Journal BlackHat's Journal: /No need to kill the flies with lime/ 2
Some assorted snippets with bileful commentary. Quotes from Trek, Herbert, and Huxely. Also some thoughts on this Journal's past and its future. News and a Texttoon too.
Quote(1):
Ferengi Rules of Acquisition: Once you have their money, you never give it back.
-- Star Trek:DS9
Contrast that with the Book of Mammon: Once you have their money, make them give you more. and you begin to see why fiction can often fail to describe the real world.
There are some who say that this fixation on mere baubles is of little use. I tend to agree with that assessment of reality. The real value in 'things' is the ability to transfer them. And if you follow that thread back, one reaches the viewpoint that, 'ideas' or 'knowledge' can thereby be thought of as the most valuable. After all, they can be transferred as many times as you need with little diminishment. I say 'little' as any one can be bored/accustomed/saturated to an extent. So, on that note... next!
Quote(2):
The password was given to me by a man who died in the dungeons of Arrakeen. You see, that is where I got this ring in the shape of a tortoise. It was in the suk outside the city where I was hidden by the rebels. The password? Oh, that has been changed many times since then. It was "Persistence." And the countersign was "Tortoise." It got me out of there alive. That's why I bought this ring: a reminder. --Tagir Mohandis: Conversation with a Friend
Leto was far out on the sand when he heard the worm behind him, coming to his thumper there and the dusting of spice he'd spread around the dead tigers. There was a good omen for this beginning of their plan: worms were scarce enough in these parts most times. The worm was not essential, but it helped. There would be no need for Ghanima to explain a missing body.
By this time he knew that Ghanima had worked herself into the belief that he was dead. Only a tiny, isolated capsule of awareness would remain to her, a walled-off memory which could be recalled by words uttered in the ancient language shared only by the two of them in all of this universe. Secher Nbiw. If she heard those words: Golden Path . . . only then would she remember him. Until then, he was dead.
Now Leto felt truly alone.
He moved with the random walk which made only those sounds natural to the desert. Nothing in his passage would tell that worm back there that human flesh moved here. It was a way of walking so deeply conditioned in him that he didn't need to think about it. The feet moved of themselves, no measurable rhythm to their pacing. Any sound his feet made could be ascribed to the wind, to gravity. No human passed here.
When the worm had done its work behind him, Leto crouched behind a dune's slipface and peered back toward The Attendant. Yes, he was far enough. He planted a thumper and summoned his transportation. The worm came swiftly, giving him barely enough time to position himself before it engulfed the thumper. As it passed, he went up its side on the Maker hooks, opened the sensitive leading edge of a ring, and turned the mindless beast southeastward. It was a small worm, but strong. He could sense the strength in its twisting as it hissed across the dunes. There was a following breese and he felt the heat of their passage, the friction which the worm converted to the beginnings of spice within itself.
As the worm moved, his mind moved. Stilgar had taken him up for his first worm journey. Leto had only to let his memory flow and he could hear Stilgar's voice: calm and precise, full of politeness from another age. Not for Stilgar the threatening staggers of a Fremen drunk on spice-liquor. Not for Stilgar the loud voice and bluster of these times. No - Stilgar had his duties. He was an instructor of royalty: "In the olden times, the birds were named for their songs. Each wind had its name. A six-klick wind was called a Pastaza, a twenty-klick wind was a Cueshma, and hundred-klick wind was Heinali - Heinali, the man-pusher. Then there was the wind of the demon in the open desert: Hulasikali Wala, the wind that eats flesh."
And Leto, who'd already known these things, had nodded his gratitude at the wisdom of such instruction.
But Stilgar's voice could be filled with many valuable things.
"There were in olden times certain tribes which were known to be water hunters. They were called Iduali, which meant 'water insects,' because those people wouldn't hesitate to steal the water of another Fremen. If they caught you alone in the desert they would not even leave you the water of your own flesh. There was this place where they lived: Sietch Jacurutu. That's where the other tribes banded and wiped out the Iduali. That was a long time ago, before Kynes even - in my great-great-grandfather's days. And from that day to this, no Fremen has gone to Jacurutu. It is tabu."
Thus had Leto been reminded of knowledge which lay in his memory. It had been an important lesson about the working of memory. A memory was not enough, even for one whose past was as multiform as his, unless its use was known and its value revealed to judgment. Jacurutu would have water, a wind trap, all of the attributes of a Fremen sietch, plus the value without compare that no Fremen would venture there. Many of the young would not even know such a place as Jacurutu had ever existed. Oh, they would know about Fondak, of course, but that was a smuggler place.
It was a perfect place for the dead to hide - among the smugglers and the dead of another age.
Thank you, Stilgar.
The worm tired before dawn. Leto slid off its side and watched it dig itself into the dunes, moving slowly in the familiar pattern of the creatures. It would go deep and sulk.
I must wait out the day, he thought.
He stood atop a dune and scanned all around: emptiness, emptiness, emptiness. Only the wavering track of the vanished worm broke the pattern.
The slow cry of a nightbird challenged the first green line of light along the eastern horizon. Leto dug himself into the sand's concealment, inflated a stilltent around his body and sent the tip of a sandsnorkel questing for air.
For a long time before sleep came, he lay in the enforced darkness thinking about the decision he and Ghanima had made. It had not been an easy decision, especially for Ghanima. He had not told her all of his vision, nor all of the reasoning derived from it. It was a vision, not a dream, in his thinking now. But the peculiarity of this thing was that he saw it as a vision of a vision. If any argument existed to convince him that his father still lived, it lay in that vision-vision.
The life of the prophet locks us into his vision, Leto thought. And a prophet could only break out of the vision by creating his death at variance with that vision. That was how it appeared in Leto's doubled vision, and he pondered this as it related to the choice he had made. Poor Baptist John, he thought. If he'd only had the courage to die some other way. . . . But perhaps his choice had been the bravest one. How do I know what alternatives faced him? I know what alternatives faced my father, though.
Leto sighed. To turn his back on his father was like betraying a god. But the Atreides Empire needed shaking up. It had fallen into the worst of Paul's vision. How casually it obliterated men. It was done without a second thought. The mainspring of a religious insanity had been wound tight and left ticking.
And we're locked in my father's vision.
A way out of that insanity lay along the Golden Path, Leto knew. His father had seen it. But humanity might come out of that Golden Path and look back down it at Muad'Dib's time, seeing that as a better age. Humankind had to experience the alternative to Muad'Dib, though, or never understand its own myths.
Security
Given the choice, there was little doubt what most citizens of this Empire would select.
Though they hate me, he thought. Though Ghani hate me.
His right hand itched, and he thought of the terrible glove in his vision-vision. It will be, he thought. Yes, it will be.
Arrakis, give me strength, he prayed. His planet remained strong and alive beneath him and around him. Its sand pressed close against the stilltent. Dune was a giant counting its massed riches. It was a beguiling entity, both beautiful and grossly ugly. The only coin its merchants really knew was bloodpulse of their own power, no matter how that power had been amassed. They possessed this planet the way a man might possess a captive mistress, or the way the Bene Gesserits possessed their Sisters.
No wonder Stilgar hated the merchant-priests.
Thank you, Stilgar.
Leto recalled then the beauties of the old sietch ways, the life lived before the coming of the Imperium's technocracy, and his mind flowed as he knew Stilgar's dreams flowed. Before the glow-globes and lasers, before the ornithopters and spice-crawlers, there'd been another kind of life: brown-skinned mothers with babies on the hips, lamps which burned spice-oil amidst a heavy fragrance of cinnamon, Naibs who persuaded their people while knowing none could be compelled. It had been a darkswarming of life in rocky burrows
A terrible glove will restore the balance, Leto thought.
Presently, he slept.
-- Frank Herbert D:CoD.
I should like to point out to my readers, in the American Left -- If you think Shrub&Co will not be using those wiretaps[etc add nausianacromicmaxumus] to jam the 06 elections [and on past 08 if they can]. You're not paying attention. After all DHS, and I'd bet taps too, were used to track your Texan anti-gerrymander'ers. So, what to do? Your first step is to read Dune et al [Frank's, ignore Brian's for now(Forever, surly!!!)].
The second is to note in that--the methods used by the characters to communicate in a *fully* monitored society. The following chapter to the passage above illustrates the 'situation' and its need nicely. Hand gestures, dress, time, idiom, body-language... as a hint[start].
Loyalty and trust could be the additions to that list that may have given House Atreides the edge. Another attribute is there too, but I already have a ZOMG!PONY'S! ref in this JE [and yes, of course I am, blue and orange, given this entry that I'm writing, my stance--what else?]. Anyway, I'll leave the rest for your own discovery. Nonetheless, I'll attach this quick Tamerian'esk Herbertian mash-up; "Tyek, his clothes changed", to mark a 50-yard line in your journey. The end-zone epiphany could include, among many other points, why the orange-eyed ones came and why Duncan's solution, like Paul's before him, ultimatly fails us all. Or at the least, our humanity would be doomed to fade in the wash of time. Moreover, pay attention to why the orange one's fears, methods, and motives all apply so well to those of whom you'll need to achieve victory over.
Of course if, as many of you no doubt have, you've read the set you already see why and where I'm leading--and why, alas, the disease we struggle against seems so rampant in so many other nations and times. [insert brief clip of a cinema crowd yelling "Get on with it!"]
Quote(3):
If there were a kind of diseased structure, the histological elements of which were capable of maintaining a separate and independent existence out of the body, it seems to me that the shadowy boundary between morbid growth and Xenogenesis would be effaced. And I am inclined to think that the progress of discovery has almost brought us to this point already.
I have been favoured by Mr. Simon with an early copy of the last published of the valuable "Reports on the Public Health," which, in his capacity of their medical officer, he annually presents to the Lords of the Privy Council. The appendix to this report contains an introductory essay "On the Intimate Pathology of Contagion," by Dr. Burdon-Sanderson, which is one of the clearest, most comprehensive, and well-reasoned discussions of a great question which has come under my notice for a long time. I refer you to it for details and for the authorities for the statements I am about to make.
You are familiar with what happens in vaccination. A minute cut is made in the skin, and an infinitesimal quantity of vaccine matter is inserted into the wound. Within a certain time a vesicle appears in the place of the wound, and the fluid which distends this vesicle is vaccine matter, in quantity a hundred or a thousandfold that which was originally inserted. Now what has taken place in the course of this operation? Has the vaccine matter, by its irritative property, produced a mere blister, the fluid of which has the same irritative property? Or does the vaccine matter contain living particles, which have grown and multiplied where they have been planted? The observations of M. Chauveau, extended and confirmed by Dr. Sanderson himself, appear to leave no doubt upon this head.
Experiments, similar in principle to those of Helmholtz on fermentation and putrefaction, have proved that the active element in the vaccine lymph is non-diffusible, and consists of minute particles not exceeding 1/20000th of an inch in diameter, which are made visible in the lymph by the microscope. Similar experiments have proved that two of the most destructive of epizootic diseases, sheep-pox and glanders, are also dependent for their existence and their propagation upon extremely small living solid particles, to which the title of microzymes is applied. An animal suffering under either of these terrible diseases is a source of infection and contagion to others, for precisely the same reason as a tub of fermenting beer is capable of propagating its fermentation by "infection," or "contagion," to fresh wort. In both cases it is the solid living particles which are efficient; the liquid in which they float, and at the expense of which they live, being altogether passive.
Now arises the question, are these microzymes the results of Homogenesis, or of Xenogenesis? are they capable, like the Toruloe of yeast, of arising only by the development of pre-existing germs? or may they be, like the constituents of a nut-gall, the results of a modification and individualisation of the tissues of the body in which they are found, resulting from the operation of certain conditions? Are they parasites in the zoological sense, or are they merely what Virchow has called "heterologous growths"? It is obvious that this question has the most profound importance, whether we look at it from a practical or from a theoretical point of view. A parasite may be stamped out by destroying its germs, but a pathological product can only be annihilated by removing the conditions which give rise to it.
It appears to me that this great problem will have to be solved for each zymotic disease separately, for analogy cuts two ways. I have dwelt upon the analogy of pathological modification, which is in favour of the xenogenetic origin of microzymes; but I must now speak of the equally strong analogies in favour of the origin of such pestiferous particles by the ordinary process of the generation of like from like.
It is, at present, a well-established fact that certain diseases, both of plants and of animals, which have all the characters of contagious and infectious epidemics, are caused by minute organisms. The smut of wheat is a well-known instance of such a disease, and it cannot be doubted that the grape-disease and the potato-disease fall under the same category. Among animals, insects are wonderfully liable to the ravages of contagious and infectious diseases caused by microscopic Fungi.
In autumn, it is not uncommon to see flies motionless upon a window-pane, with a sort of magic circle, in white, drawn round them. On microscopic examination, the magic circle is found to consist of innumerable spores, which have been thrown off in all directions by a minute fungus called Empusa muscoe, the spore-forming filaments of which stand out like a pile of velvet from the body of the fly. These spore-forming filaments are connected with others which fill the interior of the fly's body like so much fine wool, having eaten away and destroyed the creature's viscera.
This is the full-grown condition of the Empusa. If traced back to its earliest stages, in flies which are still active, and to all appearance healthy, it is found to exist in the form of minute corpuscles which float in the blood of the fly. These multiply and lengthen into filaments, at the expense of the fly's substance; and when they have at last killed the patient, they grow out of its body and give off spores. Healthy flies shut up with diseased ones catch this mortal disease, and perish like the others. A most competent observer, M. Cohn, who studied the development of the Empusa very carefully, was utterly unable to discover in what manner the smallest germs of the Empusa got into the fly. The spores could not be made to give rise to such germs by cultivation; nor were such germs discoverable in the air, or in the food of the fly. It looked exceedingly like a case of Abiogenesis, or, at any rate, of Xenogenesis; and it is only quite recently that the real course of events has been made out.
It has been ascertained, that when one of the spores falls upon the body of a fly, it begins to germinate, and sends out a process which bores its way through the fly's skin; this, having reached the interior cavities of its body, gives off the minute floating corpuscles which are the earliest stage of the Empusa. The disease is "contagious," because a healthy fly coming in contact with a diseased one, from which the spore-bearing filaments protrude, is pretty sure to carry off a spore or two. It is "infectious" because the spores become scattered about all sorts of matter in the neighbourhood of the slain flies.
The silkworm has long been known to be subject to a very fatal and infectious disease called the Muscardine. Audouin transmitted it by inoculation. This disease is entirely due to the development of a fungus, Botrytis Bassiana, in the body of the caterpillar; and its contagiousness and infectiousness are accounted for in the same way as those of the fly-disease. But, of late years, a still more serious epizootic has appeared among the silkworms; and I may mention a few facts which will give you some conception of the gravity of the injury which it has inflicted on France alone.
The production of silk has been for centuries an important branch of industry in Southern France, and in the year 1853 it had attained such a magnitude that the annual produce of the French sericulture was estimated to amount to a tenth of that of the whole world, and represented a money- value of 117,000,000 francs, or nearly five millions sterling. What may be the sum which would represent the money-value of all the industries connected with the working up of the raw silk thus produced, is more than I can pretend to estimate. Suffice it to say, that the city of Lyons is built upon French silk as much as Manchester was upon American cotton before the civil war.
Silkworms are liable to many diseases; and, even before 1853, a peculiar epizootic, frequently accompanied by the appearance of dark spots upon the skin (whence the name of "Pebrine" which it has received), had been noted for its mortality. But in the years following 1853 this malady broke out with such extreme violence, that, in 1858, the silk-crop was reduced to a third of the amount which it had reached in 1853; and, up till within the last year or two, it has never attained half the yield of 1853. This means not only that the great number of people engaged in silk growing are some thirty millions sterling poorer than they might have been; it means not only that high prices have had to be paid for imported silkworm eggs, and that, after investing his money in them, in paying for mulberry-leaves and for attendance, the cultivator has constantly seen his silkworms perish and himself plunged in ruin; but it means that the looms of Lyons have lacked employment, and that, for years, enforced idleness and misery have been the portion of a vast population which, in former days, was industrious and well-to-do.
In 1858 the gravity of the situation caused the French Academy of Sciences to appoint Commissioners, of whom a distinguished naturalist, M. de Quatrefages, was one, to inquire into the nature of this disease, and, if possible, to devise some means of staying the plague. In reading the Report made by M. de Quatrefages in 1859, it is exceedingly interesting to observe that his elaborate study of the Pebrine forced the conviction upon his mind that, in its mode of occurrence and propagation, the disease of the silkworm is, in every respect, comparable to the cholera among mankind. But it differs from the cholera, and so far is a more formidable malady, in being hereditary, and in being, under some circumstances, contagious as well as infectious.
The Italian naturalist, Filippi, discovered in the blood of the silkworms affected by this strange disorder a multitude of cylindrical corpuscles, each about 1/6000th of an inch long. These have been carefully studied by Lebert, and named by him Panhistophyton; for the reason that in subjects in which the disease is strongly developed, the corpuscles swarm in every tissue and organ of the body, and even pass into the undeveloped eggs of the female moth. But are these corpuscles causes, or mere concomitants, of the disease? Some naturalists took one view and some another; and it was not until the French Government, alarmed by the continued ravages of the malady, and the inefficiency of the remedies which had been suggested, despatched M. Pasteur to study it, that the question received its final settlement; at a great sacrifice, not only of the time and peace of mind of that eminent philosopher, but, I regret to have to add, of his health.
But the sacrifice has not been in vain. It is now certain that this devastating, cholera-like, Pebrine, is the effect of the growth and multiplication of the Panhistophyton in the silkworm. It is contagious and infectious, because the corpuscles of the Panhistophyton pass away from the bodies of the diseased caterpillars, directly or indirectly, to the alimentary canal of healthy silkworms in their neighbourhood; it is hereditary because the corpuscles enter into the eggs while they are being formed, and consequently are carried within them when they are laid; and for this reason, also, it presents the very singular peculiarity of being inherited only on the mother's side. There is not a single one of all the apparently capricious and unaccountable phenomena presented by the Pebrine, but has received its explanation from the fact that the disease is the result of the presence of the microscopic organism, Panhistophyton.
Such being the facts with respect to the Pebrine, what are the indications as to the method of preventing it? It is obvious that this depends upon the way in which the Panhistophyton is generated. If it may be generated by Abiogenesis, or by Xenogenesis, within the silkworm or its moth, the extirpation of the disease must depend upon the prevention of the occurrence of the conditions under which this generation takes place. But if, on the other hand, the Panhistophyton is an independent organism, which is no more generated by the silkworm than the mistletoe is generated by the apple-tree or the oak on which it grows, though it may need the silkworm for its development in the same way as the mistletoe needs the tree, then the indications are totally different. The sole thing to be done is to get rid of and keep away the germs of the Panhistophyton. As might be imagined, from the course of his previous investigations, M. Pasteur was led to believe that the latter was the right theory; and, guided by that theory, he has devised a method of extirpating the disease, which has proved to be completely successful wherever it has been properly carried out.
There can be no reason, then, for doubting that, among insects, contagious and infectious diseases, of great malignity, are caused by minute organisms which are produced from pre-existing germs, or by homogenesis; and there is no reason, that I know of, for believing that what happens in insects may not take place in the highest animals. Indeed, there is already strong evidence that some diseases of an extremely malignant and fatal character to which man is subject, are as much the work of minute organisms as is the Pebrine.
I refer for this evidence to the very striking facts adduced by Professor Lister in his various well-known publications on the antiseptic method of treatment. It appears to me impossible to rise from the perusal of those publications without a strong conviction that the lamentable mortality which so frequently dogs the footsteps of the most skilful operator, and those deadly consequences of wounds and injuries which seem to haunt the very walls of great hospitals, and are, even now, destroying more men than die of bullet or bayonet, are due to the importation of minute organisms into wounds, and their increase and multiplication; and that the surgeon who saves most lives will be he who best works out the practical consequences of the hypothesis of Redi.
I commenced this Address [His intro and part one on fungus snip'ed for space] by asking you to follow me in an attempt to trace the path which has been followed by a scientific idea, in its long and slow progress from the position of a probable hypothesis to that of an established law of nature. Our survey has not taken us into very attractive regions; it has lain, chiefly, in a land flowing with the abominable, and peopled with mere grubs and mouldiness. And it may be imagined with what smiles and shrugs, practical and serious contemporaries of Redi and of Spallanzani may have commented on the waste of their high abilities in toiling at the solution of problems which, though curious enough in themselves, could be of no conceivable utility to mankind.
Nevertheless, you will have observed that before we had travelled very far upon our road, there appeared, on the right hand and on the left, fields laden with a harvest of golden grain, immediately convertible into those things which the most solidly practical men will admit to have value--viz., money and life.
-- T. H. Huxley 1870
Some 520 plus JEs, and around 3 years ago, I started thinking; "Stop dabbling at it, make this a serious journal"/blog/thingie. I marked it, to remember for later write-up at some nebulous future date, with the palindromic subject line 'A JE for a jump-cut Age'. As that concept forms the pattern card I would, and do, use here. The content on the other hand [...]
At the time I had a number of issues, or dissatisfactions, with the trends in blogging and web journals.
One, a lack of an international scope on the days events collected by most, if not all, of the news&&||commentary sites. The Amero-Anglo-centric world view has a number of odd kicks in its stride that I wanted to avoid and to reach past. Especially if the majority of the material would be in the english language and often in reference to those sources.
Two, I liked [and still like] the concept of 'political cartoons you'll never be allowed to see' and the mock-gallery description of them. It started as a notion about text only forums, mixed in with an idea about censorship, and now --I've grown to enjoy the freedom in using 'a reference to' a larger number of comic-media/mediums than any one artist could ever master. As such, at first I had avoided actually creating any of them, to keep it as a purely textual device. Two years ago I began adding shop'ed toon versions to accompany them. [see my LiveJournal mirror/appendix blog]
Third and most of all, I really-really-really dislike the effect single phrase quotation has on readers. Most sites have them in some form, never more than a line [or two if you're really fucking lucky, anyway...], and most likely without *any* surrounding context. Much less a point to why that quote could be of any freakin' interest to the reader at the time they read it. And the idea that it might have some value or connection in re-reference at a later date? Hah! And I will point out here, that I'm a lifelong fan of Oblique Strategy and Gestaltism. But this kind of quip'age only reaches the level of random noise. It's empty, hollow, pointless, and at its best --a mere lucky juxtaposition.
At first I tried to keep it to small ~500 word snippets, but as time went by, I found I needed to present larger bodies of text. And at some point along the way, it grew to need whole sequences of multiple quotes. Including whole fictional story arcs to tie up the divergent concepts in the sequenced quotes.
Average went from <1000 words to >5000 words an entry. I'm not sure, but I may be the[or a] reason that Taco&Co eventually put a a byte limit to entries. [/;-> It has become rather thick here at times. Any balance has been achieved by keeping to the usual mix of additonal items. So, once again, moving along.
Thus the tripartite format of Quote:News:Texttoon. It then had "'Enn' years ago in this journal" added after a few years. After this summer's semi-break in posting regularity I plan on expanding that list to include some of the now almost stock items; 'Free and Not Dead Press' and the USA's favorite pastime "StateDept Softball" as permanent features. More appearances of some of the misc repeaters like the; 'rolls', 'cupids', 'stupid political toons' etc. There'll be some all new stuff too, including; 'Featured Item'-of-the-day and 'BlackHat Interviews [your name here]' where I'll try to ask three questions to some assorted folks.
The last item there may end up being the most erratic or trite, at least at first, but once there's a few previous examples to point at one hopes it'll improve. Both in content and who'll actually answer [yes there will be historical and fictional persons... and responses]. Moreover, I'll keep from using the bridge from the grail idiom... too often. [/;-) Until then.
"News!" sotto-"It's only a model","Shhhh!":
Today's Republican Party is a stool[...] Full stop, would be more fun, but it continues in a less scatalogical tone. I, on the other hand[...]
The MSM's most recent attempt to jump the meme-train has been rather funny. They have even attracted some notice by the artists themselves. PETE TOWNSHEND is playing defense after the notoriously conservative National Review listed the WHO's Won't Get Fooled Again Number One on its list of the top fifty conservative rock songs. In a short blurb accompanying the ranking, author John J. Miller explained that the song made the list because it ''swears off naive idealism once and for all.'' In a response to the ranking, Townshend posted an entry in the Pete's Diaries blog on his Web site, entitled ''Won't Get Judged Again,'' rebuking the rank. Townshend explained, ''It is not precisely a song that decries revolution -- it suggests that we will indeed fight in the streets -- but that revolution, like all action can have results we cannot predict. Don't expect to see what you expect to see. Expect nothing and you might gain everything.'' Of course what the fools at NR fail to understand --if it is "conservative" in any way it's Pop, not Rock and Roll. [cue Butthole Surfers:Kuntz ~12 seconds]
Speaking of such. I see one of the crypto-corp's favorite operatives is out the spouting the usual crap. As many readers of this Journal already know I claim he's part of their Astroturf&Agitprop'ing sub-dept along with fellow travelers J. Backus and D. Brazile. There's more members to that merry band, but they are the primary ones that seem to be always playing both ends off the middle. Why anyone lets any of them near their campaigns is a mystery, given their track record. Kos, however, is less flambait'y than I, but he's quickly getting up to speed. Should I send Kos some of the links from DailyKos that he[and others there] wrote and flattered McCurry etc? Nah! It'll hit him in a few hours/days and he'll too come to call him--McCunty cunt-cunt the cunt cunter of cuntsville.
Also on the topic of words. This Fark thread and most of all the first three replies. Priceless. Good round of comment-volley'ing.
911! [Sudden flurry of image+text pictures from; AIIAB thru ONNTSA to Y'RLY and ZOMG!PONY'S!!1!]
Good thing there's no such thing as an ASBO on the net. But they're trying.
"Question for Mr. Blair: Have you grown to enjoy the taste of George W. Bush's spunk?" Would be fun, but a better question might be; "Question for Mr. Blair:Is that the flamming disembodied head of Dr. Kelly I see behind you?"
Carl, the new guy, at work
Veddy small, but veddy veddy ha-add!
Much like the sturdy brown lads seizing the capital right now. An Islamist militia says it has seized Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, after weeks of fighting against an alliance of warlords allegedly backed by the US. [J. Cleese Sgt. Major Voice] Now that your lot has finally clued into the main-chance, let me show you the name of the rest of the game -- POLITICS!!!! Trade those guns in for wigs, get those skinny asses on the benches! Hop-two! On your toes, you horr'able Marklars! Rea'addy bills! Start legislate'n![/JCSMV]
Grilled Press Freedom? Sounds nasty!
Free And Not Dead Press: International News Safety Institute are not pleased. Perhaps the single most alarming trend in Africa today is the treatment of journalists in Ethiopia. At present, numerous journalists are imprisoned on charges of treason, and face the death penalty or life imprisonment if found guilty. Other countries of concern are the Gambia and Sierra Leone.
Press Briefing Softball Highlights: Casey at bat.
QUESTION: Can we stay on the OAS?
MR. CASEY: If you like.
QUESTION: Well, just now that we know who's going and, obviously, the U.S. plays a big role. Often these kind of things can degenerate well, so often. In recent years, they can degenerate into a fight between the U.S. and Venezuela. Chavez seems to be a bit of a divider in the region these days, picking fights all over the place, you know, at a time when the assembly tries to have unity. How do you guys view his interference, if you like, with other countries' electoral process?
MR. CASEY: Well, Saul, listen, I really don't have anything new to tell you about our relationship with Venezuela. Obviously, our focus going down into this ministerial is on our positive agenda for the hemisphere and on working with Secretary General Insulza as well as the other ministerial representatives on advancing the OAS's agenda there. Our concerns about Venezuela are, as I said, are well known and I don't think I really need to reiterate them for you, you know. In effect, though, we continue to believe as does the Secretary General and as do most members of the OAS, that those that are elected democratically have a commitment to govern that way and obviously that's been one of our concerns about Venezuela, it has been the focus of our efforts in the hemisphere.
QUESTION: But has he started to pick fights with other people because his efforts to pick a fight with you haven't worked because you are -- you know, avoiding a confrontation?
MR. CASEY: Saul, I'll leave it to the Venezuelans to explain why they choose the policies they do. I think our policies on the subject are clear.
In to the strike zone, what a surprise. One nought, play ball.
QUESTION: Just this morning the Chinese have announced that they don't -- that they're opposed to arbitrary sanctions on Iran. I mean, yesterday this Administration was going on about how they were getting agreement from the Russians and the Chinese on going forward on a package of incentives and penalties. So it seems as if despite your rosy picture of progress, there's still a fundamental difference with the Russians and the Chinese over the whole idea of penalties.
MR. CASEY: Well, again, look, let's let them have the meeting and let's let the ministers tell you what they've come to conclusion on and see where we are. I think if you saw the comments the President made this morning, he's now spoken to President Hu, he's spoken with President Putin as well. He's described those conversations for you and described them as positive and moving forward. I think we just need to wait and see what they come up with in Vienna, but I think it's very clear to us that there has been progress, that we are moving forward and that there is unity in the international community that we do need to take concerted action together. But in terms of the specifics of the package, frankly, I'm just going to leave that to the folks out in Vienna.
QUESTION: What do you make of the Foreign Minister's rejection of the idea of suspension before sitting down to talks?
MR. CASEY: Well, you know, again, what we have done with our offer yesterday to participate in discussions with the Iranians, with the EU-3, should they suspend their uranium enrichment activities, is showing, I believe, a very clear sense that we are willing to go the extra mile and eliminate, as the Secretary said, all possible excuses for not moving forward with these discussions. This isn't a U.S. condition. This is the same condition that the EU-3 has set forward. It's the same condition that the IAEA has set forward. It's the same condition that the Security Council has set forward. And more importantly, it's the same condition that Iran agreed to with the EU-3 in the Paris agreement. Certainly, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask them now to do what they've already promised to do as the basis for having these kinds of discussions.
As far as the Foreign Minister's comments are concerned, you know, I think what we need to do, as the President said earlier, is actually let a full package be developed and be presented and then we'll see what their reaction is. But Iran clearly has a choice that it's going to have to make.
QUESTION: But it has already rejected to stop uranium -- I mean, they've already said that they will not stop enriching uranium. The condition that you've put, they've already rejected it. So now the Americans will not take part in the EU-3?
MR. CASEY: Again, the Secretary has made clear what our position is. But I think you need to go back to what the EU-3 has said. The EU-3 has said that their conditions for beginning negotiations is Iran returning to the suspension of uranium enrichment, which they agreed to do under the Paris agreement.
Again, I think we need to actually have a package developed, see it be presented, and then we'll see what ultimately the Iranian reaction is to that.
Two and one for the attempted gimmie-bunt in the first half of that.
QUESTION: On Burma.
MR. CASEY: Okay.
QUESTION: On the UN resolution on Burma. When do you plan to introduce it and do you have enough support in the UN Security Council for such a resolution?
MR. CASEY: Well, thanks for giving me a chance to talk about that. I do hope most of you did see the statement that we put out yesterday afternoon. I know it was a busy day for people on Iran issues, but we did announce yesterday that we do intend to pursue a UN Security Council resolution on Burma. And the purpose of that resolution would be to underscore the international community's concerns about the situation in that country, including the unjustifiable continued detention of Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, as well as our common position that the regime needs to ensure an inclusive and democratic political process. I don't have a specific date at which we intend to introduce this now. We're working on some other preliminary actions in New York at this point. Certainly we expect to do it in the coming weeks.
And in terms of support for it, I do think that there is broad and general support for the idea that the Burmese regime does need to address the serious political problems in that country. And that as we said in our statement yesterday, that the situation in that country is increasingly disturbing and is now posing a threat to the stability of the region itself.
QUESTION: A follow-up on that. Refugees International came out with a report today that said that the U.S. policy of isolating the regime is not working and that the way that the aid is -- that aid is really being a hostage, that the humanitarian situation is really deteriorating and that you have to find a way to get more aid into the country or condition it on political reform because the Burmese people are really suffering.
MR. CASEY: I haven't seen the report, Elise, and I'll see if we can get you something specific on that. I do think in general, though, that we do try and make efforts, not only in Burma but elsewhere as well, to ensure that we do what we can to relieve the humanitarian-suffering people. The Burmese Government of course, however, has taken not only repression political measures but made a number of economic decisions, too, that has made it increasingly difficult for people in that country. But I will try and get you something for you on that specific report.
Teri. Or same subject?
QUESTION: By (inaudible) support, I assume you mean within the UN Security Council.
MR. CASEY: I mean broad international support, George. I'm not trying to predict for you any particular standing by individual members. I haven't done a survey of Security Council members at this point.
Which, as you all know, is so easy to get. So is this strike three. Out! Several other items of interest in there too.
Texttoon:
Fumetti : Stock photo of a black fedora on a seamless background. Overlayed speech bubble has it reciting;
"You know-I could write a book/
And this book would be/
Thick enough to stun an ox/
Cuz' I can see the future/
And it's a place/
About seventy miles east of here/
Where it's lighter/
Linger on over here/
Got the time?/"
Caption at the bottom in a circus theme font; "All Ages -- Every Era -- Any Time"
Time (Score:1)
Re:Time (Score:2)
Thx for reading whenever you can find any.