I hesitate to link to this, because if you go far enough in you'll find some really gruesome pictures (heads, legs, other assorted body parts without their owners, etc.). The gruesome photos are all of Iraqis, not Americans, which has caused some to justifiably protest.Still, it provides a glimpse into what some in Iraq are seeing. So take a look, but be warned-- at about the mid-50's point in the series you may need a bucket handy.
One more thing-- if you can take the display of gore, you'll want to pay special attention to the captions on those images. What you're witnessing there is the kind of cold disregard for life that war breeds. Hooray.
In light of the recent voting in Iraq, this 1967 article has been making the rounds. Dave Winer was kind enough to point to a pdf file of the original. Just to give you a taste of the "haven't we been here before?" nature of the thing, here's the title:
U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote : Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror
Gives you a warm feeling in your tummy, doesn't it?
From the Stating the Obvious Department:
Salon.com News | Right-wing pundits: We're not on the Bush payroll: "I don't know anybody who writes columns who's on the take from the federal government and not disclosing it"
Well now, if they're not disclosing it then you wouldn't know about it, would you?
Checking out Newsweek's CW this week, I see that they've given the Bush twins an up arrow, and the small note reads:
Old: Jenna and Barbara are political version of Hilton sisters. New: Classy First Daughters are Jackie O clones.
Note to the Newsweek editors: just because some chick looks nice in a dress doesn't mean she's not still a drunken whore.
Update I: Ok, so maybe I shouldn't have called Jenna a "drunken whore." Whores get paid.
Update II: Yeah, so I stole that joke from someone else. So sue me.
James Wolcott has an interesting idea:
I think Air America should devote an hour or two each week to discussing and delineating conspiracy theories regarding the machinations of the Bush administration, the oil companies, the interlocking Washington think tanks, and their media stooges. Some would say this plays into the hands of the right and the mainstream media, who mock any evidence of longterm coordinated activity from scheming factions as the frothings of conspiracy buffs. As Gore Vidal has written, 'Post-9/11, the American media were filled with pre-emptory denunciations of unpatriotic `conspiracy theorists', who not only are always with us but are usually easy for the media to discredit since it is an article of faith that there are no conspiracies in American life.'
But if you're going to be dismissed as a conspiracy buff, why not embrace the term, brandish it proudly, put it to good use? Gay activists converted 'queer,' an epithet of abuse, into a battle cry by wearing it like a badge until it became semi-legitimized. Why not adopt 'conspiracy buff' with defiant pride?
One of the things that drives me crazy about any and all conspiracy theories is that they're nearly impossible for a lay person to know how to evaluate. You also often have to make judgment calls about the source(s), which is nearly impossible without doing a ton of research. Some of them are so outrageous that I tend to reject them out of hand, when perhaps I shouldn't (case in point: the notion that on 9/11 the Pentagon was hit with something other than an airplane). A show that dealt with these theories in a reasonable manner could be very valuable in separating the wheat from the chaff, and it might also be highly entertaining to boot.
What they said.
The funny thing is, if (if! My kingdom for Senators with cojones...) Gonzales gets torpedoed, it's more likely to be because of the flap with Bush's DUI/jury duty than the fact that he's pro-torture.
Just saw a link to "Clare Crespo's Jell-O Aquarium recipe." This recipe is also in a Disney cookbook, and my wife & I tried it once at a friend's graduation party. Nobody touched it. We're not sure if people didn't know it was edible, or if it was because after a few hours the color in the gummy fish leached out into the Jell-O, creating a pretty gruesome-looking aquarium.
I just got back from helping someone on the music faculty with a streaming video he wanted to get posted, and as I was getting up to leave I noticed what at first looked like dirt all over the floor. On closer examination, it turned out the floor was full of little (and not so little) holes. The professor saw me looking at the floor in bafflement, and told me that cellists stab their instruments into the floor to keep them from moving while they play. What's more, he's even got an industrial grinder in his office to keep the spike sharp. Apparently if you look at the stage of many concert halls, you'll find pockmarks all over the floor where the cello section sits.
One of the tacks the Bush administration (and others) have used in defending Gonzales is that anyone who is against him must be somehow anti-Hispanic. Well, guess what...
Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.: "In a significant and welcome move, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund ('MALDEF') has publicly stated that it 'cannot support [Alberto Gonzales'] confirmation' as Attorney General."
Remember Abu Ghraib? That whole prison/torture palace/cheerleading camp with the naked guys & dogs? Well guess what, there were (are?) women there, too. Oh, yippee.
Kevin Drum has a problem with "anyways." I suppose we all have our little peeves, but this seems pretty silly. Technically I'm sure that "anyways" isn't any more proper than "nucular," but griping against either ignores the fact that languages evolve (I should note here that "nucular" drives me crazy...). If any given word or phrase becomes established enough, then it will eventually become "proper." As my last Finnish instructor used to say, "If it sounds right to you [a native speaker], then it's right."
Well, call me a fascist then, you insufferable little prick.
Juan Cole writes:
Bush's speech was about bringing liberty to the rest of the world. Let's see if he can first do something to restore to the American public the liberties we enjoyed, as free men and women, until 2001. Let's see if he can bring US government policies back into alignment with the Geneva Conventions and other international law on human rights, to which the US is signatory. Only then would he have earned the right to even think about trying to extend liberty to others.
He's got pictures and a helluva depressing conclusion, so if you can bear it go take a look.
This is one of those details that you would think was made up, but turns out to be true. Apparently some of the defenses of the Green Zone in Baghdad are made of biodegradable sandbags, which are now dissolving. Something like American credibility.
The quest for Dot's full name led me to these little gems from Animaniacs as well:
WAKKO: According to this, I'd say we've lost our way.
YAKKO: This isn't a map. It's a flyer for the Republican Party.
WAKKO: I know. That's why I'd say we've lost our way. As a country, I mean.
UMLATT: This is the uniform of a great man!
YAKKO: Does he know you're wearing it?
When we play games at home, there are times when one person doesn't so much win as the other person loses. I think that's an apt description for how the recent presidential election ended up, so it should be no surprise to read something like this:
But in the new Times survey, the public is split almost exactly in half on Bush's performance — a finding in line with four other national surveys released in the last week that placed his approval rating from 50% to 53%. In recent times, the Gallup Poll found that only President Nixon received such an equivocal rating at the start of a second term.
As Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fana Bo Besca III would say, "How apropoo."
'It is remarkable that, as far as I can tell, there's been no post-election rally, which you typically see,' said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. 'It just reflects the polarization of the country. Nothing that has happened since the election has changed that.'
I must say, this is not for lack of trying. I can't count the number of articles I've come across in recent days playing up Dubya as something just short of the Second Coming. Witness the cover of this week's US News, for example. They can polish that turd all they want, but as anyone with their eyes open should be able to see, all that really gets you is a shiny turd and hands that desperately need washing, to boot.
Looks like pundits and news media aren't the only ones being turned into propaganda tools. Not even documentaries are completely above board.
Spent a reasonable chunk of the past weekend working on "A Civil Discussion," in between rounds of Balla-cappin'. At this point I'm probably somewhere around 1/3 of the way done with the animation, give or take. While I'm enjoying the process, I have to say that one of the things that gets left out of all those "making of" featurettes looking at 3D animation is the fact that a good chunk of the process is just grinding through the same few seconds over and over and over while you try to get the timing and expressions just right. What's worse is that when you're trying to sync to an audio track you don't have the option of cranking up iTunes while you're working. Guh. Turns out I'm only good for a couple hours of keyframe animating before my attention wanders off.
Fortunately, there have been some opportunities for streamlining things. After doing the basic mouth animation for laughter, I was then able to write a small script to take that animation curve and create a new one for the shoulder shaking that I wanted to add. Now that was gratifying.
Dubya's plan to strangle "fix" Social Security just keeps sounding better all the time.
Boston.com / News / Nation / Washington / Cuts in disability benefits seen in Social Security plan: "Disability benefits may not be safe from the across-the-board cuts that are likely in President Bush's proposal to allow personal investment accounts in the Social Security program."
After seeing the umpty-gadjillionth ribbon magnet on the drive from here to Kansas City I had a similar idea over the Christmas break, but it looks like someone else has actually made it real.
I've noticed the occasional show that seems to run just past when our PVR cuts off, and apparently it's in part a deliberate attempt to screw with the recorder (and thus their audience...smart move jackasses).
Fortunately, if you're smarter than the average TV exec it's easy to get around the problem. At least with our recorder it's pretty easy to adjust the time to record whatever length you need. I just adjusted our recorder over the weekend so that we never need to miss The Daily Show's moment of zen again.
As far as I can tell, Technorati Tags is just another aggregator, but it seems to be easy enough to implement, so I'm giving it a shot. As a result, I'm going to try applying categories to my posts here now. With any luck this will actually work...
I'll refrain from pointing to one of the "Bush is a chimp" sites, even though Juan Cole does explicitly compare him to an ape. Just be glad the Dubya hasn't taken to throwing poop at people yet.
Before the election there was a lot of talk about how rocky second terms can be, hubris, etc. There are of course a whole plateful of potential scandals to choose from, but I'm wondering if the Armstrong Williams flap might have some legs to it. As Frank Rich notes, we don't yet know whether Armstrong is the only case of payola.
Or is Mr. Williams merely the first one of his ilk to be exposed? Every time this administration puts out fiction through the news media - the "Rambo" exploits of Jessica Lynch, the initial cover-up of Pat Tillman's death by friendly fire - it's assumed that a credulous and excessively deferential press was duped. But might there be more paid agents at loose in the media machine? In response to questions at the White House, Mr. McClellan has said that he is "not aware" of any other such case and that he hasn't "heard" whether the administration's senior staff knew of the Williams contract - nondenial denials with miles of wiggle room. Mr. Williams, meanwhile, has told both James Rainey of The Los Angeles Times and David Corn of The Nation that he has "no doubt" that there are "others" like him being paid for purveying administration propaganda and that "this happens all the time." So far he is refusing to name names - a vow of omertà all too reminiscent of that taken by the low-level operatives first apprehended in that "third-rate burglary" during the Nixon administration.
It strikes me that unlike a lot of the other scandals, which involve the military and/or CIA or other intelligence arms that at least have arguable reasons for secrecy, the payolagate (why not?) scandal is something that should have fewer roadblocks in the way. It also involves a fair amount of navel-gazing, which is very popular in this day and age. I'm not going to hold my breath, but we'll see.
James Wolcott: Heh Is for Horses: "Pessimism, schmessifism. It doesn't matter if the glass is half-empty or half full if the glass is filled with blood needlessly shed."
Kevin Drum points to an article in the LA Times that's well worth reading. The short version could be "Americans profess to be religious, but judging by surveys they're just as ignorant of Christianity (not to mention other religions) as they are just about everything else."
While I'm not surprised by anything in the article, it still saddens me. People ask "What would Jesus do?" but I suspect that many who pose the question lack even the most basic information about what he stood for to be able to answer the question without it simply becoming a reflection of their own values. Worse, the fact that we know so little about other cultures means that the most simple stereotypes take root and are impossible to dislodge.
Aside from the lack of knowledge of our own and other faiths, what particularly disturbs me is that most Americans have no sense of the historical evolution of religion. I would argue that there's a disconnect in most people's minds between the belief systems they hold on to and the human institutions that support them. More than anything else, I think that an awareness of how religion has evolved would take the edge off some of the tendency to think that these belief systems are fixed and immutable, and that (your) religion is by its nature a force for good.
Well, that went well. Looks like they've called off the hunt for WMD in Iraq. Here's a yummy detail, though:
Congress allotted hundreds of millions of dollars for the weapons hunt, and there has been no public accounting of the money. A spokesman for the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency said the entire budget and the expenditures would remain classified.
Sigh...will no one hold these fucktards accountable for anything?
I'm reminded of a bit that Johnny Carson (maybe others?) used to do. Start with "People in the media are so dumb..." now you say "How dumb are they?" Well...
Now hundreds of journalists from the United States and the rest of the world are about to descend on this town [Baghdad] to cover the elections scheduled for Jan. 30. Do they have any clue what they’re getting into? Many don’t, judging from the calls they’re making to the U.S. Embassy for support. ‘We’ve heard American media are coming in force,’ says an embassy spokesman. ‘One network plans to send five crews. Another is going to send its anchorman.’ Network affiliates—read: local TV stations—are planning to send crews, too. Not to mention photographers, radio reporters and low-profile scribblers like myself.
Coming "in force." Wow. Here's the really sick thing. We've gotten so used to hearing reports of soldiers, Iraqi policemen, and others getting killed in Iraq that most of us barely give it a second thought. Imagine what would happen, however, if reporters from a local affiliate or two bit the big one. Wall-to-wall coverage on CNN, incessant talk of the "courage" of the dumbass who thought they'd take the red-eye into Baghdad and cover the good news from Iraq...cripes.
So are the choices now reduced to cut and run or start acting like terrorists ourselves? Oh, goody. The Newsweek article referred to here also has an unnamed military officer bluntly saying "We are losing." Oh, rapture. As if the indiscriminate bombing and torture of innocent civilians wasn't enough, now there's serious talk going on of creating "death squads"? Be still my beating heart.
Quoth Dubya:
I suspect if you were asking me questions 18 months ago and I said there's going to be elections in Iraq, you would have had trouble containing yourself from laughing out loud at the president.
Dude, some of us always have trouble containing our laughter at you. That is, when we're not trying to puncture our eardrums with a screwdriver so we don't have to listen to your inane babbling, or trying to gouge out our eyes with melon-ballers so that we don't have to fight the urge to smack that stupid smirk off your face or watch you struggle for the right words to look pre-si-den-tial. You can't see it because you won't let anyone tell you, but you and your presidency suck.
"Ok, hold it-- that's good...now, make sure we can see the crater where your home used to be. Is that the crib your baby was in? Great. Now smile, everyone!"
Not a direct quote, but close.
So apparently Bush only likes to hear good news. But then, we already knew that.
I always wondered where that little command symbol came from...
Projected over infinity, it appears that my health and well-being will decline precipitously. Therefore, I should buy a Colt .45 and blow my brains out today.
Oh, you think that sounds crazy? Well it doesn't to Dubya.
Yes, this is another of those Iraq/Vietnam references. The details of the story are ugly, but the quote is funny.
James Wolcott: "Kind of a Shame": "There's a Peter Cook-Dudley Moore routine, one of their woolgathering dialogues, where Dud asks Pete, 'So would you say you've learned from your mistakes?' and Pete replies: 'Oh yes, I'm certain I could repeat them exactly.'"
