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Thursday, Jun 30, 2005
Box Score
Qiddity has a nice section-by-section analysis of the recent terrorism pep rally given by the preznit.
I'll supplement that with some buzzword scores.
| terror/terrorist(s) | 34 |
| insurgents | 6 |
| September 11 | 5 |
| bin Laden/Zarqawi/al Qaeda | 4 |
| Saddam Hussien | 1 |
| WMDs (in Iraq) | 0 |
For those of you playing buzzword bingo, "terror" was the ticket.
Update: Ezra Klein also scores the speech.
Sunday, Jun 26, 2005
This Week's Recommendation
I have just one thing to say right now. If ever you get the meningitis, I highly recommend the 1V dilaud1d. 5 stars.
As you were.
They Get Letters
Bob Parsons, who heads up GoDaddy.com has a blog.
Don't be so coy. We're America darn it, so we can do anything we want, and it's okay. Gitmo's had a pretty tight lid, but the pictures and stories coming out of Iraq reveal the exactly what kind of smackdown we're giving to the terrorists, and people who look like terrorists. But we're talking Righteous Torture, justified by God's blessing of this great country. Our dear Leader understands this, and that's why he authorized it.
Now, between you and me, much of the torture is kind of light weight -- like water-boarding. Give me a break! Our dear Leader's close ally in Uzbekistan knows that you have to use boiling water to get the best results. We need to adopt this as part of a "best practices" initiative. That's the kind of Gitmo reform I'm talking about.
-Mark
Friday, Jun 17, 2005
The Horror of Cracker Bashing
I wuz kinda ignernt about the true nature of the confederate flag when I was young. Eventually, I figured out just how fucked up it is.
Grand Moff Texan discusses further in this post: The American Swastika
No, Being RIght Doesn't Feel Good
While doing some link googling, I ran across an old comment I made at the Whiskey Bar. On June 14, 2003, I extrapolated from Billmon's comments and described potential future Centcom headlines thusly:
...
COALITION AND IRAQI POLICE WORK TO MAKE IRAQ SECURE (June 10, 2005)
COALITION AND IRAQI POLICE WORK TO MAKE IRAQ SECURE (June 11, 2005)
COALITION AND IRAQI POLICE WORK TO MAKE IRAQ SECURE (June 12, 2005)
...
...
Wednesday, Jun 15, 2005
Crazy Fuckers
Genesis Chapter 19 was cited by actor Julia Sweeney in her recent critique of the Catholic Church. You know, chapter 19, pillar ... salt.
But really, you have to read the whole thing to understand just how twisted things are. Here's one of the twists.
6 And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,
7 And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.
8 Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.
By the time you get to the end, with the drunken incest, the only morals that can be drawn from this tale are:
- people can really be fucked up, and
- God is vicious, powerful and capricious.
Wow, that's some good shit right there. Words to live paranoid by.
There's a Reason to Worry
One would assume it would be a politically safe thing to do, come out against lynching, even in a too-little too-late gesture like this one. That's what makes me nervous. If these Senators are truly representing their constituencies, I worry about the state of this country.
For some white Southerners, racism is so deeply ingrained for so many years that it is part of their being. Racists have adapted by masking it when necessary. They know how to say "my-nor-tees" with a wink and a nod as a litimus test with whites they've just met. They know how to suppress the N word around relatives who will call them ignorant trash for speaking that way.
Dean is both too light on Republicans and too sloppy with his phrasing. In case he's blog grazing today, here's some advice, Dr. Dean: Don't say "Republicans are ignorant, racist, theocratic, pasty-faced crackers." Instead say, "Ignorant, racist, theocratic, pasty-faced crackers, when they have a major national party affilition, choose the Republican party 95% of the time."
Tuesday, Jun 14, 2005
Catholic Fundamentalism
I suppose I came of age when it was cool to be a cafeteria Catholic. Most of my peers ranged from "kind of religious" to "it's just part of the deal". Of course, there were a few outliers in the "fuck this bullshit" camp. The only fundy Catholic I had regular conversation with was Sister Joanne, who I've mentioned before.
Catholic fundamentalism is different. It's not about the sacred text, literally interpreted, as seen in Islamic and American fundamentalism For Catholics it's all about the church, and its divinely inspired teachings.
Julia Sweeny had a brilliant critique of Catholocism recently on NPR's This American Life. Her reanalysis of the Church was the outcome of a Bible reading class, in which she realized the Bible is perhaps not the best guide for living.
An equally withering critique could be made on the basis of the catechism and related official teachings of the Church. (Catechism is Catholic for "talmud".) For example, consider the teachings of the sexually confused man known as the Archbishop of Denver.
I started debating with an apologist over here, and felt like I had gotten into a sustained argument while at the cocktail party of a friend of a friend. Perhaps in my spare time, I should take on a Sweeny-type project. Suppose I read the whole Catechism ... nah.
I did take the time to refresh my memory on fucking -- er -- Catholic style. There's pretty much just the one way to fuck. That's it. Anything else is unnatural. It violates G-d's natural law. Because, see, in Nature, all mammals pretty much limit their sexual activities to procreation within the pair bond. More or less. With a few minor variations. Take my dog for example. I believe he truly intended to procreate with that couch. So that's why a rapists sperm must be allowed to impregnate a rape victim. Q.E.D.
Contraception is wrong because it’s a deliberate violation of the design God built into the human race, often referred to as "natural law." The natural law purpose of sex is procreation. The pleasure that sexual intercourse provides is an additional blessing from God, intended to offer the possibility of new life while strengthening the bond of intimacy, respect, and love between husband and wife. The loving environment this bond creates is the perfect setting for nurturing children.
Since the Church considers hormone suppliment pills to be sinful, I'm assuming the Church would also consider it sinful for a rape victim to ask her rapist to use a rubber.
So what exactly is the 'natural law' purpose of rape?
Saturday, Jun 11, 2005
Bay Area Wanker of the Day
Brian Sussman, whose home base is Hate Talk 560 KSFO, launched into a rant about Islamist Terror this evening, recounting a list of terror events of the last few decades. A lot of killing has been done in the name of the God of Abraham in recent years, a lot.
Brian focused on that violence committed by people who follow the prophet Mohammed. He didn't cover the Jesus/Moses contingent. And he freely mixed incidents of terror and incidents of war, because violence committed by foreigners is terror by definition.
I'm not sure where he started, because he was up to the mid-eighties when I tuned in. But a caller reminded Brian about the Pirates of the Barbary Coast. Yeah, there we go, let's cast that net wide.
Another caller complained that the Suss-inator was lumping things together in a bigoted way. "Why don't you call the bombings of civilians by the US 'Catholic' or 'Evangelical' terrorism?"
Hmm, will Brian's mighty intellect rise to the task? Will he give this caller with a foreign accent a smackdown of logic and facts? Will the scientific mind of the ex-meteorologist separate truth from fiction? No, that wouldn't be our dear Sussy-boy. He gets into a yelling match. And there's nothing quite as intimidating as an ex-weather-mimbo worked into a froth.
The caller angrily said "You can't kill a billion people."
Sussy replied, "We should try. We should try. We should try."
Brian Sussman called for the extermination of 1 billion Muslims on his radio show today. Three times.
Update: Letter to Suss and response. In comments.
Mon Deux
A post!
Propaganda is Inherently Evil
I've argued at times that propaganda is a tool, and that as a tool it has neutral ethical value. It may be used for good or evil.
For an example of propaganda, scroll down to the graphic about four posts back. Definition 2) in the link above is " Material disseminated by the advocates or opponents of a doctrine or cause: wartime propaganda.". My variant on that definition is: doctrinal concept distilled down to an easily digestible artifact, image, phrase or emotion.
The good thing about propaganda is that it penetrates the chatter of everyday life. It fires neurons. It's memorable.
The bad thing it that it reduces complex issues to iconography. People become more fascinated by the interplay of the icons than in the underlying reality. It's a wilfull version of the Plato's cave.
"Yeah, yeah, I know there's reality out there, but I'm scoring a lot of style points right now. La la la la la. La la la la la."
So the fact that more than half of America thinks Bush is a stupid liar (FINALLY!) gives me little comfort. The policies live on. The attack on international cooperation continues. Energy consumption soars. The peurile run on the country's credit card (with the People's fucking Bank of Red China) is unabated.. And young Americans continue to die for a lie. Every. Fucking Day.
Haha, Bush did something stunningly stupid the other day. Again!
too much verbosity
I'm trying to figure out how to distill the following ....
Franken
I caught a segment of the Franken show on the Sundance Channel. It features a totally new set. Put another way, they have a set -- rather than a table and chairs in a barren sound studio.
Franken was talking to David L. Phillips about his new book, Losing Iraq. The segment was too short, and Al spoke too much, but a lot of ground was covered.
It is Al's show, but sometimes the guest needs and deserves the chance to stretch out, to tell the story. This one is a story that must be told and retold -- how G. W. Bush snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
David was part of the Future of Iraq Project. There was a plan for post-war Iraq. David was part of the team of Americans and Iraqis who put it together. The plan and the experts who developed the plan were rejected by Rumsfeld, Cheney et al, simply because they refused to cling to the fantasy of a summer of chocolate and roses under the beneficence of the illustrious Sultan Chalabi.
I can't shake the image of a pre-war chitchat that Bush had during a football game. .Kanan Makiya, author of Republic of Fear was invited to the White House to watch the Super Bowl just before the start of the invasion. Kanan had to explain to G. W. the differences among the Shi'a Arabs, the Sunni Arabs and the Kurds.
On the eve of a 300+ billion dollar investment, CEO Bush knew less about his acquisition target than a venture capitalist does when making a $5 M investment. At the core of my contempt for G.W. is his intellectual laziness. Sometimes I focus on the mendacity or the cruelty, but the liquid hot magma is my absolute disgust for people in positions of power who are wilfully ignorant.
Once one has made the decision to turn off rational thought, all forms of depravity are possible.
What he said
The holy trinity of thermodynamics as proof that science is wrong is truly proof that irony is not only not dead, but is in actuality living comfortably in a dacha on the Sea of Azov attended by slavegirls and a zitherade, calmly puffing on an hookah whilst contemplating which architectural triumph of an amuse-bouche of melon and fruit de mer to eat next, all while wearing a pointy hat that makes him look like a Doge.
grand moff texan
Thursday, Jun 02, 2005
