Archives for May 2004

Memorial Day

. . . was originally known as Decoration Day (for decorating the graves of the Civil War dead, which decimated over 600,000 Americans, nearly 2% of the total population of the Union and Confederacy), but at the turn of the century it was designated as Memorial Day. The first observance took place on May 30, 1868. In 1971 its observance was extended to honor all soldiers who died in American wars. At Arlington National Cemetery a wreath is placed at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and each grave is decorated with a small American flag.

Mark Steyn’s Recalling a time when setbacks didn’t deter us.

https://faustasblog.com/2004/05/192/

I’ve always liked Tom Selleck

. . . since back in the olden days, so it’s nice to read about him in Chrenkoff‘s blog, which has a link to this interview.

Tom’s playing Ike tonight at 8PM on A&E.

(hey, I know the picture’s big, but Tom does look good)

https://faustasblog.com/2004/05/191/

The MSM’s been had,and a “by the way”

Michael Moore already pulled one on the French when they embraced him, the epitome of what the French hate about Americans (i.e., fat, vulgar, uneducated, gross, vile, ignorant, egotistical, self-important cretins and greedy blowhards) — small wonder this lady says (in Spanish) Cannes got Americanized. But not only did Big Mike pull one on the French, he’s pulled a bigger one (ehem) on the MainsStreamMedia (a.k.a. MSM) with his publicity campaign for his upcoming movie.

I submit for your consideration:

Miramx paid $6 million for Moore to make Farenheit 9/11. In 2003 Disney, which owns Miramax, tells him they won’t distribute it. Moore waits a full year, and then, just before leaving for Cannes, makes rude noises about D’s refusal to distribute. MSM spends endless hours touting these noises at a fevered pitch. Moore takes the film to Cannes. The Cannes Film Festival jury is headed by Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino’s ultraviolent movies are distributed by (guess!) Miramax. Moore’s movie wins the Palme d’Or. MSM’s fevered pitch increases. Now guess who’s distributing Moore’s movie?

Was Moore the mastermind of this very effective (and free) publicity campaign? Or Harvey and Bob Weinstein?

Your guess.

(by the way, I don’t credit the MSM with enough cunning to have been in on the ploy, but that’s not nice of me, is it?)

Will there be a sequel? Free Frank Warner (via Hispalibertas) wants one, but not from Moore:

Only days after he won honors at Cannes, Michael Moore today revealed he left out of his film “Fahrenheit 9-11” an exclusive 20-minute interview with Nick Berg, whom an al Qaida-type group beheaded in Iraq earlier this month.

Now why would Moore censor this interview of a young American businessman trying to help rebuild Iraq’s communications systems?

Is it possible that what Berg said just didn’t fit in with Moore’s world view that the Iraqis were better off with Saddam Hussein’s fascist police state? Is it possible Berg said Iraq was obviously better off because of the U.S.-led liberation?

With Moore, all the hatred is on the screen, and all the truth is on the cutting room floor.

I can’t wait for the day a free Iraqi makes a documentary film about how Michael Moore wanted to let Saddam torture and murder Iraqis forever.

Will the MSM spill rivers of ink on that? Will Miramax finance and distribute it?

Your guess on that, too.

https://faustasblog.com/2004/05/189/

Sunday blogging

Paul Mulshine has Limited faith in government. Manel from Hispalibertas is aware of other prisoner abuse scandals, and some awful photos that I don’t think either Moore or the MSM will be showing.

Derbyshire‘s serenely optimistic about the war.

The Iraq war has had some minor secondary benefits we don’t hear much about. There is, for example, the document dump. No doubt Saddam’s people managed to destroy a lot of government documents while our armies advanced; and we hear that Ahmad Chalabi’s people grabbed a lot more. Given the age of the regime, the speed of our advance, and the number of government and military locations in a dictatorship as thorough as Saddam’s, though, it’s hard not to believe we still got a good haul, which will be of considerable use to us for purposes of intelligence and diplomacy.

Another secondary benefit is the workout our military got. I’m willing to take instruction from military readers on this, but it seems to me that a military recently experienced in the organization and fighting of a hot war has, other things being equal, a tremendous advantage over one that has not been so experienced. Soldiers want to fight, and soldiers like ours and Britain’s, who have recent experience of hard fighting, are keener, better motivated, swifter, calmer, and more skilled at their trade than armies that have spent 20 years doing training exercises and “peace-keeping” missions.

At the same time, Mark Steyn is optimistic on Iraq but pessimistic on Europe.

And, for local flavor, Nader was visiting in The Principality

https://faustasblog.com/2004/05/188/

Hoy El Herald

. . . tiene dos opiniones interesantes, una sobre lo que ha dicho Bernard Lewis, y otra, sobre como Cannes se fue por los yankis.

Pero no se pierdan el artículo de Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, titulado Gato por liebre

En México, Venezuela y otros países latinoamericanos, los militantes de ETA suelen cubrir sus acciones con una piel de oveja. Definen la suya como una patriótica lucha por la independencia del País Vasco o se hacen llamar con toda inocencia movimiento separatista, y hay quienes al otro lado del Atlántico, tan lejano a sus sangrientas acciones, se tragan el cuento. Lo sé de sobra, pues alguna vez que escribí en varios diarios latinoamericanos un informe titulado España frente al terrorismo de ETA, no faltaron lectores extraviados que enviaron cartas de protesta. Apoyándose en las simpatías que en ellos suscitan los movimientos independentistas, ETA a veces logra venderles gato por liebre, escamoteando con astucia su carácter de movimiento terrorista.

Si no han leído Manual del perfecto idiota latinoamericano– y español (Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot), se los recomiendo.

https://faustasblog.com/2004/05/187/

Connections

Via the Barcepundit, The Connection: How al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America

Five months later [ed.’s note, in January 1999], the same Richard Clarke who would one day claim that there was “absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever,” told the Washington Post that the U.S. government was “sure” that Iraq was behind the production of the chemical weapons precursor at the al Shifa plant. “Clarke said U.S. intelligence does not know how much of the substance was produced at al Shifa or what happened to it,” wrote Post reporter Vernon Loeb, in an article published January 23, 1999. “But he said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to al Shifa’s current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts, and the National Islamic Front in Sudan.”

PoliPundit has been asking for quite a while Maybe When Hardball and 60 Minutes Stop Covering Abu Ghraib, They Can Start Connecting Some Dots? I’m not holding my breath.

https://faustasblog.com/2004/05/186/

UNScam today

Claudia Rossert’s article asks Cover-Up Culture:

When will the real Oil-for-Food investigations begin?

In sum, we have Treasury not quite focused on Oil-for-Food, the KPMG investigation stalled, Congress stymied, the Volcker inquiry only just begun, and the Ernst & Young audit not yet started. So, is it time to write off the likelihood that anyone will ever get to the bottom of Oil-for-Food? Hardly. Volcker has plenty at stake — after a long and respected career, he has placed his own reputation on the line, and we might yet hope that this will help overcome his current surroundings. Hankes-Drielsma says that KPMG, given any chance, is willing to proceed with the investigation already begun. And Oil-for-Food, overall, was simply too enormous and too rotten to stay stuffed under a rug. Information will almost certainly continue to seep out. Right now, amid all the high and mighty talk about a clean and transparent new start for Iraq, would be a good moment for both the U.N. and the White House to reconsider the perils of cover-ups.

Stephen at Friends of Saddam shows that Oil For Food Lives, with a link to Food security in Iraq. People are commenting over at Roger‘s.

https://faustasblog.com/2004/05/185/

The Bad Hair Blog, the bad hair gene

Last March when I first started The Bad Hair Blog I used a bad haircut as a metaphor,

Which brings me back to my haircut. Since the streets are in deplorable condition, I use the township hall only to deposit my tax payments, no one in the house attends public school, rarely go downtown because of the traffic and lack of time to be going downtown to get stuck in traffic, and order my books through Amazon because the library is downtown, the bad haircut describes this taxpayer’s situation: Fewer services (cut 2″ too short), “in flux” (one side longer than the other), and stuck with the bill ($60 for the haircut, unknown amount for the taxes).

It’s all about the haircut.

Now a friend sent me this article, which states,

Turns out, there’s a gene that directs hair to grow in nice tidy patterns. Take the gene away and the hair doesn’t know which way to grow

which raises the question, is the municipal overspending-and-overtaxing genetically caused?

Nature or nurture?

And about those pesky cicadas,

. . . the same friend sent recipes, available from this site. I thank G-d there other things I can afford to eat.

https://faustasblog.com/2004/05/184/