Wednesday March 31, 2004
Oh damn
More on that mob attack in Fallujah this morning. Holy fuck. If you don't have the stomach, please don't look into articles about this story -- you will see images that you did not expect and would never wish to see.
There were gruesome scenes as angry crowds dragged the bodies through the streets of Fallujah, dismembered them and hanged some of the mutilated corpses.
A witness said the blood-thirsty mob strung up some of the bodies on an old bridge "like slaughtered sheep". One man beat a corpse with a metal pole, while others put a cord around a body, tied it to a car and drove it down a street as a crowd cheered.
The whole article can be found here (A gruesome image accompanies the article. Consider yourself warned.)
600; Air America
As of today, 600 soldiers have died in Iraq. 5 died this morning in a roadside bombing in Fallujah. Two vehicles filled with "foreign nationals" were killed as well: "In an apparently unrelated attack Wednesday in Fallujah, two civilian vehicles were targeted by gunmen, The Associated Press reported. According to the AP, residents said the cars were carrying foreign nationals. The cars' occupants were slain, and their vehicles set ablaze. Four bodies were seen, the AP reported. Some residents mutilated the charred corpses, according to the AP." CNN doesn't think that the number 600 warrants mentioning on their front page.
The "left-leaning" talk radio network "Air America" starts up today. The NYTimes has more. Does anyone know if it will be available for listening online?
UPDATE: It's starting now! Air America Radio! Broadcasting from a bunker 150 feet below Dick Cheney's bunker! "Satire is protected speech, even if the object of the satire doesn't get it!"
Tuesday March 30, 2004
Krugman; Jon Stewart; Marching to our doom; War profiteering
Krugman: "So even in Israel, George Bush's America has become a byword for deception and abuse of power." He takes a shot at Wolf Blitzer as well, who never met an Administration memorandum he didn't like: "On CNN, Wolf Blitzer told his viewers that unnamed officials were saying that Mr. Clarke 'wants to make a few bucks, and that [in] his own personal life, they're also suggesting that there are some weird aspects in his life as well.'"
This Smirking Chimp forum instructs us to watch the rerun of The Daily Show from last night, and tonight's as well. Jon Stewart rips into the Republican attacks on Clarke's character, and calls Robert Novak "A Douchebag for Liberty."
The last line of this MSNBC article is chilling: "U.S. officials told NBC News that the full record of Clarke’s testimony two years ago would not be declassified. They said that at the request of the White House, however, the CIA was going through the transcript to see what could be declassified, with an eye toward pointing out contradictions." That's right, the CIA is being utilized to build up a case against Richard Clarke. As Josh Marshall points out, they're not even trying to hide the fact that they're doing it. "We're moving on to dangerous enough ground when the White House starts using the nation's intelligence agencies for explicitly domestic political purposes. But you know we're really in trouble when they don't even try to hide it."
Joe Conason discusses the GOP's war profiteering.
Monday March 29, 2004
Oh, you'll like this one...
Demonstrators Swarm Around Rove's Home:
Several hundred people stormed the small yard of President Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, yesterday afternoon, pounding on his windows, shoving signs at others and challenging Rove to talk to them about a bill that deals with educational opportunities for immigrants.
Protesters poured out of one school bus after another, piercing an otherwise quiet, peaceful Sunday in Rove's Palisades neighborhood in Northwest, chanting, "Karl, Karl, come on out! See what the DREAM Act is all about!"
Rove obliged their first request and opened his door long enough to say, "Get off my property."
"Seems like he doesn't want to invite us in for tea," Emira Palacios quipped to the crowd.
Others chanted, "Karl Rove ain't got no soul."
The crowd then grew more aggressive, fanning around the three accessible sides of Rove's house, tracking him through the many windows, waving signs that read "Say Yes to DREAM" and pounding on the glass. At one point, Rove rushed to a window, pointed a finger and yelled something inaudible.
Saturday March 27, 2004
Latest Poll Results
MSNBC has poll results regarding Bush's handling of the war.
But the article has the unfortunate title of "Blow for Bush."
Friday March 26, 2004
Bush laughs at soldiers' deaths
Our President, comedian. (RealPlayer required). At about the 26th minute is when the "fun" begins, and the President begins the first of his "jokes" about WMDs at around 29:20.
Thursday March 25, 2004
Bush's ethics; HP & Linux; commission cartoons; Australia out?
Peter Singer on Bush's ethics.
Collection of cartoons about the 9/11 commission.
Australia has plans to withdraw troops from Iraq.
The Apology
Here is the question that reporters everywhere should be asking of this administration, but none EVER WILL:
"Richard Clarke apologized to the families of the 9/11 victims and to America for not doing enough to stop 9/11. Will you?"
I was shocked when this bit of news -- that Mr. Clarke had apologized during the 9/11 hearing -- wasn't played over and over again in the TV news. Because given all of Colin Powell's hedging, Condoleeza Rice's refusal to be grilled publicly (while at the same time declassifying documents in order to smear Richard Clarke), and George W. Bush's meager hour of testimony, Mr. Clarke's admission was the first genuinely honorable moment to come out of this whole fiasco. Jeff Greenfield didn't mention it. Bill Schneider wasn't giving it his "Political Play of the Week" award. And all seemed to be treating the Bush campaign's smear tactics as justified, never noting the irony of Rice appearing on Hannity and Colmes on the same day she refused to testify in a public hearing.
The New York Times praises Clarke for the apology.
Tuesday March 23, 2004
Shorter Bush administration officials at the 9/11 hearings
We maintained the same strategy as the Clinton administration, but they're to blame for not doing more.
Krugman: Lifting the Shroud.
2 dead,14 injured; Appalachian Armageddon; Anatomy of a Smear; Pigs at the trough
Two Finnish citizens were murdered in western Baghdad.
14 British soldiers were injured in Basra when they were pelted with petrol bombs during a riot.
Appalachian Armageddon: "...Newport, Tenn., population 7,242. There, east of town, past the Pigeon River and the True Gospel Free Will Baptist Church and the county dump, you would have stopped near a gated drive that led up a steep slope known as Rock Hill. Beyond that gate, in a small wooden shed, you would have found what you were after. No intricate alarm system to disable, not even a padlock on the shed's door -- just a thin pine branch jammed in the hasp. And behind that door, canisters filled with PFIB, a deadly, lung-attacking gas restricted under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention."
The Bush team was yesterday engaged in what it does best: smear and obfuscation. It seemed the entire White House Press Office was on the cable news networks all day pushing a disturbing smear line against Richard Clarke, who on 60 Minutes Sunday called the Bush administration to the mat for their lackadaisical approach to terrorism before and after 9/11. The Center for American Progress hits back. Phil Carter has much more. Via Mark Kleiman.
Juan Cole notes that Paul Bremer has enacted new investment law for Iraq. "The Hague Regulations of 1907, governing military occupations, strictly forbid the occupying power from making significant changes in local law. But since the Iraq war and everything that followed it was illegal, I suppose that cow was out of the barn long ago."
Saturday March 20, 2004
I have found that I derive much more fulfillment hunting for a matching sock in the sock drawer than I ever could by sorting them all in advance.
Bush's sacred feet; 27; excuses, excuses; Texas justice; Wolfowitz's Spanish bull
The return of the rundown:
It has come to the attention of a number of people that at campaign stops and other events, apparently Bush's feet must not touch the ground. I kid you not.
Here's a picture of the man at a military base recently. Note the elaborate plank system, and also note how the soldiers are not even able to get close enough to touch him. Via Counterspin Central.
27 soldiers killed last month in Iraq.
The top White House counter-terrorism advisor says that the Bush administration used 9/11 as an excuse to enter Iraq (something we already assumed, but here is an insider saying just that).
How electronic voting machines get certified in Texas:
"The examiners found out, apparently by accident, that using Diebold’s provisional voting system, it was possible for two voters to vote using the same ID number -- or for one voter to vote multiple times. In practice, the Diebold representative explained, they give out paper stickers to make sure that each person votes only once."
Paul Wolfowitz, on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, had this to say about the election results in Spain (this isn't a joke):
"'The Spaniards are courageous people. I mean, we know it from their whole culture of bullfighting," Wolfowitz said. "I don't think they run in the face of an enemy. They haven't run in the face of the Basque terrorists. I hope they don't run in the face of these people.' "
Monday March 15, 2004
In Baghdad Green Zone, Soldier Stabbed
From the Washington Post: "...an Army captain working for the U.S.-led civil occupation authority was stabbed in the torso, head and neck early Sunday morning as he walked to his housing trailer inside the heavily fortified Green Zone where occupation personnel are based, according to officials familiar with the incident. The officer was seriously injured but in stable condition, the officials said. The attacker has not been caught, they said. "
Sunday March 14, 2004
Vile
Rumsfeld on Face the Nation this morning made one of the most reprehensible comments I have ever heard come out of the mouth of any man. He was trying to put his best spin on the fact that 10 American soldiers were killed over the past week in Iraq, and what this continuing violence meant for the political process in Iraq. Rumsfeld stated, "In fact there are more Iraq security forces being killed than American security forces."
Saturday March 13, 2004
Fog of War, fogged
I saw Fog of War last night, and no matter how much they tried to revive McNamara's image, his character today is not far removed from what that of thirty years ago -- a man who will answer the question that he wanted to be asked, not the question that was asked of him (not that the directors of the documentary ever really pushed him; from what I have read they preferred a 'softer' approach to the interview.) In the end, the film felt more like a Donald Rumsfeld press conference than a retrospective by an elder statesman.
McNamara admits that he and LeMay should probably have been tried as war criminals for the firebombing of Japan during WWII, but for an 85-year-old man trying to come to peace with what he has done, he doesn't seem to be as honest as he could be with himself. When talking about Agent Orange, "some say" that it has caused and continues to cause death and disease, for example. Why equivocate? Why equivocate now? This isn't the sole example of his hedging. He went to great lengths to paint the major players as "rational" beings, and that rationality wasn't always enough. Point taken, but the problem is that it is a stretch to call those people rational beings. At some point (at the very beginning, IMO), killing hundreds of thousands of civilians veers far off the course of rationality, no matter the final goal.
McNamara's hindsight seems to have not provided the objectivity that we would hope. He seems like a man more intent on rationalizing the process than condemning it, and his mea culpa comes off as less-than-satisfactory given the extent of the destruction that he personally oversaw.
One of Bush's Stetson hats if you guess correctly...
...the party that was called "a conga line of suckholes"? Check your answer at Counterspin Central.
Friday March 12, 2004
Shark-jumping for fun and profit
Those crooked liars in the Bush administration seem to be jumping one shark after another. First it was the parading of the 9/11 corpse. Now it's the threat of the anonymous olive-skinned man.
How many sharks will they jump before the election?
Wednesday March 10, 2004
Feeds
If you need such things, there are links to feeds for ATOM .3 and RSS 1.0 available at the top of the left navbar.
Houston Chronicle weighs in on Bush's poll numbers
From the Houston Chronicle:
Like antsy dogs before an earthquake, some Republicans sensed trouble. They were barking about the deficit, chasing their tails over the immigration proposal. A number had even begun baying about Vice President Dick Cheney. But when the tremor struck Monday (on the evening news) and the strong aftershocks continued Tuesday (in the morning newspapers), the party seemed astonished at the real cause of their prescient unease: President Bush.
American Family Association vote creams Bush
The American Family Association has a presidential poll (not too easily skewed, because they make each entry fill out an extra form, and pass through a security-word check.) The current results? 89.96% for Kerry, 6.56% for Nader, 3.48% for Bush. 27,350 votes so far.
Tuesday March 09, 2004
Molly Ivins on Bush's childish economic plan:
I also like the dodge where Bush claims the reason there's a $500 billion deficit is because, "We're at war." Unfortunately, the cost of Iraq is not even included in the budget: It's going to be a supplemental surprise request after the election. Does any of this strike you as grown-up behavior? Or even grown-up behavior-related program activities?
Stern excerpts
Via Atrios, here's a link to horklog's MP3 of Howard Stern lambasting Bush's campaign commercials. And here are some choice excerpts:
"Howard: George W. Bush was around a lot of really brave people when this happened. Can you imagine the nerve? Robin: He came and visited the brave people. Howard: He came and visited the brave people. That's what he's promoting."
"Howard: Let me ask you something. Do you think Bush would be brave enough to run into a burning building to help someone? Robin: No. Howard: I know I'm not. I know he isn't. Mr. X is, but not.... Mr. George... President Bush personally watched the attacks on TV. [...] Now we're going to show you some footage of him hanging around with some really brave firemen to make you think that he's brave. I mean, that's insane."
"Howard: I just remember President Bush rushing Bin Laden's family out of the country so they wouldn't get hurt. Robin: What was that about?"
"Robin (impersonating the hallowed tones of the Bush commercial's narrator): The president stopped partying at 40... Howard: And found Jesus."
"Howard: George Bush will protect you from a black woman's nipple being seen during the Super Bowl. Because you can't handle it. And Jesus would have wanted it that way."
Monday March 08, 2004
I'm only here for the buffet
I find myself confounded by this:
"I say I believe in God. I even call myself a Christian.
Essentially I do so because I want to feel included by other
people whom I want to communicate with about our experiences."
I'm curious to know how many other Christians there are out there who don't really have a faith, but say they are Christians so that they can participate in the social functions.
I bet it is significantly more than many would suspect. Christians can make a wickedly enticing batch of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.
Sunday March 07, 2004
If Lincoln had Bush's campaign managers.
Meet the Press: Giuliani's response to the flag draped remains of a September 11th victim?
"It was just one coffin, not coffins."
His response to the head of the Firefighters association?
"That's the head of the firefighters that's usually at John Kerry's side at every single primary..."
And Russert is just letting him babble.
"No one owns September 11, 2001... No one has ownership of it."
That's mighty convenient, Rudy. You seem to have significant vested interest, though!
And Bush only testifying for one hour in front of the 9/11 commission?
"There's one thing I know about Bush. He's on time."
And Russert lets him babble.
*****
"It doesn't take 41 to kill a man without a gun!
We're glad to wave goodbye to Giuliani!"
Saturday March 06, 2004
Followup to the last post: Jimmy Breslin rips into Bush and Giuliani: "In his first campaign commercial, George Bush reached down and molested the dead."
Friday March 05, 2004
There's only thing more vile than Bush exploiting the dead of 9/11 by using in his first campaign video the image of a flag-covered corpse being pulled from the rubble of the Trade Center. And that's Giuliani standing up for Bush, instead of allowing the families of the dead speak for themselves.
However much he gained in anyone's estimation since 9/11, he just threw himself right back into the cesspit that characterized his reign until that day.
"It doesn't take 41 to kill a man without a gun. We're glad to wave goodbye to Giuliani!"
Wednesday March 03, 2004
Anyone listening to John Edwards' exit speech should be wondering why they didn't take a harder look at him. If he's not on the ticket, the Dems will suffer for it.
