Listics

Euroyank excerpts from chapter 3 of "Black Gold," a piece by Marshall Smith.  If Smith is to be believed the concerns about peak oil are exagerated.

Air America was the CIA front operation for civilian contracted flight support from 1946 to 1975 through both Indochina Wars.  They have mottos… regarding the 1946 to 1975 record of clandestine activity in Vietnam, Laos, burma, and Cambodia they said, "First In, Last Out."  Reminds me of Arthur Andersen for some reason.

Another Air America motto Air America — "Anything, Anytime, Anywhere — Professionally" will have to be updated soon.  Air America’s successor front company "Aero Contractors, Ltd." can effectively brag, Aero Contractors — "Anyone, Anything, Anytime, Anywhere — Professionally."  The New York Times reports,

When the Central Intelligence Agency wants to grab a suspected member
of Al Qaeda overseas and deliver him to interrogators in another
country, an Aero Contractors plane often does the job. If agency
experts need to fly overseas in a hurry after the capture of a prized
prisoner, a plane will depart Johnston County and stop at Dulles
Airport outside Washington to pick up the C.I.A. team on the way….

Some of the C.I.A. planes have been used for carrying out renditions,
the legal term for the agency’s practice of seizing terrorism suspects
in one foreign country and delivering them to be detained in another,
including countries that routinely engage in torture.

Well, they are after all professionals.

The Swedish people take issue with these extralegal activities and their government has vowed to maintain tighter control…

The authorities in Italy and Sweden have opened investigations into the
C.I.A.’s alleged role in the seizure of suspects in those countries who
were then flown to Egypt for interrogation. According to Dr. Georg
Nolte, a law professor at the University of Munich, under international
law, nations are obligated to investigate any substantiated human
rights violations committed on their territory or using their airspace.

…but everyone knows the Swedes are unhappy, generally suicidal and socialists to boot, while the Italians surrendered to the allies in World War II (and THAT the Bush clan finds hard to forgive).

Brian Sack made the claim last year, but one wonders…  A little googling reveals that - NO!!  Sack is no longer number one!  In fact, since February 2024, The Banterist has fallen from the top position to number 5.  Main Stream Media initially sucked hind tit on this one, but over the last year or so they’ve made boobs of the blogging community. 

CNN is number one.  One suspects that the unfair use of keywords such as "nudity" and "nipple-piercing" helped them move ahead in the race.

The UK in a serious bit of imitation has produced a cover-up of their own. Seems the BBC noticed that Sharron Davies was bit too perky in her Olympic swimming reportage.  The UK Mirror provides before and after photos of this second rate and positively imitative cover-up.

Oddly, the wikipedia has risen to the number three position.  Their re-direct to this article proves that attempts to dilute the Janet Jackson "nipplegate" brand by Brits in swimming suits or by starlets whose breast augmentation scars have yet to heal are for naught.  Janet and Justin retain their hold on the nipplegate brand.  But Tara Reid (spotlighted by the number 4 contender with a series of unforgiving close-ups) and Sharron Davies in her tight tops are just a couple of Jenny-come-latelies, and The Banterist’s neological pioneering vis-a-vis Janet Jackson’s breast will always be number one in my blog.   

While America fusses about the Newsweek reports of the Quran used for toilet paper… that’s a money making idea incidentally, and I’ll make it available to novelty print-shops under a Creative Commons license… toilet paper scrolling off the sacred texts from the bathroom roll, perforated, two-ply…  while America frets and fusses about the nasty liberal media and the usual suspects try to turn our attention to the non-news regarding sourcing of a dull story by Newsweek, the Brits (bless their repressed little hearts) have begun the tortured process of attempting to share the truth with this bloated democracy that is too apathetic to listen.

But enough about the Brits, let’s talk about the "people of the book."

Talk about a historical blind alley.  Several thousand years ago the technology shifted from carved stone and clay tablets to parchment and papyrus.  Monotheistic believers in the middle-east took advantage of the media and laid their myths down in writing.  A millenium or so later, several hundred years after the Trojan war had played itself out, the christian cult showed up and entered the competition for religious mind-space.  Never mind that there were lots of fine North African gods languishing following the defeats of the Barca clan, these people discarded perfectly fine alternatives like Baal and Moloch, ignored the precepts of fire worshippers, dissed the entire pantheon of Greek and derivative Roman deities, and ripped off the one true G-d that the Hebrews worshipped while installing their guru as the annointed son of same…  "same," dammit, not "SAM"  What kind of people are you anyway?

It remained for them to append several poorly written and conflicting stories regarding son-of-same to the book the Hebrews had been carrying around, to write a few letters to each other confounding common sense and propping up a cultural patrimony, then to shut down any debate with a whiz-bang dip of ergotamine snuff and record the original apocalyptic vision.

Things were quiet for several hundred years give or take the roar of the occasional lion, the crunch of a martyr’s bones.  But out in the desert a few local chapters of the Sons of Hagar were forming (no - not sons of Sammy Hagar, but rather descendants of Ishmael, he of the Book, the original, the one true protagonist of Moby Dick who shared with us the wisdom of Starbuck, the first mate and brewer of coffee, and of Queequeg, the harpoonist and maker of coffins).  They, the sons and daughters of Hagar - not Starbuck and Queequeg - invented algebra, eschewed alcohol, and they brewed a fine cuppa Joe.

Then came the crusades, Attaturk’s genocide of the Armenians, Hitler’s genocide of the Jews, and what’s next?  He’s a loving god, a fierce god, and everything we know about him we learned from bad acid or from the book. 

And we know how to get each other’s goat around that book thing.  Take what they did down in Gtmo.  It wasn’t about a TP shortage. It was about disrespect.  Imagine what the Tennessee snake-handlers would have said if they’d used a Holy Bible that way in Islamabad.  And would the Jews have risen up in massive violence if somebody had so used a Torah?  It really doesn’t matter. 

A few days ago Norm Jenson posted an op-ed by Shadia B. Drury, "Virtue Trumps Freedom."  Included were these observations,

When virtue becomes the supreme value in a society, the result is the criminalization of "sin" as defined by the sacred texts - and as these texts are interpreted by the powerful. You end up with a society that resembles the reign of the English Puritans in seventeenth-century England-they abolished Christmas because it was too much fun and there was too much pleasure and indulgence associated with it. Or you end up with a society that resembles the reign of the Taliban in Afghanistan of recent memory: no music; no dancing; no kite flying; no films; no female voices singing on the radio; no female voices broadcasting the news; and no female arms, ankles, or faces seen in public. All these harmless freedoms and pleasures are supposedly too obscene - unlike public executions, stoning, burning witches, or tormenting Jews. 

[…another] reason that biblical religions are an obstacle to free societies is their attachment to the concept of collective guilt. The biblical God tends to punish the whole community for the sins of the few. In fact, the biblical God brags about his penchant for that kind of justice: ". . . I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me . . ." (Exodus 20:5). Time and again, the anger falls on the whole community for the transgressions of some. Some of the Hebrew prophets, such as Jeremiah, rightly objected to this divine justice and looked forward to a new covenant in which "everyone shall die for his own iniquity" (Jeremiah 31:30). Ezekiel echoed the same principle (Ezekiel 18:20), but to no avail. When Jesus came, things got even worse. Jesus took it for granted that all men and women are justly condemned for the sins of their ancestors-Adam and Eve. Jesus supposedly came to bear the punishment that we justly deserve for original or inherited sin.

Moby Dick was a good book, and there are enlightening and interesting passages in the bible.  I’m sure the same can be said of the Jewish texts and the Islamic, but when oh when are we going to get over this need to elevate "the sacred" to anything more than a state of mind?  And what is the medieval attachment to the printed page that would make people of whatever faith rise up in anger if one were somehow construed as mistreating it?  Of course, I don’t get it about flags and the pledge of allegiance either.  I think this world needs more Jainists and fewer Janissaries.  (And no offense to these guys is intended.  They seem to be the exception that proves the rule).

E-mare-gan-see!  E-mare-gan-see!  Everyone to get from streets!

Roger that niner-niner, we have neener-neeners inbound on our tail.

This is Pot Boat calling Your Kettle back.  Mayday, dude…

A little Morris Dancing goes a long way I think, as does the Guenivere "month of yes-you-may" bullshit.  If it’s really Mayday, where’s the missile display in Red Square, I gotta ax you… how the mighty have slowed down.  And what have they got going in Kazakhstan?  Why is everybody and his godfather spending time in Kazakhstan?  I mean, I get it that Uzbekistan has gone into the torture contracting business, subbing out the American work through Blackwater, but what the hail is going on in Kazakhstan?  Yank, can you help me out here?  Mayday, mayday….

Well, we had hail today, and I think it’s hail from Baal and he is pissed that these absurd christians have made their move without Delay.  Of course down in Crawford County where Dave Koresh and GW have been known to hang out, the household god was mostly Moloch.  Pitch another christian baby in the fahr there Dave.  And conjure me a demon or two when you get the time. See if you can drum one up that looks lak thet Janet Reno.

Mayday, mayday, we’re auguring in here Bob, and the auguries suck, I gotta tell you.

Global Voices is an international effort to diversify the conversation
taking place online by involving speakers from around the world, and
developing tools, institutions and relationships to help make these
voices heard.

The Berkman Center’s MacKinnon and Zuckerman continue to enhance the Global Voices blog.  They’ve added a "world blog index and aggregator" as well as a daily "world blog round-up."

It all seems to be pivoting on the pox right now.  Do you think we have time to drive the madmen out of power before they unleash the plague on us?

Or maybe it’s not the plague at all.  Maybe it’s just some bad acid.

Here’s a fun little exercise.  Follow this link and then click on the link to the "english version."