Those sophisticated Europeans.

Via Psycho Muse on Museblog, this Hollywood Reporter account of the swanky goings-on at Cannes:

Guests were waiting in a line to allow VIPs to go up the red carpet for the opening of Francois Ozon's "Swimming Pool." As they shuffled along, waiting their turn to climb the stairs, a prominent financier and another colleague felt something like rain on their legs. Looking down, they saw that a well-dressed woman in front of them was urinating on the carpet, oblivious of those around her. Said the financier, "I skipped the film and went home to change and wash my legs." The offender continued on into the cinema.

(You people have no idea how much self-control was required not to make the obvious pun on 'European' here.)

Hey.

I republished my archives this morning, and they're kinda half-assed working. Neat.

Obligatory Mets content.

As of Friday, Piazza's out with a nearly-torn groin muscle (cringing as I type that), probably for a couple of months. I delayed bothering to post about it because the season started out so pissy I'm already well beyond wailing and gnashing of teeth. If Piazza can't catch anymore (and I think that's a possibility that deserves some serious consideration), I'd like to see him traded to the AL as a DH, but the injury and his impending 5/10 status makes that a real hard sell. So it looks like we're stuck with an aging, injury-hobbled former superstar and a collection of assorted stiffs. Tom Glavine's probably about ready to call the Braves with a heartfelt mea culpa right about now.

And that's about all I've got to say about that. Sidelining Piazza seems to have relieved whatever pressure the team was feeling and they've been playing looser (at least for the past couple of games.) Time to kick back with a cold one and see how this develops.

Well, that came out of nowhere.

Ari Fleischer resigned. He'll be gone come July, according to the AP. Now waiting for the follow-up scandal.

[Link via LGF.]

All I needed to know about Janeane Garofalo.

From an interview in The Progressive :

Q: Do you think it's possible to have a liberal media network?

Garofalo: It is possible. What's not possible is to penetrate the wall of opposition. The myth is it can't work. Phil Donahue was working, but MSNBC took it off for their own rightwing agenda. [emphasis mine--K]

The point of Donahue being cancelled was that he wasn't working. His ratings, which were measured by the same tools they use to measure every other show on television, were abysmal, therefore they took him off the air. The fact that Garofalo needs to explain the workings of the market to herself with a right-wing conspiracy theory is just pathetic.

[Interview link via Andrea Harris on Spleenville.]

Lady Thatcher.

"There are too many people who imagine that there is something sophisticated about always believing the best of those who hate your country, and the worst of those who defend it."

Just read it. Why are the British so much better at public speaking than we are? [Via the American Scene, 5/16.]

Eric Idle not quite dead yet.

In fact, he's writing and directing a Merchant-Ivory parody, "The Remains of the Piano", which has a fairly impressive cast in addition to Idle: Geoffrey Rush, Anjelica Huston, Patrick Stewart, Catherine O'Hara, Orlando Bloom, Alfred Molina, Neve Campbell, Billy Connolly, Tim Curry, Michael York, Julian Sands, Will Kemp and Jim Piddock.

So Julian Sands isn't dead either. Good to know. [Hat tip to Paula for the heads up.]

We can all relax now.

Bernadine alerted me that Mo has checked in; he was just running around getting fourth and fifth opinions on his knee and trying to disassociate himself from the on-field disaster that is the Mets. Best line, though:

The Post reported exclusively yesterday that Vaughn probably would not return to action in 2003, according to someone familiar with his situation. Team officials refuse to speculate publicly.

Exclusively, yet. Like the idea that he probably won't play again hadn't occurred to anyone else. Pfffft.

The show that never ends.

Mooo Vaughn is missing. Even his parents claim they don't know where he is. What the hell is wrong with this team?

Oh, just shut the hell up.

Gary Carter wants Piazza to move to first. This is because Gary Carter is insanely jealous of Piazza, a likely first-ballot HOFer due to his prodigious offense as a catcher.

"I can't think it would be any worse or any different if he agreed to play first base," Carter said. "He made one throw that hit in front of the mound. There was a game against the Marlins where they stole six bases. Is that worse than missing one or two grounders at first base?"

Ok, Gar, you tell me: would you rather give up a base or an out?

You can expect we have some kind of plan.

NY Post (it was the best of coverage, it was the worst of coverage):

Mike Piazza took about 10 minutes of grounders at first base before 2 p.m. yesterday as part of the Mets' early workout group. Manager Art Howe, wary of his previous comments on the subject, downplayed the event, however.

Inference: he looked like shit.

Piazza wouldn't comment before the game and after the 9-6 victory repeatedly answered three or four questions about it with, "We'll get back to you on that one."

Translation: I looked like shit.

There was tension in the visiting manager's office as reporters asked Howe about the subject, and media relations vice president Jay Horwitz later said Piazza would not speak about it. The decision to take grounders was up to Piazza, Howe said.

"Nothing to make out of it," Howe said. "Just the first day."

Translation: he looks like shit.

Added infield coach Matt Galante, who hit the grounders, "It wasn't a big deal. It wasn't a question of how he looked."

Translation: he looked like shit.

Howe said there was no timetable on the situation and added, "He's a long way from ever getting at first base in a game. I'll let you know when he's getting close to playing in a game there."

Translation: he looked like shit.

Assistant GM Jim Duquette, on the trip instead of Steve Phillips, was slightly more forthcoming.

"You can expect we have some kind of plan," Duquette said. "The first step is we'll see if he can play first base before we put him over there."

And then we'll put him over there anyway. Even though he looks like shit.

For the record, re moving Piazza to first, if Joel Sherman's for it, I'm against it. Period.

It's like watching them set themselves on fire.

Pretending to sympathize with Piazza now that the Mets have submarined him regarding a move to first base, Bob Klapisch actually seizes on the opportunity to advocate trading the Mets' best player to the AL--for the good of the team, of course. (See also Mike Lupica's recent column, which was badly written enough to have been written by Klapieceofshit himself. And can I just ask, is it even possible for Lupica to write a column on the Mets without forcing it through a pinstriped filter first? How does a column ostensibly written about Piazza suddenly become an advocacy piece for the flailing Giambi?)

There's plenty of blame to be apportioned for the current fiasco. To Howe for being so incredibly inept at handling the media (at the moment I’m not ready to attribute to malice what can be reasonbly explained by wretched stupidity.) To the NY press for raising their annual hue and cry about Piazza moving to first to a fever pitch due to the team’s abysmal start—like forcing him to move to first is suddenly going to make everyone else do their jobs. And most of all, to the Wilpons and GM Steve Phillips for not addressing the situation during Spring training, when it would have behooved them to have Piazza start working on making the move. It’s not like this is a novel idea; it’s been bandied about since Piazza came to the team in ’98 and they got a good look at his throwing arm.

The fact is, Piazza is not a great athlete. He’s a great hitter, and God knows he tries, but he’s not particularly gifted, physically. He doesn’t know where his feet are most of the time. Moving him to first base isn’t going to be like moving Biggio to second, or even like moving Zeile from third to first. It’s going to be like moving Hundley to left field. And the people who witness it—particularly if they force Piazza to move mid-season—are going to be brutally judgmental; Mets fans are not known for their deep sympathy and sweet, understanding natures. The NY press, who love nothing better than a good feeding frenzy, will call for a trade—as Klapisch and Lupica have already done—and the team, who apparently see nothing wrong with letting team policy be driven by public opinion, will trade the best hitter they’ve ever had, most likely for a handful of magic beans, to appease them, bringing what was supposed to have been a golden era to a sad and tatty end.

Every year they make it harder to stand by them. Every fucking year.

Embracing my inner geek.

Via Variety (login may be required, I'm not sure), Indiana Jones will be coming to DVD on Nov. 4th. Pertinent factoids: 4 disc set, all 3 movies. THX digitally remastered, wide- and full-screen versions, Dolby 5.1 remastered soundtracks. $50 anticipated pricetag. Disc o' goodies with interviews, possible deleted stuff.

It's good to be the king.

Also via Drudge, Prince William wants to come live in the US for a couple of years, putting his art history degree to use at an auction house. Article chiefly notable for the mention of his pickup line, "Hi, I'm the future king, wanna pull?"

I was going to say it couldn't hurt to have Britain's monarch on our side in a crisis, then I remembered they don't actually do much of anything useful. But what the hell; it couldn't hurt his character development to have a real job, either.

Looting the UN cafeteria.

I'll just say this: I want Kofi Annan presented with the bill for all the stuff that was stolen, including the silverware. Fucking ridiculous behavior. [Link via Drudge.]

Nailing Norman.

Dennis Miller examines Norman Mailer like something he scraped off the sole of his shoe in the WSJ opinion journal.

Media critique.

Johnathan Foreman in the Weekly Standard on why the reportage from Baghdad has been so grotesquely inaccurate:

Perhaps this is just another case of reporters with an anti-American or antiwar agenda. Perhaps living in Saddam's totalitarian Baghdad has left some of the press here with a case of Stockholm syndrome. It may also be a byproduct of depending on interpreters and fixers who were connected to or worked with the approval of the Saddam regime. And you cannot underestimate the herd instinct that can take over when you have a lot of media folk in a confined area for any length of time. But whatever the cause, the result has been very selective reporting.

Why, tell us more, Johnathan.

The Associated Press's Hamza Hendawi, for instance, massively exaggerated and misrepresented the nature of the looting in Baghdad in the first days after the U.S. armored forces took key points in the city. Like so many Baghdad-based reporters, she described an "unchecked frenzy" that did not exist at that time (the looting was targeted and nonviolent, in the sense that the looters attacked neither persons nor inhabited dwellings). Read her pieces and you'll meet a veritable parade of Iraqis who are angry with the United States.

Then there were those exaggerated reports of April 18 claiming (as Reuters' Hassan Hafidh put it) that "Tens of thousands of protesters demanded on Friday that the United States get out of Iraq. . . . In the biggest protest since U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein's iron-fisted, 24-year-long rule nine days ago, Muslims poured out of mosques and into the streets of Baghdad, calling for an Islamic state to be established." Demonstrators did come out of one mosque, but reporters seem to have confused them with the large numbers of Shia Muslims gathering for the pilgrimage to Karbala--a pilgrimage long forbidden by the Saddam regime.

Reporters who don't have any idea what they're looking at? I'm shocked. Shocked.

More irritating is the myth constantly repeated by antiwar columnists that the military let the city be destroyed--in particular the hospitals and the national museum--while guarding the Ministry of Oil. The museum looting is turning out to have been grotesquely exaggerated. And there is no evidence for the ministry of oil story. Depending on the article, the Marines had either a tank or a machine gun nest outside the ministry. Look for a photo of that tank or that machine gun nest and you'll look in vain. And even if the Marines had briefly guarded the oil ministry it would have been by accident: The Marines defended only the streets around their own headquarters and so-called Areas of Operation. Again, though, given the pro-regime sources favored by so many of the press corps huddled in the Palestine Hotel, it's not surprising that this rumor became gospel.

I have a feeling I'm going to be pointing people to this article again and again. When I think about how readily the idea that the US guarded the oil ministry over the museum was swallowed by people who should have known better, it just pisses me off afresh. Not that my opinion of the press in general needed any lowering. (Link via Tainted Bill McCabe, who got it from Glenn Reynolds.)

My stomach hurts from laughing so hard.

Sheila A-stray at Redheaded Ramblings has posted one of the funniest, shrieking-with-laughter-so-loud-the-neighbors-think-I'm-being-murdered, tears-streaming-from-the-eyes things I've ever read. Not the collected slam reviews of Battlefield Earth I originally went to her blog to read (link via Dean Esmay), though those are hilarious, but the post about her acting experiences in truly horrendous plays. (Since it's Blogspot the links are fucked up. It's the 5/3 entry entitled "Battlefield Recap".) She's going on the blogroll.

Neo-barbarians at the gates.

This is what the Australian universities are wasting their money on.

Last week, The Australian newspaper's brow-creasing Higher Education liftout carried a perfectly serious front-page story with a picture of a London artist wearing a corset over his face.

It reported, without a whinny of amazement, that Sydney's Macquarie University was hosting an international conference of academics, plus artists like this face-flattened Brit, to discuss "Body Modification: Changing Bodies, Changing Selves".

The conference organiser, Queer Studies lecturer Nikki Sullivan, explained that they would for three days discuss how we pierce, tattoo, brand, stretch, suction and slash our bodies, and how bad people are to judge us for doing so.

She raised the example of people volunteering to have a leg or arm amputated, simply because they do "not feel at ease with it, or would prefer the look or feel of a radically altered body".

It was wrong to dismiss such people, proudly hacking off their healthy limbs, as mentally ill. This was, as the paper put it, actually a "legitimate phenomenon".

"What is self-mutilation and what is body art -- that line is very unclear," said Sullivan, a mother with five tattoos and piercings in her nose and ears.

No, it isn't.

[snip]

Don't think Sullivan is on a frolic of her own deep in the flatulent bowels of Macquarie's Department of Critical and Cultural Studies. Let me demonstrate by giving you the titles of some of the other papers delivered at her conference, which is sponsored by the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia.

The show kicked off with "A Straight Boy's Experiences of Getting a Prince Albert Piercing (of his penis)", and not surprisingly moved on to "The Phallus as Freak-Show", followed by "White Trash Get Down on Your Knees, It's Time for Cake and Sodomy". An Indian academic then talked of this "Elective Amputation", before things perked up with "Performing Muscular Drag in Circus".

Then came "How to Murder Barbie, F... Mommy and Live Forever", and "Am I 'Becoming-Rat' or Losing My Ear?", Before the fun ended with "What an A..e Can Do", "He F...ed Me on National TV" and "I Make Myself in Hurting Myself".

Sullivan herself spoke on "Queer Ethics: On (Not) Reading the Face of Michael Jackson". And the keynote speaker was Del La Grace Volcano, a "queer, lesbian photographer" who became a "Gender Terrorist, an Intentional Mutation and Intersex by Design" -- a "he" who "subverts . . . the notion that only two genders exist, male and female".

And to think I giggled at the "Self and Other" PoMo conference they had at U of L when I was there as an undergrad in the early 80s. If they'd had a freak show like this I'd be obligated to torch my diploma as a worthless piece of garbage.

Queer Studies. Judas Priest, that'll get you a job in the real world.

[Via Tim Blair. The 5/02 entry, scroll to the post about Rupert Murdoch.]

Not quite sure what to make of this.

Janeane Garofalo will be starring (and I use that term inadvisedly) in Ash Tuesday, a movie about the immediate aftermath of 9/11. She'll play a woman who works in a health food store and doesn't want to leave her apartment. She does look like someone who would work in a health food store, at least.

Bring me the head of Steve Phillips.

Mike Lupica makes a compelling case for firing Steve Phillips (which frankly should have preceding Valentine's firing) in today's Daily News (with bonus Timeline of Shame^tm!)

Meanwhile, Mo Vaughn (note that I refrained from referring to him as "Moo" this time) teases Mets fans by hinting that he might retire, having suffered the ignominy of having to remove himself from a game after one at bat when he made himself nauseous by taking "supplements" on an empty stomach. The Mets, ladies and gentlemen. Baseball's brain trust.

Bruce Springsteen's America.

This is somewhat old, but it came up recently on one of the Mets groups I'm in (time to talk about anything but the team), and I'd be somewhat remiss if I didn't mention it here. Bruce Springsteen thinks the quashing of the Dixie Chicks' dissent is "unAmerican":

The Dixie Chicks have taken a big hit lately for exercising their basic right to express themselves. To me, they're terrific American artists expressing American values by using their American right to free speech. For them to be banished wholesale from radio stations, and even entire radio networks, for speaking out is un-American.

To me, they're silly asses who tried to ingratiate themselves with a foreign audience by trashing the government that protects their right to be silly asses. NPR aside, radio is a business, not a public service. It is not incumbent on country radio to make sure they have a wide spectrum of political views represented on their playlists. (If it were, Steve Earle might get more airplay, the talented pinko commie bastard.)

The pressure coming from the government and big business to enforce conformity of thought concerning the war and politics goes against everything that this country is about - namely freedom.

What the fuck are you talking about? The pressure is coming from The People, and "big business" in this case is bowing to popular pressure. You think they like taking the Chicks out of rotation and having to look for a replacement? And just once I'd like to see a specific example of governmental pressure cited, rather than this infantile generalized scaremongering about the evil, shadowy Republican administration.

Right now, we are supposedly fighting to create freedom in Iraq, at the same time that some are trying to intimidate and punish people for using that same freedom here at home.

If people don't want to hear the Dixie Chicks, you can't force them. If it's no longer the will of the people to hear your music, sucks to be you. That's what freedom's all about, baby.

I don't know what happens next,

Dogs living with cats...

but I do want to add my voice to those who think that the Dixie Chicks are getting a raw deal, and an un-American one to boot. I send them my support.

Then buy a radio station and program the Chicks 24/7. Or write them a check. But don't tell the market what to do. That's un-American.

Frank J. interviews Condoleeza Rice.

Frank: What do you think of today's military technology?

Rice: I think we have a huge technological advantage over our enemy. I mean they're a bunch of dumb turds with second hand AK-47's, and we have laser guided missiles that can fly through space. And, with our advance accuracy, we can avoid civilian casualties.

Frank: And it is the administration’s position to not kill children?

Rice: Yes, even the stupid smelly ones. That's why we have cruise missiles that can fly miles and miles and then accurately hit a target about the size of Michael Moore.

Frank: So why is Michael Moore still around.

Rice: He runs a lot faster than you'd think.

IMAO. Cutting edge blog journalism.

"From director Rob Zombie."

That's a sentence fragment that should only occur when monkeys are given typewriters.

Jon Stewart re-ups with Comedy Central.

It's the smart move. Laurence Simon at Amish Tech Support lays out the reasons why he'd be an idiot to move to broadcast, which covets him:

Jimmy Kimmel went from Comedy Central's Man Show to that piece of shit he's got on Disney's ABC that stinks up the airwaves after Koppel.
Bill Maher got away with a lot of lefty gaffes when he was on HBO, but Disney wiped him out in spades when he screwed up on Disney's ABC. He's back on HBO, I believe.
Dennis Miller tried to go from an HBO series to Monday Night Football on Disney's ABC, then got bumped for some burned-out fat old guy
Wait... I see a pattern here... hold on... wait... wait for it...

Nope. Lost it. Must have just had Post Disney Traumatic Disorder there or something. Sorry.

In the same post Laurence also notes that Colin Quinn may have found his niche on Politically Incorrect. Haven't seen it, but the commercials do make it look interesting.

Update: The spelling of Mr. Stewart's first name corrected at Emily's behest.

I am the consumer of worlds. Fear me.

As I have noted in comments elsewhere, humanity would require 9.6 planets if everybody lived like I do. Not that the quiz is biased, or anything. *cough*

DChix redux.

Drudge follows up the Dixie Chicks tempest in a teapot by excerpting bits of an interview they've done with Diane Sawyer that hasn't aired yet. [Link via Tainted Bill McCabe.] I don't have much in the way of commentary, except to note that they use the word "compassion" the way the Smurfs used "smurf" and its derivatives, and then there's this bit:

MAINES: …I ask questions. That's smart. That's intelligent. To find out facts not to just, 'Okay, we're going over here now.' I say, 'Why are we going over there?' And I don't mean to Iraq, I mean across the room. Since I was tiny, you've had to tell me why I have to do something…

Asking stupid questions isn't particularly smart, and certainly not when the answers to your questions have been spelled out, in detail, ad nauseam, for the prior several months. If you didn't know why we were going, it's not through any failure on the part of the president or his cabinet to spell it out for you so much as your failure to listen.

Cruel and funny.

My favorite combination. Via the essential Jim Treacher*, Fametracker's Ten Least Essential Summer Films. Note that I link to this list despite the fact that Pirates of the Caribbean comes in at number 6, higher than Bad Boys II (though I am not clear on whether that position means it's more or less likely to suck), and I am currently in serious denial about its potential hideosity because I really, really want to see a good pirate movie like Against All Flags, though I secretly suspect this may not be it. The involvement of Jerry Bruckheimer can't be a good thing.

*Judas Priest, is Blogspot ever going to fix the damn archive problem? First entry on 4/23/03.

Mickey Kaus on the museum looting.

Via David Nieporent's Jumping to Conclusions, though this passage wasn't his primary focus:

P.S.: I don't see why it gets the U.S. off the hook if the looting was an "inside job." You can protect against inside jobs too, by preventing things from leaving the building -- like priceless statues that take ten men to lift. The issue isn't who did the stealing, but whether or not we screwed up and failed to do what we could. To the extent that our forces were taking fire from the museum and unable to safely protect it, we obviously didn't screw up. To the extent our forces didn't even know for several days that there was a museum there to protect (but did know there was a bank), or to the extent they decided to protect water storage facilities and other infrastructure rather than art work, it was a screw-up. Islamic terrorists twenty years from now won't be wooing recruits with the story of how the evil Americans smashed a water storage facility. They will be telling them about how the Americans burned ancient copies of the Koran and destroyed the heritage of the Arab world. ...

They'll be lying, then, because it wasn't the Americans looting the museum, it was fellow Iraqis. I can't say it often enough: I do not give a shit about this because they robbed themselves, and if they were that concerned about preserving their cultural heritage, they could have done something about it themselves. Museums are not the US military's primary concern, nor should they be; those institutions that were protected by the military--yes, including the fucking oil ministry--are far more necessary to post-war efforts to rebuild the country's economic and political structure than the damn museum. The people who survived this war to bitch about the loss of their artifacts twenty years hence should count themselves lucky to be able to do so.

Gents, doff your caps.

Nina Simone has died in France at the age of 70. [Via Drudge.]

Feet to the fire.

Steve H. at Little Tiny Lies follows up on the pre-war utterances of several anti-war celebrities. Behold a sample of the carnage:

Hmm…George Clooney. Let me begin by saying, “Solaris.” Saying Solaris to George Clooney is like running into an MSNBC board meeting and yelling “Donahue.” With that irrelevant yet satisfying insult behind me, let me remind everyone that George Clooney said we couldn’t beat the Iraqis. “We can’t beat anyone,” said Furious George. No word from The Man in the Big Yellow Hat.

Maybe he was right. Maybe Saddam let us capture ten thousand soldiers and occupy all of his major cities as part of a master plan we’re just too dim to appreciate. Or maybe it was performance art. Or sarcasm. A huge practical joke…sort of like…conning a movie studio to give you millions of dollars to make a movie about the host of The Gong Show! We’re still waiting for the punchline on that one, George. I have a great title for the next movie you direct: O Audience, Where Art Thou? How about Attendance: Eleven?

George never did explain his reasoning. Our last two visits to Iraq were so easy, Bush considered training for this one by scheduling war games against the Girl Scouts. But Furious George thought it was only a matter of days before the Republican Guard occupied Bel Air, put all the chippies in burqas and confiscated his gigantic stockpile of exotic condoms and acyclovir. Relax, George. Thanks to Tommy Franks, you can get back to your life’s work.

That's just good stuff.

Vin Diesel.

Best single-sentence review of "A Man Apart": Even the fisticuffs make no sense.

Sauce for the goose.

Tim Robbins on Tuesday:

"Any instance of intimidation to free speech should be battled against. Any acquiescence to intimidation at this point will only lead to more intimidation."

[Link via Midwest Conservative Journal.]

Tim Robbins to a reporter at the Oscars:

"If you ever write about my family again, I will (expletive) find you and I will (expletive) hurt you."

Freedom of the Press is apparently secondary to Tim's Freedom to Run His Yap Without Consequence.

Jamie Kennedy

I'd rate him about a 95 on the Tom Green scale of Unfunny.

(Getting really tired of the trailers for Malibu's Most Wanted.)

Boycott of French goods is having an effect.

According to this article in the Washington Post, the French are starting to feel the sting of the American backlash against French goods, at least in certain areas, notably wine imports.

American importers of French wine are reporting sharp drops in sales in the past two months, and other French products also have been affected. The Federation of Wine Exporters has called a meeting Thursday to discuss how to respond.

The nation's principal business federation took the unusual step of publicly acknowledging the problem, conceding today that sales, recruitment and business contacts have been hurt. It appealed to consumers and businesses to keep political differences from affecting commerce.

"Certain French enterprises are suffering today from the differences that have arisen among states over the Iraqi question," the Movement of French Enterprises (Medef) said. "It is necessary to say to those who are unhappy with the positions of French diplomacy that they are free to criticize, but they must keep products and services of our enterprises outside their quarrel."

Maybe that's a bad translation, but it sounds suspiciously like Medef thinks the US public is in some way obligated to keep French business interests above the political fray. Sorry, boys, that's not the way things work over here. Skipping to the end:

The importers, angry and frustrated, said the government in Paris did not comprehend the effect of its war position on French businesses.

Touton [wine importer] has tried to fight the trend by pledging to give $1 for every case of wine he sells to the USO to help U.S. troops in Iraq. He has done it for two weeks but it hasn't helped much. He said he thinks that business will pick up only when Chirac stops making anti-U.S. statements.

"We want to send the message to the French side to please do something. Or, if you don't want to do anything, then please shut up," Touton said.

Sensible message. If only it had been delivered earlier.

[Link via Dean Esmay.]

Solely of interest to Mets fans.

An overview of the next few months of posting on alt.sports.baseball.ny-mets. It's funny, in that painful Metsochistic way.

Writing for the Weekly World News has to be one of the great jobs out there.

Because there's absolutely nothing they won't publish. Shocking expose: Saddam starred in gay porn films! Replete with excellent spokesman quotes and a nom de...er...cine that cries out to be as widely circulated as possible.

[Link via this comment on LGF.]

Ridiculous.

Comments have been down for two days, and the backBlog page is inaccessible--oh, but they've got the server with the icon up. I need a better comment system.

I love this story.

Mark Steyn profiles George Bush, and paraphrases a recent NYT snippet that, as he says, ought to be true if it isn't:

Last week, The New York Times reported on the President's reaction to Don Rumsfeld's daily press conference. As the Times tells it, a Bush aide stepped into the Oval Office to warn him that "the unpredictable Defence Secretary" had just threatened Syria. The President looked up from his desk. "Good," he said. Then he went back to work.

Bwahaha. The rest is Steyn making the case for Bush's IQ in typically entertaining fashion. Check it out.

Evil, evil Yankees.

Remember, cheaters never prosper. Unless Steinbrenner owns them.

[Thanks to CoffeeMuse for the link.]

Re the histrionics over the museum looting.

Sorry, I can't bring myself to get misty-eyed. Not one single tear, not one tremor to my lower lip over all the priceless antiquities. Sure, it sucks. Looting sucks, generally. But to blame the looting on the US is infantile and frankly weird. The people of Iraq are the ones who sacked their own cultural history, not the Americans and British; let them fucking worry about putting it back in the museums. And if you cry harder over a the loss of a vase or a bauble or a cuneiform text than you do over the degradation and loss of human life, fuck you. And may God have mercy on your shallow soul.

[Link via Michele at A Small Victory. Only she said it more eloquently than I do.]

Update (via the Command Post): US 'will repair' Iraqi heritage. Now can we let this go and find something new to bitch about? Please?

Russia still run by idiots.

"We do not think that America won," said Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the lower house of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told Rossia television.

The Iraqis are of a slightly different opinion, Baghdad Bob notwithstanding.

"Where are those chemical weapons?" he demanded. And Putin’s media aide, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, told Kommersant that Russia would not forgive the Iraqi debt. "(Washington) should not be so generous at other people’s expense," he said.

Look, you made deals with a regime you knew the US was going to try to topple. You bet against us, you lose. As my procedure prof. used to say, "Too bad, it is so sad, but you cannot collect for that."

[Link via the Corner.]

Newsflash: International relief agencies largely comprised of whiney bitches.

Relief agencies refuse to work with US

Aid agencies are refusing to work with the administration being set up by the Americans in southern Iraq and some are accusing the US of deliberately undermining the UN's role in post-war relief.

Tensions are growing between international aid groups and the Americans. Several are turning down their aid grants.

As British aid workers waited for security clearance to enter Iraq, there were concerns that looting and crime in towns held by the British and Americans would undermine their operation and endanger staff. The UN aid mission for Iraq said coalition forces had a duty under international law to maintain a safe environment for civilians and health workers. Widespread disorder could hamper their efforts in Baghdad and Basra, said a spokesman.

First, there's still pockets of "war" going on. Second, the UN is made up largely of pussies who wouldn't do jackshit to stop any violence toward aid workers. Third, seems to me if you were actually concerned with people's welfare, you'd worry more about logistics and materiel and a fuck of a lot less about who got the goddamned credit.

In the south the Americans say humanitarian assistance is high on the agenda of the interim administration, being set up in Umm Qasr under Jay Garner, the retired US General. The team will co-ordinate relief, rebuild infrastructure and start setting up a "democratic" government.

But some relief agencies suspect that while it is not safe for them to work in Iraq the US is stealthily carving its own role as administrator, overseer and grant provider.

The US is doing nothing stealthily. We've been pretty clear about taking the lead role in reconstruction from the outset; if you're surprised that we meant what we said, you haven't been paying attention.

Many are refusing to touch money offered by Gen Garner's Organisation for Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction and several aid agencies walked out of an OHAR meeting this week.

Alistair Dutton, emergency officer for Cafod, the British agency, said the setting up of OHAR was an attempt to take control. "We fully expect to go to work in Iraq under the UN, but that is not the message coming from Jay Garner."

Tensions between the US and independent agencies could hinder the efficiency of an aid operation in Iraq. "There are going to be enormous problems about organisation with a US military-run country and aid agencies that don't want to work with the military," said a relief worker in Kuwait. Several groups hope to move into towns and cities within three days.

Good God. Look, you can't have it both ways; if the US has an obligation to maintain law and order, you have to work with the military. Better yet, just stay the fuck out of the way. The last thing the military needs to take on right now is the task of babysitting a bunch of socialist agitators.

[Link via Winds of Change, from an article about how well the rebuilding efforts are doing in Afghanistan.]

Blix feeling froggy.

First thing I saw on the Corner this morning: Hans Blix accuses US of planning the war. You know, it isn't often you find such big nuggets of pure leftist stupidity littering the landscape like they have since the war started, but this is a particularly big one.

The invasion of Iraq was planned a long time in advance, and the United States and Britain are not primarily concerned with finding any banned weapons of mass destruction, the chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, said in an interview on Wednesday.

I believe that probably falls under the heading of "no shit". The primary job of the US is to topple the regime; it was your fucking job to find the weapons, and you failed. Twice.

"There is evidence that this war was planned well in advance. Sometimes this raises doubts about their attitude to the (weapons) inspections," Blix told Spanish daily El Pais.

How preciously phrased. There was also some evidence that someone inside UNMOVIC was helping the Iraqis figure out where you were going to be looking for WMDs as well, Hans. And sometimes, I confess, that raised doubts about your attitude to the inspections as well.

"I now believe that finding weapons of mass destruction has been relegated, I would say, to fourth place, which is why the United States and Britain are now waging war on Iraq.

Today the main aim is to change the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein," he said, according to the Spanish text of the interview.

With cheese! But you've confused cause and effect; that's not why the US is waging war with Iraq, the war is why the Easter egg hunt has been relegated to fourth or fifth place on the list of priorities.

Blix said US President George W Bush had told him in October 2002 that he backed the UN's work to verify US and British claims that Baghdad was developing biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

And I'm sure at the time he did. And then you guys screwed around and hemmed and hawed and made it perfectly obvious that your main objective was merely to draw out the process long enough to hamper any pre-emptive action on the part of the US--not to actually find any WMDs.

But he said he knew at the time "there were people within the Bush administration who were sceptical and who were working on engineering regime change". By the start of March the hawks in both Washington and London were getting impatient, he added.

Blix said that he thought the US might initially have believed Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction - although its "fabrication" of evidence raised doubts about even that - but that Washington was now less convinced by its own claims.

"I think the Americans started the war thinking there were some. I think they now believe less in that possibility.

Wrong. Speaking solely for my American self, I certainly believe there at least were some in country until you dicked around long enough for most of them to be moved out for safekeeping elsewhere.

But I don't know - you ask yourself a lot of questions when you see the things they did to try and demonstrate that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons, like the fake contract with Niger," he explained.

That's quite an accusation, particularly coming from a guy who as recently as February indicated that the Iraqi government was not cooperating with his own inspections.

That was a reference to US allegations - later denied - that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium from the west African state of Niger.

"I'm very curious to see if they do find any (weapons)," he said.

Yeah, I'll bet you are.

Blix said the war, which on Wednesday entered its 21st day, was "a very high price to pay in terms of human lives and the destruction of a country" when the threat of weapons proliferation could have been contained by UN inspections.

But it couldn't have been. It wasn't. Your inspections were a crude farce straight out of the commedia dell'arte.

By attacking Iraq, Washington had sent the wrong message - that if a country did not possess biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, it risked being attacked.

I'm pretty sure the message sent--and received--was that the US is not going to dick around endlessly like the UN is inclined to do.

"The United States maintains that the war on Iraq is designed to send a signal to other countries to keep away from weapons of mass destruction.

But people are getting a different message.

Take the announcement North Korea has just made. It's tantamount to saying 'if you let in the inspectors, like Iraq did, you get attacked'.

No, it's more like saying 'if you let in the inspectors and then screw with the inspections process, you get attacked.'

North Korea accused the United States on Sunday of using a UN Security Council discussion of its nuclear programme as a "prelude to war" and warned that it would fully mobilise and strengthen its forces.

North Korea is starving. It would be foolish to underestimate an enemy, but I have difficulty taking their military threats at face value when they can't even feed the army.

"It's an important problem," Blix continued.

"If a country perceives that its security is guaranteed, it won't need to consider weapons of mass destruction. This security guarantee is the first line of defence against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."

Again, this assumes that all countries are run by reasonable men, which is manifestly a false premise.

The 74-year-old Swede announced in March that he would step down from his post when his contract runs out in June.

Big of him.

Blix's reputation for independence and resisting political pressure was sorely tested as the Iraq crisis unfolded and US officials became exasperated with his measured reports on Iraqi cooperation with his inspection teams.

And his credibility was shredded in the process, imo.

"Why should the war influence a bunch of books about grown men and women who jump around in their underwear and punch people?"

Kevin Parrott posts a long and interesting dissection of a Comicgate article about the comics industry and the war in Iraq. Even if you're not particularly interested in comics (and I haven't been since the late 70s), this is pure gold and funny as hell.

The language of war.

Interesting Slate article on the possible linguistic contributions of Gulf War II to the English language. [Thanks to Paula for the link.]

I wouldn't have believed it.

Colin Powell is capable of givng snarkmeister Rumsfeld a run for his money in dealing with the European assumption of moral superiority.

Memo to Al Jazeera: you're not important enough to target.

Unless someone behind you is shooting at our guys, of course. Meanwhile, in Jordan:

Dozens of Jordanian journalists staged a sit-in outside the Jordan Press Association in Amman, chanting anti-American slogans and calling for an end to the "massacres of journalists and civilians" in Iraq.

[Link via the Corner.] Since when is two journalists a "massacre"?

Btw, later tonight I'll be staging a sit-in in my living room, chanting pro-American slogans and celebrating the judicious use of US military force. I expect the event to be at least as influential on the conduct of the war as the proceedings in Jordan.

I'm no fan of Oasis...

...but Liam Gallagher's tirade about Chris Martin is just f***in' funny.

“That lot are just a bunch of nobhead students — Chris Martin looks like a f***in’ geography teacher. What’s all that f***in’ s*** with writing messages about Free Trade on his hand when he’s playing. If he wants to write things down I’ll give him a f***in’ pen and a pad of paper. Bunch of students."

Bwahaha.

Further Corner perusal...

...brings up an article along the lines of the semi-popular "let's stop bashing the French" bleat, this time under the guise that it's "evil" to hold the French accountable for having surrendered to the Germans:

Obviously, in 1995, "cheese-eatin' surrender monkeys" was funny for different reasons; it was absurd to think anyone - 50 years after World War II - holds a nation accountable for exercising a basic instinct of survival.

"(It's) a tad unfair, if you look at what the French were faced with," said Dr. Gael Graham, associate history professor at Western Carolina University.

Western Carolina?

The French surrendered in World War II rather than face state-of-the-art, seemingly unbeatable German tanks.

They could have easily stopped Germany from illegally reoccupying the Rhineland in 1936, when they were much the superior force, simply by announcing their intention to oppose Hitler, and they chose not to bother, then capitulated in record time in 1940. The hell with them.

"There's a sense in this country that we saved the French," Graham added. "We didn't do it alone, and we didn't mostly do it."

Sorry, Gael, your grasp of WWII history seems even tetchier than mine.

And aren't we presently telling Iraqis that surrender is a good thing, even admirable in the face of state-of-the-art, seemingly unbeatable coalition forces?

Yes. But we outclass the Iraqis militarily by a damn sight more than the Germans outclassed the French--nor are we seeking lebensraum from them.

The French, if anything, are cheese-eatin' noncompliance monkeys.

Can we at least agree France should be further down on our bashing list, behind al-Qaida, Iraq, Iowa, large-market sports franchises and Germany?

No. We can't. And you can stuff your can't-we-all-just-get-along tripe right up your ass.

File this under "cry me a river."

Police breaking out the rubber bullets on the protesters in Oakland.

Several people were injured, including some who suffered large bruises. One man lifted up his shirt to show a welt about the size of a baseball.

[Link via the Corner.] Good thing Russell declined.

2-minute trailer for "Pirates of the Caribbean".

Because I like pirate movies. (No, not "Cutthroat Island".) The trailer on the official site looks great, the one at upcomingmovies.com looks like crap on my system.

Life is just more enjoyable when you have a juvenile of humor.

Bill McCabe's revised map of France.

Because I love parody.

I present the genius of Ian Hamet at Banana Oil, re the Brain-Terminal NYC protester video (ample linkage provided in the material.) [Paula, this one's just for you.]

This probably isn't going to pass...

...but it's a nice thought. KLo in the Corner:

An amendment passed the House by voice-vote last night, sponsored by Rep. Mark Kennedy (R., Mn.). It would limit French, German, Russian, and Syrian influence in postwar Iraq. It would prohibit taxpayer money spent on reconstruction in Iraq from going to any companies in those countries. Here's the text:

An amendment to provide that none of the funds made available in the bill for reconstruction efforts in Iraq may be used to procure goods or services from any entity that includes information on a response to a Request for Proposal (RFP) that indicates that such entity is organized under the laws of France, Germany, the Russian Federation, or Syria.

Now that's some legislation I can get behind. Call me vengeful.

Raffarin: US war on Iraq a moral, political, and strategic mistake.

The French Prime Minister apparently decided there had been enough conciliation of US allies offended by France's recalcitrant stance on the progress of the war and launched a new offensive.

"The Americans made a triple mistake: first of all a moral mistake, and I think we have to say this: there was an alternative to war. We could have disarmed Iraq differently."

But he doesn't say how. And they weren't exactly chock full o' ideas at the time, apart from temporizing with Blix.

That was clear by Washington's failure to secure a U.N. resolution authorizing military action should Iraq fail to destroy its alleged weapons of mass destruction, he said.

1441 did that. Thought we were pretty clear on that up front.

"Also, (they made) a political mistake, because we know very well the difficulties of this region of the world," he added. "We see how serious the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is, and at any moment it can set the world ablaze. It's a serious political error to start trouble in this region.

To quote Billy Joel (however inadvisedly), we didn't start the fire. But unlike France, neither are we willing to sit around and watch the house burn down.

"And then, there is a strategic mistake: that today one country can lead the world," he said, arguing that Europe should be one of the major poles of influence in the world.

And by Europe, of course, he actually means France. If France wants to be a world leader, then perhaps they should act like one. Whining about not being listened to and infantile demands for post-conflict control of a situation they chose to sidestep won't cut it.

A man of many parts.

Coffeemuse on Museblog links to a very special MSNBC article about a very special poetic talent--our own Donald Rumsfeld. My personal favorite:

A Confession

Once in a while,
I’m standing here, doing something.
And I think,
“What in the world am I doing here?”
It’s a big surprise.

—May 16, 2001, interview with the New York Times

Tina Brown weighs in.

“IF ONLY TONY BLAIR were President” is still the prevailing feeling among Americans, whatever they feel about the war.

Speak for yourself, you twat. [Link via Drudge.]

I resent sharing a name with this idiot.

John Kerry calls for US "regime change" and promises to usher in a "golden age of American diplomacy".

Kerry said that he had spoken with foreign diplomats and several world leaders as recently as Monday while fund-raising in New York and that they told him they felt betrayed when Bush resorted to war in Iraq before they believed diplomacy had run its course.

He said the leaders, whom he did not identify, believed that Bush wanted to ''end-run around the UN.''

''I don't think they're going to trust this president, no matter what,'' Kerry said. ''I believe it deeply, that it will take a new president of the United States, declaring a new day for our relationship with the world, to clear the air and turn a new page on American history.''

Is he on crack? We've just turned a new page in American history with Bush taking that "kick me hard" sign off our backs that got slapped on there during the Clinton admin.; the idea that we should make our nation subject to the agendas of foreign governments is neither new nor particularly desirable. And someone should remind him that foreign nationals do not elect American presidents. Not yet, anyway. [Link via Drudge.]

Update: I really should check with Charles Austin before I write anything.

Quite possibly the single stupidest question of the war so far:

Augusta Policinski, Polish Weekly: Do you receive information about increasing movement of antiwar protesters around the world? Does the information change your decisions, influence your decisions?

Addressed to Gen. Brooks at one of the CentCom briefings. Jonathan Last examines what the hell runs through the minds of foreign correspondents when they ask questions like this. [Stolen from the same Instapundit link as the preceding post.]

"They griped with the belly growls of jackals."

Austin Bey imagines what might be going on inside the Iraqi high command. Best line:

We say we rely on the Arab street, but the Arab street is a pitiful alley where shouts die quickly and the strong man's banners tatter and burn once his bayonet is gone.

[Link shamelessly lifted from Instapundit.]

And Geraldo is leaving Iraq.

"Voluntarily", at the request of the Pentagon. [Link via the Corner.]

French rooting for Saddam.

According to the Times UK, 1 of every 3 French persons actually wants Saddam to win this war. Can't really say I'm surprised--it's obvious they miss being an empire and having the world cater to their whims, and would back the devil himself if he were on the other side of a war with les Anglo-Saxons. [Link via Jonah in The Corner, who got it from Drudge.]

Like I don't have enough reason to despise the French.

Jkrank at Sofia Sideshow piles another one on: someone has desecrated a cemetary for the British war dead near Boulogne, spraypainting "Rosbeefs go home" on the big cenotaph in the center, as well as the standard suggestions that Bush and Blair are Nazi war criminals, death to the Yankees, blah blah f'n blah. These are all that remains of the valiant men who died defending their forbears, and they actually spray-painted, "Dig up your garbage, it's fouling our soil".

Intellectually, I realize not all the French think this way, and some remember and are actually grateful to the Anglosphere for giving them their country back. Emotionally, however, this just adds weight to the low opinion I have of the entire country. It's hard to remember the debt we owe Lafayette when every French son of a bitch after him is such a low-rent bastard.

Arnett.

Peter Arnett falls into the Mirror's tub of margarine, and spends his first column crying about being fired.

THIS WAR IS NOT WORKING

At least not for Peter. Heh.

I am still in shock and awe at being fired.

Obligatory and yet ill-advised play on words.

There is enormous sensitivity within the US government to reports coming out from Baghdad.

They don't want credible news organisations reporting from here because it presents them with enormous problems.

"I am an enormous threat to the US government because I am a shining beacon of truth and light." Right. The US government didn't fire you, Pete.

I reported on the original bombing for NBC and we were half a mile away from those massive explosions. Now I am really shocked that I am no longer reporting this story for the US and awed by the fact that it actually happened.

That overnight my successful NBC reporting career was turned to ashes. And why?

Because you lent yourself to a despotic regime for propaganda purposes like the whore you are?

Because I stated the obvious to Iraqi television; that the US war timetable has fallen by the wayside.

Like you were privy to the timetable.

I have made those comments to television stations around the world and now I'm making them again in the Daily Mirror.

I'm not angry. I'm not crying. But I'm also awed by this media phenomenon.

You are angry. You are whining. And you have surpassed your shocknawe quota. Knock it off.

The right-wing media and politicians are looking for any opportunity to be critical of the reporters who are here, whatever their nationality. I made the misjudgment which gave them the opportunity to do so.

I gave an impromptu interview to Iraqi television feeling that after four months of interviewing hundreds of them it was only professional courtesy to give them a few comments.

That was my Waterloo - bang!

I have not yet decided what to do, whether to pack my bags and leave Baghdad or stay on.

I'll decide what to do today, right now I'm chewing on what has happened to me.

And chewing. And chewing. And chewing. Because for Arnett, that's what the entire exercise is about--what has happened to him, and how unfair it is. Not what he did, not what repercussions what he did might have, just his Christlike persecution--by the government, implicitly--for trying to enlighten the rest of us.

There's more. I don't have the energy to slog through it. Arnett sucks more as a writer than he does as a talking head.

[Link via LGF. I don't read the Mirror. Really. I do have some standards.]

Kiner.

In Lupica's column today:

"Oh, sure, I've seen some bad ones," he said. "We had a bad start in '62 that lasted nine games." Kiner shook his head, smiling, and said, "But I don't believe I've ever seen one here worse than this."

Yep.

More of the same: MTV self-censoring its playlist.

And the reason is frankly astounding: they don't want to risk offending their audience, which polls as at least marginally pro-war.

Werde links MTV's surprisingly cautious playlist to a poll taken by MTV.com that found that 61 percent of the music channel's viewers support the war.

"The majority of Americans still support this war," Werde writes, "no matter how boisterous folks are at protests, no matter how long the city of San Francisco is shut down by people with their arms chained together, no matter how loudly protesters scream ‘Not in my name!' "

Heh. Does my heart good to read that. I just find it incredible that MTV viewers support the war.

Faux-Brit Madonna not going to release "American Life" in America.

"I do not want to risk offending anyone who might misinterpret the meaning of this video."

This from the woman who humped a statue of a black Christ in one of her videos. Now she's worried about offending people.

"It was filmed before the war started," she explains, "and I do not believe it is appropriate to air it at this time."

Inappropriate how, exactly? Because Madonna has changed her stance on supporting the war? Unlikely. Because she's afraid of being "Dixie Chicked"? Possibly. Although her core audience is certainly not comprised of the same people as the Dixie Chicks', the release of the video in Europe would seem to indicate that she thinks it'll resonate better with the audiences there, due to anti-war/anti-American sentiment. She's never shied away from offending large segments of the American audience before, but she's never put a foot wrong in estimating what her fans will tolerate, either (Musically. Repeated failed stabs at a movie career duly noted.)

Technically not incest.

It just seems like it: Mick Jagger's son dating Keith Richards' daughter. [Link via the hilarious Great Satan Quarterly.]

Such a lovely place.

Via the WSJ Opinion Journal:

"Iraqi civilians fleeing heavy fighting have stunned and delighted hungry US marines in central Iraq by giving them food, as guerrilla attacks continue to disrupt coalition supply lines to the rear," Agence France-Presse reports from central Iraq. Sgt. Kenneth Wilson tells the wire service: "They had slaughtered lambs and chickens and boiled eggs and potatoes for their journey out of the frontlines":

Khairi Ilrekibi, 35, a passenger on one of the buses, which broke down near the marine position, said he could speak for the 20 others on board.

In broken English he told a correspondent travelling with the marines: "We like Americans," adding that no one liked Saddam Hussein because "he was not kind."

The same dispatch quotes Lance Cpl. David Polikowsky, who's been guarding prisoners of war at the camp. Of one group of POWs, mostly conscripts, he recalls: "They told me they wanted to go to America after the war. I said where. They said California. I said why? They said the song Hotel California and they left singing Hotel California."

Oh, and before I forget:

Meet the Mets, meet the Mets
Step right up and greet the Mets
Bring your kiddies, bring your wife
Guaranteed to have the time of your life
Because the Mets are really sockin' the ball
Knockin' those homeruns over the wall
East side, West side, everybody's comin' down
To meet the M-E-T-S Mets, of New York town

(Bridge)

Oh, the butcher, and the banker, and the people in the street
Where do they go? To meet the Mets
Oh, they're hollerin' and cheerin' and they're jumpin' in their seats
Where do they go? To meet the Mets
All the fans are true to the orange and blue, so hurry up and come on down
'cause we've got ourselves a ballclub, the Mets of New York town

Give 'em a yell! Give 'em a hand!
And let 'em know you're rootin' in the stands...

Come on and meet the Mets, meet the Mets,
Step right up and greet the Mets
Bring your kiddies, bring your wife
Guaranteed to have the time of your life
Because the Mets are really sockin' the ball
Knockin' those homeruns over the wall
East side, West side, everybody's comin' down
To meet the M-E-T-S Mets, of New York town,
Of Neeeew Yoooork Toooooooooooown.

Just be thankful I only do this once a year. (1963 Meet the Mets wav file available here.)

Update: You don't have to say it, I know.
My
Entire
Team
Sucks.

And may I just add...

...regarding Nick de Genova, the Columbia professor who said he would like to see "a million Mogadishus" at a "teach-in" last week, the people in that audience who didn't stand up and tell him what an utterly brainless prick he was should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

And the Marines are escorting Geraldo out of theater.

Evidently for broadcasting details of ongoing military ops. I'd like to see his dumb ass prosecuted for treason, if true. This just highlights the reasons for keeping the press the hell away from the military; in most cases they have absolutely no understanding of what they're seeing, no comprehension of the big picture, and no qualms about compromising the mission. And if Geraldo happens to catch a bullet in the skull on the way out I'm not among the ones who'd weep for him, nor would I recommend looking too closely into the source of that bullet.

UPDATE: Bernadine tells me it's a hoax (see comments). I am now bitterly disappointed.

Update update: Reuters and AFP both say it's true.

Veteran reporter Geraldo Rivera, a correspondent for Fox News, is being removed from Iraq by the U.S. military for reporting Western troop movements in the war, the Pentagon said on Monday.

"He was with a (U.S.) military unit in the field and the commander felt that he had compromised operational information by reporting the position and movements of troops," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told Reuters.

"The commander thought it best to get the reporter out of his battle space and we understand he is being removed from Iraq," Whitman said.

Sounds like the goods. I don't think the Pentagon is inclined to play along with the merry pranksters at CNN and MSNBC. [Links via Drudge.] Curiously, Fox doesn't seem to have noted the incident on their website yet.

Arnett terminated with extreme prejudice.

For that stupid fucking interview he gave Iraqi television. [Link via the Corner.]

Tirelessly working toward a better world.

Frank J. at IMAO offers suggestions for new leaflets.

Chris Rock being repressed by Dreamworks.

Oddly enough, he's not complaining about having his dissent quashed, though. According to Drudge, the execs at Dreamworks have asked Rock not to indulge in anti-war or anti-Bush rhetoric during the publicity tour for his new movie, "Head of State".

"We are confident Chris knows this is not the appropriate time to make jokes about war and the president," said one top studio source. "We don't want to get Dixie-Chicked [!! -- K], or anything like that, out of the gate. We've invested tens of millions of dollars in the making of the movie and its marketing."

And how has Rock responded to the suggestion to tone it down?

On a recent guest spot on OPRAH, Rock cautiously offered: "Ah, the war, ah, well, maybe if we Americans really knew what a war meant, ah, then maybe we wouldn't be so eager in waging or supporting it."

I wouldn't make book on that, hon. Americans who don't have millions of dollars staked on a movie career are probably a little closer to knowing what war 'means' than you are. [Hat tip to CoffeeMuse, again.]

Strange bedfellows.

Iranian gunboats intercepted an Iraqi speedboat loaded with a half ton of explosives on the border between Iraq and Iran. [Hat tip to CoffeeMuse, link via the Corner.]

Photo essay.

And a good one. Got it in my e-mail this morning. (Thanks, Cheri.)

Outrageous.

Michael Ledeen explains Turkey’s sudden refusal to allow the US military to use Turkey as a base for land forces: turns out France and Germany applied the thumbscrews.

Everybody knows that Turkey did not permit America to stage operations from Turkish bases, but hardly anybody realizes that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, the vote was not an Islamic protest against the American-led coalition,but an act of anti-American intimidation by France and Germany.

The Turkish government, which for the first time since the fall of the Ottoman Empire is based on an Islamic party, fully expected that Parliament would approve its proposal that America be given the use of Turkish air bases in the Iraqi war.The government was so confident that the party failed to demand internal discipline, and thus several deputies voted against the resolution.

But that does not account for the failure to approve the government’s proposal.

Primary blame for the defeat of the measure lies with the opposition — the secular, Kemalist parties that have governed the country since Ataturk.

Contrary to expectations, the opposition, responding to orders from party leaders, voted unanimously against the government’s position.

The leaders insisted on a disciplined "no" vote because of pressure — some would call it blackmail — from France and Germany.

The French and German governments informed the Turkish opposition parties that if they voted to help the Coalition war effort, Turkey would be locked out of Europe for a generation. As one Turkish leader put it, "there were no promises, only threats."

This stabs me straight through my Jacksonian little heart. If true—and I want to stress that I do not discount the possibility that the Turks are just trying to shift blame to a country we’re already disgusted with in an attempt to weasel out of the opprobrium being cast their way for their shoddy behavior—France is even more perfidious than previously thought. As Ledeen notes, this amounts to an act of deliberate sabotage. It’s one thing to disagree on the utility of diplomacy over military intervention, it is quite another to deliberately undermine the US military. And then to subsequently have the gall to demand a share in the post-war rebuilding efforts—it’s not supportable. We can’t deal honorably with nations sworn to oppose our every move.

[Link via Instapundit .]

That didn't take long.

PETA's all over the Navy's use of dolphins for minesweeping. Money quote:

"The Navy is putting these animals intentionally in harm's way," said Stephanie Boyles, wildlife biologist at PETA. "These animals have no idea there is any danger to them, but we do. There are enough lives being lost in the war; we don't need to add another species to the list of lives being lost."

Yes, that's right, the US Navy is going to the time, trouble, and expense of training the damn dolphins just so they can deliberately blow them up. For fun. Because they can. Evil, evil US Navy. When will the human hegemony over the animal kingdom end?

[Link via CoffeeMuse.]

No shortage of effrontery.

France wants a big role in post-war Iraq. In other news, people in Hell want ice water. [Link via The Corner.]

UPDATE: Meanwhile, in Bordeaux, the French make the case for including them in post-war rebuilding plans by setting fire to a replica of the Statue of Liberty and cracking the pedestal of a 9/11 memorial plaque. Yep. It's all about taking a reasoned, nuanced, sophisticated approach to international relations in France. [Via the Corner, again.]

Question.

Just how the hell do you pronounce "Lileks", anyway? Is that a short or a long "i"?

That puff of white smoke is overdue.

According to the Corner, the Pope has endorsed the anti-war movement explicitly. So...liberation of Iraq, bad; sex with altar boys...well, hell, that's just a perk, I guess. You know the end times are nigh when the Pope turns out to have no moral center.

Oscars.

Didn't watch. Was pleased to see the clip of professional fat bastard and faux man o' the people Michael Moore get booed off the stage. Was less pleased to hear a clip of Adrian Brody's speech as it kept threatening to trigger my gag reflex. Peter Jackson continues to get screwed, but he's getting weeping all the way to the bank, so...whatever. The Oscars couldn't become any less relevant than they already were, I suppose. The only thing I'm sorry I missed was seeing Peter O' Toole do that classy Peter O'Toole thing he does.

Portmanteau post.

One link from me to a 3-link Instapundit post referencing 3 excellent war analyses. Now that's efficient blogging.

Quagmire? Already?

[Being discussed in The Corner and elsewhere.] Damn, people, could we possibly give this effort a bit longer than a week before pronouncing it a lost cause? I realize for some people all wars are Vietnam, but did anybody honestly think this was going to be over in six damn days? Calm down. Take a deep breath. Stop looking at your watch and try to see the big picture. The fact that some of the people who inhabit the country we're currently invading are actually shooting back really shouldn't come as such a complete surprise. People tend to do that during a war.

DMZ

Since everyone else is focused on the war with laserlike intensity, and I have nothing particularly insightful to add. It'll take me a while to absorb what's going on, and probably longer to make sense of it, by which time it will be pointless to post about it at all (not that that's going to stop me.) Meantime, for your entertainment pleasure, Mark Steyn has put together a short list of history's greatest Oscar speeches.

Well, this is...interesting. Sort of.

Andrea Harris ran across a Sheryl Crow essay on Sheryl's fansite that apparently got mysteriously pulled shortly after she posted it; it was captured for posterity by Peppermint Patty at Pdawwg.com, and I feel impelled to do my part to disseminate the good word.

(Skipping some blather about dialoguing and everybody's opinions being of approximately the same validity and importance.)

It is my philosophical belief that we are at this point in history not because of any great leadership or because of any great evil. I believe history has brought us to this point and that the matter at hand is that we be armed with truth. For what is in our leaders: the desire for peace, the desire to control, the desire for wealth and power, greed, fear, etc., is in all of us. It is time for us to decide what it is, as people, that we stand for. Are we a nation that was founded on imperialistic ideals? Or are we a nation that is part of a fabric made up of all other countries existing on the same planet, respecting this organism that sustains our lives? Do we ignore the relationships we have worked hard to build with our allies and do we try everything in our power to rid the planet of evil using nonaggression, or are we a country that will use force and in the meantime, be responsible for the loss of innocent lives in the name of freeing oppressed people and insuring our own security, when this war is not solely based on those ideals but on the ideals of controlling the oil industry and our interests in Israel. We did not go in to Rwanda, Sierra Leone, or Angola when these countries were suffering catastrophic genocide and human rights infractions beyond our understanding. Where was our humanitarian nature then?

Where was yours? Where did you suddenly find your conscience? I sure as hell didn't see you pounding the pulpit to get Clinton involved in any of those causes, but now that we want to stop a genocidal dictator, you break out the Ronco Stud-o-matic and whip up a sassy new anti-war wardrobe, suitable for all public occasions. Where the fuck is your humanity?

[snip] It is my concern and my hope that the citizens of this country will think for themselves, educate themselves, find out all there is to know about why we are considering attacking Saddam now without the support of our allies.

We have the support of our allies. We don't have the support of the French, Germans, or Russians, all of whom have financial interests in Iraq that preclude their participation in the present action.

It is my belief that there is an abundance of information that is public record that actually addresses these issues....the issues of preemptive strikes, preventive strikes, our philosophy on creating and ruling a world empire,

You're kidding yourself. If the US really wanted an empire, we'd have one.

our necessity to have a military unchallengable by any other military,

This would be part of the "why do they hate us" blather. Personally, I couldn't possibly give less of a damn why people hate us; my Care Quotient hit zero about a year and a half ago and shows no signs of recovery.

our plan to keep a military operation in Iraq to protect our interests in Israel.

Not sure how she means that, but I'm guessing it's probably not pro-Israel.

It is my desire that we be an awake nation that investigates what it stands for and that as people, we define what we stand for. It is my dream that the arrogance that represents us as a nation can be changed in the eyes of the world and that we will rise up as a nation of peaceful people who will work at finding other ways of eliminating enemies....perhaps by consciously not creating enemies in the first place, after all, we have distinct ties to Saddam in his becoming leader of Iraq.

Ah, there's the rub. You see, if we act to stop genocide, we're dictating our values to other cultures. If we fail to act, we're not sufficiently concerned about their suffering. And no matter which option we choose, somewhere, somebody hates our guts.

There are many questions that beg to be asked. Some are being asked rhetorically by many journalists, including a great writer at the New York Times by the name of Daniel Friedman. For example-if we are claiming that we are going into Iraq to save it's people from such an oppressive regime and such heinous human rights infractions, then why are we not addressing these situations in other Middle Eastern countries that are our allies?

If we can't do everything at once, why are we doing anything at all?

What is the standard? Is there a way to justify the human loss that we can expect from this war....our own as well as innocent Iraqis?

Yes. You can look at the innocent Iraqis dying right now under Hussein's regime and ask why their lives aren't worth fighting for.

If this is a war not based on our own interests in oil, then why is it that our government is offering tax cuts to businesses who purchase SUVs as company cars?

Huh? Again, Sher, we get most of our oil from Venezuela. (That's in South America, in case you were wondering.)

(I would challenge all those who support this war, which is over three-fourths of this country, to trade in your gas guzzlers and buy a small car or a hybrid or at least a more economical car, that way we ensure that we are never reliant on overseas oil supplies. That is the least we can do to support our soldiers who are fighting on our behalf for the freedoms we enjoy. I own a hybrid and although it is not the fanciest, most powerful car, it gets us around. I am currently selling my BMW SUV).

If you're so firmly convinced that this war is about oil, I strongly urge you to do something REALLY significant--stop producing petroleum-based media and start distributing your product via the web. And then you might consider curtailing your concert tours--it takes a lot of oooooiiiillll to drive the tour buses and semis full of equipment, not to mention the fact that the people who go to see you on tour will have to drive to get there. Sure, it'll hurt, but we all have to make sacrifices, don't we?

Oh, good.

And here I was afraid the Oscar noms wouldn't meet their stupidity quota this year: Drudge reports that the director of "The Hours" is promising to make an anti-war acceptance speech if he wins. A good and sufficient reason to vote for Rob Marshall, right there.

Ok, we've seen the German plan...

...now the Italians have unveiled their own secret weapon: Cicciolina. Steve H. has the highly classified goods.

The German grasp of the American psyche.

Approaches full-on delusion:

In a report to the Foreign Ministry on Feb. 21, Germany's U.N. Ambassador Gunter Pleuger said that Washington, forced to move against Saddam Hussein alone, would later "remorsefully return to the Council" to seek help on enormous task of rebuilding Iraq, the Frankfurt Allgemeine newspaper said Sunday.

The newspaper said Pleuger's report backed unidentified countries' efforts to block the resolution. Pleuger said "it is better if the Security Council does not let itself be used by the USA," the newspaper reported.

Note that this scenario assumes success on the part of the US troops. If that's to be the case, what possible interest could the US have cutting the UN in on the post-war cleanup? What critical elements does Germany have that we might be induced to beg for under those circumstances? The idea of a victorious US army going cap-in-hand to the countries whose self-interest dictated they sit out--or worse, actively obstruct--the war is ludicrous. And highly unlikely.

Recent reports have said Schroeder's government is quietly considering sending German soldiers to participate in a possible U.N.-led peacekeeping mission in Iraq that would follow any military action against Baghdad.

Government officials have declined to comment on an early release of a report in the Monday edition the Spiegel weekly indicating German would send up to 1,000 troops to support a postwar mission.

Bwaha. Thanks, but no thanks.

Schroeder indicated late Friday that Germany would be willing to participate in a peacekeeping operation sanctioned by the United Nations.

"Of course Germany has always been prepared to fulfill its international obligations, under the United Nations," Schroeder told ARD television late Friday.

Yeah, unless its international obligations include actually enforcing UN resolutions or icky stuff like that. Eew.

[Link via The Corner.]

Maines runs to cover her ass.

And to no one's particular surprise, she uses motherhood and the flag to do it:

``While war may remain a viable option, as a mother, I just want to see every possible alternative exhausted before children and American soldiers' lives are lost,'' she said. ``I love my country. I am a proud American.''

Way too little, way too late, and frankly, the addition of the obligatory reference to The Children just makes my lip curl. Besides, we've spent twelve years exhausting various alternatives. Where was Nat while all that was going on?

Maines' contrite statement is in contrast to her comments on Thursday, when she said: ``I feel the president is ignoring the opinion of many in the U.S. and alienating the rest of the world. My comments were made in frustration, and one of the privileges of being an American is you are free to voice your own point of view.''

Quite. And free to pay the price for the things you say, as Miss Maines has suddenly discovered.

[From the AP via AOL news; sorry, no link.]