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28 April 2003 George W. Hal 9000 Actual 'conversation' between your host and the GWB Chatbot at Zabaware.com: George W. Bush: Hi Wardog, I'm George
W. Bush, the president of the United States. You can call me Dubya. Try it out for yourself at www.zabaware.com/webhal/dubyabot.html 27 April 2003 Lies Lies and More Lies UK news source the independent is running a story revealing how the road to Iraq was paved with lies (shock! surprise!) " The case for invading Iraq to remove its weapons of mass destruction was based on selective use of intelligence, exaggeration, use of sources known to be discredited and outright fabrication" Read Revealed: How the road to war was paved with lies although it may not tell you anything you hadn't already suspected. On a slightly lighter note, check out The
Bums Will Always Lose, a wickedly cynical look at the future
of American Rule on Planet Earth. Just in case you had any faint
hopes that the Americans would somehow self-destruct or simply fold
their tents and go back home, this piece offers to "destroy
your hopes right now, free of charge." It's brilliant and also
very funny. This is from Exile,
a lovely and strange little magazine from Moscow. Don't worry, it's
in English. 25 April 2003 SARSDog? Looks like the SARS thing has knocked Iraq off the top of the charts, at least for now. As a resident of Toronto (aka Leperville) this is getting kind of surreal. Honestly people, nobody is panicking here in Old Tronna, and with no reason to why would we? Unless you're already in the hospital, or have a fondness for tongue-kissing Intensive Care Ward nurses then I do believe you are safe, strident media reports to the contrary. Get a life. Now, back to stuff that really matters. You thought Rummy & Pals were scary? Check out the Jesus Mafia and tell me this isn't the most f***ed up thing you've ever heard of. Read Jesus Plus Nothing, as it appeared in Harper's in March. I posted this little gem on warfilter.com a few days back, and I offer it here for your reading pleasure. It seems that Iraq, Syria, Iran and North Korea are not the only spokes on the axis of evil - now we can include the charming little police state of Burma/Myanmar on that list. Seems the U.S. has had it's eye on them for some time now, about the same length of time they've been there liberating that country's significant natural gas reserves. Cryptome.org, the site the 'story' was plucked from is a repository of U.S. gov't documents about all kinds of stuff. I dare you not to read a document with a title like "Report on Abnormal Nuclear Occurrences in 2002" or "Suicide Bombers Are Just Like Us" Enjoy! 21 April 2003 More Intel Some further links to thought-provoking reading about Iraq and the U.S. Empire. The Command Post - in their own words: "Why? So we can post breaking war news in one convenient place, and not all over the web. " Features section on Iraq, North Korea, the Global War on Terror (their phrase, not mine) and an Op-Ed section. Pretty good stuff, and not all left-leaning either. Intel Dump - " Near real-time analysis and commentary from Phil Carter -- a former Army officer, journalist and UCLA law student." Just what it says. International Committee of the Red Cross - find out what the Red Cross is up to in Iraq and elsewhere. WarDog will soon be going offline, at least as a front
page for this site. I will still maintain a politically flavoured
section of the site, though, since the situation in Iraq and the
middle east bears monitoring as the United States tries not to screw
things up completely over there. 18 April 2003 Was It Good For You? Happy Good Friday, readers. Spacedog, er, Wardog hopes you are enjoying this day of rest in the old Christian tradition of peace and good will towards your fellow carbon-based life forms and not in the New Christian style of the ChickenHawks in the White House. That would be the style that includes kicking back with a few cold ones after a month of letting God's Righteous Fury rain down on a heathen nation in the desert. George: Hey Rummy, get me another
one a them frostys out the fridge, wouldja? Happy Good Friday everyone, and a happy Passover too. 14 April 2003 War is Over (and over, and over) With the war "over" now, I guess we can all look forward to a lasting period of peace and prosperity for not only the newly freed Iraqi People®, but for all of us. Imagine; no more fighting, no more violence, no more lies, no more duplicitousness or spinjobs by either the political machine or their friends in the media. It will be glorious. Oh, wait, first we have to do something about those creeps over in Syria, then we can relax. And maybe lob some ordnance into Iran, just to make sure they know the war is over too. Then it will really be over. Except for North Korea. Those guys just don't know when to quit. Good thing the U.S. has a few B1 bombers in Guam, just in case they have to bring peace to the Koreans too. I'm sure that once the NKs get the picture, the war will really be over. Unless you're an Evildoer®, in which case the war will never be over. Some more material for your dining and dancing pleasure, gentle reader, and sorry for the absence this past week. Al Jazeera is back online after being hijacked a couple weeks ago. Who loves the Iraqi Information Minister? We do. And now so can you. Warfilter is a comprehensive blog of pretty wide-ranging war news. Oh, wait, the war's over now, we forgot. And for the ADD-affilcted, may we present the Iraqometer. That's enough for today. 8 April 2003 Wired for Sounding Off Even WIRED magazine is keeping an eye on things stateside - a couple of news items today give a pretty good idea of what's happening in the U.S. as far as personal freedoms go. They're going, is what's happening. Check out Due Process Vanishes in Thin Air and Intel Coder Not Going Anywhere for a look at a couple of geek-flavoured 'war' stories. When Michael Moore was touring his book Downsize This a few years ago he came to the OISE auditorium here in Toronto, and of course packed the place with a wildly supportive crowd. Mike's always been a fave here north of the border, partly because Canadians love to see someone take the piss out of the Americans, and partly because he's just an entertaining scallawag of the highest order. I lined up to have him sign my book, and when I got up to him at the autograph table I said "It's hard to believe that the same state that gave the world Ted Nugent could also give us a guy like you, Mike." He threw is head back and laughed, which made me feel pretty good, and then signed the book to me from "the other motor city madman". I guess he's also now the Hollywood Madman, although we could use more of his kind of madness these days. His latest email update —My Oscar "Backlash": "Stupid White Men" Back At #1, "Bowling" Breaks New Records — sent to his loyal legions of fans talks about his all-too-brief rant at the Oscars, and about how the Stupid White Men currently in charge of the white house "use FEAR to manipulate the public into doing whatever they are told. " It's good reading, if you aren't already on Michael's mailing list. Check it out here and also check out a recent NY Times article, Bowling for Kennebunkport, reproduced on Moore's website. 7 April 2003
6 April 2003 A friend at work recommends the independent Al-Ahram newspaper from Cairo as an "intelligent and very credible" news source from the middle east. This was after I pointed him at Debka.com, which he dismissed as biased towards U.S. & Israeli interests. Says he: "They publish a wide range of 'sane' critical views and - when read in conjunction with say, Ha'aretz - provide a well-balanced, relatively non-propagandistic perspective from "on the ground". This is from someone who has lived in Israel and travelled the middle east, so has some credibility himself. More so than your humble narrator, that's for sure. Thanks to M for the input. See for yourself & make your own decision, but I think he's right about Al-Ahram. See their piece about depleted uranium for more evidence of extreme nastiness in Iraq. Other news sources: The Village Voice has been consistently anti-war since the start of all this, a stance that must make them wildly unpopular with certain segments of the American population (and of course wildly popular with others). Check out the weekly cartoons by Fiore, as well as this article about a little 'gift package' distributed to American marines in Iraq. Called "A Christian's Duty", it calls upon the jarheads to pray for George Bush & family, among others. Seriously. 4 April 2003 It All Makes Sense Now A WarMonger Explains War to a Peacenik Also, I was looking around the web for some information relating to religion in the U.S. and particularly in Texas, since George W. happens to hail from the Lonestar State. I'd read some time ago of a Canadian's experience there after moving with her spouse, an experience that sounded almost surreal—major pressure to join one or another of the many different kinds of churches that evidently flourish in Texas. It sounded awful, frankly, especially to my non-religious mindset. I got to wondering about how such an upbringing may have influenced our man in the white house (well, somebody's man) and if it had had an effect on how he views his role in history etc etc. There are a few pieces out there that touch on that, and on how GWB may in fact see himself as 'God's instrument' and all that. Scary, eh? What I found instead, and pretty much right off the hop, was this statement from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America concering America's role in world affairs and of course their role in the current conflict in Iraq. Excerpt from Statement from Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson in response to U.S. pre-emptive military strike on Iraq: "The decision of the United States to attack Iraq with a pre-emptive military strike without the support of the United Nations marks a sobering moment for this nation and world. I express my profound concern that the United States has chosen to take this step. Our country, especially because of its wealth and might, has a particular responsibility to pursue policies of cooperation and to seek to resolve conflicts peacefully. In my view, neither has the United States responsibly exercised its leadership role within the United Nations and in related diplomatic efforts to avert war, nor have our national leaders sufficiently made the case that they have pursued all reasonable avenues other than war. I am particularly troubled that this decision has been made without broad consensus and support within the international community." Read the whole statement here >> I wonder what GWB might say in response to that?
Not much, sadly. 3 April 2003 This is the best piece about Bush and his cronies that I've read so far: Berating the Generals: The Siege of Washington and of course there's this:
(provided by Kevin McMacintosh, Minister of Information) 2 April 2003 Pax Americana For those who felt during the run-up to the Iraq invasion a deep disconnect between what the Americans (ie.GWB) were saying about their reasons for attacking Iraq and the lack of hard evidence, the following articles might put it all in perspective. It's not really about Iraq after all. These 2 articles were pulled from the Information ClearingHouse site. The
president's real goal in Iraq The Project for the New American Century "The Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, is a Washington-based think tank created in 1997. Above all else, PNAC desires and demands one thing: The establishment of a global American empire to bend the will of all nations. They chafe at the idea that the United States, the last remaining superpower, does not do more by way of economic and military force to bring the rest of the world under the umbrella of a new socio-economic Pax Americana." The gist: America, or at least the small group of Americans currently holding the reigns, have designs on dominating the planet in a way that makes their current cultural and financial hegemony (sorry, horrible word) look like a weak joke. It's going to get interesting, if by interesting we mean "violent and dangerous for anyone who looks like an American". Hey, that's us! 31 March 2003 Iraq Body Count The counter over there in the right hand menu area is a more or less live update of the number of casualties to date in Iraq. I was really tempted to put it into our intranet site at work, but didn't want to unleash the wrath of my employer onto my po' haid. So here it stays, brought to you by the kind folks at IraqBodyCount.org. This is the kind of thing that makes it so hard to get a read on the U.S. The country is basically run by out-of-control warchimps and greedheads, the economy is driven by weapons manufacturers and toxic chemical giants, the media fall into line like sheep every time the white house looks their way, and they insist on playing God Bless America at baseball games in Canada. Then you get sites like this one, plus the hundreds of blog sites now busily churning out anti-war diatribes and the two sides don't add up. One gets the feeling that the U.S. is splitting itself into two distinct societies—broken out largely along Democrat-Republican lines, but not entirely. Another good info source: informationclearinghouse.info (link jumps you straight into an eye witness account from Iraq, from a British journalist with U.S. troops at Nasiriya. Grim).
28 March 2003 Get Your War On And other good stuff. Here are some of the best sources of information about the 'war' I've found so far. If you have any you'd like to see posted here, or you have a rant you'd like to share, please email me at chimpfight@spacedogdesign.com. Seriously, that address will work. Get Your War On : wicked clipart comix from David Rees. Gets straight to the matter, no punches pulled, no BS. Impressive, and scary because it's true. Robert Fisk.com - controversial British journalist currently in Iraq, but not currently "in bed-ed" with the glorious Amurkin troops. Chilling stuff you won't find on Fox or CNN, and not too popular with war supporters, naturally. Make up your own mind on this one. DebkaFile - up to the minute (almost) reports from the middle east. They have an excellent day-by-day account of major developments of the invasion (sorry, can't call it a war) as well as reports from sources inside Iraq and other middle east countries. Working for Change - U.S. site that takes a decidedly anti-war, anti-Bush stance. Lots of good reading here, and a good antidote to the conservative-dominated popular media in the 'States. That's all for now, stay tuned.
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I
thought this was a real site at first, it looks so slick. Then I
noticed the slogan: The Bush Administration: Courage, Passion,
Faith, Petroleum, Xenophobia. Check out the Kids Page and
especially the 
