The invasion has done nothing to make us "safe". It is a casus belli for militant Muslims to rally round and it is no doubt making it much easier for anti-western, anti-US terrorists to recruit; therefore, it has made us less safe. We are well prepared for a battlefield war so we seek our enemy on a battlefield and amongst Iraq civilians. Waging this war on a battlefield makes the enemy stronger.
Read More From: William Safire's Revised Reasons for War
Back in the old USA things heated up this week when Janet Jackson's nipple pushed the Iraq war and the announcement of an independent commission to investigate why our intelligence is so... well... unintelligent. Michael Powell, son of Gen Colin...
Read More From: The Danger of Nipples
Since Bush the Usurper (I refuse to call the man president since he didn't actually win the election) started the Iraq war on my birthday I've been pretty glum about the sorry state of our foreign dealings (I refuse to call it a policy because I can detect no policy). We seem determined now to maintain a permanent state of war. The trouble is... this war is no more winnable then the last war... the war on drugs.
What I find really troubling since my return to the land of the free is the inclusion of the Iraq war as part of the war on terror. Huh? I just don't get it. Either our intelligence on Iraq was WAY off, or the executive branch lied about the existence of WMD's in Iraq. I find both possibilities pretty appalling. In any case, UN inspectors had been very effectively containing Iraq for a decade. The Afgan war had considerable justification (and very considerable support from just about the entire world). The Iraq war had the following top reasons.
1. Iraq has WMD's (Oops...)
2. Saddam gassed his own people (with our gas) and is really bad. (Oh Please)
3. Saddam is a threat to peace in the middle east. (See Israel for a really good example)
4. Daddy don't like him.
5. Dick don't like him.
6 There is oil there.
7. Iraq harbors terrorists. (It turns out this was true, but only in the north which was under the protection of the USAF and not Saddam for the last 10 years.
8. The economy needs a boost.
9. Keeping the country in a constant state of war will be good for the presidents approval ratings.
10. Promotion of Liberal Government. (This would have been a laudable reason but without the threat of WMD's, Congress and the American people would never have supported the war).
Read More From: George Bush, The Iraq War, and All That
Having well-shaped buttocks. This is a word about which it would be possible to generate many bad puns, thereby making an ass of oneself and becoming the butt of jokes. The subject matter—and the rather beautiful form of the word...
Read More From: Callipygian (Callipygous) - My Favorite Word
For John Dillinger, in the hope that he is still alive. (Thanksgiving Day, November 28th 1986) Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts. Thanks for a continent to despoil...
Read More From: A Thanksgiving Day Prayer
A new poll suggests that Americans are ready to replace Bush with 4 to 1 in favor of going "Bush Free"
See the results or go here to vote.
Read More From: New Poll Finds Kinky Americans Want to Shave Bush 4 to 1.
Dick Cheney in My Logs!
Read More From: Dick Cheney's Google Habit
We are a middle aged country stomping around in flag-print-diapers and sucking on a missile-shaped-pacifier wondering why nobody wants to play with us.
I love baseball and I love the 7th inning stretch. These days I have to turn the sound down on the TV so I can hear myself sing "Take me out to the Ball Game" over the patriotic crap screeching out of the stadium.
Read More From: Take Me out to the Ball Game - God Bless America
Today's threat is with Media Player which aparently will allow spotty 13 yo hackers to view and modify my files. That's a relief1 Lets hope none of the spotty teens hear the XP install disc backwards... I rather think it delivers the message "hack windows, the window is open, come on in it's nice and fun in here".
Do you read your SPAM? Well most of it is just plain annoying but this gem surfaced the other day as I was cleaning out my spam folder....
Read More From: My Favorite Spam
To call him a country star is to call a Ferrari an adequate car. He was a country singer, a folk singer, a brooding, rugged outlaw who wrestled with life’s big questions and brought dignity and strength and a timeless grace to everything he touched. He became a voice for the disenfranchised and the working man – hence the Man in Black . He shaped the career of Bob Dylan ,Kris Kristofferson ,Waylon Jennings and countless others. He was a core influence on U2 ,White Stripes ,Queens Of The Stone Age ,Slipknot ,Coldplay ,The Strokes – in fact just about anyone who wanted their music to remain on the mean side, with hips and swagger and truth.
Read More From: Johnny Cash - RIP
Not to be missed... for the curmudgeon, the anarchist, the elitist, this is about humanity, or rather the myth of humanity. "There is an enormous grey economy supplying drugs and sex. The function of this new economy, legal and illegal,...
Read More From: Straw Dogs by John Gray
No! But you might find u'r dopplenamer......
Read More From: If you Google Youself Will u Go Blind
The presidents, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike formidable to the people and to the enemy; the vigor of the liberal democracy was relaxed, and finally dissolved, by the partial institutions of Ashcroft and Bush; and the United States was overwhelmed by a deluge of pseudo-theocratic fascism.
Read More From: The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
Hitchens is a great wit, intellectual, English Ameriphile, curmudgeon, raconteur. He is an old socialist who detests Bill Clinton and support George Bush from the left. He is a great supporter of Gay rights, smokes Rothmans Blue and drinks Johnny Walker. His intellectual range runs from Orwell’s literature to wars in Bosnia and Iraq. Hitchens has written devastatingly critical books about Mother Teresa and Henry Kissenger. (He was asked to testify before the Vatican against the impending sainthood of the former).
Read More From: Late Night Hitchens
I am very sorry to have to criticize the Hay Festival but here it is:...
Read More From: The Sound, The Ropes, and The Fury
The Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts has decended onto my town for the third time (well the third since it became my town. I made it up in time to join the line at the Granary for a...
Read More From: The Hay Festival - Americans, Old Commies, Death and September 11
Gabrielle Walker has written a book about the beginnings of complex life on earth (and about the crusty old Geologists who have suggested and defend the so called Snowball Earth theory). The talk left me with a very strong impression...
Read More From: Snowballs Rocks and Evolution
