that's from "Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts 'Playful Bully Boy'" and it ran Sunday. I wanted to put it up here because it made me laugh on a difficult day. (isaiah's comics usually make me laugh but i didn't see this 1 until monday and got online depressed. when i saw this, i had to laugh.) bully boy, the pretend warrior.
in other tough boy news, i swear that on kpfa's The KPFA Evening News tonight, i heard john mccain say that most people agree with him - as opposed to his agreeing with most people. if that was said, it's perfectly in keeping with everything he else he says. john mccain's always in it for john mccain.
he's a nasty little thing.
i still am appalled that when he hosted saturday night live, he did a skit where he sang barbra streisand's songs. (slaughtered them, he sings as well as he thinks - not too good.) but the point, the little message he had at the end, was that he couldn't sing and he'd stop trying if barbra would stop trying to do politics. that is so disgusting. he's supposedly an elected official.
who is he to tell any 1 in a democracy to leave politics to others? democracy is all about every 1 getting involved. he's just a rude, little, angry man.
if the vote in 2008 ends up being between mccain and hillary clinton, america may end up staying away from the polls. i've voted for the lesser of 2 evils before but i don't think i could vote in that match up without feeling like some sort of perv in a raincoat.
it's laughable because most dems don't like hillary and i remember hearing mccain trashed throughout the 2000 primaries - by republicans. the 1s with money were for flat-tax boy (forget his name, his father was gay and he's happy to spend all of daddy's money but won't support gay rights) (steve forbes) and the others 1s were for bully boy. mccain has 'indepedent' (read 'swing') voter appeal but he doesn't have a republican base. how he thinks he can run in 2008 when bully boy and rove smeared him so badly in 2000 is beyond me. does he really think some photo ops with religious extremists matter as much as the (false) rumor that he'd fathered an african-american child? that rumor hurt him and it's still out there. (it is also false, just to be clear.) he's a media creation who kissed their ass on his so-called 'straight talk express.'
it's weird to listen to kpfa over the airwaves. (at home, i grab it via the net.)
i read elaine's "A number of topics" and, just to be clear, she's right. i wouldn't have been overjoyed to see her the night before the doctor's visit. elaine's wonderful and caring and a best friend but it would have been (her presence) making me think about the appointment and think that i had to discuss it. c.i. came over monday night with the goal of making me laugh and keeping my mind off of everything. (and succeeded.) elaine downgrades her own humor (she's very funny) but she's right that since she set up the appointment, i would have been associating the evening with going to the doctor's the next day. she's a wonderful friend. i called her last night and i've called her today (twice, once she was in a session so i told sunny not to leave a message and i'd try to call back at noon). it had nothing to do with her or with our friendship, just the association of the doctor's appointment and she was very wise to know that without it being explained to her.
the senate played around while soldiers died in iraq today. it's time for a withdrawal but too many want to play and pose. darrell anderson is a hottie! for that and more, here's c.i.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Chaos and violence continue in Iraq. Elsewhere some merely strike poses.
In the United States, the Senate has said "NO!" to US forces leaving Iraq by July 2007. As the so-called coalition continues to break apart with other nations deciding to pull their troops out of Iraq, one might think the issue would garner a serious debate. Always one to posture, John McCain (Senator from Arizona) declared: "The United States, with our Iraqi partners, has the responsibility to see this through" apparently auditioning for the role of passenger on the Titanic. Russ Feingold (Senator from Wisconsin) stated: "It is time to tell the Iraqis that we have done what we can do militarily." Instead of addressing that reality, most preferred to posture; however, 13 senators did vote in favor of the proposal John Kerry and Feingold were supporting (troops out by July 2007). The other (weaker and, as Sandra Lupien noted on KPFA's The Morning Show, "nonbinding") proposal much supported by Democratic Party hacks such as DiFi and Harry Reid? It lost in a 60-39 vote. In Vienna, the Bully Boy faced questions about Iraq. "What's past is past," declared the Bully Boy on the issue of Iraq. What's past? How about what's passed? The 2500 mark for American military fatalities. As Amy Goodman noted today on Democracy Now!, 2512 is the current fatality count.
While the United States Congress can't say "Withdrawal" and the Bully Boy can't even toss out a phrase correctly (it is: "What's done is done."), it's not suprising that it has become increasing harder for US military recruiters to meet the needed recruitment numbers. As the UK's Daily Mail notes, the U.S. Army's decision to raise the maximum age for recruitment, to forty-two, is the second time this year that the military has raised the age. In January, the maxium age was raised from 35 years-old to 40. Why the Army? As Reuters notes: "More than three years into the war, the Army continues to provide the bulk of U.S. ground forces in Iraq." Which is why military recruiters, when not stalking school campuses, attempt to recruit at NASCAR events.
Speaking to Fluxview, for their AWOL in Canada series, Christopher Mogwai noted that, "In the Vietnam era they didn't kick you out for drugs, now they do" so some choose any number of means to leave the service. Fluxview also interviews war resistors Darrell Anderson and Ryan Johnson.
Noting the charging of "eight US troops with kidnapping and murdering a handicapped Iraqi civilian," Demetri Sevastolulo and Neil Buckley (Financial Times of London) note that the speaker of the Iraqi parliment is asking "the US to investigate the killings of 'many innocent people' by American forces." According to CNN, Masmoud al-Mashhadani is specifically calling for "an investigation . . . into this week's U.S. bombing of a poultry farm in northern Iraq." This is the incident Amy Goodman noted yesterday where a human rights worker states that "two of the dead were young boys aged ten and twelve." As Al Jazeera noted: "The Association of Muslim Scholars said US warplanes bombed a house and a poultry farm in al-Bushahin village in northeast Baquba, then dropped soldiers to kill the survivors of the attack."
In Baghdad today, CNN notes a car bomb went off by a movie theater and two people were killed, five wounded. Reuters notes a motorcycle bombing, in Baghdad, which resulted in two dead and eight injured.
In Baquba, Reuters reports that Raad al-Mowla was wounded in a roadside bomb (al-Mowla is the governor of the Diyala province). The Associated Press notes a bomb in Jibla that resulted in the death of an unidentified civilian and an "Iraqi army solider." As Amy Goodman noted this morning, "at least fifty of the more than eighty [kidnapped] workers have been released or freed."
Reuters notes the discovery of 14 corpses of electricity plant workers who were "abducted and killed June 12". Associated Press notes that six corpses ("bullet-riddled bodies") were found in Kut. In Najaf, a police officer was shot dead, Reuters notes, and, in Dhuluiya, an Iraqi soldier was shot dead.
Like the US Congress, John Howard (prime minister of Australia) plays baby Bully Boy and speaks of how things might get even riskier for Australians stationed in Iraq, Australia's ABC reports Labor leader Kim Beazley's response in Parliment: "Iraq is a quagmire and staying htere is not in our national interest. Make no mistake about it, we are opposed to the war in Iraq, we want these troops in Al Muthanna province home now."
While Japan used the Iraq government's decision to take over responsiblity for the Al Muthanna province as a sign to withdraw troops, Howard has decided to move Australian troops to other areas in Iraq. Though of little concern to the mainstream US press, the shooting by Australian security guards yesterday of three Iraqi bodyguards (one dead, two wounded) for Iraq Trade Minister Abdel Falah al-Sudany has resulted in an expression of regret from the Australian Defense Force and, today, has led al-Sudany to issue a statement that he "demands an apology and payment of compsenation." Reuters notes: "The incident could potentially embarrass Australia, which has been trying to imrpove trade ties with Iraq after Iraq suspended dealings with Australia's monopoly wheat exporter AWB over a kickbacks scandal."
Besides trade deals being put at risk (remember, it's the markets), Labor and Green reps in Australia says that the incident is another reason Australia needs to withdraw troops from Iraq. Kim Bezley stated, "The point is this: we shouldn't be there." Bob Brown, Greens leader, stated: "It should send a signal to this Prime Minister, who just does not seem to connect that we should be bringing the troops home. They shouldn't have been there, they should be brought home."
Speaking to Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales on Democracy Now! today, Italian journalist Giulana Sgrena discussed the details of her kidnapping in Iraq as well as the details of the rescue that went wrong when US troops fired on her vehicle as it was enroute to the airport. During the interview, Sgrena stated: "So there are many things that we don't know and we would like to know. I don't want to accuse Mario Lozano to know who was in the car and to shoot because he knew that there, there were agents and me. But we want the prosecution just to know, to have more information of what happened, because we gave the information to the commander, the Italian one that was in touch with the American one in the airport, that we were on this road to the airport. And we know that they were monitoring the telephone that we used in the car, the Americans, and they were monitoring the mobile telephone on the satellite." Remember that: Sgrena will be in New York City Friday June 23rd for an event with Amy Goodman at Columbia University. (Event starts at 7:30 p.m.)
