Illegal

But Pat Dollard said I could hop on over to Iraq and photograph anything I wanted:

U.S. authorities confiscated an AP Television News videotape that contained scenes of the wounded being evacuated. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl told the AP the government of Iraq had made it illegal to photograph or videotape the aftermath of bombings or other attacks.

Wrong about everything, all the time.

Comments

  1. JimC says:

    You got me and apparently there are hundreds if not thousands of illegal photos and videos out there but you got me.

    So you wanted to go over there and photgraph scenes of bombing aftermath and dead and wounded Iraqis being evacuated but since it is illegal, darn the bad the luck?

  2. matt says:

    You got me

    just leave it at that, aiight?

  3. sarabeth says:

    well enough? alone?

    surely, you jest, sir!

  4. JimC says:

    just leave it at that, aiight?

    Sure, why not…

  5. sarabeth says:

    if you shoot videotape, the U.S. government feels honor bound to enforce Iraqi law.

    if you (drunkenly) shoot the VP’s body-guard, the U.S. government feels honor bound to smuggle you out of the country.

    Your government! Redefining honor every day!

  6. JimC says:

    if you shoot videotape, the U.S. government feels honor bound to enforce Iraqi law.

    if you (drunkenly) shoot the VP’s body-guard, the U.S. government feels honor bound to smuggle you out of the country.

    Your government! Redefining honor every day!

    Way to tie two stories together, nicely done! It’s like a nexus of anti-US Government sentiment. Well done!

  7. matt says:

    It’s like a nexus of anti-US Government sentiment.

    that’s dangerous ground you’re on there. you have no case to refute the point, so we’re left with old-style accusations of america hating. any idea on how long that will be tolerated?

  8. JimC says:

    that’s dangerous ground you’re on there. you have no case to refute the point, so we’re left with old-style accusations of america hating. any idea on how long that will be tolerated?

    Hey, I was being serious, trying to pay a compliment.

  9. sarabeth says:

    go fuck yourself.

  10. sarabeth says:

    or maybe he just doesn’t know the meaning of “a nexus of anti-US Government sentiment”?

  11. JimC says:

    go fuck yourself.

    My goodness, I thought you were clever and was honestly trying to give you a nod. Perhaps the anti-US Government sentiment was not the correct phrase to use to whatever sentiment you have, maybe “criticisms of the government” would have been better….sorry, I’ll just quit for now….but seriously, I thought it was clever…

  12. sarabeth says:

    just go fuck yourself.

  13. JimC says:

    just go fuck yourself.

    Honestly, I do not know what your problem is….or are you just messing with me now?

  14. sarabeth says:

    Look, this whole “I don’t understand what I read, I don’t understand what I write” has grown pretty old.

    You are seriously pretending you don’t understand the meaning of “It’s like a nexus of anti-US Government sentiment”?

  15. JimC says:

    You are seriously pretending you don’t understand the meaning of “It’s like a nexus of anti-US Government sentiment”?

    Let me ask you, what do you think it means? Because I know what it means when I typed it so either one of us is confused and I’m sure you are going to declare that it is me but it may help if you tell me what you think it means because I really didn’t intend for it to be an insult…

  16. sarabeth says:

    i don’t play those games with you any more.

  17. JimC says:

    i don’t play those games with you any more.

    That’s good because I’m not playing a game with you. I would desire to know why you took offense to what I said or I will just assume you flaked out for no good reason. For what I said was not a cause for such a reaction, that is of course you habitually tell people to, well you know what you said, and in that case I will just imagine that, for you, it is a term of endearment.

  18. sarabeth says:

    I retired from the business of explaining to you what I wrote. I’m damned if I’m going to start explaining to you the meaning of what you write.

    It’s three short sentences. It means what it means. There’s really no room for ambiguity there.

    Once you write something and put it up, nobody knows what the hell was in your mind. Which is why you have to make sure your words say what you want them to. And if you don’t how to say what you mean, you should just STFU and leave.

    This garbage you keep pulling about well, X may be what I wrote, but Y is what I meant, is total bullshit.

    If you can’t read this comment thread and figure out what your statement means to Matt and me, there’s really no hope for you whatsoever.

    But if you feel the need to make assumptions, then you just go ahead and assume whatever you like. Who cares if it’s right or wrong?

  19. sac says:

    Dude, criticizing the gov’t and being “anti-American” are not necessarily the same thing. Many of us commie faggots criticize the U.S. gov’t because we love our country and would like to see those in charge represent us in a better way.

  20. JimC says:

    I retired from the business of explaining to you what I wrote. I’m damned if I’m going to start explaining to you the meaning of what you write.

    It’s three short sentences. It means what it means. There’s really no room for ambiguity there.

    Once you write something and put it up, nobody knows what the hell was in your mind. Which is why you have to make sure your words say what you want them to. And if you don’t how to say what you mean, you should just STFU and leave.

    This garbage you keep pulling about well, X may be what I wrote, but Y is what I meant, is total bullshit.

    No no no, I know what it means, but I’m not entirely sure you know what it means or at least it may mean different things to you and I, that’s why I asked you to explain why you got upset over it.

    Ok, I will just humble myself and take the first step here.

    This is what you wrote

    if you shoot videotape, the U.S. government feels honor bound to enforce Iraqi law.

    if you (drunkenly) shoot the VP’s body-guard, the U.S. government feels honor bound to smuggle you out of the country.

    Your government! Redefining honor every day!

    Now let’s take the first part of that

    if you shoot videotape, the U.S. government feels honor bound to enforce Iraqi law.

    You mention the US Government in reference to this post about censoring the AP video, ergo you were being facetious about them being “honor bound” to uphold the law in this case. Do we have to debate if this is a negative sentiment or not?

    Then

    if you (drunkenly) shoot the VP’s body-guard, the U.S. government feels honor bound to smuggle you out of the country.

    With this you brought in the story line of the Blackwater incidents, again mentioning the US Government, but this time in an overt manner, expressed a negative sentiment.

    Then you end it with

    Your government! Redefining honor every day!

    Again referencing the [US] government in a obvious negative sentiment.

    Now for the “nexus” part.

    nex·us [nek-suhs]
    –noun, plural nex·us·es, nex·us.
    1. a means of connection; tie; link.

    You, in one comment, linked two story lines together tied by your obvious criticism of the inconsistent application of law (as I feel your view is on these two points), therefore creating a nexus between these two stories, and by your own words, defined the actor as the “US Government”, and seeing how I highly doubt you could characterize any of this as a “pro” US Government sentiment (using the actor you chose, the US Government in this case).

    So if we have two stories which if you can’t characterize your sentiment in either storyline as a pro-US Government sentiment then the antithesis of which is anti-US Government sentiment.

    Now, that is what I meant and it was clear as such and furthermore, that really wasn’t even my point, like I said, I was trying to give you a nod for being clever in your comment to tie the two stories together as you did but if you cannot, on any level, act as if we can even possibly not be antagonistic, well, I am just sorry for that.

  21. JimC says:

    Dude, criticizing the gov’t and being “anti-American”

    Whoa, hold on their tex, where did I say anti-American?

  22. sarabeth says:

    the admiring hordes now await your exegesis of the MoveOn ad and Rush Limbaugh’s “phony soldier” dialog

  23. JimC says:

    the admiring hordes now await your exegesis of the MoveOn ad and Rush Limbaugh’s “phony soldier” dialog

    I’ll wait for your post on that.

    So, does this mean you understand now my comment (#6) and are ok with the explanation?

  24. sarabeth says:

    No, it means you don’t understand sarcasm either.

    I contrasted two questionable government actions to cast an ironic light on both of them.

    That is not expressing “anti-US Government sentiments”. “Expressing anti-US Government sentiments” is not the same thing as “criticizing US Government actions”. (In much the same way as “you are a bad boy” is not the same as “you did a bad thing”.)

    These two phrases have very different connotations. What a phrase connotes is every bit part of its meaning as what a phrase literally denotes.

    Words in your hands are obviously very dangerous instruments. Most of the time you seem to have no idea what meaning your words actually convey. Which is why you should throw in the towel, and just stay away from here, and stop embarrassing yourself.

  25. JimC says:

    That is not expressing “anti-US Government sentiments”. “Expressing anti-US Government sentiments” is not the same thing as “criticizing US Government actions”. (In much the same way as “you are a bad boy” is not the same as “you did a bad thing”.)

    I believe back in comment 11, I stated “maybe “criticisms of the government” would have been better”. But you responded with the “just GFY”

    So I was at a loss then as to what your real objection was, thanks for clearing it up for me.

    By the way, my saying you have an anti-US Government sentiment does not imply any-American nor even anti-”Any other government other than the one headed by President Bush at the moment”. I believe your anti-US Government sentiment as I see it is mostly bound to the current administration although with the occasional disgust towards democrats failure to enact what you see. So in my view your “anti-US Government” isn’t permanent but rather conditional on who is making current policy. Perhaps anti-US Government sentiment isn’t most accurate way to describe it and I alluded to that earlier in this thread, I have no problem restating my original comment substituting criticisms of the US Government for anti-US Government sentiment.

  26. sarabeth says:

    you don’t seem to get the point I’ve been making for a long time now.

    I don’t bloody care if you clarified in 11 that you didn’t really mean what 6 actually said. I’m totally fed up with you spouting garbage, and then when challenged saying well, that’s not what I meant.

    Which is why the best thing you can do is STFU. And just go away.

    Go back to your own blog, and preside over that.

  27. matt says:

    By the way, my saying you have an anti-US Government sentiment does not imply any-American nor even anti-”Any other government other than the one headed by President Bush at the moment”.

    the us government contains a lot of well-meaning professionals and career public servants. we rarely criticize the government, we criticize the bush administration. this is quite clear to everyone else who reads the site, why is it so hard for you?

  28. JimC says:

    the us government contains a lot of well-meaning professionals and career public servants. we rarely criticize the government, we criticize the bush administration. this is quite clear to everyone else who reads the site, why is it so hard for you?

    Read comment #5, who/what does Sarabeth criticize by name? “The US government”. This is what I carried forward in the following comments. I assumed she was targeting specifically this current government meaning BushCo and the impotent congress, because I don’t think she was criticizing the institution of the US Government, so what’s choices are left here?

  29. matt says:

    Read comment #5, who/what does Sarabeth criticize by name? “The US government”.

    it wasn’t some career foreign service officer who confiscated any videotape or provided underground railroad services for a trigger happy merc.

  30. JimC says:

    it wasn’t some career foreign service officer who confiscated any videotape or provided underground railroad services for a trigger happy merc.

    I would love to rip into this but I’m just going to try to bring this to a close.

    I understand what you are saying but she used “US Government” to express her criticism, if what she really meant was Bush Administration then that is fine, and if she meant Bush Administration in #5 then when I reuse her own actor from #5, it should mean the same thing and therefore no confusion *should* have been manifested.

  31. matt says:

    as sarabeth said in 25, it’s about connotations. the way she used it was much different from how you used it. and that all before getting into your history of using similar phrases here.

  32. sac says:

    Just checking in.

  33. JimC says:

    as sarabeth said in 25, it’s about connotations. the way she used it was much different from how you used it. and that all before getting into your history of using similar phrases here.

    I’m trying to be very careful. In this case, when I read “US Government” I just mentally assumed Bush Administration (State Dept, Pentagon, etc.) and when I reused that as part of anti-US Government sentiment, even though now thinking of it coming from me, that would seem to mean something else but I wrote in the context of what I believed was really the target, the Bush admin, so it does equate to anti-”Bush Administration” sentiment which, I hope I could say with accuracy is the view professed here at 1115.org.

    Looking back now, had I made that assumption in what I typed, I’m not sure I would have nipped this whole thing in the bud either, it would have just taken a different path and I would be having to explain why I assumed Bush Administration when she clearly said US Government :-)

    sac wrote:
    Just checking in.

    Still waiting on you to show me where I said anti-American, just kidding…. ;-)

  34. sac says:

    My bad. Still, “anti-US Government” implies anti-American in my mind. “Anti-Bush” is another thing entirely.