In another year, New Orleans will still be a shadow of its former self —if it survives at all. More effort has been spent making excuses than restoring one of America's great cities. There will be more empty words and over the course of another year nothing will have changed. In the meantime, there is Southern Lebanon —already rebounding with help from an organization that Bush deems "terrorist".In Lebanon, Hezbollah, the force fighting and defending the villages, at the same time started helping the population as soon as the Israeli bombing began. The Lebanese resistance provided the ambulances and scores of searchers who pulled people from the rubble. They helped organize getting tens of thousands of refugees to schools, public parks and private homes. (Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 16)In Beirut alone, Hezbollah organized 10 mobile medical teams that cared for 14 schools each, in two-day rotations, helping 48,000 people. Another 70,000 were treated in houses by other professionals.
In a Hezbollah kitchen near downtown Beirut, volunteers prepared 8,000 hot meals a day—part of a daily total of 50,000 they distributed across Beirut, reported the Monitor.
In New Orleans, families evacuated from the Superdome and the Convention Center were scattered all over the country. Parents were sometimes separated from children. Some didn’t know if loved ones lived or died. Three months after Katrina hit, 6,500 people were still unaccounted for, and more than 400 bodies still unidentified, according to the National Center for Missing Adults.
—Joyce Chediac, Lebanon rebuilds, New Orleans waits
So —who are the terrorists? Bushco or Hezbollah?
If I had been a New Orleans resident victimized by the shoddy job done by the US Army Corps of Engineers and, later, by the Bush gang of crooks and incompetents, I might be inclined to call the US government a terrorist organization.
If I were an Iraqi citizen with family members among some 140,000 civilians murdered in Bush's initial wave of bombings —Shock and Awe —I might be inclined to call Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld terrorists.
If I had family members murdered in cold blood by US troops at Haditha, I might be inclined to label the Pentagon under Donald Rumsfeld a terrorist organization.
If I should find myself thrown into Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, or an Eastern European gulag where I am tortured, sodomized, electrocuted, humiliated or, possibly, murdered, I might be inclined to use the term "terrorists" to describe and denote Bush, the Pentagon, the Military/Industrial Complex, a private army of un-accountable private contractors, and the enablers of the GOP!Significant progress by Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon will finish Bush politically at a time when the US has no leverage anywhere in the world. Surely, no one believed Bush when he declared Hezbollah defeated; by contrast, probably everyone believed Hezbollah when it declared "victory". Bush is testy and anxious and it shows. Billions of people know him to be a liar, a fraud, a war criminal, and an incompetent!
How did Hezbollah —called "terrorist" by Bush —win? For one thing, Hezbollah was in much better touch with its "base" than Bush with anyone but a tiny, wealthy elite. Hezbollah began a defense of villages as soon as Israel began a widespread bombing campaign. When Bush is forced by reality and an increasingly livid American populace to pull out of Iraq, who will undo the harm done there by Bush and his criminal gang?
Who will rebuild Baghdad?
Will we withdraw the troops and send in FEMA?
Can Brownie do a heckuva job in Baghdad where everyone else has failed?
Will anyone go to Baghdad in order to take the fall for Bush?I suppose Bush hasn't thought that far down the road. It might have been David Hume who said that there is a moral imperative to be intelligent. Iraq was a "war of choice". Likewise, Bush's stupidity is the result of a deliberate choice. No one but Bush is to blame for Bush's stupidity. Less privileged people must learn quickly and choose wisely in order to survive. Bush did neither and winds up ruling the world. What's up with that?
As to be expected, Howard Zinn, gets right to the heart of the matter: Bush's war machine is impotent:
I remember John Hersey's novel, ``The War Lover," in which a macho American pilot, who loves to drop bombs on people and also to boast about his sexual conquests, turns out to be impotent. President Bush, strutting in his flight jacket on an aircraft carrier and announcing victory in Iraq, has turned out to be much like the Hersey character, his words equally boastful, his military machine impotent.
The history of wars fought since the end of World War II reveals the futility of large-scale violence. The United States and the Soviet Union, despite their enormous firepower, were unable to defeat resistance movements in small, weak nations -- the United States in Vietnam, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan -- and were forced to withdraw.
...
Beyond the futility of armed force, and ultimately more important, is the fact that war in our time inevitably results in the indiscriminate killing of large numbers of people. To put it more bluntly, war is terrorism. That is why a ``war on terrorism" is a contradiction in terms. Wars waged by nations, whether by the United States or Israel, are a hundred times more deadly for innocent people than the attacks by terrorists, vicious as they are.
The repeated excuse, given by both Pentagon spokespersons and Israeli officials, for dropping bombs where ordinary people live is that terrorists hide among civilians. Therefore the killing of innocent people (in Iraq, in Lebanon) is called accidental, whereas the deaths caused by terrorists (on 9/11, by Hezbollah rockets) are deliberate.
—Howard Zinn, War is not a solution for terrorism
The following story is hardly an update. It was published immediately after the dedication of the Clinton library. It is especially unsettling in retrospect. Since Bush mused about a single submarine "taking out" the Clinton library, Forbes reported that the said "Israeli soldiers" were captured inside Lebanon —not kidnapped inside Israel; the Jerusalem Post reported that Bush had urged Olmert to attack Syria, presumably to draw Iran into the fray. The Israeli source bluntly called Bush nuts for "egging" Olmert on! In short, there is abundant evidence to support the conclusion that George W. Bush is a violently inclined psychopath. Here he is fantasizing about an attack on the Clinton library:
Did Bush and his gang fantasize, at one point, about airliners attacking the WTC?At Bill library, Bush sounds sub-versive
President Bush and top strategist Karl Rove (l.) took a trip to the Clinton Library to seek inspiration for W's own legacy-building. President Bush once daydreamed about blasting Bill Clinton's presidential library to smithereens, according to a new book.
In "How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime," former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal recounts a November 2004 visit by Bush and his political guru Karl Rove to the William J. Clinton Library in Little Rock, Ark., on the banks of the Arkansas River.
"Bush appeared distracted and glanced repeatedly at his watch," Blumenthal writes about a presidential tour during the library's dedication. "When he stopped to gaze at the river, where Secret Service agents were stationed in boats, the guide said: 'Usually, you might see some bass fishermen out there.' Bush replied: 'A submarine could take this place out.'"
The author muses: "Was the President warning of an Al Qaeda submarine, sneaking undetected up the Mississippi, through the locks and dams of the Arkansas River, surfacing under the bridge to the 21st century to dispatch the Clinton Library? Is that where Osama Bin Laden is hiding? Or was this a wishful paranoid fantasy of ubiquitous terrorism destroying Clinton's legacy with one blow?"
Blumenthal, who attributes his account to two anonymous eyewitnesses, adds that "Rove showed keen interest in everything he saw, and asked questions, including about costs, obviously thinking about a future George W. Bush library and legacy.
"'You're not such a scary guy,' joked his guide. 'Yes, I am,' Rove replied. Walking away, he muttered deliberately and loudly: 'I change constitutions, I put churches in schools.'"
Amen to that.
38 comments:
An excellent post, I hope this will cause readers to consider the comparison drawn. Bushco is so keen to link Iraq and 9-11, but I doubt they'd be as eager for the South Lebanon - New Orleans pairing. Considering which party is prepared to do the pick-and-shovel work of statesmanship and earning the trust of voters, I'm pretty confident which party will come out on top.
Also an excellent illustration of the Preznit's military knowledge; his first leap is toward the delivery system that could get closest undetected, with no regard whatever for its weapons systems or designed purpose. Submarines haven't had deck guns since the Second Great Unpleasantry, nobody has ever heard of a submarine torpedoing a building on shore, and cruise missiles are definitely not a line-of-sight weapon.
Nice going, Turnip.
And there's Conplan 8022, the military strategy drawn up by the Bush administration for an attack upon Iran. This obscene strategy - which includes the use of nuclear weapons - is to be implemented following any terrorist attack upon the US, whether Iran has any demonstrable involvement or not. Now that’s terrorism!
In the land where disposable throw-away objects were invented, one discovers with horror that the powers that be consider people, cities, even whole states, disposable - disposable objects that one throws into the trash as soon as they are broken....
Beautiful song on the video, lovely voice - who is it? [ I should have clicked on the video itself to find out :) ]
Great comments all! You grace my humble blog.
...nobody has ever heard of a submarine torpedoing a building on shore, and cruise missiles are definitely not a line-of-sight weapon.
But, maybe Bush knows something we don't. Cruise missiles are fired from subs and can be targeted very precisely, perhaps more precisely than a 757 said to have been piloted by a guy who couldn't even fly a piper cub. Look at the map of Chesapeake Bay. It's only a couple of minutes by cruise missile from the Pentagon. Now —if you wanted to take out the Clinton library, you just might send a sub right up the river...or, in other cases, the bay!
Damien, I have hopes that those plans have been put on hold. I have not yet written an article about this...but here's the tipoff: I think we narrowly avoided WWIII when the Israeli attack on Southern Lebanon ran out of steam. The Israeli attack may have been an EARLY "October Surprise". The scenario was Syria jumping into the fray but when Syrian didn't taken the bait, Bush urged Olmert to attack Syria —obviously to lure Iran into joining the attack. Bush would then have had his pretext to nuke Iran. No wonder that his post Israeli/Lebanon voice is filled with anxiety and tension. Bush got his ass whipped and he knows it. Russia would not have ignored the nuking of an ally and neighbor in its own backyard. I think we came within a hair breadth of WWIII. And that our avoidance of it may have depended upon Olmert's reported refusing Bush's urging (called "nuts" by Israeli sources) does not instill confidence in any future in which Bush has access to WMD. He remains a clear and present danger to the entire world.
Vierotchka, the image you hold up is at once poetic and tragic. Again, you confront me with an image that I had completely missed. Of course, we and our cities are, for Bush and similar ilk, disposable. We are mere throwaways, flotsam and jetsam. Sorry, but I don't know who the voice is on the video.
OT - some spark of light from across the pond:
Tony Blair will be served notice to quit Downing Street at a meeting of the Cabinet next week when senior ministers plan to confront him over his refusal to commit to a departure timetable.
Bush's ability to describe terrorists with words that could be easily turned around on himself have been one of the wonders of this administration (the wonder being that he never seems to get called on it, though I myself have riffed on it.)
"nobody has ever heard of a submarine torpedoing a building on shore"
Obviously, you never watched "Operation Pettycoat", but I'll bet Dubya has.
Wow! Rumsfeld, a Nazi, calls Democrats Nazi appeasers!
Bush calls his reading list "Ekuhlectic"
And now, Bin Laden calls Bush a communist!
"What a world....what a world!!!!!!" —The Wicked Witch of the West
It may still be coming, Len. Hopefully not. We know Iran won't have a nuclear weapon for 4-10 years - depending on who you listen to. But the US media (and the Murdoch media here in Australia has run a series of editorials calling for attacks against Iran)are working on the 18 month time frame that supposedly will provide Iran with the knowledge base and resources to become unstoppable in any nuclear weapons development. The claim is that these efforts have to be defeated before that red line is crossed. What the media is not telling the public is that just attacking nuclear or military sites will not defeat the program. It can be reinstated. And that the only way to really defeat it is to basically trash ALL of Iran's infrastructure. Now China, with $200B of natural gas contracts with Iran, is not going to sit idly by and allow this to happen. And I don't think Russia's going to be keen to see their nuclear technicians disappearing in a cloud of US bombings. I guess this is why all the military war gamers have found that in every simulation of such attacks the conflict could never be contained. Russia or China always ended up involved, and nuclear weapons came out. Nuts, of course. The whole 'attack Iran' exercise is a program designed by lunatics. Certifiable. And the Iranians can have a large stick or a small stick - but they are definitely not getting any carrot!
What gets me is that the media everywhere still keeps alive the story that Iran is in breech of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). According to Mike Whitney Iran has never been referred to the Security Council for non-compliance; all the huffing and puffing from the media is because Iran won't agree to an IAEA (ie Bolton-Rice) wish list that is not a part of the NPT. I can accept that these matters would be misreported in the US, but the scale of misprepresentation in the Australian media is just unbelievable. I responded to a lengthy letter in The Australian the other day from the VP of the Australian Executive of Jewry. Not only did he accuse the Iranians of multiple, documented breaches of the NPT, he failed to identify his political position (and The Australian would have been well aware of his political affiliations). My letter correcting these aspects was published but lasted for only one day before the whole series of letters on this topic was pulled. The paper still managed to publish three editorials in a week calling anyone who opposed attacking Iran a 'Nazi'and 'terrorist supporter'. The Murdoch fix is well and truly in, so I wouldn't count Iran attacks out of the picture yet. We'll just have to wait and see. Cheers.
Indeed, Damien, Iran is not in breech whatsoever.
Iran is most probably 10 years away from developing a "nuke".
Bushco, of course, is still lying to the American people and the world. Rule of thumb: if Bush's lips are moving, he's lying!
Ha!! True enough, Dave; in the miracle world of Hollywood, anything can happen. I have indeed seen "Operation Petticoat", and I guess in those circumstances, it was possible. We both know it could never happen, because a torpedo would explode (if it was going to explode at all) as soon as it hit the shoreline (assuming it was impact-fused).
Cruise missiles, like most anti-surface weapons, have a maximum and a minimum range. The minimum range is that at which the weapon arms, so that it cannot come back on the platform that launched it (in much the same way a torpedo does not immediately arm, to prevent the turbulence and setback of launch from causing it to explode in the tube). The Clinton Library, viewed from the river, should be well within the minimum envelope. That's why I say it is not a line-of-sight weapon. If you try to target something inside minimum range, you will receive a warning prompt that the target is "not engageable".
Seriously, Bush does indeed make a lot of incredible gaffes, but I doubt any remarks about submarines and the Clinton Library in the same sentence betrayed any evil intent. Still, it does permit the opportunity for some fun: obviously, he's a bit jealous that Clinton is still getting attention, and that he has an instinctive feel for endowments with broad appeal (no pun intended). So, then, what do you think will be named after Bush? Certainly not some grand square in Baghdad, as Richard Perle suggested. What, then? An aircraft carrier? No, by the time it was built, so much more would be known about The Turnip (especially if Democrats get enough of a foothold to insitute investigations or impeachment hearings)that he'd be lucky to get the ship's cat named after him. A toilet? A paper shredder? What will be Shrubbie's legacy?
Vierotchka, good news on Tony "my ratings are in free-fall" Blair. It won't make any real difference in the government's direction, not in the short term, but the symbolic damage to Bush would be huge; incalculable.
The Israeli attack on Southern Lebanon was a casualty of the information age, and of overconfidence in the Israeli Air Force based on, what else, bad intelligence. The plan to surge across the border on just the right provocation was one of the worst-kept secrets ever, and I doubt Hezbollah were as surprised by the violent response as they pretended to be. They certainly were...ahhh... well dug-in for people who were caught flat-footed. The overconfidence in the Air Force's ability to destroy a well-entrenched enemy is reminiscent of the Dieppe landings, which were preceded by hour upon hour of naval gunfire support - intended to soften up the German lines, it basically just moved a lot of wire around without doing any real damage to the enemy.
Never fear, the Lebanese, the Syrians and the Iranians know who was responsible for the overblown response, and certainly who was responsible for holding up the cease-fire so Israel could have more time to do damage. It is significant that, according to International Human Rights Watch, 90% of the cluster munitions sown by Israel in Lebanon were dropped in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when the terms of the cease-fire were already known. I suppose it's anti-Semitic to say that.
Bush does indeed remain determined to attack Iran, but I just don't think the right chain of events is going to materialize. Nuking another country is no casual thing, you have to have a good reason, and any nuclear attack on Iran would have to be strategic; a crippling attack to destroy key sites, rather than simply broad destruction. A terrorist attack on the U.S., even if staged, could not result in an unprovoked nuclear attack on Iran before any responsibility was known, no matter what Bush and his cronies say. Maybe if America were the only nuclear power on earth, but it isn't. A couple of other nuclear powers (cue Russia and China, sound of kettledrums over a martial chant) who have interests in the region and weapons that will easily reach the continental U.S. might act in reprisal on Iran's behalf. It probably wouldn't hurt for them to make that quietly known, in the right circles.
Public opinion is firmly against the U.S. and Israel on this one. Stubborn and pig-headed as Bush may be, he and his administration know they still have to live in the world after the mushroom cloud settles. Mass murder of Iranians for no good reason would quite likely bring some sort of broader armed reprisal against the United States (or Israel, if it were they), and even a targeted attack would be hugely unpopular at a time when Bushco is trying, in its clumsy way, to mend fences.
They want it so badly they can taste it, but I think at long last they are beginning to intuit the outlines of American power, together with its limits.
I see we had the same thought, Damien, probably at about the same time - since those comments arrived within less than 30 minutes of each other, and I'm not a fast typist. I didn't even see your comment until the automatic update when I sent mine. We are of the same mind, and I'd be very surprised if Bush and his advisors had not considered the possibility of retaliation by other major powers.
Still, they ARE all as thick as gum trees when it comes to the reality-based world.
Damien and Mark, I just overheard something on CNN International (I have it on for background noise more than anything else) that Japan has apparently signed or is on the point of signing a huge trade agreement (natural gas? something like that) with Iran. Japan is also ostentively an ally of Bush... so strange games are being played out.
As for nuking Iran, what Bush has in mind is trying out some nuclear version of a "bunker buster" on underground Iranian facilities - the problem is, the US doesn't have the blueprints and layout and specs of those alleged underground facilities, so they'd be taking pot chances. Furthermore, I remember reading on a partly Canadian website where scientists and others publish articles, that such a nuclear "bunker buster" would not be very effective in busting bunkers, and would at the same time release vast amounts of radioactivity that would kill, render very sick, and affect millions of people all the way to India because of the prevailing winds. I have also read that it was a group of top Pentagon generals that dissuaded Bush from using that nuclear option. But those are just things I read and overheard...
Oh, and I almost forgot - Mark : ...but the symbolic damage to Bush would be huge; incalculable. My point exactly! :)
Ha!!!! Vierotchka, I GOT YOU! There is no such word as "ostensively". I'm pretty sure you meant, "ostensibly". Did you see that, Len? Boy, I'm just like one of those wounded buffaloes, that circle around and hide by their own backtrail, waiting....
Yes, I was kidding. But it honestly is so rare for you to make a mistake, your grammar and vocabulary are extremely polished. Now I'm tormented by self-doubt; perhaps you included the error deliberately....help me...I'm coming apart..
Seriously, as discussed above, Bush would have to be even more out of his head than he is to try a nuclear attack on Iran when plenty of proof exists that they are doing nothing wrong, and bugger-all proof that they are developing a nuclear weapon. I'm sure they want a couple - who wouldn't, in their situation? Look at the example; Kim Jong-Il, ramrod of a dirt-poor peasant nation, but he has nukes. Never mind that they'd need a strong tailwind and lots of luck to even reach the Alaskan coast, he still gets treated with wary respect. The Americans bluster and threaten, but they're cautious not to push him too far.
You can game a nuclear attack all you want, and test in similar conditions, but you still never know what will happen. Nukes are just not surgically precise weapons. They're meant to kill large numbers indiscriminately, and are poorly suited to taking out a reactor or something like that. There are plenty of weapons in the conventional inventory that are much better suited to the aim. It's just that nuke talk is scary. Maybe that's the point, to scare them dumb hick Iranians right out of their pointy slippers. If so, it's not working. It'd be typical of Bushco arrogance and unfamiliarity with the adversary to not know what a progressive and well-educated nation they're messing with.
If America never had to worry about what the world would be like the next day, and the extent to which they'd become an international pariah, Bushco might try it. Once they could just laugh off world opinion, but now it's so hardened against them that it's starting to hurt in the pocket. Len's excellent article a couple of posts ago was illustrative of the shrinking wage scale and of America's diminishing economic clout, the weakness of a debtor nation.
While I'm being picky on grammar, Len, your first paragraph should read, "More effort has been spent making excuses THAN has been done to restore one of America's great cities". And the colon in front of "terrorist" is superfluous.
And in the last article, you mispelt "Iraq" in the first line. But nobody caught that one, so it's a freebie!!
I was in Biloxi in June, it looks just like that video shows it to be. There are some hotels being rebuilt and new casinos popping up, but the antebellum homes along that beautiful coast remain, as piles of rubble, one year later.
"Beautiful song on the video, lovely voice - who is it? [ I should have clicked on the video itself to find out :) ] ".......
It sounds like Sara McLachlan, who is a beautiful singer indeed
While I'm being picky on grammar, Len, your first paragraph should read, "More effort has been spent making excuses THAN has been done to restore one of America's great cities".
I know you won't believe me, but I had changed "that" to "than" already : ) Really!! "N" and "T" are not even close on an ASCII keyboard —yet, I have been making that typo lately while thinking that I am typing "than". And, you are right about the colon.
Hezbollah was handing out cash before the ink on the ceasefire was even dry. It has also supplied the manpower needed to rebuild southern Lebanon - while the entire Gulf Coast still lies in ruins. How much do you want to bet that by this time next year everything down New Orleans way will look essentially the same - but Lebanon will once again teem with people and Beirut will once again be a thriving metropolis? Where else will be ignored when disaster strikes? Detroit? San Francisco? Perhaps this time New York itself will be abandoned - it certainly has as far as Homeland Security is concerned. You know - I can't even bring myself to speculate. It’s too damn upsetting. I hope in some alternate universe Bush is answering for his crimes - because you can be sure he will never answer for them here.
There's a problem with blogger at the moment... The Australian stuff has been archived Fuzzflash, so you can't get at it but I've posted copies through my link. Cheers.
Well said! It is obvious we should be doing what Hezbollah is doing! We used to operate that way, but now Shrub has eaten the guts out of the AID budget, which he has hidden inside the State Department. All the money for programs has gone to the war. Also, they're holding back on the $230 million promised Lebanon, because it can't be funneled through Hezbollah. That's going to be a problem in an area controlled by Hezbollah. We need a better plan to get our aid in, and still get credit for it. Skip of tsunamiofblood .
Mark - oops! I hadn't noticed that one! My only excuse is the combination of Lyrica (the medicine I'm taking) and the fact that it was almost daybreak when I posted it, and I was dog-tired. Well done!
On a different topic, there is an article that is an absolute Must Read, and should be copied and saved into one's computer: Putting Words in Ahmadinejad's Mouth, because practically all the world's media is repeating the lies the US told about Ahmadinejad and Iran - more big lies for Bush to justify attacking Iran...
First —howdy and welcome to odanny.
Vierotchka, thanks for the link. To be expected, Bush's BIG LIE machine is working overtime.
FatLadySings wrote: It has also supplied the manpower needed to rebuild southern Lebanon - while the entire Gulf Coast still lies in ruins. How much do you want to bet that by this time next year everything down New Orleans way will look essentially the same - but Lebanon will once again teem with people and Beirut will once again be a thriving metropolis?
That's my bet as well. And it points up the fraudulent nature of our so called "government" when a so-called "terrorist" organization is more responsive to the needs of people than the government of the US. In fact, it tends to support a conclusion that I arrived at some time ago: the Bush regime is completely without any legitimacy at all. We have NO government.
Fuzzflash, I have always suspected that Bush's remarks at the Clinton library all but gave his evil game away.
Hey, Vierotchka, thanks for the link. Yes, I had seen that one, I am a regular reader of Counterpunch and Antiwar.com. Your info and Damien's reconfirm that Ahmedinejad and the Iranian administration are being astonishingly reasonable under the circumstances; Damien, nice letter, it hit all the high points without getting drawn into mudslinging. Of course, it'll be interpreted as anti-Semitic, because you disagreed, but your even-handedness is still evident.
Ahmadenijad is proving amazingly clever at diplomacy - apart the alleged denial of the holocaust and his apparent overt hostility toward Israel, he has walked a fine line in diplomacy with the U.S. He manages to keep the momentum without ever backing down, but at the same time appearing reasonable and never giving Bush the opportunity he needs to launch an attack based on a genuine threat.
Hey, all; I came upon a handy site here -
http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/2006/09/assclowns-of-week-46-legionnaires_03.html
- . Pottersville's "Assclowns of the Week" feature is pretty funny on its own, quite well-written and worth checking out. However, what I also liked about it is the links on the right to the NYT's top commentators (Dowd/Rich/Krugman), available free without the necessity of being a subscriber. I pretty much gave up reading the Times as soon as they went to that Times Select format, but I always enjoyed Maureen Dowd's castigations of Dubya prior to that.
I realize links to Krugman posts are provided here, but this will allow you to access recent material by Dowd and Rich as well.
Oh, Vierotchka - I meant to get back to you earlier, but my crappy work computer was so slow loading the Katrina video, so I could listen to it. The vocalist is indeed Sara McLachlan, as odanny speculated earlier. Even if I didn't already know the song, that smooth octave break of hers is quite distinctive, and a prominent feature in many of her slow songs.
From Halifax, Nova scotia, Canada, Sara McLachlan is also the musician on this track, which is entitled, "Angel". It's an older song, from her 1997 CD "Surfacing", released in 1997.
Bush, today, regarding iran going nucular:
""I am not going to allow this to happen."
He already had!
Dante Lee, you're back! I was getting really worried about you... :)
Mark - thanks for the info about that singer. She has one of the purest voices I have heard. Wonderful!
Indeed, Ahmadinejad and Iran are true to their culture - highly civilized. :)
Here's a little something to cheer you all up!
Yesss!
:D
Wow. Mr. Ryan kicked some serious ass. It's a shame he's a politician, which implies he's inherently a liar as well, because he told the truth for at least 5 minutes. He even looked like he was getting angry by the end of it.
I'm sure he just signed up for having his phone wiretapped, and his email and internet traffic gone through with a fine-toothed comb.
Speaking of that, how hard would it be to insert bogus records of, say, kiddie-porn searches into somebody's ISP records? This presupposes you know they're not there already, but if the guy's innocent of everything that might discredit him, is it possible to fake? You know his denials would be meaningless.
If it's doable, you can bet DirtyTrix Inc. has a department working on it. This lot is the most unscrupulous, slimy, unethical, shamelessly criminal organization I have ever seen.
And another one (in case you missed it) - the raw, undiluted truth, and yet it's funny!
Mark, I don't think all politicians are liars, there are a few rare exceptions - the same applies to lawyers, some do brilliantly good jobs entirely pro bono and with a passion, getting patently innocent men out of death-row, for example, which is a long and very difficult process that has to cross a great many high hurdles. The picture may be dark right now, but it is not altogether completely gloomy. The darkest hour precedes the light, too. :)
Maybe you're right, Vierotchka - thanks for the positivity injection! I expect we could all use it from time to time.
I suppose the broad outlines of what I was getting at are that, if the Democrats were in power, they'd be making mistakes, too - and the Republicans would be ranting and foaming about what losers they were. I wish I had more faith that a simple change of administration would do the trick.
Here's a good example -
http://www.cnn.com/US/9607/30/clinton.terrorism/
- , you probably saw it already on C&L. If not, it's a 1996 news item about Bill Clinton's push for bipartisan support of an anti-terror bill! Amazingly, the All-About-Terror Republicans dragged their feet, and said it needed more debate!! The Unbelievable Talking Pile Of Shit formerly known as Orrin Hatch said he "had some problems with the president's proposals TO EXPAND WIRETAPPING!!" But now, the Talking Pile Of Shit is just Oooo-TAY (thank you, Buckwheat) with warrantless wiretapping at the King's pleasure.
It's hard to see this directionless seesawing from ditch to ditch ever resulting in anything like middle of the road.
Thanks for the kind words, fuzzflash. Yer a Gent! At least, you have the manners of one; your blog address is noticeably bare of data. I suppose you could be a lady...or a one-legged transvestite hooker with a pet wombat named Claude, for all I know.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I just love Howard Zinn...a real American hero and role model.
INCREDIBLE blog, cowboy!! Mark sent me over here. I just bloglined you so, if you don't mind, I will be back often!!
Pam
Pam, welcome to this happy brood of iconoclasts, wiseacres, philosophers, and just plain ol' ornery cusses. And I agree about Zinn. Reading him and getting the truth for a change is like getting out of Houston and breathing rocky mountain fresh air.
happy brood of iconoclasts, wiseacres, philosophers, and just plain ol' ornery cusses.
Oh, I will fit right in - lol!!
I lived in Houston for 5 years (1993-1998) so I know exactly what you are talking about re: the air.
I looked up the word Existentialist in the dictionary and found it means, “Opposed to empiricism.” Empiricism means, “The view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge.” So, are we talking about our 5 senses or our 6 senses? If we are talking about our 5 senses, then I would agree, but if we are talking about our 6 senses then I would disagree.
Existentialism is not defined as "opposed to empiricism". Many existentialists ARE empiricists. Sartre —perhaps the most prominent "existentialist" —wrote that Existenialism stems inexorably from Descartes' cogito i.e., I think, therefore I am! From the cogito, Descartes deduced the validity of sense experience, i.e empiricism, the belief that underlying all human knowledge is the data that is known only through the senses or their extensions.
Dictionaries are OK but they are not a substitute for an intro to Philosophy.
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