No rants today, just fun war stuff.

Seldom have I seen artwork so cunning, yet so simple. This little Flash song sums about just about everything to not like about this war ... and it's a lot of fun too!

Beastie Boys on war

"We felt it was important to comment on where the US appears to be heading now. A war in Iraq will not resolve our problems. It can only result in the deaths of many innocent civilians and US troops. If we are truly striving for safety, we need to build friendships, not try to bully the rest of the world." - Adam Yauch

And for some excellent commentary on the demonizing of France, Mark Fiore has us covered.

My own take on the freedom fries idiocy. Francophobia is stupid.

For a parting shot, Penfold dug up this Gulf War II drinking game. Gosh, turn to any war news channel and you'll be stone drunk within half an hour.

WEDNESDAY, 3/26/2003, 1:30pm HST by Raul

Something totally mindless to start the day off with ... just Poke the Bunny until something happens.

WAY too much information to possibly get in a short piece, so here are some highlights:

• Well lookie here, guess who got the first big contract in Iraq? Halliburton, naturally. There's no way the vice oil man's friends would be shut out of the spoils. If you've read the war profiteering story we posted earlier, you'll notice that what the Canadian oil fire fighting company was concerned about has come to light.

  It's hogwash that the Halliburton company was the only one able to respond on short notice. Safety Boss has experience in the Kuwait fires and specialized rapid-response units that are specifically designed for these situations. Looks to me like they were never considered because of their government's reluctance to back the Iraq war.

  Here's a little more dirt on Cheney's corporate links, courtesy of Paul from the East Coast contingent.

• Saddam Hussein, honorary Detroit citizen and friend to Christians! It's interesting that Tariq Aziz is Catholic. Whose side is God really on?

• Now Bush is antagonizing Russia and thus Russia has shelved a nuclear treaty amid its ongoing opposition to the Iraq war.

  Now this is appalling. Have a little common sense here, Mr. Bush! Let's not forget there is one country with more nukes than us, who happens to have supplied arms to more of our enemies than we ourselves have, and it is Russia. There is no need to go into yet ANOTHER situation, accusations flyin', guns blazin' for all the world to see. This kind of thing needs to go on behind the scenes. Of course this could all, indeed, be a part of the information war the US is waging, trying to get opposition to Russia going. Let me tell you, we do not need to piss them off right now.

• A somewhat positive thing going on: Bush's proposed tax cuts have been slashed dramatically to pay for the war and shore up Social Security and other program. Bravo to our Congressmen for that BUT one can't help but have the feeling that Bush deliberately introduced cuts at such extreme levels that he knew they would survive slashing enough to still have the desired impact.

  I don't think ANY cuts are a good idea, when our country is in such debt. And I especially don't like the fact that these things are being advanced under the guise of improving the economy -- when a lot of the reason for the down economy is this administration's policies themselves. Bush has instilled ongoing fear in the US public, not a feeling of security, and that has hurt many industries.

A couple of my own rants on recent topics:

• I read a few things lately criticizing those who bring into question the legitimacy of Bush's presidency, saying that under US law it's indeed legitimate. Yes, that is true. However in receiving the technical mandate to rule by U.S. law, Bush received the right to represent the U.S. PEOPLE, not himself, and thus the fact that the popular vote opposed him is very relevant.

  Bush himself seems to have forgotten that and is all too willing to discredit or ignore anyone that does not support his actions and policies. If questioning the legitimacy of Bush's presidency is a tool for the people to remind him of that or to in a small way push for the "overthrow"of his regime -- through next year's legal elections, hopefully -- I say, let the questions fluorish.

  Bush would do well do acknowledge that his opposition really outnumbered him and that luckily, through a technicality in the system, he was able to claim mandate. By ignoring that, he has done more to divide the country than unite it by creating a stratification similar to the rich-poor stratification, where a minority of people receive all the benefits and a majority are left out in the cold.

• It is pretty weak for the US to whine about Iraq's army "playing dirty" or exploiting prisoners of war, for several reasons. First, we do practically the same thing when we show hordes of Iraqi surrenders on TV and talk about captured generals supplying intelligence. It's all for the same purpose. Besides, I don't think the little "interviews" were particularly degrading, compared to what could have been.

  Second, we are outkilling Iraq probably nearly 100 to 1 so to complain at this point is really, well, bad form. Not to equate war with sports but griping so much about our few soldiers being captured or killed is pathetic. On the other side, the dehumanizing of Iraq's military is a frightening thing. Both sides' soldiers are "cogs" in the political machines of their countries. While I hope we eventually prevail, I can't help but feel bad about Iraqi soldiers being killed. They don't have much choice whether to fight. And it's been a slaughter so far.

  Third, our arguments that Iraq is violating international law are disgustingly hypocritical. Here we are, in direct violation of the UN charter, bitching about international law? We threaten to try common solders ("orders are not an excuse") in international courts we do not support and would not allow our own people to be tried in? Just suck it up. Let the facts speak for themselves.

  Our institutions have now sanctioned al-Jazeera for airing video of dead US soldiers. This a sign of complete ignorance. Al-Jazeera is THE most unbased news source in the Middle East (granted, most others are little more than government mouthpieces). It routinely shows images of bodies, including those of many Iraqis. Ogrish (warning: extremely graphic content) has the footage of the US dead and it is no more gruesome than the images of the dead Iraqis shown on al-Jazeera -- or moved through US news channels (of course here they never see print).

Just in time for the rise of the Empire ... a Darth Vader soundboard. I think many underestimate the power of the dark side.

MONDAY, 3/24/2003, 8:Ish pm HST by Penfold

Battling for 3rd place.

Hockey times

Hockey times for the week of 3/24/03

• "Columbus Blue Jackets at Los Angeles Kings" FSWH, Tues Mar 22 05:30pm HST
• "Boston Bruins at Philadelphia Flyers or Los Angeles Kings at Colorado Avalanche" ESPN, Thurs Mar 27 03:00pm HST
• "Boston Bruins at Philadelphia Flyers or Los Angeles Kings at Colorado Avalanche" ESPN, Thurs Mar 27 10:00pm HST
• KITV, Sat Mar 29 1:00pm PST
• "Vancouver Canucks at Los Angeles Kings" FSWH, Sat Mar 29 05:00pm PST

From the British newspaper, The Mirror.

Need some background about the types of weapons being flung around in Iraq? Check it out here.

Got some time to kill, how about replying to those scam spams with this business reply generator.

Stuffing it in

According to Plextor, compression of up to 1.4x times the typical CD-ROM capacity can be achieved by squeezing the pits on a burned disk to their limits. This means that one can record up to 1Gbytes of data, or the equivalent of about 110 minutes of audio, by using the now widely in use standard 80min/700MB media.