Phosphorous used as weapon

DAILY KOS has an excerpt from a US Army publication discussing use of white phosphorous as a weapon in the assault on Fallujah. Interestingly enough, just yesterday on Democracy Now, Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, I believe, or some other Boylan - Steve seems to be in charge of denying human rights violations and treaty violations on lefty radio - was denying they used white phosphorous that way. He said they used it for the smoke to conceal troop activity. The latter use is okay by the rules of the Geneva Conventions. The former is a violation. Hence the presence of Steve.

Can the events of the past couple of months be a rightwing plan to create sympathy for themselves by completely screwing up at every turn? Just yesterday Trent Lott publicly embarrassed Bill Frist - on purpose, on TV - by revealing that the source of the leak about black sites had probably been in the roomful of Republican senators who had been discussing it at length just the day before the story broke.

The wheels have come off, the chassis has crumbled, and their asses are dragging on the gravel. They must be overdoing it to arouse the pity of the voting public. No movement can implode this drastically by sheer dumbness. Right?

what is to be done

From NY Times:

 

"Flooding severed Isla Mujeres, a 4.2-mile-long island off Cancún, into three parts, and it remained cut off from the mainland. There were still no reports of how its 10,000 inhabitants fared, said Gov. Félix González Canto of Quintana Roo province."

 

The guys at La Pena, where we had the welcome dinner, originally came to Isla Mujeres to help out after a hurricane. So I guess they've got some experience, though not quite as personal as the one they're having now. I'm pretty sure everyone got off the island, though. That's what we've heard. But will they have schools and a town when they come back?

 

Some climatologists are saying we're at the beginning of a twenty-to-thirty-year cycle of increased hurricane activity. So the increase in number of storms is part of a cycle that's been observed historically. What's new is the power of the storms, fed by the warming Atlantic, which is apparently also causing parts of the Amazon River to dry up.

 

Great time for Davin and I to start planning a tropical lifestyle, n'est-ce pas? I guess by the time we retire, the cycle will be over and whatever desertification happens will have reached a plateau.

 

The personal is political is global is meteorological. Don't say I didn't badger you and everyone within earshot about it. But don't say I did, either. I'm sick of people saying that. "Oh, there goes Dorchen, badgering everyone within earshot about the personal is political is global is meteorological again," they say. I suppose it's my own fault. But isn't it enough that I know it's my own fault without having it pointed out to me? I guess not. But why not?

 

But the problems of a lone badger don't amount to a hill of beans when drastic climate changes are becoming a constant threat to people's lives and livelihoods, and to much of the spectacular beauty of nature. Then heap on top of that unethical corporate manipulation of agrarian cultures and land-management politics, among other unsavory meddling. This is why the message of Basmati Blues must be heard around the world. It really speaks to the issues of how we as a global society are going to treat the planet and its ability to sustain a diversity of species as well as cultures.

 

There's a futurological documentary I saw once about a quasi-fascist organization called the Planetary Management Association taking over the world. They enforced green behavior on everyone. Everyone got a limited alottment of resources, and access to technologies to manage those resources sustainably. I think it was run from Japan. The Japanese, I guess, are the next best thing to aliens (nb The Day the Earth Stood Still) when it comes to spanking a misbehaving humanity. They have experience being fascists, they have a healthy suspicion of environmentally devestating technology ... hmm ... but they also have a fishing industry they'd need to smack down.

 

Anyhow, making a musical might be an unlikely way to try to avoid being spanked into best practices by the superior Japanese of the future, but I really can't think of a better one. I've tried being an intolerable gripe. I've tried being a hedonistic layabout. I've even tried voluteering for stuff, which sucks, and I don't reccommend it. There's no money in it. And, come on, there's lots of money in the world. Three trillion in tax cuts, so I've heard. Who gave all that money away? He could use a good spanking from the Japanese of the future.

 

So, let's all hop on the Basmati Blues bandwagon. Now more than ever, as Che Baron says on his business card.

 

Oy. Fox News

Fox anchors announce RACE WAR in Ohio. Pretty strong, sexy stuff. The kind of stuff that will soon be bleating from your LOCAL FOX AFFILIATES. Both good, brief articles from Media Bistro. Roger Ailes - making McCarthyism marketable. Here's the full article from Variety that discusses the challenges Ailes faces. Number 1: the difference in demographics. Fox's cable news network's average viewer is 59 years old. That's some old bitches.

That's the effect of not having done drugs or had sex back in the 1960's. Or of having done bad drugs and had bad sex. Or of not learning the lessons of the Vietnam War. Or of just being a narrow-minded, xenophobic prick.

Dobsie and Harriet

Doesn't knowing a Supreme Court nominee's position on Roe disqualify her? I mean, isn't that what nominees are supposed to conceal until it's too late and they've sent women's reproductive rights back to Salem?

Too bad, Harriet. You were so qualified. From WSJ Opinion Journal.

Bust Hannity

Fox News Network's Sean Hannity is a dick. Blogger Steve J. would like to file a formal complaint against him with the Federal Elections Commission. I'd rather he be busted for the going postal on his fellow Fox News "personalities," but this will have to suffice. God, I hate Hannity.

Symptoms of the ethical Zeitgeist

Wacky dumbbell journalist quotes Onion-style satire as fact. Then quits. If only Judy Miller had such a sense of shame.

From the Nashville Scene, who published the satire in the first place, via Regret the Error. I can see how, in the current political climate, one might be led to believe that it's illegal to give nutritional sustenance to a prostitute.

Judy-non e culpa mea

At the Huffington Post, Arianna has a nice summary of [former?] Bush propaganda apparatchik Judith Miller's report in the NYT on her testimony to the Grand Jury. Obviously, there's tons to read about it - this is just a nice, light romp through Miller's and the NYT's hypocrisy on the matter.

How thougtful of NYT not to conceal Judy's revelations behind their NYT-Select peepshow curtain. Making readers pay to read Judy's Reagan-esque memoir of suspicious events would have added insult to injury.

Wonderful World O' Crap

World O' Crap does a lot of things well, including its comments on rightwing irrationality. Anntichrist Coulter, from what I gather, is an alter-ego to the lipless wound in the spacetime continuum who appears on Fox News Network with bile on her chin. Ann likes to airbrush her big adam's apple out of publicity photos. Annti, I guess, likes to mock Ann. And who doesn't?

This was posted today, appropos of the post about the Millions More, below. If you like it, visit the World O' Crap and check out their synopses of bad movies. Very relaxing.

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Gay Speaker Not Welcome Among Millions More

Article at Daily Kos, click here. Not surprising, which makes it that much sadder. The anti-gay fervor among "religious" people rivals the rise in public displays of Jew-hating. How about a Millions Shunned by Religious Chauvinists March? Not too catchy. Seems like GBLTs and Jews ought to be able to rally over a million people - although those categories do overlap. All categories overlap. How about the Millions in Overlap March? How about a Myriad Varieties of Human Beings March?

I won't be there, of course. I hate marches. But I encourage you all to go.