random quotes ... to amuse, inspire, enrage:
Piglet sidled up to Pooh.
'Pooh,' he whispered.
'Yes?' said Pooh.
'Nothing,' said Piglet, taking his paw. 'I just wanted to be sure of you.'
Copyright paranoia is, truly, everywhere. Reading a NYT article about websites that track the Iraq war dead, I noticed this:
The Iraq Page (iraq.pigstye.net) is the obsession of Tom Willett, a software developer from Bloomington, Ind. The site includes a single news account for each United States service member killed in combat, with a fluttering American [...]
In an interesting twist on press subpoenas, Army prosecutors have subpoenaed journalists to get them to vouch for published quotes — not source information or unpublished information. [SFgate 12/18.] The prosecutors hope to use the quotes to prosecute First Lt. Ehren Watada, who denounced the war on Iraq as illegal and refused to deploy. [...]
The Rude Pundit tears it up on comparisons between the Clinton Whitewater-MonicaGate scandal, and the Bush-Cheney Fraudulently-Induced-Then-Bungled-Iraq-War-PlameGate scandal. [link from sideshow]
debate over intelligent design: the abstract factory points out that intelligent design advocates, like pretty much every other human being, work within a science-based framework when it really matters to them personally. [...]
yet more depressing news:
iraq: where people keep dying. A friend recently met with her family who lives in Baghdad, who reported a) her elderly aunties regularly have laser sightings trained on them by US soldiers; b) her cousin’s cousin was recently shot & killed by US soldiers; c) they still don’t have power & [...]
Indeed, the Medium Lobster could not agree more: while some in the petty name of “truth,” “accountability” and “basic humanity” might want to open this material to the world, outrage over yet another American atrocity would just fuel more violence. Oh, ACLU, don’t you have enough blood on your hands? Which is why the Medium [...]
Great. US officials are admitting what was obvious to many even before the invasion: The US invasion of Iraq will lead to another theocracy. [Wash Post 8/14] [linked from david 8/14 at sivacracy]
“We set out to establish a democracy, but we’re slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic,” said [...]
from slate: Programming the Slammer Film Festival - Readers choose the most enlightening fare for Judith Miller. By David Edelstein
7/8 update: here’s a couple more good commentaries: avedon carol [sideshow] and Rosa Brooks in the LAT. Money line from Rosa Brooks:
If a source with a clear political motivation passes along classified information that [...]
thank god fafblog is here to explain it all: There were real reasons to go into Iraq, despite the failure and recent quiet drop of the Quest for WMDs. What fool’s errand? [fafblog 1/12]
full text below …
regarding the stolen cache of explosives, wonkette reports that rove is upset that it’s even being discussed:
Rove: “Kerry, by so rapidly embracing the story, is going to end up being tarnished by it. What would he do as president? Get up every morning and say, ‘I’m going to govern based on what I [...]
another one for the scrapbook: Thomas F. Schaller, The Gadflyer: Believe
“Bush’s Big Joke” — A Video of Atrocities - A BuzzFlash Reader Contribution
slacktivist complains about the media:
after abu ghraib - the london guardian report on huda alazawi, who was arrested and abused with her family; see also talk left commentary on the incident
The Enemy Is Us by Sam Gardiner in salon.com, sept. 22. Gardiner details how the bush administration has been using military information techniques to manage press coverage & release information to the american people.
[T]he basic doctrine of strategic information operations: Influence emotions, motive and objective reasoning. Use repetition to create a collective memory in [...]
If America were Iraq, What would it be Like? by Professor Juan Cole at Informed Comment: Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion.
I don’t remember whether it was discussed in this essay or not, but I think it’s important to remember that the US has a policy not to collect data on civilian [...]
i’m an anarchist, and i’m voting, and more than that, i’m voting for kerry.* here’s why:
war on iraq:
Will Kerry solve the iraq situation? Will he make it better? Folks might suggest that Kerry will not, or can not. Other folks might reasonably point out that the Democrats are not really better on iraq: [...]
Mr. O’REILLY: Look, the Iraq War was a big screw-up, all right? I think every clear-thinking person in the country knows it was. First of all, weapons of mass destruction did not materialize, which was the primary motivator for the war.
– from O’Reilly (Fox) debates Krugman (NYT) on “Tim Russert”, CNBC, Saturday, [...]
