democracy simulacra

LEBANON
* yesterday i said "but i can guarantee that the coverage wont suggest a 'surprising show of strength which suggests that the lebanese want the syrians to stay'. ill bet my house of cards on it." ummmm - maybe i was wrong! the nyt is leading with it - the crowd of course was "largely bused in" (how many buses do u need to move 500,000 people?)and "Hezbollah is known for its ability or organize large ralles," http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/international/middleeast/08cnd-beirut.html

* cnni is giving it reasonable coverage - on a pretty big news day. cnn's amweb site doesnt mention the rally on the front page - altho they helpfully tell us "Bush: Freedom will prevail in Lebanon" (the cnn international website does). the beeb is covering it - altho they are talking about only 100,000 people.

* none of the media has pointed to the contradiction of blinky's speech, and the fact that maybe blinky is trying to supercede the will of the people. this silo reporting drives me batty - the two stories can run parallel, but thou shant connect any dots.

* "Lebanon's state news agency estimated 1.5 million participated in Tuesday's rally, but that seemed high for the nation of 3.7 million. An Associated Press estimate put the crowd's size at 400,000 to 500,000." http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=3&u=/ap/20050308/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_syria

* ""Lebanon is not Ukraine," Nasrallah said, referring to that country's "orange revolution" last year. "If anyone thinks you can bring down a state with a few demonstrations, a few scarves, a few shouts, a few media, he is suspect, he is wrong."" http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=3&u=/ap/20050308/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_syria

* wingnuttery: "Hezbollah has manufactured what looks like a massive outpouring of support for Syria’s occupying forces, busing in loyal supporters from rural reaches of the country. Remember that Hezbollah provides a broad array of social services; mind you, said services necessarily come with strings attached. Is there any logic in aiding the sick and the poor if said sick and poor are ungrateful, or obstreperous even?"
http://www.theamericanscene.com/2005/03/hezbollah-decides-drawing-on-classic.php

* "A UN team is investigating Hariri's death--Hizbollah's Nasrallah gave them his full support yesterday--and the Lebanese government insist it has searched every nook and cranny for evidence of the culprits. Problem: three more bodies have been discovered at the scene of the bombing in the two weeks since the attack. Hungry cats and the stench of death revealed two of them; which doesn't say much for the detective work of the government authorities so keen to solve the murder." http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk03082005.html

* responsible media outlets actually point out thT this protests "dwarf" the other protests - and if they were really responsible, theyd point out that much of the support for the anti-syria protests are an emotional reaction to the haririkiri, and the us/israeli/media-fed response that syria killed him - when in fact nobody knows. (btw - the leb central bank has spent $2bn supporting the currency since then)

IRAQ
* there arent any journos in samarra. i bet the insurgents are hiding all of their weapons in mosques and hospitals and using ambulances to snipe at the ams.

* "In Canada, anti-war columnist Richard Gwyn of the Toronto Star answered: "It is time to set down in type the most difficult sentence in the English language. That sentence is short and simple. It is this: Bush was right."" and " "Either Bush is lucky, or it is too early to judge or [Bush's] analysis was not false."" lol. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14590-2005Mar7.html

*ten days till invasion anniversary day. where the fuck are the antiwar crew?

SGRENA
* cnni did a bit highlighting the diffs between the amstory and the italian version - and they showed pix of 'the' car - "see, it wasnt beaten up that much" here are the pix http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/070580.php (the blogger is reportedly an ass, but s/he has the pix)

* xymph figures there was only one real shot (sniper), and the rest was just cover. http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2005/03/heroic-death-of-nicola-calipari.html

* if its true that there was a sniper shot, im wondering if it didnt actually hit the correct target - ie calipari. if u were so inclined, surely the sniper shot would be the first shot cos your target wouldnt have yet had a chance to duck for cover... so maybe calipari wasnt actually bravely trying to protect sregna with his body - he just got hit and slumped.

* all the stories suggesting that sgrena was hit cause of the warcrimes in fallujah seem a bit odd. the stories about the use of napalm already have been out there before without any fuss. and she has written about them before - such high profile murder would seem to shine the spotlight on those stories, rather than help keep them hidden - and she 'only' writes for a 'little commie newspaper' in italy anyways. it seems counterproductive.

* more whispers from Deep Tuchas via g (apparently she is still trying to get laid) "her source was formerly with CNN in the middle east....no specifics, but word on the street is that it was no coincidence that Nicola Calipari, the "bodyguard" that was killed, was very involved with the Madrid bombing/Al Quaida investigation...
...what did he find out that they didn't want others to know?" i havent seen any suggestion of this elsewhere - altho ftr he wasnt a bodyguard, he was one italy's top secservice guys.

* we just got a new level of absurdity " The suspected kidnappers of former Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena said in a video broadcast by Italian media on Tuesday that no ransom was paid to end the journalist's month-long captivity... "The insurgency learnt that the CIA wanted to kill Giuliana, the journalist", the voice said according to the Italian translation on Sky24." http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1673176,00.html

* the wingnuts are suggesting that maybe sgrena kidnapped herself, and that if notgannon cant call himself a journo, then neither can sgrena.


AMDOM
* clinton needs more surgery - remember that boohaha when it was fist announced that he was sick and the crowd cheered. or booed. or didnt. or something.

* i hate scottbloch " Five Members of the House of Representatives are accusing Scott Bloch, director of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, of stonewalling in their call for a clear answer on whether LGBT federal workers are protected from discrimination." http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/03/030705blochUpdt.htm

* u might remember the clintcurtis story, we have an update. clint is the guy who claimed that he wrote a prototype voterigging s/w for the speaker of the florida house. and then the investigator apparently was about to finger jeb when he got suicided. well, it turns out that the police report didnt include pix cos the camera broke, except the pix just got found, 18months later. and the police re-opened the file, and then closed it again after a phonecall to FDOT. this story keeps growing. oh yeah, and theres a chinese spy involved. and a NASA link. my favorite bit is the suicide note which is undated but helpfully timestamps it as 8.10am
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001243.htm

* "Heinz Kerry is openly skeptical about results from November's election, particularly in sections of the country where optical scanners were used to record votes... She argued that it is "very easy to hack into the mother machines."" http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/214744_joel07.html

* according to this article, the senior researcher for that PopularMechanics article which unbunks the 911 conspiracy thingy is actually chertoffs cousin. thats pretty sweet. http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/03/1725131.php

* pelosi "While this Republican Administration has spoken strongly about promoting democracy around the world, the House Republican Leadership is working feverishly to undermine democracy here at home." ouch. http://democraticleader.house.gov/press/releases.cfm?pressReleaseID=885

* "The Salvation Army has moved to dismiss the case, saying that as a private, nonprofit religious organization it is exempt from antidiscrimination laws." fuck the fate-based folk. they're religious, so they can discriminate with the best of em!
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-religion7mar07,1,730466.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

* everyone is *furious* about the bankruptcy bill


MEDIA
* matt taibbi writes "THE 52 FUNNIEST THINGS ABOUT THE UPCOMING DEATH OF THE POPE" editor gets fired. (im not sure why it was written or printed either)
http://www.nypress.com/18/9/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

* the AEI folk all over the TV think that bolton is a good choice for UNamb

* " “_The New York Times_ hired Tom Owen, an expert on audio authentication, to examine samples from the Wead tapes. He concluded the voice was that of the president.” Ironically, this tape hardly needed authenticating once the White House confirmed the authenticity, yet the very act serves to add gravitas to the ‘revelatory nature’ of non-revelatory tapes." http://www.gnn.tv/articles/1175/Controversial_Secret_Tapes_Reveal_Shocker_Bush_Actually_a_Great_Guy

* amygoodman speaking in nyc on 3/17: New York, NY
3/21: 3/23: 3/28: if u can get there http://book.democracynow.org/tourpage.php?id=340

* hysterical jons moment with bizzy portergoss. http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/001978.html#001978

* "The headline of February 22 was eye-catching and unambiguous. It read "Europe, Canada and Mexico Opposed to Spread of Democracy"." http://www.counterpunch.org/cloughley03032005.html

MISC
* boring, boring chelsea. did anyone go? traces of optimism wrt to arsenal. out out damn optimism

* theyve conjured up money-laundering charges against bobbyfisher. he is obviously a threat to world peace.

* do u people prefer the longer posts? or would shorter, more frequent, ones be better?

* gimme scamocracy " Portugal's opposition Socialists have won their first outright majority in Parliament since the country returned to democracy in 1974... Voters appeared to back the Socialists and endorse the party's recovery plan by giving it a landslide victory Sunday" ummm - given that they voted for them, one imagines that yes, indeed, they did back the socialists.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/02/21/news/portugal.html

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four moron years.
wotisitgood4.blogspot.com