thats arabic beq 🙂
Billmon, if I was a girl I would want you to have my babies. 🙂

Posted by: aam | Aug 2 2006 16:47 utc | 3

I prefer Pigpen’s version of Big Boss Man for the Grateful Dead.
Posted by: moe99 | Aug 2, 2006 1:04:35 PM | 4

I prefer Tony danza of Who’s the Boss

Posted by: Bubb Rubb | Aug 2 2006 17:25 utc | 5

@2nd anonymous poster
Thanks for the info update. I need to look into those web broadcasts. Don’t have a tv myself, so if it is not on the web; I don’t get to watch it.

Posted by: Bubb Rubb | Aug 2 2006 17:44 utc | 7

Billmon it is also worth adding that the French surrender monkeys did put forward the idea that there should be a security zone on both sides of the border.
Lead balloon – but at least this is even-handed in some ways.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 2 2006 17:47 utc | 9

Bubb Rubb:
Here’s the link for the Mosaic archives where you can watch the news programs from different days:
Link to Mosaic archives
Here’s the link to their homepage: Mosaic homepage
Here’s the url for Link TV, which has various programs you might find interesting, in addition to the newscasts:
Link TV homepage

Posted by: 2nd anonymous poster | Aug 2 2006 18:22 utc | 11

thank you for the resource 2nd anon. valuable, i recommend.

Posted by: annie | Aug 2 2006 19:08 utc | 13

@Travis
Thanks for the article. While not that interesting to me per se, it did get me thinking about what exactly does bring down sole superpowers. The answer and the reason I think I now understand why these neocons are so worked up is: religion/religious movements.
A number of years ago I was in St. Louis for a business trip and my hotel was basically across the street to the arch, so I went over to take a look and visited the Museum of Westward Expansion below. One thing I learned in there that I never heard before was that the Massacre at Wounded Knee was precipitated by the growing movement of Native Americans to follow the Ghost Dance. The Ghost Dance was a spreading spiritual movement that the U.S. Army decided it needed to suppress.
For Rome, Christianity played a similar role, however the Romans were not as effective and the Christians led to greater instability that caused that empire to crumble.
Now we have islamofascism or whatever. It is interesting to think about and I think these crazed wingnuts have perhaps thought about more so than we have. But to the question: “What brings down states with monopolistic power?”, the clear answer seems to be that they are brought down from within, by religious movements. I personally think that it won’t be so-called ‘merican muslim sleeper cells, but these damned evangelical churches.
It will be interesting to see the day when one of these megachurch pastors calls his congregation to the streets to stop all abortion clinics or pharmacies or whatever the hell the issue will be. That day will be a day of bloodhsed.

Posted by: Bubb Rubb | Aug 2 2006 19:40 utc | 15

ps the reason all this came up was that over a story Radio New Zealand were doing about something that you would have to read the the end of this herald tribune article to find which is the much promised security council resolution due this week, won’t be because :
” the United Nations called off the meeting, for the second time this week.”

Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 2 2006 20:50 utc | 17

So many threads today, so little time. Yes, Bubb Rubb, what brings down empires, or as I was just suggesting on another thread, the converse can be asked: What causes revolutions? And, further, are all empires brought down by revolution? Or is it often more a process of devolution, of slow death?
Getting back to Wovoka and the Ghost Dance. This is also similar to Cargo Cults, and the 4 or 5 apocalytic Jewish cults built around false Messiahs, as with Masada. Basically, as a culture collapses, and all of their myths are betrayed, their way of being is irrevocable changed or destroyed, and their way of life dying, these phenomena appear. They are basically last-ditch constellations of magical thinking, which hope by some intervention with immanent forces, to miraculously bring back to life the dying culture.
I am less concerned about the Islamic manifestations, though if we DO declare total war on unindustrialized arabs in order to steal their resources, then I think that we will have created our own worst nightmare, which up until now, this phenomenon of “islamisfacism” is mostly a projection buttressed by careful CIA and CIA-allied plants.
More interesting to me is how the phenomenon will manifest throughout America, particularly among the fundamentalists, the millenarians, etc. across the bible belt, as they inexplicably lose their way of living and see their belief systems falling apart from internal contradiction.
I should note that these cults can be either militarily confrontational, as in Masada, or basically peaceful, as in Wovoka’s Ghost Dance. In that case, the violence came from the Cavalry completely misunderstanding the nature of the phenomenon they faced. Of course, as Ghandi notes, all collective action, strident and peaceful, is seen as threatening by wielders of power.
Should all hell break loose in America, it would not be the wing-nuts who would lash out. You are mis-reading this. They would develop an hermetic cult, and then the state, increasingly embattled, would be forced to turn upon them. It would be vaugely humorous to see the US Army, or National Guard turn mercilessly on the wingnuts at their one moment of truth, which they had waited so long for.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 2 2006 23:48 utc | 19

Speaking of cults…
Yesha Rabbinical Council: During time of war, enemy has no innocents

The Yesha Rabbinical Council announced in response to an IDF attack in Kfar Qanna that “according to Jewish law, during a time of battle and war, there is no such term as ‘innocents’ of the enemy.” All of the discussions on Christian morality are weakening the spirit of the army and the nation and are costing us in the blood of our soldiers and civilians,” the statement said.

Hip hooray for religion and for religous people! Lenny bruce once sd, “satire is tragedy plus time.” I’d like to say we’ll all look back on all this, and it will have been just a nasty nightmare of history, however I don’t think we will be laughing…it’s nuts like these who have lost any sight of a moral compass, who cheerlead our sadian nation under some delusion of calvanistic rightiousness.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 3 2006 5:59 utc | 21

Uncle $cam: “Hip hooray for religion and for religous people!
Some here paint with a very broad brush.
Nothing more than intellectual laziness and hypocrisy.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Aug 3 2006 6:38 utc | 23

@Unca (re: your links at #21)
I think it’s bad enough that bloodthirsty attention-media whores like Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter are given as much air-time as they already are. Trained monkey acts like Limbaugh, Savage and O’Reilley are hateful, capitalist novelties at best. We’re not elevating them here to the status of people with legitimate, informed opinions that shape a genuine national debate, are we?
If the guests who appear on the Jerry Springer Show (Someone else mentioned Fear Factor recently… I’m out of the loop TV-wise) aren’t actors paid to perform, then they are amateurs who are performing their debasing roles on what amounts to a national open-microphone night. Once the cameras switch off or the spotlight of attention they are getting fades, they stop behaving that way. The same is true for the hate-speech of right wing “pundits”.
They are performers, no matter how seriously anyone else takes them. The only real danger is when anyone does take them seriously. The pathology of the performer is the need for attention; hence, they garbage they spew must become more and more shocking. It’s pretty formulaic and predictable stuff, really. The pathology of the AUDIENCE, however, is where the real danger lies.
Mostly, audiences consume whatever you feed them at face value pretty uncritically. This is why we on message boards always have to be reminded not to feed trolls; it never seems to dawn on us until someone comes out and says that the poster advocating that we should all eat newborn babies is a troll. So we respond and feed it until that happens. This does more than just prolong arguments and waste bandwidth… until the little kid cries that the emperor should put on some underwear, we have granted the troller’s argument (no matter how absurd) with legitimacy by taking it seriously. Others see that and wonder then if they were just being obtuse by thinking that the troller was a flake and they start analysing and dissecting, too. Pretty soon, we have a genuine, time-wasting debate or flame war that sensible people should have just shaken their heads over… but clinical studies have demonstrated that people willconsistently agree with clearly wrong answers if they see that the majority are doing it.
I’m not saying that even hateful performance artists like Malkin should not have the right to do what they do… even if CheneyCo have taken away the Constitutional basis for that right. What I’m saying is that it is our responsibility to see it for what it is and to lampoon it accordingly. People take Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity seriously because they see other people doing it. Stop. Point. Laugh. Ridicule. But don’t give them any more legitimacy or they really will shape national debates. And it’s our own gorram fault if that happens.
We have the power to ignore or satirize. Let’s use that power for good instead of evil.

Posted by: Monolycus | Aug 3 2006 6:55 utc | 25

Uncle $cam,
I consider myself religous. I know many people who have helped both individual persons and mankind in general who were religious. Religion can be a true force for “Good”.
Though much of mankind makes a mockery of religion, even more so by those who profess to believe in such abstract qualities of good and evil; but such mockery or hypocrisy, in itself, does not deny the existence of Good.
Am i to be mocked for my religion or being religious?
Is not a little bit of “good” infinite in its power?

Posted by: Rick Happ | Aug 3 2006 8:14 utc | 27

@Rick
This is nothing for you to get your evangelical knickers of divine righteousness in a twist over. Criticising mouthpieces of God does not call His (or Her) existence into question. Each individual has to make his (or her) own peace with the existence (or non-existence) of God and no arguments in the here-now are going to change any Universal Truths (or Untruths) in the hereafter, so I expect we might better spend our time defending things in the here-now that CAN be impacted.
I’m not mocking you, but if you get defensive over your beliefs, it indicates that maybe your beliefs aren’t on such solid ground in the first place. That’s why any criticism of Israel always leads to such shiny peace and understanding.
Lots of “religious people” have done their share of nasty things in the name of their beliefs and there is no getting around that fact. We got folk here from all over, and there’s going to be people who disagree. Again, no getting around that. Take their comments and what they share for what it’s worth and as impersonally as possible. If you’re looking for a unanimous consensus of opinions, you might be expecting a bit much from us.

Posted by: Monolycus | Aug 3 2006 9:43 utc | 29

On this note, has anybody been watching the Bill Moyers series on Faith and Reason? Wow! Such great TV. Kinda like this blog in one on ones with brilliant people and compelling ideas. Haven’t liked all the segs, but still, absolutely awesome. What TV should be. My Dinner With Andre without the plot. The exact opposite of babbling/bobbling head Coutler, Malkin et.al. Wish I had recorded it all.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 3 2006 15:16 utc | 31

Oh, and as for the rabbis, here’s what someone had to say long ago:
Micah 3:
5 Thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets who lead my people astray; for those who feed their teeth, they proclaim, “Peace!” and whoever doesn’t provide for their mouths, they prepare war against him:
6 “Therefore night is over you, with no vision, and it is dark to you, that you may not divine; and the sun will go down on the prophets, and the day will be black over them.
7 The seers shall be disappointed, and the diviners confounded. Yes, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer from God.”
8 But as for me, I am full of power by the Spirit of Yahweh, and of judgment, and of might, to declare to Jacob his disobedience, and to Israel his sin.
9 Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity.
10 They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.

Posted by: Anonymous | Aug 3 2006 16:14 utc | 33

Well, you don’t have to be a religious person. However, if you’re a bigot, then I’d say you have a problem.

Posted by: 2nd anonymous poster | Aug 3 2006 17:58 utc | 35

Hell dont you have any Mackerel Snappers like me up north of where I am? For us its easy the Pope has spoken on the second invasion of Lebanon. Now I dont want to rub anyone’s nose in anything;(as I am personally more pious than even athiests art by quite a margin), but he’s infallible, so the blogs can just move along, case closed. Now if anyone is saying this post is sounding Irish theres a fight to be had, begorra!

Posted by: Bob | Aug 3 2006 19:45 utc | 37

Awww, wishing you well and good spirits Monolycus. Thats my prayer…lol
I was thinking of e-mailing you off board to chat. Maybe I should wait?
And as far as your reply to Rick Happ, I saw nothing unclear about it snarky maybe, but hey… In the south they have a saying, “mama sd, it just be’s that way sometimes.” I enjoyed your responce. As I do all MOA’s and I consider Rick Happ apart of. He drinks in this pub too. Round for the howz!
Look forward to your sporadic posts.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 3 2006 23:10 utc | 39