Here's what I found the most sickening, and even one good thing, about the president's State of the Union address last night:

1) His remarks about constitutionally banning gay marriage. This is a HATE CRIME, and I think a president ought not participate in that.

2) His constant praise for FDR -- whose great plan for the poor, Social Security, Bush plans to ruin for the gain of the wealthy.

3) The teary theater of that KIA's mother hugging the Iraqi voter. How hard did they have to look to find a pro-Bush Iraqi?

And the one thing I liked about it was his again saying there should be a Palestinian state. He's said that all along. But it should be noted he hasn't lifted a finger about it in four years, and really it's the biggest sore spot in the minds of all the Middle East.

Are we racing toward war with the Ayatollah? Here's a list of everything Bush has said about Iran in all his State of the Union addresses (Clinton, in 2000, was the only other post-Cold War president to mention Iran, in 2000. See below):

2005: Today, Iran remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror -- pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve. We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment program and any plutonium reprocessing, and end its support for terror. And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you.

2004: America and the international community are demanding that Iran meet its commitments and not develop nuclear weapons. America is committed to keeping the world's most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the most dangerous regimes.

2003: Different threats require different strategies. In Iran, we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction, and supports terror. We also see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty and human rights and democracy. Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government and determine their own destiny -- and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom.

2002: Iran aggressively pursues these weapons [of mass destruction] and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.

2001: (Inaugural address, no mention)

2000 (Clinton): We must meet this threat by making effective agreements to restrain nuclear and missile programs in North Korea, curbing the flow of lethal technology to Iran, preventing Iraq from threatening its neighbors, increasing our preparedness against chemical and biological attack, protecting our vital computer systems from hackers and criminals, and developing a system to defend against new missile threats, while working to preserve our ABM missile treaty with Russia. We must do all these things.

As some diligent readers of this blog know, J. Scott Barnard is probably our most conservative commenter.  His comments are always welcome as an antidote to our generally centrist ravings.  But even he must be dismayed by what the White House had to say today to L.A. Times reporters about their plan to “fix” Social Security by privatizing it:

In a significant shift in his rationale for the accounts, Bush dropped his claim that they would help solve Social Security's fiscal problems — a link he sometimes made during last year's presidential campaign. Instead, he said the individual accounts were desirable because they would be "a better deal," providing workers what he said would be a higher rate of return and "greater security in retirement."

A Bush aide, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity, was more explicit, saying that the individual accounts would do nothing to solve the system's long-term financial problems.

That candid analysis, although widely shared by economists, distressed some Republicans.

"Oh, my God," one GOP political strategist said when he learned of the shift in rhetoric. "The White House has made a lot of Republicans walk the plank on this. Now it sounds as if they are sawing off the board."

That's right--even the White House now admits that its strategy to “fix” Social Security won't even solve the problem at all.  So if this isn't a solution--why even apply the fix?  Ask the money manangers of Wall Street.

Update: If you are interested in reading more from Scott, check out his conservative blog, Burton Terrace.  Just don't expect tons of posts this weekend--the Supa Bowl is in his home town of Jacksonville, FLA.

I was encouraged by the news coming out of Iraq yesterday, although I knew the cheerleading and overly optimistic numbers (you mean that 8 million voters figure is just a guess?) coming out wouldn't hold up at the end of the day.  Since most American journalists never really leave their hotels in the Green Zone, it may be awhile before we have the full picture, probably sometime after the next declared turning point in our occupation of Iraq.  As much as we have to applaud the Iraqi people (ie. Kurds and Shiites), I think we need to take a look at this post over at Kos before we start patting ourselves on the back too strenuously.

What comes around, goes around.....  

Today's headline in the Washington Times: Joy Explodes Across Iraq. 

It just takes a minute to think about what you are about to put on your front page, fellas.

Let's hear it for the Iraqis, who, despite the bungling of the last two years by the Bush Administration, seem to be hell-bent on taking the reins of their own country away from the idiots who have held it regardless of the dangers.

I miss the Ramones.

Cheney at Auschwitz:

Bonzo at Bitburg:

The torch passes.

This Iron Mouth Editor lives in Washington, D.C.  Here in D.C. rumors of a pending draft in April have begun to swirl.  Rumor has it that the draft will be from the ages of 22-37(?!) and that it will start in April.  If it happens, you heard it here first.

A letter from the Jarrar's:

Friday, January 21st, 2005
Good evening….
These are the days of Al- Adha’a Feast, I wish you many happy returns… and hope the next feast would arrive, with Iraq in the best condition, and all Iraqis would be in peace, security, and welfare. I see this as a far-off dream….but I shall never stop praying, working, and waiting, to fulfill this dream….
I cried on the eve of the Feast, while I was in my hotel room, at the Dead Sea, to attend a Conference about Iraqi Societies and their Funding. I remembered the preceding years, when were a whole family, Azzam and I, and the boys; Raid, Majid, and Khalid… we used to go shopping before the Feast, to buy new clothes, sweets, chocolates, and juice, to present to our guests… and Azzam used to distribute the “I’diaa = Feast Pocket Money” to the family members, on the morning of the Feast… then we would gather at the house of the elder brother, exchanging greetings, then, on the other days we would visit more friends and relatives…until the Feast vacation would end… but today…Azzam is in America, on business with a company, Raid is visiting the U.A.E. with his Fiancé, Majid is in Canada, I am in Amman, and Khalid is in Baghdad… I cried bitterly, sadly… I miss my family, my house, and my neighbors. I miss my friends and colleagues at work, my naughty cat, and everything there…
I do not know when I’ll be back, and when we will all gather again, in a secure, settled country, with a clear, shiny future.

Please Read: Across Baghdad, Security Is Only An Ideal.

Bush, today: 

And it's exciting times for the Iraqi people.

Iraqis Agree:

The second-in-command at the neighboring Iraqi Army base called Camp Chindit, Colonel Hassan Mazzid, thinks the real problems will not emerge until the results of the poll are released.

"We think some people want to win the election by force," he noted. "Some lists will succeed at the polls and some will fail. We think some who fail in the election might make trouble because, as you know, democracy is new to Iraq."

Shuffle Play Wisdom:
Commando - The Ramones

they do their best,they do what they can
they get them ready for viet nam

from old hanoi to east berlin
commando - involved again
they do their best, they do what they can
they get them ready for viet nam

first rule is: the laws of germany
second rule is: be nice to mommy
third rule is: don't talk to commies
fourth rule is: eat kosher salamis

Uncle Tupelo - Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down

Satan, your kingdom must come down
Satan, your kingdom must come down
I heard the voice of Jesus say
Satan, your kingdom must come down

If I was a religious man, I'd say were living in the end times.  Unfortunately we're not that lucky.

With today's horrible day in Iraq, where 36 soldiers and Marines died, over 1400 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq.  That's means that 90% of the troops killed so far in Iraq fell after the “end of major combat operations.”  This includes 43 soldiers and Marines killed in the last two days alone.  Time to go.

Update: Now 37 killed today.

I was caught in front of the television last evening as part of one of our house's weekly dinners.  I was forced to watch 24, a show whose shaky cam around-corners-Glock action has never attracted me.  As I watched the first half hour, I got upset at the portrayal of the Muslim family at the core of the terrorist cell that ex-heroin-addict-crack-shot-sleeping-with-SecDef's-Daughter protagonist Jack Bauer was tracking down.  Seems they were so dedicated to their cause that they would acquiesce in the death of their own child.  My roommates and I railed at evil Fox perpetuating the worst stereotypes of Muslims in this country. 

But then I was shocked.  The writers of 24 decided to let us inhale a whiff of reality.  The Secretary of Defense, ably portrayed in slicked-hair fashion by “with extreme prejudice” king William Devane - ordered his own hippie son tortured in order to get potential information from him regarding the terrorists' last atrocity - a kidnapping and trial of the SecDef himself. 

Fox's bow to reality included a closing shot of the longhaired son being tortured by some sort of salad bowl and silver ski-goggle apparatus and crying out in pain. 

I must say I was impressed.  They showed how we can be bad guys.  If only the rest of America could admit that. 

A search of the show's website shows that the forum participants are now involved in a big debate over torture and whether it should be used in a democracy.  Bravo 24!

 

Recently, there has been interest in the new art form of Amazon customer reviews.  The greatest of these weave pop-culture knowsits humor and downright insanity into a compelling tapestry which transcends both the item reviewed and the E-commerce inanity of Amazon. 

One of the greatest practitioners is “vnggh”  who gives his location as Kenya, Getmeapepsi.  vnggh's command of the language and the pop-culture idiom surpasses all other Amazon reviewers.  Take, for example, his review of Dylan's Blonde on Blonde:

Approximate to what Milan Kundera dubs "the lyrical phase" in LIFE IS ELSEWHERE, and not incommensurate with recent studies concerning myolin in the human adult and how it relates to language centers in the brain, there seems to be a phase which many young artists go through which, in simplified terms, goes from (a) in love with language and too explodent therewith to really be controlling it, to (b) in touch for the first time with mortality and therefore momentarily bereft of language (because it expresses the living but seemingly cannot go past our ends, to (c) returning to life with some conscious inkling of death and thereby a far more prudent way with language (i.e., why say it, if you can't prove it at least to yourself?) -- stipulating that facility with the vernacular can be directly proprotional to ignorance of mortality might be a bit too heavy-handed for an amazon.com review (even if Bob's lyrics would probably somewhere vindicate me in this, just as they could probably somewhere vindicate just about anybody with anything), but I have to maintain that in my own scatterbrained opinion, "Blonde on Blonde" is the last outpouring of a man more in love with what words can do than with he himself can do (and the motorcycle accident would rear him out of that dilletante mindset forthwith). Above and beyond that, though, it's one of the most emotionally tweaking albums ever made, there's not a bad song on here, and I hope I'm never so broke again that I have to sell my copy.  

vnngh's breadth is also amazing:  He reviews books with equal aplomb:  Take his review of Pynchon's Vineland:

 Not as awful as everyone said..., April 11, 2000
...or perhaps all those years of amyl nitrate poppers have compromised my sense of smell. But I don't think so. The 70s and 80s were in many ways defined by their ambiguities, their polylayered deceits which hid still more deceits, and the pertinent sense that a sort of cultural rubicon had been crossed -- people were supersaturated, viewing the ten million options for What To Do Next from the rictus of a rec-room sofa

Poetry does not escape him either.  Here he review's a translation of Rimbaud:

Though her translations are flawed and somewhat dated, Louise Varese still has not been topped as a the bringer-into-English of lil' Arther R.'s thorny prose-poems. Her versions remain closer in spirit to the originals than any of the later translations, most of which (if you'll pardon my French) suck, from the bland lazy word-for-word of the Penguin Classics edition, to the innumerable "interpreters" (Paul Schmidt and his shameless ilk) who make of his poems what they will (sometimes to further lengths than JR Ullman did with "The Day On Fire") and then call their work "translations."

vvngh's best work however, is in his rips--his review of The Apple Dumpling Gang is a case in point:

A gut-wrenching tour de force of latterday film noir, February 11, 2000
Like being kicked in the head by the Budweiser Clydestale team, one at a time, then stretched out on a makeshift rack and tattooed with the indisputable evidence of one's own sins ala Franz Kafka's "In the Penal Colony." Knotts is, literally, among the cinema's most spine-chilling villains in his role as the pederasst/rustler kidnapping innocent young boys from the rustic frontier town and selling them into brute harem slavery aboard a renegade Chinese junk, then slinking home to the seedy Burroughsian morph habit which is the only thing keeping his oily, tortured conscience at bay... Small wonder that John Cassavetes numbered this film among his Top 5, despite the weak supporting cast who seem, to a one, unable to do ought but pale and shrimble in the long dark shadow cast by Knotts. That said, I cannot call this film a pleasurable viewing experience -- but an educational one, undoubtedly, it remains, even unto the brave new century in which we all suddenly find ourselves.

I tried my best to continue in vnngh's footsteps.  My review of the JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank is below:

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

Saved My Job, January 14, 2005

Reviewer:

Don "Don H." (Washington D.C.) - See all my reviews

Been having some problems lately. Seems a lot of people are criticizing me for not having provided enough armor or thinking through things generally. But we're sort of tapped out, having given all of our money away to our rich friends. So Con suggested that I try Amazon. So I said what the hell.  I was surprised. "These things are so cheap Dick!" I said. So I bought 1500. [...] They'll be so happy, and I'll get to keep my job.