Abu Unaccountable. Consider the paradox of Bush personally approving the demotion of Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski, the only general to be punished in connection with investigations into detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib. She alone was set up to take the fall for the interrogation policy that the White House approved and his staff actively promoted (at the same time they were preparing the entire Iraq invasion on the premises of bogus WMD).

As her lawyer said, "They're saying she's the only senior leader that had any part in this, but they're saying she didn't have a direct part in it. I think they're trying to have it both ways. They are severing the chain of command right at her eyeball level, and not letting it go higher."

But the chain of command does indeed go higher, much higher...

{ 8:40 AM }

.

They were just doing as told. '...the protestors were told to be good all along. They were told to sit in the back and hold their signs and leave quietly. No wonder hippies get such a bad rap nowadays; protestors today might as well be ornaments on the Rightmobile. When I want someone to know I'm pissed off, I'm going to throw down and give them a good shit-ruining. I wanted to show Ms. Coulter that people are down if she wants to hold a circle-jerk, but we're not gonna do it her way. Not me, at least.

[...]

'Two cops approached me. I figured they were going to tell me I had to leave, so I said "You can't fire me, because I quit!"

'"You're under arrest."

'It was my turn to be shocked. I tried to ask them what for; saying "fuck her in the ass" at a college isn't a crime, last time I checked. They apparently mistook my inquiries for aggression, and grabbed me roughly and slammed me into the door. Within seconds the backmost two or three rows were surging forward, following the scene as the cops dragged me out the door. They yelled and chanted; my friends were more outraged than I'd ever seen any of them before. As they pushed me into the car, I heard my good friend Jeffrey Stockwell scream, "THIS ISN'T A JUSTICE SYSTEM! YOU CALL THIS PROTECTING AND SERVING?!" The crowd took up a chant at the UTPD officers: "Shame! Shame! Shame!"

'Shame is fucking right. When I asked the cops why they thought I needed cuffing, they told me that they didn't even see anything that happened, they were just doing as told.

[...]

'This is about drawing a line in the sand. It made me proud to see people standing up and calling bullshit when bullshit needed to be called. All politics aside, people ought to ask themselves, how far should our representatives of "justice" be allowed to go?'

— Ajai Raj

{ 3:15 PM }

.

1,661

{ 11:35 AM }

.

Look in Cheney's trunk. Of the Iraq reconstruction money, $100 million in cash is missing:

WASHINGTON - Nearly $100 million in Iraqi reconstruction cash — which was supposed to be handed out by U.S. workers in shrink-wrapped bricks of new hundred-dollar bills — can't be accounted for, federal auditors reported Wednesday.

A criminal investigation into possible fraud in a handful of cases is under way to determine what happened to some of the $96.6 million that was earmarked to rebuild south-central Iraq, according to a new report by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

The money came from Iraqi oil sales and other local revenues, not from U.S. taxpayers*, and it was supposed to be distributed by the main financial office of the U.S. rebuilding effort in Iraq.

*The reason the war wasn't supposed to cost $200+ billion was it was to be funded by Iraqi oil sales.

So U.S. taxpayers paid for someone's $100 million party — in conveniently shrink-wrapped cash, no less — after all. God knows we didn't spend it on body armor or emergency radios that work.

{ 9:07 AM }

.

Anne Heche and her unpreventable mother. Do you remember those innocent times when the World Trade Center still stood? Back before the gay marriage wars, before Terri Schiavo, before Tom DeLay became a household name, before anthrax, before spider holes, before duct tape and Ashcroft and Ridge and terror alerts and Ready.gov.

In retrospect, one of the things that haunted me most about the innocent period immediately preceding 9-11-01 was the fact that I had wasted valuable time thinking about the wacky Anne Heche, Ellen DeGeneres's former lover, who the week prior had appeared with Barbara Walters on 20/20 and was eating up media bandwidth with her newfound heterosexuality and her second personality, Celestia, who was from another planet and spoke directly to God.

Now we learn that Anne's mother Nancy Heche is with the despicable Focus on the Family "Love Won Out" effort ("promoting the truth that homosexuality is preventable and treatable"): "As a single parent who experienced the international media rush during her daughter Anne Heche’s highly visible relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, and a widow who endured her husband’s diagnosis of and subsequent death from AIDS, Nancy brings a spiritual focus to the effects of homosexuality in a family."

Note to Nancy Heche: Sorry for your troubles, but just because your family was totally fucked up doesn't credential you in any way to provide answers to others. Many, many families don't feel the need to "prevent" or "treat" the "effects" of homosexuals in their midst. Instead, they simply love and accept them. Actual compassion is a natural act once you free yourself of the crazy "truths" you have chosen to believe.

The arrogant conceit of Nancy Heche's otherworldly approach leads us to believe that she too is from another planet and speaks directly to God, just like the product of her vast parental insights: her daughter Celestia.

{ 4:36 PM }

.

These are the laws of my administration
No one's allowed to smoke
Or tell a dirty joke
And whistling is forbidden...
If chewing gum is chewed
The chewer is pursued.
And in the hoosegow hidden...
If any form of pleasure is exhibited
Report to me and it will be prohibited.
I'll put my foot down, so shall it be.
This is the land of the free.

The last man nearly ruined this place
He didn't know what to do with it
If you think this country's bad off now
Just wait 'til I get through with it
The country's taxes must be fixed
And I know what to do with it
If you think you're paying too much now
Just wait 'til I get through with it...

{ 4:34 PM }

.

How do you say "herpes-riddled adulterer" in French? Alors! We missed an exciting French-Texan cultural exchange last week:

Movers and shakers in the hundreds turned out at Blaffer Gallery on the University of Houston campus Thursday night for the launch of the cultural week "Lyon via Houston."

The Texan-French Alliance for the Arts kicked off the cultural exchange with the opening reception at the gallery featuring the work of French photographer Alain Bublex.

Lynn Wyatt, Susie Criner and Maria and Neil Bush were among those admiring the photography and celebrating the upcoming week of cultural events with its French accent.

Interestingly, the reception kicked off with this fascinating lecture:

7 PM - 9 PM Opening Reception, Alain Bublex, Plug-In City: Houston,
Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston
French Philosopher Bruce Bégout will lecture at 6:00PM

Bruce Bégout is a French writer and philosopher as well as philosophy lecturer at the University of Picardy. In his lecture, Bruce Bégout will discuss the role of the motel as archetypal architecture of American suburbia.

Given those in attendance, perhaps Bégout should have also discussed the invaluable role of the motel in branding the moral-values presidential brother as archetypal double-dealing, prostitute-patronizing, adulterous fuck-up while riddled with venereal disease.

{ 2:37 PM }

.