Man Released To His Rabbi After Trying To Sell Pakistan 200 Nuclear Detonators
Where's John Ashcroft on this one?
31.1.04
27.1.04
Roadside Attack Kills 3 G.I.'s West of Baghdad
This blast injured a young soldier named Brian, who happens to be my cousin's husband. He flew to Germany for surgery. God Bless.
This blast injured a young soldier named Brian, who happens to be my cousin's husband. He flew to Germany for surgery. God Bless.
26.1.04
25.1.04
21.1.04
Courtesy of Atrios
"'There will be a purge on God's orders, and evil will be eliminated like shadows,' the Unification Church leader Rev. Sun Myong Moon, the owner and primary funder of the money-losing, right-wing Washington Times, said last week. (The comments were posted online by Rev. Moon's webmaster and picked up by blogger John Gorenfeld.)
'Gays will be eliminated, the 3 Israels will unite. If not then they will be burned. We do not know what kind of world God will bring but this is what happens. It will be greater than the communist purge but at God's orders.'"
And they accuse the left of hate speech?
"'There will be a purge on God's orders, and evil will be eliminated like shadows,' the Unification Church leader Rev. Sun Myong Moon, the owner and primary funder of the money-losing, right-wing Washington Times, said last week. (The comments were posted online by Rev. Moon's webmaster and picked up by blogger John Gorenfeld.)
'Gays will be eliminated, the 3 Israels will unite. If not then they will be burned. We do not know what kind of world God will bring but this is what happens. It will be greater than the communist purge but at God's orders.'"
And they accuse the left of hate speech?
SignOnSanDiego.com > News > James O. Goldsborough -- More evidence of mass deception:
"Richard Haass, Powell's head of policy planning, resigned when it became clear that Bush demands for Iraqi disarmament were only a pretext for war.
Haass, now head of the Council on Foreign Relations, calls Iraq a war of 'choice,' not 'necessity.' He recounts a meeting with NSC director Condoleezza Rice in July 2002, two months before Iraq hit the headlines and three months before Bush went to the U.N. Security Council putatively to seek a resolution on Iraqi disarmament."
"Richard Haass, Powell's head of policy planning, resigned when it became clear that Bush demands for Iraqi disarmament were only a pretext for war.
Haass, now head of the Council on Foreign Relations, calls Iraq a war of 'choice,' not 'necessity.' He recounts a meeting with NSC director Condoleezza Rice in July 2002, two months before Iraq hit the headlines and three months before Bush went to the U.N. Security Council putatively to seek a resolution on Iraqi disarmament."
16.1.04
Another Empty Bottle:
Wander the strange streets
beneath the orange glow
of neuveaux lampposts,
wander the streets
unknown to the night
with so little purpose as to make lost
an impossibility, shfting shadows on cobbled streets, humming songs on wobbly feet. And the damp grey air is an old woman’s hair put down for the night.
Wander the strange streets
beneath the orange glow
of neuveaux lampposts,
wander the streets
unknown to the night
with so little purpose as to make lost
an impossibility, shfting shadows on cobbled streets, humming songs on wobbly feet. And the damp grey air is an old woman’s hair put down for the night.
12.1.04
If it wasn't for TV preachers I wouldn't believe in hell, but if you think about it, where else is God going to stick them?
When Pat Robertson isn't busy milking money from grandmas, or diverting funds from "Operation Blessing" to support his diamond mining interests, he's busies himself spewing Bolshevik.
Robertson asserts in a recent Jerusalem speech that the world is in the throngs of a "holy war." He suggests the people of Jehovah (Christians and Jews) are defending themselves against the followers of an evil moon god (Muslims): "[T]he struggle is whether Hubal, the Moon god of Mecca, known as Allah, is supreme, or whether the Judeo-Christian Jehovah, God of the Bible, is Supreme."
It'd be nice to think there isn't a target audience for such insidious comments, but, sadly, this isn't the case. So if you're one of those good-hearted people who've been duped into thinking Robertson is more a man of God rather than a right-wing tool, please read along before you fund this lovable loon's "holy war."
Muslims, Jews, and Christians believe in the same God, and I don't mean in some squishy, hippie, new age way. These three religions all believe in the GOD OF ABRAHAM.
A brief narrative that is contained in the Torah; a holy text for Islam, Muslim, and Christianity: God said Abraham, I'm going to give you a son, and the descendants of this first-born shall be known as "MY CHOSEN PEOPLE". And then I imagine God elbowed himself and said hey, want to see something funny, watch this. Then he said "Okay." God often talks to himself, and you would too if you'd spent an eternity living alone in an empty universe with nothing but three personalities.
Abraham, who believed in God's omnipotence, went and told his wife, Sarah, what God had said. Sarah laughed and laughed, knowing that her womb as used up as an old piece of chewing gum. She must have thought he just wanted a piece, but nonetheless, she allowed Abraham to plow her shares. Finally, Sarah, told her husband that if God was going to give him a son, he'd better go ahead and knock up the servant.
Lo and behold, the servant became pregnant and Abraham began raising, Ishmael to be "THE FATHER OF GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE."
Well, here's the funny part, shortly thereafter Sarah finally became pregnant. She had a baby and named it Jacob.
Sarah had always been jealous of the young handmaiden's ability to easily give to Abraham what she could not. As soon as she had a son (Abraham only needed one) she wanted rid of Ishmael.
God told Abraham to take Ishmael and his mother to the desert, and leave them there to die. Abraham obeyed. Here's another funny part, instead of allowing the two to die beneath the desert sun, God made a spring arise from the desert floor, from which the two thrived. Ishmael had lots of babies who formed a people nation known as Islam.
Jacob grew up, and changed his name to Israel and birthed a nation of his own (his twelve sons formed the twelve tribes of Israel).
Jews and Muslims are half-brothers
Here's the rub, which baby is the first-born? Tradition dictates that only the first-born son receives the father's birthright, in the case the Promised Land. Remember Esau? He ripped off his older, hairy brother by covering his arms with goat hair so that he could trick his blind, dying father to pass the family inheritance to the wrong son. This was serious business, these birthrights.
So who is the first born? I'll answer that in a minute, but before I make people mad I want to get back to the original point, Robertson.
He is right about one thing: There is a holy war going on, and it has been for some time. However, the real war isn't between Islam and Judeo-Christianity.
The real "holy war" is against the fundamentalists and progressives. Both Muslim Fundamentalists and Christian Fundamentalists are a shameful public face to a couple of beautiful religions. While these religions have sacred histories that create beautiful narratives in sincere attempts to define humanity in light of divinity, they have allowed their voices to be overrun with the loud, ignorant noise that typifies extremes. Those sincere people whose beliefs are tempered by their tolerances allow their faith to remain mute, as the fundamentalists clamor before the cameras.
That is the "holy war": free-thinking, open-minded, loving Jews, Muslims, and Christians against our fundamentalist "brethren" who believe upheaval fulfills their particular, narrow interests.
So please, if you want to be a on the good side of a holy war, start with recognizing Christian TV for the oxymoron that it is and turn off that money-making, propaganda machine. We are the sons of Abraham, for Christ's sake, show some respect.
In conclusion, my two bit theology: there is no first born.
The point of God's little exercise wasn't to see how we answered the question but how we resolved the issue. I read this essay by a Christian Palestinian who put it something like this: It doesn't matter whose land it is. If God gave the land to Muslims, he would want them to live peacefully with the Jews. Likewise, if God gave the land to Jews he'd want them to live peacefully with Muslims.
What did Jesus say before the cross? If you forget everything else I ever said to you remember this: Love God with all your being, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. (EIV)
When Pat Robertson isn't busy milking money from grandmas, or diverting funds from "Operation Blessing" to support his diamond mining interests, he's busies himself spewing Bolshevik.
Robertson asserts in a recent Jerusalem speech that the world is in the throngs of a "holy war." He suggests the people of Jehovah (Christians and Jews) are defending themselves against the followers of an evil moon god (Muslims): "[T]he struggle is whether Hubal, the Moon god of Mecca, known as Allah, is supreme, or whether the Judeo-Christian Jehovah, God of the Bible, is Supreme."
It'd be nice to think there isn't a target audience for such insidious comments, but, sadly, this isn't the case. So if you're one of those good-hearted people who've been duped into thinking Robertson is more a man of God rather than a right-wing tool, please read along before you fund this lovable loon's "holy war."
Muslims, Jews, and Christians believe in the same God, and I don't mean in some squishy, hippie, new age way. These three religions all believe in the GOD OF ABRAHAM.
A brief narrative that is contained in the Torah; a holy text for Islam, Muslim, and Christianity: God said Abraham, I'm going to give you a son, and the descendants of this first-born shall be known as "MY CHOSEN PEOPLE". And then I imagine God elbowed himself and said hey, want to see something funny, watch this. Then he said "Okay." God often talks to himself, and you would too if you'd spent an eternity living alone in an empty universe with nothing but three personalities.
Abraham, who believed in God's omnipotence, went and told his wife, Sarah, what God had said. Sarah laughed and laughed, knowing that her womb as used up as an old piece of chewing gum. She must have thought he just wanted a piece, but nonetheless, she allowed Abraham to plow her shares. Finally, Sarah, told her husband that if God was going to give him a son, he'd better go ahead and knock up the servant.
Lo and behold, the servant became pregnant and Abraham began raising, Ishmael to be "THE FATHER OF GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE."
Well, here's the funny part, shortly thereafter Sarah finally became pregnant. She had a baby and named it Jacob.
Sarah had always been jealous of the young handmaiden's ability to easily give to Abraham what she could not. As soon as she had a son (Abraham only needed one) she wanted rid of Ishmael.
God told Abraham to take Ishmael and his mother to the desert, and leave them there to die. Abraham obeyed. Here's another funny part, instead of allowing the two to die beneath the desert sun, God made a spring arise from the desert floor, from which the two thrived. Ishmael had lots of babies who formed a people nation known as Islam.
Jacob grew up, and changed his name to Israel and birthed a nation of his own (his twelve sons formed the twelve tribes of Israel).
Jews and Muslims are half-brothers
Here's the rub, which baby is the first-born? Tradition dictates that only the first-born son receives the father's birthright, in the case the Promised Land. Remember Esau? He ripped off his older, hairy brother by covering his arms with goat hair so that he could trick his blind, dying father to pass the family inheritance to the wrong son. This was serious business, these birthrights.
So who is the first born? I'll answer that in a minute, but before I make people mad I want to get back to the original point, Robertson.
He is right about one thing: There is a holy war going on, and it has been for some time. However, the real war isn't between Islam and Judeo-Christianity.
The real "holy war" is against the fundamentalists and progressives. Both Muslim Fundamentalists and Christian Fundamentalists are a shameful public face to a couple of beautiful religions. While these religions have sacred histories that create beautiful narratives in sincere attempts to define humanity in light of divinity, they have allowed their voices to be overrun with the loud, ignorant noise that typifies extremes. Those sincere people whose beliefs are tempered by their tolerances allow their faith to remain mute, as the fundamentalists clamor before the cameras.
That is the "holy war": free-thinking, open-minded, loving Jews, Muslims, and Christians against our fundamentalist "brethren" who believe upheaval fulfills their particular, narrow interests.
So please, if you want to be a on the good side of a holy war, start with recognizing Christian TV for the oxymoron that it is and turn off that money-making, propaganda machine. We are the sons of Abraham, for Christ's sake, show some respect.
In conclusion, my two bit theology: there is no first born.
The point of God's little exercise wasn't to see how we answered the question but how we resolved the issue. I read this essay by a Christian Palestinian who put it something like this: It doesn't matter whose land it is. If God gave the land to Muslims, he would want them to live peacefully with the Jews. Likewise, if God gave the land to Jews he'd want them to live peacefully with Muslims.
What did Jesus say before the cross? If you forget everything else I ever said to you remember this: Love God with all your being, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. (EIV)
9.1.04
7.1.04
Pat Buchanan: Bush's betrayal of working America
or...
Main Street Vs. Wall Street
"On Christmas Eve, a story and column in the Washington Post caught the eye. For they tell much about the two Americas we are becoming under George Bush and a Democratic Party that has cut its roots to working America.
The front-page story by Mike Allen describes a Bush initiative on "immigration reform." Seems that U.S. employers would post jobs and the wages that go with them on a Department of Labor website. If no Americans came forward to take the jobs, the employer would be allowed to bring Mexican temporary workers in legally, give them the jobs, and put them on a fast track to permanent residency and citizenship.
What would this mean? U.S. companies would offer pay at or near the minimum wage for jobs they had open in, say, construction.
As few Americans can support a family and kids in school on $5 an hour, many of these jobs would go begging. The employer would then be allowed to go to Mexico, where the minimum wage is about 60 cents an hour, or countries where it is even less, and hire all the hard-working labor he needed at the U.S. minimum wage.
As there are billions of people on earth who do not earn anything near $5 an hour, what the Bush plan means is throwing open America's borders to millions of workers who will come in and suppress the wages of America's workers.
Why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce might love this is easy to understand. But what is Bush doing to the working Americans who put him in office? Yet, as one reads further in the story, it appears it is not Bush who is doing this, it is boy-wonder Karl Rove. Bush's guru seized on the idea as part of the campaign's "compassion agenda."
In addition to bringing in millions of workers who would take jobs at a fraction of a living wage for American families, Bush will propose that 10 million aliens, who are in this country illegally, be made legal.
According to the Post, Rove & Co. "concluded that they needed a response to the large population of undocumented workers for the plan to be credible and for Bush to get credit from Hispanic voters.
In that last clause lies the motive behind the sellout.
Rove is pandering to Hispanics, giving militants in the Latino lobbies what they demand – some form of stealth amnesty, where those who broke into this country are made legal residents of the United States and put on the path to citizenship. He is buying votes by selling out the white working class, which, presumably, has nowhere else to go.
As a sop to those who believe aliens who break our laws should be sent back home, the Bushites promise better border controls. In brief, if you want Bush to enforce America's immigration laws, you must permit him to pardon those who broke these laws. And if you agree, Bush will promise to be more conscientious in doing his presidential duty to defend the borders of the United States.
How are the Bushites shafting American workers? Let me count the ways. Under Bush's free-trade zealotry, the United States has lost manufacturing jobs for 40 straight months, the longest stretch since the Great Depression. Under Bush, hundreds of thousands of high-tech workers have been brought into the United States to take jobs at wages one-half or a third of those commanded by the U.S. workers they replace.
Under Bush, the "outsourcing" and "off-shoring" of U.S. jobs has accelerated, with tens of thousands of jobs once held by high-paid white collar and information-technology workers going to Asia.
Under Bush, millions of legal and illegal immigrants have poured into the country, putting downward pressure on wages.
Under Bush, the merchandise trade deficit has risen to $550 billion, which represents a massive annual transfer of factories, jobs and technology. China, Japan and East Asia are the lead looters of America's once-awesome manufacturing base. Americans today buy nearly 15 percent of the entire GDP of China. The Chinese buy two-tenths of 1 percent of ours. It's what the Bushites call "free and fair trade."
What are the consequences for American workers? In a Post column, "Un-American Recovery," Harold Meyerson says it all.
U.S. corporate profits have been rising for 7 months. In the third quarter of 2003, the economy grew at 8.2 percent, productivity at over 9 percent. Have our workers shared equally in the good times?
Writes Meyerson: "Since July, the average hourly wage increase for the 85 million Americans who work in non-supervisory jobs in offices and factories is a flat 3 cents. Wages are up just 2.1 percent since November 2002, the slowest wage growth we've experienced in 40 years."
That's right. According to Meyerson, the wages of Americans have gone up three cents since the economy took off on a tear in July.
Let it be said: Working America has no powerful voice in politics. Both Democrats and Republicans are open-borders, free-trade zealots, who troll for cash from corporate America and burn their incense at the altars of the global economy.
America needs a new party."
via buchanan at world net daily
or...
Main Street Vs. Wall Street
"On Christmas Eve, a story and column in the Washington Post caught the eye. For they tell much about the two Americas we are becoming under George Bush and a Democratic Party that has cut its roots to working America.
The front-page story by Mike Allen describes a Bush initiative on "immigration reform." Seems that U.S. employers would post jobs and the wages that go with them on a Department of Labor website. If no Americans came forward to take the jobs, the employer would be allowed to bring Mexican temporary workers in legally, give them the jobs, and put them on a fast track to permanent residency and citizenship.
What would this mean? U.S. companies would offer pay at or near the minimum wage for jobs they had open in, say, construction.
As few Americans can support a family and kids in school on $5 an hour, many of these jobs would go begging. The employer would then be allowed to go to Mexico, where the minimum wage is about 60 cents an hour, or countries where it is even less, and hire all the hard-working labor he needed at the U.S. minimum wage.
As there are billions of people on earth who do not earn anything near $5 an hour, what the Bush plan means is throwing open America's borders to millions of workers who will come in and suppress the wages of America's workers.
Why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce might love this is easy to understand. But what is Bush doing to the working Americans who put him in office? Yet, as one reads further in the story, it appears it is not Bush who is doing this, it is boy-wonder Karl Rove. Bush's guru seized on the idea as part of the campaign's "compassion agenda."
In addition to bringing in millions of workers who would take jobs at a fraction of a living wage for American families, Bush will propose that 10 million aliens, who are in this country illegally, be made legal.
According to the Post, Rove & Co. "concluded that they needed a response to the large population of undocumented workers for the plan to be credible and for Bush to get credit from Hispanic voters.
In that last clause lies the motive behind the sellout.
Rove is pandering to Hispanics, giving militants in the Latino lobbies what they demand – some form of stealth amnesty, where those who broke into this country are made legal residents of the United States and put on the path to citizenship. He is buying votes by selling out the white working class, which, presumably, has nowhere else to go.
As a sop to those who believe aliens who break our laws should be sent back home, the Bushites promise better border controls. In brief, if you want Bush to enforce America's immigration laws, you must permit him to pardon those who broke these laws. And if you agree, Bush will promise to be more conscientious in doing his presidential duty to defend the borders of the United States.
How are the Bushites shafting American workers? Let me count the ways. Under Bush's free-trade zealotry, the United States has lost manufacturing jobs for 40 straight months, the longest stretch since the Great Depression. Under Bush, hundreds of thousands of high-tech workers have been brought into the United States to take jobs at wages one-half or a third of those commanded by the U.S. workers they replace.
Under Bush, the "outsourcing" and "off-shoring" of U.S. jobs has accelerated, with tens of thousands of jobs once held by high-paid white collar and information-technology workers going to Asia.
Under Bush, millions of legal and illegal immigrants have poured into the country, putting downward pressure on wages.
Under Bush, the merchandise trade deficit has risen to $550 billion, which represents a massive annual transfer of factories, jobs and technology. China, Japan and East Asia are the lead looters of America's once-awesome manufacturing base. Americans today buy nearly 15 percent of the entire GDP of China. The Chinese buy two-tenths of 1 percent of ours. It's what the Bushites call "free and fair trade."
What are the consequences for American workers? In a Post column, "Un-American Recovery," Harold Meyerson says it all.
U.S. corporate profits have been rising for 7 months. In the third quarter of 2003, the economy grew at 8.2 percent, productivity at over 9 percent. Have our workers shared equally in the good times?
Writes Meyerson: "Since July, the average hourly wage increase for the 85 million Americans who work in non-supervisory jobs in offices and factories is a flat 3 cents. Wages are up just 2.1 percent since November 2002, the slowest wage growth we've experienced in 40 years."
That's right. According to Meyerson, the wages of Americans have gone up three cents since the economy took off on a tear in July.
Let it be said: Working America has no powerful voice in politics. Both Democrats and Republicans are open-borders, free-trade zealots, who troll for cash from corporate America and burn their incense at the altars of the global economy.
America needs a new party."
via buchanan at world net daily
30.12.03
17.12.03
Another reason why a just a God would create a thing like hell.
Maybe if Bush had a few more interns he'd stop sticking it to the rest of us.
Maybe if Bush had a few more interns he'd stop sticking it to the rest of us.
Help In Understanding How A Sincere Man Is Controlled By Various D.C. Power Centers:
DIANE SAWYER: First of all, I just want to ask about reading. Mr. President, you know that there was a great deal of reporting about the fact that you said, first of all, that you let Condoleezza Rice and Andrew Card give you a flavor of what's in the news.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes.
DIANE SAWYER: That you don't read the stories yourself.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes. I get my news from people who don't editorialize. They give me the actual news, and it makes it easier to digest, on a daily basis, the facts.
DIANE SAWYER: Is it just harder to read constant criticism or to read —
PRESIDENT BUSH: Why even put up with it when you can get the facts elsewhere? I'm a lucky man. I've got, it's not just Condi and Andy, it's all kinds of people in my administration who are charged with different responsibilities, and they come in and say this is what's happening, this isn't what's happening.
From Sawyer's Interview of Bush::
DIANE SAWYER: First of all, I just want to ask about reading. Mr. President, you know that there was a great deal of reporting about the fact that you said, first of all, that you let Condoleezza Rice and Andrew Card give you a flavor of what's in the news.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes.
DIANE SAWYER: That you don't read the stories yourself.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes. I get my news from people who don't editorialize. They give me the actual news, and it makes it easier to digest, on a daily basis, the facts.
DIANE SAWYER: Is it just harder to read constant criticism or to read —
PRESIDENT BUSH: Why even put up with it when you can get the facts elsewhere? I'm a lucky man. I've got, it's not just Condi and Andy, it's all kinds of people in my administration who are charged with different responsibilities, and they come in and say this is what's happening, this isn't what's happening.
From Sawyer's Interview of Bush::
16.12.03
15.12.03
More American Jobs Go To Foreigners Who Are Too Beleagured By Poverty To Worry About Things Like Workers' Rights
Indicative of what has been happening all over the shop. Bush didn't invent globalism, but he has been busy greasing the slippery slope.
He allowed for the reclassification of several white collar jobs, in order to allow them to be sub-contracted to overseas firms. As of six-months ago, 200,000 technical support jobs have gone to India alone.
He has lobbied successfully for the increase in the number of I-9 visas the U.S. hands out to American Inc. These are the visas that allow the importing of cheap, white-collar labor.
He has killed the funds that were supposed to be used to retool the American workforce for a post-manufacturing economy.
I don't read much anymore, so I'm sure I missed a few.
Indicative of what has been happening all over the shop. Bush didn't invent globalism, but he has been busy greasing the slippery slope.
He allowed for the reclassification of several white collar jobs, in order to allow them to be sub-contracted to overseas firms. As of six-months ago, 200,000 technical support jobs have gone to India alone.
He has lobbied successfully for the increase in the number of I-9 visas the U.S. hands out to American Inc. These are the visas that allow the importing of cheap, white-collar labor.
He has killed the funds that were supposed to be used to retool the American workforce for a post-manufacturing economy.
I don't read much anymore, so I'm sure I missed a few.
We got Saddam: Hoo ha or ho hum?
Some excitement is understandable, but as far as the media pundits rushing to speculate on how his capture will affect domestic politics- I've got to say, please keep your pants up.
Opposition, to the unilateral, preemptive, war against a not-so-imminent threat was not founded on a belief that Saddam would carry on as usual despite our invasion.
We opposed the war not because we thought Saddam would elude capture and continue wrecking havec on his country. We assumed the opposite, and still opposed the war. Therefore, it makes no sense that all right-minded people reframe their opposition to this fool's-errand of a war just because yesterday Bush gave us good TV.
So give me more images of God's Army probing Saddam's pie-hole. Give me more commentary comparing him to a street bum; Tell me how the Lion of Bagdhad was reduced to a common rat living in a dirty hole beneath the ground. But please, don't expect me to change my opinion of an unjust war and the puppet-monkee who leads it.
Saddam's elusiveness highlighted the fact that victory in this war is not a puzzle to be solved with a really smart bomb, that the true enemy of the region is so ingrained that it will not be defeated with the Americana veneer of guns and love.
Indeed, his capture denies Bush's opponents a powerful symbol of his failures as President of the United States of America. However, beyond the symbols, there waits the substance.
Bush has so bungled foreign policy and the decades' worth of diplomacy that made it possible. There used to be a time when the world, generally, recognized the office of the American Presidency as being "Leader of the Free World." We have traded our position on the global stage to fulfill the narrow interests of the Neo-con hunting buddies who pass for enlightened advisors.
Some excitement is understandable, but as far as the media pundits rushing to speculate on how his capture will affect domestic politics- I've got to say, please keep your pants up.
Opposition, to the unilateral, preemptive, war against a not-so-imminent threat was not founded on a belief that Saddam would carry on as usual despite our invasion.
We opposed the war not because we thought Saddam would elude capture and continue wrecking havec on his country. We assumed the opposite, and still opposed the war. Therefore, it makes no sense that all right-minded people reframe their opposition to this fool's-errand of a war just because yesterday Bush gave us good TV.
So give me more images of God's Army probing Saddam's pie-hole. Give me more commentary comparing him to a street bum; Tell me how the Lion of Bagdhad was reduced to a common rat living in a dirty hole beneath the ground. But please, don't expect me to change my opinion of an unjust war and the puppet-monkee who leads it.
Saddam's elusiveness highlighted the fact that victory in this war is not a puzzle to be solved with a really smart bomb, that the true enemy of the region is so ingrained that it will not be defeated with the Americana veneer of guns and love.
Indeed, his capture denies Bush's opponents a powerful symbol of his failures as President of the United States of America. However, beyond the symbols, there waits the substance.
Bush has so bungled foreign policy and the decades' worth of diplomacy that made it possible. There used to be a time when the world, generally, recognized the office of the American Presidency as being "Leader of the Free World." We have traded our position on the global stage to fulfill the narrow interests of the Neo-con hunting buddies who pass for enlightened advisors.
11.12.03
That liberal media...
If you read this article without the benefit if a credit line, you'd probably conclude this was a p.r. puff piece for Bush and Dick Inc., yet in fact it is an AP story, picked at by more than a few of America's newspapers.
If you read this article without the benefit if a credit line, you'd probably conclude this was a p.r. puff piece for Bush and Dick Inc., yet in fact it is an AP story, picked at by more than a few of America's newspapers.
Justice Texas-Style:"'THE FRAMING OF YEE: The case that Muslim military chaplain James Yee was a spy for Syria or anyone else has been falling apart. It's not even clear that the documents he was carrying - the original basis for the charge - were in any way classified. For this, he was put in solitary confinement for three months. Worse, the military - having failed to make their case - subsequently used their search warrant to reveal an extra-marital affair by Yee and are now prosecuting him under military law for this indiscretion. This is called framing someone. The trial has now been suspended because the prosecution cannot prove the classification of the documents in question. This seems to me to be a text-book case of military abuse of basic standards of fairness. A Muslim-American, who may well be completely innocent of all espionage charges, may now face years in jail for having an affair." [Sully, The Independent]
Perhaps, if we bought more red, white, and blue bumper stickers, this sort of thing would stop happening.
Perhaps, if we bought more red, white, and blue bumper stickers, this sort of thing would stop happening.
Busting Unions in Bush's Bagdhad
The coalition of the killing ransacked and defaced a fledgling labor union's headquarters. Many are looking at this as an extension of the hostility this administration has towards an Iraqii organized workforce. Perhap's there is a simpler explanation, but in the absence of an official response, I can only wonder. This is after all an administration rushing to privatize an entire culture, yet can't find the time to recall Hussein's laws banning labor unions or collective bargaining.
The coalition of the killing ransacked and defaced a fledgling labor union's headquarters. Many are looking at this as an extension of the hostility this administration has towards an Iraqii organized workforce. Perhap's there is a simpler explanation, but in the absence of an official response, I can only wonder. This is after all an administration rushing to privatize an entire culture, yet can't find the time to recall Hussein's laws banning labor unions or collective bargaining.
8.12.03
A Song To Brahma:
To stand between two tracks
with my legs slightly spread
the same with my arms
only more so, and above my head,
a full-bodied embrace
of a greasy locomotive’s
omnipotence,
its iron barreling with a plud
and waning roar
through my disheveled hair
and other assorted parts,
slinging them beneath its sweep
over its shoulder,
onto the stones and sturdy weeds,
is like what I really want
(except the exact opposite).
To stand between two tracks
with my legs slightly spread
the same with my arms
only more so, and above my head,
a full-bodied embrace
of a greasy locomotive’s
omnipotence,
its iron barreling with a plud
and waning roar
through my disheveled hair
and other assorted parts,
slinging them beneath its sweep
over its shoulder,
onto the stones and sturdy weeds,
is like what I really want
(except the exact opposite).
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