Posts filed under 'Afghanistan'
Artus Register
Christine Fernandez, President of Argentina, recently announced that eating grilled pork is more effective than the erectile dysfunction drug Viagr, according to the UK’s The Independent.
Tucking into a pork chop with her husband, [M]s Fernández raised an eyebrow and declared that it was “all good”, adding that rumours of the meat’s aphrodisiac qualities “might be right”.
As an unapologetic socialist, it is doubtful that Ferdandez’ husband, former Argentine president Nestor Kirchner, ever needed any help screwing people. His wife, however, seems more comfortable lubricating her horrific ideas with attempted humor and pretended sexiness. The president used the quip about her alleged discovery of the surprising side-effects of grilled pork to soften the announcement that she is supporting government payments to farmers in exchange for not raising pigs. So on the one hand, she is encouraging pork consumption, and on the other, her government is taking action to keep the price of the other white meat artificially elevated.
With the time up for repayment of $13 billion of debt, it may not be the best time for an increasingly unpopular head of state to introduce new spending programs. But it may be a great time for Argentinians to stop electing swine.
January 30th, 2010
admin
The truth isn’t always pretty, popular, or palpable. But it remains the truth. In many areas, the truth is sacrificed for the closely guarded alternative realities of “conventional” wisdom; particularly in times like these. As Senator Hiram Warren Johnson once said, “Truth is the first casualty of war.”
Indeed.
While the claim is rampant, and the sacredity of the cow unquestionable, the reality of our American military personnel is much different. Those fighting a phantom enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan are not fighting for our freedom. Those dying in those theaters of wartime absurdity have not been killed in the service of their country, nor have they made, as is often said, the ultimate sacrifice for we the living.
Though it is much less poetic, and devoid of the tearful, pride-swollen romance of popular sentiment, the dead Americans in the pointless and illegal conflict in Iraq, and the nation-building experiment in Afghanistan have died not for freedom, but for its opposite. These lives have been sacrificed for government. The deaths are part of a not-so-secret neo-conservative plan to remake the world in the shape of “big government conservatism,” (ala PNAC) and to give the United nations a permanent place in the Middle East, another swipe at US sovereignty and step giant leap toward global government.
There was never the slightest threat to U.S. national security posed by a prostrate Iraq, too weakened by sanctions to seriously concern any nation. Without a threat, there can be no protection. Without protection there is no glamorous hero’s death died by our betrayed countrymen.
The other war is at once different and similar. It would matter were our focus on al-Qaeda. But our military is instead focused on spraying Roundup on poppy fields (which drives up the price of heroin, and thus increases drug-related crime domestically), and chasing disorganized remnants of the Taliban, even after we trained an army and installed a government to do this very thing.
It will be said that some vast conspiracy succeeded in hiding the illusive WMDs in Iraq, and that the Taliban may justly be pursued unto the ends of the earth for harboring al-Qaeda operatives (apparently Pakistan harboring such terrorists is permissible).
Other than actually pursuing al-Qaeda in the months after 9/11, one would search in vain for a time since World War II that American military personnel died while protecting the rest of us from a real enemy. This sad reality does not result in fewer claims to the contrary.
So on this Memorial Day, when we are asked to quietly believe the deceit of our “leaders,” and listen silently to the warm, fuzzy lies of all who wish to sound patriotic by repeating the fictions that allow the state to demand more pointless deaths, we should pause to reflect on the reality. We should neither weep in silence, nor nod in agreement. We should instead demand a return to the just war theory, and insist that elected officials charged with commanding our brave men and women in uniform place them in harm’s way solely in the defense of the Republic; not for the benefit of foreign tyrants, blue flags of despotism, or the revived, frightening call for empire.
May 25th, 2009
Artus Register
In an apparently attempt to publish important news, the brilliant, thumb-on-the-nation’s-pulse minds at Time have not only constructed an article informing us that some “senior officials” in the new administration drink Coca-Cola products, ut managed to have this dedunged excrement published by allegedly professional news outlets.
Important stuff, that.
This might be forgivable were we in a slow news year with readers tire of hearing about the social and economic utopia, lack of dead Americans, jobs apleanty fed by diminutive taxations, etc. But with a plan at the cliff’s edge that will finish off the dollar, a fresh new “surge” in the works for the abysmal failure that is the Afghan war, and statist policies offering endless kicks to the ribs of Liberty, Time is seriously reporting on governmental soft drink preferences. And it isn’t a two-sentence blurb, either.
Michael Scherer cranked out a detailed nine-paragrapher–The Obama Team’s Drink of Choice? Coke, Not Pepsi–that chronicled his investigative journalistic skills, telling of his exploits in the White House recycle bins, revealing the product of crunched numbers, and gifting faithful readers with in-depth analysis of carbonated beverage choices among those currently sporting the jackboots of power.
It is good to know that is such perilous times, the watch dogs at the world’s last (fairly) free press are doing their jobs. Riveting stuff.
But lest Time be alone relegated to the ninth circle of journalistic hell, this writer would be blissfully ignorant that this steaming pile of irrelevance existed were it not for comanies like Yahoo, whose “news” division thought this tripe to be not only newsworthy, but the sixth most important thing happening in the world as of 2:13 am, February 28th.
February 28th, 2009
Artus Register
What kind of person has no regrets? Perhaps I just live worst than most, and make many more mistakes. But I have many regrets. Sure, it is difficult to truly regret things when mistakes have combined to make you–finally–a person you are proud of. But mistakes are mistakes, and the “butterfly effect” is greatly exaggerated. It is folly to think that a few hundred errors of your past would truly prevent you from finding your way to happiness. At any rate, most of us count among our sins actions taken in relationships, whether with family, partners, co-workers, etc. We may also regret having stolen a pocket knife at an early age, or blamed something on a younger sister. We often chalk such things up to youthful indiscretion.
The great majority of us have not sent men and women to their deaths searching for phantom weapons, nor continued such an exercise in stupidity after material’s non-existence became clear. We have not started wars for one reason, and continued them for another. We have not lied to to our countrymen, accepted their faith, and stomped on our promises, and their liberty.
The man exiting the White House yesterday did all of that, and more. Had most people behaved this way, the last shred of conscience would scream so loudly at night that it could only be silenced by a drug cocktail Lindsay Lohan would refuse.
Much is said about the difficulty of being the President. Which is nonsense. The problem Presidents have is with reading the instructions. The Constitution is a short and easy read. The job of President has a short description. There are a few things allowed, and everything else is not.
Because they don’t follow instructions, they create a lot of problems for themselves; what with all the unlawful jailing, torturing, killing, etc. From there I would imagine sleeping would top the list of problems. That murderous tyrants slumber at all is testimony to their completely jaded nature. Worse is the smugness of men like Bush, smiling at the cameras, talking about his Christian faith (or perhaps he is truly an *antinomian, and fancies himself above above all human law), and dropping verbal bombs that should be the talk of the media, earn him Most Cavalier ribbons, and exude collective vomit from anyone possessing a soul. The most recent: That he has no regrets.
You’ll find that gem in today’s paper, on page 71-Z. On returning to private life, the new Butcher of Baghdad was brazen, as usual, stating, “When I get home tonight and look in the mirror, I am not going to regret what I see. Except maybe some gray hair.” Yeah, hilarious.
That the MSM basically ignores this amazing proclamation is disgusting. The pundits seem to revere his deceit, and his brash refusal to apologize for mistakes that cost countless lives, many of them American.
“He kept us safe,” they parrot, from either of their several faces.
What is safe about a foreign policy that clones terrorists, turns friends to enemies, and exports hatred, is not clear.
“We haven’t been attacked again,” supporters mutter sheepishly, only fairly certain they repeated correctly the line they heard on Hannity, Limbaugh, or one of the other apologist shows. Except that we have. Bin Laden has stated that he is delighted by our military’s proximity to him and his gang. Iraqis have found common ground with Al Queida, and “insurgents” and terrorists alike can kill Americans without too much trouble; without traversing an ocean, or spending millions of dollars and years of time to finance and plan the deaths of “infidels.” And they applaud the safety success of the man without regret.
Wars aside he and his Republican congress have spent us to the breaking point, growing government, expanding socialism, broadening the rot of education with more Washington, and more tax dollars. The man made criminals out of sick people, terrorists out of dissenters, and a mockery of Constitutional government. He gleefully shredded the Constitution and snarled “9/11″ at anyone who objected. He behaved most often as a dictator, rather than a President. He was “the decider,” after all.
The man who once boasted that the country had misunderestimated him was exactly right. We did. Who could have predicted this agrammaticist’s prophecy? Who would have imagined the man who campaigned on a “judicious use of our military,” and a humble foreign policy free of nation building, would have propped up houses of state on a foundation of innocent corpses?
Documented civilian deaths approach 100,000 in Iraq alone.
Add 28,000 for Afghanistan.
The AP counts American military deaths in at 4,227.
There is no accounting for reputation points lost, but the number would be staggering. Neither is thee a counter for infidelity shown to the Constitution, the same Mr. Bush swore to uphold.
Hands dripping with blood, he has passed the torch, and returned to private life, apparently without regret.
If the worst Mr. Bush sees is some gray hair, there must be a magical mirror in the bathroom at Crawford. Many of us see a beast; a murderous thug and tyrant who spent almost eight years waging a horrific war against peace and freedom.
A nagging sense of moral justice forces one to wonder about the contents of his medicine cabinet.
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*antinomian / an tee NOME ee an/ n • A person who believes that faith in Christ frees him or her from moral and legal obligations.
–Another amazing word from Depraved and Insulting English by Peter Novobatzky and Ammo Shea
January 21st, 2009
Artus Register
Among the many concerns stemming from the inauguration of Barack Obama there is some good news, and some hope.
First, an incoming President means an outgoing one. And while many of his tyrannical ideas may remain, George W. Bush is gone. After eight years of Constitution-shredding, dictatorial proclamations, empire expanding, unimaginable spending, reputation destroying, government expanding, etc. Mr. Bush’s departure is a welcome reprieve from the advancing shadow of hyper-national, jingoistic, neo-fascism.
President Obama has promised to immediately close Guantanamo Bay, an infamous symbol of the U.S.. government’s abject lack of ethics, complete dishonesty, unapologetic cruelty, and gleeful disobedience of its own Constitution.
The incoming Administration has stated its intention to end the abysmal mistake that was and is the war in Iraq. Caution is urged with on this note as Obama has stated that he wants more troops in Afghanistan. So this may be a case of simply doing the right thing here, and the wrong thing there. In Afghanistan, there is at least the illusion that American troops are hunting down Al Qaeda rather than spraying opium crops, nation building, and training a foreign army.
Though our friends at NORML say the news so far isn’t good, there is a much better chance that an Obama administration will not stomp on medical marijuana rights as the Bush’s team did–despite W’s campaign promises in 2000 that he would not interfere with state marijuana laws.
Though they are unapologetic hypocrites, the Democrats would look awfully foolish after making so much noise about warrantless wiretaps and other privacy intrusions if they didn’t address the those issues, and undo some of the pro-government, anti-individual laws that gut privacy protection.
A lot changes are required to make any real difference in government, be it its approaching every problem with more money and power, its vast scope, or its self-replicating nature. And the incoming administration has a long way to go before it proves itself a friend to liberty–economic of otherwise. Most likely, if will be a shell game, and we the people will receive some relief on the one hand, and a heavier jackboot on the other. There is little reason to believe that whatever “change” Mr. Obama brings to the political landscape, it will be significant enough to elevate liberty and shrink government. But there may be some cause for a occasional smile, and with the cracks in the dam this administration may implement, fans of freedom might be able to–with a lot of work and serious commitment–scratch, chisel and claw actual holes.
For significant change to occur, the masses must begin to see government as the failure that it is; as a predatory gang of parasitic thieves eager to help you with your own money, and relieve from you the burden of responsibility. Perhaps a President–seen as many as the opposite of the previous one–will serve as the ultimate illustration that government simply can’t. This isn’t what his slogans of “Hope” and “Change” meant, but they might turn out to be more prophetic than Mr. Obama realizes.
January 21st, 2009
Goathe
