Note to the British Army - when liberating or occupying a country, use your tanks to attack the insurgents, not punch holes in the jail and piss off the police and generally law abiding locals. This isn't Bridge Over The River Kwai, Great Escape or other such heroic but humorous tales from the Empire, this is Iraq on the verge of a civil war.
If it wasn't such a dickheaded idea in the current circumstances, there would be something kind of funny about the whole situation where two British undercover special force troops get arrested and then get saved by tanks punching holes in jail walls. I bet the troops that were attacked later in the day with their APC set on fire got a real laugh out of it. Apparently the two undercover troops got into a firefight with police, killing an Iraqi - after they were arrested they were handed over to Shi'ite militia, and that's when the arguing and the tanks through walls started happening. Basra is a mess anyways, but good way to tilt a delicate balance...
Three weeks after Katrina hit and things are still a mess on the Gulf Coast. Doesn't help that a new tropical storm - Rita - is drifting past Florida into the Gulf of Mexico, just as the mayor of New Orleans was trying to repopulate the least devastated parts of his city. After President Bush may have suggested getting people back to the Big Easy might not be the best idea - oh, those federal and local tensions are still there.
I read the transcript of Bush's speech from Jackson Square last Thursday - first off, did he really have to get the generators out to light up a deserted city, or could it have been cheaper to have an address from the Oval Office? As Maureen Dowd said, before the NYT op-ed pieces went subscription only, the backdrop did seem a little Disneyland, that light mauve colour.
And as for what the Prez actually said hmm. The worst one for me wasn't actually in the speech, but Dubya saying that to cover a likely two hundred billion dollar reconstruction cost he wouldn't have to raise taxes. Or Tom Delay saying that there wasn't any fat left in the federal budget to trim - umm, bridge to nowhere in Alaska in the transport and energy bill anyone?
The actual speech itself could be paraphrased as a massive hurricane hits and a city is hit for six (cricket term, US one would be over the home run fence perhaps) well the solution is obvious, tax cuts. Maybe not tax cuts per se, but no adding of taxes, and let's do those wild and crazy right wing economic experiment things on three of the poorest states in the union, like school vouchers, or giving federal land for people to build on, or tax breaks for businesses, or cutting already pitiful minimum wages. If only the Administration truly believed in the private sector to solve everything, instead of throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at Halliburton to fix things.
I was reading the transcript, and the scariest thing was that Bush probably believes what he is saying, in just one example that poverty just happened to crop up when Katrina flattened the Gulf Coast. Of course, no mention of how Brownie was doing a heck of a job or how he would love to be on Trent Lott's porch after the mansion is rebuilt.
I was reading Wonkette's liveblog of the speech, and yes, when the websites and freecall numbers came out, I was thinking of six steak knives but wait there's more, and it can even cut through lead pipe LOL. And if Homeland Security stuffed this one up, four years after they were supposed to sort out city emergency plans after 9/11, is there any hope that they can do a good job in the next four years until the next major American disaster?
The best thing on the Emmys last night - Jon Stewart talking about Katrina, and how he would love to say 'thank' you to the officials, in a pre-taped piece 'because, of you know, the FCC and government scrutiny'. Man, I wish we had the Daily Show over here in Oz, even if most of the country didn't understand 90% of it. Much much better than Letterman, which is the only US late night show we get.
Damn Janet Jackson at the Superbowl, it was good to see Kanye West be able to speak out the other week though - the telethon mute button guy only listening for swear words. You can bet that on network TV the next thing on the list to mute will be unpatriotic rants. I'm worried about where free speech in the States is headed. Or even in Oz, some US protester got his visa revoked the other week, but the Australian public and even parliament obviously didn't have a high enough security clearance for ASIO to deign to tell us what he had done.
Going local for a minute, there was a report in the paper today about how 900 federal detainees at immigration centres had over the past four years I believe (since that damned Tampa boat fiasco) have caused harm to themselves. The Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, if I remember the story correctly, I will go googling it I think, said that that was a small number out of the twenty thousand that had been in and out of the immigration lock ups though. I don't know which is worse, that nine hundred people harming themselves can be shrugged off as a statistical anomaly, or that twenty thousand people have been locked up on immigration charges in the last four years. And the irony of Australia setting out to get ninety thousand legal and highly skilled immigrants as the country has a skills shortage. Nope, buttoning my mouth on any more of that LOL.
Okay, think that's enough to get a couple thought patterns going for starters - it's been a quiet two weeks on the ole diary front, hoping to rev it up again :)
Later peeps
Pauly
If it wasn't such a dickheaded idea in the current circumstances, there would be something kind of funny about the whole situation where two British undercover special force troops get arrested and then get saved by tanks punching holes in jail walls. I bet the troops that were attacked later in the day with their APC set on fire got a real laugh out of it. Apparently the two undercover troops got into a firefight with police, killing an Iraqi - after they were arrested they were handed over to Shi'ite militia, and that's when the arguing and the tanks through walls started happening. Basra is a mess anyways, but good way to tilt a delicate balance...
Three weeks after Katrina hit and things are still a mess on the Gulf Coast. Doesn't help that a new tropical storm - Rita - is drifting past Florida into the Gulf of Mexico, just as the mayor of New Orleans was trying to repopulate the least devastated parts of his city. After President Bush may have suggested getting people back to the Big Easy might not be the best idea - oh, those federal and local tensions are still there.
I read the transcript of Bush's speech from Jackson Square last Thursday - first off, did he really have to get the generators out to light up a deserted city, or could it have been cheaper to have an address from the Oval Office? As Maureen Dowd said, before the NYT op-ed pieces went subscription only, the backdrop did seem a little Disneyland, that light mauve colour.
And as for what the Prez actually said hmm. The worst one for me wasn't actually in the speech, but Dubya saying that to cover a likely two hundred billion dollar reconstruction cost he wouldn't have to raise taxes. Or Tom Delay saying that there wasn't any fat left in the federal budget to trim - umm, bridge to nowhere in Alaska in the transport and energy bill anyone?
The actual speech itself could be paraphrased as a massive hurricane hits and a city is hit for six (cricket term, US one would be over the home run fence perhaps) well the solution is obvious, tax cuts. Maybe not tax cuts per se, but no adding of taxes, and let's do those wild and crazy right wing economic experiment things on three of the poorest states in the union, like school vouchers, or giving federal land for people to build on, or tax breaks for businesses, or cutting already pitiful minimum wages. If only the Administration truly believed in the private sector to solve everything, instead of throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at Halliburton to fix things.
I was reading the transcript, and the scariest thing was that Bush probably believes what he is saying, in just one example that poverty just happened to crop up when Katrina flattened the Gulf Coast. Of course, no mention of how Brownie was doing a heck of a job or how he would love to be on Trent Lott's porch after the mansion is rebuilt.
I was reading Wonkette's liveblog of the speech, and yes, when the websites and freecall numbers came out, I was thinking of six steak knives but wait there's more, and it can even cut through lead pipe LOL. And if Homeland Security stuffed this one up, four years after they were supposed to sort out city emergency plans after 9/11, is there any hope that they can do a good job in the next four years until the next major American disaster?
The best thing on the Emmys last night - Jon Stewart talking about Katrina, and how he would love to say 'thank' you to the officials, in a pre-taped piece 'because, of you know, the FCC and government scrutiny'. Man, I wish we had the Daily Show over here in Oz, even if most of the country didn't understand 90% of it. Much much better than Letterman, which is the only US late night show we get.
Damn Janet Jackson at the Superbowl, it was good to see Kanye West be able to speak out the other week though - the telethon mute button guy only listening for swear words. You can bet that on network TV the next thing on the list to mute will be unpatriotic rants. I'm worried about where free speech in the States is headed. Or even in Oz, some US protester got his visa revoked the other week, but the Australian public and even parliament obviously didn't have a high enough security clearance for ASIO to deign to tell us what he had done.
Going local for a minute, there was a report in the paper today about how 900 federal detainees at immigration centres had over the past four years I believe (since that damned Tampa boat fiasco) have caused harm to themselves. The Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, if I remember the story correctly, I will go googling it I think, said that that was a small number out of the twenty thousand that had been in and out of the immigration lock ups though. I don't know which is worse, that nine hundred people harming themselves can be shrugged off as a statistical anomaly, or that twenty thousand people have been locked up on immigration charges in the last four years. And the irony of Australia setting out to get ninety thousand legal and highly skilled immigrants as the country has a skills shortage. Nope, buttoning my mouth on any more of that LOL.
Okay, think that's enough to get a couple thought patterns going for starters - it's been a quiet two weeks on the ole diary front, hoping to rev it up again :)
Later peeps
Pauly
No comments:
Post a Comment