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Trying out a new look on Peevish, Anne’s post, Patriotism, points to the brouhaha that a cartoon by David Horsey has generated.

Apparently the fact that there are documented instances of torture by the US should never be mentioned or alluded to by anyone claiming to be an American. This is along the lines of the mind set that feels there would be no deaths in Iraq if Gary Trudeau and ABC Nightline don’t mention them.

These are the people that claim that Newsweek is an “enemy of the people” because none of the five instances of abuse of the Quran that the Pentagon admits to involves a flush toilet. The Pentagon doesn’t say if any of them involve a “slops bucket”, but that wasn’t the specific claim made.

When government spokesweasels start picking their words with extreme care, it is time for follow-up questions because what they are denying is true in every particular except one small point. When a spokesweasel says “the victim wasn’t run over by a tank from the 117th Armored Regiment”, it means that the tank was probably from another unit, not that the victim wasn’t run over by a tank.

After years of reading Soviet propaganda, I am all too familiar with this technique for lying with facts. Most are old enough to remember that immortal line: “that depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is”.

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Both Andante and Ezra noticed the post by John Edwards at the new TPM Café titled: Being Poor is Expensive.

For people who don’t know: poor people are stuck in a cash economy because they can’t afford the fees on checking accounts. The people willing to loan money to the poor charge rates that are often into triple digits and some still remember as the criminal offense of “loan sharking” or usury.

The products that poor people can afford to buy are more expensive in the long run as they are less efficient and don’t last as long as the slightly more expensive models. The housing poor people can afford is less secure and efficient as the next level up.

A character in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series refers to it as the law of boots: $50 boots will keep your feet dry for 20 years, but the $10 boots you can afford fall apart in a year. Over 20 years the rich man has spent $50, but the poor man has spent $200 and has damp feet.

People who need money can’t borrow it at a reasonable rate, but people who don’t need it can buy cars with 0% interest rates. The system is geared toward gouging the poor.

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Student builds ‘out of box’ life. The BBC reports on a design student who has constructed furniture from cardboard that functions as a box to carry your stuff, then morphs into a desk after being emptied. It is designed to be recycled when it is too old to be used.

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With a 62.8% voter turn out the “Dutch say ‘No’ to EU constitution”. The No/Nee vote was 61.6% against 38.4% for the Yes/Ja.

Following the French No/Non, the EU constitution has little chance of ever being adopted without a major re-write and another round of elections.

[Update: Still no reaction from the Shrubbery, and the President of the EU says “it’s only a flesh wound”.]

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This should be fun: the new Prime Minister is Dominique de Villepin, who as Foreign Minister during the run up to the Iraq invasion gave a performance as a French Guard that compares favorably to John Cleese.

Take that you foolish Texas person!

[I’m sure that French President Jacques Chirac would not do this to annoy Dubya…probably, I mean he doesn’t look like a man with that kind of sense of humor. Ruling a country is serious business, and rulers don’t go about making decisions based on personal pique…ummm, never mind.]

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What a thrill, the official start of the Hurricane Season. It lasts until December 1^st and is supposed to be “active”. If you care, you can drop by my hurricane page.

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