micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links

Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm.

Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net.

Holmquist's full archives are listed here.

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Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution)

Aljazeera.Net English
AlterNet (War on Iraq)
Alternative Press Review
Always Low Prices -- Always
Another Irani online
antiwar.com (blog)
Asia Times Online
Axis of Logic
Baghdad Burning (riverbend)
BBC News
blogdex.net ("track this weblog")
bobanddavid.com
BuzzFlash
The Christian Science Monitor (Daily Update)
Common Dreams
Cryptome
Cursor
Daily Rotten
DefenseLINK
Democracy Now
The Drudge Report
Eat the Press (Harry Shearer, The Huffington Post)
Empire Notes (Rahul Mahajan)
frontpagemag.com (HorowitzWatch)
globalsecurity.org
greenandwhite.com
Guardian Unlimited
Haaretz
The Independent
Information Clearing House
Informed Comment (Juan Cole)
Iranians for Peace

Iraq Dispatches (Dahr Jamail)
Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation
Iraq Occupation and Resistance Report (Psychoanalysts for Peace and Justice)
MetaFilter
MLive
Mr. Show and Other Comedy
The Narco News Bulletin (blog)
NEWSMAKINGNEWS
The New York Times
Occupation Watch
Political Theory Daily Review
Press Action
Project Syndicate
Raed in the Middle (Raed Jarrar)
random-abstract.com
Reuters
Salon
The Simpsons Archive
Simpsons Collector Sector
Slate
Sploid
Technorati ("search for mth.blogspot.com")
thi3rdeye
United States Central Command
U.S. Embassy Baghdad, Iraq
venezuelanalysis.com
War Report (Project on Defense Alternatives)
The Washington Post
Wildfire (Jo Wilding)
wood s lot
www.mnftiu.cc (David Rees)

Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development)

Thivai Abhor
As'ad AbuKhalil
Ken Adrian
Christopher Allbritton
Alli
Douglas Anders
Mark W. Anderson
Aziz Ansari
Atomic Archive
Bagatellen
James Benjamin
Elton Beard
Charlie Bertsch
alister black
Blame India Watch
Blixa
Blog Left: Critical Interventions Warblog / war blog
Igor Boog
Martin Butler
Chris Campbell
James M. Capozzola
Avedon Carol
Elaine Cassel
cats blog
Jeff Chang
Margaret Cho
Citizens Of Upright Moral Character
Louis CK
Les Dabney
Dack
Natalie Davis
Scoobie Davis
The Day Job
Jodi Dean
Dominic Duval
Steve Earle
Eli
Daniel Ellsberg
Tom Engelhardt
Lisa English
Faramin
Barbara Flaska
Brian Flemming
Joe Foster
Yoshie Furuhashi
Al Giordano
Glovefox
Rob Goodspeed
Grand Puba
Guardian Unlimited Weblog
Pete Guither
The Hairy Eyeball
Ray Hanania
Mark Hand
harveypekar.com
Hector Rottweiller Jr's Web Log Jim Henley Arvin Hill Hit & Run (Reason) Hugo Clark Humphrey Indri The Iraqi Agora Dru Oja Jay Jeff Lynne d Johnson Dallas Jones Julia Kane Blues Benjamin Kepple Ken Layne Phil Leggiere Brian Linse Adam Magazine Majority Report Radio Marc Maron Josh Marshall Jeralyn Merritt J.R. Mooneyham Michael Scott Moore Bob Morris Bob Mould Mr. Show and Tell Muslims For Nader/Camejo David Neiwert NewPages Weblog Aimee Nezhukumatathil Sean O'Brien Patton Oswalt The Panda's Thumb Randy Paul Rodger A. Payne Ian Penman politx Neal Pollack Greg Proops Pro-War.com Pure Polemics Seyed Razavi Rayne Simon Reynolds richardpryor.com Clay Richards Mike Rogers Yuval Rubinstein
Steven Rubio
Saragon Noah Shachtman Court Schuett The Simpsons Archive Amardeep Singh Sam Smith Soundbitten Jack Sparks Ian Spiers Morgan Spurlock Stand Down: The Left-Right Blog Opposing an Invasion of Iraq Aaron Stark Morgaine Swann Tapped (The American Prospect) tex Matthew Tobey Annie Tomlin Tom Tomorrow The University Without Condition Jesse Walker Warblogger Watch Diane Warth The Watchful Babbler The Weblog we have brains Matt Welch
Alex Whalen
Jon Wiener
Lizz Winstead
James Wolcott
Wooster Collective
Mickey Z

Thursday, June 23, 2005
 
One of the common arguments against looking into what has been happening at Gitmo is that there are no serious allegations of abuse from guards, but maybe that isn't the case...

Attorney Clive Stafford-Smith says that his client, former Aljazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj, has been abused. Aljazeera.net (June 22) writes:

"Sami has endured horrendous abuse - sexual abuse and religious persecution," said Stafford-Smith, who is on a visit to Qatar, on Tuesday.

"He has been beaten. He had a huge scar on his face when I saw him."

[...]

"He is completely innocent. He is about as much of a terrorist as my granddad. The only reason he has been treated like he has is because he is an Aljazeera journalist. The Americans have tried to make him an informant with the goal of getting him to say that Aljazeera is linked to al-Qaida...

Stafford-Smith also said that inmates who were children when they were arrested have been held in Guantanamo Bay since 2001.

Despite the US government's denials, he said they are being held in pitiful conditions.

The article, unfortunately, does not elaborate on what, if anything, Stafford-Smith said those conditions were.

Also, a group from the U.N. Commission on Human Rights is saying that it is not being allowed to investigate allegations of abuse at the prison in Southern Cuba (CBS News, June 23).

***

Me over at HorowitzWatch today:

In an interview with Jamie Glazov (FrontPage, June 23) about how popular culture is harming society, the great Ben Shapiro makes a curious comment about the cut and dry issue of fighting the terrorists:

I think that the "porn generation" ? people 10-30, I?d say ? has had more opportunity than any generation in world history... we?ve never truly had to face difficult foreign policy issues (until 9/11).
How does the worst day in the history of humanity create any sort of "difficult foreign policy issues"? An innocent country named America was attacked by people who hate our freedom and want to kill us all in an attempt to destroy our way of life and make themselves feel good about themselves. We must respond everywhere around the globe that is necessary and not give up till we have won.

You see, I've read my frontpagemag.com. I'm not going to fall for Shapiro's desire to see shades of a color I won't allow my children to even wear when there is nothing but good and evil. Victory to America! Death to traitors! Etc. Etc.

***

Insurgents in Iraq are building and using better bombs, which leads to a greater death toll, David S. Cloud reports in a June 21 New York Times story.

I'm surprised that there haven't been larger attacks like saying blowing up some barracks. Could it be that they don't really want to raise the stakes too high for fear that the United States will just say, "to hell with it, bomb 'em till there's nothing left"?

I suspect that such an attitude will gain increasing currency in the U.S. as the "war on terror" drags out, but then again I'm shocked it isn't more popular now than it is.

On a related note, Rush Limbaugh was railing yesterday about how the U.S. cares more about the Koran now than it did before September 11, 2001. This is actually true but where Limbaugh at least pretends to be baffled by this, I think it is merely the result of the popular sentiment that "we," meaning the people of the U.S., want to be loved for our military actions.

***

Arianna Huffington just might be on to something when she writes that Dem House leader Nancy Pelosi isn't that interested in Iraq or criticizing Team Bush's actions RE Iraq (The Huffington Post, June 23).

What I don't understand is how this could be since Rush Limbaugh and friends never fail to tell me the truth about how the Dems are an anti-war party that is bent on destroying America and helping our enemies.

***

Here are some more links worth a visit.