"I told you not to fuck me Tony"

Why, oh why does Ecuador hate freedom so much that they would dare to insist that their national sovereignty outweighs the "right" of Chevron to make ever more obscene profits?

Is it time yet?

Robert Mugabe's reign of terror continues unabated in Zimbabwe as the world looks on and yawns (although Sir Beefy thinks we ought to boycott their cricket side). Unfortunately for the people of Zimbabwe there just isn't enough oil in their country to make regime change of interest at the White House or in Downing Street.

Keeping democracy safe from the Shirley Preisses of this world

Shirley Preiss is a 97 year old woman from Arizona. She would like to vote in the election in November but it doesn't look like she'll be able to. "Why not?" one wonders. Because Arizona has one of those new "voter ID" laws, intended to make it difficult for Democrats illegal aliens from voting, that's why. In order to register to vote in Arizona one has to be able to prove that one is a bona fide American and, as Ms. Preiss was born in 1910 in Kentucky before they started handing out birth certificates, she can't do that. There is an option whereby she could get testimony from someone who witnessed her birth but I think that 115 year-old former midwives from Kentucky aren't all that common. It makes you proud, doesn't it?

Uh oh, I don't think he cleared this with the neo-cons!

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki has displayed incredible hubris by daring to act as the head of government of a sovereign nation and assured Iran that Iraqi territory would never be used to attack Iran. At best he's going to get a stern talking to and at worst...

Standing up for independence

Resistance to the US Iraq (not really a) defence treaty that would see the Republic of Iraq ceding sovereignty over much of its defence and military to the United States continues to grow as this opinion piece in The Independent by former finance minister Ali Allawi demonstrates. With any luck the voice of Allawi and others will put an end to this neo-imperial "agreement" and Captain Codpiece's beloved "Freedom Agenda" will be the better for it!

Ok Iraq if you want to be a soveriegn nation, and a democracy, this might be a good time to start

And the best way to start is by simply saying no to the deal that the US wants you to sign up to. The military accord, which Captain Codpiece continue to insist is not a treaty and therefore outside of the scope of Congressional approval, would see "US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law". The US would also control Iraqi airspace.

I say let freedom ring!

Justice Scalia wants to oppress me

The outspoken US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia seems to think that freedom of religion doesn't necessarily apply to atheists. How old is he? When does he hit retirememt age?

Just don't even think about suggesting that he's innocent

After more than six years of (illegal) detention by the United States, most of it at the beautiful Guantánamo Bay Beach and Leisure Resort, al Jazeera television cameraman Sami al-Hajj has been released without charge and returned to his native Sudan. The conditions of this humane act on the part of the Bush administration include his not being able to leave Sudan and his never working in journalism again. Isn't freedom a truly glorious thing?

Just remember once an evil-doer, always an evil-doer!

"Free" trade is sometimes, but not always, a wondorous thing!

A factory in Guangdong in China has been found to have been manufacturing Free Tibet flags for export. I believe that they may have subsequently ceased and desisted!

That freedom thing

After nearly two years being held without charge AP photographer Bilal Hussein has finally been freed by the US military on orders from the Iraqi government. He's probably still on the no fly list though I reckon.

Is our "allies" learning?

Clearly the mentoring process that sees the mature, free and beyond criticism democracy that is the United States of America assisting the young "democracies" in Iraq and Afghanistan in moving toward true freedom is working. Former detainees of US forces are now meeting "justice" in the form of secret trials conducted by the Afghan government some of them lasting only 10 minutes.

It is a thing of beauty when a plan comes together.

Whatever happened to that Freedom Agenda thing-a-ma-bob?

Captain Codpiece remains silent over the anti-Freedom Agenda violence being carried out by the Chinese dictatorship in Tibet. How unfortunate for the Tibetans that they have little or no oil. And remember, when he goes to the Olympic games it is just as an ordinary sports fan (with two or three 747s full of security).

The whole world is (just) watching

It is good to see that the US government has leaped into the fray over the egregious human rights violations currently being committed by the Chinese government in Tibet. A deputy to an assistant to increasingly irrelevant US Secretary of State Conocoleezza Rice has said that the US often mentions Tibet when speaking to assistants to the deputies of Chinese Politburo members! Thomas Christensen clearly urged the Chinese to talk to some Tibetans but stopped well short of demanding that the Chinese authorities actually stop killing Tibetans.

Meanwhile in the UK the British government has taken stern action and is suggesting to its citizens that they ought not travel to the Himilayan ex-country. There goes my weekend break in Lhasa.

How many times do we have to tell you...

...that the "Freedom Agenda" only applies if you elect folks we like. When you don't we'll have to do something about it. As an example let us review Bolivia which recently elected dangerous left winger Evo Morales so Captain Codpiece has seen to it that his right wing opposition gets US taxpayer money to ensure that this failure of democracy is not repeated! (Don't we ever learn?)

The ex-General's pout

Captain Codpiece's good mate Pakistani "President" Pervez "The ex-General" Musharraf is in a grumpy mood now that he hasn't got his way in his country's most recent exceedingly free, fair and peaceful elections! But the US still thinks he's just the ticket, irrespective of what the Pakistani people might have indicated.

I just love democracy.

Bush to Mugabe: "I expect to see a fair election"

Mugabe to Bush: "Florida. Ohio. Now fuck off will you?"

On the road to freedom!

Pakistan's "President" Pervez "The Ex-General" Musharaf has warned the enemies of freedom opposition not to even think about protesting after they fairly and squarely lose the election this coming Monday.

"They should not be under any illusion that they will bring people to the streets after the election. Nothing of that sort will be allowed...In this situation of extremism and terrorism, no agitation, anarchy or chaos can be acceptable."

Democracy - a beautiful thing to watch!

Progress report

How many billions of taxpayer dollars and how many American and Afghan lives have been spent to turn Afghanistan into what it has been all along - a failed state? Of course this failed state is run by fiercely free market, drug manufacturing war lords rather than nasty fundamentalist Muslims so I reckon that's a significant improvement, innit?

Hey! What about us?

THIS IS A HUBRIS ALERT

Captain Codpiece has spoken to the Iranian people in a speech in Abu Dhabi and told them that they should have a right to a government "that listens to [their] wishes". Well if the Iranians get a responsive democratic government may we please have one as well?

Department of unintentional irony

"Alexis de Tocqueville, France’s 19th-century observer of the United States, the modern world’s first democratic experiment, warned that democracy ultimately could lead to the tyranny of the majority. However, nearly two centuries later, democracy and the concept of majority rule have become powerful notions for which every nation on earth strives -- at least in word if not deed." (Emphasis mine.)

The first paragraph of a release from the US Department of State's International (Mis)Information Programs.