Tristero

Saturday, September 06, 2003

Canada  

This article gives one many ideas. Via my friend Seraphiel:

Now, here's the part that I, as an American, can't understand. These poor benighted pinkos are doing everything wrong. They have a drug problem: Marijuana offenses have doubled since 1991. And Canada has strict gun control laws, which means that the criminals must all be heavily armed, the law-abiding civilians helpless and the government on the verge of a massive confiscation campaign. (The laws have been in place since the '70s, but I'm sure the government will get around to the confiscation eventually.) They don't even have a death penalty!

And yet ... nationally, overall crime in Canada has been declining since 1991. Violent crimes fell 13 percent in 2002. Of course, there are still crimes committed with guns -- brought in from the United States, which has become the major illegal weapons supplier for all of North America -- but my theory is that the surge in pot-smoking has rendered most criminals too relaxed to commit violent crimes. They're probably more focused on shoplifting boxes of Ho-Hos from convenience stores.

And then there's the most reckless move of all: Just last month, Canada decided to allow and recognize same-sex marriages. Merciful moose, what can they be thinking? Will there be married Mounties (they always get their man!)? Dudley Do-Right was sweet on Nell, not Mel! We must be the only ones who really care about families. Not enough to make sure they all have health insurance, of course, but more than those libertines up north.

So, um, how do I apply?
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:52 PM

An Explanation For Dilatoriness  

I missed a week of postings for a very good reason: I was very ill. I am better now, thank goodness.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:31 PM

Has Anyone Noticed That  

none of the new Al Qaeda suspects is Iraqi?

The four being sought are:

--Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, 28, a Saudi native who lived for a number of years in South Florida. The FBI has been searching for him for months, and officials say he could be a terror cell leader or organizer similar to Mohamed Atta, a top planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and pilot of one of the hijacked planes.

The FBI bulletin said federal prosecutors in northern Virginia have obtained a warrant to detain El Shukrijumah as a material witness, which normally is kept secret. The FBI says he is of particular interest because of his familiarity with the United States, ability to use fake documents and fluency in English.

--Abderraouf Jdey, 38, born in Tunisia, was naturalized a Canadian citizen in 1995 and might have a Canadian passport. Jdey was among five men who left suicide messages on videotapes recovered at the Afghanistan residence of Mohammed Atef, Osama bin Laden's military chief who was killed in a U.S. air strike. Also recovered was a suicide letter in which Jdey promised to die fighting non-Muslim infidels.

--Karim El Mejjati, 35, a Moroccan who holds a French passport. His last recorded entry into the United States was between 1997 and 1999. Officials say El Mejjati may have been involved in the May 16 suicide bombings in Casablanca, Morocco, that killed 45 people.

--Zubayr Al-Rimi, 29, a Saudi native. The only clue given publicly by the FBI is the identity of his wife, a Moroccan named Hanan Raqib.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:28 PM

Beyond Incredible Part Deux  

I thought this was more urban legend than real, but noooooo...:

Top White House officials personally approved the evacuation of dozens of influential Saudis, including relatives of Osama bin Laden, from the United States in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when most flights were still grounded, a former White House adviser said today.

The adviser, Richard Clarke, who ran the White House crisis team after the attacks but has since left the Bush administration, said he agreed to the extraordinary plan because the Federal Bureau of Investigation assured him that the departing Saudis were not linked to terrorism. The White House feared that the Saudis could face 'retribution' for the hijackings if they remained in the United States, Mr. Clarke said.

The fact that relatives of Mr. bin Laden and other Saudis had been rushed out of the country became public soon after the Sept. 11 attacks. But questions have lingered about the circumstances of their departure, and Mr. Clarke's statements provided the first acknowledgment that the White House had any direct involvement in the plan and that senior administration officials personally signed off on it.

To paraphrase an old Herman's Hermit's hit:

How do they do what they do to us?
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 9:06 PM

Why Bush Won't Win: Ten Reasons From Richard Reeves  

Man, I hope he's right.

I've edited the reasons, but eliminated elisions for readability.

1. GWB misunderstood the limits of the super power he inherited and over-reached around the world.

2. In the process of going to war, GWB began mocking and pushing around old allies like a school yard bully.

3. Rushing in as fools are said to do, GWB has tied down the greatest military in the history of the world. Ours.

4. GWB dissed the United Nations (and, again, our allies) and now is coming back to ask everyone else to help clean up the mess he made.

5. "He" -- we always overstate presidential power over the domestic economy -- has "lost" 2 million jobs here at home as the stock market went south.

6. GWB is presiding over the economic decline of millions of American families -- and not only the poor ones left behind long ago.

7. GWB is a "big government" big spender, compared to, say, his predecessor, Bill Clinton.

8. GWB is running a "borrow as you go" government, exploding the national debt by hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars compared to Clinton-era surpluses.

9. GWB's environmental record is comic, confirmed when Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" showed him walking through a national park filled with "future two-by-fours."

10. GWB lies a lot.

via Cursor.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 8:57 PM

MoDo  

She's on the money again. Man, she can sure write when she has a great subject.

Just as the father failed to finish off Saddam, so the son has failed to finish off Saddam. Just as the conservatives once carped that the father did not go far enough in Iraq, now the "cakewalk" crowd carps that the son does not go far enough...

The more you do, the more you need to do. That's the Mideast quicksand, which is why it is so important to know how you're going to get out before you get sucked in.

Dick Cheney's dark idea that a show of brutal force would scare off terrorists has ended up creating more terrorists...

Some Middle East experts think some of the neocons painted a rosy picture for the president of Arab states blossoming with democracy when they really knew this could not be accomplished so easily; they may have cynically suspected that it was far more likely that the Middle East would fall into chaos and end up back in its pre-Ottoman Empire state, Balkanized into a tapestry of rival fiefs — based on tribal and ethnic identities, with no central government — so busy fighting each other that they would be no threat to us, or Israel.

And people think I'm paranoid.

Bush père, an old-school internationalist who ceaselessly tried to charm allies as U.N. ambassador and in the White House, "agonized" over the bullying approach his son's administration used at the U.N. and around the globe.

Some of the father's old circle are thinking about forming a Republican group that would speak out against the neocons.

Not a bad idea. How about the Republcans also forming a group to speak out against the religious lunatics that have hijacked their party?

And they'll need a third group, to deal with the neo-Birchers who have also weasled their way into power. For what else are Ashcroft, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc., etc, etc but right wing extremists?
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 8:46 PM

Beyond Incredible  

I know, I know, this is not news to anyone in the blogosphere, but it has been underreported, if not completely ignored by so much of the sclm that I took it as an exaggeration of what was probably a completely sensible, albeit somewhat less than perfect, policy. But no, even the NY Times is reporting that US officials say that Security at Iraq Munitions Sites Is Vulnerable. One would think, yes?, that guarding munitions would be a rawther important component for a postwar Army. And it sure would be, if they had ever bothered to have a plan. As it is, they spent what looks like the same amount of effort guarding the bangbang as they did protecting Iraq's artistic treasures from looters.

Another thing: Rumsfeld says that no more US troops are needed, but let's face it: who BUT US troops will be ever used to guard these sites (or the Oil Ministry)? And unless something is brewing for committments of 50,000 non US troops or more, there wont be enough non-US forces coming in to free up the US's currently overextended military.

American officials said today that about 50 munitions sites in Iraq containing explosives similar to those used in the recent major bombings had only light security and were poorly guarded.

An official from the United States Central Command, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged today that the American-led military operation in Iraq did not have enough troops to heavily guard all 2,700 Iraqi munitions sites that have been identified.

Beyond incredible.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 8:35 PM

Friday, September 05, 2003

Alan Dugan  

Alan Dugan was a great American poet who, the Times sadly informed us, just died. He's probably unknown outside poetry circles and a few curious oddballs like myself. I came across him after reading a review of poems seven, which contains excerpts from his previous books plus 35 new poems. These two pieces, which the Times reprints, are excellent examples of Dugan's deliberately blunt, even crude, language, that is welded to an awesome compositional technique. The effect is similar, I think, to what the canonically great Beat poets, like Ginsberg, were trying for but never achieved, partly because they had to mediate American low brow culture through pretenious artiness. Dugan, on the other hand, never reaches. He must have been the kind of drinker who kept his whiskey and his beer no farther from his mouth than a short forearm:

Elegy (from Poems Two)

I know but will not tell
you, Aunt Irene, why there
are soapsuds in the whiskey:
Uncle Robert had to have
A drink while shaving.

Love Song: I And Thou (from Poems Seven)

I can nail my left palm
to the left-hand crosspiece but
I can't do everything myself.
I need a hand to nail the right,
A help, a love, a you, a wife.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 7:51 PM

Hearing The Bible Go Thump  

There's little good to be said, I think, about the latest hooplah about the Ten Commandments episode recently except for this: It's over. And it wrecked the credibility of Bill Pryor, one of Bush's worst justice nominations with his base.

This point has been made before, but I had to look up the Ten Commandments recently, about something else, and came across this link which makes the point that there are different sets of Ten Commandments. The link compares the texts in several different ways and is quite interesting. Here's the introduction:

One of the best-kept secrets in the discussions on the Ten Commandments concerns the fact that (according to the story) Moses smashed the first set of tables in a fit of anger, because the Israelites chose to worship the golden calf. (That this would happen or would be told casts doubt on the whole Exodus tale, but we will not cover that here.)

As the tale goes, Moses smashed the tables of stone, and God said he'd make a new set of tables containing 'the words that were on the first' (Ex. 34:1). However, as we see on the second page, the second Ten Commandments in no way resemble the first set. To popularize this knowledge is to knock the wind out of this entire move to place 'The' Ten Commandments in our schools.

Positive Atheism encourages readers to print out and distribute the PDF file of the two center pages of our July, 1999, issue, and distribute it far and wide. (If you don't have Adobe Acrobat, you can download it for free. If you don't use Acrobat, the contents are reproduced in HTML 2.0 below.) Although we know that the main premise of theism is flawed, many Americans haven't thought much on these things. Thus, to show biblical discrepancies can, with many people, go further than any discussion of the main premises of theism.

A discrepancy not mentioned is that between the original Ten Commandments of Exodus 20 and the recap listed in Deuteronomy 5. Exodus 20 requires keeping the Sabbath because 'in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day.' But in Deuteronomy, Jews must 'remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.' Nothing is said about God resting after the six days it took to create the universe.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 7:26 PM

Sunday, August 31, 2003

Dueling Ideologies?  

The Times is bending over backward to show "non-partisanship:"

America's Iraq policy has always been about more than just Iraq, and both left and right have viewed the situation through a prism of ideological convictions. Iraq has become a testing ground for competing notions of American power and leadership, and of when the unilateral use of force is legitimate.

But what "ideology" did the left, ie the antiwar moderates and liberals, show towards Iraq? This is nonsense.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 2:40 AM