Why The Saudi Envoy Really Went Home

Asia Times Online, Hong Kong

WHY THE SAUDI ENVOY REALLY WENT HOME

The Saudi ruling family has tried to convince the world that everything is just as it should be inside the kingdom in the two months since the ailing King Fahd was hospitalized with chronic pneumonia. But the resignation this week of Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to Washington for 22 years, and the announcement that he will be replaced by the current London ambassador, Prince Turki al-Faisal, heightens speculation that an announcement of the king's death is imminent. Bandar's dramatic return to Riyadh will allow him to jostle for position when Crown Prince Abdullah becomes king. … Indeed, the main reason behind the resignation of Prince Bandar is believed to be the friction-creating situation between him and Abdullah, and the latter's increasing dependence on Adel al-Jubair, his private counselor in Washington, for communicating messages to the US administration. Turki, meanwhile, is a brother of Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, who announced Bandar's resignation in Riyadh last week, even though Bandar had issued a statement denying the fact a week before. Saud is Abdullah's closest ally. The jostling for position has clearly begun. … Those waiting in the wings who are most disciplined and determined – and desperate to seize the oil wealth and claim all the prestige that comes with the governorship of the two holy shrines – are the followers of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden.

All Bullock. All The Time.

It was sandra's birthday on wednesday and i thought a little celebration was in order. so:
whoo hoo!
shake it mama!

and i think it only proper that i nominate sandra for official clelbrity muse of either Girls Gone Rogue or the Hootchie Fest. whichever. i'm not picky.

Fresno Bee Reported $1.5 Billion As Tax Cuts, Nothing Else

(a must read: Henry Waxman's letter that is highlighted and linked below)

DeLay Still Up To Dirty Tricks
Tom DeLay thinks the federal treasury is his personal piggy bank. DeLay slipped “a $1.5 billion giveaway to the oil industry, Halliburton, and Sugar Land, Texas” into the energy bill.
But this isn’t a normal case of government pork. DeLay has completely dispensed with the democratic process. From a letter Rep. Henry Waxman just sent Speaker Dennis Hastert:
The provision was inserted into the energy legislation after the conference was closed, so members of the conference committee had no opportunity to consider or reject this measure.
The $1.5 billion won’t be administered by the government by a private consortium in DeLay’s district:
The subtitle appears to steer the administration of 75% of the $1.5 billion fund to a private consortium located in the district of Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Ordinarily, a large fund like this would be administered directly by the government.
Hastert and DeLay need to explain themselves immediately. No member of Congress who takes taxpayer dollars seriously should vote for the energy bill until this matter is resolved.

the "mainstream press" has a long and illustrious history of not investigating stories until it's sure that readership will not fall off. now, after two years of photographic and anecdotal evidence, the numbers are beginning to add up in such a manner that publications like the washington post and new yahk times and time magazine and newsweek cannot afford to remain silent on the alleged mistreatment and/or torture of those people detained incommunicado by our government.
i wonder why it takes so long for the so-called bastions of freedom to take an interest in actual reporting if it's not because of the money. below are some of my other concerns about our current state of the union and the silence of the press up until recently:

• the karl rove/valerie plame leak hit the press over two years ago.
• the government's "faulty" WMD info happened in 2002.
• john kerry's vietnam war record was under attack (fraudulently) in 2000.
• john ashcroft recused himself from the rove investigation over a year ago when bloggers began reporting he might have been given inside info on the affair. no one has questioned him on his sudden departure from the investigation or asked about the so-called "conflict of interest".
• abu ghraib pictures surfaced two or so years ago and not one mainstream reporter went after it. or, if one did, the indepth story was quashed for a year.
• george bush said two years ago that anyone in his administration caught leaking sensitive info to the public would be fired. now he says anyone "convicted of the crime of leaking sensitive info to the public" will be fired.
• judith miller has chosen to go to jail rather than give up her sources for a story she never even wrote. matt cooper somehow was given a waiver by his sources. bob novak, who wrote the actual story that outed valerie plame/wilson, seems to have been given a free pass by the independent prosecutor.
• if cooper spoke with rove and scooter libby and somehow was given permission to speak their names to a grand jury, then who spoke with judith miller? it couldn't have been those two, could it? someone higher up, maybe? dick cheney (which is the punchline for the piercing joke they say bush likes to tell)?
• why are we now prosecuting sergeants in the prisoner abuse cases after two years? shouldn't we up to colonels by now?
• when is halliburton going to pay back the hundreds of millions of $$$ it overcharged the government (which is our tax money) instead of continuing to be given new contracts?
• are the women of Iraq and Afghanistan destined to remain chattel under their new U.S. backed governments? not that i could realistically argue against it if this is what these cultures have practiced for aeons. our government only seems to desire a semblance of democracy. it doesn't seem concerned with true democracy. true democracy might get in the way of oil, money and power. besides, if true democracy exists in Iraq, then it includes powersharing with Iran (which is perhaps the most ironic thing to happen so far).
• senate republicans are calling for an investigation into the rove/plame leak affair and (at the same time) an investigation into the special prosecutor's job of handling it. so far, the prosecutor has been given high marks by almost all involved. why, then, would he need investigating? no republican wanted kenneth starr "investigated" while he took a gander at monica's dress and claimed that clinton was satan.

these are just some of the things that don't really keep me up at night. but that's only because i promised in my first blog never to do this sober (and i've only broken that vow a number of times). the one thing that lets me sleep at night is the fact that i write this and then take 5 minutes to laugh like a hyena, throw my poop at passing cars like a chimpanzee, and pee all over my neighbor's bushes (because it confuses the hell out their dog the next morning). stress relief baby.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/26/AR2005072601792.html?sub=AR

and just so you know a bit more about karl rove, read this.

and today's white house briefing (parsed i must add).

so, tell me if you will and are worthy what you think of any of this. i shudder to think that i am almost alone in looking further into this morass than others. i would specifically enjoy input by soldiers or those who have been soldiers...and by "input" i don't mean the 'hey sailor' sort of thing, mustang.

i've always thought that children, as they reach alleged adulthood, will do anything to move as far away from their parents as possible (with the exception of the majority who would rather stay at home and sponge for as long as possible or move out and then back in ten years later due to a downsizing in their industry or a divorce or a spiritual rebirth in which they find that they never really knew their parents and now want to reconnect in a spongy manner or they're misunderstood artists working on the next earth shattering movement and need the comfort of manageable unemployment or they're drug fiends with no fixed income).
so, i was a little underprepared (to say the least) when my son dropped by this evening to let me in on the news that he is moving into a house a little over a block away. while this, in and of itself, is very good news as he and i seem to never see each other, i can't help but begin to envision the awkward situations which come into play. fortunately (for him, not me), my love life is (as they say) the size of squirrel nuts. unfortunately (for me, not him), my hermitage may just have gone by the wayside...not that i would expect him to be dropping in very often. after all, he's 18 and a so-called "anarchist" (but one of the nice ones).
seriously, i think this could be a very neat thing.
but still...weird in a Tower sort of way.

Hairy Polarity

from the Tim Todd Ministries comes this "hilariously entertaining" comic book that will, also, teach and enlighten you about the evils of the Harry Potter book series (specifically the godlessness and wizards and witches being seen as neutral instead of evil).
disclaimer: i've read all of the Potter books and enjoyed them to their full immensity without having bad dreams, wet dreams, moments of supernatural clarity, without having discovered hidden magical talents (i already know all of mine, thankyouverymuch) or the ability to fart in technicolor (i put this in only if j.k. rowling is reading my blog).
however, the comic book is available at www.truthforyouth.com.

the graphics look nice, don't they? although, i am wondering what the pig is all about...

and the treason beat goes on:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000991278

along with a bird's eye view of the Wilsons:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-07-24-wilson-neighbor_x.htm

SSM's A Made Man

stole this from the "i am not afraid" site, but it had to be done. i think you all should meet my capo tu nutti, the balls behind the brains. the next time you want to insult SSM, remember this picture. the ball may toll for you.

The Po-em

it's that time again, children. now, gather 'round and eat your ice cream quietly whilst uncle joel entertains you with another of his gentle and sweet works of the Word:

We have immaculate assholes.
we are stone cold sincere
when we fuck you.
where you can't smell
we are.

shitting
takes time
and runs flush with mortality.
arrest the atoms
and let the vacuum
sweep through.

i feel wilder
through her eyes,
the tickling of fangs
in her throat.
stilettos cackle
as i'm carried down
to her doom.

the silence then is element
and stark.

Who Are The Knuckleheads? We Are The Knuckleheads!

naomi klein reports on the continued violence in Haiti. check the last couple of paragraphs for Noriega's comments that sound eerily familiar to ones made about Osama bin Laden:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050801&s=klein

p.s. it's been 1407 days since preznit bush said osama bin laden was "wanted dead or alive".

Gap This

hey, wasn't nixon's gap only seventeen minutes long? bush's appears to be 36 hours:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/opinion/24rich.html?pagewanted=all

...and still champeen of da world...sandra bullock!!!