[Asharq al-Aswat] You wake up and try to gauge your mood. All you remember is that yesterday something infiltrated your inner feelings, stole your optimism, and the few moments of joy that remained. Your head throbs. The cat tromps loudly across the carpet, each footstep setting up drum-like reverberations directly on your medulla oblongata...
Perhaps you were able to liberate yourself from this depression before you went to bed, Six or seven quick ones seemed to help at the time. Maybe it was eight...
but you are unsure when sleep knocked at your door, and took you to the world of the subconscious. Maybe it was the gin... Or the muscatel...
All you remember is President Muammar Qadaffy's outburst of outlandish, insane statements, pouring out from the television screen. His lips were moving. Words came out, but they made no sense. And that was before you starting drinking heavily...
In his delusion, Qadaffy seemed positive that Libya, during his era, was at the forefront of the world's largest continents: Africa, Asia, and Latin America. "I hereby declare us a continent," he said. You heard it. And that was before you rolled your first joint of the evening...
He also claimed to be the "King of Kings" for all Africa. Suddenly you remember his saying that. It had slipped your mind as consciousness departed at almost the same time. It almost seemed to make sense at the time. Or maybe it was just more logical than some of the other things he said. Most of them, in fact...
Certainly, you need not care what happens to such a man, who is now just eating sour grapes, but you must bear a sense of sorrow for his offspring. Sorrow. That was it. Abject sorrow. That was what set you off on the crying jag...
Indeed, Qadaffy's sons; Saif al-Islam, Mohammed, al-Saadi, Hannibal and Motasem, as well as his daughter Aisha, must be aware of the troublesome destiny awaiting them. "Oh, hold me, Hannibal!"
Their sense of family loyalty means they have to cling onto a sinking ship, even though they see others donning life jackets, having once been associates of the "King of Kings", leaving the man who ate sour grapes to meet his destiny alone. You remember the salt taste of the tears, how they flowed down your cheeks, dripping off the end of your chin. And how your ribs hurt from laughing so hard...
Over many decades, Colonel Muammar Qadaffy ... dictator of Libya since 1969. From 1972, when he relinquished the title of prime minister, he has been accorded the honorifics Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya or Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution. With the death of Omar Bongo of Gabon on 8 June 2009, he became the longest serving of all current non-royal national leaders. He is also the longest-serving ruler of Libya since Tripoli became an Ottoman province in 1551. When Chairman Mao was all the rage and millions of people were flashing his Little Red Book, Qadaffy came out with his own Little Green Book, which didn't do as well. Qadaffy's instability has been an inspiration to the Arab world and to Africa, which he would like to rule... lived through numerous adventures and conspiracies, thus prompting him to adopt the psychological theory of "kill or be killed", as a means of living. You remember how you never really understood him until you took up mescaline. If you sucked down about a gram, and then you poured a couple shots down the hatch suddenly he made sense. It was all crystal clear. And then you'd start to float away, like a Macy's parade balloon, only with hiccups...
Such logic is natural for those who live in a game of murderers and victims. I still remember a former official, who had worked in an authoritarian regime, saying: "You are only disturbed by the first murder; the first corpse is both worrying and upsetting. That first shot makes you shudder. Your gullet tells you 'I'm not really swallowing this, am I?'
Afterwards, you must decide whether to carry on with the game or get out. To exit would effectively mean retirement, and living in the shadows, but to continue means that you are running the risk of being a corpse yourself." The second shot goes down easier, and the third's a snap. By the time the bartender switches bottles on you and you're swallowing stuff he gets at $2 a quart you don't even notice, at least not until the next morning. Assuming there's a next morning...
It is certain that Muammar Qadaffy must have - many years ago - chosen to carry on with the game, despite the risks and gambles involved. However, The infamous However... did his sons choose to participate in this game? "Daddy," the little boy said, "can I kill somebody?"
Or were they forced to do so? [Slap!] "I said to [BLAM!] pull the trigger, y'little brat!!"
Very likely, they are the victims of their education, which has been ingrained into their mentality. Qadaffy was consumed by his delusions, in a style similar to Don Corleone Quixote, and his children could not escape from this. "Michael!"
"Yes, Pop?"
"Tell the bartender to pour us some more muscatel! Set 'em up all around!"
Now, they find themselves in the final chapter, with the conclusion imminent, but in a manner contrary to what had previously been told. After the tale comes to an end, they will be alone facing their reality, as everyone else will have gone their own way. "Stop hogging the Drano, Aisha!"
Posted by: Fred ||
03/01/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
heh. We intercepted a colleague's sick leave slip. Altered it to say "Muscatel Poisoning". The request for a doctor's slip and weirdness that followed were worth the admin rebuke
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/01/2011 20:16 Comments ||
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Essay on why the government needs cut by one of the Koch brothers. Money quote pointed out by Instapundit: Federal data indicate how urgently we need reform: The unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid already exceed $106 trillion. That's well over $300,000 for every man, woman and child in America (and exceeds the combined value of every U.S. bank account, stock certificate, building and piece of personal or public property).
#1
As a resident of Tennessee, I will look with great interest at the certain to follow debate and much yelling and screaming and gnashing of teeth in some sectors over this bill.
The dreadful treatment of Raymond Davis is a reminder of how dysfunctional our relationship with Pakistan has become.
By Christopher Hitchens
In October 1985, after the hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean, an act of open piracy that culminated in the rolling of a disabled man, Leon Klinghoffer, from the vessel's deck into the sea, the organizer of the "operation" was apprehended and taken into custody by the Italian police. But Abu Abbas was not inconvenienced for long. He was released when he was found to be carrying a diplomatic passport--an Iraqi diplomatic passport as it happened, though he was by nationality a Palestinian and had never been accredited to any overseas mission.
These cases were far more murky and gruesome, and involved much more serious breaches of local and international law, than the decision of Raymond A. Davis to use deadly force against men he believed to be his assailants in Lahore, Pakistan. But this does not in the least alter the main element of the case, which is that Davis is "our diplomat," in the president's own words and that the Pakistani authorities have no right either to detain him or to put him on trial.
But Pakistan is not a "normal" country. It is a failed and rogue state, where Davis would have had to know that his assailants might very well be working for the forces of law and order.
Not to mince words, then, Davis is a hostage.
As well we here at Rantburg know. But nobody says things as eloquently and savagely as Mr. Hitchens when his dander is up -- which it always is.
-Americans should be aware that Paleos have tried to bomb maternities (reported in Rantburg a few years ago), consider a hero and offer their daughters in marriage a man who crushed the skull of a four years old girl with a rifle butt, that after sixty fricking years tghey are stll living of international, that means meanly American tax payer's, charity all while squandering millions of dolalrs in Kassams and burning the greenhouses who were supposed to pride them jobs. And that after this, they threatened Weestenr countries, if they didn't give them money. Americans should be aware of all that and reminded that the Palestinians danced in the streets on 9/11;
Where at random times during the day someone takes a randomly aimed pot-shot from a high-powered rifle at the UCLA Administration Building and and/their Student Union.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Colonel Muammar Qadaffy
