09.10.07: The Northern Invasion Commences

by matttbastard

FYI, USA: Jerome Corsi was right; we are out to steal yr sovereignties, starting with Comments From Left Field, where, beginning Monday, I’ll be guest-blogging for the next week. Same bastardly snark, profane wisdom, and bitter optimism, transported south down the NAFTA (Information) Superhighway. Consider this fair warning: the revolution will not be televised; it will be Googled, embedded, aggregated (and, on occasion, LOL’d).

“Anarchy and freedom is what I want.”

Repeat.

Disclamer: Please note that I am not nor have I ever been an Anarchist (Penny Rimbaud would absolutely loathe my market-loving, social democratic, Canuckledheaded ass – hell, I’m not even white). I do however smell like one on occasion (especially early Sunday mornings).

Update: tried to cross post this to CFLF, Crass vid and all, but apparently WordPress.org requires one to download a plugin before one can embed video. Alas, I don’t have the ability to do such a thing, so if someone with the keys to the Corvette would be so kind…

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But What’s His Take On ‘A Million Little Pieces’?

by matttbastard

Contra Bobo Brooks , the biggest literary shout out OBL gave wasn’t to anti-capitalist boogeyman Noam Chomsky. Instead, according to Sharon Weinberger @ Wired’s Danger Room, former CIA operative and current Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Analyst Michael Scheuer (who, it should be noted, is no ‘Battle of Seattle’ veteran) was the lucky recipient of the Osama Book Club seal of approval:

Those who want to know “the reason for your losing your war against us, then read the book of Michael Scheuer in this regard,” Osama says.

$10 bucks sez the promotional department at Potomac Books is seriously mulling the use of that blurb when the next edition of Imperial Hubris is published. I echo Weinberger’s tongue-in-cheek speculation: “Will Osama do for political books what Oprah has done for memoirs”?

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Quote of the Day: “This Little Box of Magic”

by matttbastard

“People are still asking me about the death of the book…and yet here I am and every day I go out to the biggest bookstores that have ever existed and are doing the most business daily of any bookstores in history.

“It’s the oldest and the first mass medium. And it’s the one that requires the most training to access. Novels, particularly, require serious cultural training. But it’s still the same thing — I make black marks on a white surface and someone else in another location looks at them and interprets them and sees a spaceship or whatever. It’s magic. It’s a magical thing. It’s very old magic, but it’s very thorough. The book is very well worked out, somewhat in the way that the wheel is very well worked out.”

– Author William Gibson, from a recent Washington Post interview

Via Cory Doctorow @ Boing Boing.

Related: The Guardian on how the ‘Google aura’ surrounding Gibson’s latest novel, Spook Country, poses a challenge to conventional literary criticism.

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I Love It When They Do the Work For Me

Stephen Harper @ the APEC Summit this past Friday:

“Frankly, we are not at the point where we can dictate the target to all the countries of the world… .

“But I think it is important that the world accept a target, the idea of a target, and the idea of the full participation of all the major emitters.

“That’s the consensus we’re in the midst of pursuing here.”

Via Scott Tribe, CBC News:

Even a member of Howard’s cabinet had harsh words about aspirational targets in April. In a lecture at Monash University, Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said aspirational targets are “code for ‘a political stunt.’ An aspirational target is not a real target at all.”

Heh. Credit where credit is (actually) due. When you’re right, you’re right: these ‘aspirational targets’ behind touted by Harper, Bush and Howard truly are nothing but a well-coordinated Pacific rim-job. Forked tongues, indeed.

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Thank You For Not Making Any F*cking Sense

by matttbastard

Via Steve Benen, The NY Daily News:

Freshly minted GOP White House hopeful Fred Thompson puzzled Iowans yesterday by insisting an Al Qaeda smoking ban was one reason freedom-loving Iraqis bolted to the U.S. side.

“They said, ‘You gotta quit smoking,’” Thompson explained to a questioner asking about progress in Iraq during a town hall-style meeting.

[…]

Thompson’s tale of a smokers’ revolt baffled some in the audience of about 150 who came to decide whether the former Tennessee senator is ready for prime time.

“I don’t know what that was about,” said Jim Moran, 72, who had driven from nearby McCook Lake, S.D.

Fuck fierce nationalism, conflicting interests, and cold, hard cash. Apparently the Anbar ‘miracle’ (*snerk*) stems solely from the fact that Sunni insurgents love their Pall Malls more than they hate the US occupation. Either that, or Nicoderm is haram.

Related: publius on Thompson’s ‘Wesley Clark moment‘.

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