Wherein is found an icky picture. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Batshit Crazy Dictator of Turkmenistan Saparmurad Niyazov has died. The B.C.D. has long been a favorite of this blog, and you can click on the label at the bottom of this post to find out why.







I suspect B.C.D. Niyazov would have enjoyed the handover ceremony in Najaf yesterday. This rabbit maybe not so much.



Hey, a record number of dead bodies were found in Baghdad yesterday, so don’t complain to me about the poor bunny rabbit. Also, I used the most tasteful of the pictures of this part of the ceremony, which also featured lip-synching and the biting off of frogs’ heads. And there was this display.



The original caption reads, “Iraqi army soldiers simulate a self defence combat routine”. I thought they were supposed to be standing up so we could stand down.

The Turkmen melon is the source of our pride

Turkmenistan’s President-for-life Niyazov had a melon named in his honor today to celebrate national Melon Day. According to the AFP, “The Turkmenbashi melon is said to be very big and tasty.” Niyazov sez: “All Turkmens celebrate this holiday. The Turkmen melon is the source of our pride, its taste has no equals in the world, the smell makes your head spin.”

Don’t laugh: do you have a melon named after you?

How to become smart and go straight to heaven

Turkmenistan’s totally batshit insane dictator Niyazov says that anyone who reads his book will become smart and go straight to heaven.

A student group in Plano, Texas is suing the school district for preventing them posting info on the district web site. Can I be the only one wondering why a Christian group chose a name, Students Witnessing Absolute Truth, with acronym SWAT?

UNESCO held a meeting to discuss protecting World Heritage Sites such as the Tower of London, the Great Barrier Reef, the prehistoric megalithic temples of Hagar Qim, and Angelina Jolie from the effects of global warming. The US objected that UNESCO has no right to consider global warming because it is unproven that there is global warming.

Speken of Shaft bene I

Update: that Afghan editor sentenced to 2 years for “blasphemy,” well, the prosecutor wanted the death penalty.

As various Republican Senators come out to demand access to the White House papers Harriet Miers worked on, a fun way to pass the time is to try to figure out which ones are actually attempting to perform their advise and consent function and which ones have been tasked by the White House to do so in order to give Bush a face-saving way of withdrawing the nomination. I thought this idea was just an amusing theory when I first heard it, but I’ve become convinced, not least by the ham-handed intercession by Bush yesterday, when in response to a question nobody had asked, he insisted that acceding to such demands “would make it impossible for me and other presidents to be able to make sound decisions.” He did not give any examples of sound decisions he has made. Unless he meant which songs to put on his iPod (sound decisions, geddit?)

The Bush quiz.

The NYT, perhaps being sarcastic, noted that Turkmenistan’s “usually compliant Parliament” refused one of President Niyazov’s requests. He wanted them to set elections for 2009, but they said, unanimously, no, we made you president-for-life, and that’s it.

Anbar province (the Fallujah region) voted 96.9% against the Iraqi constitution, while 12 Shiite and/or Kurdish provinces voted over 90% in favor, up to 99.36%. You can’t build a successful national polity on that basis, you just can’t.

---

Wha be tha blake prevy lawe
That bene wantoun too alle tha feres?
SHAFT!
Ya damne righte! ...

Alle clepe tha carl ane badde mooder-
SOFTE!
Speken of Shaft bene I.
THAN KONNE ALLES WE!

Those are the lyrics to “Shaft” translated into Chaucerian English. Can ye dig it?

Firm evidence

A bit more on “faith-based” initiatives, which there was a McNeil-Lehrer segment on after my earlier post. There’s an interesting rhetorical inversion in the White House spin on faith-based programs, including in Bush’s speech today: they paint themselves not as trying to funnel tax dollars to religious groups and break down the church-state barrier, but as common-sense pragmatists willing to go with whatever program works, and they denigrate the opponents of those programs as unpragmatic ideologues, “radical secularists” Tooey called us -- a title I’ll happily accept -- pursuing a fanatical hatred of religion at the expense of the poor people these programs could be helping.

Turkmenistan closes all hospitals outside the capital. Says President-for-life Niyazov (the guy who renamed all the months, banned beards and gold fillings, etc): “Why do we need such hospitals? If people are ill, they can come to Ashgabat.” Also rural libraries, because peasants don’t read.

E.J. Dionne on the bankruptcy bill.

Condi Rice says there is “firm evidence” that Syria was behind last week’s bombing in Israel. Well, if someone in the government tells me there’s firm evidence that a foreign government is up to no good, I just have to believe them, don’t I?

Unambiguous

There are 2 initiatives on the Cal. ballot relating to casinos. California being California, the commercials against one of them attack it for threatening to make our morals worse. Did I say morals? I meant traffic.

Turkmenistan’s president-for-life-or-until-the-men-with-the-butterfly-nets-catch-up-to-him-whichever-comes-first Saparmurat Niyazov preempted programming on all tv channels so that he could read his poetry to the nation for an hour and a half. When was the last time Bush did that?

The Russian foreign minister reassured the UN yesterday: “President Vladimir Putin has stated unambiguously that Russia will remain a democratic state.” See, and you were worried about Russia not being democratic, but Putin has decreed that it is and Putin’s word is law in Russia, to be followed absolutely. Aren’t you reassured? If not, Putin will crush you like an ant.

Imperialism and imperial hubris

Giving a press conference on Al Jazeera, Muqtada al-Sadr says, "Najaf has triumphed over imperialism and imperial hubris." That would be a set-back for George Bush, whose slogan is "4 More Years of Imperialism and Imperial Hubris." I wonder how much of the timing of the start & stop siege of Najaf is related to the Republican convention. That may also be behind the ban on Al Jazeera: preventing a split-screen presentation of pictures of the convention and of the bombing of whatever Iraqi city we’ll be bombing that week, like the 1968 D convention and the protestors. The whole world isn’t watching, if our tame censors can do anything about it.

Speaking of imperialism and imperial hubris, Colin Powell, in an interview with the Atlantic Monthly, says, "The United States believes it has worldwide obligations. Our European friends have never felt that that was their destiny or their obligation." How ignorant of history do you have to be to make a statement like that. Wait, it gets better: "The average European citizen, looking around, sees some of these out-of-the-way places like Afghanistan and the Balkans and Iraq." Who do you think used to go to war with each other on a regular basis to take those areas as colonies?

Speaking of hubris, Niyazov, the dictator of Turkmenistan who has exceeded even my taste for wacky news stories, has ordered a palace entirely constructed of ice to be built in his hot central Asian country. The Indy calls him neo-Stalinist, although neo-Dr. Evil seems more like it. It quotes one of his poems: "I am the Turkmen spirit reborn to bring you a golden age. I am your saviour ... My sight is sharp - I see everything. If you are honest in your deeds, I see this; if you commit wrongdoing; I see that too." So maybe it’s neo-Santa Clausism, which would explain the ice palace.

Driving the Turkmen way

Saw Bush on tv today, being asked questions about his plans to restructure the intelligence bureaucracy, and he remembered that his handlers had told him he opposed making the intelligence czar a cabinet post, but clearly couldn’t quite remember why. Kerry is saying that if Bush was really serious about this, he’d call Congress back into session. Of course Kerry wasn’t serious about that. A special session would make no particular demands on Bush’s time, but force Kerry and Edwards to abandon campaigning and do their senatorial jobs for a change.

The NYT cites a US intelligence report from 1991 saying that Colombia’s current president slash warlord, Alvaro Uribe, was closely associated with Pablo Escobar. The Sunday Times (London) said the same thing nearly 2 years ago, and I mentioned it here. The US State Dept rushed to defend him, saying that Uribe’s gov extradites lots of drug suspects to the US, although he spent his career as a legislator slash cartel flunky fighting any extradition. Ah, but is he doing that with all the cartels equally?

In Turkmenistan, applicants for driver’s licenses will have to demonstrate knowledge of the sacred writings of wacky megalomaniacal president-for-life Niyazov (the guy who renamed the months) to "ensure future drivers are educated in the spirit of high moral values." And you can bone up, too (a cache file because the book's website went out of business).

Speaking of wacky megalomaniacs, Governor Schwarzenegger has settled his lawsuit with the company making bobble-head dolls of him. They will continue to make them, but they will no longer carry weapons. Remember: when toy guns are outlawed, only toy bobble-headed outlaws will have toy guns.

The Second Annual Homeless World Cup was just held. 26 teams of homeless people from all over the world compete in soccer. Italy won.

Signs you’ve been spending too much time online: I just read the headline of an AP story, "Assault on Afghan Site," and for a second I actually thought they were talking about a website.

Nobody likes to see dead people on their television screens

A concerted attack by members of the 9/11 Commission on John “Lost to a Dead Guy” Ashcroft today could have done major damage to Bush, who scheduled a press conference timed to undercut it. In the end, the guy who downgraded terrorism as a priority for the Justice Dept because he was more interested in drugs and porn (aren’t we all?) and whose only response to intelligence was to stop flying commercial airlines, was let off remarkably lightly.

And so was Bush, following an interminable opener in which he stressed the same syllables (3rd and 7th, or whatever it was) in every single sentence. Every question was so unspecific as to allow him to squirm out. Interestingly, he gave the same answer to a question about whether he could name any mistake he’d made as Eisenhower gave about whether he could name any contributions Nixon had made to his administration (give me a few days, and I might come up with something). And he never did answer why he felt the need to testify to the 9/11 Commission only with Cheney holding his hand, or whatever he holds. And he needs a new adjective; he slathers “tough” all over every sentence like ketchup on his mother’s awful cooking. (Later: Juan Cole says it is in bad taste to equate the “tough” week for his administration with the “tough” week for families of the dead soldiers.) He also kept repeating that we were changing the world, and some crap about liberty. Josh Marshall: “I saw a man on autopilot, and a pretty crude autopilot at that.” Indeed, he repeated almost every exaggeration of the danger allegedly posed by Saddam; we should be grateful he didn’t bring up the yellowcake again.

When Bush characterized opponents of his insane Iraq policy as believing that Muslims or “brown-skinned” people can’t have democracies, did anyone else remember his father referring to Jeb’s kids as “the little brown ones”?

Mostly, he gave off the same air of passivity as Condi Rice did, not just about the past, when he’d have been willing to “move mountains” if only someone had told him what to do and where to do it (I’m not sure how strip-mining would have prevented terrorism, but Bush was willing to do it, right after he tried out tax cuts and drilling in Alaska to see if they would prevent terrorism), but also about the future. A paragraph from Salon demonstrates this passivity:

To whom will the United States hand over Iraqi sovereignty on June 30? "We'll find that out soon." Why haven't U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces been effective in quelling the uprisings? "We'll need to find out why." Was the information contained in the infamous Aug. 6, 2001, President's Daily Brief accurate? "I presume the 9/11 commission will find out." What about those weapons of mass destruction? "Of course I want to know why we haven't found a weapon yet," the president said. Later, he said of the WMD: "I look forward to hearing the truth as to exactly where they are."

A few fortune-cookie statements from the press conference: “A country that hides something is a country that is afraid of getting caught.” “I wouldn't be happy if I were occupied either.” “Oceans don’t protect us. They don't protect us from killers.” “Look, nobody likes to see dead people on their television screens.” “We weren't on a war footing.” “I expect information that comes to my desk to be real and valid.” He actually used the name Osama bin Laden for what may well be the first time in a year or two.

Today was World Turban Day, aka, World Hey We’re Fucking Sikhs, Not Fucking Muslims! Day

I’ve mentioned wacky Turkmenistan president-for-life Niyazov before. There’s an article in the Indy. First paragraph: “He has banned beards and listening to car radios, and instituted a national holiday in honour of a melon. Now the world's craziest dictator has identified a new and pressing danger to his people: gold teeth.”

The Daily Kos: “Bush approaches the world as if the good things that happen to him are the result of virtue and the bad things the result of environment, but with other people it's the exact opposite.”

You can't even die in this country

So according to the one Iraqi defector the admin loves to cite as proof that only defectors rather than inspections get at the truth, and that Iraq covered up its early weapons program, Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law & weapons chief, all WMDs were destroyed in 1991. Only the UN never told anyone that he said this (in 1995). (This is from Newsweek, which downplayed it, but see the FAIR.org report).

A businessman is planning a theme park on the outskirts of Berlin: Ossiworld, for those feeling nostalgic for the GDR. Actually, the East Berlin they’re talking about--snarling dogs, random searches, etc.--is nothing like the one I remember, with polite helpful officials and a Wall less heavily guarded than the Tuilleries Gardens in Paris. Also, and no one ever talks about reproducing this, there was that propaganda lecture you had to go through before entering the East--the one given by an American.

President Niyazov, Great Hero of the Nation and True Father of all Turkmen, had his 63rd birthday today, and seems to have passed up the opportunity to rename something else, like the planets maybe. [Oh Christ, I wrote that before reading the rest of the article; actually, he has a meteor named after himself.] Here’s one I missed: the People’s Assembly (whose members come from the one legal party), recently demanded that Niyazov’s enemies be drawn and quartered and their organs left for the vultures in the Karakum Desert (which I believe is also one of the provisions in John Ashcroft’s draft Patriot II Act).

I didn’t know that inter-faith marriages are banned in Israel.

The House of Representatives voted today to ban human cloning. They obviously haven’t been watching the McNeil-Lehrer interviews with Democratic candidates for president.

According to the Georges Bush and Will, if the Senate doesn’t vote on Miguel Estrada’s nomination, it will be tantamount to a coup against the Constitution. Will then undermines his case a tad by saying it would be as if the Democrats wielded power without having won a presidential election.

Bored as dead rats

In another display of arrogance, the Bush admin decided that Tom Ridge didn’t have to show up for a confirmation hearing chaired by Joe Lieberman. In another display of Democratic cravenness, Lieberman has caved in, and even given up his chairmanship a few days early, showing the leadership style that makes him totally unsuited for the office he announced he was running for the same day.

http://www.theonion.com/onion3901/bush_on_north_korea.html

You know that new car smell, the real one, not the one in the spray cans? It’s poisonous, can give you sick building syndrome. It takes 3 years for the level to drop into the safe range.

The biggest split over what to replace the World Trade Center with is between the sexes. Naturally, men want really tall, thrusting, throbbing towers at least the height of the original. Women are more concerned about safety. Actually, whose stupid idea was it to exempt the towers from fire department regulations anyway? Just don’t do that again, and we’ll keep the replacements below 50 stories.

The French minister of education (I’ll give the URL for the educationalists on the list), says what no other minister of education has ever said--school is boring, and by god it’s supposed to be boring. Why when he was in school, “80 per cent of us were as bored as dead rats”.

Turkmenistan’s loony leader, Sapamurad Niyazov, who renamed the months, has announced that later this week (in the month of Turkmenbashi) 32 people allegedly involved in a plot to assassinate him will go on trial. He also announced what their sentences will be.

In different parts of today’s NY Times, it is reported that Cal. Governor Gray Davis plans to cut 500,000 people from Medicaid, and that he will spend $220,000,000 on a spanking new death row for San Quentin, capacity of 1,000.

The world’s stupidest kidnappers released their victim, a former Goldman Sachs exec, after he promised to pay them $5 million. They actually got caught, just after that, because they ordered a pizza using his credit card.

Water, water, everywhere

After 6 months in an Australian detention center, a Pakistani seeking asylum is released--and handed a bill for $85 a night for a dorm without a door and a two-hour wait for the showers. Of course, his new visa doesn’t allow him to work and...wait for it...potential immigrants aren’t allowed to have debts to the government.

At the Earth Summit, the Bush admin wrecks another international agreement, this one on clean drinking water, the lack of which kills millions of children each year, but screw ‘em. Let ‘em drink Coke (except in LA schools, where it will soon be illegal--what will they wash down their Ecstacy and Ritalin with?).

The constant references by Bushies to Churchill in the drum beating for war against Iraq is pissing off all the British newspapers, one of which even interviewed, gasp, historians.

Robert Mugabe fires the last white cabinet minister.

A couple of times this month I’ve sent funny stories about the megalomanocracy running Turkmenistan. In today’s paper was the punch line: US to expand military cooperation with Turkmenistan.

If you haven’t seen the study which says that the US has quadrupled its inmate population in twenty years, and that there are now 791,600 black men in jail or prison compared to 603,032 in colleges or universities, seek it out.

Gurbansoltan-edzhe is the cruelest month

I grow old... I grow old... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Here’s some advice (from “The Producers”): “When you’re down and out, and everybody thinks you’re finished, that’s the time to stand up on your two feet and shout ‘Who do you have to fuck to get a break in this town?’”

According to Saddam, "Darkness shall be defeated," he vowed in a 20-minute address. "The forces of evil will carry their coffins on their backs to die in disgraceful failure." Well, that’s be convenient, because they’ll already be carrying their coffins on their... no, no, I guess it really doesn’t make much sense.

Tonight is the deadline for Zimbabwean white farmers to leave their farms, which will then be turned over to Moammar Qaddafi, who’s been loaning them a lot of oil lately. It was supposed to go to poor black people, but shit happens.

If you’re wondering what sort of government we imposed on Nicaragua, well, the former president Arnoldo Alemán is being charged with theft of $100 million. The system works.

Niyazov was named president for life of Turkmenistan. He celebrated by renaming all the months. April is named after his mother (Gurbansoltan-edzhe), isn’t that sweet? And January for himself. He’s also renaming the days. The Times says “Mr Niyazov is not a man renowned for his modesty”.

Sharon calls the Palestinian leadership a “terror posse,” which I thought was very “street” of him.

Hail to the chief

Turkmenistan president Niyazov, already hailed as Chief of the Turkmens in one of those Central Asian leadership cults that always seem so unearned, has been promoted, if indeed there can be a promotion from Chief of the Turkmens. He is now being called by his spokesmen a national prophet with divine abilities.

Also, Jeremy Irons has painted his 15th-century castle in western Cork peach. The natives are not happy.

Shouldn’t it be the bi-millennium? Anyway, for those not of the Christian faith, which as far as I know is all of us, the millennium, according to South Park, is the day every thousand years when Jesus comes out and if he sees his own shadow, we will have a thousand years of peace and contentment.

Jesus will appear on the Mount of Olives, and you can watch it on web-cam. Well, you can if your web-server isn’t an incredible wimp like mine, which is shutting down for a day just to be safe.

With increasing mutterings about whether the Russian apartment building bombings were just a Reichstag/Tonkin Gulf-type incident, the Russians miraculously arrested some of the culprits yesterday. Very believable.

So on Monday Turkmenistan abolishes the death penalty, and on Tuesday it names Niyazov president-for-life. I’m sure this amounts to some sort of collective statement about life imprisonment, but whatever.

Guatemala elects a president who is a confessed multiple murderer and, worse, a crony slash puppet of Efrian Rios Montt of evil memory. And it wasn’t even close. In Peru, Fujimori is also giving that president for life thing a go. And in Venezuela, the first thing former failed-coup leader and now elected-president Hugo Chavez does when there’s a national disaster is start wearing military fatigues. At least in the good old days immortalized by the movie Bananas, when these assholes seized power through coups rather than elections, you could kid yourself that the locals would probably prefer to live in a democracy.

A perhaps unfortunate headline in the Washington Post: “Tipper Gore Has Lump Removed.” But he’s still running for president, right?

Bribery made easy

Singapore sentenced a 16-year old to 2 yrs for the crime of possessing a pack of cigarettes. Think all those Southerners who were so enamored of caning are paying attention?

Just what beautiful downtown Ashkhabad (the capital of Turkmenistan, but of course you all knew that) needed: a 240-foot tower topped by a 40-foot revolving statue of President Niyazev. Yup, I knew that skyline needed something.