And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks

FryYourFriend'sEnd
KeepOnSpellin'InTheFreeWorldVille

There is no question that Islam Karimov, the current big bossman of Uzbekistan, runs a repressive and violent regime.

But there are tyrants and then there are tyrants.

And there is nothing like a tyrant to call your own:

The President (George W. Bush): "[In] the post-9-11 world, the United States must make sure we protect our people and our friends from attack. . . . One way to do so is to arrest people and send them back to their country of origin with the promise that they won't be tortured. That's the promise we receive. This country does not believe in torture."

Question: "As commander in chief, what is it that Uzbekistan can do in interrogating an individual that the United States can't?"

George W. Bush repeated his talking point: "We seek assurances that nobody will be tortured."

Actually, there is much that U.S. interrogators can learn from their counterparts in Uzbekistan on how to breakdown prisoners. One of the CIA's jet planes used to render purported terrorists to other countries where information is extracted by any means necessary made 10 trips to Uzbekistan. In a segment of CBS's 60 Minutes on these CIA torture missions, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray told of the range of advanced techniques used by Uzbek interrogators:

"drowning and suffocation, rape was used . . . and also immersion of limbs in boiling liquid."

But what happens when a torturing tyrant with a heart of gold goes off the rails?

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, July 7 - Uzbekistan on Thursday threatened to evict the United States military from an important air base near the border with Afghanistan.

The United States was allowed to use the Soviet-era base, in Karshi-Khanabad after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States and continues to use it to support the continuing military efforts in Afghanistan.

The statement on Thursday from Uzbekistan's Foreign Ministry said it had allowed the base, where 800 American troops are stationed, to be established for the sole purpose of ousting Taliban rulers from Afghanistan.

"Any other prospects for a U.S. military presence in Uzbekistan were not considered by the Uzbek side," The Associated Press quoted the statement as saying."

Could there be a red, white and blue bullseye being painted on Mr. Karimov's backside, this very minute, in whatever secret bunker currently houses the (presumably) secretly re-named Office of Special Plans?

After all, rather than a tough slog in Iran, or even Syria, a slam-dunk against a viscious dictator might be looking pretty darn good right about now.

Awwwwwwww, heck.

The Roving Halliburtonians couldn't possibly be that cyncical.

Could they?

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The title of this post was actually the working name of a failed collaboration between William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac written wayback in 1945 which, of course, was a big year for dealing with tyrants (or not).

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Don't Know Much About Objectivity.....

HST(notquite)Friday
6thEditionVille


"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."

Hunter S. Thompson, 1994.
'He Was A Crook' In: Better Than Sex, Random House, pg 243.

That shock of recognition.

Yes

That's what we need.

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Good Advice At Twice The Price

The Real Thing
Blog(not-so)UtopicVille


Clearly, there is going to be a lot of discussion in the not too distant future about reaping what has been sown.

Not to mention dealing forcefully with the craptacular logic that lead to the 'Flypaper Hypothesis'.

But for now, Billmon (as usual) has some very good advice:

"The next few days would probably be a good time to stay away from the TV. On top of the televised gore and the stunned faces of the survivors, we'll have to endure the canned Churchillian rhetoric of Messrs. Blair and Bush. Blitzes will be remembered; blood, sweat and tears promised, ultimate victory predicted. The babbling heads of cable news will babble even louder. Conservative con artists will figure the angles and work out the attack lines to use against the liberals -- whatever it takes to drown out the fact that, nearly four years after 9/11, Bin Ladin still lives and Al Qaeda is back in business. Mission unaccomplished."

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Freep Canada!

Whinge-O-Mania
Who'sPayingVille

While (g)noodling around the blogosphere looking for background for the Frank McKenna post below I stumbled across the following, which appears to be a comment on Mr. McKenna's statement on NPR in the States that same sex marriage is a Charter (ie. constitutional) issue:

"Despite McKenna’s somewhat lengthy and repetitive answer, his characterization of the right for same sex couples to marry as being the same as the right to bear arms was spot on.

Same sex marriage as a human right has been the mantra that the prime minister has consistently used, not only to try and reconcile gay unions with his Roman Catholic beliefs but to sway many middle of the road Canadians, his largest support base, into believing that same sex marriage is in fact a human rights issue. "It’s a human rights matter" was the standard response of Liberal MPs to constituents who voiced their opposition to the legislation.

Not even the most pro-gun American could seriously argue that the right to bear arms is a human right. If it was, rock concerts would be held all over the U.S. in support of the right of all people of the world to carry Uzis. If possessing a gun was a human right, the United Nations would have come out with a "Convention on the Right to Own Magnum 357s" by now. The right to bear arms is not a human right and neither is the right of gays and lesbians to enter to a "marriage" with a person of the same sex. It is, as Frank McKenna said it is, a Canadian right."

Tres bizarre, non?

And just what is this all about, and where is it coming from you might be asking yourself.

Well, it comes from a 'Canada Free Press' piece by Mr. Arthur Weinrub. All of which is fine as far as it goes, at least until you get to the tag line at the bottom:

Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Canada Free Press. His work as appeared on Newsmax.com, Men's News Daily, the Drudge Report, Foxnews.com and The Rant.

Aaaaaaaahhhhhh........ you are saying to yourself; now you understand.

And next you may be getting ready to laugh and scoff because you are, after all, Canuckistani.

But you should not discount the potential damage that such rogue Whirlitzer components imported from the South could do to our liberal democratic society.

Because one can only wonder......would not the FreePress folks, or these folks, or these folks, or these folks, or especially these folks be very happy indeed if a significant proportion of the population were to agree with a prominent Canadian politician the next time he or she decides to make the case that dinosaurs really did stomp on the terra 6000 years ago.

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Frankie Goes To Washington

CreditWhereCreditIsDue
MeaSortaCulpaVille

Back in the spring, when he was making statements that made him sound more like the American Ambassador to Canada rather than the other way around, we took a few shots at Frank McKenna that included reference to his past association with the Carlyle Group.

Paul Willcocks took us to task on that one and, as a result, we promised to watch Mr. McKenna closely and try to comment fairly on his future actions and statements.

So, while it can pretty tough to tell where the straw men are standing in this 'Fortress North America' game, we have to give Mr. McKenna credit for the following:

"Canada's ambassador to the United States says U.S. officials are "going too far" in proposing that Canadian airlines be forced to provide American authorities with passenger lists for domestic flights whose routes happen to pass over U.S. territory.......

Mr. McKenna is convinced the proposed measures, which call for airlines flying over U.S. territory to provide passenger manifests that can be checked against American "no-fly" lists of passengers considered possible terrorist threats, were not primarily aimed at Canadians.

"We're sideswiped" by these measures, he said.

Under the proposals, passengers on purely domestic flights, such as those between the Maritimes and Central Canada or even flights linking Montreal and Toronto, could be subject to U.S. oversight because they routinely fly over American territory for practical geographical reasons.

"I think it's going too far for incidental overflights to be caught up in this increased level of security," he (McKenna) said.

Fair enough. But now let's see how Mr. McKenna does on beef, softwood and NAFTA-assisted healthcare privatization.

The Yellowcake Road, Part II

SourceOrSorceress?
Judy'sProofSerumVille

Big day tomorrow for those poor little journos from Time and the NYT.

First, the Time guy. Looks like Matt Cooper may still get the book thrown at him because special prosecutor Fitzgerald says that his bosses' last minute, behind-the-back, pre-emptive Email offerings are not enough. Specifically, Fitzgerald wants testimony.

Second, the NYT gal. Who knows what Mr. Fitzgerald really has in store for shrinking violet Judith Miller, the woman who once vehemently defended her role in helping start the war by force-feeding the grey lady (ie. her employer, not Anne Coulter sans dye-job, although no one can uncategorically rule out the latter's involvement) the lies of Ahmed Chalabi:

“You know what,” she (Miller) offered angrily. “I was proved fucking right. That’s what happened. People who disagreed with me were saying, ‘There she goes again.’ But I was proved fucking right.”

But here's an interesting question that has recently been asked around the Bloggodome regarding the 'Name Plame Game' - Is it possible that Fitzgerald is after Miller not for her own sources (ie. Miller never published a story, at least not initially, on the Plame affair) but instead because he considers she, herself, to be one?

Stay tuned.

And remember, ignore the chief Rovian behind the curtain for the moment because now is the time to.......

Follow The Yellowcake Road.

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Put Me In Coach.....

TheAnti-Whinger
BringingHomeTheBaconVille


I'm ready to play.

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Channelling Her Inner Kenny Boy

TheGreatestPlaceOnEarth
AdventurousAccountingVille

Does Ms. Carole Taylor like fudge?

Who knows.

One thing we do know for sure is the following.

There is no deficit in the British Columbia Ministry of (mis)Information (ie. Public Affairs).

Oh sure, they went way over budget to the tune of millions of dollars running their Liberal campaign, errrrrr, promotional ads prior to the big election just past.

But that means nothing, silly peasants.

Why?

Because the overruns were charged to other Ministries.

All of which sounds like Enron-style accounting to us.

But maybe that's not too surprising.

After all, thanks to the LINO's, we're already in bed with that fine firm called Accenture, previously known as Mr. Ken Lay's personal accountant, Arthur Anderson.

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No Thimersol Thank You Very Much

SafeInjectionSite
LINOVille

Somehow, don't ask us how, but during a recent rant about Live 8 and the CBC's addiction to all things Promo-Girl, we got off on a B.C. Ferries tangent:

'......if that pernicious parking purgatory at Tsawwassen, which makes the pretzellian logic of Lorne Mayencourt look like a perfectly straight line between Bute and Thurlow, is not reason enough to throw David Hahn out on his ass immediately, well I don't know what is.

Unless, of course, it turns out that Mr. Hahn has been spending a bundle on cosmetic upgrades and VIP lounges instead of on, oh say, clutches and drive trains.....'


Anyway, clearly the topic of that last sentence is something the spinmeisters running the Big Red LINO (ie. Liberal In Name Only) Machine are themselves worried about.

Why else would they wind-up their (not-yet-deposed) leader Mr. Campbell, and send him to see their favorite waterboy so that he could say this?

"Premier Gordon Campbell is linking last week's ferry crash at Horseshoe Bay with the fast ferries fiasco.

Campbell says the NDP governments of the 1990's failed to upgrade the fleet or even invest in proper maintenance.

"Everyone knows that happened in BC Ferries through the 1990's, we spent a lot of money on three ships that didn't do anybody any good, so it takes time to catch up, there are boats that are on or ships that are on order right now, and I think it'll be another two years or so before they're actually delivered."

Hmmmmm.......

Wonder where the LINOs learned a little trick like that? Especially given the fact that they just spent tens of millions of dollars doing (cosmetic?) refits.

Not sure exactly.

But we do know this.

In the Rovian world south of the 49th parallel this type of thing is known as the 'Innoculation for the Nation' strategy.

And boy, is my arm sore (or is that my buttock?).

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Original Link Source: Big thanks, and kudos, to Aunty Bertha who's got her own real world (ie. somebody who actually, unlike Mr. Hahn, relies on our, not his, Ferries in her daily life) rant up right now.

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C-38 Redux

AntidoteToTheCrazies
ToleranceVille

Another reason why C-38 was the right thing to do.....

Because tolerance, backed by law, works.

It also helps prevent stuff like this.


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Original Link Source: Michael Hawkins of Spontaneous Arising.

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Follow The Yellowcake Road

Movin'On
NotDotOrgVille

In our previous post we voiced concern that the fingering of the Rove may have reverse kerning potential.

But a number of the big guns in Blogtopia are playing it smart and are shifting their focus upstream to the front-end of the affair.

Specifically, there has been some excellent analysis of the so-called 'yellowcake documents' which were supposed to be evidence of a pending sale of uranium to Mr. Hussein's regime by the central African country of Niger.

Turns out there were a whole bunch of these things, mostly passed on to the Americans by the Italians, and apparently every last one of them was bogus.

This evening Billmon built an interesting observation-based hypothesis that the reason 'Blame Plame Game' special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is being so zealous in his investigation is because he is actually doing his job (gasp!) and is trying to find out where the documents really originated. This could be particularly illuminating given the fact that every time one document was discredited another one would suddenly pop-up. In fact, this occurred pretty much non-stop from the fall 0f 2001 until the information was finally rammed into Mr. Bush's pre-war the State of the Union address in early 2003.

So how will we know if a search for the true creator (ie. the real origin of the species - who says creationism and evolution can't co-exist!) is what Mr. Fitzgerald is indeed up to and if he is making progress?

Well, there will, of course, be a sudden and viscious burst of slime fired, point blank, at the good prosecutor.

Then he will be accused, no doubt by a chorus of yahoos, but that's not the point, of having had metaphorical carnal knowledge of a barnyard animal of some kind.

And if Fitzgerald and his investigation somehow survive that blizzard of whinge machine fertilizer spreading intact, what will they try next?

Well, there's always the Saturday Night Massacre approach.

But by then hopefully the smart boys will have moved on to the back-end of the thing, focussing on the man behind the curtain pulling the strings.

I guess what we're really trying to say is, forget about Rove for the moment. Let him twist around up there on his own petard for awhile.

Because now is the time to ignore the delusionary diversions and move on to the real thing.

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Reelin' In The Years?

ReverseKerning
RovingHalliburtonianVille

A lot of folks around the bloggodome and beyond are fingering Mr. Karl Rove as 'the' name in the 'Blame Plame Game.'

But something smells like last year's fish stuck to the unwashed barbeque racks that are still hidden away in the garage because they are just too rank to clean.

In other words, I feel a vague, nebulous angst rising that may be related to fears of some sort of 'reeling in of the limited hangout' coming on.

Maybe it's all the lawyer/timing talk (ie. did Rove talk to reporters before or after Novak's column appeared?).

Maybe it's the partisan nature of one principal (O'Donnell) or the snake oil salesman nature of another apparent one (Isikoff).

Maybe it's the fact that one of the Editor & Publisher articles that set everybody, including Atrios and Digby, all a twitter has been pulled for being last year's (smell the fish yet?) news.

Maybe it's the fact that Wolcott is linking back to an old piece by Michael Ruppert that raises the spectre of an internal CIA coup.

Or maybe it's just the fact that Reich Wing Whinge machine has not yet retaliated in fury as they await the 'gotcha' of the reverse kern which will prove that the 'O' between the R and the V was not written on Matt Cooper's computer at all, but instead on an old Selectric Mark VI operated by the ghost of Lee Atwater working in an underground bunker in Burundi while Wild Bill Casey looked over his shoulder the entire time shouting 'Go! Go! Go, boy go!'

All, I'm really trying to say is......be careful Bloggodome Big Boys and Girls.......after all, it's not like the Roving Halliburtonians haven't tried this kind of misdirection play before.


Update Sun 9:00am PDT: OK, I feel a little better because Billmon has pointed out that it may not be the crime that will lead to anybody doing the time. Instead, it may be both the front end (ie. the Niger papers themselves) and the back end (a cover-up, possibly originating from AirForce 1) that will lead to the entire Iraq Working Group's forced eating of the Yellowcake after the Frog March. Still, it's time to be careful, get it right, and dole it out bit by bit to prevent the truth from getting buried beneath the crap and fish guts from the Whinge Machine's fertilizer spreader that has already hit even little 'ol me - (see trackback).
Double Secret Probation Update: Isikoff's piece is up on the Newsweek site. Pretty darned soft. Looks like the Reel-In has, indeed, begun.

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Slow Hand

BringingTheDeputiesDown
KeyboardPoundingVille

I have no idea if Eric Clapton played at Live 8 today.

And, no, I'm not going to go look it up - although my daughter and I did enjoy Annie Lennox' that we caught after first listening to that Promo-Girl drivel on the CBC while driving out the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal this morning.

And I'm telling you, if that pernicious parking purgatory at Tsawwassen, which makes the pretzellian logic of Lorne Mayencourt look like a perfectly straight line between Bute and Thurlow, is not reason enough to throw David Hahn out on his ass immediately, well I don't know what is.

Unless, of course, it turns out that Mr. Hahn has been spending a bundle on cosmetic upgrades and VIP lounges instead of on, oh say, clutches and drive trains.....

But I digress (as usual).

Anyway, it turns out that we have somebody else in our midst whose hands are slow, but not with the guitar.

And that would be Sean Holman who, in a recent interview with Richard Warnica of the Tyee, attributed his resignation from the Vancouver Sun, at least in part, to the fact that he was a slow writer.

Which is interesting, I guess, as far as it goes.

But what was even more revealing is the fact that it turns out Mr. Holman was himself a compatriot of a number of interesting, fresh-faced young fellows from the late '90's when he was studying at UVIC.

"Before leaving for Carleton he (Holman) was a member of the University of Victoria's federal Young Liberals. The group he called "the liberal mafia" included senior political aide David Basi, who is linked to the BC Rail scandal, lobbyist Erik Bornman, who is expected to be a witness in the case, and Jamie Elmhirst, the current president of the Federal Liberal Party in B.C."

All of which is going to give Mr. Holman quite a leg up on the background for the big trial that is finally coming.

Not to mention potential access to some darned fine 'X-Marks-The-Spot" maps leading to treasure and/or metaphorical graveyards where the bodies are buried.

Can't wait.

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Update: Aunty Bertha is riled up about BC Ferries for all the right reasons.

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A Booster Shot Against Cynicism

RealWriting
FinestKindVille

Not sure what to make of Live 8?

Still trying to figure out if you're with or against the cynics in trashing the former 'Knight of the Straits of Georgia' who hates Mondays?

Well, if you want a grown-up's view on the subject go read Matt St. Amand's piece.

Heckfire. If you just want to read some damn fine writing on the subject go read Mr. Amand's piece.

Double heckfire. If you just want to read some damn fine writing on a whole range of subjects go read all of St. Amand's pieces.

Here's an excerpt from the latest:

"Sneering cynics control our governments, stock markets, and entertainment. They have their say daily, and unquestionably would love to see the Live8 concerts flop. There is the self-important gobshite David Stubbs who gives his lame reasons why he won't be watching the concerts today. You see, people like David Stubbs believe that only easily solvable problems should be tackled. A message to all cancer researchers out there. Listen up all you social workers trying to make a difference one life at a time. Attention aid workers feeding the starving in impoverished nations. You're wasting your time. So says the likes of David Stubbs, who I'm sure it can be said never tried to solve any problem, ease any suffering, or aid any good cause."

See, I told you.

Now just go.

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Wild Hunter's Circus Story

SonnyWannaTryTheBigTop?
HSTFriday5thEditionVille


'The Circus-Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing on Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This is the Six Reich. The ground floor is full of gambling tables, like all the other casinos...but the place is about four stories high, in the style of a circus tent, and all manner of strange County-Fair/Polish Carnival madness is going on up in this space. Right above the gambling tables the Forty Flying Carazito Brothers are doing a high-wire trazeze act, along with four muzzled Wolverines and the Six Nymphet Sisters from San Diego.....

This madness goes on and on, but nobody seems to notice. The gambling action runs twenty-four hours a day on the main floor, and the circus never ends......Stand in front of this fantastic machine, my friend, and for just 99 cents your likeness will appear, two hundred feet tall, on a screen above downtown Las Vegas. Ninety-nine cents more for a voice message......

I could see myself lying in bed at the Mint Hotel, half-asleep and staring idly out the window, when suddenly a vicious nazi drunkard appears two hundred feet tall in the midnight sky, screaming gibberish at the world: "Woodstock Uber Alles!"

Hunter S. Thompson.
Rolling Stone #95, Nov. 1971
Reprinted in: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Warner Books, pp 46-47.

''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

A top Bush aide speaking to Ron Susskind in the Summer of 2002
In the New York Times Magazine, Oct 17th, 2004.

'Bush is really the evil one here and it is more than just him....

We're the Nazis in this game, and I don't like it. I'm embarrassed and I'm pissed off. Yeah. I mean to say something and I think a lot of people in this country agree with me.'

Hunter S. Thompson, January 2003
Interview with Mary Suma, KDNK Radio, Roaring Fork Colorado
Reprinted, and Audio Archived by Democracy Now

Ever out in front of the herd, little did Dr. Thompson realize that the Circus-Circus would become a bastion of family entertainment some thirty years on. And perhaps even more prescient, it looks like the American people are starting to come around to his thinking on the Bush regime if John Zogby's latest poll is any indication, especially the part about 42% of the populace being in favour of impeachment proceedings if it can be shown that they were misled to war.

Let the good times roll.

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Canada Day Coda: On the night they went to the Circus-Circus, Thompson's Attorney, who was definitely not Samoan, wanted to go to the Tropicana to see Guy Lombardo and his Young Canadians. Thompson said no, as he had no intention of paying out hard earned dollars to watch a bleeping corpse. So they went to the Desert Inn to watch Debbie Reynolds sing Sgt Pepper in a silver afro wig instead. Strange days indeed.

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