What George Bush Hath Wrought

"Vigilantes Kill 40 Women in Iraq's South" (from AP):

Religious vigilantes have killed at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city of Basra because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against "violating Islamic teachings," the police chief said Sunday. . .

Throughout Iraq, many women wear a headscarf and others wear a full face veil although secular women are often unveiled. Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the rise of a Shiite-dominated government, armed men in some parts of the country have sometimes forced women to cover their heads or face punishment. In some areas of the heavily Shiite south, even Christian women have been forced to wear headscarves.

Before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, was known for its mixed population and night life. Now, in some areas, red graffiti threatens any woman who wears makeup and appears with her hair uncovered: "Your makeup and your decision to forgo the headscarf will bring you death." . . .

"The Shame of Sandra Day O'Connor"

Talking about the Supreme Court getting Bush into office, I thought this post by Mary at The Left Coaster was excellent.

Frank Rich, a Re-Evaluation

I think he writes great stuff these days--and I cite his columns here often--but I wasn't aware that he was one of those in the media who participated in the trashing of Al Gore prior to the 2000 election. Mind you, I was a little more naive and a little less well informed back then. It was around that time that I was beginning to delve into exactly what The New York Times was reporting and to read blogs, such as "Media Whores Online" and "The Daily Howler" (Bob Somerby).

I firmly believe that the media did a horrible disservice to the country during the 2000 elections, and as a direct result we got George Bush for president and all the mess he has heaped upon us. I blame the media--even more than I blame the Supreme Court--for George Bush's getting into office (even though the Supreme Court made it 'legal,' despite Al Gore's getting the most votes).

We should never let off the hook--for the deaths and maimings of our soldiers and of all the Iraqi civilians in the unnecessary and failed Iraq War, sold to the American people on false pretenses (and not to mention all the other misfeasance and malfeasance of Bush's administration)--those reporters who participated in the trashing of Al Gore. And one of those was Frank Rich. From a recent article in Vanity Fair:

The seeds of Gore's caricature had been planted in 1997 when he, the presumptive candidate for 2000, made a passing comment about Erich Segal's Love Story, over the course of a two-hour interview with Time's Karen Tumulty and The New York Times's Richard Berke, for profiles they were writing. Tumulty recounts today that, while casually reminiscing about his days at Harvard and his roommate, the future actor Tommy Lee Jones, Gore said, It's funny—he and Tipper had been models for the couple in his friend Erich Segal's Love Story, which was Jones's first film. Tumulty followed up, "Love Story was based on you and Tipper?" Gore responded, "Well, that's what Erich Segal told reporters down in Tennessee."

As it turned out, The Nashville Tennessean, the paper Gore was referring to, had said Gore was the model for the character of Oliver Barrett. But the paper made a small mistake. There was some Tommy Lee Jones thrown in, too. "The Tennessean reporter just exaggerated," Segal has said. And Tipper was not the model for Jenny.

In her story, Tumulty and co-author Eric Pooley treated the anecdote as an offhand comment. But political opinion writers at The New York Times, it seems, interpreted the remark as a calculated political move on Gore's part. "It's somewhat suspicious that Mr. Gore has chosen this moment to drop the news—unknown even to many close friends and aides," wrote Times columnist Maureen Dowd. "Does he think, going into 2000, that this will give him a romantic glow, or a romantic afterglow?" Times columnist Frank Rich followed it up. "What's bizarre," he wrote, "if all too revealing … is not that he inflated his past but that he would think that being likened to the insufferable preppy Harvard hockey player Oliver Barrett 4th was something to brag about in the first place." [Emphasis added.]

I'm sorry, but I find it easier to excuse Hillary Clinton for voting for the resolution that led to the invasion of Iraq than to excuse the reporters who ganged up on Al Gore and helped Bush get elected in the first place. It is they who are ultimately responsible for all the death, destruction, maiming, misery, and disgrace to our nation that this presidential administration has brought on.

Grim News for South Florida's Future

The areas shown in orange will be swamped with a 1-meter rise in sea level.

In about a century, some of the places that make America what it is may be slowly erased.

Global warming - through a combination of melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets and warmer waters expanding - is expected to cause oceans to rise by one meter, or about 39 inches. It will happen regardless of any future actions to curb greenhouse gases, several leading scientists say. And it will reshape the nation. . . .

Few of the more than two dozen climate experts interviewed disagree with the one-meter projection. Some believe it could happen in 50 years, others say 100, and still others say 150. . . .

"We're going to get a meter and there's nothing we can do about it,'' said University of Victoria climatologist Andrew Weaver, a lead author of the February report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Paris. "It's going to happen no matter what - the question is when.'' . . .

Experts say that protecting America's coastlines would run well into the billions and not all spots could be saved. . . .

I have to wonder whether we'd be in this situation had Al Gore become president. At any rate, eight long years of Bush--with the lack of U.S. initiative on climate change--can't have helped.

Check out this animated map from the University of Arizona's Department of Geosciences. More maps here.

Read the whole Guardian article here.

"Gingrich plots revenge on Clintons"

"Firebrand Republican threatens last-minute White House run to end primary 'chaos' - and stop Hillary"

As a person of Christian upbringing myself, I deign not judge my fellow human beings, but despite all that Newt Gingrich is in my humble estimation a cad and a despicable human being (although he's right on about George Bush's failure as president). Let him run for president and see what happens. As compromised and hypocritical as the Religious Right is, they still wouldn't overtly support a candidate who cheated on his second wife while she lay in the hospital battling cancer and then divorced her (serving papers in the hospital, no less) to marry the mistress. He's a piece of shit. "Bring it on."

George Bush Has Killed More Americans Than Al-Qaeda Did on 9/11

And that's in Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. For the particulars, see:

"U.S. Deaths in Iraq Exceed 9/11 Count"

Hoaxes and Urban Legends

Rumors fly here on the Internet, often involving the food we eat and the products we use. "Don't believe everything you read," I tell people. And if something sounds fantastic or too terrible to be true, most likely it is. You can always check out rumors at Snopes.

Tonight I came across the following while reading "Cliff's Corner" on Americablog:

Hopefully I have brought a bit of laughter and passion to some of you, while to others, I'm sure this column elicits a similar bodily reaction to that of un-referigerated [sic] Taco Bell meat.

Aside from being poorly written and puerile (which is why I normally don't read the column), the passage also (not surprisingly) perpetuates a hoax about Taco Bell meat. You can find out more about it here.

We have plenty to worry about with George Bush wreaking havoc at home and abroad. Why sweat the false stuff.

Al Qaeda Flourishes with George Bush in Power

Telling, from the New Yorker article, in case you haven't read it:

Just before the 2004 American elections, Kilcullen was doing intelligence work for the Australian government, sifting through Osama bin Laden’s public statements, including transcripts of a video that offered a list of grievances against America: Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, global warming. The last item brought Kilcullen up short. “I thought, Hang on! What kind of jihadist are you?” he recalled. The odd inclusion of environmentalist rhetoric, he said, made clear that “this wasn’t a list of genuine grievances. This was an Al Qaeda information strategy.” Ron Suskind, in his book “The One Percent Doctrine,” claims that analysts at the C.I.A. watched a similar video, released in 2004, and concluded that “bin Laden’s message was clearly designed to assist the President’s reëlection.” Bin Laden shrewdly created an implicit association between Al Qaeda and the Democratic Party, for he had come to feel that Bush’s strategy in the war on terror was sustaining his own global importance.

Al Qaeda thrives on George; George thrives on Al Qaeda. Two sides of the same coin. No wonder George never nailed Osama when he had the opportunity.

Meanwhile almost 3000 American soldiers have died in Iraq, which had nothing to do with Al Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

War (Continued)

Having grown up in the Viet Nam era and, as cannon fodder, survived (see past post), I think the war in Iraq is a hideous mistake and have thought so from the start. You don't go to war unless somebody attacks you (or threatens to).* And then you go after those guys, not somebody else. (Whatever happened to "Speak softly and carry a big stick" anyway?)

I think this administration has given democracy a black eye. You don't try to impose democracy on other countries. Rather, you set a good example and others will follow. Lately, we've set a very bad example. And with the way this administration has curtailed our own freedoms and resorted to torture, what really is there to emulate? We've become less of a democracy than we were before. Now we've become the devil.

From Poputonian at Hullaballoo (speech made to the UN Security Council by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin before the invasion of Iraq), with Poputonian's comments:

Therefore, I would like solemnly to address a question to this body, and it's the very same question being asked by people all over the world. Why should we now engage in war with Iraq? And I would also like to ask, why smash the instruments that have just proven their effectiveness? Why choose division when our unity and our resolve are leading Iraq to get rid of its weapons of mass destruction? Why should we wish to proceed by force at any price when we can succeed peacefully?

War is always an acknowledgment of failure. Let us not resign ourselves to the irreparable. Before making our choice, let us weigh the consequences. Let us measure the effects of our decision. And it's clear to all in Iraq, we are resolutely moving toward completely eliminating programs of weapons of mass destruction. The method that we have chosen worked.

De Villepin then detailed the positive results coming in from the inspection reports and talked of the success of other pressures being brought to bear on Iraq. He continued:

What conclusions can we draw? That Iraq, according to the very terms used by the inspectors, represents less of a danger to the world than it did in 1991, that we can achieve our objective of effectively disarming that country. Let us keep the pressure on Baghdad.

The adoption of Resolution 1441, the assumption of converging positions by the vast majority of the world's nations, diplomatic action by the Organization of African Unity, the League of Arab States, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the non-aligned movement, all of these common efforts are bearing fruit.
...
Let us be clear-sighted. We are defining a method to resolve crisis. We are choosing how to define the world we want our children to live in.

These crises have many roots. They are political, religious, economic. Their origins lie deep in the turmoil of history.
…
There may be some who believe that these problems can be resolved by force, thereby creating a new order. But this is not what [we] believe. On the contrary, we believe that the use of force can arouse resentment and hatred, fuel a clash of identities and of cultures, something that our generation has a prime responsibility to avoid.
…
To those who believe that war would be the quickest way of disarming Iraq, I can reply that it will drive wedges and create wounds that will be long in healing. And how many victims will it cause? How many families will grieve?
…
We do not subscribe to what may be the other objectives of a war. Is it a matter of regime change in Baghdad? No one underestimates the cruelty of this dictatorship or the need to do everything possible to promote human rights. But this is not the objective of Resolution 1441. And force is certainly not the best way of bringing about democracy. Here and elsewhere it would encourage dangerous instability.
…
Is it a matter of fighting terrorism? War would only increase it and we would then be faced with a new wave of violence.
…
Is it finally a matter of recasting the political landscape of the Middle East? In that case, we run the risk of exacerbating tensions in a region already marked by great instability. Not to mention that in Iraq itself, the large number of communities and religions already represents a danger of a potential break-up.
…
We all have the same demands. We want more security and more democracy. But there is another logic other than the logic of force. There is another path. There are other solutions. We understand the profound sense of insecurity with which the American people have been living since the tragedy of September 11, 2001. The entire world shared the sorrow of New York and of America struck in the heart. And I say this in the name of our friendship for the American people, in the name of our common values: freedom; justice; tolerance.
…
But there is nothing today to indicate a link between the Iraqi regime and al Qaeda. And will the world be a safer place after a military intervention in Iraq? I want to tell you what my country's conviction is: It will not.

We all know that when it comes to foreign policy George Bush is dumber than a box of hammers, so where did the ideological idea come from that led to this war, and who is the architect of the public relations fraud that sold it to the American sheeple? The answer is that it came from the Republican party, and the PR architect was none other than Karl Rove. Less than one year ago, he was gloating about the the success of the grandiose scheme . . . .

________________________
* People who start wars are bad. That's "morally clear" to me.

I Thought This Was A Classic

From Steve Gilliard. As someone commented (and it's hard to make out on this version of the photo), what the hell is George W. Bush wearing on his feet?

George W. Bush's Problem

He never developed an intellect that was commensurate with his family's much vaunted standing, and in his weakness let himself be shanghaied by the Christianists. Nowadays, true to form, he remains a clueless patsy for power-hungry ideologues with truly bad ideas.

Do check out the link from the Guardian. It seems this family will do anything for a buck. Not exactly what you would call "patriotic."

Here's another tidbit, from "'Dynasty of Death'--Historical Perspective on the Bush Family," by Schuyler Ebbets:

There is no historic parallel that can be drawn, nothing compares with the accomplishments of the Bush family. No dictator or tyrant can equal the suffering and destruction they have wrought on humanity, as they are not mere tyrants themselves, but the makers and breakers of tyrants, the organizers and profiteers of war and death. They are not alone and solely responsible for creating the present day military industrial complex, however since 1915 the Bush family has been directly involved in World War One and Two, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, numerous CIA secret wars, the Gulf War, and now a “Never Ending War”. The past four generations of this one family have had a hand in promoting and profiting from most of major wars that America has waged since the beginning of the industrialized age.

The nightmare for the world began in 1915, with the establishment of an unholy partnership between the U.S. Government and the ‘War Industries Board', for-runner of America's present day 'military-industrial complex'. Some of those seated on the board of directors were Samuel P. Bush, great grandfather of George W. bush, and so-called chief of Ordnance for the Small Arms and Ammunition Section, Wall Street banker Clarence Dillon, Samuel Pryor, executive committee chairman of Remington Arms, and Bernard Baruch, who, as head of the War Industries Board profited in excess of $200,000,000.

War (Continued)

I was all for the invasion of Afghanistan -- to apprehend, and bring to justice, Osama bin Laden, who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. The Taliban government was sponsoring him. Did they plan on attacking Miami next?

The invasion of Iraq, on the other hand, was totally uncalled for. Iraq was no threat to the U.S. That much was thoroughly documented, although perhaps you wouldn't have thought so if you relied on the "mainstream media" for your information. As odious as Saddam Hussein was, given his past bad behavior, there was no compelling reason to invade Iraq. And now, having invaded Iraq and upset the apple cart (to put it mildly), we've created a new haven for the very sort of terrorists who attacked us on 9/11.

The neoconservatives had been pushing for an invasion of Iraq for years, largely in the interests of Israel. (As if the U.S. has never done enough for Israel.) They just had to find a stooge like George Bush to effectuate their plans. And now, in the wake of the disaster in Iraq, the neoconservatives are repudiating Bush, knowing full well they've helped to destroy the U.S.'s reputation in the world.

Meanwhile people are dying by the thousands, including our soldiers. I would like to think there'll be a special circle in hell for the neoconservatives.

(To be continued)

War (Continued)

While President Bush was in Viet Nam this past week, he said "that the lesson of [the Viet Nam War] was that the U.S. needs to stay in Iraq and 'win' this time." * I can only wonder what his Vietnamese hosts thought about that. The fact that he said it while visiting Viet Nam speaks volumes about how fundamentally thoughtless, how clueless, how reckless in his judgment he is. This self-proclaimed "war president" is a buffoon. It would be funny if people weren't dying.

Tragically, the lesson of Viet Nam fell on deaf ears. You don't send soldiers to die in a quagmire. And in Bush's case, it's a quagmire of his own making. I would like to think, riffing on Christian mythology, there'll be special circle in hell for George W. Bush.

(To be continued)

_____________
*E & P

Quiet Night (Continued)

(Eating some of that sauerbraten right now, cold. And finishing off the ginger snaps.)

Since I moved in here over 4 years ago, I'd never had a trick-or-treater knock on my door. (The first year, I bought candy.) Last night I had a bunch of them but no candy, so I put ginger snaps in plastic bags and handed them out. Plus B. had a few snack cakes lying around.

Back to the other topic. Nowadays the Republicans will do anything -- anything, no matter how vile and depraved -- to win elections and hold power. It's all about winning -- and playing a dirty game. Since most Americans are basically Democratic in their thinking, the only way Republicans can win is by spreading lies and distortions about the opposition, lying about their own agenda (since the voters otherwise wouldn't approve, e.g., starting needless wars and privatizing everything to enrich themselves and their cronies to the detriment and at the expense of the public), scaring the voters, and subverting the democratic process by tampering with elections. (And of course the Supreme Court helped in one instance.)

As much as today's Republicans lack in principles and scruples, they also lack in ideas. And the mantle of morality in which they cloak themselves is but a thin veil for the hatred and hypocrisy that in essence define them. I just hope the voters will stop being fooled. And we've got to get rid of those paperless voting machines, too.

Time to chill.

Quiet Night at Home

(Hmmmm. I began to type this title and it popped up. I must have used it in the former blog.)

I was going to go to the gym tonite but decided to stay home. B. is at work but has tomorrow night off. It's been hectic around here and also at work. I'm tired. Can make up the gym visit. I haven't been on the blog since Saturday.

Last night I came home and began finishing off a sauerbraten that had been marinating since last Thursday night. I hadn't made this dish in a while. I came to love it years ago while I was an exchange student in Germany. Before then, I don't believe I'd ever had it. At least in the region of Germany where I spent most of the year (Westphalia), this dish was made for special occasions -- I think I first had it at Christmas dinner.

I had run out of juniper berries (for the marinade) a while back and, as expected, the local Publix didn't have them. Rather than make an almost impossible mid-week run to Laurenzo's or Epicure Market, I decided to go with pickling spice, as called for in a recipe from the Fanny Farmer Cookbook. (I'd also gathered up a few recipes from the Web to consult.) The pickling spice did a serviceable job, but I prefer the flavor imparted by the juniper berries and will stick to using those from now on.

Yesterday I also prepared a sauteed cabbage side dish from The Joy of Cooking, along with potato dumplings -- from a box. Both turned out excellent. I'd been afraid to subject finicky B. to the traditional German sweet-and-sour cabbage (which I love) and go with the sauteed cabbage, since I'd made it before and he liked it. This is a rather simple affair -- a grated head of cabbage sauteed in bacon drippings with onion or garlic (I used both) and then baked in the oven with a cup of sour cream. (I also drizzled some vinegar in it.) The last thing I made was the gravy from the meat marinade, thickening it with the usual ginger snaps. Came out great but everything took several hours, including cleaning up the mess in the kitchen. Hence, I'm taking the night off.

Changing the subject. What about all the flap over John Kerry's maliciously misconstrued joke! I'd like to see George Bush come out and apologize for causing the deaths of 2,800 U.S. soldiers and who knows how many Iraqi citizens. (More anon -- have to run to the store.)