August 30, 2003
82 DEAD IN IRAQ
Iraqis numbering more than half than total of American servicemen who’ve died since May 1 have been killed overnight in a terrorist attack:
A car bomb detonated outside a sacred mosque in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf yesterday, with doctors reporting up to 82 people killed. Among the dead was Iraq's leading Shiite politician, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, a key preacher of moderation in the war-torn country.
Baqer al-Hakim foresaw, in a way, his own murder:
Minutes before the blast, he denounced again in his weekly sermon attacks on the coalition forces. He told worshippers that these were being carried out by Saddam loyalists and former Baathists.
And now they’re killing Iraqis. This conflict likely isn’t driven by a centrally controlled and nationalist-driven resistance; more probably it's driven by an Iraqi faction (assisted by maniac outsiders) who would kill their own. As Saddam Hussein did for decades.
Posted by Tim Blair at August 30, 2003 05:20 AMRantburgers think the Black Hats in Iran were responsible for this one...
Posted by: Roger Bournival at August 30, 2003 at 06:04 AMThere is at least one positive and unintended side effect from these vicious attacks: Iraqis are learning how it feels to be an Israeli.
Baghdad won't become Ramallah. If this keeps up, it will become Tel Aviv.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at August 30, 2003 at 09:14 AMI hate to say it, but the Arab world is so sick that it's only a matter of hours before Al-Jazeera will be insinuating that it was an American-planted bomb. I bet if you took an opinion poll in the Muslim world right now, close to 70% would think this bomb is the work of the US.
After all, Muslims don't bomb mosques. Everyone knows that.
Posted by: KevinV at August 30, 2003 at 09:28 AM"After all, Muslims don't bomb mosques. Everyone knows that"
that would be... un-islamic !
Posted by: Mie at August 30, 2003 at 09:53 AMIn fairness to the conservative anti-war side, they argued that Arabic political cultures, such as Iraq, have a very weak liberal civic tradition. They put forward the argument that the "spiritual" fundamentalist terrorists, such as Bin Laden, (who appear to have bombed the mosque) could only be curbed by a "secular" fascist militarists, such as Hussein.
The trouble with the conservative anti-warriors is that their philosophy entails the impossibility of progress, either by reform or revolution.
This implies that a contained/sanctioned/parititioned/inspected Baathist Hussein is the best kind of government that Iraqis could expect to live by.
The pro-war side hope that the Iraqis, with global (US/UN) assistance, can do better.
This would be good:
- nationally, for the Iraqi people who deserve a break
- regionally, as a civic example for ME societies
- globally, as developed state need a civilised government in control of half the world's cheap energy
If the anti-war side were interested in progress they would be trying to figure out how to make Iraq work as a nation-building democracy instead of trying to score cheap partisan political points. Posted by: Jack Strocchi at August 30, 2003 at 10:36 AM
oh, more dead in the streets.
oh, more pointless jockeying for position in the culture wars from fat First World blowhards thousands of miles away.
but isn't it great Tim to see the US finally unleash some freedom and democracy on the long-suffering people of iraq?
keep up the good work Tim, the left needs you.
Billy
Posted by: Billy Bloggs at August 30, 2003 at 11:20 AMNow it's reported at 125 dead. This'd be one of the largest terrorist attacks behind September 11, the Russian theatre hostage situation and the Bali.
Posted by: Andjam at August 30, 2003 at 12:01 PMBilly, typically, sarcasm needs to make some sort of point, even if it is passive-aggressive. However, I've yet to see a single post yet that even remotely signifies intelligent life on your part, just an entirely unearned attitude of condensation. This "1st world blowhard" gained the right to comment on issues thousands of miles away when third-world ass-holes from thousands of miles away killed three-thousand of my innocent countrymen. If you don't like it, too bad.
Posted by: Jerry at August 30, 2003 at 01:02 PMJerry, you should have stayed with 'condensation', in CAPS.
Cheers
Posted by: J.M. Heinrichs at August 30, 2003 at 01:29 PMThis is really sick. My heart goes out to the survivors and families of the victims. Bremer should go to the Mosque immediately and lay flowers for the victims.
If this is an attack by the Saddamite Baathists, they're just doing what they've been doing for over 40 years, murdering their countrymen and women.
I hope President Bush makes a personal appeal to the Iraqi people and expresses the sorrow of the American People in the face of this atrocity.
Blowing up people coming out of church. Sick.
Posted by: Jabba the Nutt at August 30, 2003 at 01:33 PMFirst world blowhards huh? What, you mean like all those spoilt middle-class student protesters, Starbucks revolutionaries and delusional marxist coledge professors who protested the war in Iraq but cheered the wars in Somalia, Kosovo and East Timor? Those position-jockying first-world blowhards?
How many people a month did Saddam's torture chambers and execution squads chew up? I know about 200,000 Iraqi civilians are missing from the Saddam years, about 1.2 million Iraqis, Iranians and Kuwaitis dead in his wars... don't remember any of our compassionate leftists out on the streets about that..
Ah screw it, no point arguing with a retard. Fuck you, 'Billy'.
Posted by: Amos at August 30, 2003 at 01:52 PMWhere are all those brave western human shields - if only they had been there, no islamofascist murderers would have dared blow up a mosque.
Where are the left on this one ... ?
Perhaps it will not be AlJazeera who is first to denounce the intricate American involvement in this act of religious murder - based on their awful track record, it will surely be a race between the BBC and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Posted by: The GOP Elephant at August 30, 2003 at 05:00 PMTHis latest attack must surely prove at least one thing to the anti-war crowd:
that the Iraqis and/or outsiders who are committing these attacks against the US forces and the Iraqi people who are working with them, are CLEARLY against ANY democratic reform of their country - whether it comes on behalf of the allied forces, or the Iraqi poeple themselves. It seems that they'll bomb anyone who they believe stands aainst them.
These terrorists simply want one thing - Saddam back in power. As his (former) underlings, they had more power and prestige under his regime than they have now.
Nonetheless, I'm sure that the Left will still refer to these bastards as "resistance fighters", despite the fact that the couple of hundred (maybe a thousand at most?) poeple who are co-ordinating these attacks represent a mere 0.005% of the total Iraqi population (of 22 million).
Y'now you guys are right.
Iraq WAS a much more terrible place when the US was backing Saddam and using him as its proxy.
Now that they've taken over things for themselves the mayhem and bloodshed is much more out in the open and that's where it should be, huh?
Better to be able have all that carnage happening in a free and open society. Much easier, too, for Fox News to get some people on the ground to tell it like it really is.
Thanks guys, the left really needs you.
love Billy.
Posted by: Billy Bloggs at August 30, 2003 at 08:32 PMThe unrest that is quickly becoming mayhem in Iraq might be deja vu to U.S. strategists who incited the Shiites before, armed al Qaeda and Contras, propped up the Shah, Battista, Noriega, Somoza, Poppa Doc, Pinochet, d'Aubisson, and Saddam and made the mean green by arming both sides of brutal conflicts.
Ever wonder, how did it turn into this? A Holy eternal pre-emptive and deficit-funded war on terrorists? Four "linked with al-Qaeda" were arrested in the huge 8/29 bombing today (8/30). What is so pre-emptive about catching them after the fact, when the targets get warnings beforehand? Why hasn't anything happened in the generally unprotected U.S. since 9/11 if this approach doesn't work anywhere else in the world? Why were no Americans lost in any of these recent bombings, if it's Saddam? Lucky Joe?
Once our blood is up we forget that disintegrating another oil pumping "raghead" nation into warring theocracies will make it more expensive to tank up our SUVs and pack the Big Boys pockets, no matter how we spin it on the Boobe Tube. We might as well crank the Ayatollah's mike, so no Iraqi can ignore it. The West can't control this, it's an Iraqi thing now. Spiffied-up Bremer Dog can't spit with the Iraqis and declare speaking against the occupation illegal!
I once suffered through the domination=security=civilization=MacDonald's=good thing justification from a NeoCon born-again (fundamentalist) minister coworker, who also advocated "finishing the job" if the "idiots" didn't cooperate. Ironically, he was working on the 103rd floor of the North Tower on 9/11.
Posted by: $mean $green at August 30, 2003 at 09:11 PMBilly, when you and your family get together, do they look at you funny once and a while and ask if English is your first language?
Billy Bloggs (AKA Analogue Voter's retarded cousin): The left needs alot of things, especially kevlar underpants, what with the truth continually biting them in the ass. Billy, I'd bet you a hundred bucks you couldn't find Iraq on a map, but I don't think you should risk the bet, that being 2 weeks pay for you. Anyway fuck-wad, feel free to keep showing up for your thrice-a-day pounding.
Posted by: Mike at August 30, 2003 at 11:31 PMHi Mike,
thanks for the personal abuse. I'll add it to the list of abuses perpetrated by unfeeling, selfish, first world fools that i'm keeping for a rainy day.
and so un-christian too, mike. remember, the meek will inherit the earth!
meanwhile Mike, you keep going for it! the left really needs you too!
love billy
Posted by: Billy Bloggs at August 31, 2003 at 12:13 AM$mean $green, have you ever considered whether the US would have had to have done any of that if the Soviets didn't - use Cuba as a proxy state to funnel arms to Central America and Africa, prop up the appalling regimes of Ceaucescu, Honiker, Jaruzelski, and friends, invade Afghanistan, and use fifth columns to attempt to undermine each and and every western democracy lined up with the US???
Posted by: Steve Edwards at August 31, 2003 at 12:13 AMBilly,
I don't know how Tim and his other readers feel about it but I'm glad to pitch in to help the lunatic fringe left: God knows you need all the help you can get.
Come on admit it, deep down you'd very much enjoy being able to order some starry eyed teenaged follower to put a bullet into the brain of everyone who disagrees with you.
Posted by: ZsaZsa at August 31, 2003 at 01:34 AMIt's always, well, "interesting" hearing from the left that the U.S. is responsible for Saddam. The American support for Saddam - especially during the Iran-Iraq war - was de minimis compared to that from the Soviet Union (Iraq was, of course, a client state of the USSR) and other countries (France, for example).
The Iraq army consisted almost entirely of Soviet-supplied weaponry, from AK-47s to MiG fighter aircraft to Russian tanks. Some French Mirage aircraft. Nothing - repeat nothing - of American design or origin. No tanks, no aircraft, no rifles, no boots. Nada.
Despite this and similar facts with other nations, the U.S. is considered among the left as some demonic or malevolent "deus ex machina" descending upon the world scene to create havoc. Other nations or rulers do not, of course, have their own designs or act on their own. No, the U.S. must somehow corrupt them - otherwise these nations would be living in peaceful bliss.
It's a nice simple - but entirely cynical - world in which one can dismiss the complexity of history, of historic events, of factors unrelated to American policy or influence.
Only problem is that it doesn't really exist.
SMG
Meangreen, you are a contemptible piece of shit.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at August 31, 2003 at 02:42 AM"Billy Blogg," however -- who like "meangreen" does not have the courage to put his real name or email on his posts -- ooh, brave, brave fighter against the Right Wing Death Beasts! -- does not even have enough character to be compared to shit.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at August 31, 2003 at 02:44 AM"Billy", with your references to those from the first world and how truly evil we are, one ponders the following question: From what location do you type your excrement? I'm betting it's not a third world country where there are children beating at your door every day with unflagging resolve for some sort of edible object. Could it be that our very own Billy is closely related to that blob of mobile lard, Michael Moore?
Posted by: Chas at August 31, 2003 at 03:23 AMOur friends "Billy Blogg" and "meangreen" remind me of the line (Madame de Stael) about Rousseau after he died: "He created nothing, he set fire to everything."
SMG
Posted by: SteveMG at August 31, 2003 at 04:21 AMBilly isn't trying to make a point, he's trolling. Don't take the bait. Don't feed the troll.
Posted by: Bruce Rheinstein at August 31, 2003 at 04:42 AMHi guys,
Well, I thought the topic here was more bloodshed on the streets of iraq? Seems it's turned into how much we all hate Billy! How easily you are distracted!
I mean, I knew the idle right could dish it out but it seems they can't take it.
What I can tell you is I'm not Michael Moore. I think Michael displays a lack of intellectual rigour. I wouldn't even pay to see his films let alone impersonate him on a backwater blogg.
I'm actually a teenage single mum who is flagrantly rorting the system. I'm living high on welfare on YOUR taxes. Not at the expense of those rich enough to afford tax lawyers of course, but certainly at the expense of the great majority of posters here. And i'm living well too. The cheques keep rolling in and all i gotta do is get pregnant. What a lark!
Plus I'm running my own chapter of the Situationist International. Our cell meets every third wednesday under the guise of lingerie parties.
I live in the first world, by dint of chance. So what? Does that mean I can't comment on the rank hipocrisy that surrounds me? I thought we were all about free speech here on Tim's blog. Seems we're all about un-christian name-calling.
Like I said, more blood on the streets of Iraq, more wanking in the wind from well-fed fools working overtime on their latest bon-mot.
Oh, and one more thing. The name's Bloggs, Billy Bloggs. It's my real name. Really it is.
Thanks guys, the left is unable to feel vindicated without you.
love billy
Posted by: Billy Bloggs at August 31, 2003 at 05:01 AMBilly's making a list of all the mean things those dastardly first world bullies said to him (must be a long list). And when he gets to take over the world and can do anything he wants, he's really going to make them pay. And on that rainy day, he's going to make them walk home without an umbrella, no shoes and he hopes they catch a death of a cold.
Billy, thanks for the short biography. Wow! A single mom on welfare. What an accomplishment! Gosh, what did you have to do to earn that great distinction? Yes, you certainly have an important role to play in the revolution, breeding it's discontented, underpriviledged, oppressed and angry footsoldiers. Keep up the good work. The right needs you as a symbol of all that is unholy with the left.
By the way, do we have freedom of speech? Or should we all just shut up? And why do you assume that any, or all, of us are christian?
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the obvious about the bombing in Najaf. It's good news for the US and the effort to rebuild the country. When the attacks were focused on US soldiers the so-called resistance appeared to be doing just that, resisting an occupier. Attacks on US soldiers had a veneer of legitamacy to many Iraqis and threatened to gather support across the country as the US failed to bring about stability and some semblance of prosperity. But now, the ``resistance'' has turned on the Jordanians, the UN and most importantly Iraqis themselves. Whatever scraps of legitimacy the terrorists had among the Iraqis has been severely eroded. And better yet, BAathists and foreign Arabs have been arrested, and by Iraqi police no less. Whovever ordered the NAjaf bombing made a fundamental strategic error. Instead of sowing discord, it's put the Iraqi police and people on the same page as the Americans.
Posted by: chip at August 31, 2003 at 06:29 AMChip:
Good point but the greater concern, it seems to me, is that this will "Lebanonize" Iraq. The Shiites will turn upon themselves or the Sunnis. A neverending internecine war within and between various sects and groups.
It's clear that the goal (or one of them) of the outside elements - as opposed to the remnants of the Baathist party - is to make Iraq ungovernable. By doing so, they hope to drive out all Western forces and influences (UN headquarters last week). Then, into that vacuum they will emerge.
Afghanistan redux.
That is what makes the recent events troubling. Attack on coalition forces don't seem to be part of a larger goal other than to make money or enact revenge on the Americans (certainly to try and drive them out). But the two recent bombings clearly are attempt to make Iraq the Lebanon of the Persian Gulf.
Long, tough battle we're in here. I'm not sure the Bush Administration has sufficiently informed the public of the immense task that's ahead. Interesting that Governor Dean has recently been, in my opinion, better at explaining this than GWB.
SMG
Posted by: SteveMG at August 31, 2003 at 06:42 AMBilly: " Seems it turned out how much we all hate Billy. How easily you are distracted." Right on the first one, wrong on the second. We're not distracted, its always fun to take a side track and have a bit of sport with village idiots such as yourself. As for your earlier reply to me, " Thanks for the personal abuse,"
my pleasure, but don't thank me, you've earned it! My only complaint is how rarely anyone from the extreme left with any intellect or wit shows up here to debate. I know we can't expect much from you Billy, since the act of typing alone leaves you with only 17 unengaged brain cells left to formulate any ideas. Anyway, don't forget what I told you about the kevlar underwear. And don't get to discouraged at home with Mom and Dad. You'll figure out those child-proof locks on the kitchen cupboards eventually.
Back to the subject... looks like the bombing was Al Qaeda and ex Saddam thugs. 19 arrested some from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Palestine. They are said to be Wahhabis...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=1&u=/ap/20030830/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
Posted by: Chris at August 31, 2003 at 08:47 AMWhat is it with these people and the number nineteen?
Posted by: Andrea Harris at August 31, 2003 at 08:54 AMWell, I knew it: Fox News is reporting that the overwhelming word on the street in Najaf is that the bombing was the work of the CIA, since no one believes that a Muslim could have done it.
Sigh.....
Losers.
Posted by: KevinV at August 31, 2003 at 10:01 AMKevinV, you are so right. We ARE all losers.
It's like I said before, with the yanks now running the show, Fox News is able to get in, get its ear to the ground, and get that "overwhelming word on the street" straight into your living room, just like you were really there and not, in fact, thousands of miles away.
It's important for America's No.1 cable news network to be able to access the best intelligence money can buy and then pass it straight on to all of us for our greater enlightenment.
No middle man with Fox News. Straight from the source to you. I believe it. No, I really do.
Thanks Fox News, you give us 'liberals' all the fodder we need to keep on keeping Left.
Increase the peace! Love Billy
I'm MAD!
Mad as hell, and I want the market banned! Hic.
Daddy said anybody who takes drugs that he does not take should be sent to prison. Great thinker and so caring. Hic.
Sorry Daddy, that should read above: 'the markets banned. Hic.'
What's this note you left on Tuesday, "you stupid girl, cut & paste from some halfwit bloggers and create a column, then claim you wrote it! Hic."
Sure saves time. Hic.
Hi ya billy bloggs, looks like it's party time at the club house for brownshirts.
Hands up which of you is joining Timmy boy in going down the recruiting office to enlist on Monday so as to serve our respective great nations in the first crusade of the third millennium.
I hear they got these really cool warships that pack a 100 cruise missiles to a ship, and these great new GPS bombs - none of which cause mass destruction at all but are designed instead to just destroy homes and families one at a time. Sounds like fun. Let's all make a bomb and joining the party with Tim at the charge.
Come on Tim, you'd look like a modern born here if you led the march on the Pitt Street recruiting office in downtown Sydney.
It'd be so cool if could all enlist together and be brother's in arms - well at least until one of us gets his head blown off doing police duty in Tim's new fun park. Which I hear comes with Palaces already built and great views of the rivers, and best of all only one owner.
I hear Mad Miranda is going to join as well, once she can cancel her's month of long lunches she was planning at the turn of Spring.
Come on Tim, let's see you in our finest kakhi.
Oh that's right you're just another loud mouthed chickenhawk like most of the right wing brown shirts that hang out here at the club house of hate.
The day I see you as an enlisted man in our great Army is the day I vote for John Howard.
Posted by: White Bread at August 31, 2003 at 12:28 PMOoooh, Mad Miranda, you are a tease! Tell us Miranda, please tell us! tell us! hic!
Posted by: Miranda Divide at August 31, 2003 at 12:34 PMYep, those GPS guided bombed are designed to destroy homes and kill families. In fact, they have special software that allows them to detect 3 bedroom, split-level ranches with garage under and swimming pool out back. They also have thermal imaging that locates Mom downstairs doing the laundry, Dad in the garage working on the car, and little Suzie in her bedroom playing with dolls. Then a sophisticated algorithm is executed that determines which death would be more repugnant and directs the bomb to that part of the house.
Posted by: nobody important at August 31, 2003 at 01:19 PMHey White Bread:
When we joined the military before, you progressive tolerant leftwingers called us baby-killers, fascists and war-mongers and spat at us.
Now, you call us names if we're not in the military.
Which is it? Nazis? or chickenhawk? Guess it depends on the decade.
Once you get your ad hominem attacks figured out, get back to us. Until then, go practice you tolerant, non-judgmental progressive ideology somewhere else.
Thanks.
Steve
Posted by: SteveMG at August 31, 2003 at 01:54 PMCartoonist intellectual Ted Rall says they're not terrorists, they're patriots, and all "honest Americans" would agree with him if they were, oh, honest. Not that anyone should expect honesty of us Amerikaner -- read on and see we're just like the SS in France.
Posted by: R.W. at August 31, 2003 at 02:03 PMTo Billy:
>>
Why do you ignore the abuses perpetrated by unfeeling, selfish Third World fools? Islamic terrorists and their lackies being prime examples, and the First World fools and traitors who support them. Or the routine mistreatment and abuse of females in every Muslim country. Or ignorant fanatics dancing in the streets in celebration of the murder of toddlers.
A single mom on welfare? Thats too funny.
Posted by: dee at August 31, 2003 at 03:21 PMI'm still waiting for Billy to make one point...just one...waiting..waiting...yawn... still waiting...
Wake me up when you have ANYTHING relevant to say!
Posted by: Jerry at August 31, 2003 at 05:04 PM"oh, more dead in the streets.
oh, more pointless jockeying for position in the culture wars from fat First World blowhards thousands of miles away.
but isn't it great Tim to see the US finally unleash some freedom and democracy on the long-suffering people of iraq?
keep up the good work Tim, the left needs you."
Billy
"Well, I thought the topic here was more bloodshed on the streets of iraq? Seems it's turned into how much we all hate Billy! How easily you are distracted!"
Love Billy
Billy you seem to be off topic also? hmmmm. You're one on those people who never intend to be helpful. We call those folks cocksuckers where I come from. Billy I don't for one minute believe you are a chick with a kid you might dress up like a chick with a kid but you ain't no chick. And you are not living on my taxes and welfare in the states because you spell rigor as "rigour" and checks as "checques." So you're either an Aussie, a Canadian, or a Brit but however which way, you're still a cocksucker.
The people in Iraq were dying by the thousands before now that is no longer the case. The people in Iraq suffered from widespread torture and imprisonment now that has ceased. However no one is completely safe even in a democracy and freedom isn't really free or easy. Someone always pays usually with their life. Billy you have your freedom to be an asshole at least grant the Iraqi people their chance, you self-important douchebag.
Man, the left is eat up with amatuer nazis. sheesh.
Posted by: Big John at August 31, 2003 at 07:51 PMJerry, wake up! I have something relevant to say: looking back on this thread your only posts have been to abuse me. Like i said, the right is so easily distracted by even the most meagre attempt to question its hegemony. You will not be challenged and when you are you respond with ridicule. Thanks Jerry for reinforcing my prejudices!
Dee, why don't you clean up your own backyard before you go round deciding whose back yard is so dirty it needs your special attention? Who put you in charge? Your sheer economic power? Your moral high ground?
Why do YOU ignore the abuses perpetrated by unfeeling, selfish First World fools?
If you would care to look at the multifarious and varicoloured history of civilisation, terrorism is nothing new; just as resistance to occupation is nothing new; just as organised conflict enacted for the strategic advantage nation states is nothing new; just like the arms trade, currently licking its chops at the US$4bn a month that the US government is sending its way to pay for the Iraq adventure is... nothing new.
What is new? Try the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
This idea - that Muslim lives or Rwandan lives or female lives or black lives or Serbian lives or children's lives are just as valuable as, say, AMERICAN lives - is barely 50 years old. The UDHR is the real enemy of all self-interested idealogues, whether they be religious fundamentlists, neo-stalinists, crypto-fascists, or totalitarians of the state or of the unfettered "free market". And its such an easy target. Shoot it down quick, before it catches on permanently and we have to actually start taking responsibility for eachother.
Once you accept that every person's life is as valuable as each other's the murder of toddler becomes no less outrageous than the murder of anyone else. Murder is murder, whether delivered by an indiscriminate terrorist or a screen jockey on a B-52. Some idiot will always be celebrating murder somewhere. Maybe we need a colour coded idiot alert system.
And Dee, there is routine mistreatment and abuse of women - and children - in EVERY country in the world. Why not start in your own community and work your way out? You may reach the Middle East one day.
Big John, a system where "someone always pays usually with their life" still needs some tinkering around the edges. You need more vision and less red meat. And you need to respect women more instead of calling them "chicks" or "cocksuckers". But I think I know you Big John, and last time I looked you weren't too big.
So, my beloved friends on the right, I hope you've learnt something today. I won't take up any more of valuable time. Contact me off Tim's blog if need any more help unravelling your confused and ultimately self-destructive world views.
Keep up the good work. Without you the Left is nothing!
Love Billy
Billy,
You are proving something my dear departed Pappy was fond of saying: usually those who talk the most have the least to say. (On reflection, the older I get, the smarter my Pappy becomes.)
You have the smugness of an adolescent who knows for certain he is right - you do think you occupy the moral high ground, don't you. As you mature and experience more of the world your attitude and politics might become more in tune with reality but I doubt it. By dint of chance you have been born in the First World, almost certainly to well-off parents who have denied you nothing and spared no expense where your education is concerned. Filled with self-loathing because you live a life of unearned privilege you now lash out at those who are optimistic regarding the ability of everyone everywhere to make something of themselves if they want really to. (You could move to the Third World to lend a hand but as soon as the locals saw your lilly-white,soft-as-kid-skin hands they'd know it was a joke.)
I encourage you to invest as much time as possible in posting to this site: it will keep me amused and you out of any real trouble in the real world.
Posted by: ZsaZsa at August 31, 2003 at 10:31 PMNice try, Zsa Zsa. Some very canny suppositions there.
I'm 43. I'm the product of a first world state education system developed during an era when government still had the responsiblity to provide for the commonwealth of ALL its citizens, not merely those in business for profit.
My family and descendents were working class aspiring to middle class. I got a free university education and did well. Today I wouldn;t have that opportunity because education in my country is now back to being a privilege for those who can afford to pay.
I have no assets. My widowed mum is on the pension. I've lived as an aid worker in a developing South-East Asian country for the past four years. And like everyone else on this sad little blog, I fully believe everything i say and think to be absolutely correct. Don't you?
So far no one's provided me any evidence that I should think otherwise. Nothing but abuse, really. Or some smart arse guess work at who or what i am.
But like I said at the beginning, more bloodshed on the streets of iraq... who here really gives a shit? No, you're too busy dismissing the pinko. I'm so pleased to have amused you Zsa Zsa and take your addled mind off the troubles of the world for a while.
Don't worry guys, there'll be more black to call white tomorrow. More exploded human flesh to "speculate" over. Let me know when Fox News gets to the bottom of things.
As always, you make life on the left worth living.
Keep hope alive, Love Billy
Posted by: Billy Bloggs at August 31, 2003 at 11:47 PMBig John: Loved your post, but you're wasting your time appealing to Billy on the question of allowing Iraqis true freedom. Billy doesn't care about the Iraqis, that much is clear, which is surprising given the fact that his posts are so lame. I'd have to take issue with your labelling of him as a cocksucker, however (God, I hate that word). You see, Billy is less than a cocksucker. He is nothing, and should be treated as such.
Posted by: Mike at September 1, 2003 at 12:06 AMTim,
Sorry to waste so much space on matters of no siginificance but Billy Bloggs is such good value.
Billy,
The twisted bitterness fairly drips from your posts. Unhappy that society does not provide above average reward to one with obviously above average intelligence? Have you read Robert Nozick?
Posted by: ZsaZsa at September 1, 2003 at 12:19 AMOnce upon a time all politics was tribal, because tribes were all there was. Then we got better - city states, nations, international groupings such as "the West" (shaky), the Anglosphere (real), etc.
But lots of people, both left and right, have not advanced beyond primitive tribalism, and spend a lot of time and energy creating their own pseudo-tribes. A significant number base their tribalism on politics, and define themselves by who they hate rather than who they like (just like socially retarded adolescents often do). Of course, if you give spoiled, immature tertiary students access to the Internet they will spew the insults and schoolboy taunts they would never dare utter in person onto places such as this one. (Evidentally a lot of psychologically defective lefties have chosen this blog as their Designated Victim.)
Now there are lots of these people out there, and they take so long to grow out of this childishness ... so those of us who read Tim's comments are just going to put up with them.
Or, to make a long story short: please don't feed the trolls.
Posted by: Chris Chittleborough at September 1, 2003 at 12:22 AMChris Chittleborough: That should read, " please don't feed the cocksucker trolls."
Mike (for Big John)
Posted by: Mike at September 1, 2003 at 12:26 AMCome on fellas, let me help this guy work through his problems. I mean, how desperate is a person who goes to a site seeking negative attention? I reckon he could do a Kurt Cobain on us. How would you feel then?
Posted by: ZsaZsa at September 1, 2003 at 12:47 AMBilly
If you don't believe that people die for freedom you are a fool. And no one on this blog should waste time with a fool. Your ungratefulnees is staggering.
I glad to know that the left needs, but then that's the left, needy.
ZsaZsa it would be a waste of perfectly good ammo.
Posted by: Big John at September 1, 2003 at 01:11 AMBilly, don't be a hero
Don't be a fool with your life.
Billy, don't be a hero
Come back and make me your wife.
Billy was a mountain.
Ethel, was a tree growing out of his shoulder.
Billy had two big caves for eyes
And a cliff for a jaw that would go up and down.
And whenever he did he cough up some dust
And hack up a boulder.
Billy just laughed.
"If they think they're gonna draft me they're crazy"
Two anti-war songs for Billy, the Chameleon.
Teenage single mom? Or 43 year old adolescent. You decide.
Hey, Billy what's the going exchange rate, 50 Third Worlders for every First Worlder? Sound's reasonable to me given the market.
Regarding the murder of approx. 90 Iraqis at Najaf Chip tells us above that -
"It's good news for the US and the effort to rebuild the country".
That's as good a summary of the prevailing attitude on this board as you'll find. Everything is subordinated to your blind worship of power.
Billy Blogg's right - you are just like the Brownshirts.
And no, I'm not her cousin. But I can't wait for an invite to the next lingerie party.
Posted by: Analogue Voter at September 1, 2003 at 02:40 AMBilly,
Just because you assert something does not make it correct, or relevant. Don'r know what country you're in, but in America, education is more accessible than ever. We spend more than ever on social services, programs, etc. We have bug beauraucratic entitlements like medicare, social security, etc., to force people to save for themselves, so they are not on the street as older adault. We define poverty in America as owning one TV, and concern about paying the rent at the end of the month, rather than what wwill I eat tonight. Never in modern history are things so good for so many. This is irrefutable by any measuring standard. We live longer, and have more to eat, despite 6 billion people on the planet. The ONLY time there seems to a problem re: the masses is when a society is not free and open. Poverty, despair, etc. are not caused by the West, they are caused by dictators, tolitarian states, etc. that are not accountable to the people. We are. I neither voted for Bush or Clinton -- but I see neither as my enemy, only a political adversary. The enemy are those that hate freedom and democracy -- it was true in 1945, and it is true today. When I speak of "hating" a position by a Democrat, it is in relative terms, relative to, say, "hating" the Miami Dolphins.
With respect to human rights, I agree: why, then, are you not celebrating the ending of Saddam's regime, which, despite the resulting difficulties, is saving tremendous numbers of net lives? It is becuase you are the one who is bent on ideology.
Posted by: Jery at September 1, 2003 at 02:54 AMI said i wasn't going to come back but Zsa Zsa, you've baited me into it.
No, affirming my right to self-ownership, i choose to refuse Nozick. I find him way too taxing!
I prefer the French philosophers: Irigaray, Lacan, Barthes, Bataille, Baudrillard, Derrida. The French have given patrimony so much, not the least ``Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite’’.
I'm also a fan - but not a follower - of that prophet of the modern age, FW Nietzsche, who said:
"The worst readers are those who proceed like plundering soldiers: they pick up a few things they can use, soil and confuse the rest, and blaspheme the whole."
[Mixed Opinions and Maxims (1879), §137.}
I reckon crazy old Fred describes our mate Tim Blair in all his naked glory, not to mention his cheer squad...
OK, gotta leave "82 dead in iraq" for good now, but remember it's ratbags like you that give the Left its raison d'ętre.
love Billy
Posted by: Billy Bloggs at September 1, 2003 at 09:02 AM"The French have given patrimony so much, not the least ``Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite’’."
Yes, but this wonderful patrimony came to us drenched in the blood of 100,000 victims of the Reign of Terror. Why not include Robespierre in your pantheon of Gallic genius? Indeed, this dreadful legacy was enthusiastically embraced by the Heroes of the Left: Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot.
Hey, nobody important, you're blaming that notorious leftie Jacques Chirac for the Reign of Terror now?
You tellin' us Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were all French? Thank god you ARE nobody important!
I agree with Billy. Billy DO be a hero! Come home and make me your wife!
Miranda
Posted by: Miranda at September 1, 2003 at 10:27 AM"but remember it's ratbags like you that give the Left its raison d'ętre."
That's right. Without us the Left has no reason to live. So you should be thankful that we give meaning to your otherwise miserable existance.
And on a personal note, I take great umbrage at being called a ratbag. I'm going to add it to the list of insults I've received from the Left and I'm going to use on my rainy day.
Oh, and Billy. On September 11, 2001 there was blood on the streets on New York. People forced to choose between leaping to their doom from 100 stories and being incinerated. People without even that much of a choice. So, please spare us your pious concern about innocent Iraqis. Your sympathies are much too narrow; you have no credibility. You are a poseur.
Posted by: nobody important at September 1, 2003 at 10:34 AMDear Miranda,
What? I don't even know anyone named Chirac. And I'm not telling anyone anything. Please read my post again; there'll be a quiz after.
Not that I want to pry into the private lives of others, but Billy's not a good catch. He's 43 and has no assets.
Posted by: nobody important at September 1, 2003 at 10:40 AMDear Miranda,
Now, on the other hand, I am 49, make 120K per annum, have $300,000 in investments and own real estate valued at $500,000 without a mortgage. All this without an academic degree from a "free first world state education system". I'm not a product of anything but my own efforts augmented by a little good luck and a little help from my friends.
In short, Billy's a whining loser. A Momma's boy. You'd be much better off with someone like me.