Red blogule to quagmires and bayous

To those who doubted Bush was a fake, Cindy and Katrina exposed the truth : a quagmire abroad and a bayou at home, that's how deep the US have sunk. "Our Dear Compassionate Leader", a born again Christian with a well trained Texan accent, turns out to be a selfish and amoral stubborn New England brat, enjoying two more days off in his own ranch when real people from the South die in their own feces.
Time to rehearse the National Anthem's lyrics, folks :
Q :
Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
A :
Err... no, actually I can't see. I did see quite a few rockets and bombs but the banner people tend to follow is that of the Red Cross.
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
A :
Lemme get you some glasses. The reflection on the stream is a dead body.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
A :
"That band" is still at large at the White House. "The hireling and slave" happen to be US citizens. Some were ordered to bring "the havoc of war and the battle's confusion" overseas, others found no refuge and ended in "the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave".
Q :
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
A :
"Rescued land"? "Victory" ? "Peace" ? That remains to be seen. Blame the power that hath made the US a despised nation : Lord Dubya, King of the Banana Republic of the Divided States of America.

White blogule to "this is America"

My last visit to New Orleans was a business trip in the gloomy days before the invasion of Iraq. In the early hours of the morning, I would stroll the decaying streets of the city, empty but for the occasional hobo, wild cat or mad dog, thinking to myself no one is awake in this country. Each individual is living his own life and in an illusion of unity, the masses are blindly following a warmonger faking compassion and cynically heralding moral virtues. No one realizes the country is falling apart.
After that, I would come back for breakfast and then walk to the Ernst N. Morial Convention Center before the opening of the gates, crossing Tchoupitoulas under freeways obviously knitted by giant spiders on crack, wondering how such an urbanistic nonsense could deserve sounding like a memorial.
The other day, at the same angle, the TV would show people passing by corpses without even noticing. Up the 90, in the Superdome, women and kids would be raped in public. In other parts of the state cameras couldn't reach : chaos, anarchy, cannibalism, the collapse of the idea of society itself. And these words echoing on and on : "this is America, can you believe it ?".
Such things can happen anywhere anytime, but never at this scale. The saddest point is I'm not even surprised. Sad, yes. Because I love the US and have this special feeling for Louisiana and New Orleans. Not puke smelling Bourbon Street New Orleans but abandoned New Orleans, where long before Katrina came, ghost cities would pretend to exist in the present time.
Beyond the humanitarian tragedy, the realization of America's social collapse may leave even bitter marks.

White blogule to Japan's 9/11

Junichiro Koizumi pretends to be the last samurai, sending assassins to get rid of reformophobic politicians and lashing by himself the throats of the Empire's most dangerous thugs : the infamous postmen.
Well. The least one could say is I'm not a supporter of his, but I wish him luck.
If he loses, the old guard wins : even if the LDP ended up in shatters, nothing would change since the opposition is already welcoming hardliners and so called "rebels" on board.
If he wins, the old guard may still win. That is if Koizumi maintains his suicidal revisionist agenda.
What if Weirdo Hairdo Junichiro actually played the bad boy just to please Hirohito fanatics, and simply got rid of them after the elections ? What if his seppuku diplomacy were to end right after the 9/11 elections ? Imagine the winner over the ruins of the conservative fortress, asking the ultimate forgiveness for the crimes of a whole nation, accepting the past, enlightening the present and embracing the future...
On the other hand, if he didn't seize such an opportunity, I wonder what could save Japan.

White blogule to Orhan Pamuk

So mentioning the genocide of the Armenians and the killings of Kurds is an insult to the Turkish nation and Orhan Pamuk should be jailed for telling the truth. The poor man was already cruising dangerous waters in his beautiful book "Snow", exposing fundamentalists and radical politicians from all sides in the same crude light, now Pamuk may turn out to be yet another victim of France's no to the EU constitution.
Because this nationalistic bravado represents the stupidest answer to the recent attacks from Erdogan's former friends. All charges should be dropped and if a trial were to take place, it should be about Turkey's troubled past.
And as far as the French are concerned, they can frown and denounce such a medieval censorship, but still have to answer for their own History.

White blogule to Katrina and Cindy

Katrina succeded where Cindy failed : in shortening Dubya's holiday and exposing the scandalous sun tan of a man who rested 20% of his time the first five years of his reign. Since the man sleeps 10 hours a day, W's been active less than 40% of his mandate. Let's consider ourselves happy : what if he'd done 2,5 times as much damage !
A natural catastrophy is all it takes to make dictators look more human and popular - ask Fidel : talking for hours about the weather is far easier than delivering a few words about failing policies - not to mention the most stupid war of our time. Today, Our Dear Compassionate Leader won't need Hurricane Jeb on his side : he will shine on his own, walk on the water like his favorite philosopher, try to surf on the 27 feet wave that devastated the cherished South of this New England brat pretending to be a Texas hunk.

Red blogule to counterterrorism in Korea

Judge Bruguiere warned Asian financial capitals : Al Qaeda may strike anytime soon. Hong-Kong, S'pore and Tokyo reacted more or less quickly but Seoul doesn't seem to realize Korea has soldiers in Iraq and a quite nice flock of Pakistanese fundamentalists around Itaewon's mosque. They don't seem to realize Seoul is a perfect hub for central asian terrorists the police cannot even dream of infiltrating.
Of course terrorists would have a tough time escaping the country safely and retaliation would easily strike the harmless bulk of these small communities, but they shouldn't care if they're ready to blow themselves up. I think the country could afford doing some research about this kind of stem cells too.

Red blogule to Ayatollah Pat Robertson

Tell me the difference between Christian fundamentalists and Islamist fundamentalists now that both are issuing fatwahs. According to Ayatollah Pat Robertson, killing Chavez wouldn't cost $200 bns and killing Chavez is "a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop".
I don't think any craziness will stop soon either.
I'm just amazes me how Bu(ll)shites manage to make the weaker minds feel even more sympathy for such madhatters as Osama Bin Laden or Hugo Chavez.

Red blogule to "Intelligent Design" - Fundamentals and fundamentalism - Creationism and cretinism

"Pro-Life", "Intelligent Design"... these guys do have a knack for positive wording (don't even think about positive thinking). I gather they call torture in Abu Ghraib "Truth Quest" and the negation of all independant safeguards or watchdogs (the UN, the Geneva Convention, the International Criminal Tribunal...) something like "Active Freedom".
Bush's position on evolution resembles that of Revisionists on gas chambers : since there are alternative theories, students should be taught both angles*. This image may strike you as indecent and it is, but it clearly exposes the loopholes in the argumentation.
I'm not making any sick parallel between the existence of gas chambers and the existence of God, nor between proven facts and beliefs : I'm comparing people who knowingly manipulate opinions through biased rethorics.
I'm not even defending the theory of evolution, which is the best to date but won't explain everything. I just think the fundamentals of human society should be protected from religious fundamentalism.
Creationism** puts faith at the same level as science and that is the very negation of science. You can believe in ID if you want but you cannot call this science (and of course you have no right to believe in the non-existence of gas chambers).
Just the same, you cannot call "democracy" any approach of politics based on nor even mixed with religious beliefs. That is one of the reasons why, once again, Bush thinks and acts as an enemy to democracy, justice or science.

* or as the Washington Post relates it : "Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about". You want to "teach" about Creation, Dubya ? If there were a place for it in school, it would be the History of Religions (with a "S" so that, this time, all angles could be presented). And you want "debate" now ? That's what I call "evolution" : you've been avoiding the debate on every other issue and the one you picked doesn't rely on any facts. Can you believe it ? No one can contest your belief !
** I realize that up to now my blogules on this issue have been spilled in French (see "National Geographic - Points de vue et images du monde" or "Creationism & Cretinism"). And I guess "creationism" should be rebranded into something more suitable : I suggest a generic term like "Religion-Based Beliefs" for all the likes of Creationism.

Red blogule to Karen Hughes

If you managed not to punch your TV set each time this most iritating Bush passionaria would comment on her Texas pal's crushing victories in last year's prez debates, get ready for it : Karen Hughes's now in charge of sweetening US' world image. Within the US State Department, she will manage "rapid response" teams to counter all foreign liars, the "liars" being people who lie about the Bush Administration's policies (Hughes even dared taking the so called "flushed Quran scandal" as the ultimate example), people who defend Geneva Conventions or the freedom of journalism, people who are "against us", people who voted Kerry, people who said the Iraqi invasion was poorly planned, people who demonstrate their un-Americanness because they lost their kid at the market the other day (the Baghdad market, not your average Iraqi-village-sized Wal-Mart)...
So the best response to your own failing policies is not to change them but to change the background music with which you advertize them. The best answer to fair foreign criticism is to strenghten US unfair propaganda. The best way to cure Amerika's sickness is to send a spin doctor. The best way to make up for your own lies is to put more make up on them and lie even further, be it at the cost of turning unpopular USA into masquerade-ugly unpopular USA.
According to the NYT, Hughes isn't even dealing with the 80% who are already questioning US policies but focusing on the last 20% who are not among the "insurgents" yet. But Karen, how many will sing along with you : "I see your face, I'm a believer" ?

Red blogule to US - Japan erasers

As they celebrated the 60th anniversary of liberation from Japan and listened to Koizumi repeat the same empty excuses for an excuse as his predecessor ten years ago, Koreans learned why they couldn't get the proof of major wartime atrocities committed by Japan.
They knew the proof was in the US, they now know why it landed there in the first place : the US purchased all data related to Japan's sick medical experiments on civilians of occupied countries. Actually, they bribed the perpetrators to get the exclusivity and even granted them immunity for this favor. This completed the scandalous Hiroshima-Nagasaki cleanup : you don't sue us for using weapons of mass destruction against your civilians, we don't sue you for committing atrocities on civilians from other countries. The 1951 San Francisco Treaty put an ultimate lid on this sick stew between one of History's most fascist regimes and the World's most cynical country.
Sixty years have passed and Japan is just realizing it may have to postpone its claim for a permanent seat at the UN council. Ten years from now, all witnesses and survivors to their atrocities will have vanished. Japan's radical old guard too, but they've made sure younger generations got overwhelmed by their forgetful propaganda and textbooks.
The US ? Don't worry about them : they know propaganda by heart. Hell : it didn't take them sixty years to have most people believe they defeated the Nazis singlehandedly (if it weren't for another master in propaganda - Vladimir Putin - who would remember the lighter side of Uncle Joe ?). And if you ask US citizens about the use of WMDs or torture against civilians, they point the finger to some far away Evil.