This week's rant is on the real significance of the political attack on the BBC. I'm not claiming that I'm part of the "true majority" (whatever Dubya claims that is today), but this is a big one and apparently very few people are much interested. Actually, to me it looks like it's just another example of exploiting other people's misfortunes for BushCo's political advantage. Remember 9/11?

In this case, the misfortune was relatively small, but BushCo has exploited it big time, with lots of prominent heads already rolling at the BBC. Remember that the BBC is (but soon to be "was") the antithesis of the journalistic black jokes such as FOX news and CBS. Even if this was a real and major mistake (and not just the pure scapegoating for political advantage that it seems to be), the BBC has never been a purely reliable propaganda mouthpiece for the Iraq war, etc.

So... Any speculations on the new direction of the BBC? I'd wager that those British headhunters are all over at FAUX news and CBS right now. CBS gets special mention this week for refusing to broadcast a prize-winning anti-Bush ad during the Superbowl. They said it was "advocacy" to remind people about Dubya's deficit. Truth is no excuse, sir!

However, back in jolly old England, they aren't going to reward the BBC for telling so much of the truth that opposes BushCo, but they sure are going to punish the organization for making a mistake. The hilarious part (in the "best" tradition of really black British humor) is that the underlying truth here, even in this case, was that BushCo WAS lying about the WMD, and that was the main point of the BBC reports. For messing about with that truth, the BBC shall be recast in a new mold, using "journalistic integrity" as the WMD.

Hey, if they administered a "journalistic integrity" test at FAUX news they'd have to fire each and every one of them. At CBS they might be able to retain a couple of the interns and the woman who makes the coffee.

Just to complete the picture, here's a recent example of "real news" from CBS:

"Yes, we believed in Iraq's WMD without any real evidence, but we invaded the country and killed a bunch of people anyway. We just wanted to do this, and lying about WMD was a convenient excuse. Dick Cheney assured us that Haliburton will 'donate' a good chunk of the profits back to us. Only fair considering all the business we are giving them," Condoleezza Rice told CBS on Thursday.

Ha, ha!! Fooled you, didn't I! Oh? You weren't fooled. Okay, so here's the actual story:

"I think that what we have is evidence that there are differences between what we knew going in and what we found on the ground," Condoleezza Rice told CBS on Thursday. [Reuters reports that] CBS simply broadcast this, apparently with a straight face.

It all depends on what "knew" means, right? Remember how much good clean fun the rightwing loonies had with Clinton over the definition of a word? Well, "knew" means you knew something. Past tense of "know", because she's describing a prior state here. If you really and actually know something, it is not false. When you "know" something, you don't find "differences" "on the ground". If BushCo-token spokes-fool Rice could move her lips without lying, she might have said the first version. Of course, in the case of President Clinton, I can't recall anyone dying for the confusion on the word.

Hey, how about defining "honor and integrity"? That should be worth a few thousand more deaths, right?

Today's rant is coming from a discussion of the Saddam trial in the newsgroups, where OJ Simpson's murder trial was brought in as an example of strange legal defenses. I basically do regard Saddam's defenses as ridiculous and weaker than OJ's. However, for a "fair" trial, even weak defenses must be considered "fairly". I don't really feel the American court system is "too fair" just because OJ's weak defenses succeeded. My concern there is simply that money should not be the deciding factor. The situation in Iraq is different. The deciding factor in Iraq is force, and right now it's mostly American force. Ergo, right now I think it would be impossible for Saddam to get any semblance of a "fair trial" in Iraq, any more so than an opponent of Saddam could have expected to get a fair trial in Iraq last year. The balance of force has shifted.

There is a bigger problem with a Saddam trial from BushCo's perspective, and that's the reason they wanted him dead rather than captured alive. (On review of the evidence, I'm pretty much convinced that the capture was a mistake, and quite possibly even a violation of orders.) That is the problem that Saddam's defenses, no matter how ridiculous, are very similar to the defenses OTHER "national leaders" would have to use for their actions. To the people who died, it makes little difference if Saddam killed them to cling to power, or if BushCo killed them to remove Saddam from power. They were still innocent victims and in a "fair" world, someone might be held accountable for their deaths.

I'm not a fan of black humor, but someone who was would probably focus on the black aspects. In particular, America probably killed more Iraqis through economic sanctions than we killed in the recent war. The difference was that the rest of the world was willing to agree to those sanctions. Back then, President Clinton was also building up the military, so he effectively weakened Iraq's military and effectively created the military instrument that ultimately destroyed Saddam--and now BushCo is claiming all of the credit and dreams of establishing a new worldwide empire. Not the first dreamers, but like Rocky told Bullwinkle, "That trick never works!"

BushCo is very persistent in ignoring the lessons of history. For example, they also dream of establishing a new age of the Robber Barons, and they've actually made great progress towards their evil goal. They want the peasants (even including those foolish dittoheads) to be controlled ever more reliably (by ever stronger police) with ever growing profits and and ever growing power increasingly concentrated in the hands of BushCo. Sorry, but "ever growing" is not possible in a finite world. Period

From our perspective, the BushCo dream is just wage slavery par excellence, but BushCo will use the power to drive the wages as low as possible--for the few jobs that can't be done cheaper in India. The historical lesson that SHOULD have been learned here is that "Slavery doesn't work." Doesn't matter how you disguise it, it just isn't a competitive economic system. Here, I'll just limit it to two of the more glaring examples, the Confederacy and the Soviet Union. There is strong evidence that the real cause of the Civil War was simply that the Confederacy was bankrupt and determined to default on the Yankee bankers. The Yankee bankers were not willing to accept that, and they therefore insisted on a very bloody war to prevent it. (By the way, some of those Yankee bankers' descendents are still important parts of BushCo.) In the case of the Soviet Union, they didn't call it slavery, but it effectively was a slave system with the people owned by the Communists, and it also went bankrupt. Remember, "Slavery doesn't work." Given the Soviet nuclear arsenal, we are quite fortunate that no one was able to start a war over that bankruptcy. Perhaps we were just lucky that BushCo didn't have their fingers very deep into that pie--no one wanted to loan much money to the Soviets.

This weeks topic is the lies themselves. There are some lies that actually DO get a lot of consideration because they come from people with the power to act on those lies. That's BushCo, right now, but after observing their antics for a couple of years, I've realized that you have to read them like old Pravda back in days of the USSR. In particular, the more loudly and aggressively they are accusing someone else, the more you should suspect they are doing whatever it is that they are accusing the other guy of.

The Saddam case is a rather interesting example. In particular, the main accusation against Saddam was that he had lots of weapons of mass destruction and might use them against America. Even though BushCo has full control over the largest and supposedly best intelligence agencies in the world, they tossed out all the actual evidence and continued to accuse Saddam of stockpiling WMD. However, the simple truth is we know that the US does have large stocks of WMD. If we were right to invade Iraq because of an imaginary threat of WMD, wouldn't it be proper for other nations to invade the US because of our actual WMD? "Look at Saddam's WMD, don't look at our WMD!"

Another important accusation against Saddam was that he had actually used WMD, both against his own people and against other nations. Ever heard of smallpox? Americans used smallpox as a WMD against the American Indians, who are now regarded as part of America's own people. Ever hear of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Americans used WMD against other people. We insist that these were proper actions and justified by the circumstances at the time, but that's just what Saddam would say. "Look at Saddam's history, don't look at our history!"

Saddam is accused of assassinating his political opponents. Israel is accused of assassinating its political opponents. America has used political assassination in the past and is taking lessons from the Israelis right now. Actually, killing political opponents is popular with LOTS of governments. Everyone who is killing their political opponents of course claims they are really executing criminals and terrorists. The political opponents who are getting killed always claim they are patriots and freedom fighters struggling for the liberation of their people. If George Washington had been captured by King George III, he would have been handled as a traitor and executed after a suitable "fair trail" as King George III defined it. Now that Saddam has been captured by "King George II" (AKA Dubya Bush), why should we expect anything different? "Saddam murdered patriotic freedom fighters, don't look at our killing of patriotic freedom fighters!"

The bottom line is that no one needs laws to protect them from someone who is weaker than they are. We need laws to protect the weak from the strong. That can, at least in theory, raise us above the beasts and their law of the jungle. However, this is an area where BushCo lies really shine. Actually, if you're like most Americans, you probably don't even know about this topic, though it's one of BushCo's highest priorities. It's called tort reform. If you listen to BushCo's lies, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. The reality is different. The whole grand design is to make it harder for weak (poor) people to use the law against strong (rich) people. Did you really believe that a bunch of lawyers would do anything to reduce the need for lawyers? No, of course not. The REAL idea is only to limit access to the courts for certain kinds of people--the poor peasants like you and me. That way the lawyers can spend more time helping rich companies sue each other, with lovely high fees, the fees get passed down to the customers and taxpayers (remember those peasants), and the lawyers will be very happy. The American legal system already favors rich defendants like OJ Simpson over the paupers who receive all the executions. Right NOW BushCo is using YOUR tax dollars to make the laws even better for BushCo and the lawyers, NOT for you. "Saddam will get a fair trial, don't look at America's unfair legal system!"

You want REAL "legal", you should go look at Marshall's decision in Marbury v. Madison. Talk about the wisdom of Solomon! Damned if he did, and damned if he didn't, but he somehow found a TRUTHFUL way out that actually strengthened the rule of law. But those wise men understood that abuse of power is the great danger.

BushCo loves power, and now that they have it, they are going to USE it. "Laws are for crushing peasants!"

Time for another little rant on Dubya's latest lie--claiming he wants a "fair" trial before killing Saddam. The chance of a "fair" trial on any terms remotely acceptable to BushCo is zilch. No, I'm absolutely NOT defending Saddam as ANY kind of nice guy--though he's certainly no worse than dozens of other recognized "national leaders". However, for each possible crime, Saddam really has rational and legal defenses. Therefore, BushCo cannot permit a fair trial.

So let's pretend anyway, and lets consider the possible charges and the obvious defenses, and it will quickly become clear how flawed and distorted the "legal" situation is. Then we can consider the kangaroo court procedures that will actually be used.

First and quite unfortunately, we have to discard any charges based on violations of Iraqi national laws. Sure, lots of national laws are bad and even immoral--at least people in other countries think so. But Iraqi law is still the Iraqi law, and that's what national sovereignty is all about. At each stage, Saddam was acting in accord with Iraqi law. Even though Saddam was steadily changing that law to increase his own dictatorial powers, he was playing by the "rule of law", and there is no "fair" legal system that permits redefining crimes after the fact. No, we can't even weasel out by citing examples of negative defaults, where certain not precisely specified behaviors are illegal unless they are explicitly permitted, because in Saddam's case he could create a properly legal law to explicitly permit whatever he wanted to do. Even though most of his victims were Iraqis, the Iraqi law was permitting them to be victimized.

So if Iraqi national laws won't work, what about international laws. Actually, on first glance, this seems very promising, because some of Saddam's crimes do fit into categories where there is broad international consensus about right and wrong. There are two major areas here--wars of aggression and human rights violations. On top of that, the International Criminal Court was created to deal with exactly these sorts of situations. Even the United States accepts the ideals and originally agreed to support their pursuit--until Dubya personally decided to cancel America's participation. I guess some folks might think that BushCo could still refer this Saddam problem to that court and leave America out of it, but it won't work once you consider the kinds of charges that would need to be part of that mythical "fair trial".

For wars of aggression, there are two counts against Saddam--Iran and Kuwait. Historically bent people will already suspect there's a problem here, since the international responses were completely different. The war with Iran was internationally ignored, while the second provoked widespread reaction, with an immediate international response and ultimately led to Saddam's fall.

Actually, it's not perfectly accurate to say the war with Iran was "internationally ignored", because BushCo was NOT ignoring it, but rather actively encouraging the carnage and profiting by selling weapons to both sides. This would be a crucial part of Saddam's defense in that fair trial everyone keeps mumbling about. Saddam will say Iraq was truly threatened by Iran, which was (and still is) run by religious fanatics. In those years, Iran's leaders were even more fanatical, and quite eager to encourage their co-religionists in Iraq to rebel, and Saddam will say he was only defending his nation. His BushCo allies assured him of "America's" support, even though Iran was much stronger than Iraq and he was "forced" to use "extraordinary military weapons" for "defensive purposes". That's Bush-speak for the chemical weapons that were supplied by BushCo in the first place. Saddam would use basically the same defense as regards gassing the Kurds, though the defensive claims are weaker there. Unfortunately, those claims of "performing his presidential duty to defend Iraq" are mostly going to come back to questions of "national security" and "intelligence", and that's going to be really hard to convict Saddam for. After all, look at Dubya's defective intelligence reports claiming that Iraqi weapons were a threat. The actual aggressive invasion has since shown that no such "WMD justification" existed, which is certainly awkward, to say the least. Or a war crime, to say the most.

Time to return to Kuwait and consider the opposite international reaction to that Iraqi aggression. This one seems like it ought to be taken as a fine example of international response fully justified by the highest principles. However, if principle was the main concern, there were worse situations elsewhere in the world at the same time. No, the big difference in Kuwait was that America got upset and was willing to lead a strong response. Saddam had gotten out of hand, and something had to be done, though not quite so thoroughly done as to remove Saddam from power. However, the big question here is whether there is any defense that Saddam could put up for that fair trial thing, and it turns out that there probably is. Saddam would probably claim that it was an internal matter, not international aggression--and he would even call the US to testify on that point. The muddy truth was that our ambassador was probably officially lying to Saddam to set him up for the fall, but it's still enough to muddle the issue and drag BushCo farther into the mess. I actually do believe this count of aggressive war against Kuwait really would stick, and even though parts of it are quite embarrassing to BushCo, at least there would be little risk of becoming co-defendants there. The risky part from BushCo's perspective is that Dubya would want the trial to be strictly limited to Kuwait, while Saddam would try to expand the scope.

So if the waters have been muddied for the charges of aggressive war, what about human rights violations. Things like torture and murder of his own citizens. No question but that Saddam was up to his ears in this sort of stuff--but still awkward for that fair trial that keeps dogging us. Hard to guess exactly what tactics sharp lawyers would use, but I can think of several without too much effort. Legal acts within Iraqi law as it existed? Subordinates acting without Saddam's knowledge or approval? Required actions to prevent the kind of anarchy that now prevails in Iraq? Citing comparable or worse examples elsewhere, but which aren't being prosecuted? And last, but most importantly, that the worst crimes were with the knowledge and even encouragement of his former friends and allies, especially that selfsame United States.

The current suggestions of a fair trial in Iraq are just too ridiculous to take seriously. Sort of like the idea of Kenny Boy Lay getting a fair trial in Houston, but worse (assuming anyone ever gets tried for stealing all those billions of dollars). There were no laws on the Iraqi books, and they are just going to make them up on the fly, with the goal of executing Saddam already stated by the supreme "military" commander. Anyone who suggests there might be any merit in any defense offered by Saddam would expect to be arrested and disappeared by the occupying troops. No rational person can pretend that a American-military-sponsored trial in Iraq will be anything but a kangaroo court of victor's justice, even knowing that Saddam is a great criminal deserving the most severe penalties.

All in all, it seems there are a number of conclusions to be offered. The most obvious one is that a fair trial can NOT be one of the REAL priorities, and BushCo would have been much happier if Saddam hadn't been quick enough to manage to surrender. The original idea was clearly to get the grenade in the hole, kill Saddam immediately, and avoid any "legal" problems. They didn't really care if those soldiers got blown up in a boobytrap as long as Saddam died, too. They didn't really want to capture Saddam any more than they wanted to capture his sons--even though their live captures and interrogations might well have saved American lives.

Another conclusion is that we ALL know that many of Saddam's acts were wrong and indefensible, but we're talking about higher standards here--and what makes those higher standards important is because good people can and MUST apply them even to bad people who don't understand them and who violated those standards. Kind of the problem with being good, eh? This is a job for the International Criminal Court. No, still not a perfect solution, but the best we could do in a situation like this. Unfortunately impossible since that would include accepting the possibility that the justification for punishing Saddam is no better than the rationale for punishing Dubya and various other national leaders. Not just morally upstanding and ethical people, but even BushCo supporters should (in theory) be able to understand that situation.

It all comes back to BushCo's legal system, the "Law of the Jungle" and BushCo's golden rule, "He who has the gold makes the rules!"

A few days ago I actually sent a little email message to BushCo. Talk about pissing into the wind. However, I was wondering why there was no reply. Back when the White House belonged to the people they at least acknowledged email with a polite FAQish reply. One could even fantasize about President Clinton reading a few pieces at random, what with him being such an avid reader. Not likely in Dubya's case, since he hates reading the way his dad hates broccoli. The lack of broccoli in Poppy's White House was mostly harmless, though it upset a few farmers. To the contrary, Dubya's willful ignorance kills people.

The following is a new email message:

Well, well, well. What a surprise. You mean the technical staff of the White House is not capable of handling email? Could be. Let's consider some possibilities. 1. Projected incompetence from the top is certainly one possibility. Selecting the sysops for their political views rather than technical competence. Nothing wrong at my end. I send LOTS of email without bounce messages. 2. Policy of refusing email from foreign SMTP servers. Remarkable hypocrisy given the handling of foreign absentee votes in the selection of 2000--since those votes were expected to favor Dubya. However, it would make sense if foreign email has become very negative and given BushCo's aversion to bad news--especially ugly truths. 3. Propaganda purpose. Most likely. Most probably a cunning and technically sophisticated strategy to discourage negative communications so the White House can claim the email supports Dubya. Incoming email is automatically analyzed. Favorable email receives warm and kind responses intended to encourage additional messages. Negative email receives rude and mysterious bounce messages. Of course fake bounce messages violate the courtesy that makes the Internet work--but given BushCo's track record for violating domestic laws and international treaties, and even abusing the Constitution when it gets it their way, why would they worry about courtesy? By the way, I'm going to circulate this exchange on the Web. Here is what I finally got in response to my original email: Mail Delivery System wrote: > This is the Postfix program at host mail.asahi-net.or.jp. > > I'm sorry to have to inform you that the message returned > below could not be delivered to one or more destinations. > > For further assistance, please send mail to > > If you do so, please include this problem report. You can > delete your own text from the message returned below. > > The Postfix program > > : connect to wh.eop.gov[198.137.241.41]: > server dropped connection > > : connect to > wh.eop.gov[198.137.241.41]: server dropped connection Here is the original email: Shannon Jacobs wrote: > Just read about the British reporter asking you the question you > answered "I don't know that they do." You remember, the one about why > so many free people hate and fear you. Well, pretending you actually > want to know the ugly truth, I can easily give you the answers. I'm a > free person and I hate you for the harm you do, and I fear you for > your chronic and perpetual abuse of power. > > There really is a difference between good and bad people. Good people > do not enjoy using force. They use it when it is necessary, but > unlike you, they use it without pleasure. In addition, good people > are not so incredibly greedy, vindictive, selfish, and hypocritical > as you are. Good people are even sincerely sorry when they cause > other people to die, whereas you can't even be bothered to attend any > of the funerals of the American soldiers you've sent to their deaths. > > By the way, you also disgust me for your inability to recognize the > truths about yourself. You also shame me to be taken as some sort of > representative of my nation. > > P.S. All of this goes double for Cheney, except that I don't think he > is any more conniving and cunning than you are. > > P.P.S. Totally pointless email, but it made me feel a tiny bit better.

This has to be the lead story for a major spleen rant. "BushCo Pleads Guilty!" Try to imagine a criminal telling the court "The law was wrong, but my act was right." Well, no wonder the Bushies reject all courts (except for the 5-4 SCOTUS). The speaker in this case was Perle, one of the top neo-cons. He's already eaten his foot a couple of times, but Dubya still has him in a very prominent position directly under Rumsfeld, who's also an expert at sticking his foot in his mouth.

Actually, you have to put this in context. Perle couldn't actually say anything as honest as "Waging a war of aggression is a war crime" or even "We're guilty imperialists and we just wanted the oil." Like Dubya, he apparently can't conceive of being in the wrong. He actually said that international law was preventing the US (falsely equated with BushCo) from doing what was "right", so attacking Iraq was okay, even though it violated international law. Every criminal would like to define his crime as right, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of having laws, wouldn't it?

So now look at it in light of the results--which Perle certainly must be aware of. Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, which was the main justifying claim (AKA "selling point") for the war. International law insisted on concrete evidence, and post-invasion searches have shown there was no evidence to be found. Funny. Looks to me like international law was right.

The main secondary claim was about Al Qaeda and fighting terrorism, but again the awkward truth is that Bin Ladin's monsters had no significant presence in Saddam's secular Iraq, though now they are clearly growing much stronger throughout the region. Lot of awkward truthtellers also said that would happen. (And this reminds me of that convenient treason directed against Valerie Plame, the wife of one of those nasty old truthtellers. Remember that Dubya said that particular "evildoer" whe revealed she was a CIA agent would probably never be found. (But everyone already knows it was Karl Rove.) Treason? As defined by law? BushCo don't need no stinking laws.)

Various other claims and rationales for the invasion have all fallen apart. The unavoidable conclusion is that the "war" with Iraq was unprovoked aggression. Closest comparison in my mind is to a schoolyard bully collecting lunch money.

Big difference from the schoolyard bully is the corpses. Today's extremely conservative estimate is 7,898 Iraqi civilians have died because of BushCo's invasion. Probably more like 10,000, but there's no official number because BushCo is good at propaganda and labels bad (or even awkward) truths as "unpatriotic". Still, we can't avoid saying that just in Iraq, America is already responsible for killing about 3 times as many civilians as Al Qaeda killed on 9/11. Also some large number of conscripted Iraqi soldiers, but who cares? Also some large number of civilians in Afghanistan in the previous war, but who cares? Also a few hundred Americans, and apparently BushCo doesn't even care about them.

Actually, that last bit angers me quite a bit. Hiding the coffins. Bad publicity, you know. Bad publicity be damned, this is wrong. I admit that the timing of my birth was lucky--when I went into the service there was no actual war and not much chance I was going to get killed in combat. Long time ago, but I was 18 or 19 years old. No big reason, but I just felt I should do a hitch to serve my country. JFK jet lag? However, if I had died in the service of my country, I would have thought it appropriate for that fact to be publicly recognized and acknowledged, not hidden and covered up. If our men are dying for a "good cause" in Iraq, then we should be honoring them in public, not hiding them like they're some sort of terrible failures for getting themselves killed.

Don't forget that Perle is another one of those chickenhawks who avoided combat when he had the chance. War is fine with him as long as other people do the dying.

Me, I always felt that war was a bad thing, but sometimes you just had to do it, and you always have to be ready to use force, just in case. However you should never enjoy the fighting or killing. I think that's the real difference between good and evil. When a good person uses force, it is without pleasure, but only because there is really and truly no other option. I think these Bushies LIKE using force. Of course the extreme example is Dubya himself joking about a woman who was being put to death with his "blessing". Like his black trifecta joke? Bad things are good for him, so Dubya isn't going to lose any sleep just because he causes other people to die.

Not sure why, but that reminds me to mention the recent report on the Wellstone crash. I have trouble with conspiracy theories. I believe that conspiracies have to unravel. On the other hand, that report was not very convincing. Pilot error? Only if the pilots were transmuted into chimps and distracted by a banana. I was a lousy pilot, but I could not have allowed my airspeed to drop like that, and I certainly would have responded with corrective action. The stun grenade explanation makes more sense.

Meanwhile, in the latest conquered territory, California, the Governator has announced his solution to the budget problems he rode into office. Borrow LOTS of money. Gee, has anyone told all those bankrupt people yet? When you go broke, all you need to do is borrow more money! What a brilliant solution!

For legal entertainment, we have Ashcroft announcing the arrest of a few Internet scammers. If that's all there are, then the Internet was amazingly law abiding. Of course the more likely truth is that Ashcroft is playing another political game with a few "show trials", quite likely hoping to discredit the Internet. After all, the Web is a place where you can read such TERRIBLE stuff as this blog. At least you can read it for now, but I'm sure Ashcroft has bigger plans than nailing a few scammers.

Rather desperately fishing for a few glimmers of good news. Two do come to mind. One is the requirement for printed ballots in California, though the schedule is so slow it may not matter. These BushCo crooks are much worse than the Teapot Dome gang and Nixon's Plumbers combined, and I'm sure they plan to "conquer" this next election by ANY means necessary. Just like 2000. (Actually, I think the main reason that Teapot Dome finally unraveled was only because the shallow but "popular" front man up and died. That's Dubya's role this time around, but he looks healthy enough, in physical if not in moral terms.)

The other nice bit is Michael Moore's latest book, Dude, Where's My Country? Interesting read, well targeted, and, as a best-seller, reaching a lot of people, to boot. Lots of strong aspects, though the questions in the first chapter are especially poignant. Letting Bin Ladin's family escape was VERY wrong. Family members know a lot about each other, and no matter how innocent, what they knew was important. Remember that 3,000 people had just died and Bin Ladin's family almost surely knew something to help make sure he got properly nailed for it--which STILL hasn't happened. However, it was apparently most important to BushCo to protect the Bin Ladins and their friends--who turn out to be those selfsame Bushes. Plato would not be amused: "But who shall guard those selfsame guardians?"

In closing, someone's new Ductator Dubya-speak words of the day:

Qwagmire: Dubya's latest mess in Iraq.

Sqwander: What Dubya did with the budget surplus.

Back in the hypocrisy can't explode heads category, I just read the South Dakota story. Amazingly, the liberal media has apparently been ignoring this one for the most part. Hypocrisy just isn't news anymore. (New strategy is slanting the twisted words. I think it beats scare quotes--this piece one was getting full of them.)

Remember that compassionate conservative stuff? Well, the basic philosophic angle is that government shouldn't help people. People should just be held responsible for their own mistakes. Well, this staunch Dubya supporter Janklow made a big mistake and killed someone a couple of weeks ago. Speeding and running a stop sign. However, now he's doing everything he can to stay out of jail. Just like Janklow has beaten all of his previous speeding raps. Even wants to stay in Congress. Working from jail might be awkward, but his good lawyers will probably beat this rap, too. We can't hold HIM responsible for HIS mistakes! Such a fine flag-wrapped Republican and Bush friend, after all.

In his entry for the quote of the week category, Janklow complains that he understands mortality better than most of us. Yeah, you get a special understanding when you kill someone, and most of us just haven't had that enlightening experience.

No, Janklow's head hasn't exploded, though he's complaining about headaches. If there's anyone in charge up there, he, she, or it sure has a funny sense of humor. However, it doesn't seem likely that Janklow can really threaten Rumsfeld or Dubya for the hypocrisy championship.

The other day Rumsfeld was saying how we can't leave Iraq now just because we're getting a bloody nose. As though any of his own precious blood was at risk? Mostly made me think of a bully who was whipping up on some little weakling, only the weakling took a wild swing and managed to bloody the bully's nose. So now the bully is complaining that the weakling doesn't have enough lunch money to pay for a proper bandage? He wants old UNcle Kofi and friends to come to the rescue? Is that the same UNcle Kofi you've been alternately ignoring and badmouthing?

Sorry, Rummy boy, but the bottom line remains that the nosebleed is not life threatening, and you Bushies were asking for it, to boot. Figuratively speaking, of course, since it's already obvious what chickenhawks you really are. Too bad your OWN blood gets the best protection available (especially greedy Chicken Cheney in his undisclosed locations). The only real risk is that Saddam might crawl back out from under a rock somewhere. Talk about embarrassing. What, at least $75 billion spent so far, and we haven't even gotten Saddam's t-shirt yet? (That's a very official and conservative estimate. Really ought to include the $60-$80 billion from last time around, plus the latest allocation of $75 billion, and who knows how much more in secret funding.)

You don't have to take my word for it. Dubya himself has now waffled the other way and is publicly stating that Iraq never attacked us and had no connection to 9/11 and he can't imagine how the public came to believe such a preposterous thing. Like he hasn't spent the last couple of years trying to paint that picture? Excuse me, but clearly Dubya is still winner and undisputed World Hypocrisy Champion.

Explode his head? Dubya isn't even having the headaches!

To close on a general philosophic note, I really do believe in Occam's Razor, and there's no reason for complicated conspiracy theories to explain most of the greed and stupidity in the world. However, there ARE conspiracies, and sometimes even complicated conspiracies which would obviously prefer to look like something else. In those cases, the simplest explanation that accounts for all of the historical facts actually will be the explanation that includes the conspiracy... And the BIG problem with history is that you can't change it--you can only try to hide it.

New Dubya research proves that hypocrisy cannot make your head explode!

At least not Dubya's head, such as it is. Just look at California for the latest evidence. Remember that Dubya is the guy who crawled into the White House as the moral liberator (with the secret "irresponsible" past), and now the Bushies are eagerly endorsing Arnold the Terminator as a "fine" governor for California under the new campaign slogan that he never planned to go into politics. Hypocrisy squared? Cubed? How about hypocrisy^n where n is a really large number?

Not just the endorsements, but the money, too. Obviously the only REAL problem in California is that the Bushies didn't spend enough moola on the election they just lost, and what a "fine" thing that California law has this great loophole for a backdoor into the governor's mansion. What's Arnold's real qualification? Well, at least he's good at following directions. That's why Arnold is a much bigger star than Reagan ever was--but it's also the reason that the Governator would be a sock puppet for scammers who the California voters have already rejected.

It's all about men, you know, and screw the law. Yeah, another area of amazing hypocrisy. The least amusing recent examples there involve the never-ending Palestinian conflict. In our latest episodes, the leader the Palestinians want is the "wrong man", so we (the US and our shadows, the Israelis) need to get rid of him. On the other hand, the blessed "right man" is demanding the laws be changed to give him more powers--not because he has any legal claims to more power, but ultimately only because the Americans will apply more pressure if he doesn't get what he wants. Raw, naked power is the only law!

But isn't that what all the terrorists say?

(Inspired by Krugman's excellent "Exploiting the Atrocity" column. If you missed it, you should seek it out.)

Lots of typically bad news with links to Dubya, but I think the summary should just be that Dubya has the anti-Midas touch. Everything Dubya touches automatically turns to sh*t, but now he's touching the entire country, and even the world. The problem is that the Bushies work hard and mostly effectively to disguise the causal links while working to exploit the public damage for their personal political and financial advantage.

On the west end of the country, California is sinking into some sort of bizarre anarchy. Dubya is pretending to be above the fray, though he's already "unofficially" endorsed his good buddy Arnold ("The Terminator") Schwarzenegger for the job. Years of public service as a qualification for public office? Ha. You need to be a movie actor. Name recognition is the only important criteria--but that "electability" guarantees the support of rich and greedy oligarchs who plan to continue raiding the public till. However, I think the causal link to Dubya is more direct. The selection of 2000 in Florida has convinced the Bushies that democracy is dead, and they're just rendering the corpse for soap. Amusingly enough, a lot of the dissatisfaction with Davis that the GOP is exploiting to drive this special election is apparently due to the electricity problems that those great GOP supporters at Enron helped create. You'd think that the voters should get the message and reject the GOP, but now they apparently want the Terminator. What's in a "pretty" name? Everything, apparently.

Meanwhile, on the east end of the country, there were massive power outages. Exact causes are not clear, but already quite obvious that the electric infrastructure is in bad shape. How did that happen? Anyone remember that old deregulation stuff from the '80s? Guess what happens when you adjust the balance away from the public's interests and in favor of increasing profits? Twenty years is just about enough time for the declining infrastructure to start showing--but don't expect the Bushies to make this connection, since their goal is to push for more deregulation. They don't want to get confused with "stupid" and complicated facts. They know where the money is, and the only "fact" they're concerned with is how to get more money. Rich utility companies donate more money to the GOP. That's the only causal relationship they care about.

Good side of not having electric power is that with their computers shut off the east end of the country wasn't as badly afflicted by the latest nasty computer worm that's been going around. Fortunately, the writer of the worm was a lousy programmer, and rather stupid, too, so there were both implementation flaws in the worm and design flaws in the payload, or things would have been much worse.

I don't think it's purely deification to blame Dubya for contributing to that damage, too, though of course it's hard to pin down the real blame without knowing what really motivated the moron who wrote it. The apparent motivation was to express anger at Microsoft, and that anger might well have been aggravated by knowing Dubya will never bother his rich friends. I certainly felt my normal annoyance at Microsoft increased by struggles to download the patch from Microsoft before a friend's computer got attacked. Lost that race, too, but Microsoft is completely free from liability. Gosh, I'd love to bill them for my time wasted because of their incompetence. Not just in creating the original bug. Anyone can make a mistake, even such a huge one. However, having made the mistake, Microsoft's remedial efforts were just SO pitiful. I actually took the patch with me, but I'd taken the wrong language, so it refused to accept it. There is NO good reason for a language dependency in this patch, and every reason to allow a language override. After that, the best option seemed to be to connect to the Web so I could stumble around the Microsoft "security" pages trying to find the patch, but meanwhile the worm struck. If the anger at Microsoft really was the motivation, I'd regard it as a form of insane anarchism--the same sort of thing that began to afflict oligarchic Czarist Russia a few years before the end. On the other hand, that visible motive may well be a disguise for something more sinister, like a North Korean cyberattack.

One peripheral thought on this general topic is another aspect of blame for Microsoft, but again nothing that they'll ever be held liable for. However, it does very accurately reflect the anything-for-money-is-okay motivations of the Bushies. Microsoft's attitude has always been to use the control of the OS as a kind of weapon in their quest for ever larger piles of money, and it's natural to build your weapons as big and powerful as possible. This leads to the cancerous design philosophy of putting more and more functionality into the OS, creating more and more dangerous toys for the virus writers to play with. To be contrasted with the design philosophy of Linux, which is to make a clean and strong and safe skeleton, but one that you can use to build any functionality that you desire. Very unlikely that there'll ever be any similar attacks on Linux no matter how widespread Linux becomes. Too many variations hanging on the skeleton. However, no big money to be made from Linux, so who cares? Certainly not the Bushies.

Lots of typically bad news with links to Dubya, but I think the summary should just be that Dubya has the anti-Midas touch. Everything Dubya touches automatically turns to sh*t, but now he's touching the entire country, and even the world. The problem is that the Bushies work hard and mostly effectively to disguise the causal links while working to exploit the public damage for their personal political and financial advantage.

On the west end of the country, California is sinking into some sort of bizarre anarchy. Dubya is pretending to be above the fray, though he's already "unofficially" endorsed his good buddy Arnold ("The Terminator") Schwarzenegger for the job. Years of public service as a qualification for public office? Ha. You need to be a movie actor. Name recognition is the only important criteria--and the support of rich and greedy oligarchs who plan to continue raiding the public till. However, I think the causal link to Dubya is more direct. The selection of 2000 in Florida has convinced the Bushies that democracy is dead, and they're just rendering the corpse for soap. Amusingly enough, a lot of the dissatisfaction with Davis that the GOP is exploiting to drive this special election is due to the electricity problems that were created by those great GOP supporters at Enron. You'd think that the voters should get the message and reject the GOP, but now they apparently want the Terminator. What's in a name? Everything, apparently.

Meanwhile, on the east end of the country, there were massive power outages. Exact causes are not clear, but already quite obvious that the infrastructure is in bad shape. How did that happen? Anyone remember that old deregulation stuff from the '80s? Guess what happens when you adjust the balance away from the public's interests and in favor of increasing profits? Just about enough time for the declining infrastructure to start showing--but don't expect the Bushies to make this connection, since their goal is to push for more deregulation. They don't want to get confused with "stupid" and complicated facts. They know where the money is, and the only "fact" they're concerned with is how to get more of it. Rich utility companies donate more money to the GOP. That's the only causal relationship they care about.

Good side of not having power is that with their computers shut off the east end of the country wasn't as badly afflicted by the latest nasty computer worm that's been going around. Fortunately, the writer of the worm was a lousy programmer, and rather stupid, too, so there were both implementation flaws in the worm and design flaws in the payload, or things would have been much worse.

I don't think it's purely reification to blame Dubya for contributing to the damage, though of course it's hard to pin the real blame without knowing what really motivated the moron who wrote it. The apparent motivation was to express anger at Microsoft, and that anger might well have been aggravated by knowing Dubya will never bother his rich friends. I certainly felt my normal anger increased by struggles to download the patch from Microsoft before a friend's computer got attacked. Lost that race, too, but Microsoft is completely free from liability. Gosh, I'd love to bill them for my time wasted because of their incompetence. Not just in creating the original bug. Anyone can make a mistake, even such a huge one. However, having made the mistake, Microsoft's remedial efforts were just SO pitiful. I actually took the patch with me, but I'd taken the wrong language, so it refused to accept it. There is NO good reason for a language dependency in this patch, and every reason to allow a language override. After that, I had to stumble around the Microsoft "security" pages trying to find the patch, but meanwhile the worm struck. If the anger at Microsoft really was the motivation, I'd regard it as a form of insane anarchism--the same sort of thing that began to afflict oligarchic Czarist Russia from a few years before the end. On the other hand, that may well be a disguise for something more sinister, like a North Korean cyberattack.

One peripheral thought on this general topic is another aspect of blame for Microsoft, but again nothing that they'll ever be held liable for. However, it does very accurately reflect the anything-for-money motivations of the Bushies. Microsoft's attitude has always been to use the control of the OS as a kind of weapon in their quest for every larger piles of money, and it's natural to build your weapons as big and powerful as possible. This leads to the the cancerous design philosophy of putting more and more functionality into the OS, creating more and more dangerous toys for the virus writers. To be contrasted with the design philosophy of Linux, which is to make a clean and strong skeleton, but one that you can use to build any functionality that you desire. Very unlikely that there'll ever be any similar attacks on Linux no matter how widespread Linux becomes. Too many variations hanging on the skeleton. However, no big money to be made from Linux, so who cares?

From Jim Sagle, I found the joke of the day:

Bush's motto: Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Kick him in the teeth, and he'll forget he was ever hungry.

Actually, he published it somewhere on July 17th, and most of his stuff is just borrowed from somewhere else, but he's my source, and I only saw it today...

In today's episode of truth is stranger than fiction, I'll tell you how to make money on terrorism. You go to Poindexter's new Web site, and you place your bets on which terrorist acts will happen when. For example, if you bet that Pakistan's dictator Mubarrak will get assassinated this month, and it happens, then you collect all the money from the people who bet he'd be assassinated at some later date, like next month. And of course, after he's snuffed they'll just start betting on how long until the Muslim terrorists get some of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. Great idea, right!

Well, not right. Just about the craziest idea that I've ever heard of, though they had managed to sneak $3 million through the budget process to fund it. Supposed to be self-sustaining after that, with a percentage for the "house". They had actually finished designing the promotional Web site before it got into the open and of course the insane project was immediately canceled, along with various apologies and calls for heads. Maybe Poindexter will have to change his name next time? I've long suspected he'd be more comfortable with the name of Dr. Moriarty.

What will they think of next. I'm becoming afraid to speculate, since they continue to exceed my lowest expectations.

By the way, Dubya admits he was "technically" responsible for claiming that Iraq was buying uranium. But how can anyway expect intelligence when you have such a narrow-minded moron at the top of the entire intelligence apparatus? When has Bush ever allowed himself to be confused by stupid old facts?

Wow! Long gap there. Not that there's any good news I can think of. Well, I suppose the recent killing of Saddam's sons ought to count as good news of a sort. They definitely contributed to making the world a better place by leaving it. Still, even there, the way the "business" was handled manages to create fresh new evils. High tech heads on pikes--much easier to "share" with the masses, and less smelly, too. Of course I'm referring to their release of the graphic pictures of the mutilated corpses. The shallow pretense of "We have to prove they're really dead" is quite thin. The real point is obviously to show very graphically what happens to Dubya's enemies. If someone else does that sort of thing with American corpses Dubya screams and cries about savage, uncivilized, "criminal" behavior. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

All the big questions are supposed to go begging. Most obvious big question is why we were so determined to snuff them. No question that Dubya had overwhelming force--and (as usual) he used it with great enthusiasm. So why not capture them? What was the big rush to kill them so quickly? (Obvious answer: Precisely to make sure that they didn't talk. Additional strong evidence of a desire to destroy any evidence was the almost immediate bulldozing of the site. Sure the Bushies claimed they searched it first, but anything that the sons seriously wanted to hide has been safely destroyed by now. At least the Bushies must be hoping so.) Actually, even better than a secret siege, why not announce that Saddam's sons are under siege and hope that the alleged "loyalists" will expose themselves in desperate rescue attempts. Hah. If I had to bet on it, I'd actually bet that the supposed loyalists are really new Al Qaeda recruits proving their loyalty by killing Americans. Pretty hard for a mole to get into the club if he has to start out by committing a murder. Quite a loyalty test, and in terms of lifelong loyalty, there's no statute of limitations on murder. Anyway, the main point here is that the Americans were calling the shots, but the only shots we were apparently interested in calling were a few quick head shots.

Even the "proof" pretense begs the obvious question of why Dubya's boys have to prove anything, except for the ugly little fact that they've established such tarnished reputations as deliberate twisters of the truth. Actually, the truth twisting to support the "war" (pronounced "slaughter") in Iraq has become something of an issue recently, extending all the way to England with the ruckus over the recent "suicide" of an arms inspection expert who was talking too much about the pressures to slant the reports.

Anyway, who cares? The voters will forget all about it by 2004. And even if the voters remember, or if they're perhaps angry about something else (like the economy), what difference will it make? Didn't even need to count the votes in 2000, but in 2004 vote-rigging voting machines will make the process much smoother. Can't even pretend to check the ballots when the machines never even bother to print them! That's the way to end the long tradition of election fraud! Eliminate the evidence before it ever exists. Voila! No one will be able to prove anything, so no more election fraud, no matter how fraudulent the election!

One more somewhat lesser topic today is about Dubya-related books available in Japan. Recently I've been visiting some bookstores to see what they're stocking, and the results struck me as interesting. For example, in the English section of a large bookstore, they had a surprisingly large assortment of imported works on America and Dubya, etc. These must mostly be targeted at English speakers like me, and the lack of focus suggests we are quite curious and perhaps even confused. I'd say the ratio was about two anti-neocon books for each pro-neocon book, but the prices were reversed, so (assuming equal markups) the profits (= the motivation for the bookstore to import the books) appear to be about equal on each side. I didn't recognize any fence-sitting books. My largest surprise was actually the large number of books about President Carter.

In various (mostly smaller) Japanese bookstores (with very limited English sections), they also have many relevant titles. Mostly these were books translated into Japanese, though some were originals by Japanese authors. I only noticed one pro-Dubya book, a translation of Bush at War. Actually, I'm not even sure if that counts as pro-Dubya. Lots of leeway in the difficult art of translating, and I am sure that the literal back-translation of the Japanese title would be Bush's War. I can think of several possible ways to translate the phrase "Bush at War" while trying to maintain the more neutral flavor of the original "at". That title certainly seems slanted to the Dubya-as-warmonger side, and it makes me wonder if the entire translation might be slanted. Was the title just a marketing trick? Or is it a case of tit for tat, considering the earlier heads-on-pikes topic? Anyway, if the marketing reflects their attitudes, the locals appear quite skeptical. Michael Moore seems especially popular, whatever that means. I myself regard him as amusingly ineffectual.

Big surprise of the day was hearing that the Japanese government decided to send some SDF troops to help "keep the peace" in Iraq. I really can't even imagine the rationale behind this one, even allowing for the all-night debate and final vote at 4 in the morning. Maybe they were hoping the Japanese people wouldn't find out about it if they did it while they were asleep? Actually, I'm sure this one has to be based on some kind of secret deal or maybe even a secret threat delivered by Blair when he visited Japan a few days ago.

I have to call this one "How to rob a bank without even crying" and dedicate it to Dubya's little brother who helped out with the same kind of scam in Colorado. Still, I sort of like the innovative way it was reported in the local newspaper, in per capita terms. It worked out at 16,000 yen/head. Or was it 18,000? Anyway, over a $100, but it's part of the way the scam works, since the victims don't really feel it directly. The precise form? Yet another bank bailout, but still following the basic pattern of the Reagan years. However, you can't even give Reagan credit for the innovation. He was (as usual) asleep at the wheel, and variations of these scams have been going on for many years.

Just to clarify, a lot of people deposited various amounts of money in this bank. Me, too, though a very minor account, and way back when it was called Daiwa. The bankers lost it. The money is gone, the bank is kaput, and the bankers then begged the government to bail them out. The government moaned and cried a bit, then said they had to protect "public confidence" in the financial institutions, and they forked over the money. Our tax money, of course. In a sense, I actually come out ahead in this deal, since it's all of the other taxpayers who are making sure I can get my original money back, and I'm sure most of them use other banks.

A couple of high honchos at the bank resigned to take responsibility. Whoopee. No one has to go to jail or anything awkward or embarrassing like that. Just unlucky business decisions and a lot of "non-performing" loans. Sounds so much better than saying the bankers gambled the money away. All wonderfully legal, and the taxpayers will now foot the bill.

That's funny, I don't feel more confidence. I feel like I've been conned.

Isn't it a wonderful con game? If you try to rob a bank with a gun you'll get slam dunked big time, but if you "misplace" all of the bank's money (Well, about 98% in this case), then you have to retire early, and the public pays it back. (Actually simplifying the fancy numbers a bit. The actual state of insolvency involves reserve margins, but like Dubya says, it's just a bunch of complicated accounting stuff. Of course, he was alleged to be company president at that time...)

Ah, it must be so nice to be a rich banker like so many of Dubya's buddies. The rest of Dubya's buddies are the rich banker's customers--like the Enron boys who were so good at making the banks' money disappear. Of course that must be legal, too. None of them have gone to jail, either. Just like Neil Bush danced away.

Rats leaving the sinking ship? Ari, the Minister of Lies... Er, I mean the White House press secretary resigned this week. No overwhelming reason given, but his credibility had been getting weak anyway--too many reports of reporters breaking into laughter when he wasn't even pretending to be telling a joke. Also, Whitman, secretary of dismantling the environment decided to leave, again without any particular reason given. One or two other fairly major figures. Whitman was supposed to be one of the least objectionable Bushies. Must be getting lonely for semi-token Powell, the secretary of dismantling international diplomacy.

Several candidates for the fatal torpedoes, actually. Two economic disasters in progress. One is the dollar, which seems to be losing out badly against the Euro. Perhaps the insiders know it's really on the verge of collapse? The other is the tax cuts for the rich they just rammed through Congress. Still, that one should be a rather slow torpedo, even though the economy is still reeling from the earlier tax cuts. However, I think the big torpedo may be political corruption. Don't forget that's what finally nailed Nixon's coffin. Turns out that they ordered the Texas DPS to erase all records related to the chase after the Texas Democrats last week, and it's already stinking to high heaven. It would be funny if Dubya got dragged down in such a piddling little whirlpool.

Hmm... That's not good, but worth noting. The times on the blog entries can't actually be relied on. Not a substantive change, but I realized that I missed bolding one of the references to the movie in the previous entry, but making that change didn't change the date of the entry.

Not really much news to report or comment on just now. More terrorist attacks. More SARS worries, this time in Japan. I'm increasingly worried about a terrorist attack using SARS, and I'm not the only one. Iraq continues to fester. The first round of commanders/rulers/whatever of the Iraq occupation have already been replaced, and in yesterday's paper there was a bit about the difficult decisions facing our new ruler of Iraq. He has to decide how much democracy to permit. I suppose that should be classified as an amazing black joke. As if the Bushies have any conception of what democracy actually is.

Actually, that reminds me of the funniest recent story, where a bunch of Texas Democrats lammed out of the state to block some partisan Republican gerrymandering. Without a quorum, the Texas legislature was effectively shut down. Dubya's legacy and orchestrated by his staunch supporters. So much for the Bushies' claims of bipartisan leadership. (Yet again.) However, even this joke turns ugly. Turns out they used the Homeland Security Agency to help track down the missing legislators. They didn't actually have the power to arrest them outside of Texas--yet--but the "promise" was that the HSA was not going to be used for domestic political purposes. Yo-ho-ho. Power corrupts. No joke.

First we have a minor joke. As usual these days, not very funny. Not even newsworthy, since continuous hypocrisy is the new standard state of the Union. One of the leading conservative "political philosophers" is a fellow named William Bennett. His big best seller was called The Book of Virtues, though he's written others, such as The Children's Book of Virtues. Recently outed as a big-time gambler to the tune of $8 million in losses. Needless to say, gambling didn't make the list of virtues. So how many people would have bought that book if they had actually known they were just funding his gambling addiction? Now for the punchline. He was Secretary of Education under Reagan, personally responsible for creating a whole new generation of conservative voters. Makes it rather hard to have much hope for America's future.

Now for the big one, possibly to be filed under "be careful what you wish for" or "remember Ed Wood". Dubya recently launched his reelection campaign as the hero of the Iraqi liberation/occupation/whatever. This was done with a staged photo-op and speech aboard the aircraft carrier Lincoln. It's sort of okay, since they were way out there somewhere, much too far away to worry about hearing ol' Abe spinning in his grave. However, it mostly reminds me of ol' Ed Wood and Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Required background is to know that Plan 9 from Outer Space is regarded by many people as the worst movie ever made. A cult classic--but it wasn't intended that way. Ed Wood was the director back in 1959, and he was just as serious about it as any of his other movies. He actually made many movies, and all of them were regarded as bad, but this one was the worst. One of his most famous quotes was made at the premiere of Plan 9 from Outer Space: "This is it! THIS is the one I'll be remembered for!" He was right, you know. But not the way he meant it. Ed Wood is more famous now than he ever was when he was alive, but it's sort of a good thing he died rather than finding out why.

From all reports, Ed Wood really and sincerely believed he was creating great works of art. Most reports say Dubya thinks he's doing okay as resident of the White House in spite of leading America to economic disaster and new depths of perpetual fear. (And let's not forget the international isolation and even hostility.) However, this new militaristic image is a new thing, and should backfire disastrously for two reasons: 1) America is not a military dictatorship, and 2) Dubya is personally a military embarrassment.

When they wrote the Constitution they wanted to make it very clear that the American military serves the civilian government and NOT vice versa. They very deliberately and quite explicitly made a civilian "commander in chief" of the armed services. Yes, most presidents have served in the military, and many of them were even high ranking officers, but no real president has ever gotten confused about who's in charge, and to the best of my knowledge, no real president has ever appeared in a military uniform the way Dubya was prancing around in his military flight suit. This is the sort of propagandistic imagery you expect from an impoverished banana republic after the latest coup.

As for Dubya's OWN military service, that's NOT something they want the voters to think too much about, though this escapade is quite likely to bring it to the voters' attention. The very best angle is to say Dubya chose to avoid any risk of service in Vietnam, even though he supported that war, and Dubya's military record is all downhill from there. There were LONG waiting lists for national guard service, but Dubya instantly bypassed them. Everyone knows he evaded the draft using his father's influence. Anyone who ever hoped to be a military pilot (even including me) has to be rather offended that Dubya also got that posh billet, in spite of having the lowest possible qualifications. Then it gets into the messy stuff and the reasons why Dubya's personal military records remain sealed, even though all other public figures release their military service records as a matter of course. Most of the available evidence suggests that after receiving all that expensive flight training at public expense, Dubya just blew off the last part of his military commitment. Rather than make a politically awkward issue of his dereliction of duty, they simply swept it all under the rug, and pretended he was penalized by having his service extended a few months--as a name listed in a paper reserve unit in Colorado. There are still lots of questions that could be answered if his records were made public, but that seems very unlikely. Me, I'd like to know whether he was removed from flight status for incompetence as a pilot, fear of drug testing during his "young and irresponsible" days, or for other reasons.

So Dubya's handlers want this to be the image he's remembered for? Well, let's not forget Ed Wood's hope of being remembered for Plan 9 from Outer Space. Just didn't turn out the way he wanted it to. Ed Wood didn't intend to be remembered as the worst movie director of all time. Dubya's track record of worsts is already rather impressive.

Back in the logical paradox arena, this one is so bad we practically have to pray Dubya was lying. The one that's been getting coverage so far is the paradox of claiming we have solid proof of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, but it wasn't solid enough so we could actually find anything. At least in that case, we already know the Bushies were lying, and each day that goes by just makes it more likely that any evidence which does appear was faked--and there have already been too many attempts to use fake evidence for the Bushies to have any credibility to spare.

However, the new news is probably worse. Turns out that some of the leftover nuclear sites in Iraq have been looted and some of the nuclear material may have been taken. Some of this goes back to the days when Saddam was our friend and we were helping him "modernize" his country with American nuclear technology. The Israelis nipped most of that in the bud with their little bombing raid. However, if Dubya was actually telling the truth about Al Qaeda having organized connections with and operations in Iraq, then we know who has it now and what they're going to do with it. Unfortunately, there is no solid evidence here. The negative evidence is that Dubya didn't bother to give any detectable priority to securing these well-known and very dangerous sites, but what does that mean? Dubya knew that the Al Qaeda thing was a bogeyman? In that case he was just lying about a danger that didn't exist. Or maybe he actually hopes that Al Qaeda gets some of this stuff so he can justify more "defensive" power for himself? Lordy, who's minding the store?!

Lots of news items worthy of note, but mostly continuing to suffer from information malnutrition. Need a catchier description of that national malady. Mostly the news is tripe, but sometimes there are important hints revealed, sometimes just by the form of the misdirection.

The latest case in point is the political game playing with "homeland" security, which is supposed to be something we're all in favor of. The story was played for maximum headline coverage about how they were going to cut the number of airline security people. That's just another indirect subsidy where all of the taxpayers provide crucial security services for the airlines, with the primary beneficiaries being the same rich folks who do most of the flying. Can you imagine where ticket prices would be if the airlines actually had to absorb all of those costs, too?

This latest beauty was orchestrated by Dubya's appointee who heads the appropriate agency. The apparent point was to blame Congress for not coming up with more money. Even though the GOP has ostensible control of both houses of Congress, there's still a tiny risk of a couple of GOP defectors, so sometimes they have to compromise a tiny bit, and that's just unacceptable. After all, the airlines donated lots of money to Dubya and deserve to get "fair value" in return. Among the MANY other factors that weren't mentioned in considering the overall financial woes of the airline industry were declining tourism due to worries about SARS and massive federal deficits that are making it harder and harder to come up with money for anything, even though Dubya continues to press for more tax cuts for the wealthy (to make things worse for the rest of us serfs). The entire presentation was so twisted that I was amazed they could print it without putting all of it in italics. And of course they'll revive the story in a major way just as soon as there's another successful terrorist attack.

Gosh, just can't get away from the jokes in these busy days. Too bad they aren't trying to be funny. Just read that the US is effectively pulling out of Saudi Arabia, except for some instructors. That's the main thing Bin Ladin wanted. Remember him? The guy who actually supported the 9/11 massacre? Kind of fell out of the news, but now we're apparently doing all the things he wanted. Disposed of Saddam, and getting out of Saudi Arabia. What more could he ask for? Trying to figure out some way to interpret that as an American victory, especially when you add in all the billions of dollars spent and more thousands of innocent people killed. Sorry, but it just doesn't seem to add up. Blaming Saddam for 9/11 has to be another part of the joke, but it still ain't funny. More like insane.

Whoops, forgot the important issue of the day: SARS. That's the one we're not supposed to think about yet. Not sure why they're downplaying it so much, since it has the potential to become pandemic and in that case would do much more damage than the infamous Spanish Flu after WW I. More deaths than the war itself. In most ways this is much worse, but modern medicine is much better and no one knows what will happen. So far the Chinese are still trying to keep it under control, though they seem to be losing, and it's also in Canada, too. Not supposed to be any risk of spread from Canada, but it's very likely to escape from China at some point, and then things will probably become really bad--unless the rumors about it being an American bio-weapon test turn out to be true. In that case, as soon as it seems to be going pandemic, there will suddenly be a "miracle breakthrough" and a vaccine will suddenly be given to all the fine Americans and Brits--where "fine" probably means "loyal supporters of King George". However, for now I still think it's just a natural disaster, and hopefully real science will conquer it. Sure hope they don't need any of the copious resources under Dubya's control. He doesn't even believe in evolution, so why would he buy into their scientific explanations that the disease is evolving in a dangerous way? "It must be God's righteous wrath smiting those Chinese heathens!!"