Hull breach!
Russell Mokhiber: Ari, two things. Last week Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said that soldiers drafted to service in the military, "added no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services." The Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation called this an egregious slur and a great insult to the memory, sacrifice and valor of those who lost their lives in Vietnam. One Vietnam vet, Thomas Gohan (phonetic), of Rochester, New York, said this, as a draftee who spent a year of his life in Vietnam: "I would like to suggest that perhaps my inferior service to our country wouldn't have been necessary if those proud, flag-waving patriots like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the rest of the cowards had come forward to enlist. I would like to see Secretary Rumsfeld repeat his speech in front of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Memorial Day."
Does the President agree with Secretary Rumsfeld that soldiers drafted to service added no value to the United States armed service?
Ari 'the Liar' Fleischer: Russell, Russell, Russell, while I'm honored that you chose -- in the face of a Rumsfeld briefing at the same time as mine -- to come here, I'm sure that if you took the entire text of what Secretary Rumsfeld said to Secretary Rumsfeld and asked him, and shared with him the entire context of what Secretary Rumsfeld said, you would have thought twice about taking any one statement. I think if you look at everything Secretary Rumsfeld said, you'd have a very, very different picture. ...Connie.
Russell Mokhiber: Can I have a second question?
Ari: No. Connie.
and this:
Terry Moran: You said the President is against racial preferences because they're divisive. Is he against other preferences that colleges and universities routinely grant that people see as unfair? Like the one he got?
Ari: I understand -- I understand all the interest and the specific questions dealing with the review of the University of Michigan case --
Terry Moran: That is not what I'm asking.
Ari:: -- and the implications that come from whatever decision is made. I'm not going to go beyond --
Terry Moran: I'm asking a question about fairness.
Ari: -- I'm not going to go beyond where I've gone, because -- be able to base it on reason and judge for yourself once you see what the President has concluded and why he's concluded it. And he'll share his thoughts.
Terry Moran: But the general question about his feeling about fairness in America. When he was 18, he got into Yale University, which had and still has a policy of granting very special preferences to children of graduates, like him. Is that preference okay, to give him a leg up, but other preferences are not?
January 15, 2003
Right on schedule, part 2 -
Plague samples reported stolen from Texas lab.
Samples of bubonic plague were stolen from the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and the theft was reported to Texas Tech police Tuesday night. - go figure.
Prisoners are still sh!t ouf of luck
Pledging to build a culture that respects life, the hypocritical Drinky McDeathrow is declaring a National Sanctity of Human Life Day.
"As we seek to improve quality of life, overcome illness and promote vital medical research, my administration will continue to honor our country's founding ideals of equal dignity and equal rights for every American," Bush said Tuesday, in a document that enacts no change in policy or program.
"By working together to protect the weak, the imperfect and the unwanted, we affirm a culture of hope and help ensure a brighter future for all."
The former governor of Texas heralded the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act he signed last year, which amends the legal definitions of "person," "human being," "child" and "individual" to include any fetus that survives an abortion procedure. link. His former girlfriend, whom he forced as a teenager to have his unborn child aborted, could not be reached for comment.
'Karl! They're on to us!'
Did ABC censor a crowd’s disapproval of George H. Bush? The father of the AWOL, warmongering nincompoop currently in the WH delivered a taped message at the American Music Awards on Monday night, and sources who were there told MSNBC that the crowd booed him.
When the band Alabama received the Award of Merit, the face of Bush-the-only-slightly-smarter appeared on screen. “I’m very proud to be part of tonight’s tribute honoring one of the most highly successful bands country music has ever known,” said the former, actually-elected president, but his image was met with a loud chorus of boos.
The boos from the crowd, however, were not audible in the broadcast, leading some to believe that they were deleted by censors. “To be honest, I can’t tell you,” a spokesman for ABC said, who referred the question to a spokesman for the production company.
“I don’t know and I can’t tell you,” said a spokesman for the production company, who referred questions back to ABC. - msnbc.
"I think Bush is doing an excellent job...of turning this country into the Germany of the 1930's." - DemoUnderground reader fed2dneck, in response to a poll at msnbc.
Quote of the morning
"I trust Bush with my daughter, but I trust Clinton with my job." - Craig Patterson, St Louis ironworker/patriot (link).
Right on schedule -
Bush's poll numbers drop, anthrax "detected" in DC.
The Federal Reserve yesterday reported a positive initial test for anthrax at the center that checks incoming mail for such threats, the U.S. Postal Service said.
"This appears to be a very isolated incident and it is not clear at all specifically what, if any, piece of mail this came from," said Tom Day, vice president of engineering for the U.S. Postal Service. - link.
Faux nooze
Foreign journalists disillusioned, affronted by state of US media.
"...CNN, America's premier showcase for international news, struck the Serbian journalists as jingoistic, amateurish, shallow, and speculation-crazy, especially when compared to the generally calm and thoughtful BBC. As for the Fox News Channel, its daily fare sounded suspiciously like the rabidly nationalistic, pro-Milosevic propaganda the Serbs are still trying to flush out of the system here." - Russ Baker's Blunt Words About the Soft Press.
January 14, 2003
You broke it, you bought it
Europe will not willingly pay for the reconstruction of Iraq if the US does not obtain United Nations authority for war, Chris Patten, the EU external relations commissioner, has warned.
Signalling a slightly more confident tone over a crisis which has deeply divided the union, Mr Patten said it would be hard to persuade Europeans to pick up the tab if pResident Bush acted unilaterally to disarm Saddam Hussein.
"I would find it much more difficult to get the approval of member states and the European parliament if the military intervention that had occasioned the need for development aid did not have a UN mandate," he said yesterday. "We would be forced to say 'f*ck you - bend over' to the American taxpayers, but I'm sure they've heard that often enough from their own government these past two years." - from the Guardian. Mostly.
Spin cycle
Update on that Time poll:
Which country poses the greatest danger to world peace in 2003?
North Korea: 10.8 %
Iraq: 18.9 %
The United States: 70.3 %
Total Votes Cast: 57066
NOTE: This is an unscientific, informal survey for the interest and enjoyment of TIME.com users and may not be indicative of popular opinion.
Ohhhhhhhh - kay......
"an intemperate child"
It's truly frightening when facts don't matter as a nation prepares for war. Once the bombing begins, any search for truth will end. Now is the time to question a pattern of egregious distortion of the facts on the part of a White House that apparently feels it needs a war to retain its fading popularity. - Read more of Robert Scheer's column here.
No brainer
"...the thing that struck me, and most of the voting public, about Dubya, wasn't that he was a "masterful leader" so much as that he was an "embarrassing fool". A cartoonish, empty-headed serial idiot with a resume made up entirely of draft dodging, tequila shots, and gifts from daddy and a political platform composed entirely of lies, impossible promises, and stunningly, shockingly, record-breakingly empty rhetoric. And don't tell me that this is some liberal propaganda - I watched the debates, I watched every step of the way, I watched you babbling on with a smirk on your face like some 4th grader giving the class his book report on a book he didn't even read. Every time you spoke it was a breakthrough in the field of stupidity, opening up unexplored vistas of idiocy beyond anyone's wildest imaginings." - Andrew Northrup.
"We don't need no stinkin' UN!"
Tony Blair said yesterday he would refuse to allow the United Nations to veto military action to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, which at this point don't seem to exist anywhere but in the tiny little minds of pReznit Poopypants and his pet poodle. Oh, and Don 'Huge Warboner' Rumsfeld, who, upon hearing of Mr Blair's statement, soiled not only the ceiling of his office, but most of his toy-soldier diorama, ruining the desert-like effect.
Blair also suggested a war could be launched even if the inspectors found no evidence, on the basis that Saddam had 'obstructed their work.' - link. Yeah - just try using that excuse in everyday life.
Is it too late to start beating the crap out of Joe Lieberman?
WH blowing smoke up our a$$?
Bartcop has the answer:
"The problem with guns that are hidden is you can't see their smoke. We know for a fact that there are weapons there." - Ari 'the Liar' Fleischer .
"Ari, I can solve this. Just have Poppy Bush and Whistle Dick Cheney show us the Carlyle and Halliburton invoices that have Saddam's signature and we'll believe he has them. " - Bartcop .
Bunnypants given the finger in latest poll
Number of bushmoonies, uninformed still too high.
Emperor Snippy's job approval rating has dropped below 60% for the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks, in the latest USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll. The drop of 5 points in one week brings him to 58%, which some hack at the AP is calling "still solid overall." Excuse me, but that's not even considered solid for a bowel movement.
Bush's rating on handling the economy slipped to 48%, the lowest of his presidency. His approval rating on foreign affairs was 53%, the lowest since Sept. 11. And though 59% said he was paying the right amount of attention to terrorism, 55% said he wasn't paying enough attention to the economy. - link. Huh - CNN's site doesn't mention it at all.
When asked which issues would be most important in their vote for president in 2004, 52 percent said economic conditions and 32 percent said terrorism. A third said they would definitely vote to re-elect him, a third said they might or might not vote for him and a third said they would not. - link. Baaaaaaaaaaaaa.
January 13, 2003
On the heels of Bend, Oregon's proposed ordinance, the WH plans to ban "highly objectionable" questions during Ari 'the Liar' Fleischer's press conferences and Smirky the Crack Chimp's Rovian recitations from the Rose Garden. From now on, only pre-approved inquiries regarding W's sublime masculinity and bold moral clarity will be allowed in these venues.
Blog A Day Tour?
(Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Nope, we're not at the end of the Amish Tech Support 2003 Blog A Day Tour yet, so here's another post from Laurence Simon on a blog that isn't his...)
They've seen the carnage and wreckage from Israel when mad suicide bombers release flames and shrapnel, and the people of Bend, Oregon are taking matters in to their own hands in the War on Terror. They want to ban chemical weapons of a sort from their own buses:
Proposed new city rules would ban spitting, smoking, skateboarding, and stinking on city buses.If only the Japanese had such an ordinance before those terrorists released the Sarin gas in the subways.
The regulations ban anyone who "emanates a grossly repulsive odor that is unavoidable by other Bend Extended Area Transit customers" from being in the bus station or on a bus.
"It's an effort to keep the riding experience as pleasant and safe as possible," said city attorney Jim Forbes. He noted that the city already has an ordinance prohibiting people from releasing "highly objectionable odors" from their property.
"Excuse me, but there's a highly objectionable odor coming from your property. Would you mind opening that canister with the skull and crossbones on it outside?"
Thanks for reading today's Amish Tech Support 2003 Blog A Day Tour entry. If you're interested in volunteering your own site for a stop on the Tour, feel free to follow the link back to Amish Tech Support and let Laurence Simon know you want him to post on your site.)
Fargo, Russia
A Russian man who murdered his friend in a drunken argument and then minced and flavored his body for a meal was jailed for 12 years.
Yevgeny Usanov stabbed his victim through the heart in the central Russian town of Saratov. He cut up the body, wrapped it in bay leaves and fed it through a mincer.
"These culinary preparations were done with only one aim -- to eat the victim," prosecutor Natalya Rubanova told the court. It was not clear whether the man ate his friend before he was arrested. - link.
MWO announces their 2002 Media Whore of the Year ! And in a related story:
"a devastating indictment of the state of American newspapers"
'With war looming it is no good the American public looking to its newspapers for an independent voice. For, says Matthew Engel, the press have now become the president's men. The supposedly liberal American press has become a dog that never bites, hardly barks but really loves rolling over and having its tummy tickled.' - the the Guardian blasts the WH propaganda machine and the smeg-encrusted knee-scabbed dittohead cowards of the US media.
The Top Ten Conservative Idiots is back!
GOP senators 'on the warpath'
'Republican senators complained bitterly of arrogance by the Bush administration, especially the Pentagon, in treatment of Congress along the road to war.
'Two years of growing discontent boiled over during the closed-door meeting at the Library of Congress. White House chief of staff Andrew Card was there to hear grievances from President Bush's Senate base that it is ignored and insulted by the administration, particularly by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in preparing for war against Iraq. According to administration sources, Bush is aware of the problem but has not yet addressed it.' - Bob Novak.
I was seriously thinking of making the pic of the day one of the opening scenes of The Terminator. I have never felt so close to total annihilation in my life.
Right on cue, Karl blames Clinton
But N Korea says 'what a stupid f*cking excuse.'
North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Han Song Ryol, had said the Bush administration's tough policy toward North Korea was motivated primarily by Bush's desire to do the opposite of what his predecessor had done on foreign policy.
Han asserted that Pyongyang had been developing a working relationship with Washington toward the end of the Clinton era - indeed, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Pyongyang just before President Bill Clinton left office - but then faced a reversal of policy under Bush.
"They think the Bush people have closed the door on them just because Clinton had opened it," said someone involved in the Santa Fe talks. - link.
"I must say, for some people in the administration, I'm beginning to think that blaming Clinton is a substitute for thinking." - Sandy Berger, in disgust, to Wolf 'Toady' Blitzer yesterday on CNN. Amen!
"The Pukes spent all day yesterday blaming the North Korean crisis on Clinton - for negotiating with the Evil Ones. Less than 24 hours later, they do a complete about-face and tell us that if North Korea cooperates, we'll give 'em back their oil." - Antidolt, at the BC Forum.
