BENAZIR BHUTTO ASSASSINATED

How much are we going to let Pervez Musharraf get away with? He has used the "fear of terrorism" to bolster his dictatorship, all the while justifying terrorism of which he approves and pampering terrorists in his own western frontiers.

Bhutto's supporters hold dictator Musharraf responsible:

Bhutto's supporters at the hospital wept, smashed the glass doors and started fires around the hospital periphery. Some were heard to shout "dog, Musharraf, dog" and "killer Musharraf".

So does Rehman Malik:

Malik, Bhutto's security adviser, immediately questioned the adequacy of protection for the former PM.

"We repeatedly informed the government to provide her proper security and appropriate equipment including jammers, but they paid no heed to our requests," he said.

So do I. And I also hold US President George W. Bush responsible for allowing a supporter of terrorism, a man who aids and abets terrorists, an anti-democratic dictator to remain in power while at the same time mouthing meaningless shibboleths about "freedom on the march" and "with us or agin' us..."

But, come on, we know that was all bullshit. Musharraf, a dictator who stole power in a coup, who fired his entire supreme judiciary, who imposed martial law, who jailed dissidents, and at the same time released terrorists from jail, is still in power. The Taliban still enjoys safe haven in Pakistan. Osama bin Laden is probably there too. But Saddam's Iraq -- which had nothing to do with 9/11, which was anathema to al Qa'ida, and which, at the very least, was stable -- is "liberated."

How much longer does the world have to put up with this?

Top Stories of 2007...

...says me.

1] Venezuelan Dictatorship.
2] Fernando Lugo.
3] Spend on poverty, say US Catholic Bishops.
4] Poverty causes terrorism.
5] Creeping fascism.
6] US support for terrorism.
7] US Court frees internationally-wanted terrorist.
8] CIA warned White House that Iraq would go down the shitter if we invaded.
9] Al Gore: Media Ecologist, Nobel Prize Winner.
10] US funded Colombian death squads.
11] US liberates Afghan poppy fields.
12] Chavez is good for business: Business Week.
13] My book wins the Marshall McLuhan Award (hey -- it's MY daggone blog!).
14] Bad dictator/Good dictator (postmodern confusion).
15] Poverty causes terrorism.
16] American Medievalism.
17] American Postmodernism.
18] Iran is an immanent nuclear threat. Oh, wait...

Happy New Year!!!

Romney is Toast...

...if many more people watch this YouTube video. By the way, more than 600,000 have already seen it.

A Thought for the Christmas Season Now Upon Us...

From Joan Chittister, O.S.B.

Everywhere we look
people are in need,
but, as a nation
we prefer more to be feared
than to be found faithful
to what we say we believe
about human dignity and human rights.

Why?
maybe Christmas,
maybe Meister Eckhart is the answer.
Maybe
we left the birth of Jesus up to Mary
and forgot to rebirth him ourselves
in every age thereafter.

Maybe the merriest Christmas
we could ever have
will be the year
we remember again
what Christmas is supposed to be about.
Christmas
is not about getting.
it's about giving the world
a glimpse
of what the Christ child
would really look like
if we ever allowed him
to be born in us.

Anybody listening?

"I Can't Believe It's Not a Dictatorship!!!"

More Right-Wing Rant^TM from Howie:

Glad to see the people of Venezuela smartened up, and realized that Chavez is loco..........until Chavez declares that the voting machines were vandalized, and he really won, and declares his dictatorship for life............Seig Heil.......

Yes, Howie, that's exactly what happened. Anyway...

Venezuelans did narrowly reject the referendum that would have eliminated term limits (by the way, that's all the referendum called for, the elimination of term limits -- he would not have been put in power indefinitely, he would still have had to run for re-election at the end of each term, like in the United States for the first 180-plus years of its existence). And that's the end of the story.

"From this moment on, let's be calm," Chavez declared. "There is no dictatorship here."

There is no dictatorship that disrupted the elections, and there would have been no dictatorship had the vote gone the other way. It's a thing right-wingers like Howie don't understand: it's called democracy.

Of course, spinmeisters in the US State Department make the result of this referendum look like the hope of all future democracy in Venezuela:

"Clearly this is a message from the Venezuelan people that they do not want any further erosion in their democracy and their democratic institutions," US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington.

...conveniently forgetting that Chavez has been twice elected, once returned by popular support after surviving a (US supported) coup, and won a recall election. In other words, it has been the triumph of democracy, like it or not, that got Chavez to the place where he could lose even lose a referendum to eliminate term limits and be re-elected as many times as Franklin D. Roosevelt (who we could use right now).

In the meantime, Chavez still enjoys broad powers that the voters gave him in previous referenda (unlike the broad powers that the Bush administration have assumed unconstitutionally and without so much as a "MayI?").

So, Howie, and all your right-wing friends:

STOP WHINING!!!

UPDATE: Renegade Eye has an excellent analysis of the referendum and its outcome. Even if I were not still working on my book, I couldn't have been more thorough. Check it out.

OOPS!!! My Bad...

Never mind all that stuff I was saying about World War III...

A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

Uh-huh. Some key findings of the National Intelliegnce Estimate on Iran's nukes:

• We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program...


• We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.


• We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon.


• We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame. (INR judges Iran is unlikely to achieve this capability before 2013 because of foreseeable technical and programmatic problems.) All agencies recognize the possibility that this capability may not be attained until after 2015.


• We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015.

No precipitous and unneccessary march to war this time, okay folks? Keep up the pressure.