Dan Feidt's log on Minnesota, Information Operations, spinstorms and latent contradictions.
Overheard in the skyway near Target this afternoon: "The Scientologists took over the flower shop." Developing...
Not even joking.
Roseanne: 'The World Will End in July'
The comedienne claims that the date pinpointing the planet's demise is in the Bible—and she plans to survive the apocalypse by using her rotund frame to her advantage.
She says, "I'm scared to death. I think the world's gonna blow up in July of 2006, 'cause that's what the Bible says... 2006, the whole world is over, everybody is dead, everything blows up. We only have a mere eight months left.
"But I want people to look at the bright side, 'cause there (are) some good things about the world ending. For instance, all those skinny ladies that do yoga and exercise and have no body fat and stuff: when the food supply dwindles they'll be dead first within two weeks. Sweet!
"It will be all over and they'll fall over dead to the ground and I, because of my large body mass, will be stepping over their skeletal remains and the silicone t*t bags and the collagen lips and the pitiful little puddles of Botox as I make my way to Canada to find more food.
"There's three safe places: Canada, the spaceship with Tom Cruise and Hershey, Pennsylvania. That's what the Bible says."
The man from Creed is showing up drunk all over town, picking fights with 411. Ouch.
I liked Larry David's explanation of why he went from 'radical narcissist' to 'radical' environmentalist: because the tuna has mercury now, so he can't figure out his damn lunch!
Juan Cole elaborates on the Al Jazeera-Bush bombing story of late. Very dark stuff. He also explains in great detail about how future phases of Saddam's trial will directly implicate Rumsfeld as the US agent who told Saddam it was OK to break out the Gas.
William Lind is an interesting and very conservative character who enjoys explaining his concept of fourth-generation warfare at every turn. In this case he is telling us how the Jordan suicide bombings undermined the 'moral dimension' that insurgent forces have to control in order to achieve victory. In other words, (if he's real) Zarqawi set himself back by bombing Muslims, losing moral capital. Lind tends to believe that bombing the shit out of Arab cities weakens America's moral dimension in the situation we're in now -- so I think what he says is worth considering.
The judge, Joyce Hens Green of the Federal District Court in Washington, asked a series of hypothetical questions about who might be detained as an enemy combatant under the government's definition.
What about "a little old lady in Switzerland who writes checks to what she thinks is a charitable organization that helps orphans in Afghanistan but really is a front to finance Al Qaeda activities?" she asked.
And what about a resident of Dublin "who teaches English to the son of a person the C.I.A. knows to be a member of Al Qaeda?"
And "what about a Wall Street Journal reporter, working in Afghanistan, who knows the exact location of Osama bin Laden but does not reveal it to the United States government in order to protect her source?"
Mr. Boyle said the military had the power to detain all three people as enemy combatants.
U.S. Will Address E.U. Questions on CIA Prisons.
Shiite Urges U.S. to Give Iraqis Leeway In Rebel Fight. Make no mistake, Abdul Aziz Hakim is a hardcore Shiite fundamentalist of the Old School, and from the moment that U.S. troops crossed the Kuwaiti border, it was a given that this man would Win Real Big. Now he wants to rip the Sunnis a new one, and who's going to stop him?
Robert Dreyfuss explains what's going on with the Baathists right now. David Corn considers what's happening with Wilkerson accusing Cheney of being a war criminal. Wilkie told the BBC:
The post-invasion planning for Iraq was handled, in my opinion, in this alternative decision-making process which, in this case, constituted the vice-president and the secretary of defence and certain people in the defence department who did the "post invasion planning", which was as inept and incompetent as perhaps any planning anyone has ever done.
It consisted of largely sending Jay Garner and his organisation to sit in Kuwait until the military forces had moved into Baghdad, and then going to Baghdad and other places in Iraq with no other purpose than to deliver a little humanitarian assistance, perhaps deal with some oil-field fires, put Ahmed Chalabi or some other similar Iraqi in charge and leave.
It is interesting to hear all these people from the State Department talk about the "parallel government" or "alternative decision-making process" that ran through the core of the war's propaganda phase and eventual execution.
The Brotherhood is getting in: Tensions in Egypt during election: VOA News - Violence Mars Final Round of Egyptian Parliamentary Election
Would-be-voters bang on the gate outside a polling station in central Zagazig, demanding to be let in. It is midmorning, and the voting center has been suddenly closed, with some voters still inside. It reopens after about half an hour, but later in the day it is cordoned off by riot police, who prevent many voters from getting in.
This area is a Muslim Brotherhood stronghold, and many of the women waiting to cast their ballots say they were planning to vote for the Brotherhood candidate. They believe authorities are trying to keep them from doing that.
Some observers believe the violence was being staged to give police an excuse to seal off the polling station and keep people from voting.
It is thought that around 75 seats in the Egyptian Parliament will go to Muslim Brotherhood-linked candidates. While everyone likes to complain about their shadowy fundie ways, links to HAMAS and so forth, well what the hell were you expecting? In countries like Syria and Egypt they represent the best-organized opposition to the government, so when you push for elections, this is what you get.
I will say that the best way to diffuse fundamentalism is probably to force them to deal with all the petty, boring matters of civil administration, so they are forced to 'deliver the goods'. Dealing with water pipes and garbage collection will probably moderate these shadowy forces we've heard so much about.
Reuters AlertNet - Israelis training Kurds in northern Iraq:
Private Israeli security firms have sent experts to Iraq's northern Kurdish region to give covert training to Kurdish security forces, an Israeli newspaper reported on Thursday.
The daily Yedioth Ahronoth said that over the past year and a half the Israeli companies had set up a secret training base in northern Iraq as part of a multi-million dollar project with the Kurdish regional government.
It said dozens of Israeli specialists had been sent to teach Kurdish forces "weapons training, self-defence and counter-terror warfare".
O'Reilly informs us that a mean and wealthy Jew, that damn George Soros, is out to steal Christmas from the kids. Thanks for instructing us to fear his anti-Christian ways, Bill. Bill also claimed credit for personally lowering gas prices.
Andy sent on this link of the Weekly Standard guys on their luxury cruise. Slow down Fred Barnes... They all look so old...
Saw a very strange mockumentary: The September Tapes, a low-budget indie film shot in Afghanistan in early 2002. The plot, writing, and acting are often unwieldy, but for those of us obsessed with taking in every angle, it still had a lot of interesting elements.
It could be called the 'Osama Witch Project' for its handheld zoominess. The central character, one Don Larson, lost his wife in 9/11, so he's decided to go to Afghanistan and see if he can find bin Laden while pissing off the whole country with his boorish and idiotic ways. The filmmakers admitted they were going with a Heart of Darkness model story, but when the crew follows some bounty hunters towards Khost and the Final Battle, the film kind of breaks up. Wali Razaqi is his Afghan/American guide, and apparently the only sane, but always ignored, character.
Apparently once the filmmakers arrived in Kabul, the new Northern Alliance governor sort of took them under his wing. There's a memorable scene -- although incredibly stupid -- where Don insists on taking photos of the Kabul police force, and they don't like it. Don abruptly announces he wants to get arrested so he can go find out the Truth in the prison. He zooms off in the Rover, and the Kabul police Give Chase, get to have a fun time for this movie.
Likewise the Northern Alliance officers and miscellaneous gruff men armed with AKs that fill the film are hardly actors. The staging of scenes in the Kabul bazaar reminded me of Godard's whole realism on-the-streets thing. The real-life governor and narcotics minister each have cameos as arms dealers, so I can imagine the locals liked seeing themselves on film.
This film spoofs pretty accurately the Geraldo-Nic Robertson bull-headed dramatic style of embedded Western reporters. I can imagine the inhabitants of Jordanian town of Zarqa scoffing when yet another Western TV crew, full of the starry-eyed gung-ho macho Info Warriors like Don arrives.
There are moments of striking clarity, like when the Afghan fighter tells Wali matter-of-factly that the Americans let bin Laden escape at Tora Bora. Many of the scenes were improvised, so it has the 'traction' of the Real. But the editing is really lurid and perhaps 'imperialist' or 'Orientalist' at times.
Don's 9/11 rage is barely contained; it spills out of him in perilous and impulsive ways. He has no idea who he's dealing with, and has some kind of psychotic death wish. They follow the bounty hunter out of town, and set up a campfire a couple miles from the battle site. Suddenly some horseback raiders shoot Wali and ride off. Don screams that they're cowards, then basically grabs his gun and runs off into the night, shooting wildly. The terrorists briefly capture him, then he escapes, drops the camera and vanishes into destiny.
So it actually is a pretty good metaphor for the thrashing, blind and confused rage of America in those parts. Too bad it's such a silly film. The filmmakers risked their lives to shoot this innovative flick. It gets dull about halfway through, but it kind of strobes between the sublime and the banal. The Behind the Scenes feature on the DVD was really much better than the film, but also showed that director Christian Johnson isn't that different from Don. His next one should be interesting, though. Not recommended without whiskey.
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