Monday, March 12, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Supporting the troops
Baudrillard's article got me thinking about this war (again), and specifically about the hypocrisy behind the "support our troops" movement. Now I realize this is anathema to all of you, but hear me out.
Current events such as those that we read in the papers can be separated between those that allow us to understand better the world (foreign policy pages, politics, economy, etc...) and those just describe individual occurrences (little old lady gets run over on the corner of 5th and Madison, say); we call them "faits divers" & i don't know what the english term for them is. What is interesting about the latter is that while they are largely pointless (what genuine need does one have for the knowledge that some anonymous person has got run over?), we also feel strongly and emotionally about them (maybe we knew this person, and we might also think "i cross this intersection all the time: this could have been me", or we might feel sincerely sad that a nice little old ladies got run over). This is the realm of the purely emotional, until some discussion is made about the absurdity of the world that we live in, say, where people get killed for not being fast enough, at which point the story migrates from the "fait divers" back into the say, sociological page.
Support the troops is the opposite trip in that it brings a foreign policy decision to the realm of the purely emotional faits divers. Don't like the policy? Well you must hate the people serving. It is a subterfuge to hush opposition to policy by bringing it down into the purely emotional level. (It also leads to comically self-contradictory statements such as when rummie was both "supporting the troops" and stating that one goes with the army one has when it came out that troops had insufficient body armor to protect themselves and that the pentagon was doing shamefully little about it.) What is most frightening about it is that it is rhetoric that is entirely independent from context: you could decide to go to war for the purpose of wiping out say, all [pick your ethnicity here] just because they are [] and we don't like [], and still argue that opponents aren't supportive of the troops.
Current events such as those that we read in the papers can be separated between those that allow us to understand better the world (foreign policy pages, politics, economy, etc...) and those just describe individual occurrences (little old lady gets run over on the corner of 5th and Madison, say); we call them "faits divers" & i don't know what the english term for them is. What is interesting about the latter is that while they are largely pointless (what genuine need does one have for the knowledge that some anonymous person has got run over?), we also feel strongly and emotionally about them (maybe we knew this person, and we might also think "i cross this intersection all the time: this could have been me", or we might feel sincerely sad that a nice little old ladies got run over). This is the realm of the purely emotional, until some discussion is made about the absurdity of the world that we live in, say, where people get killed for not being fast enough, at which point the story migrates from the "fait divers" back into the say, sociological page.
Support the troops is the opposite trip in that it brings a foreign policy decision to the realm of the purely emotional faits divers. Don't like the policy? Well you must hate the people serving. It is a subterfuge to hush opposition to policy by bringing it down into the purely emotional level. (It also leads to comically self-contradictory statements such as when rummie was both "supporting the troops" and stating that one goes with the army one has when it came out that troops had insufficient body armor to protect themselves and that the pentagon was doing shamefully little about it.) What is most frightening about it is that it is rhetoric that is entirely independent from context: you could decide to go to war for the purpose of wiping out say, all [pick your ethnicity here] just because they are [] and we don't like [], and still argue that opponents aren't supportive of the troops.
Hallelujah
now we gotta get rid of the other 3 morons. 2007 is going to look a lot like y'all's 2004.
The NY Daily news and geography
Note the caption under the photograph: there is apparently a village called "Mali" in a country called "Africa". There is also an illiterate janitor at the Daily News that doubles up as editor.
Stone-sliding, 2008...
You're not gonna want to miss this... (they average about an 18-pack of beer per player, per game — come to think of it, it doesn't matter if you do or don't miss it...)
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Pelosilogic
Ms. Pelosi said a veto would suggest to Iraqi leaders that the United States was not serious about making them more responsible for policing their own country. [...] “With his veto threat,” she said in a statement, “the president offers only an open-ended commitment to a war without end that dangerously ignores the repeated warnings of military leaders, including the commander in Iraq, General Petraeus, who declared in Baghdad this week that the conflict cannot be resolved militarily.”[...]Traveling in Latin America, Mr. Bush sent the speaker a request Saturday to adjust the administration’s spending proposal by shifting $3.2 billion from “lower priority” programs to pay for about 4,400 troops to bolster the 21,500 increase already sought for Iraq.
Incidentally, those 4,400 troops were requested by, uh, Petraeus. But never mind, Nancy.
Incidentally, those 4,400 troops were requested by, uh, Petraeus. But never mind, Nancy.
Russkie moonshine
The bouquet - rocket fuel with a touch of boot polish. Not for the yellow-livered.
The Appeaseonista has a Vision
He surely wants his terrorist groupies to travel in swift ease and grand style. Top that you rubes from Petain's Versailles.
On a more mundane note, what sort of traffic does he envision between Maghreb and Andalusia which can make this even remotely economically plausible??
On a more mundane note, what sort of traffic does he envision between Maghreb and Andalusia which can make this even remotely economically plausible??
Appeasement Works!
Or it would if Planet Pepe ruled. But here, on Third Rock;
""It is undoubtedly true that Spain is much more of a target today than before"
""It is undoubtedly true that Spain is much more of a target today than before"
Pepe Planet and its "Special" Institutions
Now, what are the odds SFSU would charge students for stomping on the flag of St. George [Flag of England, a red cross on a white background]???
UND's Mascot, and MFT's traditional stance
If you click on the headline link ("UND's Mascot, and MFT's traditional stance"), it'll take you to an article that shows an often unknown side of the late Ralph Engelstad, a multi-million dollar donor to the University of North Dakota. Throughout the nation, many NeoCons are lulled into the argument that the NCAA is belligerent and out of line in trying to make UND change their mascot from the "Fighting Sioux" to something else. As a traditionalist in this respect, I argue for a return to UND's original namesake (and the State rodent of North Dakota), the "Flickertails."
When the UND Flickertails go to Boston College, and Vancouver, and Harvard, and beat the shit out of their hockey teams, it would only add insult to injury if UND Hockey was wearing the traditional mascot — a flickertail — along with the traditional colors, prairie rose pink. The Sioux — whether Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Sisseton, or Yanktona — were ferocious, and any Mandan, Hidatsa or Arikara nation will tell you that. My argument, ultimately, is grounded in my disdain towards Ralph Engelstad, a man who might as well have run as David Duke's Vice Presidential candidate.
Fuck you, Engelstad. My great uncle fought against your furor's army. And I'll be goddamned if he did it for nothing. GO FLICKERTAILS!
(note: the rodent on the .50 isn't a true flickertail, but it was the best I could find.)
Friday, March 09, 2007
National Socialist Hugo's Kulture-Kampf
Chavez's Ameriphobia. How sophisticated... (JJ, the bird-pic please...) Instead of Brown Shirts, we have Red Shirts. Wonderful.
Question: what the hell are Hugo and Castro holding together? Is that one of Pepe's contraptions?
Winter Hook
While the sodomy and strap-on and Islamic Jihad on Western Civilization dialogue has been at normal levels, it's been getting a bit lax around here in regards to the ale and beer. Here's a rather good seasonal ale I found this evening, comparatively smooth and weighing in at 6.0%.
What else is on tap for the weekend, FCP'ers?
Little Mosques on the Canuckian Prairie
It's a sad day on Planet Pepe when even the CBC leaves the plantation
Ted Koppel on Continuity of Islam Militant
Toward the bottom-center of this link you'll see a light-blue numeric bar, so click on the time-line. It begins with the 1961 hijacking, and carries through with the 09/05/1972 Munich Olympic Massacre (petty theft and vandals), the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis (merely a regional event), the 06/14/1985 Athens-to-Rome TWA hijacking by Hezbollah (again, more vandals), the '88 Pan Am flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland (12/21), the 02/26/1993 World Trade Center bombing (merely punks with nothing to do), the 10/03/1993 Ranger/SEAL/Delta in the "Mog" to capture a Somali warlord who was hording the Peace Keeping food and killing his locals (again, regional pirates), the 02/25/1994 retaliation where Baruch Goldstein and an American do a not-so-nice thing (to say the least) and kill 29 worshiping Muslims in Hebron, the 04/19/1995 Oklahoma City bombing (perpetrated by paranoid bigots who thought the Feds were really coming for them: may they rest in hell if it exists), the 06/25/1996 slaying of 19 American military personnel in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (ever our friends), the 08/07/1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania (just punks having fun; nothing to see here folks), the 10/12/2000 attack on the USS Cole (slight cheer from Pepe can be heard), and finally what's somewhat still familiar to Americans: September 11, 2001. The final two links are of the 03/11/2004 Madrid train bombings (just punks having fun again, eh Pepe? note: almost 200 Spaniards dead), and the 07/07/2005 London train bombings (more than 50 killed). Off hand, I see the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut was left out (for one reason or another), but Ted Koppel mentioned it on the Colbert Report this evening (I tried YouTubing it with no luck).
Thursday, March 08, 2007
"Life Is Beautiful" Internet Virus
I received this in my university e-mail in-box today. Check it out.
Please Be Extremely Careful especially if using internet mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on. This information arrived this morning direct from both Microsoft and Norton.
You may receive an apparently harmless email with a Power Point presentation "Life is beautiful"
If you receive it DO NOT OPEN THE FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and delete it immediately. If you open this file, a message will appear on your screen saying: "It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful." Subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC and the person who sent it to you will gain access to your name, e-mail and password.
This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon. AOL has already confirmed the severity, and the antivirus software's are not capable of destroying it. The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself "life owner."
Please Be Extremely Careful especially if using internet mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on. This information arrived this morning direct from both Microsoft and Norton.
You may receive an apparently harmless email with a Power Point presentation "Life is beautiful"
If you receive it DO NOT OPEN THE FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and delete it immediately. If you open this file, a message will appear on your screen saying: "It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful." Subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC and the person who sent it to you will gain access to your name, e-mail and password.
This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon. AOL has already confirmed the severity, and the antivirus software's are not capable of destroying it. The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself "life owner."
Pepe Planet in Crescent, or Drips for Allah
This reminds me that CAIR has set up a "Constitutional Project", and handsomely paid some top legal profs as part of it, to see if there is some way around that separation of church and state thingee......can't imagine why they so Cair.
A neat line: "A second step would be to establish institutes in the U.S. which can supplement legal education with courses in Islamic family law. At the same time, pressure should be put on law schools to include courses in Shariah taught by Muslims."
Note that this article is from 1993, and for those who have actually followed the progress of this program in the last decade plus [so no one from Versailles] it is noteworthy how much has been achieved in such a short time [did you think all those instructional classes in Islam in our public schools, and those blossoming university institutes in Law or "culture" of Islam, were proof of spontaneous generation?].
Two of many interesting points.:
The author was worried that the american public knowing of the overseas funding and outside sources of this movement would damage the effort..... he really needn't have worried, as Ever Our Friends and Allies the Saudi's could have assured him.
Also, the author was focussed on native american tribal law as offerring insight into how to introduce Sharia into this country; today, however, as recent lawsuits have shown, much promise also lies in legally undermining american law and customs which are inconsistent with Islam. So for example with the legal tradition that "marriage" be defined as one man-one woman; the notion (already battered) of equality of all under the law; the notion (ever challenged) that the constitution and the law emanating from it cannot be disregarded or subverted to the needs of an ideology or creed........
A neat line: "A second step would be to establish institutes in the U.S. which can supplement legal education with courses in Islamic family law. At the same time, pressure should be put on law schools to include courses in Shariah taught by Muslims."
Note that this article is from 1993, and for those who have actually followed the progress of this program in the last decade plus [so no one from Versailles] it is noteworthy how much has been achieved in such a short time [did you think all those instructional classes in Islam in our public schools, and those blossoming university institutes in Law or "culture" of Islam, were proof of spontaneous generation?].
Two of many interesting points.:
The author was worried that the american public knowing of the overseas funding and outside sources of this movement would damage the effort..... he really needn't have worried, as Ever Our Friends and Allies the Saudi's could have assured him.
Also, the author was focussed on native american tribal law as offerring insight into how to introduce Sharia into this country; today, however, as recent lawsuits have shown, much promise also lies in legally undermining american law and customs which are inconsistent with Islam. So for example with the legal tradition that "marriage" be defined as one man-one woman; the notion (already battered) of equality of all under the law; the notion (ever challenged) that the constitution and the law emanating from it cannot be disregarded or subverted to the needs of an ideology or creed........
Not bad at all!
AA, thanks for reminding me CL was on today. Had forgotten. Missed everything, but it's nice to see Gattuso on the cover at UEFA (and Real Madrid knocked out).
field notes: Bar-B-Que in Kansas City, MO...
I recently returned from Kansas City, Missouri, but not until the tail end of my trip. I was always in Kansas City, but only in the suburbs, up until (as I said) the tail end of my trip. A colleague took us downtown before we were dropped at the airport (KCI is one of the shittier I've been in along the Missouri River). We went to a Kansas City bar-b-que joint entitled, "Arthur Bryant's," on the 1700 block of Brooklyn St., downtown KC. It was fairly good, but in the slop-food kind of way. There were pictures of John Ashcroft and Thurgood Marshal and Steven Spielberg on the wall. I guess they ate at Arthur Bryants's too.
A quote from my MSP flight: "Any guy who has a mother should read this book..." (think about that for a minute, but not too hard otherwise you too might go retarded.)
A quote from my MSP flight: "Any guy who has a mother should read this book..." (think about that for a minute, but not too hard otherwise you too might go retarded.)
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Finding the G-had Spot in Pepe Planeteers
No doubt Le Pew thinks he got a bum's rush from the Bush-Neocon Cabal
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Wikiscandal
Next, you'll tell me that those pictures of the hot babes in my area aren't for real. Conspiracy theory hack wackos!
Here, a guy has fun comparing Wikipedia to Seymour Hersh. What fun!
Monday, March 05, 2007
BULLY!: Teddy on Bibliophiles
Just pulling a sentence or two from Teddy Roosevelt's autobiography. This struck me as interesting, and may be for you bibliophiles out there too:
Teddy: "Books are almost as individual as friends. There is no earthly use in laying down general laws about them. Some meet the needs of one person, and some of another; and each person should beware of the booklover's besetting sin, of what Mr. Edgar Allan Poe calls 'the mad pride of intellectuality,' taking the shape of arrogant pity for the man who does not like the same kind of books.... Now and then I am asked as to 'what books a statesman should read,' and my answer is, poetry and novels — including short stories under the head of novels... He ought to read interesting books on history and government, and books of science and philosophy; and really good books on these subjects are as enthralling as any fiction ever written in prose or verse. Gibbon and Macaulay, Herootus, Thucydides and Tacitus, the Heimskringla, Froissart, Joinville and Villehardouin, Parkman and Mahan [where Teddy got his idea for the Great White Fleet], Mommsen and Rank... [and] Darwin and Huxley and Carlyle and Emerson, and parts of Kant, and of volumes like Sutherland's 'Growth of the Moral Instinct,' or [Lord] Acton's Essays and Lounsbury's studies..."
Excerpt taken from chapter IX entitled, "Outdoors and Indoors"
V-Twin?
AA posted something about how Putin only listens to conservative advisers, and then saw this in the sidebar. I don't know how to do the little kittie icon, though. JJ?
Note: she's waving to the FCP'ers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
