Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Headlines - Thursday

new-years-eve.jpg
 
Happy 2009!
 
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Deputy Press Secretary Gordon Johndroe said of Gaza (Bush couldn't comment, he was busy clearing brush), "We don't just want a ceasefire for the sake of a ceasefire, only for violence to start up immediately, or within the next few weeks. That serves no one's interest".

No, a ceasefire certainly wouldn't serve anyone's interest, or at least not the interest of anyone who, you know, counts.




Meanwhile... 

Israel continues pounding a lot of terrorists like the one on the left. I would discuss this further, but any discussion of genocide or ethnic cleansing when a Jew is doing it means you're anti-Semitic. It is only allowable to talk about genocide or ethnic cleansing when non-Jews are doing it.

 

 

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From yesterday's page of the "Classic Dave Barry" calendar:

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A new book has been published, reciting and documenting the appalling litany of GW Bush's personal complicities in war crimes, near-treason, murder, torture, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. There is absolutely NO reason to expect any Murkin tribunal to take up the matter, so the only recourse would be the International Court. The book, titled George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration's Liability for 269 War Crimes, is the product of the efforts of political scientist Michael Haas, emeritus prof of poli-sci at UnivHawai'i-Manoa. Haas is also Chairman of the International Academic Advisory Board of the University of Cambodia. He played a role in stopping the secret funding of the Khmer Rouge by the administration of President George H. W. Bush. He has taught political science at the University of London, Northwestern University, Purdue University, and the University of California, Riverside. He is the author or editor of 33 books on human rights, including International Human Rights (2008), International Human Rights in Jeopardy (2004), The Politics of Human Rights (2000), Improving Human Rights (Praeger, 1994), and Genocide by Proxy (Praeger, 1991). Haas, obviously, is not without a substantial bona fides, though he also clearly blames America first for everything.

His book could function as a brief for future international prosecutors who might have occasion to apprehend the Chimp on some inadvertent trip abroad. Haas divides the 269 war crimes of the Bush administration into four classes: 6 war crimes committed in launching a war of aggression; 36 war crimes committed in the conduct of war; 175 war crimes committed in the treatment of prisoners; and 52 war crimes committed in postwar occupations.

Based on information supplied in autobiographical and press sources, the book matches events in Afghanistan, Guantánamo, Iraq , and various secret places of detention with provisions in the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements on war crimes. His compilation is the first to cite a comprehensive list of specific war crimes in four categories-illegality of the decision to go to war, misconduct during war, mistreatment of prisoners of war, and misgovernment in the American occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Haas accuses President Bush of conduct bordering on treason because he reenacted several complaints stated in the Declaration of Independence against England, ignored the Constitution and federal laws, trampled on the American tradition of developing international law to bring order to world politics, and in effect made a Faustian pact with Osama Bin Laden that the intelligence community blames for an increase in world terrorism. Osama Bin Laden remains alive, he reports, because Bush preferred to go after oil-rich Iraq rather than tracking down Al Qaeda leaders, whose uncaptured presence was useful to him in justifying a "war on terror" pursued on a military rather than a criminal basis without restraint from constitutional checks and balances.

The worst war crime cited is the murder of at least 45 prisoners, some but not all by torture. Other heinous crimes include the brutal treatment of thousands of children, some 64 of whom have been detained at Guantánamo. Sources document the use of illegal weapons in the war from cluster bombs to daisy cutters, napalm, white phosphorus, and depleted uranium weapons, some of which have injured and killed American soldiers as well as thousands of innocent civilians. Children playing in areas of Iraq where depleted uranium weapons have been used, but not reported on request from the World Health Organization, have developed leukemia and other serious diseases.

"Bush's violations of the Constitution as well as domestic and international law have besmirched the reputation of the United States," Haas writes. "In so doing, they have accomplished a goal of which the Al Qaeda terrorists only dreamed-to transform the United States into a rogue nation feared by the rest of the world and loved by almost none."

There's no penalty severe enough for the deeds these heartless, ruthless, gutless you-know-whats have committed.

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Mark Morford on cheap gas:

Something is deeply wrong. Something is bizarre and upside-down and perverse and it's not just fish pedicures or Rod Blagojevich's hair or the fact that people still care in the slightest about the sad and toothless chyme that is Britney Spears' White Trash Lite™ career.

It's gas. The price of oil. Or I should say, the stunning, creepy, impossibly low price of Satan's lubricant, Bush's blood, our own personal Jesus. Have you noticed? How could you not?

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After weeks of recounting and canvassing, Al Franken has a 49 vote lead in the Minnesota Senate race. There are still absentee ballots being counted (the ones which were incorrectly rejected), although that process is itself quite complicated as all sides have to agree on which ballots to count. But, from the level of hysteria emanating from the GOP side, it's pretty clear that they know Norm Coleman's Senate career is winding down.

The "legal issues" may take a while to settle. Norm Coleman and the Republicans are threatening lawsuits. Lots of lawsuits. They're quite willing to go to court to try to overturn the will of the voters. That's classic GOP strategy. It's what got us George Bush in 2000. Coleman is even being advised by GOP attorney Ben Ginsberg, who was Bush's lawyer during the Florida debacle in 2000. But, over the past few weeks, we've seen that Minnesota in 2008 isn't Florida of 2000. The voters might actually get to decide this one.

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Are Mormons christians?

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Vickie Iseman blanket defamation.

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Poor, poor Gonzo. Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who cannot find a job, is writing a book for which he cannot find a publisher, possibly because the outline reads "Chapter 1: I don't recall. Chapter 2: I don't recall. Chapter 3: I don't recall...", and is whining to the Wall Street Journal (link, other link) about his undeservedly poor reputation.

"For some reason," he says, "I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror." But where's his plaque, huh, huh?

I love that more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger "for some reason." He does, however, suggest one reason, and of course it had nothing to do with anything bad he might have done, because of course he never did anything bad: "I have been treated differently because of my relationship with the president. People thought that they could hurt the president by hurting me."

He insists: "I didn't leave in disgrace." Ignominy, opprobrium, infamy, contempt and dishonor, sure, but not disgrace.

Paul Krugman wants to know the word that describes Alberto Gonzales, who considers himself to be a "casualty of the war on terror." 

Self-centered might work. There are a lot of adult-level words, such as "assknob," "douchenozzle," "shitheel," "fucktard" and others.

"International war criminal" would be three words.

"Clueless" fits.

 

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