Sunday, April 30, 2006
Nucear Proliberation
He may not be in my good books, but he just earned himself one notch up.
Update 4/5/06: Here's more footage from the White House Correspondents Dinner featuring Stephen Colbert. Via Pink Dome.
He may not be in my good books, but he just earned himself one notch up.Update 4/5/06: Here's more footage from the White House Correspondents Dinner featuring Stephen Colbert. Via Pink Dome.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Canned Food for Thought
Florencia Prado also struggles to find value in the movie 'United 93':
"My opinion is not necessarily based on whether or not audiences are ready, but whether or not this movie should have been made in the first place. I believe that movies are either for entertainment or to learn something new about a subject. I have not seen the film, but I would not see it for its entertainment value as well as for its educational value. What more can we learn about the tragic events of 9/11? Unless there is some new information regarding the events, it seems a bit heartless to profit on it. Are we supposed to somehow relate more to the families, mourn more over those that passed away. This is not Titanic where the lives of those had long been drowned along with their stories. If some length of time- like 10-15 years had passed, perhaps it would serve the purpose of re-telling the series of events to our children, so they may learn and keep fighting against terrorism. At this moment in time; however, it seems like Hollywood will present any movie, about any topic just to make a buck."
Like I mentioned my doubts about this movie before, Florence would agree that no matter how accurate United 93 will depict the events, it serves neither purpose of entertaining nor educating. I wouldn't imagine a person eating popcorn or having a hotdog while re-living 9/11, nor would I predict any intellectual gain from this movie. If anything, it might serve as a really really expensive memorabilia to the families of 9/11 victims. It does not aim to provide answers nor questions. Merely a re-enactment in honour of those in the hijacked planes.
Some may notice the suspicious timely release of the movie with Bush's latest popularity poll. And it does beg the question if a movie that already holds little or no value, holds potential to perpetuate again anti-muslim sentiments and false associations between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. The truth is that while the film may have been made all with good intentions, people by large are impressionable and misinformed. A movie powerful enough to move the families of the victims is equally powerful enough to rekindle anti-muslim sentiments amongstRepublicans those who cannot differentiate.
For those who actually plan to watch it for whatever your reasons, then I suggest avoiding documentaries such as Loose Change or Confronting the Evidence, which I found a lot more intellectually 'nutritious'. A person who goes to see United 93 is likely to accept those events as accurate, and more disturbingly, wanting to accept that as the truth simply because it is the simplest to understand. Easy to digest. Canned food for the mind. While I don't make claim to any particular scenario being the accurate version, I do believe that if you go seeking for answers, you will only find more questions that disturb you way too much to think you're going to spend £5 on a movie ticket about something based on a few telephone calls.
"My opinion is not necessarily based on whether or not audiences are ready, but whether or not this movie should have been made in the first place. I believe that movies are either for entertainment or to learn something new about a subject. I have not seen the film, but I would not see it for its entertainment value as well as for its educational value. What more can we learn about the tragic events of 9/11? Unless there is some new information regarding the events, it seems a bit heartless to profit on it. Are we supposed to somehow relate more to the families, mourn more over those that passed away. This is not Titanic where the lives of those had long been drowned along with their stories. If some length of time- like 10-15 years had passed, perhaps it would serve the purpose of re-telling the series of events to our children, so they may learn and keep fighting against terrorism. At this moment in time; however, it seems like Hollywood will present any movie, about any topic just to make a buck."
Like I mentioned my doubts about this movie before, Florence would agree that no matter how accurate United 93 will depict the events, it serves neither purpose of entertaining nor educating. I wouldn't imagine a person eating popcorn or having a hotdog while re-living 9/11, nor would I predict any intellectual gain from this movie. If anything, it might serve as a really really expensive memorabilia to the families of 9/11 victims. It does not aim to provide answers nor questions. Merely a re-enactment in honour of those in the hijacked planes.
Some may notice the suspicious timely release of the movie with Bush's latest popularity poll. And it does beg the question if a movie that already holds little or no value, holds potential to perpetuate again anti-muslim sentiments and false associations between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. The truth is that while the film may have been made all with good intentions, people by large are impressionable and misinformed. A movie powerful enough to move the families of the victims is equally powerful enough to rekindle anti-muslim sentiments amongst
For those who actually plan to watch it for whatever your reasons, then I suggest avoiding documentaries such as Loose Change or Confronting the Evidence, which I found a lot more intellectually 'nutritious'. A person who goes to see United 93 is likely to accept those events as accurate, and more disturbingly, wanting to accept that as the truth simply because it is the simplest to understand. Easy to digest. Canned food for the mind. While I don't make claim to any particular scenario being the accurate version, I do believe that if you go seeking for answers, you will only find more questions that disturb you way too much to think you're going to spend £5 on a movie ticket about something based on a few telephone calls.
Friday, April 21, 2006
I'm the Decider: The Soundtrack
I hear the voices, I'm the decider... and I decide what's best. And what's best is that you listen to this!
29/4/06 update: And now for 20 bucks you can afford to feel what it's like to be president of the United States. A great tshirt to walk around in mocking others with your low-level intellect and vocabulary but at the same time letting them know who's boss.
...by the nimble hands of FBI and CIA agents.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Blitzkrieg
Looks like I could be getting 'Freedom sugar cubes' before I see my 23rd:
Isn't it amazing that the trigger-happy war president has survived not one, but two elections and has not yet been dragged out of his Oval Office and burned at the stake? He has entrenched the American flag so deep in shit it is now nothing more than a shade of brown. People who support this man, and usually his war as well, seem propelled by their firm, inate beliefs in global threats, and I find it embarassing on their part to not be able to find a single leg to stand on when it comes to supporting the idea of a pre-emptive strike against Iran. Are you really expecting the world to believe the boy who cried wolf on Iraq? I'm reminded of this mentality of fear and pre-emptivity from that cartoon featured in Bowling for Columbine; the white man builds his own dangerous environment with gun-ownership out of an unrealistic fear for the black man. Aaron points this out in an updated context:
"Remember how right you got it on the WMD in Iraq? Try looking in the mirror and saying "Muslims are my fellow human beings". I knew you couldn't! Face it, you guys are the crazed bastards that want do destroy innocent life. Wake up! Eventually you'll have to explain your hatred to your maker."
"History repeats itself, but always with new twists. We are back to the good old days when a Declaration of War preceded the start of a war. Such declaration occurred on March 16th, 2006. Reversing the old order, we are now in the "Sitzkrieg", to be followed shortly by an aerial "Blitzkrieg" in the coming days.
In the old days, Congress declared war, and directed the Executive to take action. In the new millenium, the Executive declared war last March 16th, then Congress will pass H.R. 282, "To hold the current regime in Iran accountable for its threatening behavior and to support a transition to democracy in Iran." This bill and previous ones like it are in direct violation of the legally binding Algiers Accords[pdf] signed by the United States and Iran on January 19, 1981, that states "The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs"; however, this is clearly of no interest to the 353 policymakers sponsoring the bill.
The US promised Russia and China that the UN Security Council statement just approved will not be a trigger for military action after 30 days; true to its promise, the US will attack before the 30-day deadline imposed by the UNSC for Iran to stop its nuclear enrichment activity, i.e. before the end of April. The "justification" is likely to be an alleged threat of imminent biological attack with Iran's involvement."
Isn't it amazing that the trigger-happy war president has survived not one, but two elections and has not yet been dragged out of his Oval Office and burned at the stake? He has entrenched the American flag so deep in shit it is now nothing more than a shade of brown. People who support this man, and usually his war as well, seem propelled by their firm, inate beliefs in global threats, and I find it embarassing on their part to not be able to find a single leg to stand on when it comes to supporting the idea of a pre-emptive strike against Iran. Are you really expecting the world to believe the boy who cried wolf on Iraq? I'm reminded of this mentality of fear and pre-emptivity from that cartoon featured in Bowling for Columbine; the white man builds his own dangerous environment with gun-ownership out of an unrealistic fear for the black man. Aaron points this out in an updated context:
"Remember how right you got it on the WMD in Iraq? Try looking in the mirror and saying "Muslims are my fellow human beings". I knew you couldn't! Face it, you guys are the crazed bastards that want do destroy innocent life. Wake up! Eventually you'll have to explain your hatred to your maker."
Let us have peace, let us have life,
Let us escape the cruel night.
Let us have time, let the sun shine,
Let us beware the deadly sign.
An attack on Iran is essentially irony on the part of America's attempt to neutralise terrorist threats and propagate democracy and freedom going by their values (not interests) because:
a) Iran has the right to develop nuclear capabilities for peaceful purposes and is given the right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Furthermore, the U.S. hipocritically has its own arsenal of nuclear weapons while aiding India in breaching this Treaty. Doesn't this just reek of "I AM the law!"...
b) viewing Iran as a threat based on its recent comments of Israel and the Holocaust does not make a man a terrorist. Leading a country into war on false pretenses, blowing up civilians and then calling it collateral damage is terrorism. In any case, I believe the President of Iran is entitled to his right to free speech. hmm...
c) the argument that Iran is an oppressive country under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime and justifies war is absurd. There are plenty of other oppressive countries that are oppressive AND/or hold nuclear capabilities but are simply underserving of military attention due to 'national interests'. Care to drop some hate-mail and military threats on China's doorstep?
d) a second "Iraq" (third if you count Afghanistan) will create further instability in the Mid East region. The majority muslim region will see this as an increasing threat not only against their land, but their religion. It is clear insurgency in Iraq is uncontainable 3 years since American forces crossed into Iraqi borders. A second war and occupation would likely propagate more anti-american sentiments and thus generate more sporadic attacks by Jihadists. The death toll will rise, more american parents will mourn, and the country will be in further monetary debt than it already is.
Casus Belli"There is no casus belli against Iran based on its nuclear program. The IAEA has found no evidence that in the 20 years of its development there has been any diversion of nuclear material to military applications. The Bush administration now officially acknowledges that the issue with Iran arises from a "loophole" in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, that allows non-nuclear countries to pursue uranium enrichment. However it is not a loophole, the right to a full civilian nuclear program is an integral part of the compromise, that made non-nuclear countries agree to it. For the US to call it a loophole means to abrogate the treaty unilaterally and propose a different treaty that non-nuclear countries will have no motivation to agree to.
The Bush administration declares that a civilian nuclear program that gives Iran "knowledge" or "capability" to build a nuclear weapon is unacceptable. It could apply exactly the same logic to biotechnology. The State Department says that "Iran is expanding its biotechnology and biomedical industries by building large, state-of-the-art research and pharmaceutical production facilities. These industries could easily hide pilot to industrial-scale production capabilities for a potential BW program, and could mask procurement of BW-related process equipment." Why isn't the US demanding that Iran stops its biotechnology research and development, and that it transfers all biotech related activities to Russia?"
The day is coming, armageddon's near,
Inferno's coming, can we survive the blitzkrieg.
The final point is perhaps the most crucial and potentially dangerous aspect of using nuclear weapons in Iran. Bush so skillfully avoided the media questions and utterly failed to diffuse concerns over his Administration's plans as an option to use nuclear weapons against Iran. It may only be one of several options on the table, but is still an important one that he failed to address. I sincerely hope his PR guy simply isn't being paid enough. Newswise reflects on physicist Jorge Hirsch's report:
"It notes that there are no sharp lines between small and large nuclear weapons, nor between nuclear weapons targeting facilities and those targeting armies or cities, and that the use by the United States of nuclear weapons after 60 years of non-use will make the use of nuclear weapons by others more likely.“Once the U.S. uses a nuclear weapon again, it will heighten the probability that others will too,” the physicists write. “In a world with many more nuclear nations and no longer a ‘taboo’ against the use of nuclear weapons, there will be a greatly enhanced risk that regional conflicts could expand into global nuclear war, with the potential to destroy our civilization.”The letter echoes the main objection of last fall’s physicists’ petition, stressing that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will be irreversibly damaged by the use or even the threat of use of nuclear weapons by a nuclear nation against a non-nuclear one, with disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world.“It is gravely irresponsible for the U.S. as the greatest superpower to consider courses of action that could eventually lead to the widespread destruction of life on the planet. We urge the administration to announce publicly that it is taking the nuclear option off the table in the case of all non-nuclear adversaries, present or future, and we urge the American people to make their voices heard on this matter.”"
Hirsch also makes his predictions of an eminent war and the disturbing mathematical logic supporting it:
"It is unlikely that there will be a public announcement of the impending attack before it starts, since it would generate opposition. Allies do not want to be implicated and will deny any knowledge. Who will be officially notified that an attack is about to take place? Most likely, Iran itself.
Direct conversations between the US and Iran are about to start, nominally on the subject of Iraq only. They will also provide the only direct conduit for the US to communicate with Iran without intermediaries. An "ultimatum" unacceptable to Iran, as was delivered publicly to Iraq on March 17th, 2003, could be delivered privately to Iran through that route.[...] The "clear" reasons and "just" cause for the administration to attack can be stated as follows: if a bird flu pandemic can cause 150 million deaths and there is even a one percent probability that the "intelligence" is right, i.e. even if there is a 99% "uncertainty about the status of hidden programs", the expected number of deaths that would be prevented by bombing the Iranian facilities is the product of those two numbers, i.e. 1.5 million, vastly larger than the few housand Iranian casualties due to "collateral damage."Any military reaction by Iran to the attack, perhaps even a verbal reaction, will be construed as "aggression" by Iran towards the US and Israel, and result in large scale bombing of Iranian missile, nuclear and other facilities. Does that sound absurd? Recall that the US and Britain bombed Iraq's no-fly zones well before the Iraq invasion, and Iraqi response was labeled "aggression toward planes of the coalition forces."
Nuclear earth penetrating weapons may be used in the initial attack, and certainly will be used in the large scale attack that will follow.
Why will this happen? Because it was "pencilled in" a long time ago. The actions of the US against Iran in recent years have been clearly directed towards a confrontation, to suppress the rise of Iran as a strong regional power that does not conform to US interests."
Prepare for the blitzkrieg...
Save us from fate, save us from hate,
Save ourselves before it's too late.
Come to our need, hear our plea,
Save ourselves before the earth bleeds.
The day is dawning, the time is near,
Aliens calling, can we survive the blitzkrieg.
- Metallica
Monday, April 17, 2006
The Anarchist's Dictator's Handbook
- From the TimesOnline.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is just really being a very, very bad boy playing with nuclear weapons in his backyard. And now the little shit is asking to be ass-invaded by proclaiming his new "fancy" missiles and then saying.... 'Israel will soon be history'. Has he been reading the Idiot's Guide to Getting Ass-Invaded by America?
I was in an asian food store the other day and noticed a bag of unusual looking sugar cubes from Iran. And I actually found myself pausing a few seconds to consider buying it. I have a sneaky feeling they will be re-named American cubes pretty soon...
- From the TimesOnline.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is just really being a very, very bad boy playing with nuclear weapons in his backyard. And now the little shit is asking to be ass-invaded by proclaiming his new "fancy" missiles and then saying.... 'Israel will soon be history'. Has he been reading the Idiot's Guide to Getting Ass-Invaded by America?
I was in an asian food store the other day and noticed a bag of unusual looking sugar cubes from Iran. And I actually found myself pausing a few seconds to consider buying it. I have a sneaky feeling they will be re-named American cubes pretty soon...
Friday, April 14, 2006
Guess who's back...?
- From CNN
The Prophet Mohammed! With the boundary-pushing animated series South Park:
"NEW YORK (AP) -- Banned by Comedy Central from showing an image of the Islamic prophet ohammed, the creators of "South Park" skewered their own network for hypocrisy in the cartoon's most recent episode. The comedy -- in an episode aired during Holy Week for Christians -- instead featured an image of Jesus Christ defecating on President Bush and the American flag. In an elaborately constructed two-part episode of their Peabody Award-winning cartoon, "South Park" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker intended to comment on the controversy created by a Danish newspaper's publishing of caricatures of Mohammed. Muslims consider any physical representation of their prophet to be blasphemous.[...]"Either it's all OK, or none of it is," Kyle said. "Do the right thing." The executive decides to strike a blow for free speech and agrees to show it. But at the point where Mohammed is to be seen, the screen is filled with the message: "Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network."It is followed shortly by the images of Christ, Bush and the flag. A frequent "South Park" critic, William Donohue of the anti-defamation group Catholic League, called on Parker and Stone to resign out of principle for being censored.
"The ultimate hypocrite is not Comedy Central -- that's their decision not to show the image of Mohammed or not -- it's Parker and Stone," he said. "Like little whores, they'll sit there and grab the bucks. They'll sit there and they'll whine and they'll take their shot at Jesus. That's their stock in trade.""
- From CNN
It just wouldn't be South Park if they hadn't made something out of the Jan/Feb Danish cartoons. Rather than attack whether it was the right or wrong thing to do, they challenge the principles of the people who have banned the illustrations of the sacred Prophet Mohammed. If one episode gets pulled or censored, then technically the public and the rest of the world have in their capacity the ability to pull the entire show. The show challenges the hipocrisy of the network equally as it does boundaries of free speech. Isaac Hayes took a hit after his own departure from South Park, which was frankly predictable of Matt and Trey. But again, they highlight the hipocrisy of his actions; leaving after 9 seasons of South Park only when his own religion finally became its target.
I've only seen the first episode in this 2-parter. In the first part, Mohammed is featured on 'The Family Guy' for a brief moment, albeit with a big black censor-strip covering every inch of his body, and is shown having a cup of tea....with Mr T. Meanwhile the rest of the nation have their heads buried in the sand...literally.
Cartoon Wars part 1: Will there be enough sand for everybody?
"If you look closely at the writing in 'Family Guy', you will see that the jokes never derive from the plot. And I think that's totally gay." - Osama bin Laden
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
You are a non-commital, closed-off anti-socialite
Well, don't blame me for checking the sentence 'I don't feel upset when I see an animal killed on the road'...
...with possible career prospects in nowhere. Or so says the free personal pyschometric test, which is basically just a premium version of the occassional personality tests you get in email forwards. On a serious note, if you are looking for a graduate job, you may find the Graduate Recruitment Bureau useful. Due to large numbers of employers preferring pyschometric profiles for candidates, they are now on a free trial period that offers a professional online pyschometric test (worth £70 apparently) for registered users over the next few months. The test comprises of two parts; a personality test and a test of logical reasoning, verbal, mathematical and spatial skills. If you have at least half an hour to spare, you are rewarded with a fairly comprehensive analyis. An interesting summary from my personality test produced this:
Major strengths:
Faces up to issues without delay
Persevering and tenacious
Proactive in sorting out problems
Firm and decisive
Possible development needs:
Might be insensitive to the emotional impact on others of some of his decisions
Major strengths:
Faces up to issues without delay
Persevering and tenacious
Proactive in sorting out problems
Firm and decisive
Possible development needs:
Might be insensitive to the emotional impact on others of some of his decisions
Well, don't blame me for checking the sentence 'I don't feel upset when I see an animal killed on the road'...
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
The New Ann Coulter
Do you really need a synopsis for this book??
"If only liberals were half as angry at the people who flew planes into our skyscrapers as they are with Tom DeLay, we might have two patriotic parties in this country."
- From anncoulter.com
Her latest entry on her website fires off with a remark against liberals so typical of the Right; a reference to something that is completely unrelated to the issue. What is with their obsession with associating Liberal disdain for the opposition with sympathy for terrorists may I ask? It is evidently derivative of Bush's "you're either with us or against us" mentality.
Looking through her reading list, I was slightly bemused at the affirmation of my guess that right-wingers consisting of people such as herself either don't have a clue about Islam, or have a construed concept about it. Well done, Ann. You've read one book on Islam and that makes you an Islam expert, or to have the self-confidence anyway to judge it. Secondly, on further inspection of Ann's Bible to Islam, Unveiling Islam, you will find that the author Ergun Mehmet Caner is not exactly the most credible of authors, who is a muslim-turned-christian. What better person to shine bad light on a religion than to ask a person who has shuned away from it. Sure you may learn something about Islam from the book. But you would be doing yourself a disfavour by limiting it to one book... There is one method of learning the religion that will exceed any book, and that is to ask none other than a muslim (I can already hear the Republicans whipping out their guns). Any guesses as to how many muslim friends the average right-winger has? If there has been one thing that I have learnt from my own muslim friends from across the world, it's that Islam is not only geographically diverse, but practiced and interpreted differently in different societies.
Of course, the Coulter-types will happily read and promote anything that does not stray from their firm belief of Islam. It becomes a them-versus-us, in a gross generalisation of muslims. And they will attack anything from Burkas to your Sharia Laws, to the Halal meat that you eat.
If Ann Coulter's rants and verbal attacks on Liberals sound more like nails on a chalkboard to you, then how bout' a more relevant tongue-in-cheek poke at Tom DeLay at Pink Dome? How ironic as well that they are from Red State Texas...
"How fitting it is! Its called "Godless" The Church of Liberalism. And its fitting that it comes out on 6/6/06 ! Isnt it amazing how she can get liberals to have screaming fits, even before they know what the book is about!"
The devil's in between the lines
There are also hints he may be Bush's speech coach...
Take a look at this CBS transcript of an interview with Reverend Pat Robertson, where he implies he's better than a psychologist (how smug) in healing people, recounts curing a woman by asking about her sex life, and yet can't quite put a finger on what kind of christian he would consider himself (i believe there is a ban in hell for that sort of thing).
There are also hints he may be Bush's speech coach...
Saturday, April 08, 2006
(Not so) BREAKING NEWS: WMDs were in America all along!
Do you hear that...? It's the sound of America's policy on Iran disappearing up its own asshole.
Clyde [stares steadily into camera and holds index finger to ear]: That's right leech. I'm stood outside the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory right now where inside lies lots and lots of weapon-grade plutonium. The Bush administration recently revealed plans to dismantle their nuclear weapons dating back from the Cold War era, but replace them with newer, bigger and better ones! In fact, by the year 2022, America aims to produce 125 new and updated nuclear bombs per year! In addition to the humiliating hipocrisy, the Administration's recent proposal to India effectively allows it to bypass the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Do you hear that...? It's the sound of America's policy on Iran disappearing up its own asshole.
"THE Bush Administration has revealed a blueprint for rebuilding America's decrepit nuclear weapons complex, including restoration of a large-scale bomb manufacturing capacity.
The plan calls for the most sweeping realignment and modernisation of the nation's massive system of laboratories and factories for nuclear bombs since the end of the Cold War.
Until now, the nation has depended on carefully maintaining ageing bombs produced during the Cold War arms race, some several decades old. The Administration, however, wants the capability to turn out 125 new nuclear bombs a year by 2022, as the Pentagon retires older bombs that it says will no longer be reliable or safe."
America should hold talks with itself. Then it should impose sanctions on itself. Then it should bomb the shit out of itself. The only difference this time is that I guarantee you will find your WMDs.
Friday, April 07, 2006
She's like tofu in a leotard
I just thought it my brotherly obligation to forward the bragging of my little sis who is now the official photographer for Singapore Idol (big hoohah). I'm happy for her although at the end of the day, you are still just taking pictures of losers (afterall there can only be one winner right). Naturally, she has been shooting some typical posers (if only with a fully automatic uzi), and tofu in a leotard a fat chick in a miniskirt. I'd be glad to share the photos once they become publicly available. I haven't taken a bashing on stupid dysfunct fashion culture in a while... In the meantime, you can feast your eyes on some arty farty here.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
What good can possibly come from this?
CNN previews and reports on the trailer release for United 93, based on the events of 9/11. I'm not going to jump the gun by placing judgment before I've seen it, but the question remains valid. Is it something that will enlighten, provide some answers, or perhaps offer closure to families of the victims? There is even one brave attempt to compare the film to Schindler's List. Except people actually survived the Holocaust to tell the story for what it really was. Trying to re-enact what went on on Flight 93 based on a few short telephone conversations just before the crash seems a little prone to over-dramatisation to me and I'm at least a little suspicious some Hollywood fat cat is capitalising on this. But we had to see this film being made eventually. Most people interviewed on the street by CNN responded negatively to the trailer. Personally, I'm afraid the only thing worse than learning the truth, is watching a film that potentially offers none.
Related:
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Hillary Special
- From the political humour website NewYorkSlime.
"The liberal media and many of the pundits said I was stupid . . . They misunderestimated me." - George W. Bush, Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000 (more Bushisms here)
The Fuhrer lives on....on the soccer field
From the Spiegel Online:
- via Drudge Report
"Leipzig's Nigerian midfielder Adebowale Ogungbure was walking off the pitch when hooligans ran up to him, spat at him and called him "Dirty Nigger," "Shit Nigger" and "Ape." He ignored it and walked on. Then, when he passed the main stand and heard fans making whooping monkey noises at him, he decided he'd had enough. He put two fingers above his mouth to symbolise a Hitler moustache and stuck out his right arm in a Nazi salute to the crowd.
Given their behavior, one might think they would have appreciated the gesture and even returned it. But a Halle supporter attacked him from behind with a corner flag and another grabbed him in a stranglehold. Ogungbure pushed them away as a teammate intervened and dragged him towards the tunnel, to the safety of the changing rooms.
"I was just so angry, I didn't care. I could have been killed but I had to do something," Ogungbure told SPIEGEL ONLINE last week. "I thought to myself, what can I do to get them as angry as they have made me? Then when I lifted my arm I saw the anger in their faces and I started to laugh.""
Hmm... any guesses whether the guys who tackled Ogungbure were doing so out of offence for the 'Hitler' remarks? Funny that a racist should take offence to being called a racist. While the 'Hitler salute' may be offensive to a broader German audience than intended, it probably wasn't a good idea in the first place to tempt someone who could easily fire back at the exploitation of your historical shame. Ogungbure wasn't prosecuted for the salute of course, in a PR move that didn't want to say 'we support the racists'. But seems like the neo-nazis and far right NPD party are really planning to exploit this year's World Cup afterall, including a rally for support in Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who denied the Holocaust and suggested the elimination of Israel.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Critique of Poor Reason
Melanie Phillips commits at least two errors, should I say crimes, in the name of logic in her latest post, analysed by Clyde below. I was going to write about Jack straw's smug grandstanding during this tour, but before that, I just thought that I would take some time to go into just what is wrong with her.
Immanuel Kant had a lot to say about logic and ethics. Which is probably why he never mentions Melanie Phillips in any of his long, boring books.
1. The characterization of those against Rice's presence as "anti-American". I listened to her debate with John Gummer. He claimed that the British parliament were misled, that the war in Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th and that the only reason that we had to satnd shoulder to shoulder with America on this was because we had gotten into that mess with them. Which part of this is anti-American? She also characterised the protests themselves as anti-American. On TV I saw activists protesting about Guantanamo Bay and the war, no burning flags, no attacks on the country itself. They objected to Rice coming because they quite rightly perceived her as a disgusting human rights violator. In her feverish scarp for the moral high-ground she pulled the most incredible example out of her bag: that the demonstrations were discorteous. Well, I thought I had exorcised the free speech debate from my mind over the weekend but I'll happily revive it to point out that if it is permissible to upset a whole sector of society through some cartoons [which she defgended vigorously, suspiciously vigorously...] then why can't we target a politician who actually has done something wrong and needs to be called to account. She says that we depend on the US for our protection and therefore we must be polite to their government. Such obligations do not exist. If somebody does something wrong they must be called to account, and her lying means that we must never trust her again. We may depend on the US for our protection from the USSR [wait a second...] but we certainly do not have such reliance when it comes to launching wars that have nothing to do with stopping Islamic terrorism. In fact, numerous experts pointed out before the war that the risk of terror would go up because A: it would divert resources from the focus in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Esat Africa, where there should have been an international policing operation rather than a bombing campaign, B: the instability in Iraq would let jihadists in, as it did Afghanistan in the 1980s and C: what we were doing there was so transparent that it was bound to anger people who want to keep a hold of their natural resources. To not stoip the Bush administration from this folly was the real appeasement. And bare we always obliged to suck up to the US government, just because of our special relationship? Would it be rude to insult other US leaders?
"This is because it always was a con-trick. Supposed to provide an alternative to the old right/left division, it was as dishonest as it was vacuous. Its creators – Tony Blair and Bill Clinton -- grasped that the public whose votes they had to win were instinctively conservative." Melanie Phillips, 14.7.03
"If President Clinton had not decided to wait when Osama bin Laden was expelled from Sudan in 1996, the thousands who died on 9/11 might have been spared." Melanie Phillips, 14.3.04
So, Clinton's policies were "vacuous" and "dishonest"? I sure a shell agree, but then I wasn't the idiot who said that it was rude to criticize our allies. And as for blaming his lapse for 9/11, well, tut tut. Whatever Clinton did, we also know that a month before 9/11 Bush received a daily intelligence briefing entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike inside in U.S." It was never too late to deal with the problem. Not that schadenfreude is my cup of tea, but what was the name of the National Security Adviser at the time..? Oh yeah, we're not allowed to talk about her.
By the way, having mauled Jack Straw so viciously [see my post below] for his speech last week, isn't it a little late to get so sanctimonious about our leaders?
2. Whenever an individual or a group fails to criticize another, it is, in her view, because they support them or are willing to tolerate their abuses.
"Here is a country which utters not a batsqueak of protest when Sheikh Qaradawi, who endorses and encourages human bomb terrorism in Iraq and Israel"
This is simply diverting the issue. It does not make Rice less of a lawbreaker simply because there are other lawbreakers. Reversing the logic, where has Melanie's batsqueak of protest been about current events in Colombia, the DRC, Sri Lanka, Chechnya, Kashmir and Equatorial Guinea? Where was her cry of consternation when the president of China visited last year? She was angry that Putin's Russia and China for their alleged inaction over Iran, but would she honestly want either of these two countries on her's and Bush's "side"? I would not claim that she supported any of the above, yet under her rules, her refusal to protest makes her an appeaser and morally bankrupt.
And finally, a word on these definitions she uses. The Stop the War Coalition is not Trotskyite. It has socialist elements to it, but Trotsky participated in the destruction socialism in Russia after the revolution. Trotskiyite sounds inflammatory and would be just like me referring to Bush as "fascist" just because he happens to be on the right. The fighters in Iraq are largely not al Qaeda. In late 2004 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi changed the name of his terror group from Tawhid al Islam to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. It was a tactical switch, designed to make al Qaeda look bigger and more omnipotent than it actually was. Up until then al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq, having fled to Pakistan from Afghanistan in late 2001. Al-Zarqawi's group, on the other side of Iran, did have a presence and eventually made contact [somthing he had refused to do when he met bin Laden for the first time in Afghanistan] with the shattered remnants. But with Iraq the September 11 planners are most definately out of the picture and have little more than symbolic value. Then there is Baathists, by which she means the national resistance. When the occupiers disbanded the army they left a mass [I've heard the figure 1 million, could it have been so high?] of dejected but well trained soldiers that had been part of Saddam's army because the alternative was too gruesome to contemplate. They were not policy makers and probably the vast majority don't want Saddam back. They want the coalition out for various reasons given in the excellent BBC programme aired yesterday called The Insurgency. And finally, hysteria, a term she uses to slime those who want the troops out, but might better be used to describe a woman who believes, despite all the evidence, that Saddam's weapons were smuggled out to Syria, that he had a working relationship with al Qaeda, that we need to enforce regime change on Iran [ie: bomb it] and that the left in Britain is engaged in some vast conspirarcy with hardcore Islamists. That, my love, is hysteria.
Immanuel Kant had a lot to say about logic and ethics. Which is probably why he never mentions Melanie Phillips in any of his long, boring books.
1. The characterization of those against Rice's presence as "anti-American". I listened to her debate with John Gummer. He claimed that the British parliament were misled, that the war in Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th and that the only reason that we had to satnd shoulder to shoulder with America on this was because we had gotten into that mess with them. Which part of this is anti-American? She also characterised the protests themselves as anti-American. On TV I saw activists protesting about Guantanamo Bay and the war, no burning flags, no attacks on the country itself. They objected to Rice coming because they quite rightly perceived her as a disgusting human rights violator. In her feverish scarp for the moral high-ground she pulled the most incredible example out of her bag: that the demonstrations were discorteous. Well, I thought I had exorcised the free speech debate from my mind over the weekend but I'll happily revive it to point out that if it is permissible to upset a whole sector of society through some cartoons [which she defgended vigorously, suspiciously vigorously...] then why can't we target a politician who actually has done something wrong and needs to be called to account. She says that we depend on the US for our protection and therefore we must be polite to their government. Such obligations do not exist. If somebody does something wrong they must be called to account, and her lying means that we must never trust her again. We may depend on the US for our protection from the USSR [wait a second...] but we certainly do not have such reliance when it comes to launching wars that have nothing to do with stopping Islamic terrorism. In fact, numerous experts pointed out before the war that the risk of terror would go up because A: it would divert resources from the focus in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Esat Africa, where there should have been an international policing operation rather than a bombing campaign, B: the instability in Iraq would let jihadists in, as it did Afghanistan in the 1980s and C: what we were doing there was so transparent that it was bound to anger people who want to keep a hold of their natural resources. To not stoip the Bush administration from this folly was the real appeasement. And bare we always obliged to suck up to the US government, just because of our special relationship? Would it be rude to insult other US leaders?
"This is because it always was a con-trick. Supposed to provide an alternative to the old right/left division, it was as dishonest as it was vacuous. Its creators – Tony Blair and Bill Clinton -- grasped that the public whose votes they had to win were instinctively conservative." Melanie Phillips, 14.7.03
"If President Clinton had not decided to wait when Osama bin Laden was expelled from Sudan in 1996, the thousands who died on 9/11 might have been spared." Melanie Phillips, 14.3.04
So, Clinton's policies were "vacuous" and "dishonest"? I sure a shell agree, but then I wasn't the idiot who said that it was rude to criticize our allies. And as for blaming his lapse for 9/11, well, tut tut. Whatever Clinton did, we also know that a month before 9/11 Bush received a daily intelligence briefing entitled "Bin Laden determined to strike inside in U.S." It was never too late to deal with the problem. Not that schadenfreude is my cup of tea, but what was the name of the National Security Adviser at the time..? Oh yeah, we're not allowed to talk about her.
By the way, having mauled Jack Straw so viciously [see my post below] for his speech last week, isn't it a little late to get so sanctimonious about our leaders?
2. Whenever an individual or a group fails to criticize another, it is, in her view, because they support them or are willing to tolerate their abuses.
"Here is a country which utters not a batsqueak of protest when Sheikh Qaradawi, who endorses and encourages human bomb terrorism in Iraq and Israel"
This is simply diverting the issue. It does not make Rice less of a lawbreaker simply because there are other lawbreakers. Reversing the logic, where has Melanie's batsqueak of protest been about current events in Colombia, the DRC, Sri Lanka, Chechnya, Kashmir and Equatorial Guinea? Where was her cry of consternation when the president of China visited last year? She was angry that Putin's Russia and China for their alleged inaction over Iran, but would she honestly want either of these two countries on her's and Bush's "side"? I would not claim that she supported any of the above, yet under her rules, her refusal to protest makes her an appeaser and morally bankrupt.
And finally, a word on these definitions she uses. The Stop the War Coalition is not Trotskyite. It has socialist elements to it, but Trotsky participated in the destruction socialism in Russia after the revolution. Trotskiyite sounds inflammatory and would be just like me referring to Bush as "fascist" just because he happens to be on the right. The fighters in Iraq are largely not al Qaeda. In late 2004 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi changed the name of his terror group from Tawhid al Islam to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. It was a tactical switch, designed to make al Qaeda look bigger and more omnipotent than it actually was. Up until then al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq, having fled to Pakistan from Afghanistan in late 2001. Al-Zarqawi's group, on the other side of Iran, did have a presence and eventually made contact [somthing he had refused to do when he met bin Laden for the first time in Afghanistan] with the shattered remnants. But with Iraq the September 11 planners are most definately out of the picture and have little more than symbolic value. Then there is Baathists, by which she means the national resistance. When the occupiers disbanded the army they left a mass [I've heard the figure 1 million, could it have been so high?] of dejected but well trained soldiers that had been part of Saddam's army because the alternative was too gruesome to contemplate. They were not policy makers and probably the vast majority don't want Saddam back. They want the coalition out for various reasons given in the excellent BBC programme aired yesterday called The Insurgency. And finally, hysteria, a term she uses to slime those who want the troops out, but might better be used to describe a woman who believes, despite all the evidence, that Saddam's weapons were smuggled out to Syria, that he had a working relationship with al Qaeda, that we need to enforce regime change on Iran [ie: bomb it] and that the left in Britain is engaged in some vast conspirarcy with hardcore Islamists. That, my love, is hysteria.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Mad Cow disease is truly still alive in Britain
Mad Mel has got her nose so far up Condie Rice's arse that Rice is using it as her tongue:
"What is so striking about these protests is not just the discourtesy shown to a senior member of the government of our most powerful ally; it is not just that it is extraordinarily bone-headed to insult and alienate the ally on whom we continue to depend for our protection [this is so tony blair speak]; it is not just the craven appeasement of intimidation, as I wrote in the Mail this morning. It is the lethal moral inversion of the argument, which is not surprising since these protests are being fuelled -- if not orchestrated -- by the comrades of the Trotskyite/Islamist Stop the War Coalition, as can be clearly seen from their website which provides details of and helpful travel arrangements for marches and demonstrations today and tomorrow.
Here is a country which utters not a batsqueak of protest when Sheikh Qaradawi, who endorses and encourages human bomb terrorism in Iraq and Israel, speaks on a London platform – and indeed is actually embraced by the London Mayor Ken Livingstone as a hero of religious enlightenment – and yet is treating the US Secretary of State as if she is a major war criminal. Why? Because the US is apparently waging war against the innocent in Iraq. Excuse me?? The US is currently in Iraq at the express request of the Iraqis themselves to defend the innocent against the war being waged against them. The US went to war in Iraq to start unpicking the axis of terror that so threatens the world. The US remains in Iraq to help the Iraqis, at their express request, build the institutions of democracy, law and security. It is in Iraq to help protect innocent Iraqis against the forces of al Qaeda and the remains of the Ba’ath party who are determined to stop them and replace freedom by tyranny. It is in Iraq to help defend Iraqi lives and liberty against those who seek to destroy them."
Sometimes I wonder how it is that the leech is able to open his newspaper to Melanie Phillips latest rant and not feel like logical diarrhea [defn: excessive and frequent evacuation of watery feces logic, usually indicating gastrointestinal mental distress or disorder]. First she makes an irrelevant association between Islamists and and an anti-war organisation. So by her definition, I am really a muslim for being anti-war (more so if I posted a map to the next demonstration), and the leech is only pretending to be aethist because it sounds cool.
Second, the US went to war on false intel on WMDs and false associations between Iraq and Al Qaeda. And in any case, it certainly does not seem to have had the effect of deterring extremist ideals in any way. If anything, it's done the exact opposite by fuelling it. Even white people hate America now.
Third, it's obviously easy to isolate those who disagree with your opinion from the definition of 'Iraqi' to say that they 'request' and 'want' American presence in their country. Iraq is already on the verge of civil war. I still think it's bullshit that a man can be on trial for months or years before he is sentenced in the West, yet we can point our finger at someone, accuse him of being a terrorist, and then drop bombs on thousands of his countrymen without solid evidence in a so-called pre-emptive war. So to that I ask Mad Mel, where does your application of democracy begin?
here...?
here...?
or here...?
I will think hard everyday when I turn on the evening news and see the new death toll, and think of your argument of what a great job we've done... and even harder about why we are there in the first place.
Always the wrong race in the wrong place.
From the BBC:
"Home Office Minister Fiona Mactaggart said there was much still to do to combat racially aggravated crime.
"That might be an indication that the progress we have made in investigating and prosecuting hate crime has given people greater confidence to report incidents and been effective in preventing them from happening," she said.
The period covered by the statistics pre-dates the July bombings in London last year. Separate figures for stop and searches under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 show 32,086 were made, an increase of 9% on the previous year.
Black people were two and a half times more likely to be stopped under the terrorism law than white people. Asian people were twice as likely as white people to be stopped."
I'd rather not comment on how justifiable it is to racially profile blacks and asians in the first place for a typical stop and search. But am I missing something here? Nevermind that black people are the most likely to be stopped and searched (6 times more likely than a white person), but even under the Terrorism Act 2000, they remain at the top for being stopped and searched the most?? The nature of such authority without the need for grounds to suspect someone is obviously prone to racial profiling. But it seems like the cops can no longer care anymore to distinguish between blacks, middle easterners....and south americans.
Three Blind Mice - Rumsfeld...Cheney...Rice.
Fancy a protest song?
Excerpt from Michael Ratner’s speech to the Commission of Inquiry On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration – Jan. 20, 2006
Excerpt from Michael Ratner’s speech to the Commission of Inquiry On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration – Jan. 20, 2006
‘What the President has done is basically lay the plan for what has to be called a coup-d'etat in America. It is a small paragraph and it's contained in what is called a 'signing statement.' It was signed on December 30th and it's the signing statement to what is called the McCain amendment. You probably all remember the McCain amendment. That's the amendment that prohibits cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, or supposedly prohibits it. The president as you recall, resisted the McCain amendment. But in the end he had to sign it because it was part of a broader military authorization to pay for what we're doing in Iraq. When a president signs legislation, he sometimes and, more recently with President Bush, almost always, issues a signing statement as to what his understanding of the new law is. The president's statement on McCain is only one short paragraph. But it is historic. It is unprecedented. And if you're looking for the grab for power that allows you, permits you, compels you to call this administration a tyranny, it is that paragraph.
It makes three points and I'll paraphrase. First, speaking as the president, 'My authority as commander in chief allows me to do whatever I think is necessary in the war on terror including use torture. Second, the Commander in Chief cannot be checked by Congress. Third, the Commander in Chief cannot be checked by the courts.' There it is. There you have it. That boring stuff I learned as a junior high school student about checks and balances or about limited law or about authority under law - out the window. Gone. In other words, the republic and democracy is over. In Germany what did they call that? They called that the fuhrer's law. Why? Because the fuhrer was the law. That's what George Bush is saying here. George Bush is the law.”
"How strange that people who worship a God of War and Vengeance should get so lathered up about fertilized eggs and fetuses."
