The experience update (149 stories) is in place (with Zarathustra on the cover). Thanks as always to the authors and the review team, who by year's end will have a fancy new toy to make their job easier (and more fun). I notice at the last moment that four or five experiences got moderated but not put in the update — so if your experience is out of the queue but not on the site, it'll be in the next update most likely. Also, the final version of my Christianity article is in place as well thanks to some help from folks here.
Since I probably won't be posting much from Amsterdam (although I'll try to), I want to mention a few parting things re the news.
Things keep escalating in Iraq — guerrillas shot down a US helicopter, killing at least fifteen and injuring over twenty more. Local Iraqis commented, “The Americans are pigs. We will hold a celebration because this helicopter went down — a big celebration. The Americans are enemies of mankind” (more). Attacks on US and UK forces have doubled since July, and the two forces can't even agree on who the shadow enemy is, with Gordon Adams (former assoc. director of national security) saying, “our human intelligence is terrible… we were woefully underprepared in general” (more). A military report on the matter goes even farther, calling the intelligence officers poorly prepared and claiming that they possessed “very little to no analytical skills”, as well as pointing out that Iraqi interpretors were typically used for “fetching soft drinks” and other errands rather than helping solve these major problems.
Bush promises to say in for the “long haul”, claiming that leaving now would help “the terrorists” win (more). Of course, few Americans, let alone Republicans buy that story any more, but at the same time, no one is really sure what the alternative is. Rep. Trent Lot suggests (more),
"Honestly, it's a little tougher than I thought it was going to be ... If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens. You're dealing with insane suicide bombers who are killing our people, and we need to be very aggressive in taking them out."
Ah, the old “kill 'em all, let god sort 'em out” strategy, coupled with the belief that the folks defending their homeland by attacking an invading army are the agressors. I'm sure that'll go over real well with the Arab and Muslim world when US nukes level Iraq!
Teams that had been sent to Iraq on the pointless search for WMDs have been shifted over to security work (more) as it becomes more and more clear that there are not any WMDs to find. Will they join the dead? Will their family get another anonymous note letting them know their son is dead (more)?
"He told me: 'They don't want us here. They throw rocks at us. They shoot at us. I don't know what we're doing here,' " she said.
"Why is it O.K. if he dies?" his cousin Vecie Williams asked. "The president don't care. You see him on TV. He says this, he says that. But show me one tear, one tear."
Something that nags them is whether Sergeant Bell was wearing a bulletproof vest. In many of the pictures he sent home he is not. There is nothing between him and the enemy but a few layers of cotton.
"The Army people say he got shot," Ms. Ezell said. "But they don't say nothing more."
# # #
"Did John bleed to death? Did he suffer?" asked Alma Hart, his mother.
Mr. Hart is more critical. "The Army hasn't given us any more information than a three-sentence press release," he said. "It's awful."
So what to do? America is engaged in guerrilla war after launching an illegitimate corporate war, leaving nothing but hatred in its wake — hatred that endangers American citizens, and all Westerners along with it. Instead of figuring out how to resolve the situation, the new plan is to start running propaganda campaigns attempting to influence Islamic schools in other nations (more). Maybe I'm nuts, but I'm pretty sure that messing with someone's religion like this really pisses them off.
Now, you can pull propaganda stunts like this in America because of the way sixty years of pervasive media have helped condition people to accept propaganda — here are some excerpts from a Republican guide to talking about environmental issues (more):
"Indeed it can be helpful to think of environmental and other issues in terms of 'story.' A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth... The facts are beside the point. It's all in how you frame your argument."
That is, lying works if you've got a compelling emotional story… So proceed with the lying!
Sound familiar?
At least the mainstream press is starting to pick up on the Diebold story (more), which is just the tip of iceberg of a massive conspiracy to fraudulently manipulate voting in the United States — recently released memos show shocking voter fraud to the tune of tens of thousands of votes being created by computer “error” to help get Bush in power (more). Who knows, maybe the mainstream US press will pick up the Israeli-911 story next (more).
Now to do some work on the IAM engines to keep the crashes to a minimum…
