Fox “News” threatened to sue Fox TV over Simpsons parody.
Pointless news crawls up 37 per cent… Do Democrats cause cancer? Find out at foxnews.com… Rupert Murdoch: Terrific dancer… Dow down 5,000 points… Study: 92 per cent of Democrats are gay… JFK posthumously joins Republican Party… Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple…
I see the UK Commons voted to downgrade Cannabis from class B to class C (316 for/160 against). Possession of cannabis is now generally not an arrestable offence and ranked alongside non-prescribed bodybuilding steroids and some anti-depressants. Smoking outside schools, however, will still get you nicked. Sounds like they are competing with Holland for toked-up tourist Euros.
I was with Lisa in Manhattan for the past few days visiting my Dad. On the way back I had a window seat. I noted on the LCD panel that the plane was cruising at around 25,000 feet over Utah and Nevada. As I looked down at the incredibly blasted, crisp landscape I noticed that I could see the tiniest specks of white crawling along the roads. Basically, my eye could resolve cars as a discontinuity against the generally black tarmac etched on the brown landscape. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such crispness from an airplane — there was zero moisture. I felt like an eagle soaring and I could see forever.
Then I noticed as we dropped to 12,000 feet over the Oakland hills that I was beginning to resolve actual outlines of ground vehicles and buildings. And then a strange thing happened. As we flew over a depression in one of the hills it appeared to be fuzzy - it reminded me of the morning shots of Martian valleys from orbit as some of them filled with vapour or fog.
As we passed over more fuzzy depressions I was thinking about Mars, idly, when suddenly it seemed as if my eyes had lost focus. I realized that the plane had descended into the smog bank that hangs over the Bay Area, especially during these times of extreme blocking highs and soaring temperatures. What I had been seeing from on high were isolated pockets of smoggy air washed up high into the hills on a wind tide, then left behind as the main smog line receded. Instead of rock pools, I was seeing smog pools.
As the plane descended through the last few thousand feet, and later as we got the BART back into San Francisco, I was able to notice the inch or so of grimy, discoloured yellow-brown smog that hangs, perpetually it seems, around the horizon. In its own way it’s a beautiful sight, hanging like a thick shroud, seemingly more substantial than mere air. Definitely an awe-inspiring testament to people’s ability to change our environment. In the end, though, I prefer to see forever.
Fred Kaplan over at Slate also realized the weirdness of comparing Iraq to the Philippines.
So I read that Bush is comparing Iraq to the Philippines, saying that if the US could “bring about” democracy there, it could do the same for Iraq. Hmmm, given that the US occupation of the Philippines took several generations, and killed several million people through famine, extermination camps, and mass executions, if I was an Iraqi I’d be worried!
During the war, 4,234 American soldiers were killed and 2,818 were wounded. Philippine military deaths are estimated at 20,000 while civilian deaths numbered in 250,000 to 1,000,000 Filipinos. U.S. attacks into the countryside often included scorched earth campaigns where entire villages were burned and destroyed, torture (water cure) and the concentration of civilians into “protected zones”.
To emulate the Philippines model of bringing democracy, kill a similar proportion of Iraqis during the current occupation, the US will have to slaughter around 3.5 million Iraqis within this first year, and another 2 million over the next decade. Better get a move on!
So how does the Pentagon’s Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, really feel about Muslims?
I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.
And how does he perform reconaissance of Muslim cities?
He noticed a strange dark mark over the city. He had an imagery interpreter trained by the military look at the mark. “This is not a blemish on your photograph,” the interpreter told him, “This is real.” “Ladies and gentleman, this is your enemy,” Boykin said to the congregation as he flashed his pictures on a screen. “It is the principalities of darkness. It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy.”
And how is the Pentagon going to secure victory?
“Why do they hate us? The answer to that is because we’re a Christian nation. We are hated because we are a nation of believers … Our spiritual enemy will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus.”
And what does this military man think about the Thief-in-Chief?
“[He is] a man who prays in the Oval Office … George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in the United States … He was appointed by God.”
With sane geniuses like this running things, I have no doubt victory over the demonic pagans is near at hand!
Earlier here.