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Wednesday, 27 October 2004

Here's The October Surprise

Dems have been sitting on this for months. No wonder they've been so happy.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 27, 2004 at 05:11 PM in Our New President | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Eclipse

For more than an hour Wednesday night, the moon will be covered entirely by Earth's shadow and resemble a glowing pumpkin. (AP Graphic)

Posted by flow Frazao on October 27, 2004 at 04:34 PM in Cool Stuff | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Romance Tip #52

Nothing says "Happy Anniversary" like a trip to the Holocaust Museum.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 27, 2004 at 01:36 PM in Family | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 25 October 2004

Buen Camino, Peregrino

I'm in a coffee shop in DC, so it's kind of hard to concentrate, but I'll try to keep this coherent. I was at a party on Saturday night and I started talking to this girl. She seemed perfectly nice, and we chatted for a while about the usual nonsense. After a few minutes we wandered away from each other and wound up on separate sides of the room talking to different people.

I was in the middle of a conversation with somebody when I hear this girl yell out "Oh my God! You walked El Camino??" I couldn't believe it. In three years of living in America I had met a total of ONE other person who had walked El Camino de Santiago.

I ran over to her and we started flipping out remembering different parts of the walk and some of the characters you meet along the way. She showed me the tattoo she got when she reached Santiago de Compostela and I told her what it was like to keep walking to Finisterra.

It was great because I don't get a chance to reminisce about El Camino that often. Some of the things she mentioned I had practically forgotten about. It was actually a bit sad, and it made me grateful that this time around I'll be travelling with Fiona. As you probably know, an experience you share with someone else is much harder to forget.

Anyway, we talked for a long time about El Camino and eventually the conversation shifted over to the Knights Templar (as it always does). I mentioned that I had just finished The DaVinci Code and I told her how I read it cover to cover in one day. I'm not sure how it came up, but at one point I said something about Opus Dei.

It turns out she went to an Opus Dei high school! I couldn't believe it. I thought Opus Dei was a fictional organization that Dan Brown made up! Not only is it real, but they actually do all that crazy stuff! They wear those cilice belts and everything.

For those who are as naive as I, Opus Dei is a SUPER conservative catholic group. Here's a snippet from the Opus Dei Awareness Network:

"Opus Dei is an organization founded in Spain in 1928 by Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer. The stated aim of Opus Dei is to "spread throughout society a profound awareness of the universal call to holiness and apostolate through one's professional work carried out with freedom and personal responsibility."

If you've got some time (I'm talking to you, Kenric), check out the ODAN page on corporal mortification:

"...a cord-like whip which resembles macrame, used on the buttocks or back once a week. Opus Dei members must ask permission to use it more often, which many do. The story is often told in Opus Dei that the Founder was so zealous in using the discipline, he splattered the bathroom walls with streaks of blood."

As I'm sure you can imagine, I was pretty interested to hear what her high school experience was like. Needless to say, it was a lot different from mine.

We kept chatting for a while, mostly about her Opus Dei experience, and at one point I looked at her and I just started laughing. I couldn't help it. "I'm sorry," I said, "but you are just absolutely blowing my mind right now."

"You want me to really blow your mind?" she asked.
I just laughed. "Sure," I said.
"You're not going to believe this, but Robert Hanssen is my uncle."

I almost passed out.

"THE Robert Hanssen?? Like, the spy???"

She nodded. I was absolutely dumbstruck:

"Since 1985, FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen was a mole inside the FBI, accused of spying for the former Soviet Union and then for Russia in exchange for cash and diamonds. Hanssen pled guilty on July 6, 2001, to 15 counts of espionage and conspiracy charges in exchange for federal prosecutors agreeing not to seek the death penalty. The 58-year-old Hanssen was sentenced to life in prison without parole on May 10, 2002."

As I sit here typing this, I feel confident that this will go down as one of the most surreal conversations I will ever have. I'll never forget eating cheese dip with a former Opus Dei member who has walked The Way of St. James while she tells me about growing up four houses away from one of the most notorious spies in modern American history.

(Curiously enough, it turns out that Robert Hanssen was a member of Opus Dei as well, but that's all I'm going to say about that.)

Posted by flow Frazao on October 25, 2004 at 07:26 PM in Travel | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

380 Tons Of Incompetence

This is absurd. How many of these fuckups does it take to convince the American public that George W. Bush is making us less safe:

"Some 380 tons of explosives powerful enough to detonate nuclear warheads are missing from a former Iraqi military facility that was supposed to be under American control, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog says.

Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told CNN the interim Iraqi government reported several days ago that the explosives were missing from the Al Qaqaa complex, south of Baghdad.

The explosives -- considered powerful enough to demolish buildings or detonate nuclear warheads -- were under IAEA control until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. IAEA workers left the country before the fighting began."

This is not some tiny mistake. We're not talking about a couple of sticks of dynamite. This stuff is incredibly powerful:

"U.S. weapons experts say their immediate concern is that the explosives could be used in major bombing attacks against U.S. or Iraqi forces. The explosives, mainly HMX and RDX, could be used to produce bombs strong enough to shatter airplanes or tear apart buildings. The bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 used less than a pound of the material of the type stolen from Al Qaqaa."

Less than a pound! For the mathematically challenged, that means over 760,000 Pan Am Flight 103 bombs. It's an incredible amount of weaponry, and it looks like the terrorists have hit the jackpot thanks to the Bush Administration.

Just in case things are still unclear, here's Scott McClellan discussing priorities at this morning's press gaggle:

"Q But after Iraqi Freedom, there were those caches all around, wasn't the multinational force -- who was responsible for keeping track --

MR. McCLELLAN: At the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom there were a number of priorities. It was a priority to make sure that the oil fields were secure, so that there wasn't massive destruction of the oil fields, which we thought would occur. It was a priority to get the reconstruction office up and running. It was a priority to secure the various ministries, so that we could get those ministries working on their priorities, whether it was -

Q So it was the multinational force's responsibility --

MR. McCLELLAN: There were a number of -- well, the coalition forces, there were a number of priorities at the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom."

There you have it. In the Bush administration, protecting the oil was (and is) a higher priority than securing 380 tons of the most powerful conventional weaponry on the planet.

UPDATE: This report from CNN does not bode well for anyone:

"Insurgents issued a warning on Tuesday, saying any U.S.-led offensive in Falluja would lead to attacks on Iraqi and coalition troops with "weapons and military tactics they have not experienced before."

On an APTN video monitored by CNN, a masked gunman read a statement promising a counterpunch against U.S., Iraqi and multinational targets throughout Iraq "in the ways and forms of our choosing."

Posted by flow Frazao on October 25, 2004 at 06:10 PM in Iraq | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Swing State My Ass

Check this photo out from today's Kerry rally in Philadelphia:

Kos is saying that there are reports of 100,000 to 120,000.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 25, 2004 at 05:41 PM in Our New President | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 21 October 2004

Off To DC

Posting will probably be light for the next few days. I'm off to DC to visit some friends. I was really hoping I'd get a chance to write about what I've been up to, but I've been pretty busy.

You'd think what with not working and everything I'd have plenty of time, but you'd be wrong. Somehow time just goes away.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 21, 2004 at 05:14 PM in Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fidel Fall Down Go "Boom!"

------------------


Cuba's President Fidel Castro, right, trips after a speech at a graduation ceremony in Santa Clara, Cuba, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2004, in this image made from television. An Associated Press photographer at the scene said Castro tripped on a concrete step after he finished walking down the stairs from the stage, then fell onto the ground on his right side, first hitting his knee and hip, and then his elbow and arm. Speaking live on state television less than a minute after his fall, Castro told television viewers across the island of 11.2 million people that he thought he had broken his knee 'and maybe an arm ... but I am all in one piece.'

Posted by flow Frazao on October 21, 2004 at 03:26 PM in World News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 20 October 2004

Have You Seen The Little Piggies?

Posted by flow Frazao on October 20, 2004 at 08:02 PM in ReDefeat Bush | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I've Got A Fever, And The Only Cure Is MORE POLLS

With all the breathless "reporting" going on all over the mainstream media, it's hard not to get caught up in all the poll numbers. Bush is ahead by one!! Kerry's up by two!! Eight percent of Nader supporters are voting Nader!! Oh how the media whores love a good, tight race.

The only problem is that the pollsters don't know shit. Remember this?

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean has pulled away from the field in the Democratic Presidential nomination race: his support among Democratic primary voters nationwide has risen in the past month, and held steady after the news of Saddam Hussein's capture.

[...]

Dean has the backing of 23 percent of likely primary voters, the same as he did in the days just prior to Saddam's capture, and up from 14 percent in November. His nearest rivals today are Wesley Clark and Joe Lieberman, both at 10 percent.

Way to go, guys. Why did we even bother having primaries?

And here's another blast from the past. On October 26, 2000, Gallup reported that Bush was ahead of Gore by 13 percent among likely voters. We all know how that one turned out. Great job, media whores! A bright, shiny gold medal for the Americans in the Media Special Olympics.

My point, of course, is that these assholes don't know shit. They never have, and they never will. The only poll that matters is the one they're going to take on November 2nd, so until then all you media whores can go get fucked.

In honor of said assholes, I hereby announce SmooveJ's Official Daily Poll. Wolf Blitzer, eat your heart out.

P.S. - Let me know if you have any problems with pop-ups or anything. If this poll nonsense is too annoying I'll pull it down with a right quickness.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 20, 2004 at 05:35 PM in TTSU Maintenance | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Delusional

A rare glimpse into the mind of George W. Bush:

"Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion. He described Bush in the meeting as "the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life."

"You remember Mark Twain said, 'He looks like a contented Christian with four aces.' I mean he was just sitting there like, 'I'm on top of the world,' " Robertson said on the CNN show, "Paula Zahn Now."

"And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.' "

Robertson said the president then told him, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."

A war with no casualties? Is he even familiar with the concept of reality? I suppose this sort of idiocy should be expected from a man who would rather go to war than raise twins.

Andrew Sullivan sums the situation up pretty well:

Any president who believed that there would be no casualties in the Iraq liberation is unqualified to be commander-in-chief. The same goes for a president who believes there will be casualties and tells a loyal supporter that there won't be. The only way this isn't damning about Bush is if Robertson is lying. But why would he?

Posted by flow Frazao on October 20, 2004 at 11:03 AM in Iraq, ReDefeat Bush | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Terror Fears Don't Trump Constitution

Guess what? Disagreeing with George Bush no longer serves as probable cause to be subject to a body search:

"Fears of a terrorist attack are not sufficient reason for authorities to search people at a protest, a federal appeals court has ruled, saying September 11, 2001, "cannot be the day liberty perished."

[...]

"We cannot simply suspend or restrict civil liberties until the War of Terror is over, because the War on Terror is unlikely ever to be truly over," Judge Gerald Tjoflat wrote for the three-member court. "September 11, 2001, already a day of immeasurable tragedy, cannot be the day liberty perished in this country."

City officials in Columbus, Georgia, contended the searches were needed because of the elevated risk of terrorism, but the court threw out that argument, saying it would "eviscerate the Fourth Amendment."

"In the absence of some reason to believe that international terrorists would target or infiltrate this protest, there is no basis for using September 11 as an excuse for searching the protesters," the court said."

Next up, free-speech zones.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 20, 2004 at 01:01 AM in War on Terra | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Delusional Part II

In case you've forgotten:

"Gen. Tommy R. Franks climbed out of a C-130 plane at the Baghdad airport on April 16, 2003, and pumped his fist into the air. American troops had pushed into the capital of liberated Iraq little more than a week before, and it was the war commander's first visit to the city... Huddling in a drawing room with his top commanders, General Franks told them it was time to make plans to leave. Combat forces should be prepared to start pulling out within 60 days if all went as expected, he said. By September, the more than 140,000 troops in Iraq could be down to little more than a division, about 30,000 troops."

By September.

Of 2003.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 20, 2004 at 12:12 AM in Iraq | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 16 October 2004

The Super Sizing Of Star Wars

On the left, Star Wars action figures from back in the day, on the right... you get the idea

Posted by flow Frazao on October 16, 2004 at 11:46 AM in Weird Earls | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Friday, 15 October 2004

OK Seriously - What Is That Thing?

First of all, I'm not of the opinion that W was wearing an earpiece during the debates. His inarticulate performance made that fairly obvious. But he's definitely been wearing something:

The White House can continue to pretend the problem isn't there (a strategy they've been employing regularly for the past four years), or they can address the issue. What the fuck is that thing?

If I had to guess, I'd say that he's probably wearing a medical device. Perhaps something like this:

The LifeVest was designed as an intermediate-term treatment option for people at high risk for sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). Right now, people at a high, short-term risk of SCA are typically monitored in a hospital intensive care (ICU) or coronary care unit (CCU).

Patients with a high, long-term risk of SCA are often candidates for an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), but this option is also expensive (up to $65,000) and requires surgery.

The LifeVest fills the therapeutic gap between hospitalization and an ICD. The LifeVest has the same important characteristics of both an ICU/CCU and the ICD; it continuously monitors the heart and is designed to provide prompt defibrillation when needed.

If this is what he's wearing, the question immediately becomes "Why does the President need to wear it?" Does the President have some sort of medical condition of which the American people should be made aware?

I blog, you decide.

(Photos via Kevin Drum, many more photos here)

Posted by flow Frazao on October 15, 2004 at 05:13 PM in Scary Bush | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Thursday, 14 October 2004

Wise Words

Today is Dwight Eisenhower's birthday. In celebration, here are a few choice quotes (attention neocons):

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."

"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing."

Posted by flow Frazao on October 14, 2004 at 11:53 AM in ReDefeat Bush | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

It's Not Gay Marriage, It's Gay RIGHTS

Just a quick word on the gay marriage issue. If you're under the impression that it's all about a bunch of queers getting excited about parading around in wedding dresses, here's something to think about.

According to the US Government's General Accounting Office, 1,049 federal rights depend on marital status. These rights include:

Hospital Visitation Rights

Married couples have the automatic right to visit each other in the hospital and make medical decisions. Same sex couples can be denied the right to visit a sick or injured partner in the hospital.

Spousal Privilege
Spousal privilege, granted to married couples, is the right of a person to refuse to testify against their spouse in the court of law.

Inheritance rights
When a married person's spouse dies, the survivor can automatically inherit a substantial share from the deceased spouse's estate regardless of whether a will exists. Without marriage, a same-sex partner has no automatic right to inherit.

Nursing homes
Married couples have a legal right to live together in nursing homes. An unmarried and elderly same-sex couple does not have the right to spend their final days together in a nursing home.

Social Security benefits
Married people receive Social Security payments upon the death of a spouse. Despite paying payroll taxes, surviving partners in same-sex relationships receive no Social Security survivor benefits resulting in an average annual income loss of $5,528 upon the death of a partner.

That's just the beginning. The full GAO report is here (pdf).

Posted by flow Frazao on October 14, 2004 at 10:28 AM in ReDefeat Bush | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Balloon Arches Of Freedom

This is pretty scary:

Baggage screeners at Newark Liberty International Airport missed one out of every four fake bombs or weapons inspectors tried to sneak past checkpoints in recent tests.

Security screeners at the New Jersey airport's nine checkpoints most often missed phony explosive devices hidden in carryon bags sent through X-ray machines, the newspaper reported.

The checkers at Newark, one of the airports breached by terrorist hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001, also failed to detect guns concealed in carryon bags sent through X-rays or carried under the clothing of testers who walked through metal detectors, the report said.

The airport's overall failure rate was 24.8 percent in covert tests conducted between June and September by the federal Transportation Security Administration, which hires the screeners and oversees the nation's airport security.

Don't you feel safer knowing that the TSA is stopping almost 75 percent of all the bombs that are smuggled onto airplanes! That's just great.

I mean, do you really think these incompetent terrorists would be able to organize four bombs at the same time in hopes that at least one of them made it onto a plane? Come on! That's crazy talk. Do you really think that just because they were able to coordinate four simultaneous hijackings utilizing 19 people separated by 500 miles they'll be able to slip by the glazed eyes of the minimum wage slaves at the TSA? Keep in mind, the terrorists will have to remove their shoes. This ain't September 10, folks.

But fear not! The Transportation Security Administration is on top of the situation. They've hauled their masturbatory lifetime achievement awards over to the cheese tray of liberty and are doing their very best to protect the balloon arches of freedom from the terrorist menace:

The government agency in charge of airport security spent nearly a half-million dollars on an awards ceremony at a lavish hotel, including $81,000 for plaques and $500 for cheese displays, according to an internal report obtained by The Associated Press.

Awards were presented to 543 Transportation Security Administration employees and 30 organizations, including a "lifetime achievement award" for one worker with the 2-year-old agency. Almost $200,000 was spent on travel and lodging for attendees.

The investigation by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general, Clark Kent Ervin, also found the TSA gave its senior executives bonuses averaging $16,000, higher than at any other federal government agency, and failed to provide adequate justification in more than a third of the 88 cases examined.

[...]

The event planning company, MarCom Group Inc. of Fairfax, Va., was paid $85,552 for its work and given an additional $81,767 for plaques, $5,196 for official photographs, $1,486 for three balloon arches and $1,509 for signs.

It looks like George Bush isn't the only one who's not worried about Osama bin Laden.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 14, 2004 at 10:07 AM in War on Terra | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Hearts and Minds

The latest from Seymore Hersh (the Pulitzer prize winning reporter who broke Abu Ghraib and My Lai):

"I got a call last week from a soldier -- it's different now, a lot of communication, 800 numbers. He's an American officer and he was in a unit halfway between Baghdad and the Syrian border. It's a place where we claim we've done great work at cleaning out the insurgency. He was a platoon commander. First lieutenant, ROTC guy.

It was a call about this. He had been bivouacing outside of town with his platoon. It was near, it was an agricultural area, and there was a granary around. And the guys that owned the granary, the Iraqis that owned the granary... It was an area that the insurgency had some control, but it was very quiet, it was not Fallujah. It was a town that was off the mainstream. Not much violence there. And his guys, the guys that owned the granary, had hired, my guess is from his language, I wasn't explicit -- we're talking not more than three dozen, thirty or so guards. Any kind of work people were dying to do. So Iraqis were guarding the granary. His troops were bivouaced, they were stationed there, they got to know everybody...

They were a couple weeks together, they knew each other. So orders came down from the generals in Baghdad, we want to clear the village, like in Samarra. And as he told the story, another platoon from his company came and executed all the guards, as his people were screaming, stop. And he said they just shot them one by one. He went nuts, and his soldiers went nuts. And he's hysterical. He's totally hysterical. And he went to the captain. He was a lieutenant, he went to the company captain. And the company captain said, "No, you don't understand. That's a kill. We got thirty-six insurgents."

You read those stories where the Americans, we take a city, we had a combat, a hundred and fifteen insurgents are killed. You read those stories. It's shades of Vietnam again, folks, body counts...

You know what I told him? I said, fella, I said: you've complained to the captain. He knows you think they committed murder. Your troops know their fellow soldiers committed murder. Shut up. Just shut up. Get through your tour and just shut up. You're going to get a bullet in the back. You don't need that. And that's where we are with this war."

Watch the video here.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 14, 2004 at 12:00 AM in Iraq | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 13 October 2004

Debate Three

9:09 - Regarding Osama Bin Laden:

"I don't know where he is.You know, I just don't spend that much time on him... I truly am not that concerned about him."[President Bush, Press Conference, 3/13/02]


9:16 - OK, am I going crazy here? Why is George Bush so pink? What's the deal? Is this some kind of subliminal attempt to sway the communist vote? I thought it was just a C-Span thing, but I just flipped over to NBC and he's still redder than my Portuguese scrotum.


9:29 - Great answer by Kerry on the nature of homosexuality and gay marriage. I disagree with him on the whole "marriage is between a man and a woman" thing, but at least he doesn't want to change the goddamn constitution for it.


9:31 - Wow. Kerry just made a relevant Bible quote. I'd like to see Bush top that. And "an eye for an eye" doesn't count.

9:35 - What? The medical industry doesn't use "electronic medical records"? That's funny, because I seem to remember seeing a couple of computers last time I vistited the doctor's office.


9:50 - I'm sorry, did Mr. Pink just say that most of his tax cuts went to lower and middle income Americans? That's funny, because I seem to remember most of his tax cuts going to googlimoogliilionaires. Maybe it was just me.


9:59 - Mitch McConnell's minimum wage plan (you know, the one Bush said he supported) would have raised the minimum wage to $6.25. Big fucking deal. That's like handing a squirt gun to a guy who's clothes are on fire.


10:13 - Bush keeps going on about Pell Grants, but as Kos points out, he's not exactly a huge proponent of them:

"The Administration has frozen the maximum Pell Grant available to students at $4,050, despite the President's campaign pledge in 2000 to increase the award to $5,100. The program freeze comes at the same time "state colleges and universities in every region of the country are preparing to impose this fall their steepest tuition and fee increases in a decade." Because of the Administration's budget, "most students won't get any more help than they receive now" – at the same time the White House has proposed a rule change that would cut off 84,000 students from receiving college aid."

10:19 - "Love thy neighbor as thy love thyself, and we have a lot more loving of our neighbor to do." - JK


I would have to say that this was the best performance so far by George Bush. Obviously, I think Kerry was far more lucid and presidential, but it's been a very long time since I've been capable of forming an objective opinion.

My real feeling, however, is that none of it really matters at all. The election is still more than three weeks away, and in the 21st century that's more than 10,000 news cycles. By the time we cast our ballots these heady days of timber companies and hydrogen generated automobiles will seem like distant memories.

Four years ago I wasn't really attuned to the political scene. I wonder if the presidential debates were still centered around who "won" and who "lost". It seems so bizarre to try to distill 90 minutes worth of back and forth into such a one-dimensional result. Were things always so weird?



(from www.youforgotpoland.com)

Posted by flow Frazao on October 13, 2004 at 09:12 PM in ReDefeat Bush | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Bill O'Reilly Sexual Harrassment Suit

You really ought to read this:

"During the course of O'REILLY's telephone monologue on August 2, 2004, he suggested that Plaintiff ANDREA MACKRIS purchase a vibrator and name it, and that he had one "shaped like a cock with a little battery in it"...

Suffice it to say, it goes on from there. For those of you thinking ahead to Christmas, remember that Bill O'Reily likes cock shaped vibrators. Sadly, he does not specify whether or not he prefers jelly or plastic.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 13, 2004 at 09:05 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Post Number 700

Not that anyone's counting...

Posted by flow Frazao on October 13, 2004 at 08:56 PM in TTSU Maintenance | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Saturday, 09 October 2004

Nepal Current Events and Historical Background

I'm reprinting this entire post from Metafilter because it's fucking amazing:

What's it like to live in a war zone in Nepal?

'What happened to us happens to the people of Bajura every day, and they get it from both sides ' Some stories of the disappeared. From the consistently high quality Nepali Times, along with articles about Maoist radio and the human rights of the Kumari 'living goddess'.

Some background : Who are the Nepalese Maoists? (Q & A); the royal massacre of 2001; historical background to Nepal's democracy - the democratic revolution of 1989-91 and subsequent events; the kings of Nepal (note that dates are given using the local calendar); a potted history of Nepal referring to the role of the Rana family of hereditary ministers, who acted as a conservative 'shadow monarchy' over successive weak kings, from the Kot Massacre of 1846 which eliminated all rival claimants, until about 1950 (when King Tribhuvan famously famously took refuge in the Indian embassy - by a twist of fate, his infant grandson briefly crowned king by the Ranas - Gyanendra was again crowned king after his brother was killed in the 2001 royal massacre); a Nepal timeline; how ethnicity and caste fit into Nepalese society (discrimination in Nepal); Bhutanese refugees in Nepal; the Indian Naxalites and the Maoists.

There goes my Saturday afternoon. By the way, there's even more dynamically updated Metafilter goodness on the right side of the page. Enjoy.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 9, 2004 at 12:58 PM in World News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Cycle of Democracy

Calabane pulls out a great quote in the comments. I haven't been able to get it out of my head so I'm putting it up on the front page because this is my blog and nobody's the boss of me:

The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years.

These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

--Alexander Tyler's Thesis form the Cycle of Democracy

Also, on a totally unrelated note, check out the Bush flip-flops - J Peterman style.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 9, 2004 at 12:27 PM in Funny Bush, US News | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Afghanistan Is The New Florida

Looks like today's vote in Afghanistan didn't go quite as smoothly as planned:

Afghanistan's historic presidential election closed on Saturday without any of the feared large-scale violence but the vote was thrown into turmoil instead by a boycott called by most of the candidates.

All 15 of President Hamid Karzai's rivals said they were withdrawing from the election because systems to prevent illegal multiple voting had gone awry. The move effectively left Karzai as the only candidate in the fray.

[...]

Fears of sabotage by Taliban militants who had vowed to disrupt the polls were overtaken halfway through the voting day when it became clear some workers were using the wrong pen to mark people's fingers after they voted.

This meant the ink could just be washed off and the voter could potentially cast a ballot again.

During the campaign, some candidates expressed surprise that as many as 10.5 million out of the country's 28 million people had registered to vote, and said they believed many people had received multiple voter cards. The indelible ink was aimed at preventing them from voting more than once.

The decision by Karzai's rivals to boycott the poll was made at an emergency meeting. Eighteen candidates are on the ballot but two withdrew this week in favor of Karzai.

Later all but one of the 15 demanded fresh polls and said they would not recognize any government elected on Saturday.

"We want the elections to be re-held as soon as possible in a fair, transparent manner and without interference," said Abdul Satar Serat, one of the candidates.

"Any government that comes to power as a result of today's election has no credibility, no validity and is illegitimate for us."

Personally, I still feel like it's worthwhile. Keep in mind, this is the first election EVER HELD in Afghanistan. After over 25 years of war I think a bit of confusion is understandable.

And just so I'm not accused of "cherry-picking" information, the same article goes on to say:

The mood in most places appeared irrepressibly upbeat.

"This is one of the happiest days of my life," said Sayed Aminullah as he cast he vote at Eid Gah Mosque in the capital.

"I don't care about the result. All I care is that we are having an election. This is a sign that things are improving for Afghanistan."

In Kandahar city, the former headquarters of the Taliban and still the source of much of its support, large crowds of men pushed to get into a voting site near the blue-tiled Kherqi Sharif mosque.

On the other side of the street, only a trickle of women covered in burqa veils entered a school to vote, as many in the deeply conservative region have said they would not allow their wives and daughters to participate.

"We came here to vote for peace and stability and freedom for women," said Raihana, a 37-year-old mother of eight who lived in exile in Iran for 14 years to flee war.

Again, while today's vote may not have been perfect, it was a first step on the road to a free and open democracy.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 9, 2004 at 12:17 PM in World News | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Bush Goes Mental

I couldn't believe it last night when Bush started yelling at the moderator (windows/mac). No wonder the guy was in such a hurry to start dropping bombs - his anger management skills suck.

And just in case you missed it, George W. Bush does, in fact, own a timber company:

Bush got a laugh when he scoffed at Kerry's contention that he had received $84 from "a timber company." Said Bush, "I own a timber company? That's news to me."

In fact, according to his 2003 financial disclosure form, Bush does own part interest in "LSTF, LLC", a limited-liability company organized "for the purpose of the production of trees for commercial sales."

So Bush was wrong to suggest that he doesn't have ownership of a timber company. And Kerry was correct in saying that Bush's definition of "small business" is so broad that Bush himself would have qualified as a "small business" in 2001 by virtue of the $84 in business income.

From factcheck.org (the site Dick Cheney tried to refer voters to a few days ago).

Posted by flow Frazao on October 9, 2004 at 11:45 AM in Scary Bush | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Friday, 08 October 2004

How many Bush officials does it take to change a lightbulb?

None. There's nothing wrong with that light bulb. It has served us honorably. When you say it's burned out, you're giving encouragement to the forces of darkness. Once we install a light bulb, we never, ever change it. Real men don't need artificial light.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 8, 2004 at 04:00 PM in Funny Bush | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Global Test

(image via Atrios)

Posted by flow Frazao on October 8, 2004 at 12:12 PM in ReDefeat Bush | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Thursday, 07 October 2004

Off The Deep End

As Gale points out in a comment on another post, it's really starting to look like the Bush/Cheney supporters are starting to lose it:

A supporter of President Bush took on a group of chanting John Kerry boosters on Greensburg's busy Main Street this afternoon.

At lunchtime, 13 Kerry supporters gathered in front of the Westmoreland County Court House to bang a drum, chant slogans and exchange banter, thumbs-ups, and other hand signals with passersby.

Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters is directly across Main Street. The people inside closed the windows and lowered the blinds.

A little after noon a fiftyish man ran out the front door of the building housing the GOP offices, crossed the four-lane Main Street, and grabbed Lainie Maloy's big blue Kerry banner.

"He was screaming like a lunatic, obscenities mostly," the Greensburg woman said, her peace-sign earrings swinging.

"He told us he hopes al Qaida kills us all," said Thor Strong [best name ever --J]. "He grabbed the banner and took off back across the road, dragging [Maloy] with him."

Maloy said she couldn't let the man make off with her banner.

"He pulled me right out into the traffic," she said. "Then he finally let go and ran away, back into the Republican building over there."

Hesiod calls it - "I guess that's why he's a Bush supporter. He wants Al Qaeda to kill even more Americans."

Posted by flow Frazao on October 7, 2004 at 06:12 PM in ReDefeat Bush | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Not Again

Fuck. I hope this isn't true.

If it is, we are so fucked.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 7, 2004 at 05:52 PM in Iraq | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Google SMS

This is pretty cool. Now you can send a query to Google as a text message and get phone book listings, dictionary definitions, product prices, etc:

How Do I Use It?

1. Enter your query as a text message. See some sample queries.

2. Send the message to the US shortcode 46645 (GOOGL on most phones).

3. Receive a text message (or messages) with your results, usually within a minute. Results may be labeled as "1of3", "2of3", etc.

4. To get Google SMS help info sent directly to your phone, send the word 'help' as a text message to 46645.

By the way - I've got a couple of GMail invites...

Posted by flow Frazao on October 7, 2004 at 05:46 PM in Cool Stuff | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Right On Time

Something tells me the results of the long awaited CIA report on Iraqi WMDs weren't exactly what George Bush had in mind last June:

"Q: Mr. President, a year ago in Evian, there was an expectation that in the ensuing months, weapons such as chemical or biological weapons, would be found in Iraq. I wonder if you can share with the American people your conclusions, based on what you've learned over the past 15 months, sir, as to whether those weapons were -- existed and they were hidden, were they destroyed, were they somehow spirited out of the country, or perhaps they weren't there before the war, and whether you had a chance to share this with your G8 partners.

THE PRESIDENT: Right, no -- Bob, it's a good question. I don't know -- I haven't reached a final conclusion yet because the inspectors -- inspection teams aren't back yet. I do know that Saddam Hussein had the capacity to make weapons. I do know he's a dangerous person. I know he used weapons against his own people and against the neighborhood. But we'll wait until Charlie gets back with the final report, and then I'll be glad to report. "

Conveniently enough there's a major Presidential debate tomorrow night, at which George Bush can gladly report that he was totally and completely wrong.

Again.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 7, 2004 at 05:03 PM in Iraq | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 05 October 2004

What Edwards Should Say At Tonight's Debate

This pretty much sums it up.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 5, 2004 at 05:51 PM in ReDefeat Bush | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack

Debate Question

Hesiod comes up with a killer question for the third debate:

There was one big question that Jim Lehrer failed to ask the President in the first debate.

It's a question that must be asked, because it may be the most important one in this Presidential election.

And if Bob Schieffer doesn't ask it in the third debate, John Kerry should make sure it's addressed.

What's this all-important question?

Simple:

"Mr. President, around 40% of the American people believe that Saddam Hussein had either direct or indirect involvement in the 9/11 attacks on the United States perpetrated by Al Qaeda. Where do you think they got that impression, and do you agree with them?"

Simple. Direct, and devasatating.

It also begs a couple of follow up questions depending on his answer.

If he says he doesn't know where they got that impression, Kerry should pounce with the litany of statements by Bush and Cheney that IMPLIED Saddam was connected to 9/11.

If he says he disagrees with that statement, it will dramatically hurt him with many voters, because they will suddenly realize he's been conning them.

If he says he AGREES with them, Kerry should demand evidence and ask why it has never been presented to the American people or to Congress.

I firmly believe that one reason why Bush still has solid support (if waning) for the Iraq war is because of that very misimpression.

If Kerry can put a serious dent in that belief among a significant percentage of voters by forcing the question at the third debate, and then using Bush's answers in TV ads, he will win this election going away.

UPDATE: Cut and paste my question for Mr. Lehrer Schieffer, and send it to him via e-mail at:

ftn@cbsnews.com

Make sure you state, explicitly, that you read this question on a blog, and that you think it would be a very good one to ask the President.

Put my question into quotes, so that Lehrer Schieffer doesn't dismiss the e-mails as phony. If you use quotation marks, and say you thought the questions was a good one and you forwarded it to him for that purpose, he's more likely to take it seriously. As indeed he should.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 5, 2004 at 08:52 AM in ReDefeat Bush | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Monday, 04 October 2004

Happens To The Best Of Us

An easy enough mistake to make:

A elderly Romanian man mistook his penis for a chicken's neck, cut it off and his dog rushed up and ate it, the state Rompres news agency said Monday.

It said 67 year-old Constantin Mocanu, from a village near the southeastern town of Galati, rushed out into his yard in his underwear to kill a noisy chicken keeping him awake at night.

"I confused it with the chicken's neck," Mocanu, who was admitted to the emergency hospital in Galati, was quoted as saying. "I cut it ... and the dog rushed and ate it."

Doctors said the man, who was brought in by an ambulance bleeding heavily, was now out of danger.

Yet another reason to remember to feed the dog.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 4, 2004 at 11:35 PM in Random News | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Vibrator Shuts Down Australian Airport

Jack : Was it ticking?
Airport Security Officer : Actually throwers don't worry about ticking 'cause modern bombs don't tick.
Jack : Sorry, throwers?
Airport Security Officer : Baggage handlers. But, when a suitcase vibrates, then the throwers gotta call the police.
Jack : My suitcase was vibrating?
Airport Security Officer : Nine times out of ten it's an electric razor, but every once in a while...
[whispering]
Airport Security Officer : it's a dildo. Of course it's company policy never to, imply ownership in the event of a dildo... always use the indefinite article "a dildo", never "your dildo".
Jack : I don't own...

Hundreds of airline passengers suffered disruption to their travel plans when a major regional airport was shut down for an hour after a humming and vibrating adult sex toy was mistaken for a bomb.

The vibrator was discovered at 9:15 am (2315 GMT Sunday) by a security officer who checked out a suspicious package inside a rubbish bin at the terminal cafeteria of Mackay Airport in the northeastern state of Queensland, a police spokeswoman said.

The terminal was evacuated immediately while passengers who had just arrived from a flight, check-in staff, cafeteria employees and hire car personnel were all forced to leave.

Cafeteria manager Lynne Bryant said her staff had been cleaning tables when they noticed a strange humming noise coming from the rubbish bin.

"It was rather disconcerting when the rubbish bin started humming furiously," she said.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 4, 2004 at 12:15 PM in Random News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 03 October 2004

Jeff's Funeral

I just got back from my friend's funeral. Even after a whole day of hearing people talk about Jeff and seeing everyone dressed in black it still doesn't seem real. Every time I check my email I expect to see something from him.

I've known the kid for almost 25 years. Pretty much my whole life. I don't even know why I'm writing this entry, really. I'm too exhausted to even think straight, much less write.

All I'll say for now is this - should you ever find yourself at a funeral service where they ask if anyone would like to say a few words about the deceased, think about it. If even the tiniest part of you wants to say something then you ought to speak up. I didn't, and now I'll never get another chance.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 3, 2004 at 10:05 PM in Family | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

How Do You Run A Convention On A Record Of Failure?

Easy. Just scare the shit out of people.

(Seriously though, you need to watch this. It's funny as hell.)

Posted by flow Frazao on October 3, 2004 at 11:20 AM in ReDefeat Bush | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 02 October 2004

Iraq Burns, Bush Reaches For Fiddle

This private letter from an Iraqi war correspondent tells the story of an Iraq that's much different from the one our President has been describing:

Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are things?' they reply: 'the situation is very bad."

What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of
landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health -- which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers -- has now stopped disclosing them.

Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.

A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America for liberating Iraq.

And Bush continues to insist that elections in Iraq are the light at the end of the tunnel. He's simply not dealing with reality.

Even one of Bush's top advisment companies, Kroll, Inc, has been telling its clients worldwide that one of its clients, Bush, is misleading the world about the prospects for holding an Iraqi election in January, and is doing it to win the U.S. election in November.

Their latest report, dated yesterday, September 30, says what we all know, that the emperor has no clothes:

Doubts continued to grow this week over whether elections can take place in January as planned against the current backdrop of relentless violence...It is likely that the current U.S. firmness is tied to the November presidential elections, and that its stance could change after the U.S. vote, if George Bush is re-elected. A revised and perhaps more realistic timetable could then be adopted...

George Bush has absolutely no idea what's going on in Iraq. It's shocking, really.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 2, 2004 at 10:55 AM in Iraq | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Can Your President Do This?

Posted by flow Frazao on October 2, 2004 at 09:20 AM in Our New President | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 01 October 2004

Jeff

My friend Jeff's obituary ran in the paper today:

COHEN, Jeffrey S. Jeff Cohen, 28, died instantly in a car accident in Mexico on Tuesday (September 21, 2004). He lived a global life with no geographical or conventional boundaries. His intelligence, talents, creativity, and passion energized everyone who knew him. He is survived by his parents, Ann and Mitch Cohen of West Hartford; two sisters, Sandi and Claire, and Claire's fiance, Joe Schmidt; his grandmother, Nettie Forsheit of West Hartford; his grandfather, Herb Cohen of Deerfield Beach, FL; numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins; and friends around the world. He was predeceased by his grandfather, Samuel Forsheit; his grandmother, Ruth "Kitty" Cohen, and his aunt, Sherri Cohen. Dos besos, Jeff. You are in the ultimate time zone now.

It's exactly what he would have wanted. It wouldn't have been any better even if he'd written it himself.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 1, 2004 at 05:05 PM in Family | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Daughters On A Leash?

I think it was pretty obvious to anyone watching that Kerry was composed and in command of the facts whereas Bush was stuttering and obviously in over his head. Those four second, deer-in-the-headlights silences don't make W look very presidential to me.

The most surreal moment of the debate came after Lehrer asked the candidates about "character":

LEHRER: New question, President Bush. Clearly, as we have heard, major policy differences between the two of you. Are there also underlying character issues that you believe, that you believe are serious enough to deny Senator Kerry the job as commander in chief of the United States?

Bush: That's a loaded question. Well, first of all, I admire Senator Kerry's service to our country. I admire the fact that he is a great dad. I appreciate the fact that his daughters have been so kind to my daughters in what has been a pretty hard experience for, I guess, young girls, seeing their dads out there campaigning.

[snip]

Lehrer: Ninety second response, Senator.

Kerry: Well, first of all, I appreciate enormously the personal comments the president just made. And I share them with him. I think only if you're doing this -- and he's done it more than I have in terms of the presidency -- can you begin to get a sense of what it means to your families. And it's tough. And so I acknowledge that his daughters -- I've watched them.

I've chuckled a few times at some of their comments.

(LAUGHTER)

And...

Bush: I'm trying to put a leash on them.

Andrew Sullivan, the conservative commentator, chimes in with the following point:

No president who has presided over Abu Ghraib should ever say he wants to put anyone on a leash.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 1, 2004 at 08:56 AM in ReDefeat Bush | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack