Eclecticism

Okay, so on the scale of stupid things Bush has done, this may not be right at the top, but it’s still a rather sad look at how little respect the man can have for other people when he’ll use someone else’s shirt to clean his glasses while their back is turned.

How would you feel about a person who thinks it is okay to grab your shirt and use it clean their eyeglasses?

That’s how arrogant our President is. During a commercial break on the David Letterman show, producer Maria Pope was on stage and discussing something with Letterman, and while she was standing there in front of Bush, George leaned forward, grabbed the back of her sweater and used it to clean his glasses. Check out the Quicktime video.

Regardless of your political party and beliefs, we all know that this administration has raised some serious questions, and has often asked for us to blindly believe in the their drastic actions, all of which are clearly far more serious than this boner on the Letterman show. However, there is not a spin, explanation, or flat out lie that can defend Bush’s character in this revealing moment, when he was dumb enough to think that people or cameras were not looking. Even worse scenario is he did know, but just didn’t care.

We deserve better leadership and representation. If you have any doubts, please vote him out.

(via Boing Boing)

iTunes: “Sympathy for the Devil” by Skrew from the album Shut Up Kitty (1993, 4:31).

A link to a somewhat sloppy article on 9-11 conspiracy theories on Metafilter led to a very worthwhile discussion today, including one of the best comments I’ve seen on there in a while. I’m reproducing it in full here — hopefully mokujin doesn’t mind. :)

The greatest conspiracy theory ever:

19 men (at least four of whom are, according to the BBC, still alive) of whom 14 are Saudi nationals engage in a coordinated Kamikaze attack on the symbolic centers of American military and financial power. 3000 innocent civilians are murdered in cold blood in about one hour.

Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Ladin are immediately blamed, but the U.S. government fails to provide any substantial evidence for this claim. A war on “terror” is declared. Strong ties are demonstrated between the president of the U.S. and the Bin Ladin family, but never really investigated by the media or the government.

The attacks become the justification for an enormous bill called USA PATRIOT. Democrats threaten to block the bill. At about this time a series of letters containing an advanced strain of Anthrax is sent to political and media figures including Democrat leader Tom Daschle. The USA PATRIOT act passes, even though most of the congressmen and senators had not had a chance to read the full text of the legislation. The person or persons behind the Anthrax attacks remain unknown and at large. The president attempts to prevent a congressional inquiry into the kamikaze attacks but, under pressure from the media and survivor’s families and after much wrangling, relents. The white house is given final edit of any report emanating from this commission. Much of the testimony given before the commission is secret and not revealed to the public. No one in our government is ever fired or reprimanded and no one resigns for their failure to prevent the attacks.

Meanwhile, an administration that has closer ties to the petroleum industry than any other in history uses the attacks as justification for two land wars against nations that offer important access for a proposed oil pipeline and vast oil wealth, respectively. The second of those nations, Iraq, the administration openly admits had nothing to do with the attacks. Congress hardly debates before handing over their constitutionally mandated power to declare war over to the president without a fight. Saudi Arabia, a nation that gives more private (and possibly public) money to terror than anyother is still a major recipient of U.S. aid. Also untouched by American vengeance and much touched by American dollars is Pakistan, a longtime Washington ally, whose security agency, the ISI, was a major backer of both the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Over a period of about two and a half years about 800 american and allied troops die. In this same time period at least 10,000 Iraqi and Afghan civilians and an unknown number of soldiers are killed in the name of avenging the attacks on America. Also, the U.S. military and intelligence services begin interning large number of foreign nationals in overseas U.S. military bases outside the reach of American, and, evidently, international law. These men are declared to be “enemy combatants” without rights.

Two and one half years after the attacks it is revealed with little fanfare that the President and his close advisors had planned both wars months in advance of the attacks. The American people remain largely supportive of the president even as the truth about this comes out. Most Americans also continue to believe, as they have been subtly or unsubtly encouraged to by the President and his closest advisors, that Iraq was in some way behind the attacks. The illegal weapons stockpiles and programs used as the official justification for that war are never found.

So that is a series of facts. I have strung them together in a way that might induce someone so inclined to falaciously infer causal relations where they may or may not exist, or it might not. How is 911 not a conspiracy? 19 men is a conspiracy. The old man in the caves is a conspiracy. So-called “neo-conservatives” who have been calling for war against Iraq since 1992 and who include in their number our secretary of defense, at least one assistant secretary of defense (Wolfowitz, also Feith?), vice president Cheney and scores of others in the government and media are the very definition of a conspiracy. The axis of evil is a conspiracy theory. The liberal media is a conspiracy theory.

got to catch my breath…

“Conspiracy theory” is a term people use to discredit other people’s arguments and ideas, it is an expression of power that is used to limit discourse and, by extension, thought. In the posted article it is being used to discredite the very sane and reasonable words of John Judge. Decontextualize his words from the foil-head stuff that surrounds them and you will find that he is asking for something that every American should be asking for: the truth. I hope that nobody reads that article and thinks that John Judge is crazy. I think it is quite obvious to anyone who has been paying attention that the government of the United States of America does not want a full and accurate public accounting of the events surrounding September 11. At the same time, the media is not and has not been doing its job. That is a conspiracy that more people should be angry about.

The attacks on September 11 and the events before and after are a vast web of conspiracies, anyone who denies that is confusing ignorance for truth. These conspiracies may not be as baffling or sinister as the ones mentioned in this article, but they do have the advantage of being real, and the hardcore “skeptics” are being just as irrational as the looniest of the conspiracy theorist. It should be remembered that government is the greatest conspiracy of them all. Our fellow citizens working together for the good of all. Ideally government is just, honest and transparent. At this moment in our history it is not any of those things. The many conspiracy theories about 911 are an honest, if irrational, reaction to this sad fact.

— mojukin