TW3 — an alert and a list of Pfffft’s!

April 30th, 2008

That Was The Week That Was … sound and fury laced with a serious amount of delusion.

For instance, the plans to build an amusement park in Baghdad [???] gives me pause — perhaps they’d consider moving right into our gazillion dollar embassy; I understand we’re having trouble finding anyone willing to work there.

And I’m not surprised that Eastern Oregon wants to split off from Western — they’re like Northern and Southern California; two sides of the same coin but looking in different directions and speaking a different political language.

I think the week can be summed up best by the snippit about the shriveling penises … it’s always somebody else’s fault, isn’t it! If you embrace a Bigger Mythology than what’s what, eventually you’ll need an excuse of some sort, even an absurd one [like Dubby blaming the gas prices on Congress today.]

A couple of serious Pfffft! pieces after Harpers, emblematic of my disgust at the way the week is shaping up — and the last is comic relief, but even that is a connect-the-dot to the mindlessness of production/consumption.

Another Pfffft! of the moment is Bill Gates and his Vista edition of Windows — I’ve been locked out of Google for weeks; I finally gave up and loaded Firefox this morning, so if formatting is wonky for awhile, it’s just me getting used to the new browser. I discovered, along the way, that Homeland Security does NOT recommend Outlook Express because of security problems. Bill better be saving a lot of kids from mosquitoes — he hasn’t done much lately for his customers.

And here’s an alert — Mike Moore will be on Larry King [CNN] tonight; he’ll probably mention this [from his endorsement letter] at some point, quizzed as I’m sure he’ll be on the Rev. Wright [who seems to be really enjoying his 15 minutes, eh?!]

Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have seen in Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev. Wright up in his face as part of her mission to keep stoking the fears of White America. Every time she does this I shout at the TV, “Say it, Obama! Say that when she and her husband were having marital difficulties regarding Monica Lewinsky, who did she and Bill bring to the White House for ’spiritual counseling?’ THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!”

But no, Obama won’t throw that at her. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be decent. She’s been through enough hurt. And so he remains silent and takes the mud she throws in his face.

TW3 and the Pfffft’s … below.

Jude

HARPER’S WEEKLY REVIEW
April 29, 2008

Hillary Clinton gained nine more delegates than Barack
Obama in the Pennsylvania primary and challenged him to
debate without a moderator. Obama, who declined,
reportedly seemed “tired” and “brittle” campaigning in
Indiana. “Seniors, listen up,” he said. “I’m getting gray
hair myself. Running for president will age you quick.”
John McCain’s campaign received a $1,000 discount on the
rental fee for a public space for a fundraiser in
Homewood, Alabama, along with $100 worth of free labor
from the inmates of a local jail. All three candidates
taped messages for World Wrestling Entertainment’s
“W.W.E. Raw”: Clinton declared herself “ready to rumble”
for the American people; Obama, echoing former wrestler
Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, asked, “Do you smell what
Barack is cooking?”; McCain, speaking with a surly tone,
equated the Iraq war with a wrestling match and said that
Americans “do not watch wrestling because we’re ‘bitter,’”
but rather because “wrestling is about celebrating our
freedom.” In Basra, Iraq, a 17-year-old girl, Rand
Abdel-Qader, was stomped, suffocated, and stabbed to death
by her father, who accused her of having an affair with a
British soldier. Local police arrested the father but
released him without charge after two hours. “Not much can
be done when we have an honor-killing case,” said police
sergeant Ali Jabbar. “You are in a Muslim society and
women should live under religious laws.” Rand’s mother
divorced the killer and went into hiding. C3, the firm
that developed Disneyland, announced plans to build a $500
million amusement park in Baghdad.

Suspected Taliban assailants in Kabul killed a tribal
chief, a member of Parliament, and a ten-year-old boy in
an attempt to assassinate Afghan President Hamid
Karzai. Turkmenistan returned to its old calendar, meaning
that months will no longer be named for the late dictator
Saparmurat Niyazov, a.k.a. Turkmenbashi, his mother, a
book he wrote, and the concept of neutrality; nor will the
days be named for qualities such as youth, justice,
spirit, and Turkmenness. Fifty-five sweatshop workers died
in a mattress-factory fire in Casablanca, most of them
women; 95 Dinka tribesmen in southern Sudan were killed in
clashes over cattle theft; and a train collision killed 43
passengers in Zibo, China. Actor Wesley Snipes was
sentenced to three years in prison for not filing his
taxes. A Mexican diplomat was fired after a
video-surveillance tape showed him stealing BlackBerrys
belonging to White House officials at a meeting in New
Orleans. Eighty-four-year-old Ben Ami-Kadish, a retired
military engineer who worked from 1979 to 1985 at the
U.S. Army Armament Research, Development, and Engineering
Center in New Jersey, was arrested for giving secret
documents, including “atomic-related information,” to
Israel. The United States accused North Korea of helping
Syria build a nuclear reactor on a site that was destroyed
last year by an Israeli air strike; South Korean
intelligence officials told the Japanese press that ten
North Koreans working on the site were killed in the
attack. The Danish company Agroplast announced plans to
market cheap plastic dinnerware made from pig urine.

A 42-year-old Austrian woman, Elizabeth Fritzl, emerged
from the basement cell where her father had, since 1984,
allegedly imprisoned her and three of the seven children
she then bore him. According to authorities, 73-year-old
electrical engineer Josef concealed his daughter and their
offspring from his wife Rosemarie by forging letters from
Elizabeth saying that she was running away from home, then
that she was leaving three of her children at their
doorstep to be raised by them. Father Adelir Antonio de
Carli, a Brazilian priest attempting to set a world record
for flight with helium balloons, disappeared after he was
blown over the Atlantic Ocean, leaving only a cluster of
balloons in his wake. A group of Oregonians unhappy with
the state government announced a campaign for “Eastern
Oregon” to secede and form its own state from the Cascade
Mountains to the Idaho border. Tony Zirkle, a candidate
for Congress in Indiana who previously proposed
segregating races into different states, spoke before a
neo-Nazi group at an event to commemorate the birth of
Adolf Hitler. “I’ll speak before any group that invites
me,” said Zirkle. “I’ve spoken on an African-American
radio station in Atlanta.” Black squirrels, which exhibit
higher levels of testosterone than gray or red squirrels,
were overrunning parts of England, and 13 suspected
sorcerers, accused of stealing or shrinking penises, were
arrested in Congo after panic over penis thievery
triggered a series of attempted lynchings. “It’s real,”
said Kinshasa merchant Alain Kalala. “Just yesterday here,
there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left
was tiny.”

– Christian Lorentzen
http://harpers.org/subjects/WeeklyReview

Cheney Lawyer Claims Congress Has No Authority Over Vice-President
Elana Schor, The Guardian/UK via CommonDreams
Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The lawyer for US vice-president Dick Cheney claimed today that the Congress lacks any authority to examine his behaviour on the job.

The exception claimed by Cheney’s counsel came in response to requests from congressional Democrats that David Addington, the vice-president’s chief of staff, testify about his involvement in the approval of interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay.

Ruling out voluntary cooperation by Addington, Cheney lawyer Kathryn Wheelbarger said Cheney’s conduct is “not within the [congressional] committee’s power of inquiry”.

“Congress lacks the constitutional power to regulate by law what a vice-president communicates in the performance of the vice president’s official duties, or what a vice president recommends that a president communicate,” Wheelbarger wrote to senior aides on Capitol Hill.

The exception claimed by Cheney’s office recalls his attempt last year to evade rules for classified documents by deeming the vice-president’s office a hybrid branch of government - both executive and legislative.

The Democratic congressman who is investigating the legal framework for the violent interrogation of terrorist suspects, John Conyers, has asked Addington and several other top Bush administration lawyers to testify. Thus far all have claimed their deliberations are privileged.

However, Philippe Sands QC, law professor at University College, London, has agreed to appear in Washington and discuss the revelations in Torture Team, his new book on the consequences of the brutal tactics used at Guantanamo.

Excerpts from Torture Team were previewed exclusively by the Guardian earlier this month.

Two witnesses sought by Conyers, former US attorney general John Ashcroft and former US justice department lawyer John Yoo, claimed that their involvement in civil lawsuits related to harsh interrogations allows them to avoid appearing before Congress.

In letters to attorneys representing Ashcroft and Yoo, Conyers shot down their arguments and indicated he would pursue subpoenas if their clients did not testify at his May 6 hearing.

“I am aware of no basis for the remarkable claim that pending civil litigation somehow immunises an individual from testifying before Congress,” Conyers wrote.

Conyers, who chairs the House of Representatives judiciary committee, also questioned the reasoning of Cheney’s lawyer in a letter to Addington.

“It is hard to know what aspect of the invitation [to you] has given rise to concern that the committee might seek to regulate the vice president’s recommendations to the president,” Conyers wrote.

“Especially since far more obvious potential subjects of legislation are plentiful,” he added, mentioning several: US laws on the use of torture on terrorist suspects, the 15-year-old War Crimes Act, and the rules that allowed the Bush White House to receive legal advice from a specialised office within the justice department. ++

Cheney’s Total Impunity
Dan Froomkin, WaPo
Tuesday, April 29, 2008


Barack, Do You Think We Could Just Be Friends?
Darin Murphy, HuffPo
April 29, 2008

Dear Barack,

First of all let me just say that I am, like, your biggest fan, oh my God! I absolutely love watching you speak and I’m moved every time I hear or see you. There is no one I’d rather see in the White House than you. However, I’m afraid I just can’t support you anymore in light of recent things I’ve learned about you that I didn’t know before. First and foremost, you are…how should I say this…black. At first I didn’t think you were. You were so articulate and clean and well spoken that I just naturally assumed you were like me. So imagine how shocked and sad I was to find out otherwise!

I’ve also found out that not only are you a person of color, but your pastor is, too! That means, like, two black guys in the White House. After all, what your pastor says is what you say, is it not? And he said some bad things about America.

Now I know what you’re gonna say. “Well look, Republican pastors like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and Ted Haggert and John Hagee have said and done some deplorable things.” But in all fairness, those guys are, y’know, white. So they should be given the benefit of the doubt, don’t you think? ‘Course you do.

Now I used to judge candidates on which one I’d like better if I could have a beer with them. But I don’t drink anymore so I don’t support anyone who does (that leaves out Hilary, aren’t you glad?!) What I’m really looking for is someone who can beat me in a fried Twinkie eating contest. Anyone who can do that has my respect. But I hear you don’t much go for junk food. Now that term in itself is an oxymoron. I can’t support anyone that won’t eat my kinda food. I mean, how can you eat all that healthy crap? It’s so European. And Europeans are bad; that’s why we left, remember?

I’ve also found out that you’re not fond of wearing an American flag pin on your lapel. C’mon! I mean, America’s your team; your gang. Shouldn’t you wear the colors at all times? I know what you’re gonna say, Ronald Reagan didn’t wear one either and neither do your opponents. But again, their skin tone is one third of the colors of the flag and that’s good enough for me.

I’ve also heard people say that you’re a Muslim. I know, I know, everyone by now knows about that Christian church you attend. But still, how is a name like Barack Hussein Obama going to stand up in history alongside a William Jefferson Clinton, John Quincy Adams or a Franklin Delano Roosevelt? I mean, what will our great grandkids think? And I won’t be around to defend you!

Like I said before, honestly, I like you. A lot. More than all the other candidates you’re running against. But I’m just not ready for someone so different than me in every way to be running my country. You sure are inspiring, though, which gives me an idea. You ever consider hiring yourself out as a public speaker? You could make a killing doing that; you’re so entertaining. Dude, you’d be like a rock star without the rock! And as your number one fan I’ll be right in the front row.

By the way, can I have your autograph for my niece? Her name’s Betty.

Sincerely,

The Good Ole’ U.S.A. ++

China Discovers It’s Making “Free Tibet” Flags
Huffington Post
April 28, 2008

The public relation foibles of the Chinese government grow deeper every week. After months of trying to suppress Tibetan monks and protestors before the world casts all eyes its way for the Olympics, the BBC reports that China is producing the very material it suppresses: “Free Tibet” flags.

The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning.

But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper. ++

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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Entry Filed under: Political Waves