October 31, 2004
HITCH FLIPS
The ever-changing endorsement of Christopher Hitchens:
October 21: "Why I'm (Slightly) for Bush"
October 26: "Kerry should get his worst private nightmare and have to report for duty."
October 31: "Why I'm voting for Bush (but only just)"
DINING WITH THE STARS
Nick e-mails to remind me of my crazy bet:
If bin Laden is proved to be alive at this point, I'll take out a year-long subscription to the SMH. Hey -- I'll also take Paul [McGeough] out to lunch at the restaurant of his choice. He can bring Margo [Kingston] with him!
A deal's a deal. The subscription will be taken out on Monday, and invitations will shortly be on their way to Margo and Paul. Hope they like McDonald's ...
HORSES RAISED
Celebrities! What would we do without them? I was struggling to make sense of the US election until Christine Lahti intervened:
Lahti herself is an excellent actress who, like so many of her ilk, is also reflexively anti-Bush. So she's been on the Kerry campaign trail "trying to reach out to women," as she told USA Today last week.
That's from Cathy Seipp, who also alerts us to the celebrity power of Julianna Margulies:
"I'm not going out there as an actress, I'm going out there as a woman, and I'm worried about women's rights," actress Julianna Margulies told the Los Angeles Times on October 25 about her volunteer work for Kerry.
I've never heard of Margulies or Lahti, however, so I needed Debbie Schussel to bring to my attention Patrick Swayze's opinion before I finally committed to the anti-Bush cause:
Speaking with Agence France Presse (it figures he’d pick the French) while in Warsaw, Swayze criticized the United States for being “insensitive” and "disrespectful" in Iraq.
"I know a great deal about the Middle East because I’ve been raising Arabian horses," he said.
ROVE/OSAMA LINK REVEALED
Walter Cronkite identifies the evil genius responsible for the latest Osama bin Laden video:
So now the question is basically right now, how will this affect the election? And I have a feeling that it could tilt the election a bit. In fact, I'm a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing.
Oh, they’re e-mailing each other all the time:
From: binny@toraboradeathcave.com
Date: Thurs October 28, 2004
To: karl@satan.net
Subject: new videotaping we haveYo, Rovemeister!
Is Osama here. How you do? Hope all is well with campaign for evil, etc. (How about that John Kerry wife - the crazy one. Two burkas for her at least! Kerry, he was surely wearing the fermented hummous goggles when they wed!)
Anyways, maybe can help campaign with new video, featuring me in star role. See attachmented clip below.
Yours in happiness,
OsamaFrom: karl@satan.net
Date: Thurs October 28, 2004
To: binny@toraboradeathcave.com
Subject: re: new videotaping we haveOsama, you old dog!
By all means, please release this video ASAP. And, as we’ve previously discussed, for every percentage point we gain in the swing states we’ll send you another kidney we’ve harvested from murdered Democrats in Florida.
Best wishes,
Karl
(Via Professor Bunyip)
Admin announcement: comments are back on
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MANY DEAD, USUAL SUSPECTS TO BLAME
Shannon Love rips into Lancet's "100,000 Iraqis killed since the invasion" study:
Needless to say, this study will become an article of faith in certain circles but the study is obviously bogus on its face.
Read the whole thing. Meanwhile, the study is well on its way to becoming an article of faith at the Sydney Morning Herald ...
NZ OPTION BLOCKED
Reader Jim McMahon, of Wellington, New Zealand, writes: "You've really hit the jackpot this time ... an item in 'The Last Word' from this Saturday's edition of the Wellington Dominion Post":
Tim Blair, who struggles to write a satirical column in Australia's Bulletin magazine, reckons the anti-Howard bunch are so dispirited over the election result they are threatening to emigrate here. Blair likens this to as close as you can get to committing suicide while still registering a pulse. But he threatens to come too if he doesn't win a journalism award next year. Sorry mate, we don't want you.
Not wanted in New Zealand? I'm ... what's the opposite of "devastated"? Actually, I'm quite fond of New Zealanders, and I meet a great many of them, on account of living in Sydney.
October 30, 2004
WHERE YOU BIN?
Osama bin Laden is an expert on children’s literature:
It appeared to him (Bush) that a little girl's talk about her goat and its butting was more important than the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers.
This is remarkable. Osama doesn’t merely mention the title of the book Bush was reading on September 11; he describes the actual plot:
A robber arrives to steal the dad's red car! But the goat butts the robber and saves the day.
Say what you like about old Binny -- I've been saying for years that he was dead -- but you can’t doubt his research skills. Welcome back to the realm of the living, Osama! Now we get to kill you properly.
UPDATE. More goat-butting news.
Admin announcement
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October 29, 2004
ONE MAN, MANY PLANS
John Kerry has a plan. Let him tell you all about it.
(Via reader Greg MacDonald)
AUSTRALIAN OPTION
Mark Steyn puts his job on the line:
Next Tuesday the President will win the states he won last time, plus Iowa, Wisconsin, New Mexico and Maine’s Second Congressional District to put him up to 301 electoral votes. Minnesota? Why not? Nudge him up to 311 electoral votes. Oh, and what the hell, give him Hawaii: that’s 315 ...
Usually after making wild predictions I confidently toss my job on the line and say, if they don’t pan out, I’m outta here. I’ve done that a couple of times this campaign season — over Wes Clark (remember him?) — but it almost goes without saying in these circumstances. Were America to elect John Kerry president, it would be seen around the world as a repudiation not just of Bush and of Iraq but of the broader war. It would be a declaration by the people of American unexceptionalism — that they are a slightly butcher Belgium; they would be signing on to the wisdom of conventional transnationalism. Having failed to read correctly the mood of my own backyard, I could hardly continue to pass myself off as a plausible interpreter of the great geopolitical forces at play.
The good news for US-based conservatives is that, in the case of a Bush defeat, they now have a "Canada option" such as is often cited by US liberals. If Kerry wins, move to Australia! Conservatives control both our houses of Parliament, and even the Labor Party is slowly realising that, hey, maybe opposing the war wasn't such a good idea after all:
Labor is reviewing its call for Australian troops to be brought home from Iraq by Christmas, as it starts the painful process of rebuilding after its fourth election loss in a row.
UPDATE. Partners forever:
Accused terrorist Abu Bakar Bashir has told an Indonesian court to be wary of interference from the "two enemies of God", Australia and the US.
BUSH VOTERS IDENTIFIED
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hartcher looks at the Jacksonian influence on the election:
When the US is at war, there is a powerful group of Americans, overlooked in American politics most of the time, whose feelings are stirred, whose resolve is stiffened, and whose intensity forces itself to the centre of national political life.
It's a group that constitutes the hardy core of the American folk, and it was introduced by the novelist and ex-Marine James Webb in these terms: "This people gave our country great things, including its most definitive culture. It is imbued with a unique and unforgiving code of personal honour less ritualised but every bit as powerful as the samurai code."
"This people", wrote Webb to his fellow Americans, "are all around you, even though you probably don't know it". They are the Scots-Irish. They arrived in America in the 18th century in small boats to find existing English settlements, and so pushed on inland to occupy the harsh mountain wilderness along the Appalachians. They fought the Indians, then they fought the British. From the beginning, they formed the core of the American fighting forces.
And, surveying an ancestral Virginia graveyard, Webb, a former senior official in the Reagan Pentagon, writes that they are his people: "The slurs stick to me, standing on these graves. Rednecks. Trailer-park trash. Racists. Cannon fodder. My ancestors. My people. Me."
The slurs still stick. Check the SMH’s headline on this piece: "Trailer trash: fightin' mad, want Dubya".
UPDATE. On a similar note, this Molly Ivins column -- published at Working for Spare Change -- declares: "Clueless people love Bush" ...
UPDATE II. Get a load of this:
Via Evil Pundit. Contact the Sydney Morning Herald here.
HIT THE TABLES, REVEREND
The Bad Costello is whining about gambling, as usual:
The Reverend Tim Costello says most Australians would be shocked to know that one fifth of the world's poker machines are in Australia.
Actually, they might be more shocked by this:
Reverend Costello is attending the Australian Council of Social Services conference being held at the Alice Springs casino.
Contributor J.F. Beck writes: "What’s shocking is that anyone would be stupid enough to stuff money into one of these things. Really, the revenue from poker machines is a stupidity tax."
ONLY 86 YEARS UNTIL THE NEXT WIN
Congratulations to the Fat Man and Slender Sheila on the triumph of their baseballing team, which I understand has not won a game since 642BC. Coverage in Australia was extensive, featuring footage of both Fat and Sheila setting fire to their own cars, although during the playoffs multicultural broadcaster SBS revealed the limits of its multiculturalism by pronouncing "Houston Astros" as "Houston Ass-tross."
SPARE US ANY GOOD NEWS
"Arthur Chrenkoff has made it his mission to report the good news [out of Iraq]," writes John Quiggin. "A lot of the time this consists of impossibly cute kitten stories ..."
And Tim Dunlop complains that Chrenkoff avoids Iraq's "crucial truth" (that Iraq is a disaster, and Bush is idiotic, incompetent, must be defeated, etc.):
You either accept that crucial truth or you can spend your time linking to dopey "stories about cats" and continue to pretend that the biggest threat to civilisation is the New York Times.
Dunlop and Quiggin have invented a new argumentative tactic: the straw cat. Take a look through Arthur's exhaustive compilations, which cover all manner of developments in Iraq, from investment and rebuilding to diplomatic agreements and humanitarian aid. No kitties, however; for evidence of that, John and Tim point to this mocking August 3 post at Crooked Timber, by Belle Waring:
Like that one time in Mosul, when the kitten pretended to stalk and pounce on that dented beer cap, like it was a mouse or something, and everybody laughed. Remember that? Right before the mortar attack, remember?
At least Quiggin acknowledges that there "is some real good news" emerging from Iraq; Dunlop, however, simply demands further confirmation of his existing beliefs. "Sanity insists that we concentrate on what is going wrong," he cries. "Look, if things are so relatively wonderful, go spend some time there and give us some firsthand reporting from the country itself instead of sitting at home and picking through what various media are already providing." Yet when Chrenkoff supplies a firsthand report from Iraq, by Chicago Sun-Times reporter Annie Sweeney, Dunlop -- writing from his home, presumably -- condemns it as "crap" that is "just insulting".
Insulting? Try this Dunlop notion on for size:
Life went on pretty normally for a lot of German people while Jews were rounded up into ghettos under Nazism but was there an Arthur Chrenkoff blogging away somewhere in Australia telling us all that we shouldn't put so much emphasis on all that nasty stuff? Would there have been a chorus of other bloggers happily linking? And tough luck if you find the comparison offensive.
I only find the comparison pathetic (more valid would be to compare coverage of post-war Germany, during which many proto-Dunlops "concentrated on what was going wrong"); Chrenkoff, whose Polish grandmother lived through the Nazi occupation of her homeland, might find it offensive.
In any case, it’s not as though Chrenkoff claims a mortgage on truth. As he wrote in a recent Good News edition:
Read the stories below in addition to - not to the exclusion of - all the bad news. Only by knowing both sides of the story you can make an informed judgment about how things in Iraq are really going.
Quite why Dunlop and Quiggin should be so worked up about this is beyond me. Chrenkoff is an impressive, understated talent whose work quickly won notice throughout blogdom and in the Wall Street Journal; I’d hate to think that such bitter responses were inspired by his success.
STRAW CAT UPDATE. In comments, John Quiggin clarifies his definition of "an impossibly cute kitten story"; apparently that means a story about "farmers tilling fields and women walking on roads".
STRAW CAT UPDATE II. Snappy John ("the cats of Australia have made their choice!") claims he was attempting irony:
In my recent post about good and bad news from Iraq, I referred to impossibly cute kitten stories. This is Belle Waring's ironic description of the kind of good news story that relies on the fact that even in the midst of war, and even under oppressive dictatorships, life goes on. Farmers plant their crops, children (and kittens) are born and play, and so on.
Not even Thomas Hearns has a longer reach than Kitty Quiggin.
LYING IN THE BUSHES, WAITING TO STRIKE
Did you know that the mainstream media is being criticised? By people using the 'global Interwebnet' technology? It's true! Jim Rutenberg reports:
Practicing cheap and dirty politics, playing fast and loose with the facts and even lying: Accusations like these, and worse, have been slung nonstop this year.
The accused in this case are not the candidates, but the mainstream news media. And the accusers are an ever-growing army of Internet writers, many of them partisans, who reach hundreds of thousands of people a day.
They do? Whatever will become of us?
Journalists covering the campaign believe the intent is often to bully them into caving to a particular point of view. They insist the efforts have not swayed them in any significant way, though others worry the criticism could eventually have a chilling effect.
We can only hope. Oh, they said "chilling"; I misread.
Many sites urge visitors to personally call reporters and news organizations and send e-mail messages, which can number in the hundreds daily.
Many editors urge reporters to personally call individuals and businesses and send e-mails, which can number in the hundreds daily.
When "60 Minutes" reported on documents purporting to show Mr. Bush received preferential treatment in the Air National Guard, questions about the documents' authenticity originated and caught fire on the FreeRepublic and PowerLine blog Web sites; mainstream outlets followed. CBS News admitted two weeks later that it could not authenticate the documents. The NBC anchor Tom Brokaw recently likened the tone of the Internet coverage of the CBS National Guard report, presented by the anchor Dan Rather, to a "political jihad." In an interview last week Mr. Brokaw said CBS News had clearly made mistakes. But, he said, "I think there were people just lying in the Internet bushes, waiting to strike, and I think that particular episode gave them a big opportunity."
I think there were people just lying in the CBS bushes, waiting to strike, and I think the Bush National Guard story gave them a big opportunity. Actually, I think there were people just lying ...
FEAR LEVELS PEAKING
A certain European former power is frightened:
French officials and politicians are worrying about the pending outcome of next week's U.S. presidential elections, which they fear President George W. Bush could win, prolonging the standoff with France over Iraq and the Middle East crisis.
French fear is almost universal as the latest official polls show that 85 percent of the French support Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry.
"French fear is almost universal." There's a line you could drop into any story from the past 50 years. The chances of Bush winning may have increased lately, due to the Kerry camp's inept handling of the New York Times' "tons of explosives" story; Ralph Peters summarises developments.
UPDATE. Africa also wants Kerry to win, although Africa doesn’t know who Kerry is:
"If Africa was to vote, Kerry would get a landslide," said Robert Kabushenga, a political analyst in Uganda, told Reuters.
"All public opinion surveys show the publics of the world don't know Kerry but they don't like Bush. Someone sitting in Chad doesn't know who Kerry is, but he sure knows who Bush is," said John Stremlau, a professor of international relations at Johannesburg's Witwatersrand University ...
Africa roots for Kerry. Few premiers are so undiplomatic as to say it publicly but commentators and ordinary people across the continent are loud and proud in voicing support for the Democrat.
It is not that they know or like him. Besides promising a more robust challenge to Sudanese abuses in Darfur Kerry has said little about Africa. Nor are they especially impressed by his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, romanticising her upbringing in Mozambique and South Africa. It is enough that Kerry is not Bush.
This public service announcement brought to you by Rory Carroll of The Guardian.
FOOTBALL WAS THE WINNER
Reader Richard writes:
Just wondering if by any chance you are able to get a video of the first 5 minutes of the Australia v Ireland International Rules second game, when that dog ran onto the field and was chasing the ball?! (I still can't believe he was on there for 5+ minutes!). I'd LOVE to be able to download a version of that ...
No luck with any video, Richard, but here’s an update. Dog goes home!
ENDORSEMENT EXAMINED
Perhaps we were too hasty in describing Christopher Hitchens' puzzling election rumination as a Kerry "endorsement". Harry Hutton and his gifted academic nephew take a closer look:
If I’ve got this right, the subjective votes and the objective votes cancel each other out, but Kerry wins on some kind of ironic level. You would need a fucking PhD in Irony Studies to make any sense of this.
As luck would have it, my nephew is in the third year of an Ironic Degree at Oxford. He explains: "There are several layers of irony here, most of which you will be too dim to perceive. His endorsement of Bush a few days ago is best interpreted as some kind of sophisticated double-bluff irony feinting manoeuvre, rendering today’s support for Kerry even wittier than it already would have been.
"There is no way that Kerry should be elected –indeed, he should be 'pilloried' and pelted with fruit. And yet Kerry should be elected, precisely because he doesn't want to be. What we lose in 'principles', we gain in irony.
"I'm still trying to decode that bit about Pat Buchanan. I'll get back to you."
Speaking of hasty, James Lileks writes:
The older I get, the more I rethink that whole Ginger v. Mary Ann thing. Someone needs to make the case for Ginger, is all I’m saying.
Case made.
NEVERENDING STORY
A Kerry win would be fascinating, for several reasons. Imagine, for example, the reaction of anti-Bush folks internationally. These failures haven’t had anything to celebrate for years; their victory glands are shrivelled and inactive. And Kerry’s acceptance speech might run for the rest of 2004, if his campaign form is any guide:
During one speech, Mr Kerry’s script writers had crafted the concise pledge: "I will work with Republicans and Democrats on this healthcare plan, and we will pass it."
In the candidate’s hands it became: "I will work with Republicans and Democrats across the aisle, openly, not with an ideological, driven, fixed, rigid concept, but much like Franklin Roosevelt said, I don’t care whether a good idea is a Republican idea or a Democrat idea. I just care whether or not it’s gonna’ work for Americans and help make our country stronger.
"And we will pass this bill. I’ll tell you a little bit about it in a minute, and I’ll tell you why we’ll pass it, because it’s different from anything we’ve ever done before, despite what the Republicans want to try to tell you."
His scriptwriters’ snappy attack on Mr Bush’s healthcare plan - "Don’t get sick" - became: "And don’t get sick. Just pray, stand up and hope, wait - whatever. We are all left wondering and hoping. That’s it."
One year of Kerry, and people will yearn for the clarity and precision of the Bush administration.
SKYBLOGGER DOWN
The BBC reports:
A US airline attendant is fighting for her job after she was suspended over postings on her blog, or online diary.
Queen of the Sky, otherwise known as Ellen Simonetti, evolved into an anonymous semi-fictional account of life in the sky.
But after she posted pictures of herself in uniform, Delta Airlines suspended her indefinitely without pay.
Nice pics. Delta should give her a pay rise. Our friendly Sky Queen is also a Democrat supporter, but restricts her activism to conventional forms; unlike one road-bound campaigner, who attempted to mow down Katherine Harris :
A silver Cadillac "swerved off the road and drove up the sidewalk" heading "straight towards Ms. Harris," according to the police arrest report.
"I was exercising my political expression," Seltzer told police, according to the report.
October 28, 2004
THIS CHARMING MAN
Morrissey joins fellow Brits-living-in-the-US Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens in supporting John Kerry. To get the full impact of Morrissey's endorsement, imagine him singing this while swaying around in an oversized cardigan and planning his dismal suicide:
With all my heart I urge people to vote
against George Bush.
Jon Stewart would be ideal, but John Kerry
is the logical and sane move.It does not need to be said yet again,
but Bush has single-handedly
turned the United States
into the most neurotic and terror-obsessed country on the planet.(chorus)
For non-Americans, the United States
is suddenly not a very nice place to visitUS immigration officers – under the rules of Bush –
now conduct themselves
with all the charm and
unanswerable indignation of Hitler’s SS.Please bring sanity and intelligence
back to the United States.
Don’t forget to vote.
Vote for John Kerry and get rid of George Bush!(repeat chorus until dead)
Morrissey is against being neurotic and terror-obsessed? That’s news. In another unexpected development, Germans go for George:
Bild, Europe's bestselling tabloid with 4m copies a day, yesterday endorsed the president, who it said was far less "wobbly" than his Democratic rival.
The president had learned the lessons of history, the paper said, reminding Germans it was the Republican Ronald Reagan who won the cold war, suggesting Mr Bush could become another Reagan.
SCALES OF JUSTICE
Tim Colebatch reports:
The Coalition is poised to claim a historic Senate majority this morning by taking the final two seats in Queensland.
In a final twist to a drawn-out vote count, the preferences of 29,043 Fishing Party voters could clinch for the Coalition the most powerful parliamentary position of any federal government in more than two decades.
Here's to no Fraserite wasting of a Senate advantage. Hail the fish voters!
Prime Minister John Howard will have control of the upper house after the National Party was declared the winner of Queensland's last Senate seat today.
Brisbane Nationals candidate Barnaby Joyce was declared the winner of the sixth Senate seat when the Australian Electoral Commission completed the final computer count on the complex Senate preference distribution.
Mr Joyce's victory hands the Coalition 39 of the Senate's 76 members, giving the Government a majority in the upper house for the first time in a quarter of a century.
UPDATE II. In other happy piscine news, the Arafish is said to be unwell.
GOAT SCAPED
He's already alienated the CFMEU, and now Latham is enraging the AMWU:
One of Australia's largest unions has accused Mark Latham of a "cowardly scapegoating exercise", as the Opposition prepares to consult business about how it should rewrite its industrial relations policy.
The left-wing Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, which has 150,000 members, wrote to Labor leader Mr Latham yesterday saying it was concerned about the plan to begin talks with business about changes to the policy.
"That the party has identified industrial relations as a key weakness, and a reason it lost the election, is, to say the very least, astounding," the union's national secretary, Doug Cameron, said in the letter.
I love that "one of Australia's largest unions" has only 150,000 members. Latham shouldn’t be too worried about this; unlike the forestry union folks, there's no broad sympathy for Cameron and his mates. It might be a clever move for Latham to indicate his support for Cameron's anti-globalism by demanding that Cameron be returned to Scotland.
INSIGHT/NOSOUND
Nice crowd at the taping of SBS’s Insight program the other night. The subject was Australia's relationship with the US. Check out the interjections when a sound problem occured:
JENNY BROCKIE: We are going to have to move on because we're running out of time, and I'd like to get back to the US election if we can because it is just a week away. I wonder, George Friedman, we talked about whether there's a difference - you're smiling there, what do you make of all of this, when you hear this kind of discussion going on? Does it give you an insight into what Australians are thinking a little bit more?
MAN: He's asleep.
JENNY BROCKIE: He's not asleep.
MAN: He's a good last speaker.
JENNY BROCKIE: No. Can he hear me? Can George hear me? George, can you hear me in Texas? No! Martin, you can hear me, can't you?
MAN: That was censorship by Murdoch.
Read the whole thing. The gibberish from Chris Haywood and Richard Neville is fantastic.
TALK ABOUT YOUR SPORTS OMENS
The Melbourne Cup is run next Tuesday, the same date as the US election -- and every single competitor looks exactly like John Kerry.
READ THE SCREED
James Lileks doesn't think much of Andrew Sullivan's Kerry endorsement, and after reading Lileks' polite destruction of Sullivan, you may not either. That's if you thought much of it beforehand, which you probably didn't.
Another point of universal agreement: the release of a new Lileks book is a cause for celebration. My home village is still echoing with gunfire! Buy a copy just so you can witness "Xatptipltical, Frog God of Crap".
UPDATE. Sullivan notes that Christopher Hitchens also supports Kerry ... but only a few days earlier Hitchens supported Bush. These crazy Brits are -- what's the term? -- flip-flopping.
LATHAM SHAKEN
Look out, Mark! A 64-year-old man is approaching, and he might try to shake your hand!
Labor leader Mark Latham says the prime minister's flapping-style handshake is unnerving.
Mr Howard's handshake, or his "flapping-style armshake", was unusual and special tactics were required to counter it, Mr Latham said.
Defending his up-close handshake with Mr Howard outside a Sydney radio studio on election eve, the taller Mr Latham said he was not trying to stand over the Liberal leader.
Instead, he was getting in close to combat the armshake.
George W. Bush seemed able to cope.
October 27, 2004
SHUN COMMUNICATION
Tim Dunlop, an Australian living in the US, describes watching game one of the World Series in the company of obsessive Sox fans:
There were about six different phones in the house--cell phones and landlines--and every time a run was scored or an innings ended or at some other "moment", all the phones would ring at once and it would be a brother/sister/mother/father/friend from California/Rhode Island/Texas/Boston or somewhere ringing through to share the moment and pick it apart.
There are two types of obsessive sports fans: those who leave their phone lines open, for the reasons Tim lists, and those who isolate themselves so that they may more deeply and harmfully dwell on the fortunes of their team. I fall into the latter category; I have, more than once, physically removed people from my house during crucial sports telecasts. Which would be much easier if Australia had more lenient gun laws.
POPULAR INTELLECTUALS SOUGHT
Dennis Glover writes:
Labor needs to put its faith in a new generation of intellectuals who are in touch with the people.
Please, Dennis; name a single member of this in-touch leftoid intellectual generation.
'QUEASY FEELING' REPORTED
Our old Guardian friend Jonathan Freedland is suffering a familiar queasy feeling:
Here it comes again, that sinking feeling. Four years ago I travelled across the United States, following the presidential campaign, and came away alarmed that Al Gore was not doing enough to win an election that should have been his. Now I have that same queasy feeling - except this time it's not only about the simple matter of who will win and who will lose on November 2. Now it's a deep concern about what is happening to the US itself.
What is happening is that the US is holding an election. Terrible, I know, but what can you do?
PAPERWORK UNFINISHED
Those progressive Canadians! They're so advanced. Too bad "progressive" so often means "bureaucratic crazytime":
Gay couples wanting to get married in Nova Scotia this fall will have to be declared husband and wife – at least until the province gets its paperwork finished.
Some of Nova Scotian same-sex couples who fought for the right to be legally married are angry over the terminology.
Don't know why. What else do you call a married couple?
OFFICE ATTACK INDEX
"Office attacks," I wrote after Howard's victory, "might be a new measure of electoral success." If so, bet on Bush:
Yesterday, the Bush campaign provided a list of more than 40 examples it said had occurred since July, including the burglary from campaign offices of several items: two laptop computers in Seattle; a banner in Thousand Oaks, Calif.; petty cash in Spokane, Wash.; as well as break-ins last Friday in both Flagstaff, Ariz., and Cincinnati.
Violence against you = votes for you! (Other Bulletin columns may be found here.)
DISINTEGRATION BRINKED
You think the Australian Labor Party is in chaos? Check out these guys:
Algeria’s largest Islamist political party is teetering on the brink of disintegration amid reports of sexual scandals and the resignation of five of its top leaders.
Key quote: “It is hard to know what happened at the house. There were no witnesses to see what our comrade and the lady did.”
October 26, 2004
SNAKE CHARMER BADLY BITTEN
"Your blogger has been busy playing in Big Media," Chris Sheil crowed yesterday:
The occasion is today's release of the Evatt Foundation's annual assessment of the state governments ... I didn't write a word, of course, but I managed the project, edited the final copy together and spun the release. Great to see it getting out there today ... I've also picked up a couple of radio interviews, and might be heard on Adelaide ABC tomorrow morning (6.50am) ... Must be off, the phone's ringing again ...
Adelaide radio at 6.50am? Media doesn’t get much bigger! But Chris’s preening was interrupted when Queensland premier Peter Beattie "ambushed" him:
"It's just rubbish," the radio guy repeated as he put on a record. "Peter Beattie says it's just rubbish". He didn't seem malicious, the radio guy, that is. More amused. Geoff Gallup is probably my favourite of the current premiers, and I quite like Steve Bracks. But Beattie is the closest any comes to charismatic. Beattie is catching.
I was ambushed by him on radio yesterday. No warning. Next thing you know, Pete is laying in big time. "I've never been impressed by the Evatt Foundation's work; it's a left-wing think tank; it doesn't count efficiency; have a look at the productivity commission; Evatt's left-wing; and the report's rubbish; it's just rubbish". And there were more words to that effect.
"What do you say to that Christopher?" asked the radio guy, now highly amused.
It gives me the shits, I was thinking. Not the premier's intervention, but the soft-soap invitation to have a nice chat about the Evatt report on a cuddly radio program, only to be ambushed from a great height.
Doesn’t cope with criticism very well, does he? I'm surprised Chris didn't resort to an earlier defence: "I didn't write the report! I only edited it! Not my argument!"
DUBIOUS STORY PROBED
The Sydney Morning Herald investigates claims by the Herald Sun's Nui Te Koha that Mark Philippoussis has taken up with Paris Hilton, and finds that those claims may not be accurate. The story doesn’t check out, according to sources interviewed by the SMH.
Poor Nui. If he’d written that Paris Hilton was shooting handcuffed prisoners as part of her campaign to wipe out West Hollywood insurgents, the SMH would've run Nui's story on the front page, no questions asked. He might even have won a United Nations media award.
CHANGE IS BAD - UNLESS IT'S CHANGING GEARS
Clutch activist Dave Addis asks:
Is the clutch pedal dead? Or the sole province of those who inhabit the opposite societal poles of poverty and wealth?
I dunno. As I said, we own vehicles that have one and vehicles that don’t. But to steal from a line on those bumper stickers that I read while stalled in Tidewater traffic, "I'll give up my clutch when they pry my cold, dead toes from around it."
Those who would restrict us to automatic gearboxes face a brutal reckoning.
UPDATE. Matt from Denver -- I’ve ridden in his rapid Merc, and he knows what he’s talking about -- defends the shiftless:
I've seen footage of a nighttime drag race between an E55 AMG and a Mustang Cobra modified to generate 452hp. The E55 wasted the Mustang, and the reason was shifting. The camera was at the end of the qtr mile, and while every Mustang shift sent the headlights bobbling (losing time), you could barely see the MB shift points. It was like a plane taking off.
I'm afraid to say it's the future. Eat your soylent green, clutch monkeys.
INSANE WOMAN HEARS VOICES
Marian Wilkinson, the Sydney Morning Herald's tragic Washington correspondent, reports:
Vote for us or your children will die. It is a compelling message and President George Bush has no qualms about delivering it as he heads into the final week of this election in a neck-and-neck race with John Kerry.
Hey, if all the kids are dead, at least they’ll no longer be scared.
HALE BOPPY, JOHN!
Attention, loyal Margonauts! The next phase will shortly commence. Behold the latest transmission from Cult Commander Hamish:
Dear supporters of Margo Kingston’s Not Happy John! website,
Firstly, thankyou for your patience. Burnout is a serious issue for activists, and we have all needed a bit of a break in order to come back fighting.
No Thappy John has been running for six months or so, and they’re already exhausted. I blame the Jews.
This Friday Margo is regrouping with the NHJ! team and we are preparing for the next phase of the website and the “Defending Our Democracy” project. Note that “Defending Our Democracy” is the subtitle of Margo’s book, and has always had a much broader relevance than merely, “Not Happy John!”
It’s as though he’s interpreting scripture.
At this time we are negotiating with an ISP for our new site and figuring out the details of the design. Our central goals are to build a genuine alternative media, to compete with the increasingly sycophantic mainstream, and to abet a mass movement to support, defend and if possible extend our great democratic traditions and institutions.
They are frustrated with the way things are, hungry for change, confident of the potential for human perfection, eager to believe in a single truth, able to envision an unprecedented society, and ready for action!
An Australian version of moveon.org is a central project. Right now this website is in the height of the US election, and in that context it is a very interesting look. Check it out.
Moveon.org claims more than two million participants, was founded by a couple of millionaires, and is financed by a billionaire. Not Happy John is run by these lazy people, who in the crucial last week of the Australian election campaign managed to post only four items. Good luck convincing investors about the depth of your commitment, babies.
The new site will have improved features of interactivity, where visitors can blog their own comments and have dialogue. In the tradition of Webdiary and NHJ! these blogs will be moderated and edited, fairly and professionally, which we feel is one of the keys to Webdiary’s success.
Success? What freakin' success? Who’s the Prime Minister these days?
All comments will be deemed valid, but it will not be a free-for-all of poor spelling and grammar ...
Great Leader will not be pleased.
We are going to need your help. For offers of any type of assistance, ideas and possible links that you do not wish to be published, email us at defendingourdemocracy@yahoo.com.au.
What an odd request. Well, since you ask, I do not wish this link to be published. Or this one. (PS: Please don’t publish this link either. Thank you.)
Regards, in love and hope,
Hamish Alcorn.
End transmission. Put on your Nike sneakers. Prepare for the comet.
STUPID LATINO MEN
The Spanish lefties at Nodo50.org really should have checked the text on this Michael Moore cover before running it. Then again, it is completely accurate.
(Congrats to Evil Pundit, who devised the Spanish-tricking image.)
ADVERTISE, OR I WILL ASSASSINATE THE GUARDIAN’S EDITOR
Ha ha ha! Only joking, Mr. Editor Man. I deplore violence of any kind.
But I do love advertising, which is probably a form of economic violence or something. And it turns out that advertising on this site is very effective and cheap economic violence, according to happy customer Brian Morgan:
Dear Mr. Blair:
I just wanted to send you a quick note to let you know that blog ads on your site are incredibly cost-effective. I've been buying online ads with Yahoo, MSN, Google, and others since 1998. This ad buy was our first experience with blog ads. The results are simply phenomenal!
The cost per click (CPC) is less than four cents. To put things in perspective, we're used to seeing CPC's in the US$1.25 to US$2.00 range. Ads on your site are 35 to 55 times more cost effective than what we see elsewhere.
If there is anyone trying to reach a prize demographic of well-read, politically aware viewers, they'd be crazy not to buy one of your blog ads.
Thanks,
Brian Morgan
Managing Partner, CompuMedical, LLC
You heard the man. Don’t be crazy!
ER, THAT WAS BROTHERS-IN-LAW
It’s terrible when innocent comments are taken out of context:
Two high-profile Muslim leaders in Canada have been forced to issue clarifications for anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli comments.
In East Vancouver, the head of Dar al-Madinah Islamic Society came under attack for calling Jews "brothers of monkeys and swine" during a recorded lecture following Israel's killing of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, last spring.
Now Sheik Younus Kathrada says the comments were taken out of context.
It’s also a damn shame when innocent comments are misunderstood:
Meanwhile, the president of the influential Canadian Islamic Congress, Mohamed Elmasry, also came under attack after a television interview last week, in which he said any Israeli over age 18 was a legitimate target for suicide bombers because adult Israelis were required to do military service.
"They are part of the Israeli army, even if they have civilian clothes," Elmasry argued on the Ontario current affairs show The Michael Coren Show.
"I sincerely regret that my comments were misunderstood and, as a result, caused offence," Elmasry was quoted in a web posting over the weekend.
(Via Alan R. M. Jones, now safely returned to Australia)
NEWS BRIEFLETS
• Arthur Chrenkoff compiles another slab o’ good news out of Iraq. And the LA Times has more, including opinion from Christopher Hitchens.
• John Hawkins interviews celebrity pie-dodger Ann Coulter. By the way, how come nobody ever throws pies at Michael Moore? Oh, wait ...
• Religious people are crazy, according to Bill Maher. Guess he won't be voting for John Kerry.
• If you missed this anti-Bush ad by Frank J. -- which is unlikely, because it was linked everywhere -- take a listen now. Or don't, just to spite me.
• The carefully-cultivated image of blondes as intellectual superbeings may never recover. I first posted something about these dumb broads months ago, and they still haven't fixed their stupid site ...
• Vote no to Bush! Vote no to riots!
TRASH MOUTH
The deep thoughts of Garbage singer Shirley Manson:
Woke up feeling REALLY outraged this morning having spent sunday night at a fundraiser for Women's Rights during which the organizers screened the documentary "A Voice for Choice" which examines the current crisis in women's reproductive freedoms and the systematic attacks being wreaked by the current Bush administration on a woman's right to choose.
The film really affected me profoundly,at one point bringing me to the brink of tears and has left me feeling really anxious and concerned.
I grew up in the UK which is essentially a pretty liberal country for all that we British gripe about it and although I have always been aware that the laws pertaining to women's rights in the US were rather restricitve by comparison I must have been sleeping because I genuinely had no idea just how threatened they have become during this current administration.If Bush and Cheney succeed in their bid for another four years I dread to think how much more fucked up things could become.
Anyways......on a lighter note........I got fitted with my contact lenses today and they're fantastic!
Yay! Next, Shirley contemplates the election:
Seeing as Wisconsin is a swing state, all the celebrity activists are turning up in downtown Madison to try and encourage people to utilize their vote.Leonardo De Caprio,Michael Moore and Natalie Portman to name but a few.Oh man this election is going to be INTENSE.
As it happens,we're all going off to hear Michael Moore speak at the University of Wisconsin student union tonight and I am so fucking EXCITED.Never before in my lifetime has an election seemed so desperately important and it's weird.....it feels like we're going to a rock show or something and we're all a titter with excitment and anticipation and the feeling of being united with others.What's adding to the excitement and the sense of occasion is the fact that it's the first time the temperature has dropped below 40 degrees this fall, signalling the beginning of winter and plunging temperatures so we're scrambling around trying to muster enough scarfs and gloves to keep everyone snugglelicious,making it feel like a holiday of some sort!!!
Double yay for snugglelicious holiday fun!
How about all the rumours that are whizzing around about the possibility that Bush was wearing a wire during the first presidential debate?!?!?!?! Have you see the photograph? He's got some weird box shaped thing nestled between his shoulder blades.Eeeeccccchhh......this is all getting too much like The Manchurian Candidate for my tastes.And you know what........the very fact that we are all getting so suspicious.......that we are even considering the idea that the current president of the united states might have been wearing a wire is just so fucking SAD.Is this where our so called civilization is at?!?!
And now, a personal revelation:
Thank god I've been going to therapy for all these years.
Speaking of which, expect a windfall for shrinks if Bush wins a second term. These frightened liberals are already exhibiting profound paranoia:
• CNN's Paul Begala: "He and his allies are likely to embark on a campaign of political retribution the likes of which we haven't seen since Richard Nixon."
• Columbia's Todd Gitlin: "I would not be surprised to see outbursts of political violence the likes of which we haven't seen since the Weather Underground of the 1970s."
• Former Clinton aide Elaine Kamarck: "The beginning of the end of American greatness."
• Blogger Kevin Drum: "One word: scandal."
• Nation editor Katrina van den Heuvel: "There will be a period of grieving."
• Salon columnist Joe Conason: "I will be worried. I will be concerned for the world."
• The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh: "Oh man, if he's reëlected, we're really in trouble."
October 25, 2004
WIDE LITURGICAL REACH DEMONSTRATED
Funny man Terry Jones imagines a conversation between George W. Bush and God:
"Jews, Christians and Moslems all worship the same Me! Didn't you do comparative theology at school, George?"
"No, of course not! You think I'm some sort of peace-waving dope-headed liberal faggot-lover, God?"
"No, of course not, George, but I expect you to know something about the people you're bombing."
"Oh, come on! I know it's right to bomb those oily rag-heads until there's not one left to wipe a wrench on!"
Oddly, this piece first appeared in The Guardian, which usually can’t stand such shocking invective. When it’s directed at them, anyway. Speaking of God, that’s exactly what John Kerry has been doing:
Rebuking one of the most openly religious presidents in recent history, Mr. Kerry said that Christians believed in caring for the sick, housing the homeless, feeding the hungry and stopping violence but that the administration was not heeding those teachings.
Mr. Kerry demonstrated a wide liturgical reach, quoting from Matthew, James, John, Luke, the Ten Commandments and "Amazing Grace" before recalling for cheering Jews in Boca Raton how he once shouted "the Israeli people lives" in Hebrew atop Masada.
More from Saint John here:
Quoting from the Bible, Kerry said his faith had taught him that "whatever you do to the least of these, you do unto me".
"This means we have a moral obligation to one another, to the forgotten, and to those who live in the shadows," he said in an arts centre in Broward county.
Earlier, his ears ringing from soaring gospel music and cries of "Amen" and "Hallelujah," Kerry accused Bush of trying to scare America into reelecting him.
Not that Kerry is using the Bible as a campaign prop, of course.
UPDATE. Hit the archives and scroll down for earlier posts.
THE BASTARDS FORMERLY KNOWN AS SCUM
Al-Zarqawi’s brave Iraqi resistance is taking credit for the murder of 48 unarmed army recruits:
The extremist group led by Iraq's most wanted man today claimed it carried out the shocking roadside massacre of almost 50 unarmed cadets.
An Islamist website carried a statement attributed to Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi's militants.
The new Iraqi soldiers were found dead beside a remote road after being executed by attackers while returning home from their final training course.
Incidentally, Mr al-Zarqawi would prefer that you referred to his little gang by its new name:
The militant group led by Iraq's most wanted man Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi has changed its name, linking itself to the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, according to statements published on an Islamist website.
In the latest statements which could not be verified, the group said it was now called "The Al-Qaeda Group of Jihad in the Country of Two Rivers (Iraq)".
ADD ONE MORE TO THE LIST
Hit & Run is rounding up high-profile anti-Bush voters. But here's one they've missed:
How dare you taunt a dying Christopher Reeve with a big brown bottle of stem cells. The man was on his deathbed, you sick monster. Why did you have to hold the spoon right in front of his lips? "C'mon, Chrissy, it's right here. You can do it, bwah! Just another coupla inches. Oooh, close. Close!" Shame on you, Dubya.
Meanwhile, here are some Democrats for Bush.
IRON JOHN
European anti-militarists have really picked the wrong guy as their hero, writes Edward Luttwak:
In the televised debates, when President Bush spoke of "defeating terrorism", Kerry invariably spoke of "killing the terrorists". This was not just an electoral pose: the words accurately reflect the character of the man. He is a fighter, a two-fisted brawler. In all his past electoral campaigns, successful or otherwise, he was always the more aggressive candidate, ready to make wild accusations he knew to be false in the hope that some voters would believe even the incredible. At the moment he is telling older voters that Bush has a secret plan to cut their pensions by 45 per cent, and younger voters that Bush has a secret plan to re-introduce compulsory military service ...
I am quite certain that if Kerry had been president on September 11 he would have reacted more violently than Bush, sending bombers into Afghanistan, not just Special Forces scouts, and demanding immediate co-operation - or else - from Saudi Arabia, not just Pakistan.
In Australia, Michelle Grattan is appalled by Kerry’s goose massacre:
The other day John Kerry, as part of his campaigning, took a gun, dressed in camouflage, and went off to shoot some geese. His aides said this was to give voters "a better sense of ... the guy".
To foreign eyes, this gratuitous violence had to be the most extraordinary moment of a larger-than-life US presidential campaign.
October 24, 2004
INVECTIVE DIRECTED
Charlie Brooker, writing in The Guardian -- the newspaper that was shocked by "the volume and pitch of the invective directed our way" in the wake of Operation Clark County -- calls for the murder of George W. Bush:
On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?
Working for The Guardian, most likely.
(Via reader Molly Richardson and blogger Scott Burgess, who has contact details for Charlie)
UPDATE. The idiot Brooker explains internet comedy:
"You do have to be fairly unsubtle," says Brooker. "You have to convince people quickly that's it's a good thing to hang around, which lends itself to sledgehammer tactics. The problem with instant publishing is that writers tend to get carried away and not edit themselves."
Apparently The Guardian doesn't have any editors, either.
UPDATE II. Reader Arty sees the humour in Brooker’s piece (now deleted from The Guardian’s archives, but still available here) and offers a similar gag:
Somebody flies a plane into the Guardian headquarters and the bastards are all burning or being crushed alive. Hundreds of the fuckers, from the publisher down to the cockroach-office-support-staff. Burning! Burning! like only leftist shitbags can burn. Charlie jumps out of his office window rather than get burned but spectators throw him back inside. (now here's the funny part) It's take-your-kid-to-work day at the guardian.
I bet that one would crack up the London leftists. I'll even give it to Charlie to use in his next 'column'.
UPDATE III. Brooker apologises.
NOT HAPPY, PUBLISHERS
Niner Charlie identifies an unexplored publishing niche:
Consider the achievements of the Australian Prime Minister John Howard's Liberal-led Government after eight and half years. Consider its dexterous handling of issues like fiscal consolidation and economic management, taxation and industrial relations reform, border protection and Australia's role in the liberation of Timor-Leste, Afghanistan and Iraq. Entering the 'Hill of Content', bookshop in Melbourne today, I looked in vain for any decent authoritative books on Australian Prime Minister John Howard and his Government. Surely, the soon-to-be second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister might be worthy of a few biographies.
None were available. Niner did locate "shelves full of anti-Howard tomes that appear to be largely ignored", however, including copies of Dark Victory ... reduced from $30.00 to $7.50.
YOKEL PANDERING NOTED
After weeks of carefully observing the common voting riff-raff, John Kerry attempts to communicate in their curious patois:
Mr. Kerry's Ohio hunting adventure started last Saturday, when the senator, campaign entourage in tow, went into a grocery store and asked the owner: "Can I get me a hunting license here?"
Maybe they also sell chili.
LISTEN UP, GUYS
To deeply impress your beloved on her birthday, all you need do is rebuild her ancient, broken Atomic coffee machine.
Trust me on this.
BEER CEREMONY VIOLATED
A religious practice familiar to many Australians has been disrupted in Jakarta:
Muslim militants in Indonesia's capital today vandalised a cafe in an area popular with foreigners because it was serving beer during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan.
Around 300 members of the Islamic Defenders Front ordered customers at the Star Deli in south Jakarta to leave, before smashing the building's windows and doors, said Alawi Usman, a spokesman for the group.
"We are against immorality," he said. "The guys saw the beer on the table and what happened, happened. We are doing this for the future of the country's youth."
In Jakarta, you truly do have to fight for your right to party.
PLASTIC PRINGLE
Delusional Evelyn Pringle -- "I am an investigative journalist" -- describes George W. Bush as a pathological liar, but she’s not exactly truthful herself:
I further predict that serving a plastic turkey to soldiers in Iraq for a Thanksgiving news clip and landing on an aircraft carrier dressed up like a pilot under a banner made by the White House that said Mission Accomplished, didn’t quite convince the troops that Bush has their best interests at heart. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know.
Okay. We won’t ask.
UPDATE. This is how internet myths begin:
It was fairly easy for Mr. Cheney to slice and dice the plastic man Edwards!
Posted by: DagneyT at October 7, 2004 at 04:59 AMare you saying edwards is a turkey?
Posted by: Mr. Bingley at October 7, 2004 at 05:02 AMPLASTIC TURKEY!!!
Posted by: Ken Summers at October 7, 2004 at 05:06 AM
FREE AD FOR GOOGLE
John Martinkus, the catch-and-release kidnap victim whose colourful remarks have drawn widespread attention, has been silenced by his employer:
SBS Television says John Martinkus would not be speaking to the media on the issue. Instead, the station's Director of News would be taking over.
So here’s SBS Director of News Phil Martin explaining Martinkus to the ABC’s Edmond Roy:
PHIL MARTIN: The first thing I'd say is that a lot of what John has said has been taken out of context. Now, I know this is fairly repulsive to a lot of people, but these groups view anyone who's deemed to be working with or for the Coalition, no matter how insignificant their role is, as a target.
EDMOND ROY: Could, as Alexander Downer says, could the terrorists take some comfort from what John Martinkus's statements, that perhaps they have good reason to be beheading certain people and so on?
PHIL MARTIN: Well, I don't think that that's what John was saying. I think… look, his suggestion that Kenneth Bigley or any other of the hostages were somehow deserving of their fate was incorrect. John's views are that these killings are monstrous acts, and he's got nothing but sympathy for the victims of these atrocities and their families.
Well, that’s all cleared up then. Further clarification is offered by another journalist working in Iraq, Christopher Allbritton:
We're not sure what all happened during his captivity, but he was able to persuade his captors that he was an Australian and a friend to the resistance and not to the Americans.
Hmmm. Among several puzzling aspects of this story is the original claim -- made by Martinkus's producer -- that Martinkus had been saved by Google. Yet Martinkus, in his SBS interview with Mark Davis, wasn't certain of this:
MARK DAVIS: You said they checked on the Internet to see what you’d written. Could you literally see them at the computer or they were coming and going?
JOHN MARTINKUS: No, it was basically the leader who came and conducted that first interrogation whilst I was blindfolded. He went away and then they came back in and they took the blindfolds off and then they left, left us there. And then they came back about half an hour later and he’d obviously done some checking. He didn’t come back himself, but he sent a message back to the other people who were looking after me that I was actually - I was who I said I was and that I wasn’t a spy and I didn’t work for any of the - any of the contractors or any of the security services.
The "people who were looking after me"? Anyway, here’s another extract from Allbritton, who says his report is as related by Martinkus:
At one point, one man disappeared, saying he would check out John's story. He came back after about 15 minutes, John said, convinced John was who he said he was. We suspect they Googled John, because they referenced previous stories he had covered.
So the much-reported Google angle is nothing more than a suspicion; Martinkus doesn't know if the kidnappers even had a computer, much less their search-engine preferences. There are a couple of small differences between the two accounts (15 minutes/30 minutes, the checker returning/the checker not returning) but we’ll let those slide. More interesting is that Allbritton writes:
John's captors said they received a phone call that he was on the move and that the time for taking him was now. This fits in with our intelligence that there are kidnap teams up and down Jadirya Street looking for us. His captors said they had penetrated the staff at the Hamra Hotel, where many of us live. They have people in the compound watching us. They know who we are ...
If they knew who Martinkus was, wouldn’t they have Googled him before they kidnapped him?
October 23, 2004
GUARDIAN FOLKS 'DISMAYED'
The Guardian's Ian Mayes reveals that even Guardian staffers were opposed to Operation Clark County:
In a poll I conducted among Guardian staff who had been following the story, of 71 respondents, 13 thought it a legitimate and worthwhile exercise, 14 were undecided and 44 were against it. Among the reasons given by the latter, reflecting complaints coming from the US, were that intervention in the democratic processes of another country was not "legitimate newspaper behaviour"; and that it was arrogant and self-aggrandising.
Several were dismayed that the internet effect had apparently not been anticipated, one saying that the speed with which links to the Guardian story spread showed that "this perceived insult has legs". Another commented: "It seems a shame that, in this interactive age, with email and weblogs all around, we rejected any attempt to have a real conversation with US voters."
And The Guardian's Bobbie Johnson defends his thieving newspaper:
Arch Australian Tim Blair claims he had the idea first, but I have been assured this is not the case.
Not by me, you haven't.
UPDATE. Ohio Republican spokesman Jason Mauk: "The British are our loyal allies, but voters in Clark County are outraged at this tacky publicity stunt conducted by an anti-Bush publication to manipulate the vote in Ohio. It has backfired miserably and fired up our base. The Guardian did us a big favor."
UPDATE II. Guardian assistant features editor Paul MacInnes: "We knew we'd get a response from the political right. What we didn't anticipate is the intensity of it. We can take it, but I'd rather not receive letters about our green teeth."
UPDATE III. Scott Burgess observes:
While it's just fine - in fact rather noble - for thousands of Guardian readers to "open up debate" by sending unsolicited letters, the email response was unaccountably seen as having "the intention to smother free speech" - although it's hard to see how sending email does that.
UPDATE IV. Puce's attempted trek to Clark County isn't going well. Pray for Puce.
ATTENTION, WA READERS
Next Saturday in Perth: fund-raising rocking for Sudan. As Rob Corr writes: "Be there or be complicit."
DOG OF TRUTH
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog confronts the spin doctors. It's brilliant. One favourite moment: Triumph’s reworking of Jim Treacher’s sit-and-spin gag.
Also from Treacher: runaway Puce posts an on-the-road update.
October 22, 2004
A NEW BEGINNING
Remember Richard Neville’s pre-election fish poem?
Dancing in the street, everyone’s singing
Birds are chirping, the fish are grinning,
Buds are blooming, our heads are spinning
The end of Howard … is a new beginning
Well, the end of Howard didn’t happen, but those fish are happy anyway, as Richard explains:
As the world heats up, the one hundred million people who live at the waters edge will want to know why the world’s biggest polluter turns its back on Kyoto. US efforts to control the future of oil has upped prices, already forcing fishermen in Asia to hang up their nets, sell their boats and … then what?
Richard is too stupid to realise it, but current high oil prices are having exactly the effect he and all other Kyoto fantasists wish for. Why isn’t he applauding this halt to Asian sea-plundering? The fish, Richard! They are grinning!
(Via Tex)
PROGRESSIVE YOUNG WOMEN AT PLAY
Clear the benches:
The first meeting of the Labor caucus since the party's devastating election defeat wrapped up on Friday after almost three hours.
Shouting could be heard coming from inside the party room in Parliament House where Labor MPs conducted a post-mortem on Labor's fourth consecutive election loss.
(Headline via reader Ben Palmer)
UPDATE. Maybe they were shouting about the Jews, who, as we know, control politics and the media in the US and Australia:
Former Bob Hawke government minister Barry Cohen has launched a stinging attack on critics of Israel within the Labor Party, saying anti-semitism is now rampant in the ALP.
He said the number of Labor MPs who supported Israel were increasingly being drowned out by members of the party's hard left, whom he accuses of making exaggerated claims about the nation.
Mr Cohen said Israel's opponents in the ALP now included those who supported Palestinians not for ideological reasons but because of the increased number of Arab voters in their electorates.
In a commentary written for The Australian Jewish News, Mr Cohen said his life and character were shaped by the anti-semitism he experienced in his youth.
"I was proud to belong to a party [the ALP] that fought all forms of prejudice. Not any longer," he wrote.
Mr Cohen wrote of a conversation he said he'd had with an unidentified but prominent ALP figure.
"I told a Labor legend: 'Anti-semitism is now rampant in the Labor Party.' I expected a vigorous denial. His response confirmed my worst fear: 'I know,' he said."
SAINTING MOOTED
Yahoo news headline:
Russian may saint soldier killed in Chechnya
"Saint" is now a verb?
VEHICLE INSPECTED
Reuters reports:
Palestinians inspect the damage to a car after it was hit by a missile in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza October 21, 2004.
'OPERATION CLARK COUNTY' NOW 'OPERATION TRANQUILITY'
The Guardian's Ian Katz reviews Operation Clark County:
By the beginning of this week, a quixotic idea dreamed up last month in a north London pub had morphed into a global media phenomenon complete with transatlantic outrage, harrumphing over journalistic ethics, grave political predictions - and thousands of people from every corner of the planet writing personal, passionate letters to voters in a tiny American district few outside Ohio had heard of 10 days ago.
"Dreamed up in a north London pub," eh, Ian? Lies make baby Jesus cry.
Then came the backlash. We had expected it, of course. Fox-viewing America was never going to embrace our modest sortie into US politics and we knew full well that any individual voter might take exception to the idea of a foreigner writing to offer some advice on how they should vote - our website explicitly urged participants to "imagine how you would feel if you received a letter from an American urging you to vote for Tony Blair ... or Michael Howard." But you couldn't fail to be a little shocked by the volume and pitch of the invective directed our way. Most of it was coordinated by a handful of resourceful bloggers - the ringleader of whom is fittingly published on a site called "spleenville" - and much of it was eye-wateringly unpleasant.
Consider the volume and pitch of the invective directed by The Guardian towards George W. Bush. Much of it is eye-wateringly unpleasant.
The email onslaught was pretty unpleasant and inconvenient for the 53 Guardian colleagues whose addresses were targeted by the rightwing spammers - several of us received more than 700 mails ...
The Guardian sent out the names and addresses of 14,000 Ohio residents ... and Katz is bitching about e-mail inconvenience suffered by 53 colleagues? Pussy.
Others, a small but increasing number of Democrats among them, suggested that our campaign could be dangerously counterproductive. Americans don't like being told what to do, the argument went. If a load of foreigners write telling the voters of Clark County to vote Kerry, they are liable to do precisely the opposite ... It's not as if we didn't consider the possibility that our project might have precisely the opposite effect to that intended.
So Katz admits The Guardian's campaign aimed for "an intended effect", and the opposite of that would be to deliver votes to Bush. That’s not what he told the New York Sun:
Mr. Katz denies that the write-in campaign's goal is to swing the election Mr. Kerry's way."The article launching the campaign is absolutely neutral," he insisted.
Baby Jesus is bawling his little holy eyes out. Anyway, claims Katz, the whole idea was only a bit of a lark:
Somewhere along the line, though, the good-humoured spirit of the enterprise got lost in translation.
As Scott Burgess points out, The Guardian’s introductory missives, from the likes of John le Carre, weren’t exactly chucklefests. Nor was this, from Ken Loach:
Today, your country is reviled across continents as never before.
Because of your president, and some who have preceded him, you are seen as the greatest bully on earth.
You seek to dominate all others by demanding access to all markets on your terms, so that local industries and small farmers go to the wall.
You have supported brutal dictators, like Augusto Pinochet, General Suharto and Saddam Hussein, who, over the years, have murdered and tortured with your administration's approval.
Tee hee! Giggle! So good-humoured. Spooked by a few e-mails, The Guardian is now in frantic retreat:
It feels as if the time has come to let the good people of the county make their minds up in peace. Since sending a Guardian delegation to the county in the last week of the campaign would be bound to prolong the media brouhaha, with unknowable consequences, and since some of the mail we have received brings to mind the old joke about unenviable holidays (first prize one week, second prize two weeks), we have decided that our competition winners will be watching the last days of the campaign from another, more tranquil, corner of the American electoral battlefield.
It's an authentic Kerry-style flip-flop! They voted for Clark County before they voted against it. Place your bets, readers; LA, New York, Boston, or another tranquil Democrat stronghold?
UPDATE. More on the Clark County backlash here; and in the Times, Gerard Barker touches on a point made in the post that began all this craziness:
Can you imagine the look on the faces of Mr and Mrs John Doe in Springfield, Ohio, when they get a letter from the typical Guardian reader?
UPDATE II. The SMH, via Reuters, reprints John le Carre's Guardian-inspired anti-US rant.
UPDATE III. Cathy Seipp. Must-read, as usual.
UPDATE IV. Guardian calls it quits in Clark County fiasco:
The Guardian yesterday ran up the white flag and called a halt to "Operation Clark County", the newspaper's ambitious scheme to recruit thousands of readers to persuade American voters in a swing state to kick out President George W Bush in next month's election.
The paper said it had closed the website where readers collected an address to write to and had abandoned plans to take four "winners" to visit voters in Clark County. Instead, the group would be taken to the "more tranquil" area of Washington.
Albert Scardino, the paper's executive editor for news, simultaneously denied and conceded that an early halt had been called to the project. "It is roaringly, successfully completed. It has been an overwhelming triumph," he said.
He then acknowledged that no more addresses were being distributed, blaming attacks on The Guardian website by Right-wing hackers.
"If we had not had the technical problem of the assault we would have completed the distribution of names in orderly fashion," he said. "We were able to give fewer addresses [of voters in Clark County] than we hoped. There were 14,000 names and addresses sent out. We would like to have made it possible to reach another 42,000 people."
October 21, 2004
EGGS EGGS EGGS
Popular and perfect and so complete in every way! YOU MUST LOVE EGGS.
(Via Lileks)
WRESTLEMANIA
Journalist John Martinkus explains the circumstances of his capture in Iraq:
JOHN MARTINKUS: What happened next confirmed all my worst fears. I had basically two armed gunmen from the first car trying to get into my vehicle. I was holding the doors shut and they were trying to pull it from the outside. Obviously, they were trying to get inside as soon as possible to get off the street. But also they were trying to subdue me, because I was like screaming at the driver to do something. And they basically yanked on the door so hard, and I was holding it, that the handle - it only gave way when the handle actually came off in my hand - and then ...
MARK DAVIS: They’re in.
JOHN MARTINKUS: ... they’re in. And what I did then was basically what I think anybody would do in that situation - I tried to wrestle with the guy. I tried to get his gun. I had both hands on top of his hands and I was forcing the gun down, into his crotch basically, and I was trying to shoot it because, as far as I could tell at that time, these guys were gonna kill me.
Hmmm.
UPDATE. Tim Dunlop objects to "Hmmm".
CRAZY WORLD
In an otherwise standard Paul McGeough piece, the Sydney Morning Herald’s mope in the Middle East actually writes something positive:
The relative safety of the Afghan capital and a stunning demonstration of the people's yearning for a new life when they came out to vote in their millions on October 9 are proof that good things might happen in this crazy world.
Deposing murderous lunatics somehow leads to goodness. It’s just crazy, is what it is! Meanwhile, an earlier McGeough report has attracted some high-level criticism:
A senior Bush administration official has rejected as "nonsense" claims Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi personally executed six suspected insurgents in June.
US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said he believed he had evidence that the claim by two alleged unnamed witnesses, as reported on the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne's The Age on July 17, was not true.
Happy now, Paul?
THE PEOPLE-HANDLER
Taxi drivers might agree with this assessment of Mark Latham:
Critics say he lacks effective people-handling skills.
No kidding. Then again, if "effective people-handling" includes the ability to wrestle colleagues into back-bench obscurity, Latham is a champion:
First Mark Latham lost the election. Now he is losing his front bench.
Lindsay Tanner's refusal to serve in his leader's team shook the Labor Party yesterday and brings the number of experienced frontbenchers who have quit to six.
Make that seven:
Labor housing spokesman Daryl Melham has become the seventh frontbencher to retreat to the backbench.
Why is everybody so unhappy? Steve Lewis has a theory:
Much of the discontent appears to revolve around the position of treasury spokesman, which now appears likely to go to Latham confidante Julia Gillard. Gillard would become the first Labor left-winger since Jim Cairns to hold the treasury portfolio.
Oh, great. As for the rest of the likely Latham A-Team, Drooble writes: "If they keep gettin' any younger, they'll be chuckin' foetuses on to the front bench."
UPDATE. Not content with demolishing Labor’s front bench, Latham is now trying to remove John Anderson:
Opposition Leader Mark Latham today urged Nationals leader John Anderson to stick to his election campaign promise and resign following the defeat of Nationals MP Larry Anthony.
If Latham really wanted Anderson gone, he should become leader of the Coalition. Seems to work with his own party.
UPDATE II. Well, he is kinda foetus-like:
Strong pressure is still being exerted on former rock star Peter Garrett to stand for the front bench, after he indicated to colleagues earlier in the week that he was inclined not to put himself forward at this stage.
Sources said the centre faction was having difficulty filling its allotted two positions and Mr Garrett, who is unaligned, is being pressed to solve the problem.
When Peter Garrett is the solution to your political problems, you’re in far more trouble than you realise.
UPDATE III. Anderson hits back. Includes comment from De-Anne Kelly: "None of John Anderson's front bench are moving to the back bench."
OPERATION VOTE BUSH
Mark Steyn on The Guardian's Operation Clark County:
There's nothing like a barrage of mail from condescending Guardian readers to send the locals stampeding into the Bush camp. If the editor of the Guardian's up for it, fifty quid says Bush will win a higher proportion of the vote in Clark County on November 2 than he did last time.
Jim Lindgren has compiled a link-loaded piece on this doomed campaign. The New York Times summarises reaction:
American voters, it turns out, do not much necessarily want to be told what to do by a bunch of foreigners, particularly when they are "losers and idiots," as one American characterized the British in a letter to the Guardian.
The Kerry campaign doesn’t seem very grateful:
Even John Kerry's own Democrats expressed horror at the campaign.
"We all feel it is not a good idea. I think it was unwise. It is so poorly thought-out," said Sharon Manitta, spokeswoman in Britain for Democrats Abroad.
Meanwhile, the first letters have hit Ohio:
The letter came addressed to her mother, but Beverly Coale wasn’t expecting anything from England. She began to fear the writer had an underhanded motive.
"You think, 'Is this really a letter from a guy in England, or is it from a terrorist?'" Coale said.
Tough call.
Coale, who already has cast her vote for Kerry, called the letter propaganda and said she was shocked her mother received it ...
Although Coale called the letter courteous, she said that she thinks the writing campaign will not work because the American people are too smart to be influenced by people outside of the country.
REASONS TO KILL
Australian journalist John Martinkus, captured by the brave Iraqi resistance, Googled his way to freedom:
Iraqi insurgents who took Australian journalist John Martinkus hostage carried out a Google search on the Internet to determine whether they should kill him.
When he turned out to be neither American nor CIA, but the author of a book about how the US is facing an uphill battle to beat the insur