Bury It in Kitty Litter
Do try to temper your great grief at the death of the Jew-killer Yasser Arafat. This thingfish was a murderer of the first order and a disaster for "his" people's political aspirations. There can be no question about that.
Why is he so widely regarded as some sort of hero? I don't know. Why was Jesse Jackson once considered a leader of Black America? Why do millions of North Koreans worship the misshapen alcoholic troll who daily leads their country into the pit of Hell? Why do asshole Hollywood actors revere Fidel Castro? Because people are basically ignorant and need to be smacked across the snout with a rolled-up newspaper.
Cargo Cults
I ran across something very interesting at the Red State blog about "cargo cults." I'd never heard of such a thing before, but check this out.
The vast amounts of war materiel that were air-dropped into these islands [i.e., New Guinea, Melanesia, et al.] during the Pacific campaign against the Empire of Japan necessarily meant drastic changes to the lifestyle of these islanders as manufactured clothing, canned food, tents, weapons and other useful goods arrived in vast quantities to equip soldiers--and also the islanders who were their guides and hosts. When the war moved on, and ultimately when it ended, the airbases were abandoned and no new "cargo" was then being dropped.
In attempts to get cargo to fall by parachute or land in planes or ships again, islanders adopted a shallow version of the same practices they had seen the soldiers, sailors and airmen use. They carved headphones from wood, and wore them while sitting in control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on the runways. They lit signal fires and torches to light up runways and lighthouses.
The cultists thought that the foreigners have some special connection to the ancestors, who were the only beings powerful enough to spill such riches. By mimicking the foreigners, they hoped to bypass them.
Semper Fi
You'll need to check out The Adventures of Chester for a Marine's perspective on the Battle for Fallujah. Also check out The Fourth Rail for more great analysis.
And Happy 229th Birthday to the United States Marine Corps. Your country is proud of you today and every day.
Another Nauseating Whore
Barbra Streisand, a woman whose very face moves me faster than footage of open-heart surgery to change the channel on my TV, occasionally opines on the world as she sees it at her website. Lately, she's gotten some attention for her post-election wrap-up, which is mostly a lot of pissing and moaning about how awful the President is that she scraped off of Richard Clarke and the traitor Michael Moore. Here's just one of her reasons why we can't trust the President to keep us safe:
BUSH WAS INACTIVE AND INDECISIVE FOR A FULL 7 MINUTES THE MORNING OF 9/11 WHEN INFORMED OF THE ATTACK ON THE WORLD TRADE CENTER. IF BUSH HAD ACTED QUICKLY AND INTELLIGENTLY, PERHAPS HE COULD HAVE GIVEN AN ORDER TO SHOOT DOWN THE PLANE HEADED TOWARD THE PENTAGON AND SAVED THE LIVES OF THOSE WHO WERE KILLED.
Hmmm. Fascinating. Never mind that this blathering cunt would certainly have had plenty to say about the plane that hit the Pentagon had it been shot down over a populated area, killing even more people than it did. The problem is that no one knew what to do about Flight 77. The murderous goatfuckers who hijacked the plane had turned off its transponder and were flying in such a way as to defeat radar detection.
That was one of the worst days in the history of our country, Babs. To suggest that the President could have done something to stop the atrocities from happening but did not is unacceptable bullshit. If there had been any good options, Bush would have exercised some. Why don't you losers understand that? And why don't you ask your hero John Kerry how he responded? It took him a lot longer than seven minutes to pull his head out of his ass. About half an hour longer (emphasis mine):
Kerry: "I was in the Capitol. We'd just had a meeting ... we'd just come into a leadership meeting in Tom Daschle's office, looking out at the Capitol. And as I came in, Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid were standing there, and we watched the second plane come in to the building. And we shortly thereafter sat down at the table and then we just realized nobody could think, and then boom, right behind us, we saw the cloud of explosion at the Pentagon. And then word came from the White House, they were evacuating, and we were to evacuate, and so we immediately began the evacuation."
Yep. Just normal human beings. People who didn't expect that we would be attacked. But we were. And all your chickenshit criticisms won't change that, either.
Nauseating Whore
A BBC radio correspondent named Barbara Plett is apparently trying out for a job as Yasser Arafish's fluffer. Her nauseating commentary of 30 October, in which she praised the wretched terrorist and Palestinian con artist in the most ridiculously glowing terms imaginable, was apparently enough to trigger a lot of negative response. And why not? Your average Briton is paying to listen to this woman blubber over a murderer?
Here's a taste of Plett's servile shit:
I remember well when the Israelis re-conquered the West Bank more than two years ago, how they drove their tanks and bulldozers into Mr Arafat's headquarters, trapping him in a few rooms, and throwing a military curtain around Ramallah.
I remember how Palestinians admired his refusal to flee under fire. They told me: "Our leader is sharing our pain, we are all under the same siege."
Dean E. Murphy Is an Asshole
Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs is plenty steamed about an article in this past Sunday's New York Times' "Week in Review" by Dean E. Murphy wherein Murphy is clearly wishing aloud for an "act of God" to put right last Tuesday's resounding defeat of John Kerry.
Got that? If you haven't, go read the damned thing. Right there in America's Most Influential Newspaper. Right there with the cute little cartoon of a bullying Republican elephant being smitten by an asteroid. Murphy strongly suggests that something along the lines of, oh, I dunno, President Bush's assassination might fix the problem of an incipient Republican-run theocracy for America's put-upon Democratic voters. As Johnson and his readers rightly point out in their response to Murphy's own response to the backlash his article has generated, an "act of God" is a natural disaster ---and not, as Murphy's horseshit response argues, something like the atrocities of 11 September 2001, which were obviously the deeds of subhuman garbage and not Mother Nature.
As a lover of History, I find myself unusually attuned to its abuses by asshole partisans and the Leftist professoriat they rely on for the academic authority that they would have you think validates their claims. Get a load of Murphy here, quoting the incredible commie asshole Sean Wilentz:
Sean Wilentz, a professor of history at Princeton, saw two instances in history when the American electoral landscape resembled that of today. "They are kind of scary examples," Professor Wilentz said. "One is 1860, and we know what happened after that one, and the other was 1896, the McKinley-Bryan election."
That contest, which seemed to herald a new era of Republican dominance, also started a chain of events that led to a disastrous schism in the party. William McKinley, a conservative Republican, defeated William Jennings Bryan, a populist Democrat, and won the first clear popular majority in 24 years. He beat Bryan even more soundly in 1900, but less than a year later, he was assassinated.
His death was a tragedy and a fluke, Professor Wilentz said, but it changed the course of political history. Had McKinley not been killed, Marcus A. Hanna, the political handler who was as instrumental to McKinley's success as Karl Rove has been to Mr. Bush's, would have pursued his dream of "creating a Republican machine that would go on forever," Professor Wilentz said.
What is happening in this exceptionally offensive piece of "analytical" garbage is Dean Murphy, who is an asshole, trying to make the connection between two previous Republican Presidents who were brought down by assassins and the current Republican President --- whom he clearly wishes might be dealt with in a similar manner. Why else bring up Lincoln and McKinley if not for the historical parallelism they (superficially) satisfy?
Murphy could have brought up the more recent and relevant example of John Kennedy's assassination as an event that changed the course of our history. Many people believe that his successor moved us deeper into Viet Nam and, thereby, even more deeply into the Cold War against the Soviets and the Chinese than we would otherwise have gone. Or, since Murphy believes that sneak attacks upon America are acts of God rather than the decisions of men, he could have reached back to Pearl Harbor as an event that obviously moved this country into a different mode. So why didn't he? Because those events involve three of the great heroes of the Democratic Party: FDR, JFK, and LBJ. Naturally, the trials and trends our country has faced during their administrations are not the consequence of any untoward designs by the religious Right.
Murphy continues with Wilentz's brilliant analysis of Mark Hanna's broken dreams of a New Jerusalem:
Instead, Theodore Roosevelt became president, and pursued progressive policies at home and power projection abroad. "What followed shifted the Republican Party in a direction it had not planned to go, and created the groundwork for 1912 and eventually the New Deal," Professor Wilentz said. When his successor, William H. Taft, turned back to conservatism, Roosevelt ran against him in 1912 on the Progressive, or Bull Moose, ticket, and split the Republican Party, yielding the White House to the Democrats and Woodrow Wilson.
What banality! What inanity! What major event in the life of any society doesn't "change the course" of its history? You know, that's the thing about History: just one goddamned thing after another. And 1912 set up 1932? Okay, well, 1772 set up 1787, which eventually "created the groundwork" for 1800. Oh, and don't even get me started on how 1820 and 1850 gave us a whole lot of 1861.
"One can't imagine what American history might have looked like had McKinley continued to the end of his second term," Professor Wilentz said.
What a pointless, masturbatory observation. Did Murphy catch Wilentz on his way out the door to a MoveOn.org commiseration party at Noam Chomsky's house? These guys have really got to start working harder to sell us dumbass Red Americans on their scholarly explanations for how much they hate the President and wish he were dead.
Please do read Murphy's article. It needs to be printed out, folded up, and tucked into the breast pocket of the corpse of the American Left just before they're planted in the ground.
The "Gay American"
New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, a Democrat who recently came out of the closet as it was being revealed that he had appointed his lover ---an Israeli citizen who was unqualified for the job--- to be the Homeland Security director of their state, gave his farewell address today. And, just as he did a few months ago when he dropped trou on his personal life, McGreevey continues to refer to himself as a "gay American."
Gay American? Why does that construction annoy me so much? Because it's a gratuitous self-description intended to blunt criticism by McGreevey's associating himself with the one half of that label which he never tried to hide. See, it was never the fact that McGreevey is an American that he kept a secret; it was the gay part. Obviously.
But McGreevey is a user. He uses this construction because it serves his purpose, which is to misconstrue the criticisms of him. Attack McGreevey and you attack his homosexuality, not his astonishing lack of judgement and the corruption of his administration. How very cynical.
And McGreevey keeps at it, too, with this crap about not apologizing for being a homosexual. Well, a lot of people may not like him for that, but I couldn't care less about it in itself; it is the fact that he had no courage to live as he is. Instead, he deceived everyone until circumstances forced his hand. This is the new bravery? No one expects him to apologize for being gay; they expect him to apologize for his criminality and shit judgement. But if McGreevey can play the martyr, he thinks he'll get away with it.
I hope the people of New Jersey prosecute and convict him for what he's done, not for who he is.
Pray for Our Boys
If you are a person of faith, please pray for our boys in Fallujah. They are doing God's work with every single subhuman sack of shit they kill. In fact, please pray extra hard for them and our allies since God wouldn't believe me if I made my own appeal.
Fallujah will be flattened, pacified, or both. Preferably both. Then those savages and their sympathizers will know what time it is and who holds the reins. But until they see what kind of devastation we can deliver, they won't respect the new order.
Real Country Dark
Got back home earlier today after a couple of nights in Very Red Texas with my aunt. Spent the whole time chatting with her about the family and scanning in old photographs. An amazing privilege. Pictures of my old man when he was a very young boy and countless other amazing things besides.
My aunt (my Daddy's older sister) lives about ten minutes north of the President's ranch in the little town of Valley Mills. My family's been there since just after the Civil War and it's where I myself spent many of my formative years. Always a lot of memories for me there and impresssions of what was. No ghosts, but an abiding sense of rootedness and familiarity that is stronger in those few square miles than what exists for me anywhere else on Earth.
And when night falls, it is incredibly dark. You forget that, living in the city. A pitch black sky and full of stars.
Richardson Is Full of Crap
New Mexico governor Bill Richardson is full of crap. He was on a while ago claiming that certain Indians in rural counties and the Hispanics in Las Cruces still have 30,000 votes out there and that "it's not over yet." And then he said it again a couple of other ways. Hmmm. That sounds like a lot more than just spin to me.
Misses
Well, I was wrong about Arlen Specter, who is a turd, and also wrong about Bush winning Minnesota. Looks like he's getting his clock cleaned there pretty good, in fact. Still holding out hope for Wisconsin, though.
But I think Ohio is still very possible for the President.
Sentient Clothing Mood: energetic
I don't know about you, but that chick from Wonkette makes my pants talk. Ana Marie Cox? Mmmmm...
Which reminds me, somehow, of a story from my time in Athens back in 1995. By the time I got there on my little walkabout, my clothes were starting to get gamey. I was splitting a room in a hostel with a couple of guys, including a really great Japanese guy named Aioki. I was joking about how bad my clothes were getting, and remarked that I was worried that my shirts were starting to talk to me.
Well, at that, Aioki fell into the space I presume exists among the multilingual between doubting one's command of another language and the uncomfortable belief that the person one is talking to is a complete nutjob. Heh, heh. A priceless reaction (and a quick, sanity-affirming explanation). I guess my sense of humor doesn't translate.
But we did both agree that Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 17 is our favorite of all Mozart's concerti.
It's good to be alive, even if I can't sit still for two minutes together just now.
Posted by Toby Petzold
at 3:41 PM CST
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Updated: Tuesday, 2 November 2004 3:42 PM CST
Does Crow Taste Anything Like Chicken?
I'm getting a bad vibe from my usual sources. Jesus. Are the French really going to win this thing?
Oh, well. Better to have hated and lost than never hated at all.
Giving It the Old Electoral College Try
Forget the spin: according to a much more thorough translation of Osama's recent address provided by MEMRI (see my blogroll), we have again been threatened by the traitor Michael Moore's proud new convert. (The emphases are mine.)
The tape of Osama bin Laden that was aired on Al-Jazeera on Friday, October 29th included a specific threat to "each U.S. state," designed to influence the outcome of the upcoming election against George W. Bush. The U.S. media in general mistranslated the words "ay wilaya" (which means "each U.S. state") to mean a "country" or "nation" other than the U.S., while in fact the threat was directed specifically at each individual U.S. state. This suggests some knowledge by bin Laden of the U.S. electoral college system. In a section of his speech in which he harshly criticized George W. Bush, bin Laden stated: "Any U.S. state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security."
The Islamist website Al-Qal'a explained what this sentence meant: "This message was a warning to every U.S. state separately. When he [Osama Bin Laden] said, 'Every state will be determining its own security, and will be responsible for its choice,' it means that any U.S. state that will choose to vote for the white thug Bush as president has chosen to fight us, and we will consider it our enemy, and any state that will vote against Bush has chosen to make peace with us, and we will not characterize it as an enemy. By this characterization, Sheikh Osama wants to drive a wedge in the American body, to weaken it, and he wants to divide the American people itself between enemies of Islam and the Muslims, and those who fight for us, so that he doesn't treat all American people as if they're the same. This letter will have great implications inside the American society, part of which are connected to the American elections, and part of which are connected to what will come after the elections."
Now, the important thing to remember is that this more accurate translation of Osama's message was completely fucking buried by Big Media because that's how al-Jazeera wanted it.
Am I wrong? I couldn't care less. That's how it effectively went down.
They knew. They all knew that Osama made a specific threat against certain states.
Cowards and manipulators. Cover for our enemies. It's the [American] Way.
There he was, OBL, all tan and rested and on videotape (hey, did you get the feeling that he had a bootleg of my movie? Are there DVD players in those caves in Afghanistan?)
That's right, friends. The traitor Michael Moore is boasting to the President that a mass murderer of innocent Americans is a devotee of his fucking garbage. It's moral insanity.
I've seen a lot of interviews lately among the usual pundits and politicians and not one of them will acknowledge the obvious truth that, if Osama bin Laden were permitted to vote in tomorrow's election, he would vote for John Kerry. Why will no one admit that?
Because the truth hurts.
A vote for John Kerry is a vote for those who hate America.
Always a lot of memories for me there and impresssions of what was. No ghosts, but an abiding sense of rootedness and familiarity that is stronger in those few square miles than what exists for me anywhere else on Earth.
not sure
energetic