Sunday, April 17, 2005

A gift to humanity


Follow-up: West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin has vetoed the Hillbilly English-only bill.

But is it art? From the Observer: “A Berlin couple plan to have their first baby at an art gallery on 24 April. Winifried Witt and Ramune Gele described their decision to have their child at the DNA-Galerie in central Berlin as ‘a gift to humanity’. About 30 people are expected to attend the birth.” I’ve heard of an art opening, but this is ridiculous.

A WaPo exclusive contains the stunning news that the American military commander in Afghanistan claims to be winning. Lt. Gen. David Barno went on to assert that any really spectacular military action by the Taliban will just show their desperation. Heard that one before. Barno says that Talibani are giving up because “they don’t want to be in this fight that goes against the tide of history here in Afghanistan any longer.” Yes, Talibani hate going against the tide of history, they positively pride themselves on their trendiness.

California prison guards, who have a ridiculously powerful union, have been getting training credits for finding words in jumbles, you know the sort of thing. For example at Pelican Bay last December, guards found words like candycane, elf, Frosty, and Santa Claus for one hour’s credit. Guards are of course supposed to be finding actual elf and frosty, which are I believe street slang for amphetamines and cocaine respectively, up prisoners’ asses, at least I assume that must be the rationale.

An LA Times article gives the D’s their strongest approach to combating Bush’s judicial nominees. It points out the existing strong R majority on most federal circuit courts, with only the currently evenly divided 6th Circuit due to change hands. So it’s not, can’t be, about fighting R domination of the judiciary; rather, the article says, it’s about “the kind of Republican who joins the courts”. That’s what the D’s should be saying. And oh look, here’s Rick Santorum writing an op-ed piece in the WaPo, paving the way for the nuclear option by pretending that Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown (she’s the daughter of a sharecropper, you know) are middle-of-the-road jurists unfairly hurt by an “unprecedented campaign of obstruction.” He uses the word “extreme” two times in as many sentences. Rick Santorum does. Rick fucking Santorum. And then accuses the D’s not only of dissing the American people by their stalling of Bush nominees, but of threatening the separation of powers.

A NYT article Saturday about the US cancelling water projects in Iraq and shifting the money to the military contains this killer quote from a civil engineer: “If the Americans think that training the Iraqi Army comes before clean drinking water for the people of Halabja, then we can’t expect anything from them.” And of course Halabja is a Kurdish town, so a stronger Iraqi army doesn’t protect it but actually threatens Kurdish autonomy.

The Sindy reports that the US has been selling arms to the Haitian coup government in violation of its own supposed arms embargo.

No comments:

Post a Comment