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Saturday, March 22, 2003

President Bush ushers in the Fourth Reich with the familiar salute. Illusion Awards Iraqi Freedom Edition Most likely to fire first shot in Iraqi civil war: Turkey Most likely to ask for their own state the minute hostilities end:  The Kurds Most likely to take bloody revenge on their brethren:  The Shiites Most likely to foment terrorism in the Gulf Region:  The Bush Foreign Policy Team Most likely to gas his own people: the next dictator of Iraq (sorry Saddam, I think we're in for an upset) Most likely to be a conservative Muslim: next leader of Iraq Most likely to sell arms to the liberated Iraq: U.S.A. Most likely to win the biggest oil contract:  Halliburton Most likely person to be in a good mood right now: Osama bin Laden   11:01:41 AM     comment

Friday, March 21, 2003

Can't wait for episode three... 9:45:54 PM     comment Shock & Awe I don't know if it'll work on the Iraqis, but it's sure worked on me.  I feel like we've made the leap into the great unknown, and I just know something bad is going to happen.  It's just a matter of when.  Maybe by betting on bad things happening I can make myself feel better when they come true, because at least I'll have made money...  Isn't that the American way? Speaking of money, if the Bush tax cut passes, who's paying for this war and the reconstruction of Iraq?  Has Bush won some billion dollar bets at tradesports.com that we don't know about? Welcome to the Brave New World of pax Bushisma.  The best is yet to come I'm sure. 7:51:11 PM     comment

Wednesday, March 12, 2003

Freedom Fries: the official food of idiot Congressmen I'm sure you've heard already: the House of Representatives has officially renamed French Fries to Freedom Fries. That'll show those Frenchmen (Freedommen?). As if the hostility we have provoked around the world through our heavy-handed diplomacy weren't enough, now we are opening ourselves up to well-deserved ridicule. Quote from the article linked above: The French Embassy did not seem amused. Its press officer declined comment, except to say that french fries originated in Belgium. 2:41:56 PM     comment

Saturday, March 08, 2003

Good news at last: Bill Clinton & Bob Dole do Point-Counterpoint on 60 minutes Oh, Bill, how I've missed you.  I'll be waitnig to take in your eloquent words this Sunday at 7 EST.  And yes, I am completely serious when I say this. I just had to quote these lines from the CNN article though: Clinton received an advance in excess of $10 million from Knopf Publishing to write his memoirs, and Dole has appeared in television commercials endorsing products such as Pepsi, Visa, and Viagra. Therein lies the difference between Democrats & Republicans. :) 11:07:21 AM     comment

Friday, March 07, 2003

Speaking of T-shirts Of all the ready.gov parodies, I think this one sums things up the best.  You can also get it on a T-shirt here, though be forewarned, if "give peace a chance" gets you arrested, this should get you a couple of years of detention, and by the time they're done with you you'll look like this: 1:27:07 PM     comment Squirm Rummy Squirm Last Tuesday (March 4th) Brit Journalist David Dimbleby interviewed Donald Rumsfeld, and made American journalists look like the pussies they are.  Watch Rumsfeld hide behind the President, try to disown his own rhetoric on "old Europe" and "so-called occupied territories,"  claim ignorance of American policies, and explain why he had no problem shaking Saddam's hand. You won't see/hear this kind of thing in this country... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2819931.stm 11:58:21 AM     comment

Monday, March 03, 2003

Colin Powell - the only person in the Bush administration with half a brain, and he's going down, fast. It sure sounds like Powell will end up taking the blame for Dubya's dubious foreign policy. It's a real pity, because I sort of liked the man (and for me to say I like a Republican is really saying something). The other day, Secretary of State Colin Powell was reminded that his boss is in bed by ten and sleeps like a baby. Powell reportedly replied, "I sleep like a baby, too-every two hours I wake up screaming." It's too bad he decided to turn coats on the war at the last minute. Now the rest of us are waking up screaming, and there is no end in sight to this nightmare. While we're on the subject of jokes, it's sort of funny that we were so sure Turkey would let us station our troops there that we had started unloading stuff in southern Turkey. Is the Bush administration really that wide-eyed? Wake up guys, maybe you should be really sure before you act on promises from a country whose (mostly Muslim) population doesn't support our war.  Maybe it's better that way. I know I can't wait for the violence between Kurds & Turkey to erupt. At least U.S. troops won't be in the middle of it. Yet another place in the Middle East enveloped in conflict thanks to us, the harbingers of democracy. 10:12:47 AM     comment

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

John Ashcroft, America's own personal Jesus un-righteous need not apply Am I the only person who cringes every time John Ashcroft is on TV? Whenever I see him deliver his moral pronouncements with that grim look on his face, I just get this idea that this man really hates most of the human race. From draping naked statues, to prosecuting principled medical marijuana growers, to forcing prosecutors to seek death penalty, John Ashcroft has taken us back to the middle ages in his interpretation of Christian charity.  I'd like to be a fly on the wall when he confers with his (vengeful) God through a personal pipeline. I heard a story on NPR recently about Ashcroft's life, and how he thinks he was "chosen" to do what he is doing. Despite several political defeats, he has repeatedly been appointed to positions of power. Apparently, he remains blind to the obvious interpretation of his career. He is a man who has gotten to where he is through his connections, not through a divine providence or the will of the people. So Mr. Ashcroft, given that you are such an upright Christian, tell us, what would Jesus do? Manipulate a jury into convicting a medical marijuana grower, who happened to be within the laws of his own state? order federal prosecutors to seek the federal death penalty take advantage of the nation's fears to pass a law that allows for detention of terrorism suspects because of the color of their skin Execute the innocent based on a technicality? Let's face it, not unlike our enemies in Al-Qaeda, this is a man who has never stopped to question the righteousness of his beliefs. Only history will tell who the bigger threat to America's democracy is. 3:57:53 PM     comment The terror alert strikes again. I'd like to see if Tom Ridge is going to apologize to the people who died in the Chicago nightclub thanks our state of the art terror alert system. At least now we know the terror alert is having some sort of effect... 2:10:03 PM     comment When you buy duct tape, the terrorists win, or, will someone from our government tell us the truth for once? Well, loading up yahoo news to read this headline sure was a surprise: Bad Tip May Have Helped Boost Alert.  Thankfully, duct tape is cheap.  Better yet, I didn't buy any.  Does anybody actually think that duct tape is going to save them from a chemical or biological attack?  Even if sealing off your house could keep out, let's say, anthrax spores (quoth an AP article: "Just a few tiny anthrax spores are enough to cause a deadly infection in some vulnerable people"), who's to say you will have enough warning to actually do this?  If a bunch of smallpox is released on a U.S. city, before you can get to your local CVS, infection will already be spreading - if you're unlucky enough to be in the wrong place on the wrong time, you're shit out of luck. To be quite honest, I think the whole terror alert system is a bunch of bs.   What makes terrorism scary is that it could happen anywhere, at any time, at your workplace, at the coffeeshop across the street, or at the ballgame.  It's warefare brought to your door when you least expect it.   Who in our government thought up the brilliant idea that if they tell us that "something bad is more likely to happen somewhere sometime in the near future,"  this will actually help people prepare for it?!   You know what?  I bet nobody in our government thinks that.  What they know is this:  terrorist attacks are unpredictable.  If they weren't, they wouldn't happen.  But we the little people can't be expected to understand  these big ideas.  We need something simple, like visual aids, to break it down for us. Lest my cynicism shows, I will not suggest that uncle Sam may have had the idea that a fearful people is an unquestioning people.  Oops, my bad. 2:04:22 PM     comment

Wednesday, February 12, 2003

Papa bin Laden / White House join forces in propaganda campaign for war in Iraq and, no, it's not a conspiracy Is it just me, or does the bin Laden tape come at a convenient time? The only question is, convenient for whom? If my psyche tended toward the paranoid, I'd say the tape was a fake manufactured by our government to strengthen the tenuous link between al-Qaeda and Iraq. But I have a better theory. My theory is that we are being manipulated by bin Laden. One thing we know is that Osama is actually quite clever -- he wouldn't have "accomplished" as much as he has if he wasn't. Did he overlook the effect his tape would have on the U.S.? I find that hard to believe. I bet he has been following our politics closer than most self-described patriots on this side of the Atlantic. So, let's put ourselves in Osama's shoes. Is he against the war in Iraq? Of course not. Any unrest/violence in the Middle East just means that he'll have more wide-eyed teenage recruits lining up at the mouth of cave du jour, waiting to strap themselves into explosives. So what to do? Release a tape and talk about Iraq - give those gullible Americans another reason to jump into a conflict which will play right into his hands (God knows our track record in this department should give any terrorist heart). By giving the U.S. government a little push toward the Iraqi invasion, he gets to kill two birds with one stone: the confirmation of the evil that lurks in the heart of America, and, if he's lucky enough, the overthrow of a secularized dictator. If you think that there is much of a chance of the next Iraqi government not being conservatively Islamic, take a trek across the border to Iran. Do I have anything to support my wild theories? I'll be producing grainy satellite photos any day now - just waiting for the Photoshop CD to arrive in the mail. 2:13:34 PM     comment

Friday, February 07, 2003

Fiscal responsibility / what is it good for? / absolutely nothing Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it? The recent news about deficits and national debt could be enough to plunge me (and the economy?) into a deep depression. The only cheery thought that remains is that I am not Bill Clinton. If I were, I think I'd be slitting my wrists right now. Just imagine it: eight years of hard work, and it's all been washed down the drain within two years of your leaving office. Not that I blame Bush for all of it. What I do blame him for is being so fucking oblivious to it. If the Bush budget doesn't demonstrate clearly that this administration is in Don Quijote land on economic reality, I don't know what will. I guess when you're that rich, it's hard to imagine that there are actually people who are affected by a bad economy. Instead, they march to the rescue of those brave Americans who will have to put off buying that yacht because of all those dividend taxes they have to pay. This does hit close to home, as I've been dealing with my own fiscal responsibility issues lately. I imagine that my situation is pretty similar to most people's my age (just about 30). Between school loans, a car loan, and credit cards, I am almost $40 in debt. This is actually quite minor compared to, let's say, a mortgage, which where I live (Boston) will run you about $500K for anything that's not a hovel. Still, I have found even the modest goal of paying off my credit cards within a couple of years surprisingly difficult to accomplish. Especially since I have no savings to speak of, so quitting a job, taking a vacation, or any other unexpected expense has me slipping back into the debt trap. The ironic thing is that in the past couple of years I have been making more than enough money to live on. Maybe that's why I am feeling the weight of debt so keenly. All this talk from the Bush administration that deficits don't matter has made me think though. Am I foolish to try to get out of debt? Should I accept that debt is as American as apple pie, and I'll never be free of it? If I'll never be free of it, is all this talk about "the land of the free" just a bunch of bull? Are we slaves to the corporations? Is this the Matrix, where as soon as we come of age, we are saldered to the teat of credit and fed a false reality where happiness is an expensive car? Sadly, it sure looks like it. Oh, wait, not all is lost. I have some of my 401K invested in dividend-bearing stocks. That means that in 35 years, when I begin cashing it in, I should be all set! Oh happy thought. 12:34:33 PM     comment

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