"Scandal Pimps"

I've seen bits and pieces attacking the right-wing spin on the "Oil for Food" (OFF} Scandal", but this piece [via] puts it all together

Distortion #1: Everything that went wrong with Iraq during the program's existence, regardless of who was responsible or where the problem occurred, is laid at the doorstep of the U.N. Secretariat (that is, the actual U.N. staff). Conversely, member states' (including the U.S. and U.K.) tolerance of -- and at times culpability in -- the Iraqi government's corrupt dealings is downplayed or simply not reported.
...
Distortion #2: The amount of corruption and mismanagement found on the U.N.'s watch is so exaggerated as to be unrecognizable when compared to the facts.
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Distortion #3: The suggestion is made, defying the evidence, that "huge" profits influenced individuals and states to oppose the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. War opponents are painted as being "soft on dictators" in exchange for big, big money.
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Distortion #4: The fact that OFF was a highly successful program, despite all of its flaws, is sometimes just not reported. More often, though, the implication is made that the opposite is true, that corruption kept the program from fulfilling its mandate to provide relief to desperate and malnourished Iraqis (and to keep WMD technology out of Iraq).
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There's no reason to shy away from the real OFF scandal: a scam linking greasy oil barons, multinational corporate raiders and money-laundering bankers to one of the most brutal dictators of recent memory.

What the article doesn't say is that OFF was the only thing that kept the US embargo on Iraq from being an atrocity on a par with Mongol invasions. So it's only an atrocity, a war crime, not a war crime of historic proportions....

"From Death's Door, I Curse at Thee" said the goose.

This one has a bit more detail than the last one:

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A Swedish hunter spent two days in bed after being knocked unconscious by a Canada goose that landed on his head moments after his son shot it dead, news reports said Wednesday.
The goose had been flying about 66 feet up in the air when it was shot by Carl Johan Ilback, who was hunting with his father, Ulf, along a stream in eastern Sweden in August.
When the goose dropped from the sky, it hit Ulf Ilback in the head and knocked him out, he said.
"It wanted to extract its revenge, I assume," Ulf Ilback told local newspaper Extra Ostergotland. "If it had gotten a better hit, it could have broken my neck."
Ilback spent two days in bed with severe headaches before returning to work.
"The story brought about a lot of laughter at work," he was quoted as saying, adding that during this month's moose hunt, he may wear a helmet.

I'm not sure that a helmet would help much, if a moose fell from the sky... but then, I suspect that flying moose would be protected by some kind of environmental law.

When you're right...

These are paraphases from a talk by Al Gore

1. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse. Something has gone badly wrong in the way america's fabled marketplace of ideas is now functioning. "Serial obsessions" take over our airwaves for weeks at a time.
2. If the rich-poor gap is widening why is our apathy as citizens also widening?
3. The Senate was silent on the eve of war with Iraq because what people say on the Senate floor no longer counts - all were out fundraising to pay for tv commercials

The problem with #1 is that it's not entirely clear that the "marketplace of ideas" was ever an undistorted civil discourse. OK, I agree that corporatization and homogenization have gone too far, but there's also a great diversity of free media and new technologies that are radically altering the landscape. Also, he means "obsessions with events that don't matter much": actually, it'd be a great thing if there was extended debate about global warming, conservation, rights v. responsibilities, freedom v. security, Military v. developmental imperialism, etc.... #2 is true only if measured in votes. If measured in political activism, discourse, money, people are about as active, I think, as they have ever been. But voting matters, so it's worth talking about. #3 is just plain ordinary sense.

Thursday Prayer: Adon Olam, Lord of the World

This 17th century prayer has been a stalwart throughout my life. The final lines were used as the closing benediction for Sabbath services, and the song itself is one of the most widely known in Judaism.

The easy rhythm of the song makes it easy to abandon the traditional melody (which I can sing in my sleep) and be creative. The most addictive modern melody I know that fits this is the Final Jeopardy music....

Hebrew Transliteration	....	English Translation
Adon aloam asher malach, b'terem kol y'tsir nivra l'et na'asa b'cheftso kol, azai melech sh'mo nik'ra. V'acharei kichlot hakol, l'vado yimloch nora, v'ha haya, v'hu hoveh, v'hu yih-ye b'tifara. V'hu echad, v'ein sheini l'hamshil lo, l'hachbira, b'li reishit, b'li tachlit, v'lo ha'oz v'hamisra. V'hu eili, v'chai goali, v'tsur chevli b'yom tsara, v'hu nisi umanos li, m'nat kosi b'yom ekra. B'yado afkid ruchi b'eit ishan v'a'ira, v'im ruchi g'viyati. Adonai li, v'lo ira.		Lord of the world, the King supreme, ere aught was formed, He reigned alone. When by His will all things were wrought, then was His sovereign name made known. And when in time all things shall cease, he still shall reign in majesty. He was, He is, He shall remain all glorious eternally. Incomparable, unique is He, no other can His oneness share. Without beginning, without end, dominion’s might is His to bear. He is my living God who saves, my rock when frief or trials befall, my banner and my refuge strong, my bounteous portion when I call. My soul I give to His care, asleep, awake, for He is near, and with my soul, my body, too; God is with me, I have no fear.

Best wishes for a Happy and Healthy New Year!

I Pick the Weakest Link! or something like that.

Which Annoying B-list Celebrity Are You?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey.

Which Annoying B-list Celebrity Are You?

Buck up boyo, you're Anne Robinson!

When you're not offending the Welsh or stupid Americans on the dumbed-down transatlantic version of your hate-filled, lowest common denominator gameshow, you're being mean to people and pulling the legs off injured animals. We've seen you.

Frankly, all this anger would be best directed towards evil corporations, which you did for a while at the helm of the BBC's Watchdog programme - the only show infinitely better with you on it. As it is, you've suddenly become a multi-million-dollar institution, spawning clones in hundreds of countries, presumably all winking in that terrifying "I look cuddly now, but I can hurt you. Oh yes, I can hurt you bad" way.

Maybe you're ultra-famous, but you'll always be a B-list celebrity in our eyes. At least you're not writing for the Daily Mail any more.

via Samantha Burns who put me on her "random blogroll" (I assume, briefly, but welcome to her readers all the same!) but who came out as Pauly Shore on the quiz. I can't figure out how to access an "all results" page, so I don't know if I entirely agree with this result or not.... but for now I'll take it.

Bits and Pieces of Miers

Who?

That's the resounding echo of millions of people responding to the President's second Supreme Court nominee. Here's some of the best bits so far:

Gean Healy reports David Frum quoting Miers:

[Miers] once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met.

As Healy and his commenters say, that's scary on the face of it. I don't mean that Bush is dumb -- I've said he isn't before and I stick by it -- but this is a woman with a long career in law, business and government, and the only thing Bush has going for him is that he keeps hiring her. Naturally, that makes anyone look smarter.... but it's kinda personal.

Avedon Carol casts some doubt on Bush's strength of character, though:

It should have been obvious he would pick Miers. When he was looking for a running-mate, Dick Cheney was the guy who helped him pick the VP. When he was looking for this nominee, his little helper was Harriet Miers.

The administration's inbred character just invites satire sometimes, and then goes beyond it. Avedon points to this roundup of the hard-core liberal political bloggers' reactions, most of which are more tactical (and wishful) than helpful, but interesting, nonetheless.

Eric Muller's first reaction was the same as mine: "The President's personal lawyer. Crony, crony, crony. Did I mention "crony?"" His second reaction builds on the first:

With near-record low approval ratings and the FEMA/Katrina disaster just behind him, the President sure picked a strange moment to say to the entire nation, left, right, and center: "Just trust me on this one."

There's a little more meat in his third reaction but it's the kind of "tea leaf reading" we're all going to be suffering through for the next two months.

What do I really think? Well, the odds that Bush doesn't know what she thinks about everything he cares about are nil to none; whether or not abortion is on his list (hah!), his litmus tests have been fulfilled. Mostly they involve, as they did with John Roberts, an extremely deferential attitude towards the executive branch, when held by the right sort of people. If a "Pentagon Papers" or Nixon Tapes case came to the bench with these people on it, Executive Privilege would probably still be mostly intact.

Make no mistake, there will be indictments of members of this administration. Yes, some of them (lots of them!) will be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. No, Roberts and Miers are not going to recuse themselves. And what, pray tell, are we going to do if Miers, who's been at the heart of this administration long enough to be really dangerous, gets subpoenaed.... have we ever put a sitting Justice on the witness stand? Or under indictment? Bush wants his people in place; it's a defensive strategy, which is why it makes no immediate political sense.

Low Quality Spam

It's bad enough getting spam comments, but when they don't even take the time to fill in the blanks....

Hey, you have a great blog here! I'm definitely going to bookmark you!
I have a ##KEYWORD## site/blog. It pretty much covers ##KEYWORD## related stuff.

Come and check it out if you get time :-)

....well, that's just sloppy.

[Non Sequitur: 5000 Visitors! Readers -- new, old, lurkers or regular commenters (all four of you) -- are again invited to sign the guestbook in celebration. For my part, I've updated the blogroll.]

This is the enemy

They want to wipe out protections for the environment. They want to separate the races and the classes. They want control -- self-control and control over property and people -- unfettered by anything except their own short-term interests. They care not for process, except that everyone else takes it seriously enough that they can use it against us. They care not for truth or beauty or the past or the future.

This is our enemy.

History Carnival #17

Historians. Serious historians. Talking about interesting and important things. Really!

An Affront

The Indonesian military is embarrassed and Indonesian lawmakers are proposing heavy fines for future lapses. The crime? A public kiss between two single people. I can understand some outrage, in a sexually conservative society like Indonesia, though I think they're grossly overreacting. Legislation, though, is just nuts.
[reposted, because Blogger lost it somehow; Bloglines, though, still had it]