Yew will explowd in a few minutes

Brief update on this one. It turns out I'm not the only one who heard the "threat" broadcast to American warships in the Gulf of Tonkin... er… Straights of Hormuz this weekend and immediately thought "Prank Caller." Apparently the voice on the broadcast--whose "heavily accented English" sounds closer to Mr. Burns than farsi speaker--remains unidentified, but there's good reason to believe it was sent anonymously by someone in a remote location, broadcasting on the Bridge to Bridge channel without authorization: the fact that the voice sounds completely different from the Iranians who hailed the ship earlier, the lack of background noise from what is supposed to be a speedboat on the high seas, and just the overall stupidity of hailing a warship fifty times your size with a threat. The source was probably a heckler on a tanker somewhere (maybe one of the ships that appears on the horizon in the Pentagon video?) who heard U.S. warships warn off a bunch of small boats on the Bridge channel and decide to fuck with their heads.

In other news, President Bombsalot this week has once again demonstrated his endless capacity for cognitive dissonance:

In public, President Bush has been careful to reassure Israel and other allies that he still sees Iran as a threat, while not disavowing his administration's recent National Intelligence Estimate. That NIE, made public Dec. 3, embarrassed the administration by concluding that Tehran had halted its weapons program in 2003, which seemed to undermine years of bellicose rhetoric from Bush and other senior officials about Iran's nuclear ambitions. But in private conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last week, the president all but disowned the document, said a senior administration official who accompanied Bush on his six-nation trip to the Mideast. "He told the Israelis that he can't control what the intelligence community says, but that [the NIE's] conclusions don't reflect his own views" about Iran's nuclear-weapons program, said the official, who would discuss intelligence matters only on the condition of anonymity.

I don't suppose this is particularly surprising seeing how "reality" has never been a particularly large component of Dubya's foreign policy. Well, for any of his policies come to think of it. What's worrisome is that although his "vision" for the world is based on menagerie of insipid fantasies, the bombs he drops on people because of those fantasies are all too real.

Maybe that radio heckler was onto something? Seems like we're basically just a few minutes away from Bush getting us all blown up.

Tonkin Mark-II

For starters, I'm not dead. Thanks for asking. Been a little busy trying to write a book.

But something made headlines around the world today that got my Conspiracy Senses tingling. Apparently, a "fleet" of Iranian high speed boats manuevered agressively in the presence of a bunch of American warships and for no apparent reason threatened to blow them all up. Bush goes on air calling this "provocative action" and, lo and behold, hops on a plane the very next day for a trip to Israel.

Now, normally I'm not one to get swept up into conspiracy theories. I'm quick to concede that alot of really weird things happen in this world that, if you didn't know better, would look as if someone planned them. But the timing of this just seemed really odd. Is it possible that President Bombsalot had the foresight to pull a Tonkin just before he boarded a plane to one of the most warlike countries on the face of the Earth? Surely his BFF Olmert would take that as face value, even if he thought it was fake, and the U.S. Corporate media--which so far has missed no opportunity to regurgitate Bushite propaganda on Iran--would be slow as hell to call him on it.

At first I thought I was just being paranoid, but then I saw this:


It comes in about the last thirty seconds of the tape where the video suddenly cuts away and goes to an audio clip, apparently from the bridge of the USS Hopper. Now, let's look past the fact mister "I'm coming for you... you are going to explode in a few minutes" has this weird sort of Midwestern accent that sounds like he's from Milkwaukee. Let's even look past the fact that he's talking in a growl like he's trying to disguise his voice. Let's even look past the fact that there's no logical reason for the audio to be so thoroughly disconnected from the video, seeing how the first part of the clip was shot from the bridge anyway. Let's look past all of these peculiarities and ask, "What is this?"


It doesn't look like warship to me. Doesn't even look like a motor torpedo boat. It looks a civilian speedboat with a couple of Yamaha outboard motors. It's not flying any flag, it has no visible markings, and if you watch the video you find that at least one of the other boats cruising around is painted black and grey. So what was it exactly that prompted Seaman Too-Busy-Shooting-Home-Movies-To-Report-To-My-Battle-Stations Jones to conclude that these were Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats?

Color me paranoid, but the more I chew on this the more it tastes like a sad Bush publicity stunt to sell yet another meaningless war that nobody really wants. It's a stunt that expects us to believe that the Iranian Military would be stupid enough to threaten--much less attack--three U.S. warships with a couple of unarmed speed boats. But then, the Bush Administration expects us to buy most of their other lies (the economy is strong, the Iraqis like being occupied, Chavez is a dictator and Musharraf isn't) no matter how ridiculous they appear, so I guess this one shouldn't be all that surprising. It's just history--and the Vietnam War--repeating itself.

Two Minute Hate

You've probably heard by now about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia University by now. For one thing, how could an American university even think of inviting this evil madman hatemonger to open his Farsi-speaking mouth on American soil? Hatespeech isn't protected by the First Amendment! People who speak hate shouldn't be allowed to speak at all! Ahmadinejad is the reincarnation of Hitler, he's a monster, a and a tyrant. He's a hatemonger. He's a terrorist. He's also a dictator, a thug, a delusional anti-Semite, a terrorist, a hatemonger, a terrorist, a hatemonger, a terrorist, and he even personally executed over a thousand people and raped a bunch of women. He calls the holocaust a myth and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map. Of course, I've never seen him actually do any of those things, but they said it on CNN and FOX about eight million times. And FOX has never lied to me, so it must be true.

Why would Columbia University give a pulpit to a hatemonger terrorist who thinks Israel should be wiped off the map? What a terrible stupid idea! But Lee Bollinger made up for it by being the totally rational, honest, respectful and patriotic American we all know he is when he called Ahmadinejad a"petty and cruel dictator", told him he was "either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated." He even commented that Ahmadinejad didn't "have the intellectual courage to answer these questions... I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do."

Rest assured, the Federalist Paperboy gave Bollinger thunderous applause for opening up on the president of another country with a broadside that makes Bill O'Reilly look like Mr. Rogers. After all, Ahmadinejad is a hatemonger and a terrorist who denies the holocaust and says Israel should be wiped off the map. And you know he really did say that because CNN says he said that. (Well, sure he claims that that isn't what he said. But what does he know?)

And after Bollinger unloaded on the man with waves and waves of good-ole-American verbal muscle, how did Ahmadinejad--who denies the Holocaust and calls for Israel to be bombed off the map--respond?

"At the outset, I want to complain a bit on the person who read this political statement against me. In Iran, tradition requires that when we demand a person to invite us as a -- to be a speaker, we actually respect our students and the professors by allowing them to make their own judgment...

In many parts of his speech, there were many insults and claims that were incorrect, regretfully. Of course, I think that he was affected by the press, the media and the political sort of mainstream line that you read here, that goes against the very grain of the need for peace and stability in the world around us.

Nonetheless, I should not begin by being affected by this unfriendly treatment."

What an asshole! Respect? Who does he think he is to get invited to an American university and actually be respected by the very people who invited him? Maybe he should have thought of that before he drove the truck bomb into the Beirut barracks and blew up hundreds of American troops! You want to talk about insults? Mr. Ahmadinejad, you insult every man woman and child in America just by breathing our free American air!

But that's not even the end of it. Ahmadinejad--who denies World War-II and calls for Israel to be nuked off the map-- tries to convince everyone that he's not the crazy murderous genocidal lunatic we all know he is! Bollinger asked him a simple straightforward question: "Do you or your government seek the destruction of the state of Israel as a Jewish state?"

Ahmadinejad's answer:

"Blah blah blah Palestinians blah blah blah referendum blah blah blah Israel has abused them for sixty years."

How dare he!

Bollinger asked, "Why is your government providing aid to terrorists?"

What do you think that Ahmadinejad--who denies the moon landings and thinks Anna Nicole Smith should be wiped off the map--said?? Predictably, like all evil despotic liars, he changed the subject:

"If someone comes and explodes bombs around you, threatens your president, members of the administration, kills the members of the Senate or Congress, how would you treat them? Would you award them or would you name them a terrorist group? Well, it's clear. You would call them a terrorist."

You hear that? Ahmadinejad--who denies oxygen and calls for every man woman and child in America to be skull-fucked--just called Israel a terrorist! That ruthless petty childish thug just called Israel a terrorist! What kind of sick monster would even suggest such a horrible thing?!

But does he stop there? No, he goes even farther!

"We've been victims of terrorism ourselves, and it's regrettable that people who argue they're fighting terrorism, instead of supporting the Iranian people and nation, instead of fighting the terrorists that are attacking them, they're supporting the terrorists and then turn the fingers to us. This is most regrettable."

Yep, you heard it right! Ahmadinejad--who calls carbon based life forms a "myth" and says all women everywhere should be raped off the map-- has now called America a terrorist too! That evil lying terroristic terrorizer!

Of course, no Ahmadinejad speech would be complete without the man taking the opportunity to deny the holocaust, like we all know he does.

"I'm not saying that it didn't happen at all. This is not judgment that I'm passing here. I said in my second question, granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people? This is a serious question. They're two dimension..."

Look at that first statement. "I'm not saying. It didn't happen at all." There he goes again denying the holocaust! What a rotten terroristastical anti-Semite dweeb!

The absolute worst of Ahmadinejad moments? The top (bottom?) three were these gems (turds?) he heaped upon our poor unsuspected Columbia students. First of all:

If the root causes of 9/11 are examined properly -- why it happened, what caused it, what were the conditions that led to it, who truly was involved, who was really involved -- and put it all together to understand how to prevent the crisis in Iraq, fix the problem in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.

Thereby denying 9/11 just like he denies the holocaust. What a lying evil terroristorifacious hatemonger!

I think the politicians who are after atomic bombs or are testing them, making them -- politically they are backward, retarded.

What an evil hatemongering terroristicatious liar! He just called George W. Bush backwards and retarded! Pay attention Ahmadinejerk, I'm only going to say this once: George W. Bush is not backwards!

And then Ahmadinejad--who denies my credit card applications and calls for the Klingons to be wiped off Uranus--followed up in rare form with the biggest load of bull ever:

I think that if the U.S. administration -- if the U.S. government puts aside some of its old behaviors, it can actually be a good friend for the Iranian people, for the Iranian nation.
For 28 years they've consistently threatened us, insulted us, prevented our scientific development, every day under one pretext or another. You all know Saddam the dictator was supported by the government of the United States and some Europeans countries in attacking Iran. And in -- he carried out an eight-year war, a criminal war. Over 200,000 Iranians were -- lost their lives. Over 600,000 Iranians were hurt as a result of a war. He used chemical weapons; thousands of Iranians were victims of chemical weapons that he used against us.

And since then, we've been under different propaganda sort of embargoes, economic sanctions, political sanctions. Why? Because we got rid of a dictator? Because we wanted the freedom and democracy that we got for ourselves? But we can't always tell. We think that if the U.S. government recognizes the rights of the Iranian people, respects all nations, and extends a hand of friendship with all Iranians, they too will see that Iranians will be one of its best friends.

I've never in my life seen such a heap of bullshit in my entire life. The U.S. and Iran being friends? That's simply impossible, immoral, incomprehensible, inconceivable. The United States of America is a free country populated by human beings, Iran is an evil dictatorship populated by evil Muslim dictatertots! We could never be "best friends" with that gang of terrorists, not after what they did to our boys at Pearl Harbor!

Death to Ahmadinejad! Death to Emmanuel Goldstein!

This concludes today's Two Minute Hate. We now continue your regularly scheduled program. Remember, Big Brother is watching.