Monday, September 23, 2002

Gore decries Bush's Iraq war push "After Sept. 11, we had enormous sympathy, goodwill and support around the world," Gore said Monday. "We've squandered that, and in one year we've replaced that with fear, anxiety and uncertainty, not at what the terrorists are going to do but at what we are going to do."
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Remarks by the President at Doug Forrester for Senate Event (my comments in bold) Sovereign Bank Arena Trenton, New Jersey 11:55 A.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, all. AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA! [ USA chants always frighten me ] THE PRESIDENT: I'm honored to be standing beside a man who was an Eagle Scout as a youngster, who they tell me sold flags door to door. It makes him a patriot and an entrepreneur. [ Uh...ok. ] THE PRESIDENT: And I need somebody up there to work with me to make sure that the Senate does not overspend. See, I'm going to stay focused on our economy, because I understand it's part of how we make sure America is a stronger place. But if the Senate and the Congress overspends, it will serve as a drag to any economic recovery. It's one thing to fund priorities, and we will do that. But you've got to understand something about Washington, every idea is a brilliant idea. (Laughter.) Everybody's program sounds like just a perfect program. And then when you add up all the perfect programs and all the good ideas, we're not talking millions, we're talking billions of dollars. [ Like those farm subsidies, those were bad...oh, that went to corporations? That's alright, then. ] THE PRESIDENT: You know, the Senate doesn't even have a budget. It couldn't get a budget passed. If you don't have a budget, guess what happens? You have the tendency to overspend. [ Like the last three Republican presidents, who have all overspent the government into deficit...] THE PRESIDENT: The most important priority we have today and tomorrow is to protect the homeland. That's the most priority in America. (Applause.) It's a priority because there are people who hate America still on the loose, see. They hate us because we love freedom. They hate and we love freedom. And we love the fact that people from all walks of life can worship freely in this country. That's what we love. We love the idea that people from all backgrounds can worship an almighty God the way he or she sees fit. The enemy hates that, they hate that idea. [ huh? I know, I know, he spouts these lines every couple days but still - huh? ] THE PRESIDENT: We love the idea that people can debate and speak their mind, and holler and whoop about politics. They hate it. They hate free thought and free speech. We love a free press, they hate it. See, they hate freedom and we love freedom. And for so long as we love freedom -- which will be forever, as far as I'm concerned -- they're going to try to hurt us again. And so our number one priority should be reflected in our budget, it is reflected in how I think and what I do, is to make sure this great country is secure from a bunch of cold-blooded killers. And that's all they are. (Applause.) [ So..."they" hate free thought, free speech, free press, freedom...you're SURE they're not Republicans? Or maybe our friends in China? ] THE PRESIDENT: You've got to just know, any time we get a hint, a whiff, a suggestion that somebody might be trying to come back to America -- we're moving. We'll protect our rights. [ Notice the weirdness of "protecting our rights" as a response to threats of terrorism. I think this may have been Bizarro Dubya - "Me love terrorists! Me protect individual rights!" ] THE PRESIDENT: Listen, I believe in strongly in the United States Constitution. And I know we can protect that Constitution and at the same time make sure this homeland is secure. We've got the FBI and the CIA talking like they never have been before. We're sharing intelligence. We've got people around the world helping us. We've got freedom-loving countries sharing information with us. No, we're moving hard. [ Really, it's the first sentence that gets me. Has this bimbo even READ the Constitution? And these freedom-loving countries he mentions...like Yemen and Pakistan? ] THE PRESIDENT: I do want to be able to say to the American people we've left behind -- I do want it to be said we worked together, Republicans and Democrats worked together to leave behind a strategy and the ability for future Presidents to more adequately secure the homeland. [ Freudian slip alert! "the American people we've left behind"? Who does he think he is - a liberal?!? ] THE PRESIDENT: The House passed a good bill, it allows me to move people any time, any place, anywhere in order to best deal with an enemy which isn't going to be bound by bureaucratic rules or handbooks or volumes of micromanagement -- that's not what they have to deal with. And I refuse to have future Presidents, or this President, deal with a Senate trying to tell me through micromanaging the process how best to secure the homeland. [ "But I don't WANT to do nominations hearings! I wanna fire people! Waaaaah!" ] THE PRESIDENT: It's either us or -- remember that doctrine, either you're with us -- by the way, a doctrine which still stands -- either you're with us or you're with them. And we're rounding them up, slowly but surely. [ Again with the huh? ] THE PRESIDENT: Slowly but surely, we're going to dismantle the al Qaeda terrorist network, so they can never hurt America and freedom again. (Applause.) [ Twice he says slowly but surely - covering his ass for the fact that we can't find bin Laden? ] THE PRESIDENT: And we're dealing with a man in Iraq who has done a couple of things that I remind you about. One, he gassed his own people with weapons of mass destruction. He has invaded two countries since 1980. [ 'course, we sold him the materials to make the gas, we supported him thoroughly in invading Iran and a Bush Elder appointee accidently encouraged Hussein to invade Kuwait. ] THE PRESIDENT: However, for the sake of freedom and peace, if the United Nations will not deal with Saddam Hussein, the United States and our friends will. (Applause.) [ *sigh* ] THE PRESIDENT: I want you to remind your kids that when it came to enforcing the doctrine that said either -- the doctrine said, if you harbor one of those killers, you're just as guilty as the killers, that we went into Afghanistan -- the first theater we went into, as a great country -- with friends, but we went in not to conquer anybody, not to conquer anybody. [ One last huh? ]

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Bilbao hit by explosion [BBC World] Aw hell - another bombing in Basque country. Now that Northern Ireland has finally gotten on the right track, maybe we could turn a little energy to mediating between the Spanish government and the Basque nationalists?
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This is an experiment in Google-baiting. If you read this message as a result of a Google search, HA! You've been Google-baited. If you read this message because, well, you read this blog...well, nothing witty, then. =) Here goes: Madelyne Gorman Toogood is an Irish Traveller who beats her kid on tape. Veronique de Cock has big breasts. Somewhere, there are pictures of her naked, topless breasts. Friends won the Emmy - Jennifer Aniston also has big breasts. I'll keep updating this when I can think of additional Googlebait...

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Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War. Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War examines the first arms race of the twentieth century, that of the modern battleship. Robert Massie lays out the development of the Dreadnought-class battleship and its implications, beginning with Queen Victoria's ascension to the throne and ending with the declaration of World War I. The focus is on the monarchies and constitutional governments, and the book closes with the sequence of declarations of general European war in the summer of 1914. [kuro5hin.org] One of the best and most important history books of the last twenty years. I've said it before, I'll say it again: Dreadnought is simply fantastic. Read it.

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Python Jones takes on the Gulf War II drumbeat. [from cjf-forshac-the foreign desk-chris forshay]:the [uk] observer, 2/17/02:Terry JonesTo prevent terrorism by dropping bombs on Iraq is such an obvious idea thatI can't think why no one has thought of it before. It's so simple. [Bite Media] Good read.
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CNN Headline News: To Blog or not to Blog. [Scripting News] The mass-media infatuation with blogging is strange...but hey, it's a passing thing. They'll have something else to make a big deal out of soon.
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US prepares for hi-tech war. Advances in military technology mean any new war against Iraq would be very different from the Gulf War¸ American military planners believe. [BBC News | TECHNOLOGY] Yeah - like this time, Americans are going to die.
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Said by the Raven, in comments regarding this post, a discussion on weird google queries and how they increase hits: "If it does, we're gonna be cross-linking to ourselves like a bunch of ADHD kids with a set of lincoln logs." heh. =)
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I'm going to denounce Saddam in my blog. A tip of the cap to Michel Vuijlsteke for spotting this line in Tom Tomorrow's latest cartoon. Tomorrow is himself a webblogger, of course, blogging at This Modern World. [Radio Free Blogistan]
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Your genetic code on a disc [BBC Science & Nature] My ex's mother (a clinical genetics specialist and professor at Yale) has got to love this...a large chunk of the genetics academic community loathes Venter. I can see why - he's profiteering off the human genome. I believe the end result of the infighting from a couple years back was that the human genome information will be public domain, but that you can still patent individual genes. That freaks me out - they could patent damn near anything. But there seems to be a big gaping hole in the gene-patenting argument: in most cases, the genes occur(ed) in nature before they're created in the lab, at some point in time, right? So wouldn't that count as prior art?

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posted by homunculus at September 23 12:10 PM. "Why isn't Burma on Bush's 'Axis of Evil' list?" A fair question considering the threat to its neighbors from its drugs and weapons trades, its nuclear ambitions, and its continuing horrible treatment of its own people. And though Aung San Suu Kyi was released shortly after Kurlantzick's article was written, the junta still has not held substantive talks with her, but they have continued with their plans to build a nuclear reactor (perhaps they're looking for a promotion from the measly 'Axis of Occasionally Evil'.) [MetaFilter] Good question - they're at least as bad as Iran. In fact, I'd say they're worse - Iran has elections, even if the theocratic mullahs still grab the reins of power pretty indiscriminately...

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Anarchist Scavenger Hunt Has DC Police Seeing Red. Plastic::Politics::Protest: "Flatten a cop tire: 75 points; Break McDonalds window: 300 points; Pie in Bill Gates' face: 400 points; Video tape of actions to collect points, being used by DA to convict me: Priceless." [Plastic: Most Recent]
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Charly at Driver 8 gets all the cool referrals. Pat Patterson and Dragon's Lair? Bastard!
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Building the underground computer railroad. Anti-globalization activists in Oakland, Calif., are recycling old machines, loading them with free software and shipping them off to Ecuador. [Salon Headlines] See? There is a more effective way to fight globalism than riotting on the streets of Seattle.
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Earthquake hits UK. Large parts of England and Wales are hit by an earthquake measuring 4.8 on the Richter scale¸ but there are no reports of casualties. [BBC News | UK] Alright, I'm from New England, and 4.8 Richter doesn't sound like a big deal to me. The British really seem to freak out at the smallest things sometimes. =)
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You need to go read Unicorn Jelly, a wonderful fantasy-manga comic strip that kept me busy for three hours last night, reading the entire story. I barely read any of the supporting information on the elaborate world the writer/artist has created, though, so I know I've got lots more to go. Check it out. Trust me.
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