Novak says that, regardless of the status of the insurgency, a reelected Bush administration would pull US forces out of Iraq early next year, right after the Iraqi elections. He cites unnamed but well-placed administration sources in saying that Condoleeza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz, who he predicts will head the Dept of State and the Dept of Defense respectively in the second term, will advocate for withdrawal. “Getting out of Iraq would end the neoconservative dream of building democracy in the Arab world. The United States would be content having saved the world from Saddam Hussein’s quest for weapons of mass destruction.” Novak says that president-elect Kerry would probably do the same thing as military leaders review the untenability of our situation there with him after his election, although this is more speculative than sourced. Of course Bush, who has a constitutional inability to admit a mistake, wiould not hint at such a plan until after the election. But it seems to me that Bush patsy Novak might spread this rumor regardless of its basis in reality, since it allows Bush supporters to have it both ways for the rest of the campaign in the face of Kerry’s attempts to make a focal issue of BUsh’s Iraq mistake. (Chicago Sun-Times)
Daily Archives: 20 Sep 04
Respek!
How does Ali G keep conning famous guests?
“Ali G relies on his victims’ reluctance to challenge his intellectual credentials or Brit-hop patois. The joke won’t work when they know he’s a fiction. The only way to save Ali may be to send him even further afield—to find yet another country as pompous and credulous as America. But that’s a tall order.” (Slate )
Banned Music
“A peer-to-peer collaboration that makes it impossible for the major record labels to ban or censor musical works. When record labels send legal threats to musicians, record stores, or websites, we will post the music here for download and publicize the censorship attempt. There is a clear fair use right to distribute this music, and for the public to decide whether current copyright law is serving musicians and the public, they need to be able to hear what’s being suppressed.”
Think Wasabi Clears Your Sinuses? Think Again
New research with healthy volunteers shows it is actually probably a congestant. via increasing blood flow to the nasal mucosa. But, because it may stimulate nasal flaring, it gives the impression it is helping the person breathe more easily. (Yahoo! News ) During college, I spent three months vagabonding around Japan with a fellow student, bingeing on sushi whenever possible. Although I am not sure what role wasabi plays in this, we were convinced as we wandered around the phantasmagoric strrets of Shinjuku or Shibuya or the deer park in Nara that we had left the sushi counter ‘sushi-stoned’, a hitherto undocumented altered state of consciousness. And this was regardless of the extent to which we had been washing down our sushi with sake. Funny, there must be something lacking in American sushi because, although my friend and I attempt to recreate the experience whenever we get together these days in the US, we seem to be unable to do so…
