arse poetica

Meet Your Al-Qaeda Operative!

Ladies and germs, your Bush administration brings you a world gone completely absurd.

Al-Qaeda wants your questions.

AL-QAEDA sympathisers have been asked to send in their questions for the terror network's second in command, which he will then answer in an online interview next month.

The bizarre stunt was announced in a new video posted on the internet in which al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahri, mocked today's British handover of security in southern Iraq to local forces as a sign that insurgents are gaining the upper hand.

The video, carried by Islamic websites, was issued as Britain handed over security to Iraqi forces in the last of four provinces it once patrolled, effectively marking the end of nearly five years of British control of southern Iraq.

The websites invited readers to send in questions during the next month for Zawahri to answer in an "open interview".  How the interview would work was not immediately clear.

What questions would you ask al-Qaeda's number two?  Let us know using the form below.

Zawahri has been in hiding since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and - along with Osama bin Laden - is the target of a global manhunt from US forces.

Maybe they should look for him on Twitter. How's the bandwidth in those caves in Pakistan? &c. &c. Faugh.

My Children, Is This Really Necessary?

Not that necessary is the first word that springs to mind.

Oh dear.

Really? Jeebus in rock-climbing gear and on a Harley? Really?

And the Lord sayeth that it be unto the markets to decideth, and thus it was.

You Know You Want It

Those crazy Icelanders! I so want this.

The Bearded Cap by Vik Prjónsdóttir.

[via]

"I'm very glad you're big in Japan."

Well! (Heh.)

The Paglia-Burchill Fax Wars.

Sometimes I'm really glad I read the Times' book blog. That was just the bizarre respite I needed. Now back to work. (Bleah.)

This Just In: Black People Are Articulate! And They Dance Well!

Honestly. HON-estly.

Media Matters - O'Reilly surprised "there was no difference" between Harlem restaurant and other New York restaurants.

During the September 19 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, discussing his recent trip to have dinner with Rev. Al Sharpton at Sylvia's, a famous restaurant in Harlem, Bill O'Reilly reported that he "had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful," adding: "I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship."

Black people are just like regular people!

Later, during a discussion with National Public Radio senior correspondent and Fox News contributor Juan Williams about the effect of rap on culture, O'Reilly asserted: "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.'

Sometimes black people can speak without using the word m-therf-cker!

You know, I mean, everybody was -- it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all."

Black people can go into Italian restaurants in the suburbs and order and have fun! Or something! (No one said Bill-O was a genius. -- Understatement Ed.)

O'Reilly also stated: "I think black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves."

Sometimes black people are able to function without white people telling them what to do! Even though white people do this for black people's own good!

&@#$@*%!!

It's a New South, Y'all

As seen in Burlington, NC, on Friday. Had to swing back around to get this one. Ha.

Great Cosmic Nothingness!

I don't get it at all, but this sounds v. cool.

Great 'cosmic nothingness' found.

It is empty of both normal matter - such as galaxies and stars - and the mysterious "dark matter" that cannot be seen directly with telescopes.

The "hole" is located in the direction of the Eridanus constellation and has been identified in data from a survey of the sky made at radio wavelengths.

The discovery will be reported in a paper in the Astrophysical Journal.

Previous sky surveys that have traced the large-scale structure of the nearby Universe have long shown, for example, how the clustering of galaxies is strung into vast filaments and sheets that are separated by great gaps.

But the void discovered by a University of Minnesota team is about 1,000 times the volume of what would be expected in typical cosmic gaps.

"It's hard even for astronomers to picture how big these things are," conceded Minnesota's Professor Lawrence Rudnick.

"If you were to travel at the speed of light, it would take you several years to get to the nearest stars in our own Milky Way galaxy; but if you were to go to this hole and enter one side, you'd have to travel for a billion years before you would get to the other side," he told BBC News.

Hunh?

I Didn't Need Those Johnson & Johnson Products Anyway

Do these idjits not have a public relations department? Really.

Johnson & Johnson sues American Red Cross over use of emblem.

Johnson & Johnson, the health-products giant that uses a red cross as its trademark, sued the American Red Cross on Wednesday, demanding that the charity halt the use of the red cross symbol on products it sells to the public.

Suing the Red Cross. Yes, this should go over well. I'm sure you could go lower, like maybe kicking a grandmother out of her wheelchair and into the gutter while stealing her last $20 and then kicking her dog on your way out, but this is right up there.

And now, the money quote:

"For a multibillion-dollar drug company to claim that the Red Cross violated a criminal statute ... simply so that J&J can make more money, is obscene," said Mark Everson, the Red Cross president.

Mmm, yeah.

[Photo credit: Dogbert © Scott Adams.]

And Now Slavery. Of Course.

You know, maybe we live under a mass hallucination and the Bush Cheney madministration didn't really happen to us after all. Maybe all of this is just a deeply manipulative and ethically corrupt science experiment to measure human limits for managing the untenable reality of Cheney White House corruption. Maybe? Possibly? Anyone? Bueller?

Because after electoral fraud, perjury, graft, rejection of habeas corpus and the Geneva conventions, spying on Americans and general disregard for the Constitution, deception of the highest order in every level of governing, war crimes, treason, and torture, I guess slavery was just f*cking inevitable.

Slave labor used to contruct U.S. Embassy In Baghdad.

Testimony today at the House Oversight Committee by Rory Mayberry, former subcontractor w/ the firm responsible for constructing the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, who asserts that Filipino nationals were used as slave labor on the project:

Mr. Chairman, when the airplane took off and the captain announced that we were heading to Baghdad, all you-know-what broke out on the airplane. The men started shouting, it wasn’t until the security guy working for First Kuwaiti waved an MP5 in the air that the men settled down. They realized that they had no other choice but to go to Baghdad.

Let me spell it out clearly: I believe these men were kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work at the US Embassy… I’ve read the State Department Inspector General’s report on the construction of the embassy. Mr. Chairman, it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. This is a cover-up and I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity to set the record straight.

Dear God. Your tax dollars at work.

God Bless the Interwebs

I don't know why, but these things always give me hope for humankind.

1500 Filipino Inmates Do Thriller.