Vão-se pondo ao fresco. Não sem que entretanto deixem de ir distribuindo pérolas destas. O odioso? Que sobre para o George.

O impagável Andy no Borowitz Report: Kerry Found With Duct Tape Over Mouth.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass), the 2004 Democratic nominee for President, was discovered today in a broom closet at Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, his hands bound behind his back and a strip of duct tape over his mouth.
The discovery of Sen. Kerry ended a nationwide manhunt after the former presidential candidate vanished Tuesday afternoon en route to an appearance on CNN’s “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer.

Enquanto os Republicanos procuram desviar o “circo mediático” para as inabilidades de Kerry – de facto, melhor seria que enviassem o personagem de férias para as galápagos – o pessoal sempre se distrai dos escândalos nas trincheiras republicanas. Há para todos os gostos: sexo com menores; violação de sopeira na forma tentada;contratação de imigrante ilegal; tareia na esposa, and soion and soion. Quem diria, para um partido conservador e presuntivamente respeitável não deixa de divertir.

Sir Alan Frederick “Tommy” Dascelles. Secretário particular de quatro Monarcas. Jorge V. A abdicação de Eduardo VIII. A Segunda Guerra Mundial e Winston Churchill. Jorge VI e Isabel II. Alguns episódios sobre Eduardo:

Dascelles demite-se

When, about the middle of December, we got home, the King was still very ill and one evening I sent the Prince a note saying that I wished to resign. When he asked me why I wanted to leave, I told him what I thought of him and his whole scheme of life, foretelling, with an accuracy that might have surprised me at the time, that he would lose the throne. He heard me with scarcely an interruption, and when we parted, said: “Well, goodnight, Tommy, and thank you for the talk. I suppose the fact of the matter is that I’m quite the wrong sort of person to be Prince of Wales” — which was so pathetically true that it almost melted me.

Aprendiz de Calígula

Espiões em Lisboa

The whole Windsor problem has recently been complicated by the discovery among the German Foreign Office archives at Marburg of a set of top-secret telegrams between Ribbentrop and Stohrer (German Ambassador in Madrid), regarding certain alleged overtures made to the Windsors by German agents when they were marooned in Portugal in May 1940. If the Windsors’ reactions were as implied in this correspondence the result is, to say the least, highly damaging to themselves.

Churchill

A few years ago, when Winston was still compos mentis, Jock asked him what he really felt about the Abdication, looking back on it after quarter of a century. (…) “Yes, but were you really prepared to accept Mrs Simpson as your queen?” — to which Winston, after a slight pause, replied: “ Never for one moment did I contemplate such a dreadful possibility.” Jock went on to say that Winston and Max Beaverbrook decided early in the Abdication crisis that “Cutie” (their private name for Mrs S) must leave the country as soon as possible. “It must have been fairly easy to persuade her,” said Jock, “when people started throwing bricks through the windows of her flat, and threatening to throw vitriol at her.”
“Max,” said Winston with one of his deepest chuckles, “Max arranged all that.”
A little later Jock found himself next to Beaverbrook after dinner. He put to him the same question that he had asked Winston. B, with his gargoyle smile, answered: “I thought it was all great fun.”

[King’s Counsellor.Abdication and War: the Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles § Orion Books]

Sucede às vezes que o apoio eleitoral possa chegar de onde menos se espere. Assim, também já o Partido Democrata pode orgulhar-se de contar com o apoio de pelo menos um demente da escatologia evangélica: no Ohio, K. A. Paul exorta os seus fiéis a votar contra o Partido Republicano porque, segundo ele, a política externa norte-americana está a atrasar a segunda vida de Cristo.

Mesmo quando se entra naquele clima e tal…convém ter algum cuidado e prevenir contenciosos futuros, preenchendo os formulários adequados.

Ahmadinejad lançara o “Holocaust International Cartoon Contest”. Agora imagine-se que um cartoonista e blogger norte-americano, bastante criativo, decidia responder ao desafio com uma engenhosa provocação, codificada no próprio desenho. Aconteceu: concorreu e foi aceite. Eis o Ahmadinejad code descodificado pela inversão da imagem:

Five photos threaten to stain the German military’s reputation just as the country debates its role in international security operations. The images, showing German soldiers posing with a skull near Kabul, have sparked outrage from the government and may increase public reluctance to keep troops abroad.

The photos are unmistakably crass, ranging from a shot of a skull mounted over the headlight of a jeep to a close-up of a soldier holding his penis in his left hand and the skull next to it in his right. These are just two of five photos published Wednesday by the German daily Bild, showing members of German security forces in Afghanistan desecrating human remains evidently found while on patrol near Kabul.

Scott Horton é advogado e membro destacado do International Law Committee da Ordem dos Advogados de Nova Iorque. Vale bem a pena a algumas almas confusas ler e reflectir na palestra que apresentou à American Society of International Law, na Centennial Conference on The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, centrada no julgamento United States vs. Altstoetter (entre os dossiers de Nuremberga ficou também conhecido como o Justice Case). Destaco algumas passagens:

When Lawyers Are War Criminals

Concerned about the level of resistance faced by German troops in the occupied territories, Hitler instructed Field Marshall Keitel to issue a special decree authorizing extraordinary measures pursuant to which political suspects would simply “disappear” to special detention facilities and might face summary court proceedings. The death penalty appears as the punishment most frequently contemplated. The decree, issued on the same day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) and as the German drive on Moscow stalled and the Soviet counteroffensive had begun, is known as the “Night and Fog Decree” (Nacht- und Nebelerlass), a reference to the covert action it authorized. Contemporaneous documents make clear that it was motivated by the high level of casualties German soldiers were sustaining behind the front in occupied territory. Pacification of this territory was given a high priority.

A team of Justice Department lawyers worked with Keitel and his team at the German General Staff (OKW) on the drafting of the decree and further steps for its implementation. This included a series of highly particularized rules setting out how such detainees were to be treated by police, justice officials and others. The rules specified how such individuals would be permitted to make wills, issue final letters of farewell, what would be done with children born to detainees and how their death could be recorded in the registry. Other lawyers prepared parallel orders creating special secret courts and detention facilities for those interned under the Nacht- und Nebelerlass. These courts were crafted under domestic German law and thus constituted a projection of German law into the occupied territories.

Continuar a lerNuremberga, Comissões Militares et al →

(…) as imagens iniciais mostram uma cama meio desfeita, na qual a “mulher”
(a “esposa”) se encontra deitada, aparentemente nua até à zona púbica, onde o plano
termina. Uma voz masculina em off anuncia, em tom grave e pausado:

“Em Setembro na SIC, o garanhão, a mulher e a amante dele”.

A voz sublinha e identifica as cenas que se vão sucedendo: o “garanhão” – umas vezes
com a “mulher”, outras com a “amante”, em sequência alternada; cenas de sexo
quase explícito e cenas de convívio entre a “mulher” e a “amante” (que é também a
“melhor amiga” da “mulher” dele); cenas em que o “garanhão” oferece rosas e champanhe
a uma delas, aparece de surpresa à outra e acaricia as coxas a uma terceira.

A voz off pontua as cenas com frases sincopadas, alternando frases da “mulher” com
frases da “amante” que acentuam a duplicidade do “garanhão”:

Continuar a lerUMA PROSA COMPLEXA # Contributo para o debate literário que decorre neste blogue →

LE SANG DES HONGROIS

Je ne suis pas de ceux qui souhaitent que le peuple hongrois prenne à nouveau les armes dans une insurrection vouée à l’écrasement, sous les yeux d’une société interntionale qui ne lui ménagera ni applaudissements, ni larmes vertueuses, mais qui retournera ensuite à ses pantoufles comme font les sportifs de gradins, le dimanche soir, après un match de coupe.

Il y a déjà trop de morts dans le stade et nous ne pouvons être généreux que de notre propre sang. Le sang hongrois s’est relevé trop précieux à l’Europe et à la liberté pour que nous n’en soyons pas avares jusqu’à la moindre goutte.

Mais je ne suis pas de ceux qui pensent qu’il peut y avoir un accommodement, même résigné, même provisoire, avec un régime de terreur qui a autant de droit à s’appeler socialiste que les bourreaux de l’Inquisition en avaient à s’appeler chrétiens.

Continuar a lerAlbert Camus # Budapeste 1956 →

Ghazi Hamad é um dos líderes de topo do Hamas. Em artigo publicado recentemente no diário palestiniano al-Ayyam, Hamad condena a violência interna nos territórios palestinianos e questiona se esta não se tornou uma doença:

Kim Jong-IL says size does not matter.
Kim Jong-IL tests new sunglasses.
Mel Gibson acquires nuclear weapon.

Entretanto, a sério, a sério, parece que discretamente a China se vai preparando para tratar do assunto: China may back coup against Kim.

Slave Lodge. Primeiro, loja de escravos. Depois: loja maçónica; Supremo Tribunal e museu.

Filipa de Lancaster. Schaumborg Lippe. Forbes Skelater. Ferdinand Saxe Coburg-Gotha. Elaine Sanceau. Calouste Gulbenkian.

Stéphane Pompougnac, o DJ neo-aristocrático urbano (juro! é o que lhe chamam alguns críticos e eu não vou desmentir), regressa com a nona série da sua selecção Hôtel Costes, de melhor música lounge e deep house. Gostei especialmente da versão de Emotional Rescue, de Mick Jagger, de Diferente, dos Gotan Project (porque gosto sempre de Gotan!) e sobretudo da Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti, de Ennio Morricone, na voz de Linda Lee Hopkins. Como o melhor Blogue feminino nacional completa o primeiro aniversário, a dita balada vai todinha dedicada às meninas da SOCA.

Não concordo com o Prof. Pedro Arroja. Não foi o brilhantismo de Leo Strauss (Ena tanta gente a ler Leo Strauss por essa blogosfera afora e a conferir com o check-list de lugares-comuns da cartilha já decorada!) que inspirou o neo-conservadorismo, nem sequer leio o straussianismo dessa forma. O neo-conservadorismo da trindade de incapazes que governa a Casa Branca, com o mais que declarado desprezo da elite norte-americana, só pode pretender emular mentes mais simples e prosaicas: as conduzidas pelo timoneiro Edmund Blackadder, teorizador da estratégia “como-é-que-a-malta-se-safa-por-hoje-até-ser-hora-de-jantar” e que de forma singela alinhavou o mais explícito discurso neo-con anti-deterrence:

Baldrick: No, the thing is: The way I see it, these days there’s a war on, right? and, ages ago, there wasn’t a war on, right? So, there must have been a moment when there not being a war on went away, right? and there being a war on came along. So, what I want to know is: How did we get from the one case of affairs to the other case of affairs?

Edmund: Do you mean “How did the war start?”

Baldrick: Yeah.

George: The war started because of the vile Hun and his villainous empire- building.

Edmund: George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganyika. I hardly think that we can be entirely absolved of blame on the imperialistic front.

George: Oh, no, sir, absolutely not. (aside, to Baldick) Mad as a bicycle!

Baldrick: I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich ‘cause he was hungry.

Edmund: I think you mean it started when the Archduke of Austro-Hungary got shot.

Baldrick: Nah, there was definitely an ostrich involved, sir.

Edmund: Well, possibly. But the real reason for the whole thing was that it was too much effort *not* to have a war.

George: By God this is interesting; I always loved history — The Battle of Hastings, Henry VIII and his six knives, all that.

Edmund: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other’s deterrent. That way there could never be a war.

Baldrick: But this is a sort of a war, isn’t it, sir?

Edmund: Yes, that’s right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.

George: What was that, sir?

Edmund: It was bollocks.