licentious radio

Friday, February 14, 2003
[7:08:36 PM]

Yes-sir-ree. We always knew duct tape was tops. A few months ago when there were accusations that duct tape isn't good for ducts, we firmly disbelieved them. On principle.

But who would have thought a little duct tape would thwart international incidents of nuclear holocaust? Yes, that's right! Armed with our duct tape and Tommy-Boy Ridge's latest, greatest advice, we Californians no longer fear North Korea's long range missiles and nuclear warheads (that are Clinton's fault...).

No, no! Our collective Saran Wrap and duct tape stockpiles have got Kim Jong II (hee hee -- girl's name!) quaking in his boots. You can see the Axis of Evil melting away faster than germs before Mr. Clean.

licentious radio breaking news alert: we've seen advanced copies of secret Homeland Security documents. We can't say much, but we can tell you for sure that the *next* helpful advice will make use of coat hangers, chewing gum, and plastic spoons. Get yours now, before the panic buying starts. Ridge's announcement could come as early as Tuesday.

[6:56:07 PM]
CBS says the UN Security Council is 11-4 in favor of further inspections, and postponing war.

The story is still that Turkey has kinda, sorta agreed to let the US invade Iraq through Turkey. But I don't think it's been voted on. And I wonder just how long it will take to put 30,000 soldiers and tanks on the Turkey-Iraq border. I'm thinking it's more than a week. More than two weeks. And every day helps for logistics. So we maintain our assertion that Bush bungled Turkey badly, and -- come the invasion -- lives will be lost because of the Bushists' diplomatic incompetence.

[6:43:36 PM]
Austria! Austria joins the nation-state resistance to Bush's conquest of Iraq. Go team. Unsere Freunde: danke!

Rummy wants to transport the US Army from Germany to Italy through Austria.

Fortyeight years ago, American tanks could go anywhere they wanted in Austria. Not any more!

[6:32:13 PM]
It strikes us that surface-to-air missile batteries on the mall in Washington DC have more propaganda value than actual use. You see photos of soldiers with machine guns in front of the capitol, and missile launchers by the Washington Monument, and it's like we've descended into a nightmare right out of Orwell. The terrorists have already won.

The missile launchers aren't very useful, because they are highly localized. Missiles-on-the-Mall won't protect anything but the Mall. The best you could hope for is that a plane headed for the Capitol would be shot down in a fireball over Pennsylvania Avenue.

Much more useful is air cover. A single fighter could protect the entire Washington metropolitan area.

A fighter isn't quite appropriate technology, though. It's unlikely that Al Qaeda will use military fighter jets to attack Washington DC. What we need in the sky over DC is a plane with a crew of four or five and a few guided missiles under the wing. That kind of plane could stay up for longer and be more alert with its crew.

Putting a plane over DC is probably more expensive than scattering SAM installations around. But it would reduce the feeling of being under siege. Alas, all the evidence is that Bush & Co. *want* to scare us. For that, they should be fired.

[6:01:57 PM]
If Boffo ran the country, he might forget to put aid for Afghanistan in the budget. Oh. They forgot to put aid for Afghanistan in the budget. But that doesn't mean Boffo is running the country. That would be a fallacy. Bush is running the country.

[11:01:44 AM]
Equal Time with Bob Boudelang [democraticunderground.com]: "And what an Orange Alert! it is too! Unlike the other Orange Alert!, this time in edition to panicking while we go about our humdrum day to day meaningless activities, we are supposed to wrap ourselves in Saran Wrap and duck tape in case of bionic or chemical attacks. This will not only foil (get it?) any terrorists Saddam might send, but will be a real shot in the head to the economy, which as Allen Greenspam said mistakenly, does not need one thanks to the Bush economic miracle."

[10:49:27 AM]
Saw a picture of Our Beloved Leader in a military aviator-style jacket with lots of patches and do-hickeys. It must remind him of the old days, like before he deserted from the military. Honor Duty Country, sure. Just no drug tests for cocaine.

[10:41:29 AM]
One guy who doesn't buy the myths about Colin Powell [sfgate.com].

[10:34:32 AM]
In the father's Gulf War, the bombing was intense for a month before the invasion. Shortly before the invasion was scheduled to start, the Russians came up with a peace proposal. Powell and Schwarzkopf came up with an alternate proposal, to give Saddam a week to withdraw from Kuwait. But Poppy was desperate not to have peace, and so Powell presented the plan with a 48-hour deadline. Since everyone was sure 48-hours was impossible, they went with that. Essentially, it was 48-hour notice of the invasion, though it was also supposed to be a fig leaf, as if it were a serious offer to avoid killing thousands more Iraqis.

The 48-hour thing resurfaced last week -- to give Saddam 48 hours to leave the country.

We'd like to think that plan was defeated when Belgium, Russia, and China joined France and Germany in nation-state level opposition to the war.

But it's also likely that there will be no notice this time. Poppy gave Saddam time to light the oil wells on fire. Iraq doesn't have so many individual wells, and they have a handful of Godzilla-sized wells. The US plan is to seize these wells in a sneak attack, before Iraq even knows the invasion is on. The US will also have to seize some dams, to keep Iraq from re-flooding the former swamp-land in the east -- through which the marines are planning to drive to Baghdad. (The swamps were drained to destroy the way of life of some poor, dumb dupes who heeded Poppy's call -- the request of the United States of America made with a promise of support -- to rebel against Saddam.)

Also, whatever nasty weapons Saddam may have, they are hidden away right now. With two-days' notice, Saddam could shut down the UN inspections and bring anything he has out of hiding.

Bush may still think he can push a war through the UN like he can push it through Congress, but if he ever gives up on that, we'll probably just wake up one morning to CNN reports live from the captured Iraqi oil fields.

Here's an interesting question: what if Saddam starts re-flooding the marshes *before* Bush starts the invasion? If our spies hear a radio message that sounds like "open floodgates", is that going to trigger the invasion?

[10:03:02 AM]
Just for the sake of completeness, let's note the change in tune about the text of Bin Laden's message. When Bushists were trying to play down the threat, they claimed it was unpatriotic and dangerous to quote the text at length. Now when the Bushists are desperate to crank up fear and hype the Qaeda-Iraq link, they push the full text onto the airwaves themselves.

[9:52:28 AM]
If the Republican-owned media reported war... o'kane [guardian.co.uk]: <quote>Here is a bit of collateral damage: The first time I met Abu Ziad was in 1998. He had been the chief accountant with the British Iraqi Oil Company. Then, he had five children and lived in a big house by a bomb shelter. He recalled how during the Iran-Iraq war, when nearly 1 million young men died on each side, he would be at home in Baghdad, hearing the sounds of women wailing in the night for another lost son, husband or lover. He remembered thanking God that he had married late, and that his children were too young to be sent to fight. Then, three years after that war, President Saddam led them into another. At 2am on February 13 1991, two bombs hit the al-Amiriya bomb shelter near his home. The first was a drilling bomb that pierced the roof and cut open the central heating tank. Boiling water poured through the ceiling on to the women and children below, who were playing dominoes, watching Tom and Jerry videos dubbed into Arabic and eating kebabs.

Only 15 minutes later, the second bomb exploded with such force that he never had the chance to identify the bodies of his wife and four of their five children: Zena, aged 14; Fuad, aged 12; Lena, aged seven; and Sadaad, aged six. "I saw a body being brought out, then I saw it was Zena's, but they were piling them on top of each other and I couldn't see if it was her. We weren't allowed to go close." Later that morning, Abu Ziad stood outside the shelter. He remembers noticing the ankles of the dead women and children. Their skin had been branded with the metal coils of red-hot mattress springs as they struggled to climb over the metal beds, and each other, to get out. The doors had been locked for security. Four hundred and six people, mostly women and children, died inside.</quote>