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2003.03.16 : 2003.03.22
Saturday, March 22, 2003
Blab. A reader sends us ...
A few quotes
from a non-politician:
"Arbitrary power is most easily established
on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness."
"Government is not reason; it is not
eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a
fearful master."
"Over grown military establishments
are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be
regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty."
"The government of the United States
is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
"The marvel of all history is the
patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid
upon them by their governments."
Probably some naive idiot.
Blab. A reader won't let us get away with stuff.
Hem hem. You *did*
say "We here at Plurp would like to congratulate the people of the United
States. After all, here you are at war again". So if someone's confusing
the government with the people, it's not necessarily us, your reader.
But we forgive you. Just send the plans for the overthruster, through
the usual channels.
Hoisted by our own petard! (And here we were unaware that we even had
a petard.)
The voice in which we wrote that little piece
arose from our feeling alienated from our fellow countryfolk as they went
about their normal lives while the war began, and from our feeling so very
disturbed as the U.S. government uses the War on Terrorism to accumulate
power like a miser accumulates pennies.
The Dodger currently has the overthruster plans. Expect them shortly.
Blab. A reader suggests that it's a simple question of law.
"This
is not a question of authority; it is a question of will," said the
president on Monday.
It is unsurprising that he seeks to
avoid the question of authority; for if Americans looked too hard for his
authority, they would find that he
does not have it.
Our observation is that, at that level of power, what is written is secondary
to what can be done. The U.S. president has incredible power, power unimaginable
to the Founding Fathers. Certainly he does today. We worry that the framework
of democratic government might be unable to contain it.
Blab. Another reader has lofty ambitions for us.
I'd honestly like to see
anything nearly as thoughtful as this
from your point of view. You seem
to be limited to implying that Bush is an idiot or pretending to be the
only one who knows that killing people is bad.
You'd like us to write as well and as thoughtfully as a Time Magazine journalist?
Gosh, so would we! Sadly, here we are stuck with a backwater blog and a
day job and all, so those heights of journalistic excellence are likely
to remain out of reach for us.
We generally agree with the referenced article. Does that make you feel
better?
But our feelings are much more ambivalent, and indeed much more ambiguous,
than any nice, punchy, closed article in a magazine. Aren't yours?
We hold these truths to be self-evident:
-
We are not smart enough to know the best way forward in the mess with Al
Qaeda, Iraq, and the rest.
-
Dubya is, in fact, an idiot. Oh, not literally, as we suspect that he can
read and tie his shoes and stuff. But we cannot think of another U.S. president
as incompetent as Dubya (and his running dogs) at international relations.
How - we ask you - is it possible to squander the sympathy and empathy
of most of the world from Sept. 12, 2001, and have left only contempt against
the U.S. in March, 2003?
-
We despair of a culture, as ours seems to have become, that glorifies war,
and supports the systematic destruction of the Bill of Rights that looks
to us to be going on under Dubya's watchful eye.
-
There is nothing glorious about war, nothing honorable, nothing to be celebrated.
War is the most heinous, the most disgusting human activity. Societies
that indulge in war willingly are anathema, abomination; societies that
indulge in war out of necessity and self-preservation should feel sadness,
at the very least, and shame at the most, for having failed to keep the
peace.
-
Nations that indulge in wars of aggression popularize the idea of wars
of aggression. This way lies madness.
In addition, we believe the following:
-
Hussein is a monster, both in possession of and perfectly willing to use
WMD on anyone who gets in his way.
-
Hussein is likely to encourage terrorist groups to use his (or their own)
WMD on the U.S. and others, if it furthers his cause. (Though Dubya has
done absolutely nothing to establish this connection, idiot child that
he is.)
-
U.N. inspectors are not detectives. They found exactly what Hussein wanted
them to find, when he wanted them to find it. Their every action was monitored
by the Iraqi government, their every communication bugged. Hussein played
them for the fools they were, and used them to deceive and delay. The U.N.
inspectors were never going to disarm Iraq.
-
It is thus likely that the best course of action was to take out the current,
evil government of Iraq through military action. And here we are.
-
We hate that.
If you want a nice, short, simplistic point of view on world events, you've
come to the wrong place. All you will find here is an honest portrayal
of how we actually feel. Confusion and all.
Blab. Our polite reader donates a really insightful article.
Sir: Richard Perle--What
a guy. I despair.
The article is entitled, provocatively, Thank God for the death of the
UN.
Saddam Hussein's reign of
terror is about to end. He will go quickly, but not alone: in a parting
irony, he will take the UN down with him. Well, not the whole UN. The "good
works" part will survive, the low-risk peacekeeping bureaucracies will
remain, the chatterbox on the Hudson will continue to bleat. What will
die is the fantasy of the UN as the foundation of a new world order. As
we sift the debris, it will be important to preserve, the better to understand,
the intellectual wreckage of the liberal conceit of safety through international
law administered by international institutions.
Go read it. Then tell us what
the future looks like. 'Cause we sure don't know.
Blab. Our polite reader appears again to donate a very different
point of view.
Sir: Here is a link to a
weblog from Iraq. Sad.
Amazing. From last Friday's entry on that blog:
2 more hours untill the B52's
get to Iraq.
Go read it. Now.
While you're at it, read these too:
Thanks to Caterina for the great
links.
Blab. A reader overwhelms us.
The Unilateral Spelling Police
Extra Literary League (USPELL) notes that you have erroneously used 'now',
in a context which required 'know'. We also note a sin of ommission - the
word 'are' is missing from your assertion about our base(s). We leave it
to you and your extinguished readership to decide the correct course of
action in these circumstances. You have 48 hours to comply.
-AJL
We are shocked and awed at our reader's highly focused eye and daunting
pickiness. We offer our unconditional surrender, as evidenced by having
fixed what we believe were the offending phrases.
Blab. A reader discovers that ...
OK,
I've calmed down now.
We are so relieved.
Elaine Clement, president
of the Cajun heritage group Action Cadienne, was somewhat put off by Congress'
decision this week to change House cafeteria menus to read "freedom fries"
and "freedom toast."
"Are they going to change French kiss
to freedom kiss?" she said.
There are no immediate plans to begin
serving "freedom onion soup" at the Napoleon House bar and restaurant in
the French Quarter.
See below.
Blab. A reader gets all worked up about language and tourism
and stuff.
Very jealous of your reader
who is in New Orleans. You see, my planned trip
to New Orleans was cancelled at virtually the last minute when my employer
announced that, because of the war and the increased terror threat level,
they were prohibiting all "non-essential" business travel.
[Imagine here several words which
are unprintable in a family blog.]
I visited New Orleans for the first
time last year and loved it. I hope that the movement to rename the
French Quarter does not have any serious chance of succeeding, but if it
does, you may let your reader know that I will fight on the side of New
Orleans in her war of secession from the U.S. (Besides, I thought
the locals called it the "Vieux Carre" anyway. That's OK, becuase
it doesn't have the word "French" in it, right?) What, are they going
to get rid of their beautiful statue of Joan
of Arc too?
My disappointment and frustration
(at the trip being cancelled, not the movement to rename the French Quarter)
has even burrowed its way down into my subconscious, as last night I dreamed
I was enjoying beignets at the Café du Monde.
We think that all things French should be banned by law. Not just the word
French, but French fries themselves, and French bread, and French cut green
beans, and French kisses.
Hey - wait a minute ... !
Blab. A Treasured Reader really wants to know the answer to certain
...
QUESTIONS?
Is it respectful, is it disparaging,
is it a beet, is it a blue dog, is it about links, is it about someone's
wife, is it the wholly owned subsidiary of the Trilateral Commission, is
it tastefully distasteful, is it code, is it anything, is it not, is it
"is," is it an attempt to hurdle the inhumanity of humanity?
Damn I'm hungry. Where's all the Klingdoligansasasas?
Yeah; it was just here a second ago.
 Yow.
Switching momentarily from war to snack foods (an obvious segue), those
of you who are addicted to wasabi peas should immediately order several
dozen cans of wasabi
peanuts.
Oh. My. Gawd.
They are the size of small grapes, and consist of peanuts with a shell
made of flour and some serious amount of wasabi. You'll have to get past
the alien-green-seed-pod coloring but, if you can, these things are even
better than wasabi peas!
 Plurp.
The blue dog
was particularly fond of
those cute Freedom poodles
Friday, March 21, 2003
The Tantalus Field.
You remember it from "Mirror
Mirror" in the second
season of Star Trek.
A plot device caused Kirk ("Good Kirk")
to be exchanged with Kirk ("Evil Kirk") from an alternate universe. Evil
Kirk had a device, the Tantalus field, that allowed him to wipe his enemies
out of existence with the push of a button. By changing places with him,
Good Kirk gained this capability.
What if the Tantalus field were not
merely bad 1960's SF, but a real, military capability?
I ask this because it is. Well, not
in the original, simplistic Star Trek version, but in the frighteningly
real, if degraded, version that exists today in the U.S. military.
Wednesday's bombing attack on Baghdad,
which the U.S. intended to be an
attack on Saddam Hussein himself, and perhaps some of his top military
folks, was aimed at suddenly wiping him out of existence, and was based
upon the spooky capability of finding an incredibly paranoid person, in
a bunker, in his own country, on the other side of the planet.
In the original Star Trek episode,
Good Kirk refused to wipe out of existence the Spock that was his closest
rival, despite the urgings of the usual Conniving And Scantily Clad Woman.
It's hard to imagine Dumsfeld as the Scantily Clad Woman, but we must.
And it would be incorrect to imagine Dubya as Good Kirk.
After all, Dubya pushed the button.
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Blab. A reader looking out for our own interests writes:
BOYCOTT CAPTAIN PLURP!
If he won't treat his readers with more respect then why should we furnish
him his material?
So the theory is that, at some time in the distant past, we actually respected
our readers? Interesting.
As much as we encourage our readers to follow this sage advice, they
do not, as evidenced by the flood of reader input today.
Blab. A reader hypnotizes us with philosophy.
10 miles up, and the air
is too thin to breathe. 20 miles down, and it is hot enough to melt
rocks. What a narrow layer we are confined to!
It's like Plurp. 10 IQ points up and you can't stand this drivel;
20 IQ points down and you can't read it.
Blab. Our polite reader sends us documentary evidence, consisting
of links and quotes and everything. We are simply ashiver with excitement.
Sir,
PNAC's letter
to President Clinton of January 26, 1998:
"In your upcoming State of the Union
Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course
for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and
to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S.
and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim,
above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power."
Signed by, amongst other luminaries,
Donald 'Duck' Rumsfeld.
Well, lookee there! Little Ronny Dumsfeld (and a cast of equally qualified
entities) advocating "regime change in Iraq" way back in the last millennium.
Looks like these leopards don't change their feces, eh?
Blab. Seeking to transform our humble blog into Beet Propaganda,
one or more readers fling these at us.
 Beets
implicated in Iraqi
WMD production.
Perhaps they are developing Beet
western yellows virus (BWYV).
We knew it! We knew it! Beet extract!!
Cigarettes: Now With Beet
Juice Concentrate!
Even more deadly than tar and nicotine!
Karperen is cool in beet
winkle!
Als je hiernaast op de button in beet!
Americans may have invented
Satanic death metal music, but Germans have honed
it to a precision machine.
Leave it to the godless Germans to turn heinous beets into death machines.
What truly
evil Frenchmen drink.
No. No! No! Not ... not ... beet wine!!!
Blab. A reader sends us something. We wonder what it is.
"We're in a world where so
much world opinion is against us," said Rona Vail, 45, of Brooklyn,
in Prospect Park with her child. "I try to teach my 3-year-old how to use
words instead of aggression in the playground," she said, "and our president
hasn't figured out how to do that yet."
Let's all teach our children how to attack and kill those whom they think
might threaten them at some unspecified time in the future!
Blab. A reader claims that that previous link also points to
this.
THE MUFFIN DEFENSE!
Last night, as the antiwar speeches
continued, a group of demonstrators marched onto 14th Street and found
themselves in a shoving match with the police when officers tried to get
them back behind barricades. Police officials said one officer was treated
for a broken arm, and one woman was arrested after, the police said, she
threw an object - a muffin, officials said - at officers.
No doubt they were left over from Blueberry Muffin Friday.
Blab. We now present a succession of blind and nearly blind links,
from readers of unknown visual and mental acuity.
[link]
Dubya's concept of war, also pictured here.
[link]
A large number of pictures of Japanese dogs and cats.
for
you
Palm Beach County counts its chads and decides it's responsible for this
here war. Finally, someone on which to blame all of this.
Sir: Some good
clean fun.
Dunno.
So here's the puzzle: What do these have in common? Readers are invited
to tell us.
Blab. A reader dangerously high on cut-and-paste sends us a bit
of PR nostalgia from a sloppy page.
Looking
into the mind of a virus writer
Expert: Computer virus writers mostly
obsessed males
Wednesday, March 19, 2003 Posted:
9:28 AM EST (1428 GMT)
Story Tools
window.onerror=function()
{clickURL=document.location.href;return
true;} if(!self.clickURL) clickURL=parent.location.href;
RELATED
Jan Hruska, a guy we actually know, claims that folks who write computer
viruses are male, obsessed with computers, lacking a girlfriend and aged
14 to 34. Sadly, this is directly contradicted by what we suspect are the
only real studies of virus writers ever done.
Sorry, Jan. Nice PR, though.
Blab. A reader keeps us current on the ongoing effort of people
with malfunctioning brains to rename everything in the world.
Greetings from New Orleans.
Just thought you might be entertained
to know that there are some folks here trying to rename the French Quarter.
Imagine that.
We have no trouble imagining that! We're waiting for the renaming of French
dressing, French onion soup and French kissing. After that, we want to
know what these brainless wonders intend to rename French (the language
and/or the people) and France (the country, which, by the way, is not called
that by the French).
Blab. A reader confuses governments with societies.
Shouldn't that be: "After
all, here *we* are at war again"?
(You wouldn't want to accidentally
show an intent to renounce your citizenship or anything, now...)
We believe that a culture is more than a government, and a country more
than its leaders. We believe that freedom and liberty are concepts in which
all humanity can share, not the unique property of Dubya & Dumsfeld.
We are not, personally, at war. The government of the U.S. most certainly
is. It depresses us to observe that some of our neighbors, while not inherently
murderous or psychotic (well, some of them) nonetheless abdicate their
own free will in favor of that of people in positions of power who are
neither more intelligent nor more moral than they are.
Blab. A reader kicks over the Ming vase in response to something
we didn't say.
Yes, quite regrettable that
we don't have to have more Americans killed. Naive idiot.
We recommend that readers with uncontrollable knee-jerk reactions not self-stimulate.
Thank you.
Blab. A reader is all aglow over something else that we might
have said.
I am proud of you, Mr. White.
You are right about this war and this country. It's all reality television
and America can not get enough.
Yrs,
McD
Did we say that?
Blab. A reader notes that we (often) don't know what we're talking
about.
"Even Elvis joined up."
Elvis Presley (assuming that's the
Elvis you were talking about) was six years old when the US entered World
War II. Perhaps you're thinking of his much-publicized tour of service
in the 1950s, when a two-year hitch was mandatory.
A trivial detail, you say? Of course.
Trivia is about all we have left, isn't?
L.
Oh. Yeah. We were thinking of Superman.
Blab. A confused reader applies for citizenship.
Dear Republic of Plurp,
Are there existing means for which
disillusioned folks can immigrate to the fine Republic of Plurp (ROP).
Does one need a passport or visa (green card)?
Also, can you briefly outline the
steps to become patriated to the Republic of Plurp. Must we remove
our skibbies and burn them on sticks as we dance around bondfires?
If so, please tell us where this place is and how we could get there safetly.
Is there a ROP corner-embassy near us?
Many thanks.
Plurp is not a republic, or indeed a nation of any sort. Plurp
is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trilateral Commission. As for becoming
patriated, it is already the case that all your base are belong to us.
Plurp. Gosh. Have you noticed how all of the TV coverage of this
most recent war has been from Kuwait, just north of Kuwait, and Baghdad?
What about Jordan, or Turkey? What about Tikrit?
Isn't that curious?
Plurp. Helen notes that the U.S. Army folks probably don't have
visas to enter Iraq. They're going to be in such trouble!
Plurp.
The blue dog
was a
cartoon of one
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Plurp. We here at Plurp would like to congratulate
the people of the United States. After all, here you are at war again -
a serious war, involving hundreds of thousands of your children and billions
of dollars of your money - and it has become clear that you're really,
really good at it.
In the past, wars like WWII were a major disruption. Everyone of draft
age was pressed into servitude. Men who had real jobs went to work in factories
to make killing machines. Women who hadn't previously been wage-earners
took the jobs the men had. And the whole country bore the weight of war.
Even Superman joined up.
Not any more! A bystander in most parts of the U.S. might not even notice
that a war had begun. Nobody was pressed into servitude because you already
have a huge standing army. Nobody quit their job to work in the war factories
because the war factories already work, all year long, making killing machines.
For most people (not those people who are being shot at today, and not
their mothers, but most people), the war's biggest effect was the postponement
of some baseball game in Japan.
American society simply took it in stride. The Threat Level was bumped
up and, with it, your rights were bumped down. Thousands of asylum seekers
were imprisoned without cause, and surveillance was stepped up on thousands
more who are from The Wrong Country. No one stopped it. And that's good;
the U.S. government doesn't need dissent to distract it from waging war.
Not in times like this.
Good for you, citizens, for being so good at war, and for staying in
practice at it, because that's just as important. The War on Terrorism
(or despotism, or weapons of mass destruction, or whatever it is this week)
is not over. Iran and North Korean are still on the short list. Yes, that's
the North Korean with nuclear missiles, and the massive artillery that
will kill 100,000 people in the first hour of a war. And they won't be
the last countries on the list. Nor will you avoid retaliation on your
own sovereign soil.
Congratulations, America. We doubt that there has been another time
in history when one country could wage a unilateral Blitzkrieg of aggression
against a country on the other side of the world and be so assured of such
an obliterating victory. Rejoice. You're a tribute to war itself, and there's
so much more of it to look forward to.
Plurp. It turns out that all you have to do to be part of the
Coalition
of the Willing is to say you
won't shoot down U.S. warplanes if they fly over you on their way to
Iraq. Well, heck, whatever our views on the war, we're not going to shoot
down any planes. Frankly, we expect that they fly higher than we can throw
rocks anyway.
So, Mr. Powell, please do add us to your burgeoning list of Coalition
partners. We will stand proudly beside Latvia and Eritrea in not throwing
rocks at your warplanes in the unlikely event that they pass overhead.
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Blab. A reader sends articles to us from sources unknown.
Subj: Oh! I feel safe
NOW!
NEW YORK (AP) -- The Police Department
has developed a plan to implement enhanced security measures if the United
States goes to war with Iraq, according to published reports.
[stuff omitted - Plurp]
A reader who is probably that same reader writes:
Rape in the Air Force
To the Editor:
Re "Women Recount Life as Cadets:
Forced Sex, Fear and Silent Rage" (front page, March 16):
[stuff omitted - Plurp]
Dear readers, as part of our policy of reclaiming
a few more microseconds of our miserable life, we are no longer chasing
down Web links for the articles you clip out of somewhere or other and
send to us without spending your own time finding the link. And since,
without links, allegedly published articles are mere figments of your overheated
imaginations, we're not publishing the alleged articles either.
Sufficiently motivated readers can Google the articles themselves, and
can then imagine our witless, pretentious responses.
Blab. A reader reacts in real time.
Your witless pretension grows
tiresome.
Really? We thought our witless pretension was our most endearing quality.
We are wounded.
Blab. A reader asks a pertinent question.
Sir: Is
it true, or does it just seem true?
You mean this?
A high-ranking federal official
may be correct in an assessment of US president George Bush as "a moron"
say a group of Canadian stupidity experts.
Normally, we would say that this is obviously true. But we note with some
concern that the group of stupidity experts are themselves "Canadian".
So ...
Blab. A reader disrespects the Web.
Sir: I
know it's not respectful, but . . . .
Oh dear. BushOrChimp, a favorite sight from way
back, seems quite broken, at least today. How sad.
Blab. Before even 7 PM local time, an impatient reader asks:
Where's my Plurp???
WHERE'S MY HUSBAND????????
Plurp was, as usual, cooking along inside of our fevered brain at
that early hour.
We cannot be held responsible for your marital difficulties, though.
Sorry.
Blab. A reader contradicts those readers yesterday who claimed
that Dubya hadn't connected Iraq and terrorism.
I watched (with sinking heart)
the live address that GWB made in the early hours of this morning (1:00
am GMT). The most distressing thing is that he said, in plain and clear
terms that he believes that Iraq harbours and nurtures terrorists including
Al Quaeda. A rather surprising claim considering the utter lack of
evidence - and hardly damning in the face of all the other claims which
have at least some, however tenuous, evidential basis. It was even more
surprising as he really didn't need to say any more than "We're America,
hear us roar, we can do whatever the f*ck we like". Actually, that's pretty
much what he did say, less the swearing; which a good Christian boy like
him would never stoop to.
-AJL
We seek revenge on our many readers by replying with a blind [link].
Blab. A reader presents news that brings us great relief.
|\_._._/|
|
o o |
\
´.` /
|`---´|
Der
blaue Hund flew back to
|
| Switzerland with the missiles.
|`___´|\_
================>
/|
|\
##
##
(or is it the orange dog now?)
Now if only that also included the rest of the arms.
And no, the blue dog is not suddenly orange, and is unlikely to be,
no matter what Dubya does. The world does seem to be, however, at a heightened
state of absurdity.
Blab. A reader riffs on our male-sweat-inspired perfume.
We anticipate a new perfume:
Eau de Peu.
Or there's the Teletubby version, Eau
de Po.
We are horrified by the notion of people with a Teletubby fetish.
Blab. A reader enlightens us.
Eau de Pew? You are
a
little late mon cheri...
And we always thought Pepe le Pew was a skunk.
Blab. A reader wishes Plurp belonged to it.
When did Plurp become a warblog?
Less war, more beets!
Less Iraq, more Him Whose Name Is
Written In Magma Vortices Deep Below The Earth's Surface!
Let's see. 2.5 of today's 11 reader contributions are about The War (if
you don't count this one, which we didn't). That leaves a generous 68%
that are warless.
But beets? No. Nope. Nosiree. Get your own frickin' blog and
smear unholy beets all over it if you want. But not here. No.
Blab. We always thought SXSW
was some kinky sexual thing. This view is reinforced by the following broadband
opportunity.
[link]
(10 MB)
We object to the content of the linked thingie (in addition to its size).
It's not nice to make fun of blogging. It's especially not nice to make
us giggle uncontrollably in the middle of our all-day meeting.
So, cut it out.
Plop. The neologisms of war.
Tapestry
bombing: Like carpet bombing, but using smart bombs so that every stitch
is precise.
Plurp. Jordanese
humor.
According to a new joke in
Jordan, U.S. President George W. Bush will announce Tuesday that the final
oppotunity to prevent a war against Iraq is if French President Jacques
Chirac and his family leave France of their own volition and be exiled
to Baghdad.
To satisfy everyone, we propose a game of musical chairs for world leaders.
Plurp. We're confused. Not that that's unusual, but we do feel
unusually
confused today. We now illustrate the source of our confusion. Last night,
Dubya
said:
Saddam Hussein and his sons
must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in
military conflict commenced at a time of our choosing.
Whereas "American officials" said this
today:
Even if Saddam Hussein leaves
Iraq within 48 hours, as President Bush demanded, allied forces plan to
move north into Iraqi territory.
The only way we can make sense of these two statements is to interpret
"allied forces moving into Iraq" and "military conflict" as two disjoint
things. But, last time we checked, hostile forces moving into a sovereign
nation was military conflict.
Norman, coordinate!
Plurp. So, here's our Bold Prediction O' The WeekTM.
In the upcoming war, Hussein will not use WMD on allied troops, or on
Israel. (He might use them on his own people, but only by having his folks
masquerade as allied troops so he can blame it on the allies.) He will
provide only token resistance to allied troops until they get to Baghdad.
As the allies lay siege to Baghdad, entering it not to take ground but
only in targeted strikes, Hussein will flood the media with pictures of
civilian casualties in the hopes of creating an international uproar.
This would allow Hussein to continue to claim that he doesn't have WMD,
while rallying world opinion to his plight. He knows he can't win the military
conflict per se. Using this ploy, he will hope the international
community, and maybe the U.N. in particular, will pressure the U.S. into
withdrawing, leaving him in power.
Plop. The 2003 Award for Most Disingenuous Behavior by a Nation
goes to ... France!
[Applause.] French ambassador to the U.S. Jean-David Levitte accepting:
If the war starts and if
(President) Saddam Hussein uses chemical or biological weapons, it would
change completely the situation for the French president and for the French
government, and President (Jacques) Chirac will have to decide what we
will do to help the American troops to confront this new situation.
But I confirm it would change completely
the perception and the situation for us.
Thank you, Mr. Levitte. It'll be too late to matter, of course, but it's
good of you to say so.
Plurp. And, because Plurp isn't a warblog, we present
this:
Plurp.
The (blue) dog
was a neologism of
witless pretension.
Monday, March 17, 2003
Blab. On our recollection that Dubya initially Iraq-ed
his brain because he though Iraq was supporting terrorism, a reader writes:
"Did we get that right?"
No. Even the Bush junta has never
claimed a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq, although it encourages
others to make that connection and does nothing to dissuade it.
September 11 was merely a good excuse
for the Iraq hawks, who make up a proportion of the Bush junta, and who
have been clamoring for just this thing since 1991, to get their way, and
to allow Dubya to pay back the big oil money that bought him his current
job.
Oh, take your silly babbling one more step while you're at it and claim
that Dubya had those planes flown into the WTC to precipitate the whole
thing.
Blab. Another reader provides actual, authoritative-seeming links.
Guess which reader we like better?
Sir: Here is one
version of where the Iraq bee in George Bush's bonnet came from.
The link leads to this claim.
A secret blueprint for US
global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning
a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' even before he
took power in January 2001.
Hmm. It's not very secret. Heck, it's all over the Web, and is even published
by the organization that authored
it. And, if you read the actual document, not the Sunday Herald's characterization
of it, you find no plan to attack Iraq for regime change. (At least, not
that we could find. Prove us wrong!)
Nice try.
Once again: Source material good, mindless media bad.
Blab. Perhaps that same reader provides yet another link. Bonus
points!
Sir: More about the
bee and the bonnet.
This is a NY Times book review that makes pretty much the same claim as
the one in the Sunday Herald. Of course, it's written better. :-) Slyly
referring to what somebody else said, but clearly voicing the author's
own opinion, the review says:
[T]he aim of the planned
war on Iraq is not just to remove Saddam Hussein but to create there a
ramshackle coalition of ethnic groups and warlords utterly subservient
to the United States. The larger goal, he said, was "unilateral world domination
through absolute military superiority."
Hey, could be! But we find evidence comforting. Not much of that on either
side recently, is there?
We also feel certain (in the womb of our insanity) that this whole Iraq
obsession really did begin with Dubya thinking that Iraq supported
terrorism. Authoritative references pro or con are most
welcome!
This link trail does lead us, in a roundabout way, to an
old Plurp entry that links to The
National Security of the United States, a pity little document
that outlines the Bush administration's strategy for securing the benefits
of democracy and the free market everywhere in the world. By force, sometimes.
You should go read it. It's really very illuminating.
Blab. And this maybe-third contribution from that same (or a
similar) reader.
Sir: It's all in name
recognition and product loyaty.
Yikes.
Every war needs a compelling brand proposition, it says. And, tragically,
the markedroids are hard at work on this one.
Blab. A reader attempts desperately to educate us. This is sure
to end badly.
Muskets
and Nukes: the Patterns of Proliferation
By Jared Diamond
Jared Diamond is a professor of geography
and environmental health sciences at UCLA. His book "Guns, Germs, and Steel:
The Fates of Human Societies" won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998.
March 16 2003
Ever since bows and arrows came on
the scene 15,000 years ago, the spread of military technology has shaped
the nature of conflicts. Some new technologies rapidly became commonplace;
others failed to spread or were successfully banned. The historical lessons
to be learned from weapons proliferation are useful to reflect on as we
figure out how to deal with North Korea.
We're going to shoot them with arrows? Well, actually, we
are.
Blab. A completely different reader writes:
Napoleon's
Blunders
A tale of preemptive strikes gone
wrong
By Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood won the Booker Prize
for her novel "The Blind Assassin." Her latest book, "Oryx and Crake,"
will be published in May 2003.
March 16 2003
TORONTO -- In my high school music
appreciation class, we listened to Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture". We liked
it, because there was stuff we could identify: Cannons boomed, bells rang,
national anthems resounded and there was a satisfying uproar at the end.
Now we're to believe that Napoleon wrote the 1812 Overture? It's simply
too much. (Note the suspicious "Canadian" origin of the article.)
Blab. A reader tells us something we already knew.
ahhhhhh the
pause that refreshes!
To wit:
Biologists said they found
male perspiration had a surprisingly beneficial effect on women's moods.
It helps reduce stress, induces relaxation and even affects the menstrual
cycle.
This also works for cats. Well, our cat, anyway. Except that it incites
faux sexual activity and manic possessiveness. But, you know, same thing.
We anticipate a new perfume: Eau de Peu.
Blab. A reader sends us something really special.
From The
Morning News:
PF: Now you understand the power.
And yet you laugh at me from your high and mighty horse.
SB: That's a mixed metaphor, you mean
high horse, or… is it a Hellenism?
Here is the
full article, so you can see context.
I don't want to risk angering Helen,
you know?
Any post that combines Paul Ford, mind control and Helenisms can't be all
bad, can it? So, no, the mysterious SB doesn't really mention Helenisms,
by whatever spelling. But we'll record
it anyway!
Good for you, by the way, to avoid angering Helen. Never do that.
Yow. ClandestineRadio.com.
Now this is the Web at its best. Various governments (including the U.S.)
broadcast propaganda from radio transmitters set up specifically for that
purpose. The folks at ClandestineRadio.com record them and put them on
the Web. Take a listen; it's really interesting.
Propaganda wants to be free.
Plurp. From a political wag, on Dubya's botching that diplomatic
thing with the U.N.
Took the wind out of his balloon
-
Took the wind out of his sails
-
Took the air out of his balloon
Thanks, wag!
Plurp.
The markedroids
wagged
the blue dog
Sunday, March 16, 2003
Blab. A reader who takes us seriously writes:
Sir: I'm sorry if it sounded
obsequious; I was trying to be polite. My apologies again and still.
Oh, please! Even we don't take seriously what we write here.
 Blab.
Someone who found our Windows
Backgrounds also seems to have found Plurp. That's so odd. But
anyway!
Hello,
Just asking out of curious, how did
you do the ice shot of nadja auermann on your backdrops website..
it looks very good, is there a ps plugin that could achieve this or did
you digitally draw this? you are very telented artist. all the best Rico
Actually, we are a talented thief, having stolen the original shot from
this
site and then fiddled with it to make it into a Windows background.
Our initial attempts (the ones posted here)
are pretty simple. We've learned a lot more about image fiddling since
then, and have a rather vast addition to our current collection just waiting
in our queue of things that ought to get finished pretty soon but don't
seem to be. (Should that be capitalized? Prolly.)
Blab. A cigarette smoker writes:
Have some Winston:
"Still, if you will not fight for
the right when you can easily win without bloodshed ; if you will not fight
when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the
moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only
a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may
have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to
perish than live as slaves."
It's always hard to know when to go to war. Too early? Too late? Can war
every be thought of as just right?
Blab. A lonely reader writes:
Am I the only one who gets
a poker jones from seeing the blue dog? Call me a nutty head but I seem
to remember a giant blue dog behind the poker table at Harrah's in New
Orleans. I'm in and I'll take 3 cards.
Yes, you're the only one, you sick, sick, dog-fetish reader.
Blab. A reader points us at something we may never see.
Subj: Orwell, Atwood, and
Guns
Probably the most cohesively intelligent
section
of high quality writing and thought I have seen in years in a newspaper.
Maybe it's because it rained yesterday? Whatever...By the way, does
anyone remember why George Bush got this Iraqi bee in his bonnet?
Unfortunately, we couldn't bear to go through the onerous LA Times registration
process, so we may never know how wonderful it way.
Our recollection of that particular bee is that Dubya was convinced
that there was a direct connection between Al Qaeda and Hussein, so blowing
up Iraq was part of the War On Terrorism. After the bee starting buzzing,
what little evidence there was for that came into question, and no sensible
evidence has yet been produced publically. But the bees were buzzing too
loudly, and Dubya couldn't think well enough to keep from going to war.
Did we get that right?
Plurp. Conditions on Saturday night turned out to be perfect
for a temporal rift, and certain ports of Saturday seem to have slipped
into Sunday. No injuries have been reported.
Plurp.
The blue dog
had several bits caught
in the temporal rifts
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