The republic of dishonor

how far
is the global war on terror
really a global war on
honor?

Bremer bales

i've been (mildly) haunted
by the image of GIs in Baghdad
playing football with shrinkwrapped bales
of $100 bills

if each bale was indeed $400,000 [cite]
this is a seventeen-inch stack
17.2 * 2.6 * 6.1 inches (footballs are 11 inches long)

or an 8" double-stack (8.6 * 5.2 * 6.1)

but it weighs 8 lbs (footballs weigh 1 lb)

bill gates has 150k such bales

 
 
 
 
 
.

The crying of lot googolplex

it's forever been a commonplace
of internet culture
that microsoft's unspoken motto was
be as evil as possible

so it's gratifying lately
in an almost pinch-me fashion
to watch bill gates scratching his head
dude, where's my monopoly?

finessed by google
flying the opposite flag

until one begins to visualise
the subsequent crumbling
of the republicans
the neocons
the capitalists

satan's earthly army

until sergey
turns in his chair

removes his mask

.

Iraq for grownups

coming this spring
from miramax

a middle eastern holyman
with millions of followers
has cast an astrological chart
and determined that their
prophesied worldteacher

is you




they send a delegation
who assure you you can remain
wholly yourself
but beg you to come and advise them
how to live

a safe and comfortable residence awaits

but priority #1 is your stand on iraq

if you can propose a realistic compromise
your new followers will try to make it so

so first
cool down the powderkeg
right?

recognise that the neocons
gain power
from turning others' homelands
into chaotic hells

enflaming long-smothered embers

and recognise the prize

Islam's oil




might the Sunnis be appeased with
a just proportion of the oilfields?

could 51% go to Iraqis-as-one-people
and 49% be split among Kurds-Sunnis-Shias?




are there factions within each group
who advocate mutual tolerance

and could such factions be empowered?




could insurgent leaders offer specific terms
to the USA

eg, no IEDs if offensive raids stop?




are GIs unhappy enough
to go on strike
if encouraged?

as they see no progress
only
pointless
death?

Therapy for the Evil One

As a lefty, I hate having to add to my list of heroes, who really might really have helped Nola cope, both the military and the (pre-W) Halliburton/KBR. The day after a hurricane obviously isn't the time for environmental impact studies or self-esteem workshops, and we lefties need to forge a longterm consensus on this, sturdy enough to repel Rush&Rove-style attacks.

But where were the military and KBR when the levee broke? How did the neocons' greatest supposed strength prove their worst Achilles heel?

For some reason, the puppeteers whispering in W's earpiece didn't have a clue how to deal with a real logistic emergency, and didn't even have the sense to stand aside and let a grownup to take the wheel. Is it possible that none of them was glued to the live tv-news coverage-- has this administration deluded themselves into believing they're above the news, that reality is something they can arbitrarily create?

Their past experience had surely given them every reason to expect they could feed the newspeople a restricted diet of lies, and that the newspeople would bob their heads and gobble it down. And if there had been even a one-block physical distance between the reporters and the hurricane victims, this spinning probably would have worked. (In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the neocons recognise this, and look for ways to keep reporters penned up next time.)

W's incompetence has given birth to a White House culture where your title automatically means that others praise your performance, at least in public. The left needs to compile a reel of bureaucrats praising each other's responsiveness, as the live feed is showing hundreds dying.

My title for this post is inspired by Cheney, I think it was, saying that liberals after 9-11 wanted to give al Qaeda therapy... which has that perfect 1% level of truth allowing rightwing talkers to run away with it.

Therapy for Nola's ecology wasn't the prescription the day after the hurricane, but it was the prescription for the decade before. We need to learn to spinframe this.