone/anything/anywhere (friendly or not) that is percieved to challenge the dominance of the United States. Simple fact: per the PNAC it’s open season on the entire planet. Since it was signed by the big players in or behind the Bush regime, it should be taken very seriously.’

and this one, from The Left Coaster: ‘I see the Pentagon and White House are calling this story “outlandish”. Well, it’s certainly that, but that isn’t exactly a denial either, is it?’

LOL, Wonkette: ‘…an official told the Mirror that the Bush threat had been “humorous, not serious.” You know, like Bill O’Reilly gives jokey bombing suggestions to al Qaeda. We hear that once Blair nixed a missile attack to destroy the network, Bush wondered if they could just put Jon Klein in charge.’

my memory sucks but i do remember that a year ago, at the opening of the Clinton Library, i quoted Sidney Blumenthal in the Guardian: ‘‘Bush appeared distracted, and glanced repeatedly at his watch. When he stopped to gaze at the river, where secret service agents were stationed in boats, the guide said: “Usually, you might see some bass fishermen out there.” Bush replied: “A submarine could take this place out.”…’

so, do i believe the bombing Aljazeera shit is true? FUCK, YEAH! who the hell knows how many of his catastrophic fantasies we don’t get to hear about? (Condi? Laura? Cheney? Jenna and not-Jenna Tonic?) someone — anyone — please fucking tell him that Dr Strangelove, just like 1984, is totally not an instruction manual, dammit.

Dana Milbank on Dick Cheney’s mastery of thesaurus-culling in today’s WaPo: ‘Vice President Cheney protested yesterday that he had been misunderstood when he said last week that critics of the White House over Iraq were “dishonest and reprehensible.” What he meant to say, he explained to his former colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute, was that those who question the White House’s use of prewar intelligence were not only “dishonest and reprehensible” but also “corrupt and shameless.” It was about as close as the vice president gets to a retraction.

‘Cheney tried to follow his boss’s edict. “I do not believe it is wrong to criticize the war on terror or any aspect thereof,” he said. But exactly three minutes later, the vice president added this caveat: “What is not legitimate, and what I will again say is dishonest and reprehensible, is the suggestion by some U.S. senators that the president . . . misled the American people on prewar intelligence.” This, he said, “is revisionism of the most corrupt and shameless variety.” He floated the notion that “one might also argue that untruthful charges against the commander in chief have an insidious effect on the war effort itself” — before adding: “I’m unwilling to say that.”…’

Marc Cooper: ‘One might argue that Dick Cheney is a gutter-diving, conniving and amoral politician unworthy of the title of Vice-President of the United States, but I’m unwilling to say that…What’s scary about this administration is not that they are stupid. Rather, it’s how stupid they think the rest of us are.’

back to the WaPo: ‘…Cheney praised Murtha as “a good man, a Marine, a patriot” and said his call for an immediate pullback from Iraq is part of “an entirely legitimate discussion.” Similarly, he said, there is nothing wrong “debating whether the United States and our allies should have liberated Iraq in the first place.” The concessions were done. Cheney then branded any accusation that the administration “distorted, hyped or fabricated” intelligence as not only “utterly false” but also illegitimate, dishonest, reprehensible, irresponsible, corrupt, shameless, insidious and, quoting Sen. John McCain (R-Total Asswipe), “a lie.”

back in the real world, they have this fabulous new invention called The Internets, with which y’all can totally be the judges of those illegitimate, dishonest, reprehensible, irresponsible, corrupt, shameless, insidious ‘lies’ or whatever and make up your own minds with Iraq on the Record:

‘Prepared at the direction of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Iraq on the Record is a searchable collection of 237 specific misleading statements made by Bush Administration officials about the threat posed by Iraq. It contains statements that were misleading based on what was known to the Administration at the time the statements were made. It does not include statements that appear mistaken only in hindsight. If a statement was an accurate reflection of U.S. intelligence at the time it was made, it was excluded even if it now appears erroneous.

‘Iraq on the Record is searchable by the the five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq:

Commander Koo-Koo Bananas George W Bush, VP Dick Cheney, defence secty ‘Donald Rumsfeld, former secty of state Colin Powell, then-national shoes security advisor Condoleezza Rice.

‘It is also searchable by issue area: Iraq’s Nuclear Capabilities, Chemical and Biological Weapons, Iraq and Al-Quaeda, Iraq as an Urgent Threat.

‘It is also searchable by keyword, such as ”mushroom cloud”, ”uranium”, or ”bin Laden.”

don’t believe their lies — search away, y’all. fun for the whole family! and send Iraq on the Record to everyone you’ve ever met, everyone you know: friends, families, lovers, others, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers.

(or ‘thwarted by evil Chinese doors.’) since i’ve got shitloads of offline stuff to do, please bear with me while i copy others’ stuff. Door thwarts quick exit for Bush (LMAO, check photo at link): ‘President George W Bush tried to make a quick exit from a news conference in Beijing on Sunday only to find himself thwarted by locked doors. After answering just six questions from a group of US reporters, the president strode away heading towards the door. President Bush tugged at both handles on the double doors before admitting: “I was trying to escape. Obviously, it didn’t work.”…

‘…Mr Bush answered a range of questions before one reporter said: “Respectfully, sir — you know we’re always respectful — in your statement this morning with President Hu, you seemed a little off your game, you seemed to hurry through your statement. There was a lack of enthusiasm. Was something bothering you?” The president answered: “Have you ever heard of jet lag? Well, good. That answers your question.” The reporter asked for a follow-up question but the president then thanked the attending journalists and said “No you may not” as he walked away. He strode from the lectern to the door, trying both handles and then breaking into a laugh.’

in my worldview, the above would’ve made a hell of a lot more sense if the preznit asked ‘have you ever heard of Jack Daniels?’ (and would’ve prolly been closer to the truth.) The Left Coaster: ‘Yes, we are the laughingstock of the world…check out the photo evidence of this over at Eschaton (ed. note: even more hilarious pics! and don’t forget to compare with this one. as well, check them in flipbook-style, LMAO!).

‘His dad barfed in the lap of the Japanese prime minister, and despite his best efforts not to be his dad, W has his own moment of total buffoonery on the world stage for perpetuity now. So much for those carefully crafted attempts to get Bush away from Washington so that he could look like a world leader.’ fave comment that sums up my thoughts: ‘ Please tell me this is a nightmare …THAT IDIOT CAN NOT BE MY PRESIDENT! HE JUST CAN’T! HE’S TOO FUCKING STUPID!’ and ‘We went from BILL CLINTON to THIS?’ please note that the chickenshit was trying to get away from a fucking question that was prolly unscripted. LOL, the mind reels.

in related news, ‘…In five years in the presidency, Bush has proved a decidedly unadventurous traveler, an impression undispelled by the weeklong journey through Asia that wraps up Monday. As he barnstormed through Japan, South Korea and China, with a final stop in Mongolia still to come, Bush visited no museums, tried no restaurants, bought no souvenirs and made no effort to meet ordinary local people…The Bush spirit trickles down to many of his top advisers, who hardly go out of their way to sample the local offerings either.’

what the fucking fuck? i don’t see any ’spirit,’ i see disrespectful unconcern and, at best, a boring indifference which IMO is totally pathetic and insults the heads of and the people in whatever country he finds his ass in, but hey, what do i know?

14,17 GMT: Quicktime vid of preznit’s heroic struggle with evildoers evil doors here, windoze version here.

cause everything he ever touched turns to shit (read ‘em and weep). but we, who weren’t fooled by the Connecticut-born phoney cowboy’s blustering bullshit from the get-go, already knew that and now, finally, the rest of the country’s waking up to the utter trainwreck of the past five years. Bush’s urgent campaign: Save his presidency: ‘…He is plummeting in the polls, with still no indication that he has hit bottom. A solid majority of Americans now give him the lowest approval ratings since Richard Nixon — a verdict that seemed unimaginable when he was reelected one year ago — and, even more ominously, he is now judged by the majority to be an untrustworthy leader who lured the nation into war on false pretenses. So it’s no surprise that the Bush administration is in campaign mode, employing all facets of the far-flung Republican communications apparatus, in a perhaps futile attempt to rebuild the Bush image, assail his critics as spineless flip-floppers, and defend his war to an increasingly skeptical electorate.

‘But Frum fears that Bush’s unpopularity “will be very hard to reverse.” Indeed, Bush’s predicament is dire, because he first ran for president on a vow that he, unlike Bill Clinton, would not become trapped in Credibility Gap. Character was Bush’s calling card. He promised that he would “restore honesty” to the White House; yet today, nearly six in 10 Americans tell pollsters that Bush is untrustworthy. It may be too late for Bush to win them back…’

but there’s always a hope in hell (especially republican hell), so dig this shit from Bob Cesca: GOP Memo Wishes for another Terror Attack: ‘…this week, Capitol Hill Blue published an article detailing a top secret GOP memo which includes language that should infuriate even the most hard core Bush apologists. Capitol Hill Blue:

“A confidential memo circulating among senior Republican leaders suggests that a new attack by terrorists on U.S. soil could reverse the sagging fortunes of President George W. Bush as well as the GOP and ‘restore his image as a leader of the American people’ … The closely-guarded memo lays out a list of scenarios to bring the Republican party back from the political brink, including a devastating attack by terrorists that could ‘validate’ the President’s war on terror and allow Bush to ‘unite the country’ in a ‘time of national shock and sorrow.’…”

back to Bob: ‘It certainly worked on September “the” 11th. A marble-mouthed frat boy who lost the popular vote and had never succeeded in life on his own merit suddenly became the hallmark of strength, honor, and American might. And he can do it again — if there’s another attack. But what’ll it be this time? Dirty bomb in New York? An RPG fired at the Indian Point nuclear power plant? Suicide car bombings in Los Angeles? Or worse? (ed. note: i’d think they’d go after the so-called ‘heartland,’ the middle states, but what do i know?)

‘Rest assured that your Republican leaders are hard at work brainstorming ideas which include hoping for a terrorist attack in order to increase their poll numbers. This is how your Republican leadership thinks. This is their idea of “moral values”. Be as corrupt as you want: lie, steal, cheat, kill, torture, pollute, protect your cronies, and collect the checks — there’s always more terrorism.’

David Cogswell: ‘How far will they go? And what does this say about the background of 9/11? Was that the “new Pearl Harbor” the neocons pined for in their Project for a New American Century?’

to refresh everyone’s memories, PNAC ‘(their Mein Kampf) called for “a new Pearl Harbor” to justify militarization of the economy and invasion into the countries of the middle east.’ do i believe any of this shit? five years ago, even right after 9/11, i wouldn’t have entertained such a wingnutty — even for me — thought. now? i wouldn’t put it past them. i believe these callous motherfuckers capable of anything, if it means they’ll hold on to power, especially after they’ve seen how fear rules amerika. and if i thought most in the states ever read a serious book or weren’t easily diverted by bullshit ‘news’ of missing white girls or celebrities and other shit that would never, in a million years, affect them in any way (remember Elian Gonzales? Terri Schiavo?), stuff like this wouldn’t bother me. but, for the most part, they don’t read, they sit there, night after night, drooling over ‘Friends’ or whatever’s glitzy on TV. critical thinking skills? we’re amerikans — we don’t have ‘em cuz we don’t need ‘em.

fave comments from here (no direct links): ‘…I knew back in those infamous Florida recount days that GW and his cronies couldn’t care less about America but only about their Necon agenda. Why? Because if he had the honor and integrity that he professed he would have at least let the recount be carried out so as to leave NO DOUBT to the 52% of Americans that voted for the other guy that he had won fair and square. Instead Bush stomped his feet; called in Daddy’s bully friends; and the rest, sadly enough, is history.’ and ‘…the only way for the Republicans to keep the White House in 2008 is to stage another “crisis”. The Republicans cannot afford to lose the White House, because the indictments would come out in 2009 and trials would begin during the 2010 elections. It would spell the end of the Republican party … This nation is under real danger of being controlled by the PARTY, loyalty oaths, spying on what citizens are reading, etc. all in the name of fighting terror. An unending Global War on Terror that distracts the simple minded, while the rich just plunder our nation. Orwell was a prophet, just off by 20 years.’ and one more:

‘These criminals, in 5 years — Turned a $450BB surplus into a $450BB deficit….where’d the money go?; Allowed 9/11 to occur…3,000 innocent Americans died, no justice or accountability. Criminal negligence or worse.; Lied about a causus belli to invade and occupy a foreign country. 10s of thousands died.

‘You betcha.’

in other, more personal news, about 90 minutes back, Chris txtd from Heathrow that he’s about to board his flight to Chicago. *sigh* and of course, i’ve gotta go back to NYC again after the new year and really don’t wanna think about it till the last possible moment. Brian’s leaving for California tomorrow; he went ‘yippie!’ about it in mail (but that’s cause he’s English and doesn’t know any better, LOL). anyway, it’s beautiful outside as there’s a thick white fog which hasn’t lifted since late last night. i can barely see through the mostly leafless trees, can hardly make out Cabot Tower across the park. and Hunter has flipped out for the third time today — right now, he’s dancing around on top of the way-high kitchen cupboards, throwing stuff off as i sit here trying to ignore his antics. *crash!* i’m in the middle of a mellow sunday high and trying to put all this bu$hCo shit outta my head by way of smoking and drinking my brains out for a change, LOL. have a good day, y’all.

what’s blasting: High Roller (by Crystal Method — the first non-Alabama 3 or Captain Paranoid music i’ve uploaded). :-)