Honest to god, this is the REAL Reuters Headline.
It leads me to ask the obvious question:
If Hamas is just now figuring this out, where have they thought the bombs were coming from all this time?
A Twizzle in Time: A Twisted Political Fairy Tale
Once upon a time there was a spoiled rotten prince named George who got to be king. He was a brat of a prince, and his father, Old King George, always expected his somewhat less bratty and somewhat nobler brother Jeb to become King, but somehow Bratty Prince George weaseled his way onto the throne while the Old King and Prince Jeb weren’t looking. Now that he was on the throne, it was proving impossible to dislodge him.
One day, a group of the bratty king’s reluctant advisers were talking about him behind his back, which was the safest way to say negative things about the bratty king. Count John of the Ashy Croft mentioned his concern. “He gets this glazed look in his eyes and it there’s no getting through to him,” he complained.
General Colin the Powellful, a mighty warrior dedicated to the kingdom, related what he had seen. “He puts his arms out, stretched in front of him like a zombie or like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, and says in a weird voice, ‘must have Twizzlers, must have Twizzlers.’ It’s sick. HE thinks he’s being funny!” The grizzled general shook his head is disgust.
Condi, the Baroness Rice, who was in charge of all things having to do with grain, noted that the bratty king’s obsession with Twizzlers was so extreme that “he just seethes and bristles until I show up with his daily supply. And if I’m late, he’ll be screaming, ‘where’s my sugar? Get me some sugar!’ It’s horrifying. And I’m in charge of grains, not sugar! It’s not my job!” Her lovely brow furrowed with grumpiness as she stamped her dainty foot.
“I know what you mean,” agreed the king’s new personal physician, Dr. Moritsugu. “He does the same thing to me. It’s impossible! I’m a Doctor, guys, not a confectioner!”
Earl Rover, perhaps the bratty king’s best friend and closest adviser, confided that the famous “pretzel incident,” where the bratty king allegedly choked on a pretzel in in a local tavern, was a coverup for the real problem. “He choked on a Twizzler, but I didn’t want the public to know the awful truth.” The earl was almost in tears as he confessed this secret. “I mean, he drinks tankards of ale using Twizzlers as straws! Even peasants with iron stomachs retch at that combination. The kingdom will soon be knee-deep in barf.” The others nodded sympathetically, all looking a bit green.
Wolf O’Wits, a lesser noble desperate to keep his advisory position and fearing a fall from favor, said that he always kept a bag of Twizzlers nearby. “If the King starts suggesting that he’s unhappy with my advice, I just offer him a Twizzler. It works every time.”
The Don of Rummy, adviser of all things alcohol-and-cards-related, admitted that he also used Twizzlers to suck up to the bratty king. “I keep some around at all times,” he confided. It keeps the king calm and I can pretty much get accomplished whatever I feel I need to.” Wolf O’Wits nodded in agreement. Colin the Powellful looked askance at the Don, whose agenda he disapproved of.
Richard the Clarke, a crusty adviser left over from several kings before, posed the inevitable question: “What should we do?”
The advisers all shook their heads in bafflement and sadness. Robert the Gateskeeper spoke up. He was in charge of defense of the kingdom, and saw the bratty king’s Twizzler addiction as a weakness that could be penetrated by enemies. “We have to break his addiction,” the Gateskeeper said decisively.
“But how?” asked Baroness Rice, who was not much for original ideas.
“I know!” said Earl Rover. ” Let’s call Alan of the Green Span.” The Green Span was the most impressive bridge into the Kingdom, and Alan of the Green Span was a very famous bridge-tender. He was known for having established the toll rates that must be paid by anyone entering the kingdom on business. Many people thought he had the answer to almost everything because he was so wise. So the advisers trooped off to visit Alan of the Green Span, who was tending flowers in his retirement.
“I don’t think I can be of much assistance,” Alan of the Green Span objected as he deadheaded his petunias. “I’m retired. Let the young men in charge of things decide such policy.” When he said this he looked pointedly at the Don of Rummy. It was well known that Rummy’s policies and decisions were unpopular in the kingdom. In fact, there were rumors that Robert the Gateskeeper would replace the Don as the bratty king’s confidante very soon. But of course, those were just rumors.
Next the advisers decided to consult Alberto, the most famous lawyer in all the kingdom. “Unless you want to sue the manufacturer of Twizzlers or get an injunction to shut down production, I can’t help,” said Alberto. He shrugged his shoulders and examined his briefs. Condi examined his briefs, too.
“Alberto had a good idea, actually,” remarked Gutierrez, who was the adviser over the various commercial guilds in the kingdom. “If there is an injunction, then no more Twizzlers can be made, and the king will have to do without. Perhaps a modicum of sanity will then return to the throne.”
“Yes,” agreed Michael of Shirt Off, who was very concerned that the kingdom be secure so that he could go play half-naked golf. “An injunction is just the thing to do.”
So the advisers, now joined by Gutierrez and Shirt Off, and with the blessing of Alan of the Green Span (and accompanied by a selection of his finest cut flowers) went back to Alberto.
“There has to be a reason to shut down production of Twizzlers,” explained Alberto. Obviously we can’t give the real reason because the king would simply issue a decree saying that Twizzler production could go on. We have to come up with another reason.”
The advisers thought and thought. Then an adviser who had not spoken up before had an idea. Michael of Leave It, generally a lazy adviser known for his tendency to procrastinate, suggested looking at the label on a package of the King’s favorite Twizzlers. “Corn Syrup, Flour, Sugar, Cornstarch, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil 2% or Less, Salt 2% or Less, Artificial Flavorings 2% or Less, Citric Acid 2% or Less, Potassium Sorbate 2% or Less – a Preservative, Artificial Coloring 2% or Less – Includes Red 40 …”
“What does THAT mean?” cried Wolf O’Wits.
“I recognize some of those words, but not very many,” agreed Richard the Clarke.
“Aha!” shouted Gutierrez. “I think we have our angle!”
Even Alberto looked confused, but as Gutierrez explained his reasoning, smiles appeared on the faces of all the advisers. Alberto grinned. “Yes, I think that will work,” he said.
The next day Judge John Robert, the highest judge in all the land, entered an injunction against the manufacture of Twizzlers. Puffing on his hooka, the high Judge announced that henceforth there would be a permanent injunction against the manufacture not only of Twizzlers but of any item claiming to be food that did not contain all ingredients easily recognizable as food to any casual label-reader.
It was not long before the bratty king left the kingdom on a crusade to other lands to find the elusive Twizzler. He left his most trusted advisers in charge, but his penis, which he jokingly referred to as “Chainy” accompanied him assuring that there would be no offspring of the bratty king left in the kingdom.
Years went by and no one heard from the bratty king. A new king was selected and assumed the throne. Even though the new king had his own issues, nothing as serious as the Twizzler escapade ever troubled the kingdom again. And the citizens were healthier, to boot.
Children, the moral of the story is that if you can’t pronounce it, if it’s not made of things you can imagine consuming raw, don’t eat it. It might make you as crazy as bratty King George.
Bardic voices inspiring this fairy tale include Broken Newz.
Dixie Chicks
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The Dixie Chicks Ad NBC Doesn’t Want You To See
The Dixie Chicks were blacklisted by radios stations nationwide because the lead singer, Natalie Maines, said to a cheering crowd, “We are ashamed that President bush is from Texas.”
NBC won’t run an ad for the movie, because it says the ad is “disparaging to President Bush.”
For the love of all that’s free in this country, don’t they air ads disparaging to the president every four years, every time he has a political challenger?
Kurdistan
Kurds are one of the largest ethnic populations in the world without a country. They have inhabited the area of Kurdistan for as long as 8,000 years, but have never had a country or a kingdom.
The Kurdish language cannot be taught legally in Iranian schools. It is banned entirely as a language in Syria, and Turkey has prosecuted people for using it even as recently as 2003. The only part of Kurdistan where the language thrives is Iraq, and Iraq hosts Kurdish refugees from the other parts of Kurdistan. Although the language is Indo-Iranian in origin, “the historical development of the Kurdish language (both grammar and vocabulary) is distinct and different than the other members of the Iranian language family,” according to Wikipedia.
For centuries the Kurds have been persecuted much like the Jews of Europe and the Native tribes of North America. For instance, in the 16th century, as the Ottomans conquered more and more of Persian, entire Kurdish regions of Anatolia were systematically destroyed. Cities were and crops were burned and the people who survived were forcibly marched to Azerbaijan and even further east, as far as 1,500 miles away to Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush mountains.
Because of their ethnic identity, Kurds have continually sought autonomy from the governments that have split Kurdistan. When the Ottoman Empire finally decayed out of existence in the early 20th century, many Kurds expected that autonomy. When it failed to materialize, they believed that the newly created Turkish republic had betrayed them. Backed by the United Kingdom, Turkish Kurds declared independence in 1927 and established the Republic of Ararat, which was never recognized by the international community. In 1931Turkey resumed control over the disputed area. Turkey again suppressed Kurdist revolts in 1937-1938, while Iran did the same in the 1920s. The Soviet-sponsored Kurdish Republic of Mahabad, in Iran, lasted barely more than one year after World War II. Kurds fought Iraq’s Baathist government for independence in the 1960’s and in 1970 rejected limited territorial self-rule within Iraq, unsuccessfully demanding larger areas including the oil-rich Kirkuk region.
During the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime implemented anti-Kurdish policies and practices which were widely condemned by the international community. Among the more notorious actions against the Kurds under his rule was the Halabja poison gas attack, when Saddam used of chemical weapons against the Kurds. Thousands died.
Later, Saddam’s army, under the command of Ali Hassan al-Majid, carried out a systematic genocide of the Kurdish people. From March 29, 1987 until April 23, 1989, more than 2000 Kurdish villages were destroyed and an estimated 50,000 Kurds were killed in rural areas. The large Kurdish town of Qala Dizeh (population 70,000) was completely destroyed by the Iraqi army. The campaign also included Arabization of Kirkuk, a program to drive Kurds out of the oil-rich city and replace them with Arab settlers from central and southern Iraq. Kurdish sources report the number of dead to be greater than 182,000. Saddam Hussein is currently on trial and no doubt awaiting sentencing for his crimes against the Kurds.
So should Kurdistan be autonomous?
Since we invaded the country, the most peaceful portion of the Iraq has been the Kurdish north. I have seen several articles about non-Kurdish Iraqis moving to Iraqi Kurdistan to escape the violence. One has to wonder if this mass migration will result in the violence being brought to the doorstep of the peaceful Kurds. To a degree, it already has in cities like Kirkuk and Mosul.
Kirkuk itself is a thorny issue within the issue of Kurdish autonomy within Iraq. Kirkuk is in a region with vast oil resources, but lies on the southwestern edge of the Kurdish area. Negotiations with the Baathist government in 1970 broke down over whether or not Kirkuk would be part of the Kurdish autonomous region.
Iraqi Kurds want independence. It would seem at first glance that an independent Kurdistan would be reasonable, except that our ally Turkey objects. Turkey has the largest population of Kurds.
The area that would make an ethnic Kurdistan actually spreads into six countries: Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. An estimated 25-40 million Kurds inhabit the area, which is approximately the size of France. If Iraqi Kurds win independence, there could very easily be a domino effect in the other five countries with Kurdish populations. This would destabilize the entire region, especially Turkey, Iran and Syria. I can’t imagine anyone wants to see any of these countries, especially Iran or Syria, destabilized.
The Hunt for WMD Continues
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Terror Watch: The Hunt for WMD Continues
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R. – Mich.) demanded in recent weeks that US intelligence agencies continue to look for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He might be another voice in the crowd, but unfortunately he is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. The intelligence officials who report to his committee say there is nothing new to discover.
We have been in Iraq for three years now. The UN weapons inspectors found nothing in the years preceding our invasion of Iraq, and since the invasion nothing of any significance has been found. Yet Rep. Hoekstra wants to devote hundreds more man hours to continue looking for these phantom WMDs.
To be fair, some old chemical weapons have been found. Recently 300 old chemical shells were found, and there were 500 sarin shells found earlier. All of these shells, though, dated back to before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. They were in such bad condition they couldn’t have conceiveably been used for any destructive purpose.
Saddam Hussein did not possess WMDs before President Bush decided to invade Iraq. He apparently had no plans to revive his program. The WMDs that justified the invasion did not exist. We went to war over phantom chemicals.
Hoekstra insists that “there are continuing threats from the materials that are or may still be in Iraq.” The thing is, though, Hoekstra has said he wants the intelligence agencies “to more fully pursue a complete investigation of what existed in Iraq before the war.” BEFORE the war? Why? It’s beating such a dead horse! They don’t exist, and even if they do, they are in such poor shape they can’t be used! Why waste the manpower and money to continue this wild goose chase? Is he that desperate to somehow vindicate the White House? Even the White House has backed off on its claims of WMDs.
Jamal Ware, a spokesman for Hoekstra, asserts that Hoekstra’s main concern is that all munitions dumps and sites that could still pose a hazard to U.S. soldiers be found. “Any effort that chairman Hoekstra has made in this area has been aimed at insuring the safety of our troops overseas,” he said. So it’s not to make the Iraqi people more secure. It’s to make our soldiers more secure. But the alleged WMDs don’t pose a threat to our people!
There are those in the U.S. intelligence community who see Hoekstra’s demands as a waste of time. One source Hoekstra claimed for proof of the existence of the WMDs was Georges Sada, a former Iraqi Air Force general who claimed in a book that chemical weapons were flown from Iraq to Syria prior to the U.S. invasion. Sada has admitted he never actually saw any of the weapons, but his allegations were prominently featured on Fox News.
The bottom line is that more than three years into the war, the mission is not accomplished and is unlikely ever to be accomplished. There are better and more productive things to spend our intelligence resources on than a search for ghosts.
‘Just a Comma’ on National Punctuation Day
According to the Carpetbagger Report, which can be accessed on the Think Progress website, this afternoon on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, George W. Bush practically said that all the sectarian violence in Iraq is irrelevant. When history views what is going on in Iraq now, Bush claims it will be seen as “just a comma.”
Is it just me, or does anyone else think he needs to go back to primary school and learn punctuation?
This is what was said:
BLITZER: Let’s move on and talk a little bit about Iraq. Because this is a huge, huge issue, as you know, for the American public, a lot of concern that perhaps they are on the verge of a civil war, if not already a civil war…. We see these horrible bodies showing up, tortured, mutilation. The Shia and the Sunni, the Iranians apparently having a negative role. Of course, al Qaeda in Iraq is still operating.
BUSH: Yes, you see — you see it on TV, and that’s the power of an enemy that is willing to kill innocent people. But there’s also an unbelievable will and resiliency by the Iraqi people…. Admittedly, it seems like a decade ago. I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is — my point is, there’s a strong will for democracy.
Presumably, our Ivy League-educated Miscommunicator in Chief meant that all the mutilations, the suicide bombs, the beheadings, as well as all the senseless murder of civilian men, women, and children in the marketplaces and at mosques, will be only a footnote in Iraqi history. That would make more sense, anyway.
I find it extremely hard to believe that what is happening in Iraq right now will be reduced to some kind of punctuation mark – a squiggle that doesn’t even mention it. Heck, I’ll go out on a limb and admit that I believe that it will even merit considerably more than a footnote! The Boston Tea Party merits more than a footnote, after all, and it had all the hallmarks of a fraternity prank, the likes of which I’m sure our esteemed chief executive was familiar with at Yale. If dumping a cargo of tea into Boston Harbor is part of the legend of American democracy, surely the mutilations and murders of thousands of people over a period of a few months will be part of the legend of Iraqi democracy.
How could we have re-elected this idiot? How could this fool ever have been elected president in the first place? Oh, yeah. I forgot. He wasn’t.
Perhaps Bush decided to make this comment because today is National Punctuation Day. No kidding. It really is.
Gaining Respect for (gulp) Condoleezza
Lawyers and G.O.P. Chiefs Resist Proposal on Tribunal – New York Times
Selected portions of this astounding article:
“The Bush administration’s proposal to bring leading terrorism suspects before military tribunals met stiff resistance Thursday from key Republicans and top military lawyers who said some provisions would not withstand legal scrutiny or do enough to repair the nation’s tarnished reputation internationally….
“The administration officials, who agreed to discuss internal administration deliberations in exchange for anonymity, said the decision to transfer high-level terror suspects from Central Intelligence Agency prisons to military custody had been the result of months of secret debate at the highest levels of government.
“The officials said the change had been most vigorously championed by the State Department, under Condoleezza Rice, against some resistance from a range of officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, who had defended the status quo, in which high-level leaders of Al Qaeda, including the man identified as the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, have been held in secret C.I.A custody.
“Brig, Gen. James C. Walker, the top uniformed lawyer for the Marines, said that no civilized country should deny a defendant the right to see the evidence against him and that the United States ‘should not be the first.’
“Maj. Gen. Scott C. Black, the judge advocate general of the Army, made the same point, and Rear Adm. Bruce E. MacDonald, the judge advocate general of the Navy, said military law provided rules for using classified evidence, whereby a judge could prepare an unclassified version of the evidence to share with the jury and the accused and his lawyer.
Senate Republicans said the proposal to deny the accused the right to see classified evidence was one of the main points of contention remaining between them and the administration.
‘It would be unacceptable, legally, in my opinion, to give someone the death penalty in a trial where they never heard the evidence against them,’ said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has played a key role in the drafting of alternative legislation as a member of the Armed Services Committee and a military judge. ‘”Trust us, you’re guilty, we’re going to execute you, but we can’t tell you why”? That’s not going to pass muster; that’s not necessary.”
I may have to rethink my total disgust with absolutely every member of the Bush administration. This NYT article tells us that Condi actually opposes holding suspected terrorists in secret CIA prisons. She apparently even wants to give them a trial before they are executed. Yes, a member of the Bush administration thinks perhaps due process should at least be given a nod with respect to these people.
The article says she and Cheney have been in conflict over this subject. Anyone in the administration who stands up to Cheney has my attention, if not my respect. That man scares the hell out of me. W observed the same vice presidential plan as his father – pick one that would be a much worse president and guarantee no one will opt for assassination.
How should our government prosecute someone when the evidence against them is classified? The Bush administration would simply say that the defendant shouldn’t know the classified evidence against him, but should be convicted anyway. This violates the Confrontation Clause in the US Constitution, which provides that a criminal defendant should be fully apprised of the evidence against him and be able to confront the witnesses presenting that evidence.
The Confrontation Clause is part of the Bill of Rights, those first ten Amendments to the Constitution that address the basic rights and freedoms that all people should have. This is where we find the freedom of speech and religion, the right to be secure in our homes against government intrusion, the right of states to organize militias, the criminal defendant’s right to a lawyer, the right to associate with whomever we wish.
Why was this included in the Bill of Rights? We should keep in mind that the framers of our constitution were considered criminals themselves at one point in their lives: immediately before and during the revolutionary war. In crafting the constitution there were months of heated debate and argument about wehat to include and how it should be include d. The framers carefully worded each phrase so as to lay a foundation for a free society.
I think if any of the framers were alive today to see how much government intrusion there is in our daily lives, they would be shocked senseless.
But back to the issue of confrontation: When one is accused of a crime and subject to losing his liberty or his life becauseof the accusations, he must know what the evidence is and he must be given a lawyer so that he can do his best to effectively counter it. His liberty is on the line. His life may be on the line. The Bush administration would have us support keeping the terrorist suspects in custody as well as the prisoners of war held at Guantanamo Bay, just because the administration doesn’t want to explain what the evidence is.
This is the same administration that insisted Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, remember? And it says, just like when it justified going to war in Iraq, “we have good evidence, but we’re not going to tell you what it is.”
The chief executive of the United States government should support the constitution enthusiastically and without exception. This administration has sought ways around it and other laws at every turn. It diminishes my respect for the government.
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