preface to today's footnotes to yesterday's Journal - I don't discuss politics and history all the time in person, so don't be afraid to socialize with me. Like if I was at SGVA bowling, I'd more likely discuss something like... I don't know... dick jokes.... I'm not likely to spiel on politics/ history with anyone (except maybe galvagin) in a conversation, as I don't profess to know much about it other than what I read. So don't worry.
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My yesterdays entry was so long it deserves a footnotes Journal!
nirvana454 harasses people No, I was just joking. I just met him, and he seems very nice. I think Ill refrain from jokin about sour Comments left in other peoples Journals from now on. Jokes are fun and all, but thats pretty iffy territory.
Hans Blix thought Iraq had WMDs Yeah, he thought they probably did, because they acted so evasive and disgruntled to the UN inspectors I mean, didnt you think they acted guilty? I did. I was also under the impression that we gave them chemical weapons to fight Iran. As for nuclear bombs, I just assumed anybody could make one; everyone knows the ingredients.
I love Hans Blix because he repeatedly said, in his Book TV appearance, Well, I like evidence. If you accuse a country of something, and plan on bombing them because of it, evidence is nice. Hans tried to gather this evidence; Rumsfeld and Cheney made his job impossible.
Ultimately, Im glad to see Hussein and his two most evil sons ousted. They murdered people at least into five figures, maybe into the 100,000-plus range. Udai Hussein was a vicious murderer/rapist/torturer, and I was glad to see him killed. Im ambivalent on the death penalty, but some people have to go.
But some 60,000 people have died in the Iraq war. Maybe the numbers a little lower, but also the country has become destabilized I dunno if the trade-off was worth it. How much mayhem occurred in the basically lawless months last year? Hospitals were looted clean. Museums with valuable Mesopotamian artifacts were ransacked. Would it be too presumptuous to assume many folks got killed, robbed, and raped during that time?
I was most scared by a 60 Minutes I saw before the war started, which outlined the assumed occurrences when US forces moved into Baghdad. It was given as a likelihood that Saddam would set off chemical weapons all around the city. I had visions of thousands of soldiers and people of the city dying, turning green, vomiting and coughing. An online friend and I speculated- if he had nukes, and was cornered, surely hed go out in a blaze of glory by nuking Jerusalem, or some such thing?
Well, then we get to the reality Carrie Brownstein described in the interview quotes I put in here yesterday- this sad looking little despot-murderer, in a hole, with his pistol, telling US soldiers he was ready to negotiate.
Boy, we were slightly wrong.
Armed forces estimates of wrongly-arrested Iraqis- You might hate to see stats quoted without sources. So do I. My copy of The New York Review of Books is at work. I plan on going over this section a bit more this week. If the numbers arent sourced well, Ill totally admit it!
Sleater-Kinney play death metal- Im just kidding. They actually play goth metal.
Hillary Clinton is crooked- You want evidence? You know , its funny, I really enjoy Christopher Hitchens polemic, No One Left to Lie to, Ive read it twice, but I have the damnedest time remembering exact info from it! Its an action-packed little book, and the paperback was expanded with info on Hillary (the hardcover was mostly just Bill).
Did you know that Clinton (as Arkansan attorney general) has been suspected of the rape of Juanita Broaddrick, a Democratic campaign worker, in 1978?
Heres part of (okay, most of) an editorial on the subject from an online pundit's website. [full disclosure She spelt Juanitas name wrong; Ive corrected it throughout.]
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I do see fine distinctions between the Jones, Willey, and Broaddrick stories. I've always suspected that he got his signals crossed with Jones; the scenario that makes the most sense is that he stupidly mistook her for a professional prostitute. And evidently he mistook the distraught Willey for a willing and eager Monica type. But Broaddrick's story cannot be explained away. Yet you should hear some of my feminist sisters saying lame things like "She shouldn't have let him into her hotel room."
She shouldn't have? Well, in retrospect I guess she shouldn't have, but remember, the venue was his suggestion. Broaddrick thought the meeting was arranged to discuss nursing home regulations. Men take meetings in their hotel rooms all the time. Why should Broaddrick have suspected that the earnest young pol was going to jump her the minute the door was closed? Okay, we have to concede that women still can't claim the privileges that men take for granted, like take a meeting in a hotel room without worrying whether it looks like an open invitation to rape or seduction, but feminists should not be blaming Broaddrick for Bill Clinton's egregious misreading of her intentions. Rapists always say, "Gee, I thought that's what she wanted."
It's endlessly fascinating to speculate about the Clintons' loveless, sexless marriage, and to ponder the terms of the unholy bargain that brought them to the top of the heap, but the real mystery is how the charmer managed to convince vast numbers of people he's the living embodiment of all the serious concerns articulated by women and blacks without doing damn much of anything at all. So he plays golf with Vernon Jordan and chose Betty Currie as his personal secretary-- we're supposed to consider this a sign of progress? In truth, he blithely used these loyal intimates to carry out his procurements, and then, when things started to blow, he used them again in a pathetic attempt to cover his tracks.
Yes, Clinton has appointed more women to big jobs than any other president in history and that's nothing to snivel at, but rather than view a handful of high-profile women as some sort of blessed gift from on high, I see the appointments as one small result of thirty years of feminist agitation. Yes, he's held the line on abortion, but any Democratic president would have done the same thing. Now let's look at a few examples of how Clinton let us down so swiftly we could only gasp: signing the oppressive welfare bill, dropping Lani Guinier like a hot potato, firing the remarkable Jocelyn Elders for daring to mention masturbation (how's that for hypocrisy?), endorsing the Don't Ask/Don't Tell policy for the military, letting Janet Reno get away with the inferno at Waco, vetoing the needle-exchange legislation, ordering air strikes on two small, troubled countries to show he's the Free World's great macho leader.
On balance, his record is atrocious.
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oh, I did say I was gonna talk about Hillary, right? Well, the accusations against her are lesser, and not as easily searchable on the net but I will brush up on that last chapter of Hitchens book and comment on it some time soon.
John Kerry has a horse face- Im sorry. I dont seriously believe that. I dont go around commenting on peoples looks so tackily. I just thought it made for a funny insult, and tied in to Carries animal mentions. I did watch the Belmont Stakes yesterday, and damned if none of the horses look that much like Kerry. He does look like the Andrew Jackson portrait on the 20 dollar bill, though.
Sometimes, I feel like I have too-big cheekbones and too-wide jaw, a bad nose, bad skin, and am fat as a house. I know looks can make one self-conscious. I dont want to make John cry every time he comes in to read my Journal.
Henry Kissinger shat on the White house lawn I have pics to prove it, but theyre blurry and dont scan well; sorry!
Smarty Jones and the Calgary Flames- This is another reason why Ive toned down my sports-watching; it sucks to get all let down, and Ive become a bit of a jinx to teams/ people/ horses.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
My yesterdays entry was so long it deserves a footnotes Journal!
nirvana454 harasses people No, I was just joking. I just met him, and he seems very nice. I think Ill refrain from jokin about sour Comments left in other peoples Journals from now on. Jokes are fun and all, but thats pretty iffy territory.
Hans Blix thought Iraq had WMDs Yeah, he thought they probably did, because they acted so evasive and disgruntled to the UN inspectors I mean, didnt you think they acted guilty? I did. I was also under the impression that we gave them chemical weapons to fight Iran. As for nuclear bombs, I just assumed anybody could make one; everyone knows the ingredients.
I love Hans Blix because he repeatedly said, in his Book TV appearance, Well, I like evidence. If you accuse a country of something, and plan on bombing them because of it, evidence is nice. Hans tried to gather this evidence; Rumsfeld and Cheney made his job impossible.
Ultimately, Im glad to see Hussein and his two most evil sons ousted. They murdered people at least into five figures, maybe into the 100,000-plus range. Udai Hussein was a vicious murderer/rapist/torturer, and I was glad to see him killed. Im ambivalent on the death penalty, but some people have to go.
But some 60,000 people have died in the Iraq war. Maybe the numbers a little lower, but also the country has become destabilized I dunno if the trade-off was worth it. How much mayhem occurred in the basically lawless months last year? Hospitals were looted clean. Museums with valuable Mesopotamian artifacts were ransacked. Would it be too presumptuous to assume many folks got killed, robbed, and raped during that time?
I was most scared by a 60 Minutes I saw before the war started, which outlined the assumed occurrences when US forces moved into Baghdad. It was given as a likelihood that Saddam would set off chemical weapons all around the city. I had visions of thousands of soldiers and people of the city dying, turning green, vomiting and coughing. An online friend and I speculated- if he had nukes, and was cornered, surely hed go out in a blaze of glory by nuking Jerusalem, or some such thing?
Well, then we get to the reality Carrie Brownstein described in the interview quotes I put in here yesterday- this sad looking little despot-murderer, in a hole, with his pistol, telling US soldiers he was ready to negotiate.
Boy, we were slightly wrong.
Armed forces estimates of wrongly-arrested Iraqis- You might hate to see stats quoted without sources. So do I. My copy of The New York Review of Books is at work. I plan on going over this section a bit more this week. If the numbers arent sourced well, Ill totally admit it!
Sleater-Kinney play death metal- Im just kidding. They actually play goth metal.
Hillary Clinton is crooked- You want evidence? You know , its funny, I really enjoy Christopher Hitchens polemic, No One Left to Lie to, Ive read it twice, but I have the damnedest time remembering exact info from it! Its an action-packed little book, and the paperback was expanded with info on Hillary (the hardcover was mostly just Bill).
Did you know that Clinton (as Arkansan attorney general) has been suspected of the rape of Juanita Broaddrick, a Democratic campaign worker, in 1978?
Heres part of (okay, most of) an editorial on the subject from an online pundit's website. [full disclosure She spelt Juanitas name wrong; Ive corrected it throughout.]
-----
I do see fine distinctions between the Jones, Willey, and Broaddrick stories. I've always suspected that he got his signals crossed with Jones; the scenario that makes the most sense is that he stupidly mistook her for a professional prostitute. And evidently he mistook the distraught Willey for a willing and eager Monica type. But Broaddrick's story cannot be explained away. Yet you should hear some of my feminist sisters saying lame things like "She shouldn't have let him into her hotel room."
She shouldn't have? Well, in retrospect I guess she shouldn't have, but remember, the venue was his suggestion. Broaddrick thought the meeting was arranged to discuss nursing home regulations. Men take meetings in their hotel rooms all the time. Why should Broaddrick have suspected that the earnest young pol was going to jump her the minute the door was closed? Okay, we have to concede that women still can't claim the privileges that men take for granted, like take a meeting in a hotel room without worrying whether it looks like an open invitation to rape or seduction, but feminists should not be blaming Broaddrick for Bill Clinton's egregious misreading of her intentions. Rapists always say, "Gee, I thought that's what she wanted."
It's endlessly fascinating to speculate about the Clintons' loveless, sexless marriage, and to ponder the terms of the unholy bargain that brought them to the top of the heap, but the real mystery is how the charmer managed to convince vast numbers of people he's the living embodiment of all the serious concerns articulated by women and blacks without doing damn much of anything at all. So he plays golf with Vernon Jordan and chose Betty Currie as his personal secretary-- we're supposed to consider this a sign of progress? In truth, he blithely used these loyal intimates to carry out his procurements, and then, when things started to blow, he used them again in a pathetic attempt to cover his tracks.
Yes, Clinton has appointed more women to big jobs than any other president in history and that's nothing to snivel at, but rather than view a handful of high-profile women as some sort of blessed gift from on high, I see the appointments as one small result of thirty years of feminist agitation. Yes, he's held the line on abortion, but any Democratic president would have done the same thing. Now let's look at a few examples of how Clinton let us down so swiftly we could only gasp: signing the oppressive welfare bill, dropping Lani Guinier like a hot potato, firing the remarkable Jocelyn Elders for daring to mention masturbation (how's that for hypocrisy?), endorsing the Don't Ask/Don't Tell policy for the military, letting Janet Reno get away with the inferno at Waco, vetoing the needle-exchange legislation, ordering air strikes on two small, troubled countries to show he's the Free World's great macho leader.
On balance, his record is atrocious.
-----
oh, I did say I was gonna talk about Hillary, right? Well, the accusations against her are lesser, and not as easily searchable on the net but I will brush up on that last chapter of Hitchens book and comment on it some time soon.
John Kerry has a horse face- Im sorry. I dont seriously believe that. I dont go around commenting on peoples looks so tackily. I just thought it made for a funny insult, and tied in to Carries animal mentions. I did watch the Belmont Stakes yesterday, and damned if none of the horses look that much like Kerry. He does look like the Andrew Jackson portrait on the 20 dollar bill, though.
Sometimes, I feel like I have too-big cheekbones and too-wide jaw, a bad nose, bad skin, and am fat as a house. I know looks can make one self-conscious. I dont want to make John cry every time he comes in to read my Journal.
Henry Kissinger shat on the White house lawn I have pics to prove it, but theyre blurry and dont scan well; sorry!
Smarty Jones and the Calgary Flames- This is another reason why Ive toned down my sports-watching; it sucks to get all let down, and Ive become a bit of a jinx to teams/ people/ horses.
VIEW 18 of 18 COMMENTS
...which is disappointing.
I'm afraid I don't actually recognise some of the names/references in your comment, not being an American and all... Jack Black, though: I hadn't even heard of him until I saw The School of Rock but, what can I say, this film made me cry for joy...
Believe me, I was no beacon of mental health during my 20s. But gosh, those were the times when every vice did not promise a punishment.