DuVernois Blog

Indeed

New explanation for fundamentalist islam

Sexual frustration. Can you imagine the US bombers loaded with porn headed for the Middle East?

Florida election machines still don't work

And there's no way of reporting the problems in the election system!

So here's just about the weirdest thing I've seen recently

Dubya's new ranch of 98,000 acres in Paraguay. Okay, here is where it gets weird. Is that his little hiding spot to avoid prosecution for war crimes? Of does the 2.2 mile long runway (look on google earth) mean he's moving full-time into the cocaine exporting racket? Weirder still is the connection with the Moonies and their purchase of land in the same area. Okay, and then the Jenna connection? Too strange for words.

Dubya discovers February 30th

Looks to be a first landing. He can raise the GOP flag over the 30th of February and claim it for himself.

When all else fails, crackdown on "crime" online

Zimbabwe plans to use Chinese technology to monitor telecommunications. It does seem to be the refuge of failed dictatorships and nascent ones perhaps as well...

Terrible things!

James Fetzer interview in the City Pages

If you don't know him, he's the UMD professor and local master of conspiracy theories. He is sort of the unofficial dean of the Minnesota conspiracy theory folks (okay, guys, as there aren't too many gals into that particular business) and a compelling argument for the humorlessness of public access television.

On the conspiracy theory news front, as long as we're there, I just finished reading The Letters of Wanda Tinasky. If you remember, she's the "bag lady" who wrote the Pychonesque letters to the editor of various papers around (the California) Fort Bragg area while Pychon himself was in the area researching Vineland. Anyway...the whole story sounds so much better in theory than when actually read, the letters are rather pedestrian and remind me more of the weird letters to Savage Love or Creative Loafing than anything Pychon would author. Anyhow...just my random thoughts to send you off to google.

Cthulu Chick Tract

Do you remember those hilarious little Chick Tracts? The ones telling you that you needn't pack sweaters for the afterlife? It seems inevitable, now that the stars are right, that the Cthulu Chick Tract is now available. I want to be eaten first!

Perhaps it bothers me because I have a Belgian cousin named Muriel as well

Muriel Degauque blew herself up in Baghdad. It's a long road from the little industrial Belgian town of Charlesroi to an islamist suicide bombing. It'll be such converts to Islam that will likely be the first home-grown suicide bombers here in the States.

Bush challenges to the rule of law

Bush has claimed that he is above more than 750 laws. That they do not apply to him. ''There is no question that this administration has been involved in a very carefully thought-out, systematic process of expanding presidential power at the expense of the other branches of government," Cooper [Phillip Cooper, a Portland State University law professor who has studied the executive power claims Bush made during his first term] said. ''This is really big, very expansive, and very significant."

And more than 3500 Americans were illegally spied on last year by the FBI following the contention of Bush that domestic spying laws could be completely ignored. I really think his best chance in the long term is to resign and let Cheney give him a pardon. Unless Cheney is forced to resign first...

Darfur & Biafra

Been thinking about the big rally being held this Sunday, April 30th at the State Capital. "What did you do to try to stop the Darfur Genocide?" Been thinking about Biafra in light of what is happening now (and heck, for years now) in the Sudan. Got a book on the Biafran War a few days ago. Hadn't thought about it in quite some time. Anyway...there's not a lot of good material (at least that I could find quickly) on Biafra online, but you can try these to start:

• Wikipedia if you didn't remember where Biafra was.
• eXile web magazine's offbeat homage to Carl Gustaf von Rosen---hero of Biafra and general aviation saint of Africa.
• Frederick Forsyth got his start as a journalist in Biafra. His book remains the classic telling of the story.
• The Nation of Biafra, in exile.

So, what to do?

Another take on Darfur, from two years ago.

Bush, the nuclear blunders

It's clear now how the Iraq distraction has harmed us in the pursuit of bin Laden, with North Korea's nuclear weapons, and now with the standoff with Iran. The US is immeaurably weaker today than when Bush decided to launch a war of aggression with Iraq.

TSA

JACK: Well, your A. Buttle has been confused with T47/215, an A. Tuttle. I mean, it's a joke! Somebody should be shot for that. So B58/732 was pulled in by mistake.

SAM: You got the wrong man.

JACK: (a little heated) I did not get the wrong man. I got the right man. The wrong man was delivered to me as the right man! I accepted him, on trust, as the right man. Was I wrong? Anyway, to add to the confusion, he died on us. Which, had he been the right man, he wouldn't have done.

SAM: You killed him?

JACK: (annoyed) Sam, there are very rigid parameters laid down to avoid that event but Buttle's heart condition did not appear on Tuttle's file. Don't think I'm dismissing this business, Sam. I've lost a week's sleep over it already.

SAM: I'm sure you have

JACK: There are some real bastards in this department who don't mind breaking a few eggs to make an omelette, but thank God there are the new boys like me who want to maintain decent civilized standards of terrorist eradication. We've got the upper hand for the moment, but they're waiting for us to slip up, and a little slip- up like this is just the chance they're looking for.

Brazil.

Priestly problems

This priest in Mexico killed and cut up his long term lover. They had been together since he met her at the age of 13. She was murdered after an argument following his Easter Mass. Their 18 month old daughter was not injured.

Priests allowed to keep their jobs (LA) even after abusing children.

Iran's bomb

Next week's New Yorker has an article from Seymour Hersh claiming the US is getting quite close to making a decision of military action in Iran. That article is being referenced around the world noting that the use of nuclear weapons is under consideration.

The Taliban college experience in Pensacola

An unaccredited college for the looniest of the loons. Get expelled for "making eye babies!" That is, looking at a member of the opposite sex.

I haven't kept up with Hitchens that well since he left the Nation

But I definitely enjoyed his spirited defense of Denmark, the free press, and democracy. And I think we can safely ignore his praise of the Iraq War. I am impressed that he's remained steadfast in his opinions, hmmm..., despite evidence that they're wrong?

The most encouraging article (well, informal essay) on free speech that I've seen in a very long time

"General: 'Mr. Arkin, do you consider yourself a journalist or an American.' I took a drink of water as my blood boiled. Me: 'Well General, because I am an American, I cherish the fact that I can call you a f***ing idiot for asking the question.'" There are more thoughtful bit as well...

Outsourcing to North Korea?

Ick! South Korean firms are moving some manufacturing across the DMZ to employ North Korean workers who officially get 1/10th to 1/20th the salary of South Koreans, but the money goes to the North Korean government, not the workers. And the factory owners want to have the products labeled as made in South Korea.

Welcome to the brain of the Don

The Donald Rumsfeld that is. Plastic has an excellent resume of web links from his halcyon days in the Nixon and Ford administrations to leading two failed wars (see what sort of freedom and democracy has brought to Afghanistan?) for Dubya.

Read his own words, justifying what has been accomplished in the past three years in Iraq. Believe any of it? Like Rummy's $50 billion dollar and 5 week estimates of the war costs and length? And what's up with his comparisons of very and sundries with Hitler? Do we really fear that a 1000 year Venezualan Reich is right around the corner? Or is he projecting a bit?

Going back to the resume, we have to reflect on his successful running of the Office of Economic Opportunity under Nixon and his back-room efforts to help get the US out of the Vietnam War. For that he was shuffled off to be NATO ambassador. Then triumph as chief of staff and defense secretary under Ford, fighting against the whole nastiness of detante. Off to the private sector until Dubya decides to bring the Nixon crowd all back to the White House. The epic Shinseki-Rumsfeld fight seems now to be a footnote in the story, but certainly marked part of the White House team's decent into unreality.

Afghanistan. Iraq. Some investigations into what Rumsfeld has wrought.

Finally the airport "no-fly" terrorism lists actually caught a terrorist

Who had just left the White House. It does remind us of how terrorists (here a man who ordered the murder of many people) morphs into a distinguished political guest.

Wal-Mart bloggers

Wal-Mart press releases and other PR/propaganda are being distributed via blogs. So, blog for Wal-Mart. Hmmm...does it pay well? Hey, I could write positive comments about how Wal-Mart helps out state economies by forcing its workers onto public assistance. Or how it improves the trade deficit with China. Or how much electricity is consumed to make the cheap injection-molded plastic crap. Or how much CO2 is emitted in generating that electricity. Or...

Black box voting update

Palm Beach County voting machines have had their error logs examined. Votes cast ahead of the election, powered off many times during the election day, and plenty of other headaches. Let's see, there are trillions of petro- and military-dollars at stake, would people make an attempt to defraud the American public and alter the election?

Bush PR campaign costs taxpayers $1.6B

In addition to the cost of lunatic policies, Bush has been charging us for propaganda to support his policies. $1.6 Billion dollars worth of legally questionable propaganda. Some bits seem sensible enough, boater warnings and National Park paperwork, but there are also partisan campaigns to sell the regimes war in Iraq, gutting of environmental laws, and Medicare fiddlings.

The Mohammed Cartoon debate

Printing these, gives rise to these folks...

Darn it, I hate it when I have to agree with Hitchens again.

"There isn’t an inch to give, nothing to negotiate and no concessions to offer. Those of us who believe in enlightenment and free speech also have unalterable principles which we will not give up. We have to listen all the time to piratical-looking mullahs calling our Jewish friends pigs and demanding the censorship of The Satanic Verses and we find this fantastically insulting, but we don’t behave like babies. They are making a puerile spectacle of themselves. We should say, how dare you behave in this way? They can put themselves under laws and taboos if they wish, but it is nothing to do with me or anybody else. They are completely out of order." - Christopher Hitchens

Iraq war hoax

Lawrence Wilkerson is so far the highest ranking former member of the Bush intelligence team at the time of the Iraq War planning to speak out. "A hoax on the American people."

LAWRENCE WILKERSON: It makes me feel terrible. I've said in other places that it was-- constitutes the lowest point in my professional life. My participation in that presentation at the UN constitutes the lowest point in my professional life.

I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council. How do you think that makes me feel? Thirty-one years in the United States Army and I more or less end my career with that kind of a blot on my record? That's not a very comforting thing.

DAVID BRANCACCIO [interviewer]: A hoax? That's quite a word.

LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Well, let's face it, it was.

---

You can read Colin Powell's speech of lies at CNN but it's really just a let down. It's not only been proven to be a bunch of lies now, but was known as such at the time.

Today's thought

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Contrary to what you've just seen, war is neither glamorous nor fun. There are no winners, only losers. There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: The American Revolution, World War II, and the Star Wars Trilogy. If you'd like to learn more about war, there's lots of books in your local library, many of them with cool, gory pictures." - Bart Simpson

How bad is it in Iraq?

British troops want to, essentially, unionize.

Business as usual

The Pope says that the duty of the church is to influence our leaders and the Supreme Court looks to be changing a bit. There was also some bit in there about eros and agape but the Bishop of Rome talking about Greek philosophy is a little too serious for this blog I fear.

CNN mistranslation of "technology" as "weapons"

In the context of Iran and nuclear. Do a little search on this blog and another recent CNN problem with nuclear facility pictures. And, of course, we need to remember that this is the US's non-politically-crazy and generally responsible cable news network. Oi!

Your freedoms have left the building

No Geneva Convention. No ban on domestic spying.

I hesitate to post this...

...since several of my friends who are religious will take this link as a statement of my thoughts on the subject. However, let me make the link to Harris's atheist manifesto with the proviso that some of his backing evidence as to how religious nations are more violent, etc. is not completely solid. The notion of the lack of sensibility for the label "atheist", likening it to the terms "non-astrologer" or "non-alchemist" is especially interesting, and, in my experience, novel.

Kurt Vonnegut reflecting on knowledge, and its lack

From In these times, which I would highly recommend to one and all.

The Bush regime still has trouble telling lobbyists from journalists

As a Oil Industry shill goes to the Climate Change conference as a journalist. Credentialed by the Washington Times.

Swaziland and AIDS

With 38% of the country affected, they opted to cancel AIDS Day observances. Cancelled due to a harvest festival?

The real reason Bush wanted to bomb Al Jazeera

Horribly blatent age discrimination! Dubya stands by people of age.

Nothing here about CIA prisons abroad

"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist." - Winston Churchill (November 21, 1943)

A loving god

AKA a 1950's cartoon version of revelations.

Project Censored

Always one of the most important links of the year. The end of open government, the civilian deaths in Iraq, the Diebolding of the election, 1984 cameras, and the purpose of "Homeland Security." Makes you feel proud to be an American.

Witch-hunt? Inquisition?

Yup, alive and well and sure to root out the evils of the Ctholic church.

New Orleans ongoing...

Tragedies and utter incompetence still prevail. I meant in NOLA, rather than DC, the latter is obvious.

Bush, as successful in New Orleans as in Falluja.

"Colossal failure..."

Paralysis of the Bush regime.

"W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives. 'I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees,' he told Diane Sawyer."

US efforts met sub-Bangladeshi standards.

"Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. 'The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all.'"

Religion and science in America today

The continuing story of how we define this country. Whose country? Whose ideas? Which freedoms? Which path? The BBC reporting on the growing number of scientists concerned about the anti-science being pushed by the religious leaders of the US. There's so much back material to this. What happens when I mention that I do physics for example. Comments of "I did badly in math" or the like are really the most typical connection. Add in a virulently anti-modernist agenda from the right-wing theocrats-in-waiting, and you have the current situation in the States. (Don't believe that the Intelligent Design and related attacks are a planned afront to rationalism? Read their own "Wedge Plan.")

Does it make sense to quote the "founding fathers?" Of course one could find rival quotation I suppose.

"It is owing to this long interregnum of science, and to no other cause, that we have now to look back through a vast chasm of many hundred years to the respectable characters we call the Ancients. Had the progression of knowledge gone on proportionably with the stock that before existed, that chasm would have been filled up with characters rising superior in knowledge to each other; and those Ancients we now so much admire would have appeared respectably in the background of the scene. But the christian system laid all waste; and if we take our stand about the beginning of the sixteenth century, we look back through that long chasm, to the times of the Ancients, as over a vast sandy desert, in which not a shrub appears to intercept the vision to the fertile hills beyond." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law, and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man. They are still so in many countries and even in some of these United States. Even in 1783, we doubted the stability of our recent measures for reducing them to the footing of other useful callings. It now appears that our means were effectual." - Thomas Jefferson, 1800

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution." - James Madison, 1785

"As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible is not the Word of God, that it is a falsehood, I have a right to ask you your reasons for believing the contrary; but I know you can give me none, except that you were educated to believe the Bible; and as the Turks give the same reason for believing the Koran, it is evident that education makes all the difference, and that reason and truth have nothing to do in the case. You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other infidel. But leaving the prejudice of education out of the case, the unprejudiced truth is, that all are infidels who believe falsely of God, whether they draw their creed from the Bible, or from the Koran, from the Old Testament, or from the New." [...] "It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No. Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor?" - Thomas Paine, 1797

Outlawing lip syncing?

Turkmenistan's president bans lip synching. This follows bans on opera, ballet, gold teeth, and restrictions on long hair and beards. Saparmurat Niyazov's cult of personality has always been a bit weird, but seeing lip synching as a threat is sure evidence of deep thinking about the future direction of his nation. All hail Kibo!

The fearless leader has also banned recorded music on TV and at live events. I'm starting to see a trend here! In fact, "radio and television programmes are dominated by performances of his own poems and philosophical writings set to music." Must be a fun country.

Ah yes, there are ongoing efforts to Turkmenify the population. They recently celebrated Melon Day and the fearless leader had a 300 square meter rug commissioned entitled "The 21st century: the epoch of the great Saparmurat Niyazov." That's ego! (Of course, by writing this, I have virutally eliminated the possibility of visiting Turkmenistan without getting to visit a finely crafted prison cell for a couple of days. Darn!) On the other hand, they granted citizenship to 16,000 refugees from neighboring Tajikistan and Uzbekistan so they are at least responsible in that way.

Are there other good Saparmurat Niyazov stories? Post them here!

Looking at the Wikipedia, there's also the closure of libraries and hospitals, replacing doctors with army constripts, building an ice palace in the middle of the desert, the statues of himself, the super-expensive mosque, and banning makeup for TV announcers. Sounds like a lower-rent, maybe somewhat friendlier, version of North Korea.

Oh yeah, and from the opposition website some English language news on Turkmenistan including banning converted LHD vehicles.

The government site is pretty interesting as well. The Visa application form is available online.

Where is Tony Blair?

The English papers have been asking the question. We know that Dubya spends most of his time snorting coke and on vacation in Texas, but the Brits aren't used to their leader disappearing.

Though there is a rumor that Blair is in the Caribbean on holiday, we know better! He's taking some time off in Vancouver, BC to learn how to skate.

Skateboarding that is. Reliable reports indicate that Tony Hawk and Tony Blair are practicing some phat moves in parking lots and the stairs of government buildings across the Hong Kong of the West. The Tonymeister was last seen wearing a "Skateboarding is not a crime" cutoff and demanding that The Urinal's first 7" be played louder.

Downing Street had no comment, but unnamed sources in the government confirmed that the Blairster had indeed taken up a new "recreational activity" and would be training the best experts in the world. Earlier reports that this activity was bicycling were proven wrong when Lance Armstrong showed up in Crawford, TX to ride with Dubya and ask for some political cover. The French have finally proven his performance-enhancing drug use, but we know that just starting to call that certain food item "Freedom Fries" will shut them up.

We now speculate that skateboarding is intended as a second occupation for Bliar. He had noted that he would not stand for PM in the next elections, so what would be a more natural job than as a professional skateboarder? He would be the clear front-runner in the "former leader of a nation" skate class/category.

Piano man was just a hoax

And he couldn't even play the piano. Just the silliness of the media which needs to make a story compelling.

Not a very nice sight

A riot for cheap laptops.

"A sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers."

Amazing to see popular coverage of atheism. And terribly odd to think of Jesse Ventura as a spokesperson for anything, or eloquent.

A little Texas church

For 16,000 people in a former sports stadium. Opiate of the masses for sure.

"Coalition of the willing" fatalities animations

You can learn quite a bit from this little animation. Well done little bit of data processing.

Other Iraq links for today:
Op-ed, NYT, "Dangerous Incompetence"

Another op-ed piece, "America held hostage"

Report on the ground in Iraq. Fight for an area and then leave it to the insurgents. Sound familar?

Visions of Iraq

From Another Year of Living Misery in Iraw.

Nearby, a scruffy young man in dirty pants and an unbuttoned shirt stood staring at vegetables scattered on the ground by one of the explosions. Bending over and picking up an onion spattered with blood, he began to cry.

"Every one of you in Karrada calls me Crazy Ali," he said to no one in particular. "But I would never do such a thing. I am better than you sane people. At least I do not hurt you."

Being a superhero

"Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad." - Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

From Forbes Magazine, the cost of being Batman!

And just how rich are those fictional characters anyway?

Mugabe's big party

While his loyal subjects are starving. A million dollar 10th anniversary party preceeded by a trip to "a friendly Middle Eastern country," likely Libya. We'll see if Mandela attends.

Zimbabwe general strike...

...doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything. The authorities have announced that they will "deal ruthlessly" with any street protests. Oddly enough, the state-controlled media didn't report on the general strike. Funny that.

The Beeb has the best coverage that I know of. Click on the link above and follow links there to quite a bit more coverage, including video and some photos. Including the one to the right.

A cobbler from Harare, and many web visitors, comment on the news.

Zimbabwe's "cleanup" continues...

...with no real resistance. It looks like some sort of enforced ruralization to eliminate the urban poor pockets of opposition to Mugabe. Not quite Pol Pot, but we'll see how those people make up.

I keep being saddened by the Zimbabwe disasters. A country I didn't quite fall in love with when traveling there, but one that I appreciated and hoped the best for.

Quote for today

"Bobby Fischer? Man, that guy is crazy!" - Mike Tyson

Where are your papers, citizen?

Join the discussion on the US national ID card at plastic.com.

Fascism, Godwin's Rule, and America

14 Characteristics of Fascist regimes.

Thinking about the Dubya administration's decision to purge non-Republican-donating folks from the US delegation to the Inter-American Telephone Commission

"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." - Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address

See here about the IATA litmus test.

Calvi's murder

Four people finally being tried for this. It's the classic tale of the corrupt banker who controlled the Vatican's money. Plenty of fnords and illuminati. Do a search.

Church and State

As our protections against the religious tyranny fades, at least we need to remember the "founding fathers" were hardly Christians.

* I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth. (Thomas Jefferson)

* The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.

The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. (John Adams)

* I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of... Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all. (Thomas Paine)

* What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy.

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize. (James Madison)

The University of Colorado, Prof. Churchill, and the "Little Eichmanns"

The Univ. of CO looks determined to find a way to get rid of Prof. Churchill. It seems that his opinionated rant was just too much for the reputation of the school (ignoring the football-player rapists and the ensuing coverup). Let's think about it though, he's claiming that at least some of the victims, working in the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were "little Eichmanns," little bureaucrats enacting the deadly policies of their superiors. Is this crazy? Well, let's see, the Pentagon, they direct bombing campaigns from there. Okay, so someone working there is complicit in killings (justified or not). Check. How about the World Trade Center? I'm guessing that Mr. Churchill had the bankers in mind. International Finance, World Bank, moving money and resources from the third world to the wealthy first world. Connect those banks and multinationals with the Nigerian corruption, or the Brazilian rain-forest exploitation, picking two random examples, and you get into the territory of killing. But Eichmann? Genocide? Hmmm...not sure I want to blame folks working in a restaurant or investment bank in NYC of beaucratic involvement in genocide. But on the other hand, if we can write a paragraph or two discussing it, and come to a different conclusion then why is his conclusion so unacceptable as to require his dismissal (or death as several commentators have requested)?

Annoying facts

Taken from the (oddly) rather tepid "No. 1?" article in the Minneapolis City Pages. As in, the US is #1 in which ways? Some of the items are so apalling as to demand repeating though. (Many of the others in the article reflect more on the author than the status of the US, in my opinion.)

• Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)

• Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).

• Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

• The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).

• Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. "By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture.

• As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

• "Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (Rifkin, The European Dream, p.28).
  

Hunter S. Thompson Appreciation Day

Shotgun Golf! The final article...

And the archive of his ESPN work.

"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die" — HST

They might just shot his (cremated) remains from a cannon. Fireworks!

HST on Dubya.

Although HST's work is done, others take up the slack. Jewish journalist infiltrating a neo-nazi hate group? That meets at Applebee's? Yup, hilarity ensues. Gonzo continues. Film at 11.

Will Duke pass away now? Go not quietly into the night unless you have a huge wad of case, night-vision goggles, and a drug-filled date with a pair of Madonna look-alikes.

Nixon always brought out the best in HST. Especially the RN Obit.

From the Doonesbury FAQ:

Q: What kind of relationship, if any, does Mr. Trudeau have with Hunter S. Thompson? --H. Delano R., Long Beach, CA

A: Non-existent. The two have never met, although there was a brief but acrimonious exchange of letters in the mid-70s. Since that time, Thompson has uttered numerous public threats against Trudeau's person, threats Trudeau takes seriously.

There are a pathetically large number of HST fan site out on the web, but some of them have really good content. Like this one. Well, mainly this one.

Bill Murray met Hunter S. Thompson in the late 70's, prior to portraying him in "Where the Buffalo Roam." He was driving a car back from the coast for Lorne Michaels (I believe) and met Thompson in Las Vegas.

They were sitting around a pool. Murray got tied to a chair (horsing around) and was thrown in the pool. He figured, no sweat, he could stand to his full height (6'1") and extricate himself from the socks that tied him to the chair. One thing though, when you are strapped in a chair, you are in a seated position and not able to extend to your full height. After momentary panic by the ever cool Bill, Thompson saw that Mr. Murray was floundering and hauled him out.

(This story was broadcast on "Focus with Bill Murray" hosted by critic Elvis Mitchell, and repeated last year by Bill Murray at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Film Festival devoted to him, 4/13/04). On the GettyWire Image page if you type in Bill Murray and scroll to all images within 12 months, and go back to April 13, 2004, you will see the photographs of the re-creation.

MsGeek.org thoughts on HST's death.

Longer quotes and stuff below...

"Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism--which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful." - HST, Nixon Obit

No relevance whatsoever for America. In 2005. Under the Dubya-crowd.

---

"This talk of sincerity, I confess, fatigues me. If the fellow was sincere, then so was P. T. Barnum. The word is disgraced and degraded by such uses. He was, in fact, a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany without sense or dignity. His career brought him into contact with the first men of his time; he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses. It was hard to believe, watching him in Dayton, that he had traveled, that he had been received in civilized societies, that he had been a high officer of state. He seemed only a poor clod like those around him, deluded by a childish theology, full of an almost pathological hatred of all learning, all human dignity, all beauty, all fine and noble things. He was a peasant come home to the barnyard. Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything that he was not. What animated him from end to end of his grotesque career was simply ambition — the ambition of a common man to get his hand upon the collar of his superiors, or failing that, to get his thumb into their eyes. He was born with a roaring voice, and it had the trick of inflaming half-wits. His whole career was devoted to raising those half-wits against their betters, that he himself might shine." - H. L. Mencken, on William Jennings Bryon (not Dubya believe it or not)

While we once again ignore the horror: Genocide in the Sudan

East Timor? Nope, the Indonesians were our friends. Cambodia? Bad commies, but what could we do? Rwanda? Just Africans killing each other. Bosnia? A European problem. The Congo? Which one? Good thing that we've been preventing genocides since learning the whole "never forget" lesson.

The Sudan.

Emo? Emo Philips?

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said "Stop! Don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" he said. "Well, there's so much to live for!" "Like what?" "Well... are you religious?" He said yes. I said, "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?" "Christian." "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant ? "Protestant." "Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?" "Baptist" "Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?" "Baptist Church of God!" "Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God?" "Reformed Baptist Church of God!" "Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!" I said, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off. (Emo Philips)

Five people hospitalized...

...at the opening of a new Ikea in England. People were almost killed, for cheap sofas.

More democratic success!

The winners of the Iraqi elections will be...Iran! Sistani's folks. The next PM of Iraq will be someone who wants Islam to be the official religion of Iraq, who wants the Koran to be the main basis for writing a Constitution, who will take directives from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani when writing the nation's laws, and who will be very close to Iran.

I can't imagine that the neocons will be too happy with this. Or maybe they were closet Islamists all along? Bringing fundamentalist Islamic governments to Afghanistan and Iraq, and bringing up a new generation of Islamists from the Netherlands to Indonesia.

"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." -- Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State under Richard Nixon, about Chile prior to the CIA overthrow of the democratically elected government of socialist President Salvador Allende in 1973

Joke de jour

Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are a delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?