"An article published in the latest issue of Diplomatic History examines Bush’s post 9/11 national security strategy in a historical perspective. In doing so, author Melvyn P. Leffler finds that there is nothing new or revolutionary about the Bush administration’s foreign policy. Focusing on values and stressing moral clarity, as President Bush has done, are traditional means to mobilize public support, especially in times of heightened threat perception. 9/11 left America feeling threatened and, as the author suggests, US leaders feeling a combination of guilt, outrage, and responsibility. “Like other times in American History, when threat perception has been high, policymakers gravitate to rhetorical strategies emphasizing ideals and values,” Leffler explains....

....The reputation of the US is low. “The balance between ideals and interests has been dangerously skewed in favor of the former, and the result may be an ominous overassertion of American power,” Leffler concludes. “…Interests need to temper ideals and discipline power. This does not require a revolution in thinking; it requires the exercise of good judgment.”

These articles are published in the Diplomatic History roundtable issue on The Bush Administration’s Foreign Policy in Historical Prospective. As the sole journal devoted to the history of U.S. diplomacy, foreign relations, and national security, Diplomatic History examines issues from the colonial period to the present in a global and comparative context. It is published on behalf of The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations."

"A pre-kindergartner who included God on his list of 'favorite things' has been expelled from his California school for breaching the wall between church and state. School officials say that three-year old Jacob Sapperstein can return to school next week, after counselors have had a chance to assess the damage done to his classmates.

Parents say Jacob may have been trying to spell 'DOG'"

""When I've been walking through the streets recently, I've been stunned by the growing number of girls wearing incredibly short skirts. I don't know where to turn my eyes. And that's a bother. Have these girls no sense of shame?" Flash quotes the politician as saying in a protest he filed with the superintendent of the prefectural board of education. "We need concrete steps to counter this."...

...The men's weekly says that fans of long skirts point to the rape of local lasses by members of the U.S. military stationed throughout the prefecture as good reason for the girls to choose more modest attire."

Thanks Daily Kos and Meat-Eating Leftist!
Categories: Japan, Culture, Democracy, News, Politics, Sex, America, Nonsense, Bush

"As a protest against the U.S. war in Iraq, Eric Wallach staged his own crucifixion at the Astor Pl. traffic triangle at Lafayette St. To crucify himself Wallach climbed on top of a crossing-signal sign and hung there about two hours. Passersby snapped cellphone photos of him near a altered one-way sign reading “No War.” When onlookers began to crowd the island, police moved them off and three officers took Wallach down, put him on a backboard and loaded him into a police vehicle. Wallach, who also goes by the moniker Radical Jew 33, is a freelance theater artist and self-described provocateur. “I just can’t stand the war,” he said."

"The Power of Nightmares explains how Curtis believes the vision of an Islamic terror network has been distorted by politicians intent on creating a climate of fear.

The film makes it clear there are fanatical individuals willing to conduct acts of terror, but shows there is no formal terrorist Al-Qaeda organisation."

"...Curtis's film is not in competition, but it is nonetheless this year's Fahrenheit 9/11, shaking festival-goers out of their aesthetic reveries with a political analysis of the causes and consequences of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

Curtis does not care for the Moore parallel. "Moore is a political agitprop film-maker. I am not - you'd be hard pushed to tell my politics from watching it. It was an attempt at historical explanation for September 11. You see, up to this point nobody had done a proper history of the ideas and groups that have created our modern world. It's weird that nobody had done before me."....

"It has really touched a nerve with people who realise something is not quite right with the way terrorism has been reported."

"For these reasons, one might well think that The Power of Nightmares would provide a usefully chastening corrective to the prevailing orthodoxy if it were shown on US television. But it seems extremely unlikely that it will be.

"While a two-and-a-half -hour film version is to be given a prime-time Cannes screening, and while the original three-hour series will be shown tonight on al-Jazeera along with a live interview with the director, US telly has run scared from showing it. "Something extraordinary has happened to American TV since September 11," says Curtis. "A head of the leading networks who had better remain nameless said to me that there was no way they could show it. He said, 'Who are you to say this?' and then he added, 'We would get slaughtered if we put this out.'" Surely a relatively enlightened broadcaster like HBO would show it? "When I was in New York I took a DVD to the head of documentaries at HBO. I still haven't heard from him." He has little hope that he will."

"Japan's ruling party is pursuing drastic revisions to the country's constitution, including rewording the guarantee of gender equality. Women's rights advocates say that if the revisions pass, Japan will return to "a dark period of history."

The constitution, written in 1946 after World War II, helped reshape life for women here. One of its major changes was to ensure that marriage would be solely based on agreement of husband and wife, who had equal rights. Before then women were not guaranteed civil rights or legal rights. They were not allowed to vote or own property. Although husbands could file for divorce, wives could not.

Then, in June of last year, a constitutional revision panel of the ruling party proposed adding language to Article 24 of the constitution that would emphasize the values of family and community....

....Mamiko Ueno, an author and professor of constitutional law at Chuo University in Tokyo, sees the revision as an attempt to foist state responsibilities onto the family, which--by and large--means women."

"Firstly, to understand how males and females are seen in Japan one must venture back into Japan's quite colourful history. In some of the more distant Eras of the past Japan was a matrilineal society. Women had the ultimate right to succeed men to the head, and therefore ownership, of the family. There were female leaders in Japan hundreds of years before the west started to recognise women as equals. By the end of the Heian period though men had exerted their dominance over society and this structure was to stay in place well up to the present day. In the closed off Edo period of Japan women were segregated to the 'inside' of society, in that socially and personally they were treated as inferior to the men (men outside - work, fight, pursue their life. women inside - house, family, pursue their husband's and son's lives). Women were even taught a more delicate form of the language, one which always assumed they were less important than the men they talked to. This idea of women on the 'inside' and the dominance of the male version of the language still have echoes in today's Japan, although the intensity is quickly decreasing."

"...reverse Parkinson's disease symptoms in one patient, shrink and eliminate breast cysts in another, reduce the size of cancer tumours in lab mice, regenerate plant growth, and hasten seed germination..."

"The Angel Light came to Troy Hurtubise in a dream, but ended up causing him nightmarish problems.

The invention, Hurtubise said, was able to see through walls, detect stealth technology and disable electronics.

But there was a negative side effect to the Angel Light, Hurtubise soon discovered; repeated exposure to the light caused him to lose weight and facial hair, and he suffered a significant downturn to his health."

"“It can stand up to the heat of re-entry to the earth’s atmosphere, and then they can simply wash it off."

1. Any person who thinks Bush is doing the lord's work should be shown explicit photographs depicting 1 of the many 1000s of innocent dead in Iraq. They should then be made to repeat the line "thou shalt not murder" until they also agree that the Bush regime is hideous.
2. Any person who claims that Jesus is about to return should be tied up and made to watch a Bible being inserted into the quivering asshole of the nearest Priest to hand, they should then be made to watch hundreds of documentaries depicting the human parasitic destruction of the world's ecosystem. If Jesus does come back it will be to a world raped by its inhabitants, they should be made to understand America's ignorance of these issues explicitly.
3. Any person who claims that evolution is 'just a theory', and as such should not be taught to our children, should be invited to explain without using the term 'faith' why they have any more right to vote than a monkey. When they fail to compose a valid argument their voting rights should be stripped and officially signed over to a member of ape, monkey or another primate species.
4. Any person who states that Christianity is the one true religion and all other belief systems are wrong should be made to recite that Bible passage about loving thy neighbour repeatedly until their lips fall off.
5. Any person who believes that showing their love for God includes voting in a member of the Bush family should be locked in a roasting hot oven for a period as close to eternity as possible whilst being made to repeat the line "one man's heaven is another man's hell" an infinite number of times.

Will you join my campaign? All those in favour, not in favour or devoid of favour please leave comments on this post. If you have any additions to the manifesto then please also add them to the comments section. I'm only angry at fundamentalist ignorance people. Please don't get angry at me...