March 31, 2003
Convergence
BRIT HUME on Fox News reports (no link yet) that Peter Arnett has been hired by the UK's Daily Mirror. He'll be working with John Pilger!
All the idiots, coming together...
And here's the front page of said UK paper (via Damian Penny). You know, Hollywood makes films whose plots approach situations like this. Their genre is called broad farce. Now all we need is Elke Sommers to turn up half-naked.
I listen to NPR
I decided to listen to the local college radio station while preparing my steaks. WUCF is a jazz station, and they play NPR news every half hour or so. Well. News from Iraq was offered: first something about some women and children who had been killed in the fighting in wherever they are fighting now (it starts with "N"). I had a cynical thought: I knew that this must have made some journo's day, because they live for opportunities to be able to use the phrase "women 'n' children" in the same story as "were killed" appears. Chiding myself for such un-nice notions (not), I continued to listen. I then was informed that Amnesty International has called the US the "Jekyll and Hyde" of human rights. Well, at least we have a Dr. Jekyll component to our national personality -- so many other countries (including the one we are currently involved in festivities with) seem to be all Hyde. AI seems to have given up on those countries as beyond the pale, by the way. (See more on this subject by Steven Den Beste.)
Then they finished with the Iraq news and went on to another juicy, US-involved-somehow, country's doings. Apparently journalists are fleeing an "embattled" area of Colombia because leftist insurgents and their "right-wing" opponents both issued death threats against those journalists. A sensible option: now both sides can fight it out in (relative) peace and quiet without journalistic interference. I wonder if this is the start of a trend.
What I did today
Today was my day off, so I got to do a bunch of things. If life-stuff like this bores you, feel free to skip -- I'm just practicing.
The things I overhear: I went to take care of some financial matters, and heard the phrase "change-of-life baby" for maybe the first time since I was small and my Tennessee-born relatives were visiting. I speculate that few people use that phrase, since it is no longer unusual for women to wait until they are almost out of eggs to get pregnant. I also was under the impression that it was one of those phrases only gothically Southern ladies used, but this woman had a noticeable Brooklyn accent.
After I was done, I was restless. It was a beautiful day here -- we are having what is probably the last cold snap of the season, so it was in the sixties, the skies were cloudless, yadda yadda. So I drove all the way to Daytona Beach and back, a trip of about three hours total. I had thought of taking pictures, but for some reason didn't feel like doing so. (I really want to get a digital camera; then I think I'll be taking more pictures -- but I want a decent one I can do reasonable zooms with.) International Speedway Blvd takes one past Embry Riddle University, where one of the September 11th terrorists learned to fly. This, and the fact that beach towns are really depressing in cold weather for some reason, killed my idea to park and take a beach walk, so I drove back.
I stopped at Publix, and purchased supplies for my new more-protein, less-carb diet. (More meat, no pasta or potatoes or sugary sweets -- except for sugar and cream in my coffee. No one is taking that away from me.) Then home, to prepare steaks (not a very good cut -- the rest are going in a marinade tonight), grilled onions, and carrots. Yum.
1, 2, 3, 4, Iraqis really want this war
They're just terrified to say so. They are afraid that the US will up and leave, and they'll be stuck in Iraq having to explain themselves to Saddam's forces. And no one will care about the new crop of Iraqis who are shot, gassed, shredded, and otherwise killed by the Fedayeen, because the only real dead Iraqi are ones Americans kill.
They don't trust us, and I don't blame them.
How can I, when we have Western reporters on worldwide cable tv parrotting the Iraqi government line? If I think that makes me feel like shit, imagine how the Iraqis must feel.
How can people still be against this war and be all "oh, the poor suffering Iraqis," when the actual poor, suffering Iraqis want it? Never mind, don't answer that -- I think Jim Treacher got it right:
(Via cut on the bias.)
March 30, 2003
God-botherer-botherers
Well. Some Christian organization has sent a sort of pamphlet to US soldiers in Iraq. It contains, among other things, a prayer for George Bush, which can be torn out and sent to him. This has some people in a snit -- I don't know what else to call a post with the pursed-lipped heading "As usual, it's all about him." Now I'm no Christian (I was raised Methodist/Presbyterian/whatever but among some of today's more fervent practitioners of the faith I feel somewhat like Oscar Wilde felt when asked if he were a Christian: "I don't think so," he replied, "I'm an Irish Protestant"), but excuse me if I refuse to play this game of Shock 'n' Outrage.
For one thing, there is absolutely no -- I repeat, no -- evidence that the president has anything to do with this, or even that he knows anything about this, or if he did, that he wouldn't be embarassed instead of swelling up like a puffer fish with pride. But that seems to be the general tenor of the criticism here: that this organization must necessarily be one of the Dubya's evil, Cthulhu-like tentacle groups through which he (bwahahaahahaa!) intends to control minds and rule Ze Whole Vorld! An acquaintance of Nielsen Hayden's is positively doing backflips of rage at the -- horrors! -- existence of a website called PrayforGeorgeBush.com, even though there is a prominent disclaimer at the bottom of the front page that says: "Webpage Not Authorized by President Bush or any person(s) associated with his administration." But it's a good opportunity to get in a few slams about what a
feebleminded, morally challenged, inbred, penny-ante usurper
Bush is, so hey.
Quite frankly, this hysterical attitudinizing is a major factor in what drove me to switch my party allegiance from Democrat to Republican. After eight years of Clinton -- who I will now say I think is an intelligent man, probably a fun dinner companion, no matter all his other faults* -- and after observing what the Dems must think of as their Wounded Knee (the 2000 Endless Election), it occurred to me that liberals (or what call themselves liberals -- Democrats, progressives, whatever) just can't handle power, either having it or losing it. Either it goes to their heads when they have it and they fuck up somewhere (ibid. Clinton), or they become abso-fuckin-lutely unbearable when they suffer a political setback. When will the anti-Bush faction grow a pair and stop acting like whiny victims? "He stole our election, boohoohoo!" Give me a break. They're like the divorcée who never got over her first marriage.
*I wouldn't leave my daughter alone with him, had I a daughter. Heck, I wouldn't stay in the same room alone with him without a blunt object handy. Nor would I leave the silver unwatched. But I'm sure he's a fine person otherwise.
A blast of gas from the past
Peter Arnett is at it again. Anyone who remembers the coverage of the first Gulf War twelve years ago will feel a clammy sort of nostalgia at Arnett's current gangster-groupie act in Baghdad. Funny, he just happened to be in that city on assignment from National Geographic. How convenient. Now, either he is still miffed at the drawers he ruined during the bombardment of the city at the start of the war, or he is just a natural toadie. You make the call.
Pinups, then and now
Dang, Jane Russell was hot.
Is it just me, or did women in the forties have some sort of confidence and glamour that modern women (at least, the ones who pose scantily clad) lack? I look at a picture of Jane Russell, or even Rita Hayworth, and I get the idea that there might be a brain behind all that lipstick. I look at a contemporary "sex object," and I get the idea that she really likes walks in the rain, drinks with little umbrellas in them, and has a collection of teddy bears on her bed. But what do I know.
Born too late
Well hell, I see that I was born in the wrong era (thousands of liberals agree! Click for larger):
Okay, I'm gonna do it
I'm gonna try to skin the blog. First, I have to make skins. Ooh, I have ideas...
Stay tuned.
I get mail
I get the most bizarre people emailing me. Someone calling themselves "Nia Caine" emails this:
Hi
Your post on a movie site offended me. When you said that you were going to shoot your self because Tom Cruise was starring in the Last Samurai. What's so bad about him anyway??
Jesus H. Christ, that post is from December. Will you people get a life already? And as far as I know, no, there is nothing "wrong" with Tom Cruise -- I used something called "hyperbole" to express my displeasure at the idea of Tom Cruise playing a samurai, though as I understand it he'll be playing a Westerner who gets into the samurai thing as a plot point -- I'm sure he'll be fine in yet another Hollywood potboiler featuring his fine, white teeth. (I probably lost her at "hyperbole" -- damn teenagers.)
My new button
I've been remiss: Dave at Dave Does the Blog made me a new button, and I said "Duh -- thanks!" And I didn't put it up for anyone to acquire. D'oh! Anyway, here it is:
You should be able to see it in any browser -- it's PNG format. But if you can't see it, let me know and I'll convert it.
The fog of war news
Some of you have probably been wondering what happened to the Bloodthirsty Spleenstress. I haven't been talking about the war a lot on this blog since the conflict has begun. There are a lot of reasons why I haven't been doing so, some of them pretty obvious ones. For one thing, I am not following the coverage twenty-four seven. I'm not watching much tv at all. I don't have cable tv, so I really can't weigh in on the Fox-good/CNN-bad/Al Jazeerah-totally-evil brouhaha. For another thing, what coverage I do get, from the regular networks, just infuriates me. I didn't think anything could be more annoying than sports announcers; I was wrong. Example: a couple of days ago I turned on ABC (I think) and watched footage of an American soldier handing out some food or something to some Iraqi kids, and the war-announcer journalist guy was saying something along the lines of "the sight of Marines stopping their convoy just to give out food and water to the Iraqis might look staged--" I turned it off. I don't have to listen to that crap. I'm not as young as I used to be, and I weigh too much, and I have the feeling that my blood pressure is not as mellow as it was a few years ago.
Also, I have no military education, or knowledge of things War, or any of that. It looks like things are going just fine for our side (yes! we have a side! deal with it), despite the comical quagmire yearnings of the press. I am not particularly worried along those lines. I think Saddam is either dead or not feeling very well, and I look forward to the "Generalissimo Franco is still dead" vibe to last quite some time. Let's see -- what else can I say about it... Oh yeah -- I am certainly not going to get into arguments of whether or not we should have gone there. For one thing -- we are there. Note to the peacenuggets whose new cry is "stop this right now and come back home at once!": it's too late for that. We can't just stop in the middle of things and go "Oops! Sorry -- we've changed our minds." Your "Bring the troops home now!" slogans just look silly. (As if that were anything new.) And as to whether or not this war will turn out to have been a Good Idea After All -- well, I think it will, but who knows? We'll see. Do your own moaning about the unknown on your own time.
So if you come here looking for war discourse you won't find very much of it. You are, of course, going to the Command Post for your war updates, aren't you? And if you want expert opinions, check the blogs by clicking on "all the blogs" on the left. You'll find something. Anyway, here's a blast from the past (Scott reminded me that we haven't seen this guy around here lately):
The Darwin Squad
Photodude discusses the recent suicide bomb attacks in Iraq. The speculation is that these are not conventional Iraqi forces, but terrorists from other Arab countries who are converging on Iraq to "help" their good buddy Saddam (or his bits and pieces) fight the Great Satan. Well good, I say -- let them converge. It will be easier for us to finish them all off if they gather in one place. (Note: all links copied from Photodude's post.)
Oppressors!
A Canadian teacher of something called "media democracy" by the name of Judy Rebick has this to say about war coverage:
"The thing that I find most troubling is this kind of excitement about the bombing, you know, almost sexual excitement," she says. "I find it deeply disturbing, really morally repugnant, this thrill over the technology with no comprehension that people are dying."
My first response was, naturally, "Speak for yourself, bee-yatch." But then it occurred to me: hey! What about the right of us war footage junkies (you know I've been glued to the Doom-'n'-Gloom Cavalcade of Quagmire 24-7) to express our sexuality in any manner we please? After all, we're grownups, and we aren't hurting anybody. Sure, real people are getting booboos this time, but it could just as easily all be staged! Like in one of those movies with all the explosions that we Yanks supposedly like to yank off to also. You know what a randy bunch we are, you just can't keep our clothes on and our hands off our personal areas!
But anyway, I am feeling a little oppressed right now. Why is it okay for really ugly peacenuggets to take off their clothes and expose their sagging tits and hairy armpits to any children who might be unlucky enough to be passing by ("Mom? Can I join a monastery? Like, now?") but it's not okay for a clothed American to watch Marines giving our candy to Iraqi babies -- and then mowing them down with his machine gun, laughing all the while, as BBC journalists record the proceedings via Crucifix Cam™? (Journalists suffer for our sins, don't you know?) I say we organize a petition to protest this oppression!
(Via Damian Penny, who should not be blamed for me going off on this tangent. Heh heh -- I said "going off.")
Back door nanny
Well, this makes two times today that I have found myself disagreeing with Glenn Reynolds on the relative worth of something he linked to. Hey, it can happen.
Anyway, I'm no economic expert by a long shot, but something strikes me as just plain wrong about the conclusions reached by conservaguy Ramesh Ponnuru (based on this article in the New Republic which I haven't read), and expanded upon by one T. Crown (that's the main site for the link from Instaman -- I know this will come as a stunning shock, but it's a Blogspot site and the archives don't work, so go to the post from March 28 right below the one from 3:13 pm). The premise here is that the discovery of large oil reserves is a Bad Thing for the countries that have them, and destroys their economy, government, and culture. The idea here is that people who are invested with a sudden bounty of revenue will stop being Thrifty and Decent and True, quit working hard, sell their souls to the Eville (American! of course) company that helps them exploit this revenue, and the governments of these poor, fragile baby nations will become corrupt, blah blah.
Of course, I am simplifying the points made,* and perhaps I am missing something -- but it seems to me that all these deep thinkers are missing something too: what other factors led to these supposedly strong, healthy nations (the example of Venezuela is used) to fall apart like cheap cheese the minute they found they had large oil reserves? According to Ponnuru, John Judis, in the New Republic article, states that
the presence of large amounts of oil gives the state too many resources.
Guh. That sentence just strikes me as wrong, bad, based on mistaken premises, and the ideas behind it are way too attractive to certain "fiscal conservatives" who are yet affected by nanny state penny-pinching urges. We show the officious bureaucratic grandma who wants to make everyone wear hand-me-downs out the front door, and here comes her equally penurious sister in through the back door. What I mean by this is: I hear the sounds of "isn't that too extravagant?" coming from certain quarters when it comes to letting the individual citizenry choose how hard they want to work, how much money they want to make, and so on.
What is really unattractive is that this Scroogefest seems to be focused on countries other than the US. For example: I don't know how strongly I can emphasize the fact that it isn't really feasable at this point to cut the Saudis off at the oil pipe. How can I be more blunt: they have nothing else worth selling, and their economy would collapse.
Two: we here in the U.S. have more resources than anybody, with the possible exception of oil (I don't know how much of that we have left, in relation to the Middle East's supply, yadda yadda). I don't hear any of these great minds complaining about the effect on the American economy and government of all our bounty of resources.
Anyway, I stress that I don't really understand the economic factors involved, but something really strikes me as wrong about the idea that a country can have "too many resources" without taking into account all sorts of other factors, like political cohesion, the influence of various strains of Marxism and other religious beliefs on the culture and political system of the countries in question, and so on.
*Update: bolds added for the benefit of those people who helpfully pointed out that I am "oversimplifying" -- something I already admitted to.
Eye relief
Oh by the way, I've mocked up a print-friendly page for you fancy-design-hating folk. It's just the main page; archives and individual links are still colored whatever I fancy. I hope one day to set up a more sohpisticated system of print-only pages using CSS and all that fancy jazz, but for now this will have to do.
Clouseau!
Speaking of Robert the Fisk, now he's playing detective. Tim Blair requests that anyone who knows anything about serial numbers on bombs, or whatever it is that Fisk is raving about, email him (Blair, not Fisk). I'm just passing this on.
By the way, how is Fisky getting all this juicy info out of Baghdad? What nice in does he have there that he doesn't get thrown out or detained by the authorities there? No, don't bother answering that. We know that he chose sides ages ago. He'll probably be quite willing to chain himself to one of the place's ubiquitous "baby milk factories." Hm, the thought of Robert Fisk being turned into Fisklets by an American missile is not an unpleasing one...
Google this
Why is it that I can never find the image that I saw on the internet last week but didn't copy then? I knew I'd need it. But now I can't find it.
Darkness at noon
These, my friends, my darling souls
They are, they are the frozen ones...*
Then again, it could be even worse. I could have someone like this oxygen-wasting asscake to look forward to seeing behind the lectern two or three times a week. Imagine going to class knowing that your professor thinks you should die because you are a citizen of the country that has given him a home. Or perhaps even birthed him -- I have no idea where this De Genova character comes from -- Mordor? Uranus? Mongo? -- nor do I care. His eventual destination is the one that waits for us all so that is some comfort.
I forgot: excellent commentary on Professor Asscake by Diane at Letter from Gotham, Cato the Youngest, and Dipnut. These aren't the only ones who have had their say about Mr. "One Million Mogadishus," just the ones I liked the best so far.
*There's nuthin' like defunct goth bands as a soundtrack for one's pretentious musings.
Washed up
I guess you've all figured out that I redesign my site whenever I'm feeling uninspired and have no idea what to write and am generally in a pathetic state, the kind that makes people look at me and shake their heads impatiently and tell me I should get a life. Wait a minute -- you had no idea? Well -- some kind of friend you are! And who are you anyway? Get out of my head now!
Um -- anyway, I had this idea that I was going to post about, this really Big, Important post on Life, the War, and Everything, and it was going to make all the peacenuggets stop and think about how silly they have been acting, and I was going to have a million dollars in gold coins rain down on me. I had even assembled the books with the snappy quotes to use to bolster my opinion, or at least to burnish my own writing and make me look like the real clever kind of gal who always has a quip ready with which to devastate her opponents.
But I kept putting it off. And then I read that Mark Morford wrote that "the whales know" that War is Not the Answer, or something (I admit I didn't read his latest column, just the excerpt here), and I thought, "What's the use?" I can't even pump out a paper for class on time, and this guy shits out a random collection of words -- or things resembling words, anyway -- every week, and he gets published and paid for it. And Robert Fisk is still treated like a respectable journalist instead of a brass-plated hack, and I am terrified of signing up for a new semester at the university I am going to because I am afraid I'll get someone like the SUNY Buffalo refugee* who moaned about the lack of "student activists and protestors" during a We-Luv-Each-Other-Mmmkay? "open forum" they held at UCF a month after the World Trade Center attack, and I'm afraid that I'll throw a chair at his head if he emits some idiotic antiwar trope, and there will go my chances of ever finishing up getting my freaking bachelor's degree.
*That link is to an entry in my old Livejournal. I like to think that my writing style is improved since then. I was also mistaken about Israel's nuclear capabilities; it is certainly more impressive than Saudi Arabia's, as is the Israelis' fortitude -- if I was in charge in that country, the rest of the peninsula would be a nice, shiny sheet of glass.
March 29, 2003
Did I type that?
Oh, now I feel bad. I said something mean about a fellow blogger who has done me no harm. Oh wait -- that's not what I meant. I feel great. I'll have to remember to do that more often.
So much for that PhD in Blogging
Glenn Reynolds says, of this list, Seven Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers,
You kind of want to make fun of a series like this, but it's actually good.
Uh. I went there, to the actual site with the instructions, or suggestions, or list, or whatever the hell it is (it's a blog, actually, on Blogspot, so have fun waiting for it to load! Go make a roast or resurface your driveway or something while you wait), and I first saw the word "Synergize." Shaking off the effects of encountering that word unprepared, I scrolled down a bit, and came upon the use of the termlet "Win/Win" used in a non-ironic context, and my brain locked up. I had to click back before I started drooling and twitching. So I guess I won't be making fun of it. I guess I won't be reading it at all. So there goes my chance of being Highly Effective, dare I say Proactive, and becoming a Force for Change in the World...
Aieee! The mind rays! They've broken thr--
Stories for boys
Robert Fisk has always been a jerk. I'm sure that comes as no surprise to you. Read and see. (I have no doubt that this story is true; I can't imagine anyone going to all that trouble to make up an elaborate lie to make this pathetic excuse for a journalist appear even more idiotic -- because that isn't possible.)
Via the Country Store.
Another one has been assimilated
Heh heh... another blogger has escaped the evil confines of Blogspot and found a new home in the safe arms of Movable Type: it's Pejman. Come, join the collective... you cannot resist...
Not a hobbit
For some reason the thought of Ari Fleischer kicking back at night to watch Fellowship of the Ring is hilarious.
Opiate of the rich and famous
Julie Burchill goes after the peacenuggets with great gusto. So many good quotes:
Surely this is the most self-obsessed anti-war protest ever. NOT IN MY NAME! That's the giveaway. Who gives a stuff about their wet, white, western names?
And:
On one hand the selflessness and internationalism of the soldiers; on the other the Whites-First isolationism of the protesters.
And:
NOT IN MY NAME! is western imperialism of the sneakiest sort, putting our clean hands before the freedom of an enslaved people.
What can I say? In MY name I say "Thank you, Ms. Burchill, for saying what I have been struggling for words to express." (Via Tim Blair.)
Artistic or Autistic?
Yes, I'm fooling around with the blog, thanks for asking. [Gee, you, uh, sound a little bad tempered there, um... well -- carry on!]
I can't get things quite right here. I've had one complaint about the orangey, but I was tired of white. I hope I have picked a light enough color to read against. I kind of like the color scheme, but I am still tweaking the layout. The new title graphic was made with the Gimp for Windows. That program is still a little buggy, but I'm too lazy to re-install my copy of Photoshop, which is out of date anyway. I'll get around to it... I need it to make gifs -- the guys who make the Gimp are all "you need to get the gif license first." Feh.
March 28, 2003
Make your own kaleidescope
Rodger Schultz sent a link to this neat web toy. (Needs Flash, and probably a rather high-powered computer.)
End hiatus
Well, that was absolutely unrefreshing. Not to mention my cat decided that the human lying down and turning off the light was the signal for her to rattle the window shutter all night. Can you say "no sleep until 5am?" I knew you could.
And yes, I am working on a site redesign. Yes also I am working on a novel, but that has been the situation since I was about fourteen, so it's not really worth mentioning. Also, I am going to have to ask my instructor for an incomplete, I am thinking of changing my minor or maybe dropping the idea of getting a minor altogether, and I don't even want to think about next semester.
PS: yes, that image in the previous post is supposed to be a spoiler image for Return of the King. The house I would prefer to live in would like Bag End on the inside, but would have Rivendell on the outside. You know that that scene with Aragorn and Arwen in The Two Towers is my future bedroom, my future balcony, and my future back yard, right?
March 27, 2003
The Ignorati
Then again, there are Americans like the wife of Senator Max Baucus (D-Toontown) one Wanda Baucus (do these two have great names for characters on Dexter's Laboratory, or what?) who has the following opinion on Saddam Hussein:
"I think he is very proud of the history of his country. I think it's we Americans who don't know the facts about what anthropologists call 'the cradle of civilization.' When we watch the bombing on television, we really don't seem to understand or appreciate that some of these places are sacred. . . . I disagree with those who say that Saddam Hussein doesn't think about this. He cares about these places and their people."
Uh huh. I love the official senatorial reponse to this latest entry into the Mary Lincoln Bughouse of Fame:
The senator declined to speak to us yesterday, but his chief of staff said in a statement: "Max and Wanda know they can agree to disagree. They respect each other's opinions and engage frequently in thoughtful discussions about any number of topics. And they learn from each other, which makes their marriage stronger. Max's number one priority is doing what's right for Montana and America. He strongly supports the troops and is praying for a quick end to the conflict in Iraq."
Translation: "The doctors told us that it would take at least two to three weeks for the new medication to take effect. In the meantime, Mrs. Baucus has been put in a home."
(Via Matt.)
Snowblowjob
Cheese-us, I was gonna drop the Michael Moore stuff, but the lies keep on coming: now he claims that the booing was other people booing the original booers:
and then the people supporting what I was saying started booing them, and then it just turned into a (unintelligible) of people fighting with each other in the audience.
As my late stepmother used to say, "Bullllll-sheeyit!" Then there's Jim Treacher's take on one website's whitewashing ("It wuz the stagehands that did it, Maw! It warn't me!"):
A handful of stagehands drowned him out, that's pretty good. But why stop there? The real truth that the facist corporate-owned media is afraid to tell us is that the whole crowd was really cheering the whole time. Yeah! When Moore had the guts to speak out against "the fictition of duct tape," the crowd leapt to its feet! Ben Affleck clapped so hard he shattered his right ulna, Salma Hayek began ululating and manifesting the wounds of Christ, and several other major Hollywood stars were seen collapsing in a fit of near-Pentecostal ecstasy. But then those Oscar Nazis plugged in some canned booing, and replaced the footage of Moore's standing O with earlier shots of Harrison Ford sitting on his hands and Adrien Brody looking contemplative and achingly soulful during the award for Best Key Grip.
Why? So the Red states won't stop going to the movies.
Cowards! Why is the media afraid of the TRUTH?!?
Jim Treacher is my guru.
(CNN transcript link via Blog of Xanadu.)
March 26, 2003
Fear of maps
A remark by Colby Cosh in this entry ("the famously geography-shy American public") reminded me of something that has bothered me for years: the idea that Americans have some sort of cultural block against knowing how to find out where other countries are on the map, and other evidence of xenophobia. It occurs to me that this is a meaningless slam that is based, apparently, on 1) childrens' geography test results -- I'll leave aside the reliability of a method of measuring cultural knowledge of an entire society based on how much its children know about things -- and 2) man-in-the-street interviews -- we know that interviewers, especially for television news outlets, never pick the most comically dumb people for their filler segments. [SARCASM OFF]
Anyway, to say Americans, who have provided the world with satellite imagery of the globe and Mapquest.com, where the travel section of most large chain bookstores have map sections bigger than the travel book sections (and where yes, you can get maps of other countries beside the fifty states), are congenitally afraid of geography is to show just how powerful the meme of "stupid Americans" is. Well, you all just keep telling yourself that. We might not have cared where Iraq was in relation to Illinois last year, but I can bet you even the common American man on the street knows where it is now.
Update: Colby Cosh replies! I have one question though, at the risk of sounding dumb -- what's "geographical imagination?" Also -- yeah, the editors and such went to university, where no doubt they had to "suffer" through at least one geography class -- or maybe not, it's not always a required course these days.
Now I am ready to concede that there is a "Geography sux" theme that runs through much American humor. But humor isn't always a perfect mirror to reality. And that's more of a subset of the School Sux humor genre, which is just a subset of the Hard, Boring Work Sux humor genre. And what's wrong with the example of Mapquest? I admit I just pulled that out of... the air, as I was trying to think of examples of the American map industry to show that people here not only have no problem with utilizing maps to get where they want to go, but that we have invented useful tools for doing so. (Of course Mapquest is just an online version of a fold-out roadmap, but it saves us a trip to the gas station.)
Anyway, I don't think that the reason the news media puts up lousy maps has to do with their fear that a detailed map will scare away viewers. I think it just has to do with the time factor, and the fact that to the professional media this fancy graphics stuff is still considered secondary to the talking heads and the live reporting. As for the lack of complaints about this, I can tell Mr. Cosh that his is not the first complaint I have come across. Mommabear, on On The Third Hand, rejoiced when she found a decent map; in fact, StrategyPage seems to be the map site of choice.
(P.S.: I didn't factor in the attitude of Canadians towards Americans re geometry -- I was following the time-hallowed tradition of ignoring general Canadian attitudes towards anything, and what do they need to know geography for anyway, there's nothing to look at up there but ice and snow and elk. Two! Two snarks in one! Oh, I'm going to hell.)
Too Much Information
I think this is supposed to be some sort of anti-American diatribe, but like most of these frothing incompetents, Mr. David Aaronovitch ends up unwittingly making the target of his ire look good. Behold:
Now, among nations, there is only America to fear, and it has never been difficult to get Britons to feel antagonistic towards the Yanks. There is, lurking, some kind of folk/race memory of the time when GIs came courting our girl-friends with nylons and oral sex, neither of which our boys could offer.
(Bolds mine.) Oh dear. I'm sorry to hear that, pre-World-War-Two British oldsters. I certainly hope that you have made up for your youthful deprivation... Anyway, Aaronovitch goes on to say that Americans are "pushy, insensitive, rapacious, successful and rich," and that everyone on the Sceptered Isle is pathetically obsessed with us. You know, I'm not sure he wanted to make his countrymen look like neurotic, sexually-inadequate, envious cowards. Then again, like many of these lefty Brits, he seems to think that humanity is a mirror.
(Via Give War A Chance:.)
Suspicious!
Say, I seriously think this photo has been doctored. But what do I know, I'm no expert.
The softer side of Rummy
That Rumsfeld certainly is a multi-talented man. When he isn't smiting his enemies, beating up reporters, and otherwise keeping our country's morale on the steady, he's helping America keep it up in other areas.
(Via Pejman.)
Interlude
Ah. That felt better.
I still want some of you to go play in traffic though. Don't piss me off. This has been a public service announcement.
An Announcement
Hey people. Here's a new rule: you will not get into circular arguments on my blog, with me or with anyone else. I will simply turn off comments to that post, and if you try to take the arguments to another post, I will ban your IP.
Also, you do NOT take it upon yourselves to tell me that I am not seeing what I am seeing, or reading what I am reading, or whatever, merely because YOU have interpreted that thing differently, or have some sort of expertise in some related field. Unless you are the actual photographer, writer, whatever, of the thing in question, all you have is an opinion, just like me. You repeating your opinion over and over will only irritate me.
This is MY GODDAMN BLOG MY GODDAMN WEBSPACE I PAY FOR IT. You don't. There is a reason I took down my Paypal account. I did not want to be beholden to anyone -- I do not provide this blog as a service to anyone but ME. This is a place for me to post my own opinions and thoughts. I don't mind the comments, as long as you don't stroll into my personal space as though you owned the place. Here is a place where you can get your own personal space and fulminate and show off. This is MINE.
No, I am not in a very good mood at all, thanks for asking.
Comment weirdos
I think this war stuff is causing some people to blow their head gaskets. How else to account fot the non-sequitorish comments I am finding on five-month old posts in my defunct blog, like this one, where someone calling themselves "Celia" left the following totally-unrelated-to-the-subject (a brief statement of irritation at my cable provider) comment:
The flyer in my Time Warner cable bill has a contest for "San Diego's 50 best Moms" -- and they show a woman in pink, frying bacon and eggs. What year is it? Bastards.
Look, freaks -- and I mean that most kindly -- if you have a sudden thought, and have the urge to record it for posterity, the thing to do is to write it on a napkin, in your notepad, in MS Word, or ON YOUR OWN GODDAMN BLOG. Not in the comment section of an old post on someone else's website.
What the hell is next, grocery lists, people's phone numbers? Why don't you use my web space as a trashdump for something useful, like your bank account pin numbers? Thanks so much.
Update: though to be fair to Celia, maybe she thought I was upset at the content of my cable flyer too. I wouldn't know, though -- I throw everything from TWC in the garbage, including the bills.
Immoral equivalence
You know, I'm not even shocked anymore. H. D. Miller at Travelling Shoes links to this -- thing by one James Carroll of the Boston Globe. I'm not even going to post a quote -- go read it for yourselves. (Have antacids handy.) Basically, from his perch on high Mr. Carroll sees no difference between the precision bombardment of certain government structures in Baghdad, after ample announcement to a "leader" who basically laughed off our promises, and the unprovoked attack on office workers by terrorists. Where was it Dante envisioned the "neutrals" roasting?
March 25, 2003
Badly-Drawn Boys
This photo on iraqwar.ru, supposedly of a downed Apache helicopter, is so obviously and ineptly Photoshopped. Looks like the Russkies have even lost their touch at convincing disinformation. (Yes, the Russians are being such pills I'm gonna start using old Cold War slang, just because.)
(Via The Command Post.)
I turn on the tv
CBS. Guess what: urban warfare is eminent! And... there will be casualties! (So, um, what were those other things? Freak accidents?) Oh, and sandstorms are bad. No shizzitsky, Clouseau.
NBC: they're talking to relatives of soldiers. There was no on-camera blubbering. One man is asked about the POWs and how it makes him feel and stuff. (One of the POWs has family here.) He says something about how it made one even angrier and more determined to fight. Oops, Iraqi thugs and/or Al Qaeda guys or whoever you are, I guess you didn't count on that.
The mummy speaks
Ancient raisin of the Left Eugene McCarthy is apparently still alive, or at least he is moving about in an almost lifelike manner. Of course, he has Important Views on stuff. Here is a sample:
McCarthy, renowned for speaking his mind and dishing out quips, blamed President Bush for using religion to wage his war. "This is a faith-based war," McCarthy said. "The worst thing is faith-based religion."
Those words were cut 'n' pasted and served up to you with no added byproducts or preservatives, just a touch of emphasis on our favorite sentence. We provide only the freshest examples of idiocy here at Spleenville.
(Via Daimnation!.)
Lord of the Rings people gossip
Here's an interesting interview with Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, on the need for the government of New Zealand to start offering tax breaks if they really want to boost the film industry in that country. He's quite sensible on this matter -- his films were the only ones allowed to take advantage of a tax loophole that the government promptly closed. But apparently the government is inhabited by wacky Green Socialists of some sort to whom the words "tax incentive" are like garlic to vampires, so I don't hold out much hope for his scheme. (You can also get a realvideo of the interview here -- I recommend doing a "save target as" and downloading it to your own hard drive. The video also has him talking about the reasons he didn't go to the Oscars -- 1) he was busy finishing up ROTK, 2) he just didn't think it was appropriate at this time, no security worries or antiwar shizzle, just he thought partying at this time inappropriate. Personally, I think the thought of flying twenty hours just to go to the Oscar hullabaloo struck him as being about as much fun as going to the dentist. He did call the LOTR-themed Oscar party some fans threw in L.A. instead.)
Via NZPundit.
Tim Robbins, humanitarian
From the Washington Post:
As for Robbins, we said hello to him in a crush of partygoers that included his life partner, Susan Sarandon (both of them had displayed their deep commitment to nonviolence by holding up the two-fingered sign of peace at the Academy Awards). Robbins flashed a smile and jovially shook our hand -- Bob Roberts at a campaign stop. But when we mentioned that we'd had the pleasure of talking recently with 79-year-old Lenora Tomalin -- conservative Republican, George W. Bush supporter and wry observer of her daughter Sarandon -- his expression turned cold.
"Wait. You're the one who wrote about Susan's mother?"
Robbins narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips -- the secretly murderous neighbor in "Arlington Road."
"You wanted to be divisive and you caused trouble in my family," he went on -- the unjustly imprisoned banker in "The Shawshank Redemption." He added that it was especially low to have quoted Tomalin's speculation that he and Sarandon had politically "brainwashed" her grandson Jack Henry.
"At least you got Jeb Bush to call her -- that was great," Robbins spat -- the bitterly cynical studio executive in "The Player." He moved within inches and said into our ear: "If you ever write about my family again, I will [bleeping] find you and I will [bleeping] hurt you."
Tim Robbins playing Tim Robbins at the Oscars.
I also read about this incident on Boycott Hollywood. Say, isn't threatening people with bodily harm kind of against the law or something? Oh well, I'm sure Mr. Robbins didn't mean it. He was probably just having a little fun with the reporter, you know how those Hollywood types are, always with the joshing and the hijinks!
Update: looks like Robbins can dish it out but he can't take it. All that reporter needs to do is challenge the actor to a hockey face off. Then we'll see who's the tough guy. Via alert reader Kerry.
March 24, 2003
Oh yeah...
Michael Moore is a lying ratbag motherfelcher. Here's an mp3 of the Oscar segment where he was booed. The boos are clearly more than "five." And he tries to claim he got his friends to do the boos? To show "diversity of opinion"? Lying sack of donkey vomit.
(The mp3 was made by Bobby Allison Gallimore. There are also links to various videos, of Moore's after-Oscar speech, and the segment itself, and so on, available in the comments. I haven't visited the sites because I don't want to see his overfed mug or hear his pustulent lies right now.)
Another thing on Michael Moore
(Just so you're warned. Heh heh -- I'm not obsessed, I just thought of one more thing I wanted to share with you all. Really!)
Anyway, one more thing that I just thought about that makes me despise Moore even more. You know the way he dragged all the other documentary filmmakers up on stage with him, ostensibly to show that he was "no better than them, we're all winners!" but really to show how magnanimous he was, sharing his mana with the lesser beings in approved alpha male style. So they all had to go up there, because not to would have made them look like sore losers. And then when he started his diatribe, at least a couple of them looked kind of like they didn't want to be up there, and one guy even shifted back a little -- but none of them could leave, because that would have made the Hollywood shark pond think they were disagreeing with Moore and therefore automatically agreeing with the "other side" (you know, all those evil conservatives and Bush supporters and Middle Americans and all the stagehands and workers that these celebrities are always acting like they care about but in reality treat like dirt). So the other filmmakers, whose documentaries will disappear into the dusty obsolete film can where documentaries that lose Oscars go, were forced to stand there and look as if they were supporting him. The reality-manipulating, blatant, propagandistic bastard.
Of course, I could be wrong about this. Maybe all the doc guys got together and planned to do the all-on-stage thing and give Moore his platform anyway no matter who won. But really, did we think that anyone other than Moore would win this year?
In a related note, Mean Mr. Mustard proposes a petition drive to have Moore's Oscar rescinded, on account of as how he won the thing for "Best Documentary," and documentaries are supposed to be non-fiction, and all that.
Persuasion
More Moore-slaps, this time from James Poniewozik in TIME. His basic premise is "you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." In other words, if the self-styled liberal intelligensia wants to get people on their side, they should stop treating them the way Michael Moore does:
The remainder of the speech was no improvement. There was the general hectoring and finger-wagging — and I don't mean finger-wagging figuratively; the man literally thrust his finger at the camera. A man with Moore's sense of history has no excuse not to realize that makes him look like a crackpot dictator shouting a harangue from the balcony.
Why is this bad? Because:
More people in America identify as conservative than liberal, like it or not. So lefties who want to accomplish anything outside Santa Monica and Manhattan need moderate support even more than their righty analogues do
The problem is, many of these people don't want to coax "conservative Americans" onto their side. They have based their entire career on being against what they see as stuffy, puritanical, no-fun Middle America; in other words, their parents. They are stuck in "rebel without a cause" mode. They have taken that line in The Wild One ( Girl: "What're you rebelling against, Johnny?" Johnny: "Whaddya got?") as their central ideology, even though in their professional and personal lives they are as hidebound to their own traditions as a deacon of the First Lutheran Church of Des Moines is to his.
One of their traditions is to look upon people outside the entertainment industry -- and in this country politicians are not necessarily outside the entertainment industry -- as an easily-led, unintelligent bovine mass. The relationship of entertainers to the audience is necessarily partly antagonistic -- after all, these are the people who must be persuaded to part with their hard-earned money to view the fruits of all that expensive location shooting and studio time. But since most entertainers are also unstable and have massive egos, this seems to translate all too easily into a paranoid view of the audience, especially the middle-class, suburban portion of it, as being a stand-in for every parental admonishment, unfavorable review, directorial berating, and that little inner critic that everyone has that tells you "you suck." So to many activist entertainers, the idea of actually treating an audience member like an equal and trying a little sweet persuasion doesn't even occur to them.
(Via Jim Treacher again.)
Fametracker reviews the Oscars
Yes, I know, the Oscars are over, and now you feel... empty. But never fear, I'm here to keep banging the drum -- not of war, war gets "drums" plural, the slut -- but of the endless Oscar rehash! Why? Because there is Michael Moore bashing to be had, and I just can't get enough of it. I've had some MM fans attempt to defend their hero, and they tasted great! I've developed quite an appetite for them. Thanks to Fametracker, we have this tidbit to enjoy:
"Hi, I'm Michael Moore. It's a good thing you gave me an award for Best Documentary Feature and recognized the one thing I do better than anyone else: championing popular causes in such a way that even those people who agree with me fundamentally despise me for acting as their public spokesman. But I don't care! 'Sense of occasion'? What's that? 'Speaking persuasively and making cogent arguments instead of screeching slogans'? I've never tried that before -- why start now? No, I feel that the best way to get my message across -- my rather popular message, which is that war is bad -- is by bloviating semi-coherently and screaming over the boos and basically acting like a would-be bad-ass high-school senior trying to rile up the class with some confused crap in opposition to 'The Man,' filibustering as long as I can until the principal hauls me offstage to detention. So the more you boo me, the more my inner high-school senior -- the part of me that has cobbled together a simplistic political attitude from chants I've heard at protests and the table of contents of The Nation -- the more convinced I am that I, and only I, am right. So, now that you've given me this award, financing my next documentary will be a cinch. I think I'll make my next movie about how America is, like, bad."
[Have we taken Baghdad yet and started building Walmarts and Starbucks there? We haven't? Aaghh! We've lost! Run! It's a quagmire!]
Oops! I forgot to say: link via Jim Treacher, who keeps tabs on great sites like Fametracker for us. Above and beyond, man, above and beyond.
So what is he?
Dipnut has a question about Michael Moore. You know, it's something I've been wondering too.
Hmm... shit balloon, mutated cow... shit balloon, mutated cow.... He's right -- it is a quandary!
Susanna is cool
She has made a button you can use to link to Chris Muir's very funny "Day By Day" comic. Look over to the right menu in the category "Worthy Causes and Sites." (Please right-click and copy the image to your own hard drive and then upload it to your server; don't link to it from mine or Susanna's. I will hunt you down and feed you to the wolverines if you do not follow my advice. My wolverines are hungry.)
Tasteless funny break
This is the sort of thing my friends send me. (Needs Shockwave.)
Anti-everything
It occurred to me some time ago, after reading various anti-warrior commentary, that there is a reason that they will never provide a coherent and rational solution to the problem of how to combat terrorism, terrorist-sponsoring states, and so on: these people have no solutions. They're like the annoying people in your work lunch group, who keep rejecting all your restaurant choices ("Taco Bell gives me the runs," "Jack-in-the-Box is too greasy and I'm afraid of dying from food poisoning," "I don't eat Chinese/Italian/Mexican/Thai food") but when you ask them where they want to eat they say, "Oh, I don't know -- you pick something!" And then the round of rejection starts all over again, until lunch hour is almost over and you only have time to grab a bag of chips from the office vending machine.
Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged contains a moment that is apropos to this situation. Her exasperated heroine has been frustrated in her attempts to deal with the incompetents who are thwarting her every plan to fix her ailing railroad business. Their influence is entirely negative, consisting of destruction of anything that actually works. She finally asks one of them (I forget which -- I am not going to hunt through the whole book to find it) what they want her to do. Of course they have no plan: "You'll think of something!" is the reply. Without going into her philosophy, Rand makes it clear that she finds that to be one of the most horrifying phrases in the English language.
These anti-war people, if you ask them, are ready to claim that they want to "help" the Iraqi people and that they don't approve of terrorism, and so on, but when you ask them what they want to do about it that won't somehow end up with someone getting hurt, their only idea is to "get someone else to do something about it." Just don't ask who that "someone" has to be -- they have no answer to that.
(Part of this post was originally a comment to the post linked above.)
Sean Astin
Here's a little Oscar tidbit that might help break down the lingering Moore-stench:
Sean Astin appeared on Joan and Melissa Rivers' miniature red carpet to send a message out to our troops in Iraq, via television. In short, he said that since the beginning of the war he got down on bended knee to pray for them, and that he's still praying for them and for a victory, and that he hopes for their safe return.
Go, Sam.
Final Oscar observations
Just a final note before I force myself to go to bed: in light of the capture and possible execution of some American soldiers by Iraqi forces, I find Mr. Michael Moore's Oscar remarks especially disgusting and inappropriate. That, coupled with his deliberately unattractive appearance and unpleasantly boorish manner, might also have been the impetus behind the booing he received at tonight's ceremony. I certainly hope so.
On the whole, I was actually pleased more often than not at the restraint most of the actors and other Hollywood types showed. Perhaps they were only restrained out of fear for their careers, but it was welcome nonetheless. Susan Sarandon looked as if she had been sucking on a lemon all night, but wasn't half the bitch she could have been. The foreign guys who said stuff about peace seemed more sad and confused than angry, and that made them kind of endearing.
On the whole, though, the Oscars remind me of the annual Christmas party the mortgage company I used to work for back in Miami would throw every year. The family that owned the business was wealthy and they always gave their employees a nice extravaganza in one of the fancy motels on Miami Beach (though they were stingy about the bar; we usually only got two or three free drink tickets). They would have little ceremonies where the they'd pick the Employee of the Year, things like that, have a Christmas raffle, and so one. Everyone dressed in their best, there were talent shows put on by different departments, dancing, speeches by the bosses and the owner of the company and so on.
The Oscars are just an annual party for the employees of the big Hollywood entertainment industry. There is actually very little glamour in working in the movies; it's all about money and deals. The only people who get really excited about the pearls of wisdom dropping from the lips of the "stars" are the undereducated peasants in the media.
Best Writer-Smackdown Ever
Mr. Helpful has some helpful words for Stephen King, after sitting through the new movie based on one of his stories, Dreamcatcher. Sample:
1. The crippled/shunned/outcast/socially unacceptable/retard character who actually possesses numerous redeeming traits and ends up being the savior of us all. A lot of times, King makes this character a child and whenever I see this idiotic plot device, I immediately think of that scene in the Cohen brothers marvelous Barton Fink where the assistant to a "great" writer describes the routine plot machinations as involving a "waif" or a "helpless female" or an "orphan" or sometimes all three. King obviously has great empathy for the less fortunate amongst us but let me just say to him one of the great truths of life which is "so what, you fucking egomaniac??!!"
Stellar.
Why am I doing this?
You want to know the real reason? No, it's not because I want to hear that bit from "All That Jazz" ten thousand times. It's not even to see actors attempt to enunciate coherent political views (and melt down pitifully). It's so I won't have to work on this paper that is due in class tomorrow. I have to read two Annie Dillard essays. One is about weasels (the animal, not the French). I just can't do it.
Looks like I'm going to pull another all-nighter. I wonder if there are going to be a lot of "I got sick over Spring Break" absences.
March 23, 2003
And then back to La la Land
Must... not... give in... to urge... to make fun of Pedro Almodovar's hilarious Espanish accent.
Because, you know, that would be wrong.
"Epa epa! Andale! Legalité!"
Meanwhile back at the war
Hey, Turks.
Back the fuck up.
Thank you.
Oscarzzzz Pt. 6897
I don't get this montage of Oscar winners just sitting there and applauding themselves. Talk about boring filler.
Dustin Hoffman looks like his best friend just died. What's up with that?
Jeez, I thought half these actors were dead. Maybe it's a "we're not dead yet, Hollywood!" thing. I dunno.
I still haven't gotten over how grizzled and old Chris Connelly looks. What's next, Kurt Loder is fat and bald?
Olivia De Havilland wins "best gown" if you ask me. Nice blue color, tasteful without making her look like she's ready for her own funeral. I can't believe I'm talking about the gowns. Somebody shoot me.
Speechlessless
Jeez, they let Adrian Brody go on and on. All I can think of is "he looks just like Emo Philips." (Who is still around.) Oh well, he said a nice thing about his friend who's in the troops in Iraq.
Did Dustin Hoffman just say artists can "correct the future"? My head. Hurts.
Uh oh, Babs is speaking. She. Is. Enunciating. Every. Word. Carefully. So we numbskull "little people" can get it, I guess.
Update: Eminem beat out U2? That's... weird.
Michael Moore's acceptance speech
Click to enlarge (har!):
U2
That was a nice performance by U2. Nice song. At least it wasn't "All That Jazz." Colin Farrell has a nice Irish accent. Bored now.
That's what we needed to do!
We needed to give Saddam Hussein an Oscar! Hasn't he done some of those "Great Leader my people worship me" propaganda things? Heck, an Oscar for "Best Performance As a Bloodthirsty Tyrant" would have been just the thing to let Saddam know the world loved him and only wanted what was best for him. Why, we'd have had Peace in Our Time in no time! (How pathetic was that, Michael Davis saying winning an Oscar gave him a "sense of my identity"?)
The joke's on the fat man
Good one Stevo! "...It's so sweet backstage." (Laughter.) "Right now the teamsters are helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo." (Gales of laughter, clapping, Sean Astin (Sam) among them.)
News break
I. HATE. PETER. JENNINGS. WITH. EVERY. LAST. BREATH. IN. MY. BODY.
I hate him almost as much as Kevin Parrott hates the song "All That Jazz."
The way that some people say "the war with Iraq" sounds like they are saying "war with a rack." Maybe that woman's from that Fat Greek thing's rack.
The actors in the audience look like they are bored out of their skulls. I get the feeling Denzel Washington is taping CNN back home. I don't know why.
Well. Let's see if Michael Moore wins a golden doorstopper.
Ah. I see that Hollywood still fears the fat man. I wonder how many Oscar committee members Michael Moore threatened to sit on.
For chrissake, couldn't he shave?
Oh my, they are booing Michael Moore's anti-Bush speech. Some of them, anyway. Some of them look happy for the diversion. "Man, I was about to fall asleep when Moore's B.O. wafted this way." Come on, an actor could say "wafted."
We love you to peaces
Poor sad little foreign guy (whoever he was -- missed the name). He's so cute, I just wanna ruffle his hair and give him a lolly.
I'm going to stab myself with a fork
The only thing interesting about the Oscars is the clips of the movies. I am so going out tomorrow and watching The Two Towers again.
So that's how they're doing it
An ABC anchorlady came on just now and said "What the stars said about the war; we'll show you after the Oscars!"
And I really, really want to smack Peter Jennings good and hard. With a nail-studded cluebat. "Far away from the cameras." You putz.
Weird fashions of the night
Is that green sack J. Lo is wearing her version of a burkha? (Hey, for her, she's dressed modestly.)
Oscarzzzz
I've got the Oscars on, but it's particularly dull this year. I don't think we're going to get any ghoulish thrills like Halle Berry's Bilbo Baggins imitation of last year.
The post that wouldn't die
Blame it on Oscar... this post, from February 13th, has continued to attract fulminators of every stripe. Here's the latest entry, which contains those well-worn arguments that we have grown to know and love. I don't even have the heart to fisk it -- actually, I'm kind of tired. Enjoy, from Meghan:
Let's just start with you Donna, poor, poor deluded Donna.
(She's responding to the previous commenter on that post.)
"You would not have the right to say what you think in any other country..."
In fact, people all over Europe have the right to say what they think. And their leaders listened to them. It's this funny little thing called Democracy. You know, that thing we're supposedly bringing to the Middle East. You've heard of it, it's that thing of which fundamentalist Muslims are supposedly jealous?
Any of you knuckleheads ever hear of a guy called McCarthy?
Any of you hypocrites ever hear of a guy called Jesus? He was certainly anti-war. And don't throw out that "eye for eye" crap. That was in the old Testament and specifically repudiated by Jesus.
ANYWAY. Neither Osama nor Saddam would have any fucking power if it weren't for Bush Sr., Rumsfeld and Cheney.
And, let's not forget my propagandized compatriots. (Oh, wait, that's right. Only ignorant denizens of the third world are vulnerable to propaganda, not desperate, poor people in Middle America.) The French lost more soldiers in World War I than America has lost in ALL ITS WARS COMBINED. Perhaps they have a better sense of what war does, as opposed to Americans, for whom war is something you watch on TV and cheer for like a sporting event? And, while Hitler was taking over Europe, after he had already killed hundreds of thousands of Jews, America was carrying on normal diplomatic relations with him. In fact, the Bush family continued to conduct buisiness with Nazis even after we entered the War in 1941.
And as far as movies are concerned, the movie industry already waters down any thoughtful or remotely "offensive" movie for you people. What more do you want? How bout the kind of movies that were made with ths approval of the Chinese or Soviet governments (to the exclusion of anything not in line with government directives), only ours are all pro-Bush? Pro-Life? Pro-Creationism? That'd be a great way to celebrate the freedom we, nominally, enjoy in this country.
I'd like to make this perfectly clear
In case any of you were wondering, I'm with Mr. Kim du Toit:
Isolationist? Not me. I believe we should act as the world's Raid, exterminating cockroaches like Saddam Hussein wherever they appear.
You don't like it? Tough shit. The "world community" can talk to the hand. The "world community" is content to let people in Thug World countries suffer so creamy-voiced academics can make speeches and write papers. All the "world community" cares about is looking good. Screw the "world community."
And in case you still aren't sure, this illustrates what I care about what the "world community" thinks:
So please take your whinges about the "world community" and how we have to treat thug nations the same as civilized, law-abiding nations to someone else's blog. You'll find plenty here.
American POWs executed in Iraq?
If this story is true, so much for the vaunted powers of the Geneva Conventions. I have gotten into some arguments recently with some antiwar persons who seem to think that the mere invocation of the name of those documents has the power to turn swords into plowshares and ruthless dictators into cuddly lambs. This would seem to be an indication that those powers don't work outside the confines of the nations that put those documents together.
(Via American Empire, who has links to more stories.)
Update: Kos weighs in. Apparently our "conduct" in Afghanistan, where we freed that nation from the grip of the Taliban, so that millions of Afghan refugees were able to return home and the people there have the possibility of being able to build a normal life, is not going to get us any "sympathy." Sure, no sympathy from the thugs and brigands and murderers we are fighting, whose side Kos has apparently taken. (And note the Magic Phrase is uttered in the very first paragraph.) Kos can go to hell.
Oh, the humanity!
Just when you thought they couldn't get any stupider... Michele links to this poignant tale of woe about the sufferings of some peacenuggets who had to spend a whole night in custody in San Francisco. Read of their travails and weep -- with laughter:
We understand that we were not on vacation, but it was unacceptable the way we were treated," said a protester who gave her name as Pancetta, 24, of Berkeley.
Overnight, some protesters slept fitfully on the ground in small holding cells that housed 25 each. Others slept on mats with blankets in a gymnasium.
Some women were addressed by deputies as "little girl" or "hon," one protester said.
I swear by the bones of Mother Theresa I have cut and pasted these words without altering a single one. And I hope that "Pancetta" is not the name on her birth certificate. Or maybe I do. I don't know what would be worse -- the idea that her parents named her "bacon" in Italian, or that she chose to call herself that. I leave you, my loyal readers, to come up with appropriately tasteless jokes. I am going to try to get some sleep.
Diversion
Well, since I can't sleep, this goes out to Mike, who requested it. I don't usually do requests, so don't be all thinking you can ask me for stuff. It don't work that way. The mistress gives only when she's in a givin' mood, see what'm sayin'? Now go show Mike some love.
(psst: hold your mouse cursor over the pic for the secret message!)
Oh please oh please
Hussein badly injured, Uday dead. That's what this Daily Telegraph article is almost practically sure of. It coudn't happen to a nicer pair of guys. Now what about Qusay? Get that fugly creep too. (I saw footage of the brood on teevee last night. Those two were the fugliest pair of beings I have laid eyes on. At the very least, the Iraqis have the right to better-looking leaders.)
(Via Viking Pundit.)
Bummer, man
Ghost of a Flea links to this article about one "human shield's" awakening to the horror of what he was doing:
Perhaps the most crushing thing we learned was that most ordinary Iraqis thought Saddam Hussein had paid us to come to protest in Iraq. Although we explained that this was categorically not the case, I don't think he believed us. Later he asked me: "Really, how much did Saddam pay you to come?"
This was after an account of how his Iraqi cab driver painstakingly explained to him just how much they wanted to get rid of Saddam, so much so that they were willing for us to wage war on them to do it.
Ghost also has a lot of links to various articles recounting the antics of that wacky Hussein guy and his spawn. Sample: "...rusty butcher hooks--" No, I really shouldn't. You antiwar holdouts might not want to read them -- you'll get really bummed out. Better just to forget about it, right?
Married to the world: a rather laborious analogy
Steve H. connects to an article in a South Korean paper that purports to show that the majority of people in that nation are French. In other words, they believe that we want to conquer Iraq and steal all its oil, yadda yadda.
The position the United States seems to be in these days with many of its supposed allies can be described using this analogy: we are like the guy in a marriage characterized by bickering, backbiting, and ceaseless accusations and contradictory demands that he is unable to fulfill. Nothing he can say will please his bitter shrew of a spouse, whom he married out of obligation rather than love. She is constantly threatening him with divorce, but the minute he even hints at wanting to leave on his own terms rather than be ignomiously thrown out and then soaked for alimony for all he is worth, she pulls out the tears and the claims of being too weak to go it on her own, accuses him of abandonment, and so on.
The Iraq situation: she's found out about the girl he's been trying to help, who's been trapped in a relationship with a brutal thug. (Guess who.) The husband is trying to help this girl for his part in getting her into trouble -- let's say he didn't help her years ago when he could have -- but he doesn't plan on leaving his wife for her. But you know how insecure shrewish wives are.
Our relationship with Britain is also part of this scenario. See, the guy also has a friend, an old ex-girl friend. They had a real serious blow out in the past, which means they will never get married, but that is all behind them now and they have stuck to each other through thick and thin where it counts. Naturally, the wife is jealous of that relationship too.
What we really need, in other words, is not a World Court, but a World Divorce Court. It's time this marriage was ended. Wifey has to learn to stand on her own two feet -- and learn that doing so does not mean obsessing over every last little thing that her ex-husband does after that. She has more than enough wealth socked away in little accounts she has kept secret from us, so she doesn't need any alimony. She doesn't need us to hold her hand. (Isn't that what she is always saying?) I say start the divorce proceedings now. After all this war-against terror stuff is done with the next words I want to hear are "All rise -- World Divorce Court with Judge Rummy is now in session!"
Kill the messenger
"Láthspell I name you, Ill-news; and ill news is an ill guest they say." No one likes to hear bad news, least of all those who have staked out a position on the moral high ground. The latest intended victim of one of these Lords of Nuance is Dixie Flatline, who made the unpopular speculation that the American serviceman involved in the recent assassination on his own fellow soldiers might just be a Muslim. And even though Mr. Flatline's speculation looks likely to be proved right, that does not seem to matter to the Gríma Wormtongues of the net. All that matters is that they continue to control the high ground.
Update: for a more measured response, which counsels caution instead of immediately coming on with both "Silence, you racists!" barrels blasting, check out Andrew Olmsted.
2nd Update: and here's another.
3rd Update: Dr. Frank weighs in on the possible religious-ideological implications of the solder's actions. Dr. Frank is by no means a knee-jerk, round-'em-all-up Muslim hater.
March 22, 2003
Support from the North
It's Canadian Friends of America. No really. It's true! Steal an image to link:
There's more on the site.
(Via Instapundit.)
Power to the Sheeple
Meryl Yourish has a perfect reply to Yet Another Hollywood Imbecile. Now it's Roy Scheider doing the sneering. His target? The herd-like, easily-brainwashed American public. His take on the war is basically that we -- or rather, the non-antiwar-protesting portion of the American public -- have been hypnotized by all those waving flags, that we're basically just troop groupies. Yeah, whatever, lousy-sequel-to-2001 star. Anyway, Meryl bags these folks. When I was a certain age, I thought I and my peers were sooo much smarter than those dimbulbs in the Reagan administration, with their simplistic cowboy ways that only brought down the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War. The thing is, these celebs think that because they are rich and their faces are known by millions, and because in their professions they get to pretend to be all sorts of different characters, that they have special insights into What's Really Going On in the cosmos. But they don't -- they actually live in a bell jar surrounded by yes-men and sycophants whose job it is to constantly puff up their egos and the fragile self-esteem that most entertainers seem to have, and to shield their charges from as much of unpleasant real life as possible. Even the lesser Hollywood lights get this sort of treatment, as much as their place on the Hollywood food chain will get them. But strip away all of this and you have a collection of people who are usually no more well-informed (and in many cases, are not capable of being any more well-informed) on politics and other matters outside their sphere than the average cashier at a suburban grocery store. Rather less so.
Disgraceful
I can only hope that the actions of these relatives of one of the Marines killed in the chopper crash in Iraq are due to their being in shock, and not due to some deep rot in American society that causes people to think nothing of this sort of dishonor. Read this entry on Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing and you'll see what I mean.
What. The. Hell.
This is so, um, gay. (The Poor Man made me look.)
And another
Here's another war-focused blog: Warmongering Illustrated. "Up for 45 hours watching CNN," the tit