Tag: Terrorism
The Most Irritating Phrases
We here at Pensito Review pride ourselves on our ability to toss about the well-worn cliché with the best of them, but even we have a limit to what we can stomach in polite conversation or, worse yet, everyday basic communicative writing that is intended to convey meaning and emotion. Hence our joy at seeing that Oxford University — famed for its dictionary and shoe style — has published its own list of the top 10 most annoying phrases.
We mostly agree:
1. At the end of the day
2. Fairly unique
3. I personally
4. At this moment in time
5. With all due respect
6. Absolutely
7. It’s a nightmare
8. Shouldn’t of
9. 24/7
10. It’s not rocket science
While we consider the Oxford list to be an excellent starting point, we have a few more that we would like to see added to a longer list of obnoxious phrases:
In order to
When all is said and done
Going forward
Same difference
Six of one, half a dozen of the other
In the final analysis
Drill down
Reach out
Do you have some phrases that are pet peeves? Leave us a comment and, at the end of the day, we’ll add them to our list of banned language.
Al Qaeda Endorses McCain, Says Attack Would Help Elect Him
After George Bush invaded Iraq, it could be said that al Qaeda had him right where they wanted him: Entangled in the occupation of a country whose culture he could not fathom, wasting U.S. blood and treasure at an unconscionable rate in order to secure Iraq’s oil for U.S. and multinational corporations, undermining American credibility as an honest broker in the Middle East for generations to come and immolating world peace on the bonfire of his own vanities.
“[A terror strike] will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America.”
— Alleged al Qaeda member
Given all that, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Washington Post reported yesterday that al Qaeda has endorsed John McSame:
“Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the “failing march of his predecessor,” President Bush…
In language that was by turns mocking and ominous, the newest posting credited al-Qaeda with having lured Washington into a trap that had “exhausted its resources and bankrupted its economy.” It further suggested that a terrorist strike might swing the election to McCain and guarantee an expansion of U.S. military commitments in the Islamic world.
“It will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda,” said the posting, attributed to Muhammad Haafid, a longtime contributor to the password-protected site. “Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America.”
The McCain campaign — which has gleefully used the fictitious story that a Hamas official endorsed Barack Obama in fundraising appeals — was outraged over the Post’s report:
AP Calls Palin ‘Palling with Terrorists’ Attack ‘Racially Tinged’ – Obama Lobs Counter-Attack with Keating 5 Documentary
Over the weekend, GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin, the self-described attack dog in lipstick, began what she and McCain have referred to as “taking the gloves off” — which is apparently Republican-speak for “telling even bigger lies” — with an attack on Barack Obama’s superficial association with 1960s radical, William Ayers:
Obama was only eight years old when Ayers used violence to protest the war in Iraq, but when John McCain entangled himself in the Keating Five scandal he was 58.
“Our opponent … is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”
The Associated Press, which got a lot of press over the summer for the promotion of Ron Fournier, an apparent fellow traveler with Karl Rove, to head its DC bureau, released an analysis written by Douglass K. Daniel on Sunday that suggested that the Palin attack was “unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.” Daniel’s rationale goes like this:
Palin’s words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee “palling around” with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn’t see their America?
In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers’ day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.
Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as “not like us” is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American.
Sean Hannity has been beating this tired drum for months. There simply is no “there” there. (We published an overview of Obama’s dealings with Ayers in March.) Obama said this about Ayers in a Democratic debate:
What Does the Media Mean When It Quotes Sarah Palin?
If you think listening to VP candidate Sarah Palin speak is bad, it’s actually worse when it’s reproduced in phonics in writing by reporters in the MSM. I can’t remember a time when a politician’s annoying accent and pronunciation was so faithfully reproduced in the media. Well, there was Billy Carter’s colorful language punctuated by “ain’t.” But one is left to wonder about the intent of the media in reproducing the peculiar Alaska vernacular that is PalinTalk (hmmm, an anagram for “plain talk?”).
Here are a couple of examples from today’s Washington Post:
- “John? John?” Sarah Palin called to John McCain. “Can I add somethin’?”
- A woman wanted to give her the chance to address those who say Palin can’t be a mother and vice president. “Well, let’s prove ’em wrong,” Palin said to cheers.
- She talked about her role if the ticket is elected: “Let me tell you, I know a little bit about energy. That’s gonna be my baby when I get to Washington, D.C.”
My question is, would the Washington Post reproduce the phonics if Palin spoke like the cartoon character Sylvester the Cat or Elmer Fudd? They don’t reproduce every one of Barack Obama’s professorial ums or ers he inserts into sentences. Obama is also prone to dropping his Gs when he wants to sound less “elitist” or to make a homespun point, but I don’t recall seeing that phonically represented.
It’s either a) because it makes Palin sound like just “plain folks” or b) it makes her sound stupid and therefore unfit to be veep or c) because it’s all about accuracy in reporting, the foundation of our free press, and to hell with the English language.
I don’t know which it is, but I’m gonna start watching it in this here space. Oops! It’s infectious.
DVD Drop Designed to Spread Fear and Loathing, But Mainly Fear
When I opened my Sunday Miami Herald two days ago, not just Sports Authority and CVS Pharmacy fliers fell out. An 8.5-by-10-inch piece of paper with a DVD affixed to it clunked to the floor. It was “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West,” a one-hour trailer for a two-hour “documentary.” It’s designed to scare the bejesus out of you and make you decide that John McCain is the only candidate that can save us from waves of Muslim terrorists.
The DVD sports a scary-looking jihadist and an image of the ruins of the World Trade Center with an American flag in the foreground. Of course the timing of the distribution — just a couple of days after the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks — was surely not accidental. But it makes it clear that this movie is not about the GOOD Muslims, it’s about the scary radical Islamists who hate you and want to kill you and your entire family.
Twenty-eight million copies of the DVD, which was first released in 2006 during the midterm elections, was distributed through 70 newspapers in battleground states over the past weekend, including Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, Virginia and Ohio. The highest concentration was in Florida, where no less than 14 newspapers presented subscribers with the thing. And it was only distributed to subscribers because … people who subscribe to the newspaper are residents and therefore are likely voters, whereas people who buy newsstand copies of the Sunday paper just want the comics, right? It also was included in the Wall Street Journal, the World Jewish Digest and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
It is produced and distributed by the Clarion Fund, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that spends a lot of time telling anybody who will listen that it takes no money from the gubmint or special interest groups. It’s a shadowy group that does not list its principals or indeed any information about where its funding comes from.
The DVD is a very slick production, and if you were able to sit through the entire hour, it would no doubt indoctrinate you with the fear and loathing of Muslims that its creators intended. Boosting its credibility are interviews with such luminaries as Alan Dershowitz, who I would imagine had no idea how his interview would be used.
This is propaganda in its most blatant form, and it’s specifically designed to make you terrified of another terrorist attack by maniacal Muslims. It exploits the documentary genre perfectly, blending “facts” delivered in a dead-pan manner with creepy music and outrageous logic to create an atmosphere of lunatic fear. It is so psychologically effective, it’s scary, which is, I suppose, the point. Note that FOX News ran the thing in its entirety in 2006. ‘Nuff said.
If you want to watch it, go here.
Firefighters Appalled at 9/11 Billboards
Firefighters are asking for offensive billboards in the Orlando area, that promote a web site selling a CD, to be taken down. The billboards blame the 9/11 attacks on Democrats while the inane song advertised doesn’t even mention the attacks. Instead, you get little bon mots like this:
Mike Meehan himself — this explains a lot.The Democrat secular progressive move,
political correctness is killing us too.
They want to take the money from the hard workin’ man,
and give it to the lazy folks that don’t give a damn.
And this:
Republicans, we’re not perfect but we know the truth
We uphold the Constitution and the Golden Rule.
We believe a man’s freedom is a God given right,
the USA is the beacon to the whole world in sight.
Just flows, doesn’t it? The songwriter/billboard leaser, Mike Meehan, doesn’t get why people, including fellow Republicans, would be upset over his masterpiece.
“It’s just a silly little billboard,” he said.
The one that features smoke coming out of the building where more than 2,700 people died?
“Well, maybe not silly,” Meehan responded. “But I never thought it would go this far.”
But the International Association of Firefighters doesn’t see it the same way as Meehan and said so in a press release.
Firefighters: “The individual who designed and paid for these billboards deserves scorn. The company that agreed to run them should be ashamed.”
“There’s a big difference between honoring and remembering the fallen – fire fighters and civilians – and shamelessly plastering the image of the burning Twin Towers on a purely political billboard with an offensive statement currying favor for or against a political party. It is offensive to those who died on 9/11. It’s offensive to their families. It’s offensive to those of us in the fire service.
“Debilitating illnesses have stricken fire fighters and others among the 40,000 people – police, building trades, sanitation workers, victims, witnesses and others – who inhaled Ground Zero’s toxic soup of 400 chemicals. Thousands of New York fire fighters have suffered enormously and labor just to breathe. They are living victims who battle violent symptoms of respiratory illness each day.
“A study in 2006 found that more than 12,000 of our members in the International Association of Fire Fighters who work in New York lost 12 years’ worth of lung function in a year following the attacks.
“The individual who designed and paid for these billboards deserves scorn. The company that agreed to run them should be ashamed.”
If you would like to second that emotion, send an email to Mike Meehan at pleasedontvoteforademocrat@yahoo.com and Beech Outdoor Advertising via tricia@beechoutdoor.com.
Jane Mayer, Author of ‘The Dark Side,’ on Terror Politics And War Crimes
A Former Condi Adviser Told Mayer That After 9/11 ‘Fear And Anxiety Were Exploited by Zealots And Fools’
In this interview with Steve Clemons, editor of The Washington Note, Jane Mayer discusses David Addington, Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, whom she profiled in the New Yorker last year and who plays a central role in her new book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, which Trish wrote about this week.
Any efforts to charge Bush officials with war crimes will become moot later this year when Bush issues blanket pardons to all his henchmen, probably on Christmas Eve, just as his father did in 1992.
The fact that hardly anyone has heard of David Addington is no accident. He shares his boss’s fetish for secrecy as well as his belief in the imperial presidency.
The excerpt in the following transcript comes about 11 minutes into the interview. The quote mentioned by Mayer and Clemens is the last line in Mayer’s book. It comes from Phillip Zelikow, a former counselor to Condoleeza Rice, who attempted to explain what went wrong within the administration after the attacks on September 11 this way: “Fear and anxiety were exploited by zealots and fools.”
Book: After 9/11 Cheney Lost It — Traveled with Gas Mask, Space Suit, and Doctor
A new book chronicles the early days after the 9/11 attacks, when Dick Cheney was always reported to be hiding in an underground bunker or a bomb shelter or an orbiting space capsule. Turns out extreme paranoia really did take hold of the vice president.
On Oct. 18, 2001, a White House alarm went off indicating that sensors had detected dangerous levels of radioactive, chemical or biological agents. According to Mayer, anyone who had entered the White House situation room, including Cheney, had been exposed. “They thought Cheney was already lethally infected,” said a former administration officer who had kept the White House secret until now, according to the book.
…It turned out that the detection system had a malfunction and there was no hazard.
But in the days after the incident, Cheney was taking no chances. Eleven days later, Cheney insisted on leaving the White House and retreating to one of his “secure, undisclosed locations,” the book claims.
Cheney and other Cabinet members took turns hunkering down in one of several cold war era bunkers built to survive a nuclear attack. The bunkers, deep underground, were crammed with communications gear and Cheney would stay in what was dubbed the “The Commander in Chief’s Suite,” Mayer writes.
Book: “A sense of constant danger followed Cheney everywhere.”When vice president wasn’t in the bunker, Mayer claims that “a sense of constant danger followed Cheney everywhere.” The route was altered daily during the veep’s commute to his above-ground office. On the back seat next to him would be a duffel bag stuffed with a gas mask and biochemical survival suit. And a doctor nearly always traveled with him, “The Dark Side” claims.
In case, like me, these images make you whoop with amusement, the next part will wipe away the mirth.
Besides naming himself “Commander in Chief,” Cheney showed other signs he was losing it. The book says he forced Alberto Gonzales to go along with torture for suspected terrorists, allowing a variety of punishments never used previously by Americans.
The book also reveals that a Red Cross report submitted to the CIA concluded that the treatment of 9/11 suspects, admitted mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, amounted to torture and war crimes.
The Red Cross made its report after being granted access to the detainees when they were transferred to the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Among the tactics the detainees said they were subjected to: kept naked in a frigid room and doused with water, kept in a small box called the “coffin” for hours at a time, arms shackled over their heads so they had to stand on tiptoes for up to eight hours straight.
Our government has been in the hands of greedy crazies, sadists, and at least one simpleton for nearly eight years. It’s a wonder we are all still here, and that there is any America left to call home.
