Author: R J Adams

Lead story of most of the world’s news media today was the appalling carnage in northern Iraq, as al Qaeda – unknown in Iraq prior to the US invasion of 2003 – continued its policy of murder and terror, much like it’s American counterparts further south in Baghdad.

NBC Nightly News did get around to mentioning the attacks on the Iraqi villages of Qataniya and Adnaniya, but only after it had reported at some length on the “crisis” in the US money markets, and held us all in suspense with sneak previews of its “Elvis” feature later in the program. According to NBC’s resident expert, who would probably be more at home advertising Botox than analyzing the nation’s finances, substantial falls on the Dow and Nasdaq resulted from too long a period of low interest rates.

Dammit, the poor have ruined it all for the rich by their demand to own homes, and now the rich have got to take it all back, so the poor can be really poor again and not just pretend to be. It really was a bad show, you breadliners. Do you realize those rich bastards are now having to cut back on their Lear jets because of you? Ms Botox failed to mention how the insatiable greed of the wealthy, and their manipulation of Hedge funds, may just have had something to do with it.

Meanwhile, reports are emerging that the US administration is about to bestow the much sort after “Grand Order of the Noble Terrorist” on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The rumor is, it’s all come about because Dick Cheney got mad when he found out their secret hand-shake was identical to the one at his own Masonic lodge. It is something of a misnomer, however, given that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard holds eighty seats in Iran’s government and half the parliamentary cabinet ministers are from its ranks. Declaring the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, is no different from denouncing Iran as a terrorist state.

Of course, we all know that poses no problem to the delinquent idiot presently posing as “leader of the free world”. His minions, spread out across America like great dollops of cow dung in an over-grazed field, will no doubt rally to his support, whooping and hurling straw bales in the air at the very thought of another good rumble in the Middle East. After all, there’s been damn-all on the telly since CNN’s “Shock & Awe”, back in 2003.

It was a surprise that five hundred dead Iraqis made it onto the US news at all, given the truly dreadful situation out of China right now. Poor, dear, Mattel, that icon of American toy manufacturing beloved by generations of citizens, has been duped by nasty Chinese business people more concerned with making a fast yen than with the safety of American children. It would seem the Chinese have stopped being inscrutable, and are now just unscrupulous.

No blame can be attached to Mattel for the recall of these eighteen million toys worldwide, or, indeed to its subsidiary, Fisher-Price, who had a similar problem involving a mere million toys, two weeks ago.

After all, when you close your American factories to save on wage costs, and move your operations to a country where it’s possible to get a week’s work for a handful of rice while you rake in the profit margins, you should be able to trust your operatives not to dish you in the dirt, shouldn’t you?

One of the co-owners of the Chinese factory involved in this issue committed suicide when the facts came to light, but compared to another five hundred dead in Iraq today that hardly seems significant.

It’s unlikely Mattel’s Chief Executive, Bob Eckert, will join his Chinese counterpart and do the decent thing by leaping out of his Lear jet without a parachute at thirty thousand feet. Though it is likely, between the unscrupulous Chinese dropping him in the dung, the American poor refusing to pay their mortgages, and more than a few peeved Mattel shareholders baying for his blood, it may not be too long before has no Lear jet to jump out of.

Still, to look on the bright side, it seems unlikely Mattel will have to fund a company expansion into Iraq for quite some while yet. Which is a shame for them, because the Iraqis probably wouldn’t be too worried right now about a little bit of lead paint.

Filed under: Perspectives

We all have those days when the fates seem determined to get the better of us. Today has been a little like that.

For me, there is nothing more frustrating than visiting a website only to wade through swathes of advertising, or pleas for “donations”, before the relevant information becomes apparent. Sometimes it doesn’t. Occasionally the offending material is so dense, I give up and go elsewhere.

It’s probably churlish of me. After all, we do have to eat occasionally, and advertising is an essential part of everyday life in these modern times.

Consequently, the last two days has seen RJ reviewing the business income and realizing the hours spent are not quite producing a necessary return. School starts in Illinois next week, so the part-time school bus driving helps out, but that’s really just a “get me out the house so I don’t take permanent root” hobby, and the writing has, at least, to pay for itself.

Reluctantly, “Sparrow Chat” and her sister site, “Even Little Sparrows”, have now resorted to commercialism. Yes, it’s sad but true; Google Ads have appeared in the sidebar.

They are low down. Working on the assumption that regular readers only peruse the latest article, they are placed well down on the sidebar where they’ll usually be invisible until halfway through the second posting. So visit often, and the chances are you’ll never have to see them.

Of course, this defeats the object somewhat – but, what the hell.

Once all the necessary HTML code and stuff was organized, and pasted into the relevant template, I sat back to view this modern day technological wonder. Advertisements that gel with the page content? How marvelous!

Unfortunately, technological it may be, but wonderful it most certainly was not. The last thing expected was a bevy of adverts for dubious chatrooms, and pest control companies, but that’s what magically appeared before my horrified stare.

Then it hit me. “Chat”, and “Sparrow”, an unfortunate combination resulting in pleas to “find your sexy-soulmate here” and “get rid of those pesky, unwanted, birds!”

Thankfully, Google do have a filter but it has to be primed one URL at a time, and needs time to take effect. Half-a-dozen of the most tenacious apparitions have been consigned to the trash can, and others will be kicked off as they appear. Meanwhile, please stay away from the soulmate vendors. Instead, continue to drop in and chat at “Sparrow Chat. You’re safe here.

And when you do, however tempting it may occasionally be, don’t shoot the sparrow.

Filed under: Modern miracles

Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, George W Bush’s “War Czar”, said in a radio interview recently he considered reinstating the military draft was, “….an option on the table.”

It’s interesting to note that no-one, in government or elsewhere, has ever suggested creating the position of “Peace Czar”. Presumably, being at war is considered a more important issue than maintaining peace – even in peacetime.

Military draft is more than just “on the table.” It’s being poured over and debated, not as to its inhumanity and authoritarianism – young Americans wishing to fight have already joined up, the draft is just a basic enslavement of youth as cannon fodder – but for its viability so close to a presidential election.

It’s somewhat surprising Karl Rove has chosen this moment to desert a foundering ship. After all, “Bush’s Brain” is really needed to assess whether reintroducing the draft is a measure likely to throw away the next election, or indeed, if the next election is already lost and by pouring many thousands more inexperienced and ill-trained soldiers into Iraq it will actually have a beneficial effect in curbing the Iraqi resistance and maybe, just maybe, winning over those GOP voters presently deserting to the other side.

There are only two scenarios capable of reversing the fortunes of the GOP at this late stage. One, is a serious and successful terrorist attack within the US, and the other is a clear and obvious sign the Iraq war is won and over, once and for all. The former is beyond the scope of this administration to organize, at least, so far as one is presently able to judge, and equally there is no hope of drastically improving the lot of American forces in Iraq and hence achieving superiority sufficient to declare anything pre-election other than that interminable comment, “The next six months will be crucial.”

In fact, while most Americans are blissfully unaware of it, those forces “fighting for American freedom” in Iraq are, according to a recent Guardian report, just about finished. It’s debatable how much longer the US military can hold it together in Iraq. Morale is rock bottom. Troops are exhausted, mentally and physically, and they have lost faith in their purpose and in their leaders. The pot is overflowing with all the necessary ingredients of an ignominious defeat; something not just the GOP, but America itself, cannot ever envisage as a possibility.

Those in the corridors of power, pouring over that “table” in the White House, know that something drastic has to be done. From their political viewpoint, they may consider there is no choice.

Not all Americans, from either party, are against the draft. In Congress, two major proponents of the idea are both Democrats, Congressman Charles Rangel [D—NY] and Congressman John Murtha [D—PA]. Of course, both are well beyond draft age. That seems to be one major prerequisite for approving a military draft in America – not being younger than forty-two, or having kids aged between eighteen and forty-two. After all, shoveling away the dung is always a good idea so long as someone else is holding the shovel.

The Iraq war has been a travesty of lies since before it began five years ago. Bush’s appalling poll ratings are a measure of his deceit. The American people are slowly coming to realize less than 2% of those killing their sons and daughters in Iraq are al Qaeda terrorists. The sole reason for the war’s conception was corporate greed. If a military draft is introduced to boost the troop numbers in Iraq then many more of those sons and daughters will die to satiate that lust.

Since the zealous patriotism engendered by the events of 9/11 began to fade, US citizens have shown most prominence by their apathy and disinterest in the direction this nation is headed. It will be a measure of the American people how they react when their husbands and their children are ordered to fight and die for the wealthy and the powerful; those who would never soil their lily-white hands by holding the shovel.

Filed under: Freedom come, freedom go