March 2003 – Angry Robot

Herewith, a purge of all Iraq nonsense that has been clogging the mind (all links from “reputable” sources, BTW): Prince of Darkness exposed in New Yorker, Prince of Darkness resigns; officers: war could last months – and it’s just the beginning; US steps up secret surveillance and Bush re-secrets secret files; terrornoia parts one and two; Keegan is writing for the Telegraph; media’s record: at least a lie a day. Got to keep the lies coming:

Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship… The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

From the master of lies, Hermann Goering.

With that, I’m hoping I can get back to the usual nonsense. Just that I’ve been hooked following the war, like I’m sure many of you are. I’m trying to ease up on the tearing-out-of-the-hair in favour of straight-up nonjudgmental military voyeurism, and the Agonist is possibly the best tool for it, given the wretched state of television. Going to try and follow the war like I follow hockey, not get too upset, and continue with my other interests. We’ll see if that works.

Warning Hollywood:

If I view another entertainment product in which a wise old blind man – often black – dispenses timely yet cryptic advice to the protagonist, I will walk out and demand my money back.

Yay for Haliburton!

Maybe I’d be pro-war, too, if the US Army handed me a blank cheque. That Cheney sure knows how to get paid – this article points out the contract was awarded “without any bidding.”

Tanktop

Far be it from me to salivate over military hardware, but yes. Yes. Strikes me that every laptop should be water-, beer-, coffee-, and fall-proof. Hell, I’ve poured drinks into two of them over the years, and the results weren’t pretty – but they were expensive.

Isn't PR Great?

French’s running scared.

From the Flipside

A great place to monitor the receiving end of this war: Where is Raed ? (it ain’t new, but I just noticed it recently. Good article here.

Runoff

Too much: war, Oscars, ultimata, dead Net connection like a shriveled fruit on a desert island. Who will win the Oscar™ for best war? Dreamt recently: on a bus to some sort of conference / with mostly children / they left without me / I managed to cling to the Bunyan statuary mounted on top of the bus / but fell off / I was in backwoods country / knocked on a stranger’s door / naked woman / her torso entirely covered by breasts / her naked daughter / Stealth bombers skimming the lake as they approach. “When the men spoke, their words froze in mid-air.” The cold writes, the warmth speaks. It also smells, a cityful of thawing month-old dogshit. A mindful of melting thoughts. Words fly through the ether like precision-guided whatnots – why can’t they just freeze, why can’t they just freeze and rewind?

Damn Forwarded Email

Why is it that the year-old Axis of Just As Evil thing from SatireWire is now being forwarded around and credited to John Cleese? Enough!

Tailing

Gender roles be deeply ingrained, fo shizzle, but you know the D-O-double-gizzle gonna break it down real simple,” says Snoop, sitting in a hot tub with Gloria Steinem and Camille Paglia, “we gon’ sip some Krystal and discuss turn of the century poems about the uterus.*

Have I mentioned my fondness for Tailors Today? Also read about the Bard’s work in the “Genetic Killing Machine Falls in Love” genre, the parable of the compactor, and the mystery of octopus robots.

Reality-porn Advertising

Wow. Can anyone verify that these puma blowjob ads are in fact real? (via j-ko sidebar thing)

Apologies to Caesar Readers

Here’s what’s going on: the DSL line at my home went down last week and wasn’t due to return until last thursday at the earliest. I took that chance to send my computer in for some minor repairs. Who knows how long all this nonsense will drag on for. Anyway, while I am able to post the odd nonsense link from work over here at d/blog, lately I have been using three separate sources for Caesar posts and this makes it impossible to update that site from work, seeing as my job has nothing to do with Roman history. Hopefully I’ll get both computer and Internet back by the end of the week, but then again that’s what I thought last week. Bear with me.

Angry Robot

Hmmm…

Tired and Disgusted