Album of the Week part 5

This week: "More Fun in the New World" by X.
This artifact of the paranoid Reagan era is eerily relevant today. Check out these lyrics, from the peppy "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts":

Both sides are right, but both sides murder
I give up -- why can't they?
I must not think bad thoughts...
The civil wars -- and the uncivilized wars
Conflagrations leap out of every poor furnace
The food cooks poorly and everyone goes hungry
From then on it's dog eat dog, dog eat body, body eat dog
I can't go down there, I can't understand it
I'm a no-good coward, an American too
A North American, that is, and I must not think bad thoughts
I'm guilty of murder of innocent men
Innocent woman and innocent children
Thousands of 'em
My planes, my guns, my money, my soldiers
My blood on my hands -- it's all my fault
I must not think bad thoughts...

Album of the Week is part of Mr. Joel's Music Page.

News Alert: Rove meets with alleged terrorist!

Alleged Terrorist Met With Bush Adviser (washingtonpost.com) A former university professor indicted this week as a terrorist leader attended a 2001 group meeting in the White House complex with President Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove, administration officials said yesterday.

Sami Al-Arian, a former computer engineering professor at the University of South Florida, had been under investigation by the FBI for at least six years at the time of the June 2001 briefing for a Muslim organization. Numerous news accounts also had said federal agents suspected Al-Arian of links to terrorism.

Robert Fisk -- making sense again.

Argument The British don't like Hussein any more than they liked Nasser. But millions of Britons remember, as Blair does not, the Second World War; they are not conned by childish parables of Hitler, Churchill, Chamberlain and appeasement. They do not like being lectured and whined at by men whose experience of war is Hollywood and television.

Still less do they wish to embark on endless wars with a Texas governor-executioner who dodged the Vietnam draft and who, with his oil buddies, is now sending America's poor to destroy a Muslim nation that has nothing at all to do with the crimes against humanity of 11 September. Jack Straw, the public school Trot-turned-warrior, ignores all this, with Blair. He brays at us about the dangers of nuclear weapons that Iraq does not have, of the torture and aggression of a dictatorship that America and Britain sustained when Saddam was "one of ours". But he and Blair cannot discuss the dark political agenda behind George Bush's government, nor the "sinister men" (the words of a very senior UN official) around the President.

Bush nominated for Oscar!

We will liberate the Iraqi people the way we liberated Cuba and the Phillipines.

News "Conquerors always call themselves liberators," said Sami Abdul-Rahman, deputy prime minister of the Kurdish administration, in a reference to Mr Bush's speech last week in which he said US troops were going to liberate Iraq.

Mr Abdul-Rahman said the US had reneged on earlier promises to promote democratic change in Iraq. "It is very disappointing," he said. "In every Iraqi ministry they are just going to remove one or two officials and replace them with American military officers."

Kurdish officials strongly believe the new US policy is the result of pressure from regional powers, notably Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The US appears to be quietly abandoning earlier declarations that it would make Iraq a model democracy in the Middle East. In Iraq, free elections would lead to revolutionary change because although the Shia Muslims and Kurds constitute three-quarters of the population, they are excluded from power in Baghdad by the Sunni Muslim establishment.

Republic or Empire?

Republic or Empire? Then what's the point of this new American imperialism? The neoconservatives with a stranglehold on the foreign policy of the Republican Party, a party that traditionally eschewed foreign military adventures, want to go beyond expanding US global influence to force revolutionary change on the region. American pre-eminence in the Gulf is necessary but not sufficient for the hawks. Nothing short of conquest, occupation and imposition of handpicked leaders on a vanquished population will suffice. Iraq is the linchpin for this broader assault on the region. The new imperialists will not rest until governments that ape our worldview are implanted throughout the region, a breathtakingly ambitious undertaking, smacking of hubris in the extreme. Arabs who complain about American-supported antidemocratic regimes today will find us in even more direct control tomorrow. The leader of the future in the Arab world will look a lot more like Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf than Thomas Jefferson.

In honor of the projected 20" snow in the DC area.

The Straight Dope: What are the nine Eskimo words for snow? In my spare time I have been attempting to construct an Eskimo sentence in my basement, such as will be suitable for the season. I have not get it perfected yet, but it is coming along pretty well, and with a little work it might pass for the genuine article. So far I have: kaniktshaq moritlkatsio atsuniartoq.

When completed, this sentence will proclaim: "Look at all this freaking snow." At present it means: "Observe the snow. It fornicates." This is not poetic, but it is serviceable, and I intend to employ it at the next opportunity. Anyone who feels it would alleviate his or her tension is invited to do likewise. Should it be felt that this is too burdensome a load of verbiage to be hauling around all the time, one may avail oneself of the timeless Eskimo interjection anaq, shit. This is appropriate to a wide variety of situations.

I ask this question as someone who lives literally up the street from the White House: Do you feel safer today than you did on September 12, 2001? What does that say about the competence of the Bush/Cheney Administration?

I'm just glad I have a job (for the moment) -- that means I can afford to get some Strategic Defense Duct Tape.

A friend of mine is in a dance troupe, Martiya Possession, that performs "Experimental and Fusion Belly Dance." They will be performing tomorrow night (Thursday February 13) at "Alchemy's 3rd Annual Valentine's/Anti-Valentine's Party at Nation! 1015 Half St. SE, Washington, DC."
Go to their website for more information. I'll be there and I'll be easy to spot -- I'm the guy who looks out of place.

On an entirely different subject.

I could support a war against Iraq...

if the Bush Administration (and Deputy president Blair) didn't keep lying. Here's Robert Fisk:

Independent
And when General Powell started blathering on about "decades'' of contact between Saddam and al-Qa'ida, things went wrong for the Secretary of State. Al-Qa'ida only came into existence five years ago, since Bin Laden ? "decades" ago ? was working against the Russians for the CIA, whose present day director was sitting grave-faced behind General Powell. And Colin Powell's new version of his President's State of the Union lie ? that the "scientists" interviewed by UN inspectors had been Iraqi intelligence agents in disguise ? was singularly unimpressive. The UN talked to scientists, the new version went, but they were posing for the real nuclear and bio boys whom the UN wanted to talk to. General Powell said America was sharing its information with the UN inspectors but it was clear yesterday that much of what he had to say about alleged new weapons development ? the decontamination truck at the Taji chemical munitions factory, for example, the "cleaning" of the Ibn al-Haythem ballistic missile factory on 25 November ? had not been given to the UN at the time. Why wasn't this intelligence information given to the inspectors months ago? Didn't General Powell's beloved UN resolution 1441 demand that all such intelligence information should be given to Hans Blix and his lads immediately? Were the Americans, perhaps, not being "pro-active" enough?

Oh.

Salon.com Sex | My date with the Virtual Sex Machine This giant pink worm is where the dick goes.

NEWSFLASH: BUSH ADMINISTRATION ACCIDENTALLY COMMITS TRUTH!

Bushie Admits Tax Cut Caused Deficit! - Harsh reprisal to follow? By Timothy Noah [According to Bush]
Osama Bin Laden created the deficit by knocking down the World Trade Center. Bill Clinton created the deficit by bequeathing Bush a spent boom. But no way did Bush create the deficit by cutting taxes. Without the stimulus provided by the 2001 tax cut, the deficit would be much bigger.

But whoever wrote the historical tables volume of the 2004 White House budget obviously didn't get the memo. Observe this passage from the bottom of Page 5:


An economic slowdown began in 2001 and was exacerbated by the terrorists' attacks of September 11, 2001. The deterioration in the performance of the economy together with income tax relief provided to help offset the economic slowdown and additional spending in response to the terrorist attacks produced a drop in the surplus to $127.1 billion (1.3% of GDP) and a return to deficits ($157.8 billion, 1.5% of GDP) in 2002 [all italics Chatterbox's].

According to this analysis, the 2001 tax bill was intended to help stimulate the economy. But it didn't work, or at least didn't work fast enough. Consequently, the Bush tax cut combined with a weakening economy and the Sept. 11 attacks to eliminate the surplus and create a $157.8 billion deficit. You can say that a deficit representing 1.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product doesn't matter. You can say that short-term deficit spending will help stimulate the economy in the long run. But the person who wrote this obviously couldn't bring himself to deny that the tax cut helped create the current deficit. Chatterbox wonders if he'll still have a job next week

Like these aren't important technological advances.

NASA, Spinning - Was the space shuttle useful? Not really. By David Owen A sports bra made from a material also used in shuttle spacesuits helps to reduce "mammary bounce"; a type of synthetic netting used in shuttles has also been used in the decks of racing catamarans; a composite material developed by Babcock & Wilcox for use in certain kinds of tubing on the space shuttle was later also used for "improving golf clubs" by providing "maximum distance."

At last I can sleep at nights.

Salon.com Books | Vatican gives two thumbs up to Harry Potter
The good vs. evil plot lines of the best-selling books are imbued with Christian morals, the Rev. Don Peter Fleetwood told a Vatican news conference Monday.

"I don't see any, any problems in the Harry Potter series," Fleetwood said.

He was responding to questions following the release of a new Vatican document on the New Age phenomenon, which he helped draft as a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Fleetwood was asked whether the magic embraced by Harry Potter and his pals at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was problematic for the Roman Catholic Church. Some evangelical groups have condemned the series for glamorizing magic and the occult.

"I don't think there's anyone in this room who grew up without fairies, magic and angels in their imaginary world," said Fleetwood, who is British. "They aren't bad. They aren't serving as a banner for an anti-Christian ideology.

Re. The Space Shuttle: You need to read this new article by Gregg Easterbrook, and this one that is decades old. You don't ahve to agree with his conlcusions, but you should understand his argument.

A new look. And why not?

Album of the Week

A new service, requested by Adam, and now part of Mr. Joel's music page. This week:
I Oughtta Give You A Shot In The Head (For Making Me Live In This Dump), by Shivaree.