|
|
Monday, December 22, 2003
|
|
| |
THE TRIAL RUN FOR NATIONWIDE PEOPLE-TRACKING. Here it is, folks. The trial run for tracking you from coast to coast and birth to grave (or birth to slaughter, as the linked article so charmingly puts it). And how appropriate -- it begins with cattle and other (undefined) livestock.
I wish I could post this one in neon letters 100 feet high. Because if people don't get it now, they'll never get it, ever. Ever. Not until they, too, are in the cattle cars. This system is, of course, complete overkill for the stated purpose (disease prevention). And did anybody outside of government or the factory-farming industry every even hear a whisper of the planning for a nationwide livestock tracking system until it burst full-blown upon us?
It's sheer perfection as a model for a future electronic "internal passport" system for docile, moo-ing, baa-ing human beings. [WOLFESBLOG]
8:31:14 PM 
|
|
Recently both Raed and Riverbend have written about leaflets threatening Iraqis with three to ten year prison sentences for buying gasoline. Another example of how "liberated" Iraqis are now that Saddam is gone.
7:44:37 PM
|
|
Questions and Fears.... Baghdad has been a very tense place these last few days. Yesterday alone we heard around 8 explosions though none of the news channels seem to be covering them. There have also been several demonstrations- some anti-Saddam and some pro-Saddam and several anti-America. The most prominent anti-America demonstrations took place in A'adhamiya and Amiriya, two residential areas in Baghdad.
One demonstration in A'adhamiya included people from all over the city. The demonstrators were demanding the release of hundreds of people who have been detained over the last few weeks (there are thousands of detained Iraqis, overall). Most people imagine detained Iraqis as being bearded, angry men in their 30s or 40s shouting anti-imperialist slogans and whipping their heads about in a livid frenzy. They do not see the women- school teachers, professors and housewives- being herded off to the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. They don't see the kids- some no more than 13 or 14 years old- who are packed away with bags over their heads, hands secured behind their backs. They don't see the anxious mothers and children, weeping with fear and consternation, begging in a language foreign to the soldiers to know where their loved ones are being taken.
[...]
These last few days have been truly frightening. The air in Baghdad feels charged in a way that scares me. Everyone can feel the tension and it has been a strain on the nerves. It's not so much what's been going on in the streets- riots, shootings, bombings and raids- but it's the possibility of what may lie ahead. We've been keeping the kids home from school, and my cousin's wife learned that many parents were doing the same- especially the parents who need to drive their kids to school.
We've been avoiding discussing the possibilities of this last week's developments· the rioting and violence. We don't often talk about the possibility of civil war because conferring about it somehow makes it more of a reality. When we do talk about it, it's usually done in hushed tones with an overhanging air of consternation. Is it possible? Will it happen? [Baghdad Burning]
7:13:07 PM
|
|
Well, U.S. officials have raised the terrorist color code on the eve of the Christmas holidays, which means that we all, once again, have to be "vigilant" (whatever that means). But, hey, wait a minute -- I thought that the president's unprovoked invasion and unconstitutional (i.e., no congressional declaration of war) war of aggression against Iraq, which killed and maimed thousands more of innocent Iraqi people, and the "disarming" and the arrest of Saddam Hussein were supposed to make America safer from terrorism? Shouldn't the color code be dropping instead of rising?
If there is another major terrorist attack, here are my predictions:
(1) U.S. officials will immediately announce that the attacks have absolutely nothing to do with U.S. foreign policy but are instead rooted in hatred for America's "freedom and values," i.e., the fact that Americans are celebrating Christmas and going on vacation during the holidays;
(2) U.S. officials will immediately shove new emergency anti-terrorist legislation through a supine and frightened, rubber-stamp Congress, which will destroy even more of the due-process protections that the Framers established in the Constitution and Bill of Rights;
(3) U.S. officials will immediately seek newly expanded budgets for the military-industrial complex, which will enable U.S. officials to do more of what they've been doing to people overseas that has made them so angry in the first place. [Horberger's Blog]
2:56:54 PM
|
|
Deal with a Devil. Since we're dealing with devils in getting Libya to open up its weapons programs to inspectors, why wasn't the same deal offered to Hussein? [Back to Iraq 3.0]
Because the only acceptable outcome for the neocons was the conquest of Iraq. They weren't interested in offering a deal because it wouldn't further their goal of conquering the Middle East.
2:40:54 PM
|
|
AP: "An earthquake estimated at magnitude 6.5 rocked California from Los Angeles to San Francisco on Monday, collapsing downtown buildings in one town near the epicenter, causing several unspecified injuries in the region and a widespread blackout." [Scripting News]
It didn't rock Los Angeles very hard. I live in the middle of the city, and I never even noticed it.
1:53:53 PM
|
|
The "Clinton Did It" Defense. In its continuing search for connections between bin Laden and Iraq, The Weekly Standard is attempting to rehabilitate Clinton's bloody panty raid on a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. [Hit & Run]
It will be interesting to see Republican propaganda mouthpieces who criticized this attack when it happened (because a Democrat did it, not because it was wrong) now suddenly turn around and support it (without mentioning Clinton, no doubt) because of this story.
12:35:03 PM
|
|
|
|
© Copyright
2006
Ken Hagler.
Last update:
2/15/2006; 1:58:37 PM.
|
|
|
