Month: June 2007

A gay man grapples with the post-"Will and Grace" world:

Last Monday night, a woman at a bar came up to me and asked me if I was single. Not to disparage her, but let’s just say I was happy to shut her down right away with an abrupt "I’m gay." And you know what? THAT DID NOT DETER HER.

She LIT up and said, "We can go shopping together and you can watch me play with myself with my Rabbit."

Ugggggghhhh … Do you ever not even know where to begin?

I wanted to say, "Yes, please, I am in the habit of befriending bar skanks in the first ten seconds of talking to them. And despite my lack of sexual attraction to women, I would simply LOVE to watch you get yourself off. JACKPOT!"

As far as the shopping thing goes: I love saying "I’m not really into shopping" and I just stand back and wait for their heads to explode. Their precious "Will and Grace" never prepared them for that possibility!

I hate shopping too.

Here’s an important reminder that Congress clearly never intended the Patriot Act to be a broad sanction for rounding up terror suspects without charges and detaining them indefinitely as a guard against terrorism. Money quote:

Long story short, in the weeks following 9/11, the Bush administration pushed hard for the authorization to use military force domestically and later for express statutory authority to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely without process. And although Congress was under enormous political pressure to act quickly and was clearly willing to rubberstamp most of the administration’s requests, it pushed back and ultimately rejected the administration’s efforts on both occasions. The AUMF did not authorize military force within the United States and the Patriot Act provided the government with only the authority to detain “terrorist aliens” like al-Marri for up to 7 days without process, at which point it must commence either deportation or criminal proceedings (though, interestingly, a never-yet-utilized provision of the Act arguably allows the government to continue holding “terrorists aliens” more or less indefinitely, subject to certain certifications).

Despite this clear legislative history, the government’s lawyers now claim that, in passing the AUMF, Congress granted the administration powers that it quite clearly did not intend to grant, including powers it specifically rejected during the debate over the Patriot Act, which began almost as soon as the AUMF was passed. Fortunately, the Fourth Circuit saw this argument for what it was, a particularly brazen example of revisionist history.

Even this, of course, was limited to immgrants. Jose Padilla was a US citizen, arrested on American soil, and detained without charge (with charges of torture) for years.

Cracked.com compiles the "The 5 Most Obviously Drug-Fueled TV Appearances Ever." James Brown comes in at Number 4:

Andrew Hagan reminisces:

I have to tell you it wasn’t really the library that made me a writer. That dubious accolade must surely go to the film of Doctor Zhivago. My brothers and I were always hanging around our house at night looking for things to burn, but this night I found myself watching Dr Zhivago. There’s a scene in that movie when Omar Sharif comes gliding down the stairs in a flowing dressing gown, Omar Sharif, you know, following his rather impressive moustache down the stairs. Well, he arrives in this room – a giant study, you know, French windows, flowery armchairs, the lot. He sits down at this elegant ecritoir and looks out of the windows, where he sees, in quick succession, a host of daffodils, a bank of snow, a full moon and a herd of deer. (God bless Hollywood.) Anyhow, I’m watching this with wide eyes. Next thing he lifts up a feather pen and – without any ink blotches or crossings out or mistakes, and it takes him about 3.4 nanoseconds – he writes the ‘Sonnet to Lara’.  After which he goes upstairs and goes to bed with Julie Christie. I remember watching that very closely and thinking, "I could do that."

It took sanctions and Saddam twenty years to extinguish Iraq’s economic growth. The 2003 invasion was merely a punctuation point in collapse. Here’s an in-depth survey. One fascinating nugget observed by the Arabist is the following:

Throughout the 1990s, most of Iraq’s oil was transported in relatively small tanker trucks — to Jordan and Turkey with dispensation from Washington and undercover to Syria and the Gulf. As the pipelines to Turkey and the Gulf were turned back on in 2003, most of these truckers — many of whom had close ties with, and indeed colleagues in, neighboring countries — were out of a job. Hence, it is not surprising to learn that pipeline attacks "are now orchestrated by [insurgents and criminal gangs] to force the government to import and distribute as much fuel as possible using thousands of tanker trucks."

What exactly the diverse and fissiparous insurgency really is will probaly only be known by future historians. In this, as in so much else, Iraq is essentially a mystery.

What was the head of Central Command’s response to news that torture, rape and murder had been widespread at a major detainee center under his command in Iraq? Launch a massive investigation to find out what had gone wrong? Find and punish every commander in the chain of command for some of the most appalling violations of humane warfare in U.S. history? Nah. Once a tightly controlled investigation had been issued – an investigation specifically denied the power to seek responsibility up the chain of command – president Bush’s top military aide in Iraq had the following encounter with the report’s author, general Taguba:

A few weeks after his report became public, Taguba, who was still in Kuwait, was in the back seat of a Mercedes sedan with Abizaid. Abizaid’s driver and his interpreter, who also served as a bodyguard, were in front. Abizaid turned to Taguba and issued a quiet warning: "You and your report will be investigated."

"I wasn’t angry about what he said but disappointed that he would say that to me," Taguba said. "I’d been in the Army thirty-two years by then, and it was the first time that I thought I was in the Mafia."

That’s because Taguba, tragically, was indeed working for a commander-in-chief whose illegal torture regime required the same levels of violence, lawlessness and inhmanity as the mob. More on this expose of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld war crimes tomorrow.

(Photo: Alex Wong/Getty.)

Bethel, Alaska, 4.45 pm.

For an interactive gallery of Dish readers’ window views across the world, click here.

And autumn came so soon. Matt revisits some neocon gloating.

Say what you want about Ron Paul’s supporters, but they sure are enthusiastic.