Friday Eighth notes, 02.17.06

Rats & Hawsers
From a CNN report on Tuesday:
" Responding to published reports, spokesmen for both the White House and the U.S. State Department on Tuesday denied the existence of a 'plot' to destabilize the Palestinian government.
They were reacting to a report in Tuesday's New York Times in which the newspaper, citing Israeli officials and Western diplomats it did not identify, said the United States and Israel are talking about methods to weaken the Palestinian government so that Hamas will falter and force new elections. "
Destabilizing a Palestinian government is like destabilizing a sinking Titanic. It’s going down at the bow. Destabilizing makes it go down by the stern.

More Rats Once again, (and amidst their begging-for-dollars fund drive,), NPR News puts the stick in their eye. Reporting on the Saddam trial, they said he is being charged with the murder of 196 men in a "1996 crackdown.” Oh, and he’s still the “Former Leader”.

Crazy People: Birdshot on the Brain. Among the festering strings of questions someone said, regarding the White House... “Do you think it was right they allowed a private citizen to notify…” Allowed a private citizen!

The Horror, the horror! My classical music station reported this snippet from a listener of theirs visiting Seattle. “I found a classical station, and it was playing commercials! Then I learned it was the NPR Station.” Oh NO! Their purity has been compromised!

Reasons to Love Bill Clinton. With his own massive ego, he did keep Algore hidden away, very effectively, for eight years.

Cheap Political Trick. President Bush’s appearance at Coretta Scott King’s funeral was the vilest sort of political trick. Decorum and respect were not on his agenda. He knew the Democrats would behave like complete fools. He went only for contrast. Wicked! Tricksey!

Mafia Muslims. How are the riots and threats of the not-Muslims any different from Mafia threats and witness intimidation? The are international criminals risen to the scale of global war. Bury your head in the sand on this if you like. You’ll just get your ass shot off. (Note: not-Muslims. These guys are not Muslms any more than the perpetrators of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre were Christians. If it were up to me, they'd be stricken from the roles.)

The Dinosaur Media (“What was that flash of light in the sky?”) Concedes. We will know the Dinosaur Media has switched sides when it stops using the words insurgents, rebels, gunmen, militants etc., and starts calling them activists.

Note: The Dinosaur Media. One of these days I'll get the accompanying cartoon drawn. It has two panels. In the first panel, peaceful diplodicuses and duckbills munch green things in swampy places. Overhead a three mile across asteroid careens towards the waters off Yucatan. In the second panel, they look up and exclaim, "What was that flash of light in the sky?" The first panel is titled, "Yucatan peninsula, 60 million years ago. " The second says, "One week later..." (Although I now understand the nerves in the tail of the Stegosaurus were a ganglion bundle, the books I read in the second grade sometimes called them a second brain. We joked that messages took a week to reach the head.)