Author: michael

I know what you’re saying. This is too easy, but nonetheless…

“In Iraq, no doubt about it, it’s tough. It’s hard work. It’s incredibly hard.”

Which is why my back is clenched up so tight it’s ready to snap.

“I wake up every day thinking about how best to protect America. That’s my job…There’s a lot of really good people working hard to do so. It’s hard work.”

I’m not really sure what any of this shit means, but I refuse to tell people to go to georgewbush.com

“It’s-and it’s hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it’s necessary work.”

Watching TV is really hard, yeah, especially the one at the White House with the TiVo. Have you tried to operate TiVo? It’s really hard. And Cheney is always stealing the damn remote.

“The plan says we’ll train Iraqi soldiers so they can do the hard work, and we are.”

And it was really hard to think up a plan, we wouldn’t want to waste all that hard work just because it doesn’t work.

“We’re making progress. It is hard work. It is hard work to go from a tyranny to a democracy. It’s hard work to go from a place where people get their hands cut off or executed to a place where people are free.”

It’s hard work to go from a televised quagmire to speeches about progress, we’re running out of material.

“And, you know, I think about Missy Johnson, fantastic young lady I met in Charlotte, N.C., she and her son, Brian. They came to see me. Her husband, P.J., got killed-been in Afghanistan, went to Iraq. You know, it’s hard work to try to love her as best as I can knowing full well that the decision I made caused her, her loved one to be in harm’s way.”

Wait a minute! Is the president admitting an affair here? Whoa, bombshell!

“Yeah, we’re the job done. It’s hard work. Everybody knows it’s hard work because there’s a determined enemy that’s trying to defeat us.”

And that enemy is John Kerry, no wait, Saddam Hussein – no, that’s not it. Warmer?

“We’ve done a lot of hard work together over the last three and a half years.”

Well, mostly I watched it on television, but you get the idea.

A whole lot of back and forth has gone on in the realm of media bias critiques, punditry and the like claiming that FOX News is too conservative and the NY Times too liberal, etc. In particular, analysts have wondered whether media bias has filtered out good news from Iraq or if, like Vietnam-era journalism, war is simply an ugly story to cover. Of course, it is.
Mistake or not, Iraq is supposed to be an emergent democracy now and all of this bias bickering – which is truly nothing new in America – obscures Iraqi journalism and the development of a free press. Of course, how could those childish and crazy Iraqis possibly have any clue how to write anything objective?
Maybe, just maybe… the Iraqi weekly Al Zawra answers the question “Who Kills Hostages in Iraq?” as well as providing “An Inventory of Iraqi Resistance Groups,” translated for American consumption here through the Project on Government Secrecy site. While pundits bicker, most resistance stories in the American press focus on beheadings and terror masterminds, searching for Al Qaeda links. Al Zawra gives us the lowdown on the growing organization and scope of the actual resistance movements, where they come from, and how they’re structured.
Sorry, it’s “grave.” Just grave, nothing more.

In response to a string of terrorist acts by Chechen rebel groups, Russian President Vladmir Putin has formally announced plans to concentrate power through direct appointment of regional governors and the elimination of individual district elections for the Duma.
In response to these sudden moves, Colin Powell said “This is pulling back on some of the democratic reforms as seen by the international community that have occurred in the past. So yes, we have concerns about it, and we want to discuss them with the Russians.” But the democracies of the world are having trouble urging Russia to see things their way and the Bush administration is concerned that too-severe criticisms might only act to diminish any possibilities for further alliances, especially when it comes to cooperating in the war on terror.
But all of this is good news for Ukrainian-born funnyman Yakov Smirnoff who made a career with his “What A Country!” routine in the mid-80’s, appearing in guest spots on TV’s Night Court. You might remeber some of Smirnoff’s more memorable lines, such as:

In Russia, if a male athelete loses he becomes a female athelete.
or, this biting media critique:
In Russia we only had two TV channels. Channel One was propaganda. Channel Two consisted of a KGB officer telling you: Turn back at once to Channel One.
and, of course Smirnoff’s offbeat takes on Russian comedy:
Many people are surprised to hear that we have comedians in Russia, but they are there. They are dead, but they are there.
After 13 years since the Soviet Union collapsed, the comic has fallen on some hard times. However, Smirnoff is apparently working on some new material to update his act. Here are some ideas found in Smirnoff’s trash can more recently:
In America, terrorists come from other side of world. In Russia, they live next door.
In America, you can lose popular vote and still be elected president. In Russia, you can be president and just get rid of popular vote.
In Russia, state controls health care for people. In America, health care controls state. I love this country!

Responding to the majority of the 9/11 Comission’s 41 recommendations for intelligence reform, legislation was introduced into the Senate by a bipartisan group.
A .pdf of this lengthy, complex 280 page bill is available here. But for the sake of our readers who are not yet up-to-date and in-the-know concerning all things intelligence, Low Culture has obtained a document from the CIA which succinctly describes the ramifications of the new bill, putting together a simple and fun reference tool to guide you through your government’s new configurations.

Simple, really.

Last week, in a heated interview with Chris Matthews on Hardball, Senator Zell Miller told Matthews, “I wish we lived in the day where you could challenge a person to a duel.”
This week, Miller has challenged Hurricane Ivan to a duel somewhere off the coast of Jamaica to “protect the homeland” from high winds and potentially disastrous flooding.
And in a related note, Miller is expected to introduce legislation to make dueling legal. The ghost of Alexander Hamilton is expected to filibuster. But the ghost of former Republican (now the Democratic party) turned Federalist (the elitist party of the early 19th century) Aaron Burr is expected to pop a cap in Hamilton’s ass. Again.