perfidy

With everyone's enemies in the Middle East doing the human butchery thing over and over again these days as if there's anything in the Koran about how Allah smiles on the headless corpse of a Yankee infidel-- especially the third or fourth time you do it-- Giblets of fafblog offers some analysis that I think is right on.

George Bush thinks they're doing this to "shake our will." Giblets doesn't know about that. I think this is what they do to do anything. This is what they do to get attention. This is what they do to distract people from things they don't want them to see. If they had enough innocent victims on hand, this is how they'd ask each other to pass the jelly. For a while Giblets thought it was just a serious communications-oriented neurological disorder like Tourette's, only instead of swearing a lot you kill people. But I think these guys just like killing people.

This stopped being about Allah or whatever a long time ago for these dudes, and started being some wierd-ass "Lord of the Flies" trip, except this time the fat kid is America, and our fat ass fights back.

[wik] I would have used "Bride of Chucky" instead of "Lord of the Flies" in the above, except then I would have had to think of someone to compare to Jennifer Tilly. There are some depths to which even I shall not stoop.

[alsø wik] Hijinks like these make it easy to believe that on some level we are in a clash of civilizations, especially since most people in what used to be called "The West" before Political Correctness made that unsavory would agree that one thing civilized people do is not behead people. That was tried with some enthusiasm in France and was eventually soundly rejected.

[alsø alsø wik] Not that "The West" is anything but a semifunctional shorthand for an increasingly diverse set of traditions that started, ironically, in Iraq and continue through the Enlightment and Industrial Revolution, not all of which took place in any locale that could be even generously geographically described as being to the west of anything. We do, after all, live on a slightly squashed spheroid. But still. Regardless of what you call it, for us, beheadings are soooo right out. For them, beheadings are soooo right now.

Thanks to circumstances tragically within my control, posting will be light from me for the next few little whiles, unless that is you welcome hearing from someone in a fit of misanthropy so profound that HL Mencken himself would ask me to lighten the hell up already.

Over to GeekLethal, Ross, and the prodigal and hopefully regainfullyemployed Buckethead.

[wik] As a sop to all the millions heartbroken by the tailing off of my prolific and nonpareil output, well... I've added Fafblog to the blogroll. Go read fafblog!

On June 21, Burt Rutan will send SpaceShipOne (lame! Lame! Why not "Icarus" or "Red Rider" or "Screw You NASA Nazi Punks!"?) into sub-orbital space.

Thanks to the ever-effervescent boingboing website place for continuing daily coverage.

A SCENE FROM SOMEWHERE IN IRAQ

"Soldier, where is the super-secret dangerous prisoner with high-grade intelligence in his cranium that Secretary Rumsfeld told us to hide from the Red Cross? It's question time again."

"Erm... We've lost him, sir."

"Lost him?"

"That's right. We're sure he's around here somewhere since he can't run with his hands and feet tied to a broomstick, but we can't find him just now. He'll turn up."

"Are you certain?"

"Uhh.. sure. What the hell. Certain enough, sir."

...and scene. Seems like Rummy has a lot to answer for. See, we (we meaning the USA, its people, military, and film heroes) don't pull hijinks like this for two reasons: because it's shitty and wrong; and because we don't want other people to do it to our guys when the time comes around.

It's the old schoolyard rule about not going nuclear. If you try a nut-shot and miss (or if the other guy doesn't go down) you better know you just escalated the fight, mister. It's all pipes and pointed sticks from there on out, and someone's not getting up off the ground when it's over.

I will always have a soft spot in my otherwise stony Yankee heart for utter cranks. The moonbats among us enrich all our lives in uncounted and under-appreciated ways. Nothing beats watching them at work, of course, but reading their publications is almost as good. Hell, sometimes it's even better, because you get the footnotes.

Michael Salla, a professor at American University's School of International Service, helps train diplomats and further the academic study of peace and conflict resolution.

He also has a side job developing his study of "exopolitics", or relations between Earth's shadow government and aliens, and has a website for it. 'Cuz, you see, "...many, if not all, international conflicts were related to the extraterrestrial presence."

One of his recent papers describes that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with oil, religion, 9-11, Osama, or anything else so obviously obvious. Instead, Dr. Salla writes that the war is actually about securing Stargates, ancient technologies that allow malevolent aliens to sidestep the existing planet-wide quarantine against malevolent aliens. See, that's why you don't see so many aliens running around, it's because of the quarantine.

Dr. Salla also warns that should Arabs be pissed off at us long enough, it will result in one of two scenarios: attract a certain alien species to pass through the Stargates to wreak vengeance upon the American armed forces in the region; or reach a critical mass, related to numbers and level of fervor, for their wishes of death and destruction upon us to physically appear by force of will. I think.

I'm digging this guy, and think it's great that nutters can find real work at our places of higher learning.

We should have seen this coming. From a New York Times story titled C.I.A. Classifies Much of a Report on Its Failings:

The Central Intelligence Agency has ruled that large portions of a report by the Senate Intelligence Committee that is highly critical of the agency includes material too sensitive to be released to the public, Congressional and intelligence officials said Tuesday. . . .

By law, the C.I.A. and ultimately the White House have the authority to decide what information is classified, giving them significant power over how much of the Senate report can be made public.

An intelligence official said Tuesday that the C.I.A. had "worked closely" with the committee to declassify as much of the report as possible. But much of the report was too specific for declassification, including information that identified intelligence sources and described operational methods, the official said.

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the committee, said Tuesday that he believed the C.I.A. had "overclassified much of the report to the extent that it will prevent the American public from knowing the truth about how the intelligence community performed leading up to the war."

I understand the need for secrecy &c. but that approach has failed in the recent past. Catastrophically.

Today is a special day. This morning I was nearly run down in a crosswalk by an inattentive driver, and in fact ended up partly perched on the hood of his car shouting "woah! woah! woah!" as he plowed ahead. This is fairly common in Massachusetts even though it's state law that pedestrians have the right of way in marked crosswalks. So, that's not so much the special part.

Today, after five cumulative years of living in Massachusetts and nearly being run over dozens of times in clearly marked crosswalks, marks the first time I can remember that the driver of the car did not yell an enraged and indignant "Fuck you!" at me as he drove away.

As if you needed further evidence that the mooks at Enron represent the basest, crassest and most nakedly amoral side of America's financial industry, well... they were kind enough to tape their crime spree.

CBS has the details. Roll film!

"He just f---s California," says one Enron employee. "He steals money from California to the tune of about a million."

"Will you rephrase that?" asks a second employee.

"OK, he, um, he arbitrages the California market to the tune of a million bucks or two a day," replies the first.

When a forest fire shut down a major transmission line into California, cutting power supplies and raising prices, Enron energy traders celebrated, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports.

"Burn, baby, burn. That's a beautiful thing," a trader sang about the massive fire.

"I want to see what pain and heartache this is going to cause Nevada Power Company," says one Enron trader on the tapes. "I want to f--k with Nevada for a while."

"What do you mean?" a second trader asks.

"I just, I'm still in the mood to screw with people, OK?" the first trader answers.

During California's rolling blackouts, when streets were lit only by head lights and families were trapped in elevators, Enron Energy traders laughed, reports CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales.

One trader is heard on tapes obtained by CBS News saying, "Just cut 'em off. They're so f----d. They should just bring back f-----g horses and carriages, f-----g lamps, f-----g kerosene lamps."

And when describing his reaction when a business owner complained about high energy prices, another trader is heard on tape saying, "I just looked at him. I said, 'Move.' (laughter) The guy was like horrified. I go, 'Look, don't take it the wrong way. Move. It isn't getting fixed anytime soon."

Employee 1: "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?

Employee 2: "Yeah, Grandma Millie man.

Employee 1: "Yeah, now she wants her f-----g money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her a—for f-----g $250 a megawatt hour."

And the giant kick in the nuts:

officials at the FERC, the very agency charged with regulating energy companies, has not only known about the tapes for two years, but fought attempts to release them.

Now Senator Barbara Boxer of California has called on the FERC to go after those who gouged energy consumers and end those expensive contracts -- or else.

"I said wait a minute, who are you representing here, those folks who cheated us or the consumers," says Boxer.

"I'm calling on President Bush to ask for the resignation of any FERC commissioner who continues to stand in the way of justice for California consumers who were victimized during the energy crisis," she says.

But to add insult to injury, Enron and other energy companies hope to pull themselves out of bankruptcy by collecting on the contracts, and are now suing their victims.

What I don't understand is why Bush isn't making a load of populist political hay out of crusading to have these mongoloids hung from the nearest lamppost. It would be so easy, and so good for his polling! "I may be a Texan businessman, but there are lines you do not cross. These evildoers must be brought to justice." But sadly, no. Just a black hole of procedure, obfuscation, and casual lassitude.

If you click here you will see a nude photo of former Treasury Secretary Robert Reich holding a basket containing leaf lettuce and an artfully placed baguette.

Consider this fair warning.

Thanks ever so much to Jeff of Protein Wisdom for making my day complete.

The sad part is, Zac Moussaoui isn't even trying for an insanity defense. This is what he calls keepin' it real.

Choice bits of crazy falling from his pen to your upturned eyes: "United Sodom and Gomorrah States"... "Slave of Satan Bush & Co"... referring to the judge on his case as "Brinkema the [unreadable] Death Judge"...

Guilty or innocent, this guy is a hoot! Keep the crazy coming, Zac!