Rip-R-A-New-Un!

David Cross (plays Tobias on the World's best TV show) writes an open letter to Larry the Cable Guy (some poseur pretending to be a Southern hick, which may be worthwile if he employed irony, sarcasm and intelligence.. but he don't none, judging by the way he takes criticism).

Via Virtual Pus.

Reflections has got your back

Talking Points Memo;

Amos very straightforwardly told me that the photographs had been removed and that they had been removed because they showed Abramoff and the president in the same picture. The photos were, she told me, "not relevant."

When I asked her who had instructed her to remove the photos, she told me she was the president of the company. She did it. It was "her business decision" to remove the photographs. She told me she had done so within the last month.

Spectacular action! Looks like Bushco is pretty worried about the Abramoff association.

I guess Clooney didn't help Bush by bringing the jack-off's name to the brain dead.

D'oh!

Poll result means hard choices for Bush
;

The Washington Post reported that the US had spent $US2 million ($2.6 million) in recent weeks to promote the Palestinian Authority, and by extension Fatah, in a campaign that tried to keep US involvement hidden.

That was money well spent...

I have little idea of the likelihood of Hamas disarming, but it would be a great success if this did occur. Hopefully, the US continue their support of democracy by supporting Hamas in moving towards legitimacy (by disarming).

Pray for irony.

terra nullius (no-one's land)

Ah yes, national dance on the graves of the dead day.

A bit of celebrating the poisoning of water holes.

Let's hear it for genocide.. hip, hip.... hooray!

If you have a flag handy, piss on it for me, there's a pet.

Above is my post from last 26th January. May as well use it again.

Do you hear what I hear?

PM appeals for tolerance;

"Our response should reflect this nation's unswerving commitment to racial equality, coupled with an absolute determination to ensure that all sections of the Australian community are fully integrated into the mainstream of our national life," he said.

Up until this point, I was with him. Well, maybe I'd like to see a little bit of self flagellation... but that's not important right now.

The unflushable turd still manages to whistle that silent, yet heard by some as a sweet sounding tune: Integrate to our way of life, to the mainstream.

Whatever.

When do we start fighting over what is to be considered mainstream?

Risk removal

CIA outsourced torture of suspects, inquiry finds;

STRASBOURG: The head of an investigation into alleged CIA secret prisons in Europe has said evidence points to a system of "outsourcing" of torture by the US, and it is highly likely European governments knew about it.

But a Swiss senator said yesterday there was no formal evidence of the existence of clandestine detention centres in Romania or Poland, as alleged by the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

As a result, countless terrorist attacks were circumvented and shut down. Thanks, Kiefer!

Todal concentwayshun

John Pilger (everyone's favourite traitor) alerts us to the fact that psycho muthaf*cka's are at the helm, or on the bridge..

One of George W Bush's "thinkers" is Richard Perle. I interviewed Perle when he was advising Reagan; and when he spoke about "total war", I mistakenly dismissed him as mad. He recently used the term again in describing America's "war on terror". "No stages," he said. "This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq... this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war... our children will sing great songs about us years from now."

Via Kurt Nimmo following the World's shortest hiatus, who asks us to consider Perle's comment in the context of the impending invasion (it will more than likely be a bombing exercise - Ed.) of Iran.

Pot to Kettle: "I ain't Black!"

Those jokers...

Opus Dei wants adult rating for Da Vinci Code;

"Any adult with a minimum of education can distinguish reality from fiction. But when history is manipulated, you cannot expect a child to make proper judgments," he added.

Well, then. How about we keep your freaky God bothering mates away from kids then, ay? What, with all the lies contained in the Bible. Seems reasonable.

Clearly, Opus Dei must agree.

How you like me, now?

Winslow T. Wheeler;

U.S. Defense and Security Spending Fiscal Year 2006

H.R. 2863 Grand total for the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, (but not all Congress has appropriated to DOD) $454.5 Billion

H.R. 2528, Military Construction Appropriations: $12.2 Billion

Total Appropriated to Date to Dept. of Defense: 466.7

Likely 2006 Supplemental (Possible amount to complete Iraq/Afghanistan war costs for 2006) $50 billion

Likely Total for DOD for 2006 $516.7 billion

Department of Energy/Defense Activities Appropriations (Funds nuclear weapons activities): $16.4 Billion

Other non-DOD defense activities (Funds Selective Service, National Defense Stockpile, etc.): $4.7 billion

Total for "National Defense" (Constitutes the National Defense Budget Function (Budget Function 050) in presidential budgets) $537.8 billion

Homeland Security (Approximate amount for non-DOD Homeland Security costs): $41 billion

Veterans Affairs $68 billion

International Security (Approximate amount for reconstruction aid, foreign arms sales, development assistance, etc.) $23 billion

Total for non-defense but security related costs $132 billion

Grand Total for All international security and defense costs $669.8 billion

The cost of maintaining an empire has certainly gone up since I was in the business.

Got victim?

As anyone with some sort of page and a site meter on the internets will know, users can turn up at your site following all sorts of search engine queries.

Some are weird (easy to understand how they arrive, here), many are perverted (a little less easy but strangely arousing) and some are just plain psycho (welcome home!).

Like the recent visitor whom arrived here following the googlie of:

how to kill somebody without getting caught

Well, for one, you don't start leaving a trail of your intentions all over the netskis. I guess he/she probably doesn't watch CSI.

If you live anywhere near, or attend, or know somebody who does attend the University College of Dublin... watch your back!

In the Lincoln room with Kenny Boy

Billmon is all over the 'bi-partisan' Abramoff scandal.

As the right wing f*cksticks say.. Heh

Ironic dichotomy

Juan Cole;

That would be all we needed, for Afghanistan to spiral into an Iraq. (That the Bush administration has set up a situation in which Iraq is worse off than Afghanistan with regard to security is just breathtaking.)

Boycott reality

Microsoft boycott call over gay rights;

On Monday he said: "We're tired of sitting around thinking that morals can be ignored in our country. This is not a threat, this is a promise. Check out the past presidential election. We made the moral issue the number-one issue."

F*ckin' God botherers. They suck. Especially when they're trying to control people's lives with their weird arsed beliefs. In fact, if they kept to themselves I'd be much happier, as would a great percentage of the World.

Pray to your little cloud buddy in the sky and leave us the f*ck alone, you freaks.

Imagined enemies

Fighting the war in Iraq to avoid fighting it on home soil. What?

Wouldn't piss on it, if it was on fire

I should have thought first: flag burner sentenced to jail:

Khawaja apologised to Australians, saying he regretted setting alight a flag taken from the Brighton-le-Sands RSL and helping to burn it in front of a crowd of 150 people the night of the riots on December 11.

I'm all for locking people up if they start thumping others, but for burning a piece of fabric?

For Christ's sake!

What an insecure lot we seem to be.

Update: Speaking of insecure. Note the fact that most of these racist fools don't even reside in Cronulla, probably never have and hopefully never will (My condolences if they live in your burb). Those that are going to jail will soon find that the Anglos don't rule on the inside. Good luck fella's, you will have to learn to co-operate and be very respectful or, cop an almighty hiding which you won't recover from.

Update II: Just to confirm and perpetuate the idea of groupthink, here's post from Anonymous Lefty on the flag burning article (though much less obtuse than mine, of course).

Shuttin' down the Pest Controller

RIP: Hugh Thompson Jr.

"Don't do the right thing looking for a reward, because it might not come."

Dissin' accomplished

US Army its own worst enemy: British officer:

A senior British Army officer has written a scathing critique of the US Army and its performance in Iraq, accusing it of cultural ignorance, moralistic self-righteousness, unproductive micromanagement and unwarranted optimism.
……

In counterinsurgency campaigns, Brigadier Aylwin-Foster says, "the quick solution is often the wrong one".
He argues that intense conformism and overly centralised decision-making slowed the army's operations in Iraq, giving the enemy time to respond.
The army's can-do spirit also encouraged a "damaging optimism" that interfered with realistic assessments.

"I think he's an insufferable British snob," responded Colonel Kevin Benson, commander of the US Army's School of Advanced Military Studies.

Good comeback, the equivalent of a plaintive, “Oh, shut up.” from the outwitted in response to a schoolyard taunt.

Gotta support the team, ay, Coach?

Swallow my faith

Are conservatives prepared to Blow God?

Top stuff.

TDLM Part 3,326

Lawrence Velvel, Dean of Massachusetts School of Law, has a neat little essay on the NYT’s recalcitrance in acting on reporting the Bush Admin’s latest act of megalomania - The NYT's Unconscionable Decision to Sit on the NSA Story for a Year:

The other point of enormous relevance is the issue of whether The Times did in fact learn of the warrantless surveillance before the 2004 election, and was persuaded (strong- armed?) before the election not to print the story. This too cries out for an answer. George Bush was not elected by the American people in 2000. He was elected by denying the vote to blacks in Florida, by the ballot skullduggery that caused votes to be cast for Buchanan rather than Gore by members of that famous political organization called "Elderly Florida Jews for Pat Buchanan," and by the Supreme Court, whose latest nominee is the subject of hearings that begin in a few days. Is it possible that, after being elected by denying votes to blacks, by misleading members of "Elderly Florida Jews for Buchanan," and by the Supreme Court, Bush got himself reelected by persuading The Times not to publish the news of his lawbreaking prior to the 2004 reelection and by The Times acceding to this? The Times plainly should let us know the answer to this horrid possibility.

There are plenty of folk out there who see nothing wrong with a Country’s leader being able to spy on its citizens and population, without first seeking a warrant. Good on ‘em, but they’re fools.

If we lived in a rational World, they would immediately see the danger and demand that Bush cease his KGB-like actions and be impeached.
Unfortunately, the one-eyed cheerleaders see no wrong when committed by ‘their’ team.

Like I said: Fools.

Swimming against a rip

DeLay Ends Bid to Regain Post as G.O.P. Leader:

"The job of majority leader and the mandate of the Republican majority are too important to be hamstrung, even for a few months, by personal distractions," Mr. DeLay said in the letter..

Personal? Now, that's being a little parsimonious considering what the guy has been accused of (not that he has been found guilty).

Republicans. What a bunch of crims. FOX are currently spinning, "everybody does it" inferring that the Dems are just as bad, but we're yet to see any examples.

Abramoff will flush out a few more, I'm sure. I'm betting they'll mostly be Republicans. Just a hunch.

Aw, c'mon!

For f*ck's sake, Roy Edroso digs up a doozie:

Meanwhile, I suppose you all heard about that poor woman whose ventilator was turned off because she couldn't pay for it, and who subsequently died. This is the sort of thing that outrages normal people, but gets the glibertarians enthusastically re-tucking their shirts and clicking their pens. Andrew Sullivan's third string :

"While here the critics are mostly on the left, the argument parallels closely what you'll hear from opponents of assisted suicide on the right: revulsion at the prospect that terminal patients might make decisions about when to end their lives on the basis of "economic considerations." I'm with Landsburg: It seems mad not to allow economic considerations to play a role—that's not heartlessness so much as the ethical equivalent of refusing to let your genitals do the thinking for you."

There's an argument: if you support the right to die, you support the right to be killed! As for the "genitals" bit, there are some depths to which my analysis will not sink.

Perle: "We'll see you in Baghdad"

CIA had plenty of evidence Iraq had no illegal weapons, book reveals:

According to Risen, the CIA ignored their unanimous reports that there were no weapons of mass destruction and refused to distribute the information to senior policy-makers in the Bush Administration.

Of the Iran spy network snafu, Risen writes that the Iranian turned out to be a double agent who turned over the information to Iranian security officials, which allowed them to "roll up" the CIA agent network throughout the country.

The good ol' CIA still taking the rap for completely f*cking up on the 'did Iraq have a weapons program and/or weapons' question.

They've worked it out though, by having all of their agents shut down in Iran, NO information is available. This time there will be no incriminating evidence.

Nice.

Film Review: Munich

I haven't seen it and likely won't until it is released on the DVD's, so here's a neat review of the film (and its affect on the rightards) by Roy Edroso at alicublog:

MUNICH AS A MOVIE. I’m not much on late Spielberg. Schindler’s List, for example, struck me as three good movies – one about Oskar Schindler, one about Amon Goeth, one about the Nazi persecution of the Jews – smashed together to make the super-duper holocaust spectacular I suppose Spielberg wanted to make.

These movies aren’t bad. Spielberg is very good with his tools and, as well-developed craft seldom comes without passion, he can orchestrate the hell out of scenes and sometimes (as in the Goeth thread) grasp beyond what I imagined to be his reach. But by and large I just don’t think he’s a very deep thinker. Sam Fuller wasn’t a deep thinker, either, but The Big Red One is a whole lot more grown-up than Saving Private Ryan. Fuller had been in the shit, of course, but Robert Aldrich never served, and he made the magnificent Attack!.

So I think this is more a question of artistic temperment, and maybe personal temperment, than biography. Spielberg has a gift for seeing the world through a child's eyes, but when it comes time to process the information, I’m not sure how much more developed than a child he is.

Munich isn’t bad, either. It’s very watchable, especially considering the pains taken to de-glamorize the violence. The acting is first-rate -- I expect people will stop ribbing Eric Bana for The Hulk now. But again I don’t think Spielberg was up to the material.

It gets better, worth a squizz.

Fighting fantasy with fantasy

Military fears big Afghan losses:

They say insurgent forces in the south are preparing for a large offensive by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, backed by sophisticated weapons and training from Iran.

Ominous, we'll see. Meanwhile, check out the response from the freeper freaks:

Dam* media starts crying about large losses before there are any losses. The US has been tearing these guys up whenever they dare to attempt to mount an offensive. Call in the air power to drop some jdams on them when they gather in strength.

"Yay, JDAMS!!!"

Sends a chill down my spine. Hopefully, the commenters on this site spend their spare hours assisting the rehabilitation of wounded soldiers.