Nu er det ikke kun muslimerne, der er en trussel mod demokratiet. I den vestlige verden vil jeg faktisk gå så langt som til at sige, at den største trussel mod demokratiet – det er os selv.

Lidt mere specifikt, USA, endnu mere specifikt George W. Bush. Endnu mere specifikt os selv.

Hvilket selvfølgelig skyldes, at jeg er en ond USA- og frihedshadende venstreorienteret galning, der indtil flere gange har stemt personligt på Bertel Bims og aldrig har sat mit kryds til venstre for Lene Espersen.

Men er det lykkedes for Al Qaeda eller nogen anden muslim at nedbryde nogen af de aller-allermest grundlæggende borgerlige rettigheder, der har været en rodfæstet del af den anglo-amerikanske retstradition siden Magna Carta?

Nææh. Men Bush har fjernet Habeas Corpus med et pennestrøg. Vupti! Væk. For hvis vi ikke kan låse folk inde for altid uden rettergang, så vinder tæoisterne.

Er det lykkedes for Al Qaeda eller nogen anden muslim at dehumanisere os til det punkt, hvor tortur er en accepteret metode at afhøre fanger på?

Nææh. Men Bush har indført tortur som officiel amerikansk politik. Og se! hvor har vi andre protesteret. Not. Og hvis vi ikke kan torturere hvem som helst, så vinder tæoisterne.
Jeg anser i allerhøjeste grad mig selv som borgerlig. Men jeg fatter ikke, hvorfor så godt som resten af det såkaldt borgerlige (net)Danmark anser det som en borgerlig pligt blindt at støtte op om det republikanske parti og al dets gøren og laden i USA.

Klokken er i dette øjeblik lort, så ingen links, udover det til Berlingeren. Det må komme senere.

Good night, and good luck.

Der er vist rigeligt med deltagere i den blogpile, der er ved at lande tungt på DRs journalist Niels Lindvig, der er kommet med nogle – mildt sagt – besynderlige udtalelser om pressefrihed i Venezuela.

I stedet for at kaste mig på toppen for at tynge lidt mere, så lad mig komme med løsningen: Privatiser nu det DR og lad det sende reklamer på lige linje med TV2, SBS og hvem der nu ellers sender kommercielt tv herhjemme på en dansk sendetilladelse. Så er vi ude ovre det problem – og en god del andre.

Det’ en ommer.

Memo’et, hvor ubetydeligt det end måtte være i den større sammenhæng, er nemlig ægte. Vi iler givetvis med en berigtigelse.

Med et venligt tip af hatten i retning af Kevin Drum:

O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

Mark Twain.

Læs for Guds skyld hele Mark Twains historie på Wikisource, en historie som samtiden dømte at være for defeatocratic til at kunne trykkes:

The piece was left unpublished by Mark Twain at his death, largely due to pressure from his family, who feared that the story would be considered sacrilegious. Twain’s publisher and other friends also discouraged him from publishing it. Twain instructed for it to be published after his death, however, and is said to have quipped “I don’t think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth.”

Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard aka Den Gamle Redacteur er ved at være moden til at træde ind i The Ancient and Hermetic Order of the Shrill. Vi mangler vist bare en optagelsesprædiken på engelsk …

Som sagt, velkommen i klubben. Bedre sent end aldrig.

ears from now, historians will argue over the exact moment at which the Great Conservative Crack-up finally occurred, and they’ll have no shortage of candidates. Was it December 21, 2004, with the appearance of the first poll that showed a majority of Americans believed the Iraq War to be a mistake? Or September 2, 2005, when President Bush told Michael Brown he was doing a “heckuva job” while New Orleans drowned? Or a month later, when Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle indicted Tom DeLay?But I’d take January 22, 2007. On that date, a who’s who of corporate America—CEOs from such industrial stalwarts as Alcoa, DuPont, Caterpillar, Pacific Gas and Electric, and General Electric—joined environmental leaders at a Washington press conference on global warming. Their surprising message for the president and Congress: Please, for the love of God, regulate us.

Washington Monthly er et godt magasin; så giv dem en hånd.

Hvilket blandt andet betyder, at det nu kun tager 12 minutter at hive den seneste Ubuntu ned – i stedet for godt 50 tidligere.

Faktisk ser det ud til, at Cybercity er meget tæt på de 8 Mb – hvilket er pænt. Man har hørt om mere end én 8 Mb forbindelse, der fladede gevaldigt ud omkring de 6-6,5 Mb i virkelighedens verden.

I andre nyheder har Bjarne så indrømmet, at godt nok blev han aldrig testet positiv, meeeen der var alligevel noget med nogle medikanter, der ikke helt var, som det skulle have været. Det er vel i sig selv ikke nogen nyhed, at Bjarne var dopet til op over begge ører; det har mangt et andet topnavn fra den tid indrømmet, og så skulle vi tro på, at den tidligere hjælperytter pludselig bare blomstrede max, og kunne træde den store klinge som en græsk gud?

For så vidt er det ligegyldigt, at Bjarne Riis var dopet. Det ændrer ikke på, at hans sejr i 1996 i Tour’en var ganske spektakulær og lige netop det – en sejr. Alle de andre var jo også dopede til op over hårrødderne (det kan Riis af gode grunde ikke være … ), og som han sagde i sin tale til nationen, så var det spillets regler dengang: Be doped or be gone. Hvilket sq er helt fair. Så skal man bare droppe den illusion om en sund sjæl i et sundt legeme og al det gejl:

Må den bedste læge vinde.

Tilbage  står selvfølgelig spørgsmålet: Hvorfor skal vi vælge at tro på, at sporten som sådan er blevet renere i dag, end den var dengang. Basso, der skulle have skovlet sejre hjem i disse år, måtte indrømme, at han havde kigget lige vel dybt i pilleglasset, og han er så langt fra den eneste nutidige rytter, der har satset mere på medikamenter end på tibetansk naturmedicin.

Drop nu alle de illusioner og alt det blændværk: Frigiv doping og lad det helt officielt være op til rytterne (og alle andre professionelle idrætsudøvere) at vurdere, hvor høj en pris deres liv har.

Det er jo så meget godt:

“Det er på tide at tage hjem fra Irak. Og ikke kun fra Irak, det er i det hele taget på tide at trække det meste af det, vi har udstationeret i Mellemøsten, hjem. Grunden er, at nok er nok.

Godt nok har mellemøsteksperter igen og igen fortalt os, at regionen er hamrende vigtig at få styr på.

Vi må gøre vores del og sætte ind med mandskab, diplomati, mægling og ressourcer, hver eneste gang endnu en fredsforhandling, regeringsovertagelse eller terroraktion har rystet det skrøbelige område.

Men tiden er faktisk kommet til at spørge:

Hvorfor egentlig? Hvad rager det egentlig efterhånden os, hvor meget de brænder sig selv, hinanden, deres broer og den hånd, der fodrer dem?

[...]

Men medmindre vi ved samme lejlighed kapper fortøjningerne og lader “M/S Israel” drive for vind og vejr, uden hverken økonomisk eller militær assistance fra os, og lader hende møde sin skæbne på åbent hav sammen med resten af Mellemøsten, så er det vist bare tom retorik. Så længe vi er syltet ind i Israel, så er vi også syltet ind i Mellemøsten.

For better or worse.

Via Uriasposten.

Næsten, i hvert fald. For derhjemme må man vente til pinsen med at få hul igennem; hvilket bliver skønt. Webstinenserne er efterhånden ret voldsomme, selvom manglen på internettene har betydet, at ungerne har drønet meget mere rundt udendørs, end de ellers ville have gjort – intet er så skidt, at det ikke er godt for noget!

Derudover så må det være ved at være de tider, hvor George W. Bush skal for en rigsret. Hele NSA-aflytningsskandalen er blevet blæst ud i det absurde, efter at den daværende vice-justitsminister James B. Comey forleden vidnede i en senatshøring.

Der er lidt her om hvor dybt Bush-regeringen åbenbart vil synke i jagten på at dække over sine ulovligheder, og hvilken beskrivelse! En 2. rangs manuskriptforfatter af B-film kunne ikke have udtænkt den scene lige så vanvittigt:

RACE TO THE HOSPITAL: Describing the events as “the most difficult of my professional career,” Comey explained yesterday how the ordeal began on the evening of March 10, 2004, hours before the authority for the spying program was set to expire. A top aide to Ashcroft alerted Comey that Gonzales and Card had arranged a visit with Ashcroft, who was then hospitalized with gallstone pancreatitis. Comey “ordered his driver to rush him to George Washington University Hospital with emergency lights flashing and a siren blaring, to intercept the pair.” Comey said yesterday, “I was concerned that, given how ill I knew the attorney general was, that there might be an effort to ask him to overrule me when he was in no condition to that.” He described how he “literally ran up the stairs” to Ashcroft’s room, and had FBI Director Robert Mueller order the agents on Ashcroft’s security detail not to evict him from the room if Gonzales and Card objected to his presence.

ASHCROFT, ‘BARELY CONSCIOUS,’ REJECTS THE POWER PLAY: Comey “arrived first in the darkened room, in time to brief Mr. Ashcroft, who he said seemed barely conscious.” Minutes later, Gonzales and Card arrived, envelope in hand, and explained that they were seeking his approval to extend authority for warrantless spying. ”Attorney General Ashcroft then stunned me,” Comey said yesterday. “He lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter, rich in both substance and fact…and then laid his head back down on the pillow, seemed spent, and said to them, ‘But that doesn’t matter, because I’m not the attorney general’‿and he pointed to me.” The White House effort to overrule Comey had failed. “The two men did not acknowledge me,” Comey said. “They turned and walked from the room.” Comey added, “I was angry. I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man. … I thought he had conducted himself in a way that demonstrated a strength I had never seen before, but still I thought it was improper.”

Lidt mere fra den dybt useriøse liberale venstreorienterede forræderavis Washington Post’s leder her:

JAMES B. COMEY, the straight-as-an-arrow former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, yesterday offered the Senate Judiciary Committee an account of Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source.

[...]

Now, it emerges, they were willing to override Justice if need be. That Mr. Gonzales is now in charge of the department he tried to steamroll may be most disturbing of all.

I den forbindelse kunne man måske smide et ord eller to om anti-amerikanisme, nemlig at ovenstående jo intet har med anti-amerikanisme at gøre, men slet og ret handler om, at USAs præsident ser sig i stand til at bryde loven efter forgodtbefindende fordi, med Nixons ord “når præsidenten gør det, så er det ikke længere ulovligt” - hvilket forekommer mig at være en ganske skræmmende tanke. Mere om det her hos Glenn Greenwald.

Mere hos Digby – her:

Keep in mind that Comey’s “Enzo the Baker” scene took place just eight months before the presidential election.

I have believed from the get-go that this surveillance was being used for political purposes. The FISA court is a rubber stamp court that will allow virtually anything that could remotely be construed as necessary for national security. After 9/11 they would have been even more lenient. And if they weren’t, the administration could easily have gone to the Republican congress and requested changes to the law and they would have gotten it.

How over-the-top must this have been for staunch Republican John Ashcroft to have risen from his ICU bed to argue against it and the entire top echelon of the DOJ were preparing to resign? These are not ordinary times and the law enforcement community has not been particularly squeamish about stretching the Bill of Rights. None of those people are bleeding heart liberals or candidates for the presidency of the ACLU. For them to be this adamant, it must have been something completely beyond the pale.

My suspicion has always been that there was some part of this program — or an entirely different program — that included spying on political opponents. Even spying on peace marchers and Greenpeace types wouldn’t seem to me to be of such a substantial departure from the agreed upon post 9/11 framework that it would cause such a reaction from the top brass, nor would it be so important to the president that he would send Gonzales and Card into the ICU to get Ashcroft to sign off on it while he was high on drugs.

[...]

After what we now know about the politicization of the DOJ by Karl Rove himself, this seems even more obvious to me.

After all, as Greenwald pointed out in his post, it’s awfully odd that in all these meetings, the FBI was involved but the NSA wasn’t. The FBI does domestic surveillance. Why were they involved in this at all?

Update: I’ve been busy, so I missed this. Peter Swire at CAP has been speculating about this very thing for a while.