Category Archives: Media

Qassam Rockets ‘R’ Us

Israel, Media, Terrorism

“Paula Hancocks of CNN and her bureau beau assumed their standard position when breaking the news of Israel’s raid into Gaza to retrieve a kidnapped soldier and two civilians: face to Mecca and keister up in the air.
The CNN flacks did not exactly set the scene for the operation, although, to be fair, they mentioned in passing one disquieting possibility: Israeli’s obsession with never leaving men, dead or alive, in enemy hands…
CNN also alluded to rising tensions caused by Qassam rockets, fired daily by Gaza’s goons into the Western Negev city of Sderot. In the event you were lulled into thinking, foolishly, that this was good enough a reason for the Israeli operation, Hancocks provided a much-needed corrective: The homemade Qassam is quite harmless; Toys “R” Us will soon be incorporating these babies into their Family Guy Box Set…”

Read the complete column, “Qassam Rockets ‘R’ Us,” here.

Qassam Rockets 'R' Us

Israel, Media, Terrorism

“Paula Hancocks of CNN and her bureau beau assumed their standard position when breaking the news of Israel’s raid into Gaza to retrieve a kidnapped soldier and two civilians: face to Mecca and keister up in the air.
The CNN flacks did not exactly set the scene for the operation, although, to be fair, they mentioned in passing one disquieting possibility: Israeli’s obsession with never leaving men, dead or alive, in enemy hands…
CNN also alluded to rising tensions caused by Qassam rockets, fired daily by Gaza’s goons into the Western Negev city of Sderot. In the event you were lulled into thinking, foolishly, that this was good enough a reason for the Israeli operation, Hancocks provided a much-needed corrective: The homemade Qassam is quite harmless; Toys “R” Us will soon be incorporating these babies into their Family Guy Box Set…”

Read the complete column, “Qassam Rockets ‘R’ Us,” here.

Addicted to that Rush

Criminal Injustice, Drug War, Media, The Zeitgeist, War on Drugs

It seems authorities are Addicted to that Rush; they can’t stop badgering Limbaugh about his consumption choices. Having arbitrarily decided that ingesting pain-killers is infinitely worse for individual and “society” than compulsive eating, bungee jumping, alcohol or tobacco consumption, the policy pinheads have proceeded to preemptively trample the constitutional rights of people like Limbaugh, before the foreseeable harm to “society” can occur.

Lysander Spooner, the great 19th-century theorist of liberty, held that government had no business treating vices as crimes. “Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which a man harms the person or property of another.”

This classical liberal thinks that “incarcerating people for their consumption choices has the consistency of arresting a survivor of suicide for attempted murder. Moreover, if for harming himself a man forfeits his liberty, then it can’t be said that he has dominion over his body. It implies that someone else ‘government’ owns him.” (May 8, 2002)

Be mindful that law-enforced medical treatment must also be volubly opposed. The coercive, therapeutic state is a very poor substitute for the avenging state.

Having come up hard against the reality of it, you’d think Limbaugh would have at last leapt in to denounce the Federal government’s War on Drugs. Even National Review has done an about-face. But Limbaugh is too busy hobnobbing in Washington. (Read “Rush Goes to Washington clichés. You’ll want to barf if you’re my kind of person.)

The co-dependency Limbaugh has with the state is by far the more dangerous one.

Blood On Their Hands

Iraq, Media, War, WMD

On June 25, 2003, I wrote:

“When the administration plants or uncovers a couple of dozen drums of inactive, old goop, minus the necessary dispersing systems, ‘Boobus Americanus’ will easily accept these as the real ruse for war.

That day arrived. Last week, the administration issued a low-key announcement: it had unearthed in Iraq pre-Gulf War munitions containing degraded sarin.

“Hallelujah, proclaimed some of the Boobi. Salvation at last: the reason for an unjust war had been found. The administration didn’t quite go along with them.

War mongers and apologists must either expiate, or be doomed to wonder about, forever searching for a symbolic salve for rotting souls, and alternately muttering, “Out, damned spot! out, I say!”