Remember those episodes of Buffy where something insane and terrible would happen and the people of Sunnydale will have forgotten about it by the end of the show? I used to think that was a logical flaw in the writing, almost a satire. Well, what was once a possible satire is now a mirror. In all of the breathless hysteria over 9/11, many people have stated that we haven’t been attacked since. Doesn’t anyone remember the anthrax attacks that paralyzed the nation’s mail system and shut down Congress? The FBI never arrested anyone and stopped talking about it after 2002. Has this all disappeared down the national memory hole?

RE: Chavez exposes Bush as the Devil

I don’t really know enough about daily life in Venezuela to describe what Chavez is like as a leader. At his speech and later he stated that Bush is an imperialist who thinks he owns the world, and a sick man who is profoundly dangerous because he has power. It’s telling that the people in both parties are calling him names and condemning his right to criticize Bush, while no one can refute what he said.

Oh that PI Staff! What will they do next? Perhaps they'll write something about the cute chihuahua in the toupee photo on SLOG?
(Oh and a side note to the PI Staff: I recently had dinner with one of your daily readers & they didn't know that we were having a Primary Election)

I acutally snorted when I read Josh was able to pen the words "The White House and the GOP say they’ve reached a deal to honor the Geneva Conventions." I hope you don't feel too soiled Josh.

Andrew, it simply comes down to good manners and a sense of decorum. If Chavez had expunged his adolescent jabs and sounded like a gentlemen, I'm sure there would have been a flood of take-the-ball-and-run-with-it editorials from the liberal press and sound bites from congressional democrats.

Maria-
From the P.I. article on Cogswell:
"Cthulhu," a 90-minute science fiction-horror film with an environmental and political angle.

Is this the website that is written largely behind Piecora's Pizza Political Party Pad?

I think Chavez lowered himself to Bush's level... let's not forget Pat Robertson called to have Chavez killed, with no rebuke stronger then, "oh, he's an old man and old men say CRAZY things".

Bush has mocked world leaders himself with name calling taunts... calling leaders a "Hitler", "Evil", and on and on.

Why, most folks in congress got there by naming calling at the state level... ad campaigns calling someone a baby killer, murderer, child-hater... names often used to charaterize those who advocate for wider abortion laws, wider access to prescription medicine, more social medicine, and such.

No, the outrage over Chavez is nothing more then a "HE DIDN"T JUST SAY THAT, IN MY HOUSE" moment. What I find telling though, is that, like what a parent would tell a child, is that if you dish it out, you have to be able to take what you get back. Seems like the status quo is having a hard time taking what they give.

“public should get to vote on Tunnel vs. Rebuild�

I’d favor a vote if the options were presented along with the corresponding tax impacts. Each option would say how much lower (or higher) the RTID taxes would be, and how much longer (or shorter) those taxes would be in place.

I am extremely disappointed that the city’s council and mayor may select the most expensive option despite the fact that they WILL NOT KNOW how that decision impacts the overall RTID taxing plans. If a low cost SR 99 option is chosen, that could well mean lower RTID taxes/tolls, or it could mean those taxes end sooner.

Deciding to proceed with a megaproject with no consideration of what it would mean for various groups of taxpayers is quite simply arrogance and obliviousness to peoples’ realities. It also is bad public policy as Seattle Monorail Project showed.

Most of the commentary on Chavez's speech, like almost all political commentary in this country, is uninformed by knowledge of anything that happened more than two days ago. Chavez is not a "thug", as Pelosi correctly points out, because he was rude. He's a thug because of his government in Venezuela and his ongoing enthusiastic support for the most murderous dictators on the planet -- he loudly supports Kim Jong-Il, Robert Mugabe, Ahmedinejad of Iran, Fidel Castro. When Saddam was still in power, Chavez was slobbering all over him as well. He's never met a tyrant he didn't automatically feel a warm attraction to.

Whether his criticisms of Bush occasionally sound like something you'd like to hear is immaterial to the truth about Chavez.

Stick Figure @ 5.

Yes.

"He's never met a tyrant he didn't automatically feel a warm attraction to." The confection called 'fnarf' refers here to Hurricane Hugo, but 'fnarf' uses a close paraphrase of language that is typically & correctly directed at Jimmy Carter. The paraphrase is so close, in fact, that it's plagiarism.

Macaca Update: The rants of Mahmoud & Hugo to the Mad Tea Party known as the UN have incited new demands that the UN be ejected from the US & moved, perhaps, to Seattle. The General Assembly would fit right in among the monkeys on Cap Hill, somewhere between Valu Village & Kop Killer Kommunity Kollege, aka Mumia U.

Thank you, Fnarf. I wish Pelosi had explained the background. As bad as Chavez may be, I would say it was an effective speech, especially since we have the Preznit all over the TV and newspapers demanding the right to disappear and torture people. Other countries get news, too. And I have been paying attention for longer than two days, meow!

Now whatever happened to those pesky anthrax killers?

These daily news posts remind me of stranger in a strange land

"Remind me," Jubal said to her, "to write a popular article on the compulsive reading of news. The theme will be that most neuroses and some psychoses can be traced to the unnecessary and unhealthy habit of daily wallowing in the troubles and sins of five billion strangers. The title is 'Gossip Unlimited'--no, make that 'Gossip Gone Wild.'"

"Boss, you're getting morbid."

"Not me. But everyone else is."

Thanks JR!
Yes Stick Figure, that's the one.

I can relate to Grant Cogswell's decision to leave and I wishhim well. It reminds me of when Art Chantry left and the very amazing letter he wrote that the Stranger published. i couldn't find it right away but found this, worth reading. And to all the people who say, Good riddance whiner... I say FUCK OFF in advance.

www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=3954

Re: Wal*Mart.

Well, at least now their employees will be able to afford some form of health care...

About those HIV tests...

They aren't HIV tests. They never have been. They can't tell you (or anybody) whether you DO or DON'T have antibodies to HIV. Go to Abbott labs and read the test disclaimers. They state that there is NO recognized standard for determining HIV infection. They also state that the tests are NOT approved to be used to diagnose HIV infection.

If you are adventurous enough to listen to a recent interview that discusses the validity of HIV tests and AIDS diagnoses, here's a couple of links.

http://www.liamscheff.com/daily/

http://www.whiterosesociety.org/Brown.html

Scroll down to the Sept. 19th interview to listen to Liam Scheff talk about the tests and how AIDS is diagnosed. Skip past the first hour, unless you're interested in a Missouri candidate for Congress.

This topic is also dicussed on a couple of high-traffic blogs. Take a gander...

http://barnesworld.blogs.com/barnes_world/

http://newaidsreview.com/

Yes. I'm sure that the Wal-Mart drug program will be a great money saver until they decide to pull it.

A band-aid is a band-aid is a band-aid. Hope I die before I get old.

Charles,

I've often wondered this myself, why the need for information? Consider that today in this country, it's entirely possible to be 100% ignorant of any activities or events outside one's daily life. If you didn't read the newspaper/web, watch TV news, or talk with other people about current events, it's entirely possible that you might not know about terrorism, 9/11 hijackers, or Jessica Simpson's breasts, for that matter. In other countries a bomb might fall or the stores could run out of butter or cooking oil, and you'd almost have no choice but to find out why.

Our social and political system demands our citizens' vigilance. Thomas Jefferson, I believe, said that democracy depends on an informed public. We're seeing what happens when the national conscience goes to sleep right now. Our rights and liberties, even our modern standard of living, are being whisked away by thieves in broad daylight.

So, I guess paying attention allows me (us?) to hold onto what we have, keep the balance weighted towards justice (maybe)and make a difference if we can.

I agree wholeheartedly with what you say, Andrew, however I think that apathy is a big problem in this country, a sentiment that is also well put by Jubal Hershaw:

But the silly foofaraw that he knew was bound to ensue when the busies caught up with these children disgruntled him in prospect. {...} Nothing else could be expected



Whereupon people would come barging intho his sanctuary, asking stupid questions and making stupid demands... and he, Jubal Harshaw, would have to make decisions and take action. Since he was philosophically convinced that all action was futile, the prospect irritated him.



He did not expect reasonable conduct from human beings; he considered most people fit candidates for protective restraint and wet packs. He simply wished heartily that they would leave him alone!--all but the few he chose for playmates. He was firmly convinced that, left to himself, he would have long since achieved nirvana... dived into his own belly button and disappeared from view, like those Hindu jokers. Why couldn't they leave a man alone?

Three different writers at the Washington Post admitted that the "deal" Bush got over torture basically amounts to the GOP Senators who objected backing down, because they don't want to lose the election.

The Geneva Conventions were NOT saved. They were abused - and the resulting war crimes mean the White House residents can be rendered for war crime bounties in many nations around the world, years in the future.

Charles,

I see what you’re saying, but I don’t think it’s a conscious choice for most people. A large number simply can’t fathom of anything outside their day to day lives. Some simply can’t believe there could be any other way of living and working other than the current, American one (McMansions, SUVs, and soul crushing debt for all!). Another group is totally frustrated with the system and no longer pays attention.

I don’t know how to bring these people back; I wish I did.

I just read A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn this summer, and goddamn, I sure needed a drink after that!

Andrew-
Nice points! Still I think it'll be a long time before you get a book report on Zinn from a Stranger writer. Nevertheless, unimportant.
The dichotomy between MacMansion People and Apathetics is crucial.

The Nation website currently has an ad for REM's new box set. You can listen (another one of Stipe and Co.'s pioneering media tangles) to entire songs as long as you don't scroll off the ad! The preface to Life And How To Live It describes something perhaps akin to above said 'dichotomy.'

So if any of you Sheeple decide to go support the Minus 5 tonight, pretend Peter Buck is Jubal Harshaw and call him a Hindu Joker to his face, then leave the man alone!! (unless nobody else does it to him within the next 5 minutes)

McCain caved. Again. Of all of them, he's the one I thought would stand up for what is right, because of all of them, he's the one who's had it done to him.

But when it comes down to it, he needs the Party more than the Party needs him (for 2008). Sigh.

Andrew:

I suppose it all depends on what level of conscious choice your particular choice rests. You can maybe not be making a conscious choice to explicitly avoid the news, but there are a whole series of choices we make on a daily basis that ultimately lead to both mcmansions and apathy. Thats the one thing I find ironic about chronic apathy: its usually presented by the chronic apathetic as a binary to mcmansion but I see them as two sides of the same coin. one is disengaged due to delusions of the material, the other disengaged due to delusions of ironic apathy as a crutch in place of an honest dialogue with oneself and the world in which they live.

In terms of how you break people out of their little ice cubes, I'm not sure you can. They either have to get dumped into a snocone maker or melt on the sidewalk, but either way they'll have to choose to not jump back into the tray.

Me, I just like to sit back and try to figure out what my ice cube is made of. I'm of the mind that if everyone looks hard enough you'll find yourself in stasis without even realizing that you've been frozen in the first place.

Before igniting the Plame nonsense, neoliberal Richard Armitage tried to ignite Pakistan, or so they say on the street.

Like most vicious rumours, there may be something to this one. I reported years ago on Amazon that when Quincy Bush said 'you're either with us or with the terrorists,' he was sending open-source code to Pervez Musharraf. Just as JFK used crytic speeches for sending cryptic signals to Khrushchev.

Charles - I essentially agree, but as a lifelong Heinlein geek, I feel strangely compelled to point out that it's Jubal Harshaw, not Hershaw.

And I *still* quote the collected sayings of RAH, aka Jubal Harshaw, aka Lazarus Long...

Gah. Stand corrected! hArshaw. Arrrrrr. hArrrrrrrrshaw ::blink:: I'll probably have to say it like that from now on to keep it straight. ;)

Fnarf,

McCain is a total fraud. He’s the amalgamation of the worst of Bush II and Bill Clinton, except he won’t feel anyone’s pain or breasts. He’s just as extreme as Bush II in every respect. Expect things to get much worse if he’s President because he has credibility where Bush does not.

Biggest character reveal about McCain: During the 2000 South Carolina primary, Bush II and Karl Rove spread all kinds of despicable lies to the SC Repub crackers about McCain and his family – that the VC torture had driven him insane, his wife was a pill head (true, but still), that he has an illegitimate negro love child (he has an adopted daughter from Bangladesh). Any real man would punch those goddamn fucks in the mouth after what they said. Instead, we have hours and hours of video footage of him campaigning for Bush II, and even hugging him. I challenge you to look at those images and not instantaneously loose your lunch.

McCain himself has said that the only cure for Presidential ambitions is embalming fluid. Let’s hope it works.

Have to agree with Andrew on McCain, Fnarf. Surprised you didn't know that.

I am well aware of McCain's far-right bonafides, and his kowtowing habits. I've slogged about them both before. I also know how to spell the word "lose".

Will...you're a dreamer if you think that administration officials will face war crimes charges in the next 30 years. we're a long long way from that, for a number of reasons.

what it really means is our troops, many of whom are disillusioned with the war on terror, will be at further risk. if we can rewrite the rules, so can any other nation.

Umm...come to my sale...