Cheap Blogging Crutch 02.03

Gates Makes $10 Billion Vaccines Pledge
Over the next decade the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will pour $10 billion dollars into the development, funding, and distribution of vaccines to the world's poorest countries. Why? Because apparently they base their scientific based philanthropic ideas on so-called science and not on the hankerings and notions of former Playboy models slash MTV dating game-show co-hosts. That's a mistake. I think all of Africa is going to have autism soon and I don't think Bono can write a song good enough to fix that problem. You've doomed the continent with your science and philanthropy, Bill and Melinda.

3 G.I.s Killed in Pakistan. Now Can We Start Treating This Like a Real War?
Hey, did you know we're essentially waging a secret ground war in Pakistan with special forces troops and air-strikes and all that good stuff? Well, 3 soldiers got killed in a battle inside the Pakistan border, that not only was in Pakistan and a Taliban stronghold (shocking), but had been declared to be free of militants/insurgents by the Pakistani military, so now you definitely know. Whoops! Much discussion ensues about when we can start admitting that this is an important front, probably the most important front, in the war on terror? Well, considering that we can't admit we're even there in a support capacity, I'm guessing those odds aren't good.

Iran Sends Mouse, Turtles Into Space
Here we are, cutting NASA's Constellation moon program and Iran is launching a mouse, two turtles, and a worm into space for what experts deemed "no scientific purpose." I think we know what the purpose is. With us seemingly abandoning our aim to return to the moon and Mars, Bitches! seemingly in flux, it seems that in the future America will rest it's head under a moon that is half Red Chinese and half Islamofacist. A Christmas themed satellite of terror and communism. This is our future, people: the moon has been ceded to our enemies. We beat everyone to the moon by 50 years and then spend the rest of that time ceding back that superiority in sad gasps.

Iraq war was illegal, Dutch panel rules
I know, what a surprise, but the Dutch have conducted their own inquiry into their own support of the war and have found the war not only to be inconsistent with Dutch government policies but with "no basis in international law". This to go with the ongoing UK Iraq Inquiry, which is finding generally the same thing, but just spent considerable time grilling former PM Tony Blair over his own conduct and complicity with Bush Administration lies. What are we doing? The sound you hear is crickets chirping because to take a look at the massive fuckup that was (and still is) the Iraq war, that would mean we were "looking backwards" and not "looking forwards". So we just have every other country on earth act like adults, review their and our conduct, and declare the whole thing a fraudulent sham that didn't improve anything, while we sit around and pretend everything is fine and don't even make our leaders answer basic questions about what happened. America, fuck yeah! We're adults.

Darfur Genocide Charge Being Reconsidered Against Sudan President Omar al-Bashir
Bad news for all you Omar al-Bashir fans out there. It seems that they might just add "killing a fuckload of people" and "concentration camp type stuff" back on to his arrest warrant. The only thing stopping them? No one could really seem to muster up the energy to care or even do something when the genocide was ongoing (and is still ongoing), so they're having the same kind of trouble mustering up the same kind of gumption it takes to add "and also for being a rotten, genocidal, murdering shit" onto the end of a warrant. Fair is fair. At least they're consistent. Here's hoping they can find the time to bother charging him with this and then trying him for it. I'm not really hoping for much though.

Stay classy, Tony

For some people who supported the war in Iraq the whole run-up to and conduct of the war has caused them to reconsider what they advocated for, what they enabled, and what they did. Especially in the area surrounding the hyped up intelligence, WMD's, 'smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud' nonsense that preceded the war. Some people would be ashamed of that, how the war cost thousands of soldier's lives, hundreds of thousands of civilian's lives, destabilized millions, cost trillions, and has seemed to provide little tangible benefit in the end.

Tony Blair isn't one of those people.

"If you had known then that there were no WMDs, would you still have gone on?" Blair was asked. He replied: "I would still have thought it right to remove him [Saddam Hussein]".

Significantly, Blair added: "I mean obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat."

Obviously. But then again, "Some asshole is running his country in a despotic fashion" is less of a compelling argument than "OMGZ, you guys! We're all gonna die in an exploding hellfire of nuclear destruction! Think of the baby bald eagles!" Just ask the people in Rwanda, or Somalia, or the Sudan, or... actually, let's just say Africa and be done with it.

It's nice that when confronted with the cost of a war based on lies that resulted in nothing, the man will resort to the "Nope, still not convinced" defense while droning on and on about doing what he thought, in his heart of hearts, was right. You have to appreciate that commitment to narcissistic self-belief and self-regard. Plus he did get a kick-ass medal of freedom, and if you denigrate the Iraq war then you taint the integrity of that honored and legitimately bestowed award.

Stay classy, Tony.