sfarber

In a comment below, reader Sarah asks whay sort of October surprise/dirty trick Karl Rove has up his sleeve now that the debates are over. Well, as usual, Palm Beach County tells us pretty much all we need to know: Florida’s electronic voting machines just don’t work under conditions of heat or humidity (or frequently, at all). Got that? A state famous for its heat and humidity has installed a balloting system that malfunctions… under conditions of heat and humidity. After 2000, many Americans lost confidence in our electoral system. Let’s just say, a lot of indications like this are...

I must say, showing up as a “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot” in the first two or three rounds cost Kid Kerry some points, although based on scoring by the fifth and sixth round, your talking dog would have ultimately awarded a split decision to Kid Kerry over No Gentleman George in last night’s presidential debate in Tempe, AZ. Frankly, I resent having to listen to Kerry at all (thank you Iowa), but making me hear his stump speech bullshit in response to an easy question that presented big-time scoring opportunities made me want to puke. Worse, Bush came right...

Iraqi interim premier Iyad Allawi suggested that he and the mighty Iraqi military would launch its own operation against the good people of Fallujah if they did not turn over terrorist mastermind al-Zarqawi. Yes, he said at first, he would ask nicely, but not to make him mad, lest he have to go all Shiite on the mostly Sunni population of Fallujah (sight of the dragging of the corpses of four American contract workers last year, and lots of other nasty insurgent activity, and a city largely abandoned to the locals by the American occupation force). I guess asking nicely...

Massoud Barzani, the effective political leader of the autonomous Kurdish population in Iraq, has said that the Kurds will fight for the (oil rich) city of Kirkuk, if necessary. Basically, this is sort of a microcosm of the big picture in Iraq. Sunnis are the principal “insurgents” for two reasons: (1) they know that the Shia majority will not only invoke pay-back for the abuses of the Saddam regime, but will cut them out of their heretofore privileged position in the pecking order, and (2) the “foreign fighters” (imported terrorists) are generally Sunnis– and, since they are indeed A.Q. allies...

The United Nations agency charged with oversight of nuclear proliferation is expressing “concern” over the “disappearance” of various pieces of nuclear-program related equipment and “some material” from Iraqi facilities. The disappearance and/or los of accountability of Iraqi nuclear materials all took place after the American led war of aggression against the Iraqi people. Among the highlights: even after we secured control of Iraq, we refused to allow UN monitors in to the facilities they previously oversaw (until this day, I believe). Do you have that? Depressingly, John Kerry seems more concerned with covering his own ass in having voted for...

I’m saddened to learn of the death of Christopher Reeve at age 52, from heart failure caused by complications from quadriplegia. As you all know, Reeve, an actor best known for playing Superman in the movie series of that name, was paralyzed from the neck down after a horseback riding accident nine years ago. Rather than fade away and die, as a lesser man might have, horrifying circumstance intervened and Reeve went from being a make-believe super-hero and drove him to become a real one, as he used his public stature to lobby and publicize the plight of those in...

Let’s hear it for that “freedom and democracy” in good old neglected Afghanistan, where President Bush insists is miraculous in that “10 million people, nearly half of them women, registered to vote”. Well, all 15 of the candidates opposing interim American-backed-semi-puppet and fulltime shakedown artist Hamed Karzai announced that they are boycotting the “election” in protest of a VERY low tech way that Karzai and his crew(presumably– no– fuck that– ALMOST CERTAINLY– in conjunction with the Bush Administration) chose to rig this “election”. Really too bad: violence had broken out with the Taliban hoping to undermine the election, and lots...

Two explosions ripped through resorts in the Egyptian (Sinai) town of Taba, killing dozens, injuring hundreds, with dozens more missing. Hotels at the resort were packed with Israeli holiday-goers, and I suspect that when this is sorted out, this will prove to be one of the worst, if not the worst, terrorist attacks ever directed at Israelis. Think of Taba as an Israeli version of Tijuana: it’s a border town, conveniently located in a Third World country. The Egyptians maintained security in the area that ranged from lax to non-existent. Sadly, Israelis fleeing fortress Israel failed to account for this....

The good old House Ethics Committee issued a “stern rebuke” to the House Majority Leader and enemy of the Constitution Tom DeLay, over charges involving, among other things, using the FAA to attempt to track a private plane carrying Texas state senators out of the state to avoid a legislative quorum for Tom DeLay’s Congressional gerrymandering scheme, and for soliciting money for that scheme under some kind of improper pretense. Other “more serious” charges involving, oh, bribery and solicitation of bribes were… “tabled”. This was deLay’s second “rebuke” in a week, and his third overall. I understand he places these...

Picking up from David Kay, Chief American Weapons Inspector Charles Duelfer released his long awaited report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction today, with the report concluding what yours truly told you for the better part of a year before the war of aggression against the Iraqi people in 2003: Saddam had bubkes. In short, no stockpiles of nucular weapons, no bio-hazards, no chemical weapons: no nothing. A few balsa wood air-drones that the President’s minions tried to equate with ICBMs, some programs that stopped dead in the 1990’s, and otherwise: nothing. Oh wait– once sanctions were lifted, and international...