its started

"when the president says go, it's hammertime"

tom brokaw: "what we dont want to do is damage the infrastructure, cuz in a couple of days, we are going to own that country"

so incredibly ripe for parody...

isn't it ironic

dont'cha think?

and also

"iraqi has placed weapons with civilians"...but that won't stop us, right?

ron, i was astonished to hear tom brokaw utter those words, too. i even repeated them to an empty room in disbelief. is anyone else astonished by tom's words? as per the naval officer's reference to mc hammer, that says a lot, or does it?

anyvays, welcome all to the new world order, fasten your seatbelts it's gonna be a bumpy ride

also WHAT A FUCKING SURPRISE, I'M SO INDIGNANT

Why I am glad I don't have TV anymore? Accidentally stumbling across that bullshit on top of everything else, that's why.

I think the designers for the government are the same ones that design the posters for the NYC MTA...

Yeah how about that sad mournful trumpet music they used to play before going to commercial, in the months after 9/11. (cue shot of ground zero). It used to bug the shit out of me and depress me at the same time.

Like I said back in fall 2001, we're living in Terry Gilliam's Brazil and I feel some days like the world is now existing to put down everyone's collective intelligence.

CNN is grotesque. I mean fucking grotesque. Today at lunch the restaurant had it tuned in and the only thing on were (a) human interest stories about lonely soldiers and (b) cool computer graphics featuring hot-rockin' tanks and fighter jets. They really do their best to render the enemy a total abstraction.

and: why are all of the newscasters using 'we' when talking about the us army?

Hussein just read a speech on Iraqi TV (which I've discovered renders parody redundant) and the CNN instant-translator was close to incoherent: "Zionist...women...fall...mullahs...will...be freedom...Iraq people! Morning .... infidels.... Go!"

If only it wasn't so easy to picture this in my head as fuckin' Tomahawk missiles turned Baghdadians into splatter-paint.

:( to the google power

two competing instincts: an instinct for drama—this is a war and also it's on TV, i want to see difficulty and struggling, i want comeuppance for ALL bullies; then there's the instinct for it to just be over, and quickly, with as little death and chaos and pulverizing grief as possible. but the instinct for drama nags at me. why? the underdog isn't anybody to root for. do i want a "good story" that badly, counter to all my beliefs?

what is the world coming to when its leaders have to seek the opinion of a veteran Industrial noise duo?

I feel both saddened, excited and priveleged to be reading this.

heh...that was my first thought when i read that.

what does it mean when they do the Ed Lover dance on Al Jazeera?

"Operation Iraqi Freedom"!?!

The thing that bothers/frightens me the most about our War-War-War! Regime is the absurd levels of spin they are putting on things; never in my life have I seen the English language so shamelessly manipulated.

(ie we missed) (tho really the first was hyperbole to begin with)

this choked me up:

The red area [on the satellite photo] is something I see with you for the first time. This is off boundaries to Iraqis, the whole area is a “presidential Palace”. The Sijood palace can be seen from the other side of the river and it is one of the most beautiful palaces, I really hope it does not get its “havoc recked”. I see it as a museum or some sort of academy in the future, I really like it.

Please Hammer, don't hurt 'em!

http://msnbc.com/news/870749.asp?0cv=CA01

A) Bin Laden, anyone?
B) This is what happens when you drop gigantor bombs and blow shit up, you have these vague "well, we destroyed everything in that area, so it's safe to say he's probably dead" shit when the dude could be somewhere else entirely, waiting to pop up again just in time for the next election...er, yeah.

Which one is Saddam?

Some intelligence group analyzed all the photos/videos of Saddam Hussein post-Gulf-War-I and determined that EVERY public appearance by Saddam was actually a double.

"Who is the real terrorist? BUSH... BUSH BUSH... BUSHBUSH"

God love those kids.

:: salam 10:33 PM [+] ::

Tracer I'm watching this happen to Journos all around me too. When those missiles hit Baghdad one of them (usually a decent guy) was running up to the "live feed" pointing and muttering exitedly like it was an extremely exciting football game.

All this... "this is only a taste"..."you ain't seen nothing yet" talk from the Bush admin is doing my fucking head in! It is absolutely bloody appalling.

Honestly, how have we all just let this happen? Get out on the streets and protest, people!

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

yeah and she was totally back against the wall and i know she just wanted to say she thinks he rocks but couldn't - well i think she wanted to say that cause she always sounds quite pro-palestine when there are israel/palestine debates.

i saw her at the supermarket - throndon new world - yesterday and she looked really super stressed - like way more than when you usually see her there (she always wears sunglasses cause she is upset by the asymmetry of her face - another reason why she screws it up (she describes it as 'disturbing asymmertrical')) - and i thought that maybe 'face to face' isn't live and that she'd already done it and was feeling like shit. she's way too brown/orange in person, btw. i also thought it may not be live cause they made no express reference to the beginning of the 'war' and cause pilger kept saying, 'you better transmit this as i've said it'. as a kim hill fan (almost erstwhile, i have to say) i was pretty shocked by her ineptness and shallow apprehension - i thought everyone talks about the breadth of her knowledge but no one ever mentions the depth - which was manifestly lacking in that interview - like even i felt i knew more...but of course she has to speak for tvnz to a point, which has to speak for the govt - especially now they have that charter in place. mind you, helen clark's been really outspoken about the invasion calling it a crime etc.

pilger got his point across and i line up on his side - it was just unfortunate that she couldn't chum up to him/ask intelligent rather than fuzzy broadstroke questions. showed her up as needing to circle her interviewee prey for a while before she attacks and that that is really her only m.o and cause there was no room for that m.o. last night she was stuffed.

but of course she has to speak for tvnz to a point, which has to speak for the govt - especially now they have that charter in place

I don't have a tv so I don't know how the charter is working but I really doubt that to be the case (despite TV3's ridiculous ads). It certainly hasn't been the case for National Radio.

on a lighter note: there's an exhibition opening at photospace on courtney place tonight at 5pm and rumour is that the vino will be good.

i am disturbed that i keep reading "kim hill" as "kill him" she generally does too; but not this time.

Not necessarily. If he stopped using backing music to tell people how to react, and if his voice-overs weren't so heavy-handed, and if he didn't finish them with his incredibly obvious conclusions the films would be much more valuable.

there's an exhibition opening at photospace on courtney place tonight at 5pm and rumour is that the vino will be good.

Neato! Might see you there.

Try using http://www.anonymizer.com/ to view it -- some of the images may fail to load but it should work.

http://rarara.v21hosting.co.uk/photos/pic23397.jpg

as usual Diane comes to the rescue
IS SALAM PAX REAL?
please stop sending emails asking if I were for real, don't belive it? then don't read it.
I am not anybody's propaganda ploy, well except my own.
2 more hours untill the B52's get to Iraq.
:: salam 6:05 PM [+] ::
...

The most disturbing news today has come from Al-Jazeera, they said that nine B52 bombers have left the airfield in Britain and flying “presumably” towards Iraq, as if they would be doing a spin around the block. Anyway they have 6 hours to get here.
Last night was very quiet in Baghdad. Today in the morning I went out to get bread and groceries. There were no Ba’ath party people stopping us from leaving the area where we live, this apparently happens after the evening prayers. But they are still everywhere. The streets are empty only bakeries are open and some grocery shops charging 4 times the normal prices, while I was buying bread a police car stopped in front of the bakery and asked the baker if they had enough flour and asked when they opened; the baker told me that they have been informed that they must open their shops and they get flour delivered to them daily. Groceries, meat and dairy products are a different story. One dairy product company seems to be still operating, not state owned, and their cars were going around the city distributing butter, cheese and yoghurt to any open markets. Meat is not safe to buy because you wouldn’t know from where and how it got to the shops. Anyway we bought fresh tomatoes and zucchini for 1000 dinar a kilo which would normally be 250. and most amazingly the garbage car came around.
The Iraqi Satellite Channel is not broadcasting anymore. The second youth TV channel (it shows Egyptian soaps in the morning and sports afterwards) also stopped transmitting. This leaves two channels: Iraq TV and Shabab (youth) TV. They are still full of patriotic songs and useless “news”, they love the French here. We also saw the latest Sahaf show on Al-Jazeera and Iraq TV, and the most distressing minister of Interior affairs with his guns. Freaks. Hurling abuse at the world is the only thing left for them to do.
On BBC we are watching scenes of Iraqis surrendering. My youngest cousin was muttering “what shame” to himself, yes it is better for them to do that but still seeing them carrying that white flag makes something deep inside you cringe.
we sit infront of the TV with the mao of Iraq on our laps trying to figure out what is going on in the south.
:: salam 3:13 PM [+] ::

It's horrible to watch this. My reaction is something far beyond cynicism, closer to horror--as much as I'm inclined to note that this is the sort of thing that anyone could have predicted.

What a terrible mess.

dearraed.blogspot.com