Friday, August 08, 2003
CHALABI HOARSE:
It finally seems to have occurred to Iraqi leader-wanna-be, neocon darling and misleader of U.S. intelligence Ahmad Chalabi and his people that he can no longer ignore the adverse media impact of having been convicted in absentia of bank fraud in Jordan.
So, in a tactic seemingly borrowed from Ken Lay, his daughter�s name was put on this attempt at a response on (where else?) the op-ed page of yesterday�s Wall Street Journal (Hesiod has already wondered whether it was purely coincidental that this was the same day that militants in Baghdad carbombed the Jordanian embassy).
This was clever. By putting his daughter out front, the INC doubtless hoped to forestall the sort of blunt, serious criticism of the piece we�re about to give (which, surprisingly, no one else in the blogosphere, on either side of the issue, has taken up).
Let us just admit out front that we�re not the best people to judge what she says about the alleged financial manipulations at Petra. But some of her arguments do show that she has a budding career as a prowar blogger if she wants it.
Yet many in the Western media seem unable to mention my father�s name without regurgitating a 14-year-old Jordanian libel that he wrongfully diverted assets of his own Petra Bank.
Yes, that must be why many in the U.S. media seem unaware that the story even exists (although Joe Conason just provided a pretty good overview). Or why a Google News search returned just one hit from the last few months, a story in the Belfast Telegraph, which is apparently no longer up. (OK, regular Google does a little better)
And for a young woman with a Harvard doctorate, we expect the sort of command of English that shows how aberrant Andrew Sullivan�s is. It is not a �libel,� if a criminal case has been brought before a court, however kangaroo.
She shows herself a master of the passing smear:
That Jordan has branded my father as an �asset diverter� would be comic, were it not for what it says about that kingdom�s servile complicity with Saddam.
As if Jordan could ever have anything less than a servile relationship with Iraq, no matter who runs that country, given its dependence on imported oil.
She says, and other accounts do not dispute, that Petra incurred the enmity of Saddam for not helping finance the Iran-Iraq war. In her version, the scandal just up and comes out of the blue:
In early 1989, Petra submitted its annual financial statement to the Central Bank, showing continuing asset growth � and nothing that would justify singling it out for military seizure. The authorities approved the financial accounts, just as they had in the past. Petra Bank, if left alone, would be prospering today.
But she left something out of that. A BBC story says:
Jordan was facing a crippling foreign exchange shortage at the time, and Mr Nabulsi asked the country's banks to deposit 35% of their holdings in the central bank to prop up the Jordanian dinar.
All complied except Petra, and the resulting investigation by auditors Arthur Andersen, according to Mr Nabulsi, suggested that some of the foreign-exchange assets it said it was holding were not really there.
Of course, Tamara makes sure you know that Arthur Andersen was the auditor, as if their negligent behavior in the Enron case which forced the partnership�s dissolution was somehow enough to cast aspersions on their work here.
And while it�s certainly plausible on the face of it that a government wanting to shore up its currency through increased central bank deposits may take it out on the one bank that refuses to go along, the auditors did find something that Tamara Chalabi doesn�t go into:
What is less well known is that at the same time another bank, run by Mr Chalabi�s brother, Jawad, was going under in Lebanon.
Ahmed Chalabi, it is important to note, had no management role in Mebco, as the bank was called.
�As far as I know, Dr Chalabi has never been involved in (Mebco),� Haider Ahmed, the INC's spokesman in London, told BBC News Online.
But according to Mr Nabulsi, Arthur Andersen�s investigation indicated that Petra assets were being used to keep Mebco afloat, and vice versa.
(The failure of Mebco, too, is also blamed on political maneuverings. We understand a lot better why the neocons like Chalabi so much ... he believes strongly in personal responsibility, as in everybody else is personally responsible for his mistakes. And let�s also remember that Chalabi�s brother and another official were convicted in Switzerland, a country that cannot be said to have a dog in this fight). Tamara also doesn�t mention that the audit also found some of the most questionable deals had been done at her father�s behest
She also harps on the use of a military court to try her father, unaware (or hoping the reader is unaware) that there is another side to that part of the story:
For Mr Chalabi's supporters, a key point is that a military court tried the case, not a civil one. Why, they ask, was this necessary for a self-evidently civil case unless it was part of a political agenda?
Mr Nabulsi�s response is that from 1967 � when martial law was instituted following the Arab-Israeli war that year � until the early 1990s, all allegations of financial impropriety that went to court were prosecuted in military courts.
The Village Voice also adds a Jordanian journalist�s bemusement at these conspiracy theories:
Chalabi was so well connected, says Fahad Al-Fanak, a columnist for the Jordanian daily Al-Ra'i, that he finds Chalabi's claims to have been the victim of a political conspiracy hard to swallow. �If politics was at work in this case,� he says, �it only worked in Chalabi�s favor.�
Newsweek adds more:
Chalabi initially thought he could ride out the storm. He was more than just a banker in Jordan; by this time he was the personal benefactor of many of the country�s officials. �I made it a policy of Petra to provide loans in small amounts to military officers, NCOs, soldiers, Royal Guards and intelligence officers,� says Chalabi. �The royal family, apart from the king [Hussein], were always in need of cash, as their income and sporadic gifts from the king were always less than what was required to sustain even an upper-middle-class life in Amman. Many of these royals were friends of myself and my family for many generations. They came to me for help to pay for schooling for their children, for medical bills and other expenses.�
A lot more:
Yet none of these political intrigues fully explains the financial legerdemain that Swiss and other investigators were turning up in the various Chalabi institutions. After losing its license, the Chalabis� Swiss bank had to file for bankruptcy. Soon, so did a related family �trading company� called SOCOFI. About $160 million in claims were filed by angry SOCOFI creditors (many from the Middle East). But according to a secret Swiss bankruptcy report obtained by news-week, there was a big hole in the company�s balance sheet: about $100 million worth of outstanding loans to members of the Chalabi family and their companies. This included a $2 million loan to a Swiss software company run by Ahmad. (Chalabi says his company couldn�t repay the loan because it, in turn, was owed money by the failed family bank.) In September 2000, two of Ahmad�s brothers pleaded no contest to charges that they had broken the Swiss penal code in connection with SOCOFI.
Under increasing pressure, the Chalabi financial companies collapsed one by one. SOCOFI Geneva folded in early 1990. Then Mebco Beirut, which had actively funded the Shiite Amal militia during the 1980s while it was waging a war on Palestinian groups. Two more Chalabi family members were charged with fraud, and convicted in absentia. When NEWSWEEK went to the Beirut court last week to pull the records, the main file, No. 37837, was empty and the computer memory supposed to list the documents was blank.
The Chalabis who had run the Beirut bank disappeared from Lebanon, just as those in Switzerland had left the country after the collapse of the banks there. According to the secret Swiss bankruptcy report, even the safe-deposit boxes held by SOCOFI were empty, except for some backup floppy disks. A storage facility supposed to hold valuable Oriental rugs no longer had anything in it.
With all this, we don�t even need to get into the misapplication of nearly $100 million in U.S. aid by Chalabi�s group, either (alluded to in the BBC story).
Tamara concludes in a way that seems very much at home in post-Saddam Iraq:
But things are different now. My father has demanded the records from this military tribunal and the basis for the lengthy decision � one written, Jordan claims, in just one day. He may well invoke a more balanced forum to recover his losses and good name if Jordan does not make a clean break with its quisling past and publicly declare that it has no evidence of wrongdoing by Ahmad Chalabi.
You�d think most people would simply ask for a chance to clear themselves in court, wouldn�t you? But apparently the Chalabi family fears even that (and what, exactly, will this �more balanced forum� be? Will conservatives object to the use of the Alien Tort Claims Act in this circumstance?)
posted by Sully 8/08/2003 12:59:00 PM
FLY LIKE AN EAGLE ...:
Jo Fish on Sully�s love for Schwarzenegger:
St. Andrew takes a hiatus from his hiatus to sing the praises of the Terminator today; since Arnold S. is pro-choice, pro-gay, and a hard-ass republican HRH is for him! Color me shocked in lavender.
I'm sure that he�ll have fun with Arnold; in fact I am sure that he'll be flogging Arnolds candidacy so hard, soon he�ll be behaving like Hedly Lamarr from Blazing Saddles ...�you there, give the Governor a harrumph.�
As a bonus, if Sully travels to California to help the Terminator out, Bear Season in California is open from now until the end of the year, depending on where you live. Of course mounting and stuffing your conquests is considered �bad form� in some circles, but bad taste never stopped HRH from other activities in the past, so why worry now?
Imagine, Sully as the Royal Keeper of the Harrumph and the Huge White Hunter. What a country.
And TBogg pipes up:
What a sweetie. Now he doesn't have to bring me back the My Summer was Un-Bearable t-shirt.
posted by Sully 8/08/2003 12:09:00 PM
Thursday, August 07, 2003
BLACK BEARS:
Now to expand on our comment at Eschaton.
Sullivan concluded his piece with some sentences that sound like straight of some mediocre early �90s grad student paper in queer theory:
Their very ordinariness makes them both more at ease with regular straight guys; but their very ordinariness in some ways is also extremely culturally subversive ... by their very equation of regular masculinity with gayness, one of the more radical and transformative gay phenomena out there right now.
A few days after reading the bear piece, we read this New York Times Magazine piece on another group of gay men who don�t act effeminate and �embrace their masculinity.�
For them, however, it is hardly some sort of utopian and liberating experience that transforms gay and straight culture alike (at least not for the better), because, you see, they�re black, sacrificing, even denying, the dictates of one minority culture in favor of another.
Today, while there are black men who are openly gay, it seems that the majority of those having sex with men still lead secret lives, products of a black culture that deems masculinity and fatherhood as a black man�s primary responsibility � and homosexuality as a white man�s perversion.
[...]
Rejecting a gay culture they perceive as white and effeminate, many black men have settled on a new identity, with its own vocabulary and customs and its own name: Down Low ... Many of these men are young and from the inner city, where they live in a hypermasculine �thug� culture. Other DL men form romantic relationships with men and may even be peripheral participants in mainstream gay culture, all unknown to their colleagues and families. Most DL men identify themselves not as gay or bisexual but first and foremost as black. To them, as to many blacks, that equates to being inherently masculine.
[...]
For many men on the Down Low, including William and Rakeem, the DL label is both an announcement of masculinity and a separation from white gay culture. To them, it is the safest identity available � they don�t risk losing their ties to family, friends and black culture.
[...]
Masculinity is a surprisingly effective defense, because until recently the only popular representations of black gay men were what William calls �drag queens or sissies.� Rakeem takes a hit from the bowl. �We know there are black gay rappers, black gay athletes, but they�re all on the DL,� Rakeem says. �If you�re white, you can come out as an openly gay skier or actor or whatever. It might hurt you some, but it�s not like if you�re black and gay, because then it�s like you�ve let down the whole black community, black women, black history, black pride. You don�t hear black people say, �Oh yeah, he�s gay, but he�s still a real man, and he still takes care of all his responsibilities.� What you hear is, �Look at that sissy faggot.��
[...]
And there is a certain freedom in not playing by modern society�s rules of self-identification, in not having to explain yourself, or your sexuality, to anyone. Like the black athletes and rappers they idolize, DL men convey a strong sense of masculine independence and power: I do what I want when I want with whom I want.
[...]
But for all their supposed freedom, many men on the DL are as trapped � or more trapped � than their white counterparts in the closet. While DL guys regard the closet as something alien (a sad, stifling place where fearful people hide), the closet can be temporary (many closeted men plan to someday �come out�). But black men on the DL typically say they�re on the DL for life. Since they generally don�t see themselves as gay, there is nothing to �come out� to, there is no next step.
[...]
In 1992, E. Lynn Harris � then an unknown black writer � self-published �Invisible Life,� the fictional coming-of-age story of Raymond Tyler, a masculine young black man devoted to his girlfriend but consumed by his attraction to men. For Tyler, being black is hard enough; being black and gay seems a cruel and impossible proposition. Eventually picked up by a publisher, �Invisible Life� went on to sell nearly 500,000 copies, many purchased by black women shocked at the idea that black men who weren�t effeminate could be having sex with men.
�I was surprised by the reaction to my book,� Harris said. �People were in such denial that black men could be doing this. Well, they were doing it then, and they�re doing it now.�
[...]
Glenn Ligon, a black visual artist who is openly gay, recalls that as a child coming of age in the 70�s, he always felt there was a space in black culture for openly gay men. �It was a limited space, but it was there,� he says. ''After all, where else could we go? The white community wasn�t that accepting of us. And the black community had to protect its own.�
Ligon, whose artwork often deals with sexuality and race, thinks that the pressure to keep homosexuality on the DL does not come exclusively from other black people, but also from the social and economic realities particular to black men. �The reason that so many young black men aren�t so cavalier about announcing their sexual orientation is because we need our families,� he says. �We need our families because of economic reasons, because of racism, because of a million reasons. It�s the idea that black people have to stick together, and if there�s the slightest possibility that coming out could disrupt that, guys won�t do it.� (That may help explain why many of the black men who are openly gay tend to be more educated, have more money and generally have a greater sense of security.)
But to many men on the DL, sociological and financial considerations are beside the point: they say they wouldn�t come out even if they felt they could. They see black men who do come out either as having chosen their sexuality over their skin color or as being so effeminate that they wouldn�t have fooled anyone anyway. In a black world that puts a premium on hypermasculinity, men who have sex with other men are particularly sensitive to not appearing soft in any way. Maybe that�s why many guys on the DL don�t go to gay bars. �Most of the guys I�ve messed around with, I�ve actually met at straight clubs,� says D., a 21-year-old college student on the DL whom I met on the Internet, and then in person in New York City. �Guys will come up to me and ask me some stupid thing like, �Yo, you got a piece of gum?� I'll say, �Nah, but what�s up?� Some guys will look at me and say, �What do you mean, what�s up?� but the ones on the DL will keep talking to me.� Later he adds: �It�s easier for me to date guys on the DL. Gay guys get too clingy, and they can blow your cover. Real DL guys, they have something to lose, too. It�s just safer to be with someone who has something to lose.�
[...]
Whatever the case, most guys on the DL are well aware of the contempt with which their choices are viewed by many out gay men. And if there are some DL guys willing to take the risk � to jeopardize their social and family standing by declaring their sexuality � that contempt doesn�t do much to convince them they�d ever really be welcome in Manhattan�s Chelsea or on Fire Island. �Mainstream gay culture has created an alternative to mainstream culture,� says John Peterson, a professor of psychology at Georgia State University who specializes in AIDS research among black men, �and many whites take advantage of that. They say, �I will leave Podunk and I will go to the gay barrios of San Francisco and other cities, and I will go live there, be who I really am, and be part of the mainstream.� Many African-Americans say, �I can�t go and face the racism I will see there, and I can�t create a functioning alternative society because I don�t have the resources.� They�re stuck.� As Peterson, who says that the majority of black men who have sex with men are on the DL, boils it down, �The choice becomes, do I want to be discriminated against at home for my sexuality, or do I want to move away and be discriminated against for my skin color?�
You get the point. It�s just one of the saddest things we�ve ever read, especially much of what we didn�t quote about the impact of all this on HIV transmission rates. Go read it all yourself if you�re registered.
And the next time Andrew Sullivan sneers at some left-winger�s contention that perspectives such as his are particular to race and socioeconomics, even within the gay community, just remember the down low and how it shows just how blinkered and privileged he really is. If the writer, Benoit Denizet-Lewis, has been able to secure his place at the magazine due to Sullivan�s dismissal, that alone will be justification (and let�s hope he doesn�t make things up).
Then again, Sullivan might well feel at home here:
William says he likes his guys �to look like real guys,� and his Internet profile makes it clear what he isn�t looking for: NO STUPID QUESTIONS, FATS, WHITES, STALKERS OR QUEENS.
Sound familiar? (Hell, the article as whole could keep Sully wanking for years: Brothers! Muscles! Streaming Internet porn! Barebacking!
posted by Sully 8/07/2003 12:13:00 PM
BEARING UP:
Some of the comments over at Eschaton on the bear piece are worth repeating.
The only guy in a gay bar with a �hot pot belly� is a guy whose been flashing $50 bills around rough trade.
[...]
The real discrimmination isn�t against gays, it�s against sissies. Well, they�re here and they�re queer and TFB if Andy doesn�t like it.
[...]
Early 1990s? Is Andrew Sullivan really even gay? I got the same idea as Vaara, that he�s just discovered �Bears and Otters� and is so freaking turned on that he feels the need to bash everyone else ... He sounds like a closeted frat boy after going to a gay bar for the first time.
[...]
I know a few drag queens who could probably beat the hell out of chubby Andrew.
That was a stupid column he wrote. Some men (and women) like masculine, hairy men. Some men (and women) like refined, well-groomed men. Some men (and women) like men who wear jeans. Some men (and women) like men who dress very stylishly. SO WTF is Andrew�s point, or is there one?
Why doesn�t he start a TV show where five �bears� can take a stylish gay man and show him how to let his eyebrows grow together, eat more and workout less so that he will develop a nice beergut, and then toss all his nice clothes and replace them with jeans and flannel. After that they can trash his house and show him how to order pizza. Should be a great show! Oh wait, they already have that. Isn�t that the �Man Show?�
[...]
�I am bear, hear me roar.�
Yeah, nothing says �manly� like paraphrasing an old Helen Reddy song.
Speaking of Vaara, he�s in fine form:
Sullivan, 1990: �I�m a gorgeous British GAP model! Aren�t I fabulous?�
Sullivan, 1995: �I�m open about my HIV status and I�m a Republican too. Aren�t I fabulous?�
Sullivan, 1999: �I take testosterone, so I�m a real man now. Aren�t I fabulous?�
Sullivan, 2003: �I have transcended shallow gay male notions of pride and narcissism. Aren�t I fabulous?�
[...]
Sully needs to check his gay history... bearism has been around since the mid-�80s, at least.
Incidentally, my SO used to date the owner and manager of the Lone Star Saloon, and, well, let�s just say that the image of bears as hyper-masculine paragons of all-American butchness is slightly exaggerated. One can reach the same conclusion by watching any random snippet of bear pr0n. Or so I�ve heard.
Won't it be fun to watch when Sully discovers drag? I mean, the queens who stood up at Stonewall have more cojones than Sully ever will.
Not all the comments are negative, BTW.
posted by Sully 8/07/2003 11:24:00 AM
Wednesday, August 06, 2003
LA BOUCHE DU CHEVAL:
And speaking of diehard, and totally specious, right-wing media memes, Eric Alterman calls the win after the chairman of a leading French Jewish group proves his point about the limited scope of French antisemitism:
He cited the strength of the France-Israel friendship group in Parliament � the largest of any parliamentary foreign-support group � and the large number of demonstrators in recent pro-Israeli marches and meetings.
On the hot topic of antisemitic incidents, Cukierman stressed that they are the work of a fringe section of the Muslim community, which outnumbers Jews 10-to-1. Moreover, he emphasized that they were directly linked to the Middle East and specifically to the outbreak of the intifada. He said that the rash of incidents that has plagued France started �exactly� in September 2000 and were clearly an effort to import the Middle East conflict into the Western European country with the largest Muslim and Jewish communities.
While he acknowledged that the antisemitic acts were cause for concern, he underscored that out of 530 antisemitic incidents registered in 2002 � 225 were tallied in the first six months of 2003 � there had been no deaths nor seriously wounded.
While many French officials try to sidestep the issue of Muslim involvement in antisemitic incidents, Cukierman was blunt. He contended that they were responsible for 95% to 98% of antisemitic incidents.
[...]
He believes that it is misleading to draw a link between France's traditional antisemitism � still vividly on display when Jean-Marie Le Pen won 16% of the vote in last year's presidential ballot � and the recent antisemitic violence coming from Arab-Muslim quarters.
In fact, Le Pen supporters dislike the Muslim population and vice versa, meaning an alliance between them is all but impossible.
Alterman concludes: �I can�t wait for Sullovitz to tell this guy he�s an anti-Semite.�
posted by Sully 8/06/2003 01:58:00 AM
BIAS, PERHAPS; EVEN-HANDEDNESS, NO:
Steve also tips us off to Kurtz�s rare reportage of something unfavorbale to conservatives: that the Times and Kurtz�s employer, the newspapers they like to hold up constantly as exemplars of the supposed �liberal bias� requiring Fox News and the Washington Times to counter, were more likely to criticize Clinton�s minor missteps on their editorial pages than their counterparts (the WT and the Wall Street Journal) were to do the same for Bush.
This may be hard for the right and Sullivan to process, but it doesn�t tell us anything we didn�t already know. As TAPped notes, �conservatives have zero interest in an objective press, they just know it pays to mau-mau those who do.�
posted by Sully 8/06/2003 01:49:00 AM
THE SCANDAL THAT KEEPS ON COLLAPSING:
Just as Sully takes a break, we learn two things that make it that much harder to believe the BBC is the one with explaining to do in the Kelly affair: first, the Ministry of Defense tried to destroy its �media plan� and then the PM�s official spokesman smearing the dead man.
(Thanks to Steve Mussina for both links).
posted by Sully 8/06/2003 01:40:00 AM
Monday, August 04, 2003
THE HAMMOCK COMES OUT:
Well, there apparently is one thing worse than snickering over the title of a 400-year-old church document while a debate about the issue about which one is most passionate roils the cultural landscape: deciding you�re going to take a powder. And using language practically identical to what you used a year ago to make the same announcement.
So ... once again, anyone who helped him put that $80,000 in the kitty is going to feel a little gypped. Counting his spring break and the Christmas/New Year's break, that means he effectively blogs about 46 weeks out of 52. So, write him and ask for your 11.5 percent of your money back (Hey, Sully, a little impoverishment while you�re contemplating leaving the faith or not couldn�t hurt).
After this, however, he has the sheer unmitigated gall to hawk his books (well, someone�s got to).
We like this:
I think bloggers do well to take time out. We can lose perspective, stop thinking in longer form, and also get exhausted.
You think? He must, if his announcement uses almost exactly the same words last year�s did. And what's with this �August break� thing? He�s writing like it�s something he�s always done, yet he took no break in 2001 (in retrospect, we�re sure, he wishes he had) but did write this actually-perceptive bit:
Our culture needs more fallowness, more time when nothing is done, more days when little is expected and less is accomplished. August is the only time when we are allowed to relax without having some sort of stressful holiday to ruin it. It's the only month when complete abdication of responsibility is permitted.
This brings us to the obvious question: What will we be doing in the meantime?
Blogging less, obviously. You can expect us to post not everyday, but just like last year we�ll probably have something to say once every few days or so. We do have some longer, slightly more off-topic posts in mind that we can now find the space to share. And, we�ll finally get around to updating our blogroll.
We've even considered how we might be able to make some money ourselves doing this, and we�ll let you know if we can make that a reality.
One way besides setting up a pledge button of our own: Maybe we could have a Sullivan Futures Market, like the terrorism one DARPA was forced to abandon last week. What do we hear for futures on Sullivan leaving the Catholic Church? When he comes back? By the end of the year? Places another ad? Says he can�t vote for Bush next year over both gay marriage and the fiscal conservatism thingy?
And in the meantime, we�ll be doing other things we enjoy doing, or need to do. We do have to thank him ever so slightly for this, after all.
posted by Sully 8/04/2003 12:39:00 PM
A MAN WHO HAS LOST ALL HOPE ON HOPE:
Other than their friendship, there is no reason why Sully should have linked to Hitch�s failed attempt to be brilliantly counterintuitive on the late Bob Hope.
It lacks even the one remaining entertainment value one could still rely on in Hitch�s work: the draggy over-the-topness, the florid style of the argument. He seems to be trying hard to wake that particular genie up (perhaps he was suffering a brief fit of sobriety).
Sullivan seems to agree with the overriding theme expressed elsewhere as well: that Hope was never all that funny as a comedian. Well tell us all something we really didn�t know, Chris! (Slate must have been similarly dissatisfied with this complete breakdown of the usual pretense to originality on Hitchens� part: they dragged out Wilfird Sheed to offer has some words, and Roger Ailes suggests:
Hope�s passing means there�s a vacancy for Hitch to fill, entertaining the troops in Iraq. The contact high alone would keep a division happy for weeks.
Actually, we have a better idea. The senior fellows of the American Enterprise Incident (okay, it�s Institute, but Star Trek suggests this one too obvious to resist) and other prominent neocon theorists of this war can all sit together on stage and reread certain of their prewar pronouncements about how it would be over after the first whiff of gunpowder, how our troops would be greeted with flowers, how there would be weapons of mass destruction at every convenience store and how they�ll all be home by Christmas. That�ll kill �em, and the soldiers might even have a good laugh after they finish burying the bodies in the sand.
Seriously, what Hope will be remembered for is above all his geniality, one of those underappreciated Greatest Generation traits. As corny as the jokes were, you could never quite bring yourself to hate them. Americans of all stripes can understand that and forgive Hope any of his other transgressions in a way that two pig-eyed products of the Oxford Union never will.
posted by Sully 8/04/2003 01:55:00 AM
HUH HUH ... HUH HUH ... HUHUH ... THE POPE SAID �CUM� HUH HUH ... HUH HUH ...HUH HUH:
By the way, guess what the earliest papal declaration on impotence in 1587 was called? �Cum frequenter.� I�m not making this up.
A bit of friendly advice: Andrew, inadvertently reminding people on both sides of the issue why you�re not terribly well-regarded by Catholics as a commentator on Church issues is absolutely the last you need to be doing right now.
posted by Sully 8/04/2003 01:19:00 AM
DISSONANCE, YES, BUT NOT THE KIND HE THINKS:
There is a conflict between that Times story and its hed alright, but Atrios followed Billmon�s lead in catching what it really was:
[A]t some point, I think even Adam Nagourney and the New York Times are going to have to start paying some attention to what their own polls are telling them.
posted by Sully 8/04/2003 01:14:00 AM
