Roadkill Journal

Reuters reports on a little fun at the games:

“England, Germany fans clash in Stuttgart”

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2006-06-24T180615Z_01_L24598892_RTRUKOC_0_US-SOCCER-WORLD-ENGLAND-FANS.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

“Tens of thousands of English and German fans had gathered in the city's Schlossplatz, with many drinking all day, to watch Germany's 2-0 second-round victory and trouble broke out shortly afterwards. Both sets of fans traded punches before dozens of nervous-looking riot police moved into the area, pushing the German fans away and keeping the English supporters in one corner. A few hundred fans were involved.”

England and Germany… There’s a lesson here, and maybe a good model… I think England and Germany should, for the good of all mankind, to agree to have a little mini-war every decade or so, just to get it out of their systems. I don’t suppose they need to kill anyone, at least not intentionally, but they should all get roaring drunk, break a lot of stuff and beat each other senseless with big clubs…

Afterwards they need to all get roaring drunk again, kiss, and make nice…

Then maybe they will be able to behave for a while…

The paramount bottom-feeder of the right wing, Matt Drudge, scoops that cornucopia of bottom-ooze, The New York Times:

“Crazy Saddam: Americans Might Reinstall Me As President!”

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash1.htm

“Saddam Hussein believes the Americans may reinstall him as president of Iraq, the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to report on Sunday, newsroom sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.”…

The place is a fucking disaster… You know we won’t put him back in power… That would be cruel and unusual punishment…

I just got an e-mail –spam, I suppose I should call it:

“From: Casandra [Casandraappropriable@doglover.com]

The newest Online CCasino. Go aand Play It

Good evening

  Online CCasino with 85+ games. Play It Now!  http://tdvid.com/d1/check

Yuh gat fuh blow yuh nose where yuh stump yuh toe.      A happy heart is better than a full purse.”

So…

Is this a felony under Washington’s new internet gambling law? Is the Gaming Commission going to “protect” me by hunting “Casandra” down and jailing “her?”

And am I committing a felony by passing this on? If it’s a felony to pass this on, am I committing a felony if I pass it on to the Gaming Commission?

One last question… Is there a doubt in the world that Margarita Prentice is the stupidest thing to serve in a Senate anywhere since Caligula’s horse???

FoxNews carries the headline:

“Homegrown Terrorists”

For the pack of amateurs picked up yesterday in Miami…

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200683,00.html

Homegrown… That explains a lot… The homegrown is never as good as the Afghani stuff…

Still, it’d be hard to be charged with more for doing less. It’ll be interesting if the government can get a conviction on so little…

Now, if stupidity were illegal – that would be a slam-dunk…

Plastered all over the favorite websites of the neoconservative war party are headlines trumpeting the news – WMD’s found in Iraq! From FoxNews:

“Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html

The Senator from warmongering, Rick Santorum, pulled his head out of his ass long enough to read the news of a newly declassified pentagon report detailing the find:

“"Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."”

You can put your head back, turkey… This is old news – we’ve been hearing about these finds every few months for two years now. As the recycled report states:

“The weapons are thought to be manufactured before 1991 so they would not be proof of an ongoing WMD program in the 1990s.”

Old weapons, old news… And no ongoing program; no thousands of liters of anthrax, no thousands of rounds of nerve gas. A few hundred rotted rounds found here and there, leftovers from the Iran war and the mostly destroyed pre-Desert Storm stocks.

What has really been found here? What has been found is the neocons are desperate for good news to bolster their popularity, and they think the American people are stupid enough to confuse 2003 with 1990 and hundreds with thousands…

What remains to be seen is whether or not they’re right. My bet is they’re wrong again…

David Reinhard over at he Oregonian gives us a critique on Ann coulter’s new book, “Godless,” as well as a few insights into his taste in “women”…

“Graceless: The high priestess of conservatism”

I won’t read the book, of course, or address anything the witch postulates. As far as I’m concerned, she is living breathing proof there is no God, for no supreme being would allow such an abomination to live, but would rather blast it to flinders…

But this… Now I’ve heard everything…

Reinhard writes:

“"The only sort of authority Cindy Sheehan has is the uncanny ability to demonstrate, by example, what body types should avoid wearing shorts in public."

I'm with Coulter on Sheehan and today's grief-based political posturing, but this was too much. It would be tasteless and mean if Coulter were one of "those body types that should avoid wearing shorts in public." Suffice it to say she's not, as anyone with a pulse will notice after seeing the blue-eyed blonde on a panel discussion, the hem of her signature black dress hiked up to midthigh. Coulter's stunning looks make her all the more cruel. She worries that sending out grieving women to make political points is degrading our public discourse. And then she uses the puerile technique of the lunchroom bully.

Actually, I wouldn't be calling attention to anyone's looks if I were Coulter, for here's another fact. She would never get away with some of this stuff were it not for her looks. She's would never get away with this sort of stuff if she were a man, hunk or not.”

Dave, Dave… Two pieces of advice…

First for you… Get an eye exam. That woman is so ugly it’s scary. It’s hard to believe a blonde can be that ugly…

Second, for the witch herself. Someone she listens to – if such a person exists - needs to tell her to change her clothier… It’s cruel and unusual to subject mankind to visions of the ghost of bosoms that far past…

Hide or hoist, woman!

VIA Orbusmax, we have a couple of links I find to be oddly connected… By their mutual membership in the “things that rile Neoconservatives” club…

First a blurb from the Orb himself:

“COMMENCEMENT AT THE EVERGREEN STATE COLLEGE: "Dancing, yelling, jars of peanut butter and jelly, and the newly minted graduate's own rendition of the song 'Happy Together'..."”…

My oh my… singing… peanut butter and jelly… We need an airstrike immediately!

I’ll never live long enough to figure out what bugs neocons about my Alma Mater. Get past the funny costumes, the place is very ordinary. Maybe it’s just the institutionalized disrespect of institutions; maybe a perception of disrespect is responsible for the venom.

Or maybe it’s the “question authority, flout tradition” attitude...

If so, that’s an oddity…Questioning authority and flouting tradition are very American – I recall reading many examples of how Jefferson, Madison, and their peers questioned and flouted…

Generally when I ask “why the animus?” one-on-one I get a noncommittal answer or none at all. Most of the detractors have little firsthand experience there. Oh well. Maybe someone can enlighten me today…

Then there’s this little piece from the UK Telegraph:

“How the Chicks survived their scrap with Bush”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/06/15/bmdixie15.xml

Natalie Maines, the “chick” who caused a furor in 2003 by expressing regret GWB was from her home state, has once again made utterance sure to leave neocons vein-popping, eye-bugging pissed:

“"The entire country may disagree with me, but I don't understand the necessity for patriotism. Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but as for loving the whole country… I don't see why people care about patriotism."”

Well…

Merrian Webster defines “patriotism” simply: “Love or devotion to one’s country.”

Any love can be twisted… Patriotism isn’t necessarily a good thing.

If patriotism is devotion, fanatical devotion of one’s country, then Adolf Hitler was among the greatest patriots that ever lived. Whatever else said about him, there can be no doubt he was fanatically devoted to the Germany he helped to re-create…

And if patriotism is love, then it is a private, internal thing, something no person may judge in another. What if you love your country but think it has been corrupted to the point violence is required to save it? One man’s patriot is another man’s terrorist.

Can a Timothy McVeigh be a patriot? Only if his side wins, I guess…

Oh, I realize that when the average person uses that term, especially in war time, what they really mean to express is solidarity with our Nation’s policies and respect for its institutions and traditions – it’s more a question of a qualified devotion to an amorphous thing we’re all in together. More or less…

More or less. Most people in America will reject the more fanatical expressions of disrespect or disunity irrespective of the expresser’s motives – hence the original Dixie Chicks flap; hence opposition to flag burning. But many if not most people also object to extreme measures taken by their government under a cover of patriotism; many are riled by the mere name of the Patriot Act and are deeply suspicious of the expansions of powers it confers and the concomitant limitations of freedom it implies.

And many are disgusted by the arrogance of the power takers.

Does that make them unpatriotic? In the eyes of many neocons, I think it does. Many are proud to call the questioner unpatriotic, to accuse them of aiding the enemy. Some approve of the power takers… Some want to be power takers themselves.

My country right or wrong… But never right or left… Right only…

Uber-patriots… Like Hitler or McVeigh? Perhaps like them before they were utterly consumed by their patriotism…

The entire country doesn’t disagree with you Natalie. I agree with you. Patriotism is only as good as the individual; often, it’s a brightly lit path to the dark side. It’s a sometimes necessary evil – which means if it isn’t necessary, it’s just evil. It’s a good way to justify evil deeds – extreme uses of power by Nations or individual men. Extremes that always have the same result: The diminishment of that most American of attributes, liberty.

Think about that, the next time the patriot calls…

KOMO news brings us the word on the hijinks of Washington’s foremost horse’s ass, Tim Eyman, pushing his latest referendum:

“'Darth Eyman' Fails To Turn In Ref. 65 Signatures”

http://www.komotv.com/stories/43756.htm

“Tim Eyman, in a stunt that was not wholly unexpected, arrived at the state elections division building Monday dressed as Darth Vader and wielding a plastic light saber. Missing were the petitions full of signatures in support of an effort to overturn the state's new gay civil-rights law… Eyman, the referendum's sponsor, says he's been called many evil things, so he may as well look the part. So he dressed as Darth Vader”…

I have a couple of questions… If Eyman is Vader, who is the evil Emperor? And when will “Vader” toss the Emperor into the fiery pit, afterwards succumbing to his own accumulated wounds?

And when he does, can I run the camera???

BBC News reports on the plans of Texas governor Rick Perry to set up webcams at border hotspots and solicit the online community to watch and report:

“Web users to 'patrol' US border”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5040372.stm

I am suddenly seized by a combination of cynicism and chaos… Think of the blowback… A lot of people are still for an open border…

There might be advantages… You could pick out your new nanny and then pick her up before the cops did…

Then there is the pro-immigration counterattack… What if somebody sets up a smuggler’s hotline? Pedro, you’re spotted at … Border patrol approaching from the northeast…

Or false reports to plug up the system…

Oh well. We’ll see…

I'm coming out...

RealClearPolitics.com links to two good reads and one must read on the war and purported war crimes issues.

On the subject of those purported crimes: Having the luxury of not having to judge, I won’t. I think it’s wise to wait until the people who have to judge get done and see what they find…

First, a must read by Frank Schaeffer from The Washington Post:

“What's Lost in the Hue and Cry Over Haditha”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/02/AR2006060201327.html

Submitted with the strongest possible recommendation but no comments…

Then, from an almost Olympian height of arrogance, William Kristol of The Weekly Standard brings us this piece:

“Haditha Handwringing”

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/287wfyfv.asp

You get a real opportunity to see an issue upon which almost everyone will agree – that proven war crimes must be prosecuted – viewed through the eyes of an absolute dogmatist. First Kristol sets up his strawman, in the person of Peter Beinart from The New Republic. Beinart opines:

“Americans can be as barbaric as anyone. What makes us an exceptional nation with the capacity to lead and inspire the world is our very recognition of that fact. We are capable of Hadithas and My Lais, so is everyone. But few societies are capable of acknowledging what happened, bringing the killers to justice, and instituting changes that make it less likely to happen again. That's how we show we are different from the jihadists. We don't just assert it. We prove it. That's the liberal version of American exceptionalism, and it's what we need right now in response to this horror.”

Kristol opines “No, it isn't. The last thing we need in response to Haditha is hand-wringing liberalism.”…

He then offers us a profoundly different view of “what makes us an exceptional Nation:”

“What makes us exceptional is that we stand for liberty, and that we are willing to fight for liberty. We don't need to "prove" we are different from the jihadists by bringing our own soldiers, if they have done something wrong, to justice. Of course we must and will do this. But our doing this "proves" nothing. Even if there were ten Hadithas, we would still not have to "prove" that we are "different from the jihadists." The idea would be offensive if it were not ludicrous.”

I think that just speaks volumes about the fundamental difference between the dogmatic left and the dogmatic right:

The dogmatic left believes we are better because we realize that to “be better” we have to prove it and are constantly trying to do so. Our self-defined need to lead by example, always wanting to be the “good guy,” makes us better…

The dogmatic right believes we are better… We have a better idea and its superiority is so self-evident that there is something wrong with anyone who questions that core premise – and we will fight those people. We not only have nothing to prove but “the idea would be offensive if it were not ludicrous.”

We must constantly prove ourselves vs. it’s an offense to suggest we have anything to prove at all. That’s quite a gulf…

Later in the article Kristol goes into what’s gone wrong in Iraq and what we must do to win. Read it yourself; I think the old war horse believes we can certainly win in Iraq but very likely won’t, and certainly won’t if we keep on the way we are going now…


Last, there’s this by Victor Davis Hanson:

“The American Way of War
And the constraints on American power.”

http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson060206.html

It’s all been said before but he re-says it well. Please note, the author considers the war in Iraq and any proposed war in Iran to be inherently very different propositions...

I think he’s right. And I think that’s a small piece of a big problem we have in Iraq: Until we reach an accommodation with Iran – or clean their clock – we won’t be able to leave Iraq. If we do, the Iranians will be in Iraq so fast their forward echelons will be strewing the road ahead with flowers for our departure…

It’s going to be a long war – or a humiliating one.