How to say
"Oh my god! There's an axe in my head," in various languages
Via Incoming Signals
"If you understood everything I said, you'd be me" - Miles Davis "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell "Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government." - Lenny Bruce "Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson |
|
|
The Other Utility Fog
They link to me, I link to them, They link to me...
Safety Warning. Not for use as a stroller. May contain parts. Manufactured in a facility where one or more of the following may be present: Peanuts, almonds, unfiltered water, oxygen, ultaviolet and infrared radiation, sunlight. Use only as directed by your legal counsel. Do not use during earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, flooding or presidential election years. Use of handles may promote RSI, see your doctor or therapist before opening. May be flammable when exposed to open flame. Not for use as a stepping stool or adult seat. May cause injury if dropped from a height. Does not enable user to fly. Do not eat.
If erection lasts for over 4 hours call friends and brag. Persons attempting to find a motive in this blog will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. We don't need no stinkin' badges.
Same-day service.
Unplug after use.
Slippery when wet.
Ignore this notice.
Use only as directed.
Consume in moderation.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Your mileage may vary.
For external use only.
Don't try this at home.
No purchase is necessary.
You must be present to win.
Do not think of an elephant.
Other restrictions may apply.
Apply only to affected areas.
Part of a daily balanced diet.
No shirt, no shoes, no service.
You need not be present to win.
No user-serviceable parts inside.
Do not exceed recommended dosage.
Offer void where prohibited by law.
Do not remove under penalty of law.
You have the right to remain silent.
If swallowed, do not induce vomiting.
Valid only at participating locations.
Freshest if used before date specified.
Prices subject to change without notice.
Do not fold, staple, spindle or mutilate.
Contents may have settled during shipment.
Caution! The edge is closer than you think.
In emergency, break glass, pull down handle.
Product is sold by weight and not by volume.
Do not use if safety seal is torn or missing.
If condition persists, consult your physician.
Detach and include upper portion with payment.
Nutritional need is not established in humans.
Objects on screen are closer than they appear.
Satisfaction guaranteed; return for full refund.
Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Anything you say can and will be used against you.
May be used as flotation device in case of emergency.
Please note locations of emergency exits upon arrival.
No animals were harmed in the production of this page.
Caution: Dates on calendar are closer than they appear.
Please leave as clean on leaving as you would like to find on entering.
Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Do not use if you have ever had an allergic reaction to this product or any of its ingredients.
WARNING Business is unpredictable and unsafe. The Internet is dangerous. Many blogs have been written about these dangers, and there's no way we can list them all here. Read the blogs. The Internet is covered in slippery slopes with loose, slippery and unpredictable footing. The RIAA can make matters worse. Patent trolls are everywhere. You may fall, be spammed or suffer a DOS attack. There are hidden viruses and worms. You could break your computer. There is wild code, which may be vicious, poisonous or carriers of dread malware. These include viruses and worms. E-mail can be poisonous as well. We don't do anything to protect you from any of this. We do not inspect, supervise or maintain the Internet, blogsphere, ISP?s or other features, natural or otherwise. Real dangers are present even on the Web. E-commerce is not the mall. It can be, and is, steep, slippery and dangerous. Web features made or enhanced by humans, such as firewalls and spam filters (if any) can break, collapse, or otherwise fail catastrophically at any time. We don't promise to inspect, supervise or maintain them in any way. They may be negligently constructed or repaired. The web is unsafe, period. Live with it or stay away. Stay on trusted sites whenever possible. The terrain, in addition to being dangerous, is surprisingly complex. You may get lost. Carry food, water and an APU at all times. Ads for things you don't want and other objectionable content can arrive from nowhere. This can happen naturally, or be caused by people around you that are being used as bots. Spam and disgusting images of all sizes, including huge images, can arrive, or pop-up with no warning. Use of spam filters is advised for anyone approaching the Internet. They can be purchased or rented from us. They won't save you if you get hit by something big or on a port you left open. A whole DOS attack might collapse on you and squash you like a bug. Don't think it can't happen. Public opinion can be dangerous, regardless of the forecast. Be prepared with extra damage control, including press releases. Ticking off the blogsphere can kill you. The Streisand effect can turn a simple nastygram into a deathtrap. If you make hasty comments about those in high places (making unsupported comments that reduce the image of a person, often posted quickly and without thinking) without proper thought and, or allow your employees to do so, you are making a terrible mistake. Even if you know what you're doing, lots of things can go wrong and you may be sued for libel. It happens all the time. We do not provide rangers or security personnel. The other people on the web, including other visitors, our employees, agents, and guests, and anyone else who might sneak in, may be stupid, reckless, or otherwise dangerous. They may be mentally ill, criminally insane, drunk, using illegal drugs and/or armed with deadly malware and ready to use them. We aren't necessarily going to do anything about it. We refuse to take responsibility. If you surf at work, you may become pre-occupied with it. This is true whether you are experienced or not, trained or not, equipped or not, though training and equipment may help. It's a fact, surfing at work is extremely dangerous. If you don't like it, surf at home. You really shouldn't be doing it anyway. We do not provide supervision or instruction. We are not responsible for, and do not track how much time you surf at work (although we could if we wanted to.) As far as we know, your employer may find out and send you plunging to unemployment. There are countless tons of loose management staff ready to be dislodged and fall on you or someone else. There are any number of extremely and unusually dangerous conditions existing on and around the Web, and elsewhere on the Internet. We may or may not know about any specific hazard, but even if we do, don't expect us to try to warn you. You're on your own. Rescue services are not provided by us, and may not be available quickly or at all. Local computer geeks may not be equipped for or trained in hard drive recovery. If you are lucky enough to have somebody try to get rid of a virus or find that deleted file, they may be incompetent or worse. This includes your local computer store. We assume no responsibility. Also, if you decide to participate in a rescue of some other unfortunate, that's your choice. Don't do it unless you are willing to assume all risks. By entering our site, you are agreeing that we owe you no duty of care or any other duty. We promise you nothing. We do not and will not even try to keep the premises safe for any purpose. The premises are not safe for any purpose. This is no joke. We won't even try to warn you about any dangerous or hazardous condition, whether we know about it or not. If we do decide to warn you about something, that doesn't mean we will try to warn you about anything else. If we do make an effort to fix an unsafe condition, we may not try to correct any others, and we may make matters worse! We and our employees or agents may do things that are unwise and dangerous. Sorry, we're not responsible. We may give you bad advice. Don't listen to us. In short, ENTER AND USE THIS SITE AT YOUR OWN RISK. And have fun! Warning: This Product Warps Space and Time in Its Vicinity. Warning: This Product Attracts Every Other Piece of Matter in the Universe, Including the Products of Other Manufacturers, with a Force Proportional to the Product of the Masses and Inversely Proportional to the Distance Between Them. Caution: The Mass of This Product Contains the Energy Equivalent of 85 Million Tons of TNT per Net Ounce of Weight. Handle with Extreme Care: This Product Contains Minute Electrically Charged Particles Moving at Velocities in Excess of Five Hundred Million Miles per Hour. Consumer Notice: Because of the 'Uncertainty Principle,' It Is Impossible for the Consumer to Find Out at the Same Time Both Precisely Where This Product Is and How Fast It Is Moving. Advisory: There is an Extremely Small but Nonzero Chance That, Through a Process Known as 'Tunneling,' This Product May Spontaneously Disappear from Its Present Location and Reappear at Any Random Place in the Universe, Including Your neighbor's Domicile. The Manufacturer Will Not Be Responsible for Any Damages or Inconvenience That May Result. Read This Before Opening Package: According to Certain Suggested Versions of a Grand Unified Theory, the Primary Particles Constituting This Product May Decay to Nothingness Within the Next Four Hundred Million Years. This is a 100% Matter product: In the Unlikely Event That This Merchandise Should Contact Antimatter in Any Form, a Catastrophic Explosion Will Result. Public Notice as Required by Law: Any Use of This Product, in Any Manner Whatsoever, Will Increase the Amount of Disorder in the Universe. Although No Liability Is Implied Herein, the Consumer Is Warned That This Process Will Ultimately Lead to the Heat Death of the Universe. Note: The Most Fundamental Particles in This Product Are Held Together by a 'Gluing' Force About Which Little Is Currently Known and Whose Adhesive Power Can Therefore Not Be Permanently Guaranteed. Attention: Despite Any Other Listing of Product Contents Found Hereon, the Consumer Is Advised That, in Actuality, This Product Consists Of 99.9999999999% Empty Space. New Grand Unified Theory Disclaimer: The Manufacturer May Technically Be Entitled to Claim That This Product Is Ten-Dimensional. However, the Consumer Is Reminded That This Confers No Legal Rights Above and Beyond Those Applicable to Three-Dimensional Objects, Since the Seven New Dimensions Are 'Rolled Up' into Such a Small 'Area' That They Cannot Be Detected. Please Note: Some Quantum Physics Theories Suggest That When the Consumer Is Not Directly Observing This Product, It May Cease to Exist or Will Exist Only in a Vague and Undetermined State. Component equivalency notice: The Subatomic Particles (Electrons, Protons, etc.) Comprising This Product Are Exactly the Same in Every Measurable Respect as Those Used in the Products of Other Manufacturers, and No Claim to the Contrary May Legitimately Be Expressed or Implied. Health Warning: Care Should Be Taken When Lifting This Product, Since Its Mass, and Thus Its Weight, Is Dependent on Its Velocity Relative to the User. Important Notice to Purchasers: The Entire Physical Universe, Including This Product, May One Day Collapse Back into an Infinitesimally Small Space. Should Another Universe Subsequently Reemerge, the Existence of This Product in That Universe Cannot be Guaranteed. Use inside a nuclear power facility voids warranty.
visitors
|
Sun-Aug 31 2003
Fri-Aug 29 2003
Iraqi Potporri
Asked why the mission didn't focus on capturing the brothers for intelligence purposes,
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told a news conference there was fear the brothers might have
had an escape tunnel.
... Troops used bullhorns initially to call the men out, and two unsuccessful sorties into the mansion resulted in the show of fire power after six hours. Link If we were so worried the brothers would scamper away why did we ask them to give themselves up via bullhorn? It seems to me that if there was a tunnel they would have used it. If I was worried about a tunnel escape I would have opted for your basic no-knock surprise raid. And it seems likely that the informant who turned the Husseins in was the owner of the house, who would be in a good position to know if there were tunnels built under his own house, and if they were, where they went. If there are 150,000 American troops in Iraq and we're spending $400,000,000,000 a month on them, that works out to $26,666 a month/soldier, or $952 a day/soldier. And this money is just for the military, not for any of the reconstruction efforts. Just what are we actually spending this money on? It sure isn't salaries. We've captured something like 36 out of the 55 "deck of cards" high Iraqi mucky-mucks. Noticed how none of them have gone for a plea-bargain deal and ratted out where those pesky WMDs are?
I Am Not a Member of a Satanic Cult
The Modesto Bee reporter who broke the story informs readers that, "Many of the paintings portray sexual activity, and several show pregnant women."
That's true. They also show mermaids and volcanoes, carnivals, dancing bears in a circus, a hot tub, a horse race, a rodeo, a man and a woman playing scrabble, a Chinese couple with a net full of red fish, an octopus and a woman in carnal embrace, an exotic garden in which a guy with his back to the viewer is peeing, strange doings in a motel, a cathedral, a donkey cart with an old man traveling through a mountain pass, skyscrapers under construction, an upside-down Trans-America building, a muralized limousine with carousing passengers, a theater with an audience running amuck, the Big Bad Wolf in a convertible with a flame job, carnivorous flowers, a strange last supper without a Christ in which a monkey consoles a despondent guest and a white angel stares vacantly into space, a Halloween party, a pizza parlor, a tattooed lady, and, on the interior of an enormous concrete valve housing, a lascivious heaven and a teeming hell. Link-via the BigMoboDaddy (still working on the birthday present, big guy)
Wed-Aug 27 2003
Tue-Aug 26 2003
Ya
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
Anatole France, The Red Lily, 1894, chapter 7
If You are Going to Steal, Steal Big
More than a year after the two biggest corporate frauds in U.S. history wiped out billions of dollars in assets and workers' pensions at WorldCom Inc. and Enron Corp., the chief executives who led those companies remain free of criminal charges.
Bernard Ebbers, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling may never face prosecution, according to former federal prosecutors and securities lawyers. ..... WorldCom had $103.9 billion in assets when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy July 21, 2002, making it the biggest company to seek court protection in U.S. history. Enron is the second largest. The Houston-based energy trading company had $63.4 billion in assets when it filed for protection Dec. 2, 2001, after restating $586 million in profits. ..... The bankruptcies wiped out about 35,000 jobs and more than $1 billion in employee pensions. Shareholders and former workers at Enron say they lost $29 billion. Enron's recovery plan will pay creditors less than one-fifth of the estimated $67 billion they're owed, officials said in July. Link Via Metafilter
Mon-Aug 25 2003
Lessons in How to Lie About Iraq
Brian Eno on the selling of the war: It takes something as dramatic as the invasion of Iraq to make us look a bit more closely and ask: 'How did we get here?' How exactly did it come about that, in a world of Aids, global warming, 30-plus active wars, several famines, cloning, genetic engineering, and two billion people in poverty, practically the only thing we all talked about for a year was Iraq and Saddam Hussein? Was it really that big a problem? Or were we somehow manipulated into believing the Iraq issue was important and had to be fixed right now - even though a few months before few had mentioned it, and nothing had changed in the interim. Link Via Killing Goliath
Sun-Aug 24 2003
You Got That Right
Nitpicker considers
Bill O'Reilly's
defense of Fox's suit against Al Franken:
Wow! That's a lot of bullshit to have to wade through, so let's break it down: 1. Fox obviously doesn't give a damn about "character assassination" or "defamation." They don't mention either of those complaints in their lawsuit, which is entirely about trademark infringement. As much as O'Reilly would like you to believe this is about his being libeled, Fox's lawyers knew better. 2. As Joe Conason asks in Big Lies, the left-leaning "publishing houses" also publish rightwingers, so how could they be call "left-leaning"? 3. O'Reilly actually has no problem with character assassinations or personal attacks. In defense of (oddly enough) the First Amendment, O'Reilly admitted calling people names. "How many times on this broadcast do I call people pinheads? You know, it's just in basically the discourse, back and forth, the passion," he said (O'Reilly Factor, 5/01/2003). After Michael Kinsley wrote something about him in Slate, O'Reilly's producer called to see if Kinsley would appear on his show. When informed that Kinsley was on vacation, O'Reilly called him a "coward" on his show for "refusing" to show up. Kinsley did come on the show later and had a great response: "Look, I debated Pat Buchanan for many years on 'Crossfire.' I do not need to be afraid of Bill O'Reilly." (O'Reilly Factor, 3/20/2001) Despite the fact that Hillary Clinton has never been proven to have done anything wrong, O'Reilly smears her every time he brings up her name. On June 23, he said she had "so many skeletons in the closet, it's Halloween every day." He once wrote that "The problem with Hillary Clinton is that she is putting forth a façade; she will not define herself as a real person" -- which is a sneaky way of saying she's holding something back, even thought there's no way for O'Reilly to know if that's true or not. Not to mention he called Al Franken a "vile human being" and, as Bob Minzesheimer pointed out in U.S.A. Today, "the conservative talk show host first decried political commentators who "call people names." Then he called Al Franken , the liberal humorist, an "idiot." 4. As for hurting a business because you disagree with them, isn't that exactly what O'Reilly did to Pepsi by launching a boycott against them after they hired Ludacris? 5. Also, does Bill (and Fox) really welcome "vigorous debate"? When the son of a man killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center disagreed with O'Reilly, Bill told him to "shut up" and told the director to "cut his mike." 6. The idea that O'Reilly and Fox aren't conservative is, well, just stupid. For more than two years O'Reilly's columns were published on Townhall under a heading that read (and still reads) "Conservative Columnists." Did O'Reilly complain, one wonders? He's constantly warning against "raging liberals" or calling them "weasels." 7. And, despite his disgust that Franken could be called a "satirist" he has no problem accepting Ann Coulter's calling liberals traitors as her way of being "funny" and then giving her the advice that she doesnt want to be like "liberal bomb-throwers." Obviously, as Franken said during his famous argument with O'Reilly, "there's a lot more," but who has the time? The man is clearly intellectually dishonest, at best. At worst, he's a serial liar who can't take a freaking joke -- at least when it's on him. Remember, this is the man who once said how he used to love to rip open the personal lives of the rich and powerful... until things changed. "At the time I didn't think much about it, because I thought the rich and powerful were fair game. But now I'm rich and powerful." What a pinhead.
Sat-Aug 23 2003
FYI
From the Alabama State Constitution:
SECTION 3 Religious freedom. That no religion shall be established by law; that no preference shall be given by law to any religious sect, society, denomination, or mode of worship; that no one shall be compelled by law to attend any place of worship; nor to pay any tithes, taxes, or other rate for building or repairing any place of worship, or for maintaining any minister or ministry; that no religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under this state; and that the civil rights, privileges, and capacities of any citizen shall not be in any manner affected by his religious principles. Link
Fri-Aug 22 2003
What the Hell, Gary Coleman for President
Tell Bush to Recall Himself
Republicans in California have initiated a recall against the governor, giving three reasons for their effort: 1. The state's budget has gone from a sizeable surplus to a substantial deficit in a few short years. 2. Gov. Davis did not tell the truth to voters about the state's budget and economic situation. 3. The state's economy remains in dismal shape, and the chief executive of the state is ultimately responsible for it's welfare. If we apply these standards to a governor, then they must also be applicable to a president. The next recall effort is long overdue: a Bush recall campaign. Link Via Booknotes
Pot Calls Kettle Black, Film at 11
It makes me sick to see intellectually dishonest individuals hide behind the First Amendment to spread propaganda, libel and slander. But this is a growing trend in America, where the exchange of ideas often degenerates into verbal mud wrestling with intent to injure.
So opines Bill O'Reilly. Now if only someone would tattoo this on his forehead. Via Metafilter
Wed-Aug 20 2003
Ignorance or Malice
The US government said today it had neither an exact count nor all the names of hundreds of people captured in Afghanistan over a year ago and now detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
... A panel of appeals court judges hearing the case on Monday expressed shock about the apparent lack of record keeping on a group of hundreds of people, possibly including some children, who have been in custody for 577 days. "It strikes me as astonishing that the government says they have no idea whether this gentleman is or is not being held," one said. "Don't you even keep records? ... The US government, which maintains the people being held are all dangerous individuals with connections to terrorists, has argued that the court does not have jurisdiction to rule on the legal rights of these people, since they are being held on foreign soil, in Cuba, on land that is only leased to the United States. So we're getting ready to try these individuals before military tribunals and possibly execute them, but we aren't even sure of their names? And we can't even do a simple head count? It's either that or somebody is lying to a federal judge. Why do I get the feeling that if anybody even gets close to serving a habeus corpus those prisoners are going to get shipped off to an even more inaccessible prison? Link Via also not found in nature
Mon-Aug 18 2003
Power Outage Traced to Dim Bulb in White House
Meanwhile, the deregulation bug made it to New York where Republican Governor George Pataki and his industry-picked utility commissioners ripped the lid off electric bills and relieved my old friends at Niagara Mohawk of the expensive obligation to properly fund the maintenance of the grid system.
And the Pataki-Bush Axis of Weasels permitted something that must have former New York governor Roosevelt spinning in his wheelchair in Heaven: They allowed a foreign company, the notoriously incompetent National Grid of England, to buy up NiMo, get rid of 800 workers and pocket most of their wages - producing a bonus for NiMo stockholders approaching $90 million. Is tonight's black-out a surprise? Heck, no, not to us in the field who've watched Bush's buddies flick the switches across the globe. In Brazil, Houston Industries seized ownership of Rio de Janeiro's electric company. The Texans (aided by their French partners) fired workers, raised prices, cut maintenance expenditures and, CLICK! the juice went out so often the locals now call it, "Rio Dark." So too the free-market British buckaroos controlling Niagara Mohawk raised prices, slashed staff, cut maintenance and CLICK! -- New York joins Brazil in the Dark Ages. Link Via Viridian Design Movement
Thu-Aug 14 2003
Very Strange
A Google search for wiki & blosxom crashes my browser (Mozilla 1.4).
Tue-Aug 12 2003
Nuking Junk Mail
A little-known Federal law allows individuals to send a Prohibitory Order against companies that are sending unsolicited sexually provocative or
erotically arousing mail. The Supreme Court went one step further, allowing individuals to decide what constitutes "erotically arousing" mail. The
law makes it illegal for a company to send mail to an individual within thirty days of receiving the Order.
Considering the amount of crap I receive and the sheer gleefull nastiness of this tactic, I might just give this a go. Link Via Boing Boing
Sat-Aug 09 2003
The Hell with Arnold
"Hello there, this is Gary Coleman," he said in a voice-mail message. "It is 3:30 on Friday. I'm stuck in Friday traffic in my car, getting ready
to pull out my hair. But maybe this is something I can fix as governor. ... I am probably the most unqualified person to run for governor, but I'm
willing to do it as a goof if you are. But then I need to know something: Whose ass do I kick if I actually win? Because that means I'm gonna have
to move up to Sacramento -- the armpit of California -- and administer
this state back to some kind of solvency."
Utility Fog endorses Gary Coleman for Governor of California. Via Boing Boing
Mon-Aug 04 2003
Tax Dollars at Work
Want to know where you can find the REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE
TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 -
BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE? Get it
here. (PDF files, Acrobat reader required)
Sun-Aug 03 2003
Nose Squirting Good
The Knowledge for Thirst bills
itself as
"a beverage-centric website operated by
two gentlemen who really enjoy juices and sodas". It's also damn funny.
It was too sweet for me to even finish. There, I said it. I, Kevin F., inventor of the Jellybean-stuffed-Twinkie, could not finish this treacle. BOO, TREACLE! Remember when you were little, and your dad would come home from work, still completely drunk, and you'd accidentally say something anti-Republican at the dinner table, and he'd pick you up by your hair, bend you backwards over the sink, and scrub strawberry syrup into your tongue with a wire brush? That's totally what Propel reminds me of. I mean, I don't know. It was a bad scene. I thought I'd been making some real progress in therapy you know? Working through a lot of really negative stuff. But now, this whole juice/water thing, I just feel so overwhelmed and like I just can't...can't... Via Coudal Partners
It's Not Just Republicans
Political observers often have wondered why Democrats, especially liberals,
didn't put up more of a fight against the Patriot Act, which passed the Senate
with only one dissenting vote. Many thought it was because Dems didn't have the
guts to stand up, and were afraid both to look unpatriotic and to risk defeat
at the hands of the mighty Bush. But there may be another reason: The Patriot
Act enhances major incursions into civil liberties that were sponsored by Bill
Clinton in 1994 and 1996, including the setting up of secret courts and the
launch of mass deportations.
Link Via Ghost in the Machine
Doppleganger
If I still lived in Pittsburgh I imagine I'd be putting
out something much like the perfectly named Pittsblog.
Fri-Aug 01 2003
Hearts and Minds
28 July 2003: (The Independent)
Obsessed with capturing Saddam Hussein, American soldiers turned a botched raid on a house in the Mansur district of Baghdad yesterday into a bloodbath, opening fire on scores of Iraqi civilians in a crowded street and killing up to 11, including two children, their mother and crippled father. At least one civilian car caught fire, cremating its occupants. The vehicle carrying the two children and their mother and father was riddled by bullets as it approached a razor-wired checkpoint outside the house. Amid the fury generated among the largely middle-class residents of Mansur - by ghastly coincidence, the killings were scarcely 40 metres from the houses in which 16 civilians died when the Americans tried to kill Saddam towards the end of the war in April - whatever political advantages were gained by the killing of Saddam's sons have been squandered. A doctor at the Yarmouk hospital, which received four of the dead, turned on me angrily last night, shouting: "If an American came to my emergency room, maybe I would kill him." .... The Americans searched the house completely, very roughly," Sheikh Habib said. "It seems they thought Saddam Hussein was inside." It appears the killings started as the troops were searching the building and as motorists approached the barbed wire which the soldiers had placed without warning across the road. Witnesses said the first car contained at least two men. "The second contained two children about 10, their mother and their father who had been wounded in the Iran-Iraq war - he was a cripple," a local shopkeeper told me. "They all died. The man's legs were cut in half by the bullets," he added. A third car then approached the Americans, who opened fire again. One of the occupants fled, but the other two remained in the vehicle and were killed. When another car arrived US troops riddled it with more bullets and it burst into flames. It is believed that two people were inside and both were burnt to death. "The Americans didn't try to help the civilians they had shot, not once," a witness said. "They let the car burn and left the bodies where they lay, even the children. It was we who had to take them to the hospitals." Why do I get the feeling we've taken possession of our very own Palestine, one with 26 million heavily armed and angry inhabitants? Link Via Booknotes |