More Bush/War Propaganda

Funny how the Republi-monsters call Fahrenheit 911 propaganda. The local ABC affiliate in DC just did a report on the propaganda machination that was the toppling of the Saddam statue. Props to ABC.

Thanks to DC Indymedia for the tip.

Darfur Genocide Protest - DC - 07/22/04

Went to a protest outside the White House this past Thursday from 12 noon until 1:30 pm.  At least a couple hundred people were there - all over the spectrum.  Thank God for black preachers - they were letting the powers that be have it - and kept us all in an energized mood - in the oppressive heat. 

Participated in my first 'die-in' - kind of like a 'sit-in', except you pretend to be dead for a while.

Check out the Darfur Genocide website.  They have lists you can sign up for to be notified of upcoming events/protests.

Not sure where I heard about the protest.  Possibly True Majority.   Congressman Rangel was arrested outside the Sudanese Embassy the other day - where I think there are continuing daily protests at 12 noon, every day.  Props to Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) for showing-up to voice her support of a resolution and more.  The House voted to pass a resolution stating that ongoing events in Sudan are, by definition, genocide.  Doesn't necessarily save any lives yet, but it's a step in the right direction.

The scariest part?  People are being killed because of the color of their skin - black skin.  Based on our world's history of violence and killing because of religion, I could at least have had a basis to understand how some lunatics could kill because of their twisted religious beliefs, but many of those being killed are Muslims - the same religion as their killers.

Below are some pics of the event.  Not great quality, but it's still documentation.

ChampionsWorld Series (US Tour 2004)

It's like having the the New York Yankees of every country in Europe lined-up to play each other in a miniature tournament.  Most teams are jam-packed with superstars and it's just a rare treat to get a chance to see one of your favorite teams play on U.S. soil.  The teams are *good* and their stars are *big* and their club histories are *long* and storied.

Check out the teams that are here this year: AC Milan, AS Roma, Bayern Munich, Celtic, Chelsea, FC Porto, Galatasary, Liverpool, Manchester United.
 
Definitely check out a game if they come to a city near you:   
http://www.championsworld.com/
 
To give you an idea of how important these clubs are, in terms of reach and influence, FutureBrand had this to say:

Manchester United is currently slotted between two NFL franchises--the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins--as the second most valuable sports brand in the world. (The Yankees are fourth; the next two-highest soccer clubs are Spanish power Real Madrid at six and Bayern Munich of the German Bundesliga at seven.)

And this, you have to remember, is a team in a country (Great Britain) with a population of only 60 million.  That's a lot for an not-so-large island nation, but it's not a lot compared to the size of, say, the US population, where the Dallas Cowboys (a.k.a.  America's Team) play - at 293 million.
 
Speaking of FutureBrand, a sport-branding-type company based in London, check out this PDF report on the top brands of European football - I think it's the nicest report on anything I've ever seen in my life.  Unreal.
 
And I had to steal some of the quotes out of it and list them here - they're just too darn good and they're so darn interesting (and funny!) because they give you an idea of just how intimate the relationship between football fans and the sport can be, especially in Europe.  The passion!  [Check out some of the names.  Totally cool!]
 

“Football is not about life or death, it’s more important than that”
-- Bill Shankly
 
“All human history moves towards one great goal”
-- James Joyce
 
“In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team”
-- Jean-Paul Sartre
 
“Each succeeds in reaching the desired goal by a different method”
-- Niccolo Machiavelli
 
“It is not just a simple game.  It is a weapon of revolution”
-- Che Guevara

“My idea of paradise is a straight line to goal”
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

To make things more interesting, Malcolm Glazer, U.S. entrepreneur and owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, just upped his stake in Man U to near 20%.  This funky comingling of top-brand teams from both sides of the pond reminds me of a marketing deal Man U did with the Skankees a couple of years ago.  Where from here?

Spider-Man 2

Crap (Official Site).

I'm not sure how much I could have liked or disliked it because I walked out after about 20 minutes, right after a father and his about-10-years-old daughter walked out. I believe they walked about because dad didn't want his impressionable daughter to have nightmares.

I made it to just past the hospital/violence-porno scene where the soon-to-be-evil villain, Doc Ock, really comes to life and murders all the doctors and nurses in the emergency room in what could only be described as the most horrificly violent scene I've ever seen. I remember a terrified, screaming nurse fighting for her life. She is being dragged slowly by her feet towards her blood-spattered death as her nails carve deep grooves into the floor. It is...UN-believable.

I kind of remember being younger and watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or Halloween, or something similar and having nightmares for a while - but I was shocked at the extremity and gratuitousness of this one particular scene. Maybe it was because I was expecting more of a kids' movie scenario, but perhaps I should have known better - with the PG-13 rating and all.

I really don't know what else to say. The horrificness of this one scene quite literally shocked me out of the theatre. A Spider-Man movie. I can hardly believe it myself, but it happened. Don't we get enough gratuitous violence in Iraqistan without having to get another fill from Spidey? Fudge...

Bush Admin's Ideology Over Reality - Again

Bremer's decision, which apparently came from on-high, caused chaos and a lot of death and destruction - and continues to do so. We know the story, but I think that creating a stable, democratic Iraq was, and still is, very possible. The problem is the Bush Administration is incompetent, nor do they care about democracy - nor do his supporters care - as long as their boy gets re-elected. True Americans, every one.

How Soccer Explains the World: Globalization

How Soccer Explains the World : An Unlikely Theory of Globalization

Heard the author, Franklin Foer, at Politics and Prose. Semi-interesting. I figured if anything could make the topic of globalization interesting, it'd be my favorite sport. He seemed to know a lot about soccer, and the crowd seemed semi-informed, which was cool, but nothing made me want to plunk down 20-odd bucks for the book.

A couple reviews.

And an article by Foer stating that Kerry is down with soccer?

Orwell Rolls In His Grave

I can't keep up with all the anti-Bush independent flicks. Will have to check this one out when I get a chance.

Zarqawi Not Al Qaeda?

Ripped this post from JC - go there to get all of it:

David Wright, a former Defense Department analyst and former Army Reserve strategic intelligence analyst has sent the following letter to the Washington Post:

' In some of your reporting (but happily not all) you refer to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as "a top Al Qaeda operative", etc.

There is no evidence that Zarqawi, a Jordanian operating in Iraq, has ever been an Al Qaeda member - although Cheney and a few others in the Bush administration continue to try to paint him that way, apparently for political reasons.
...
Ironically, Zarqawi did go from Jordan to Afghanistan for training back in the Eighties, in the days when the U.S. wanted help in pushing the Soviets out - guess who provided the money for his training! But Zarqawi thereafter created camps separate from those of UBL; and has ever since been seen as a competitor, not a member of UBL’s team. 
...

Can you say 'blowback'? 
 
Don't forget that Bush had the chance to off Zarqawi, but nobody seems to care...

Before Sunset

Great flick (official site). A few reviews.

Probably helps if you're into Paris - which gets a lot of play. Probably helps if you're into good acting - which I am not, necessarily - but in this low-key flick, it's a necessity, and good acting is delivered in full, it seems. Probably helps if you like a little U.S. foreign policy bashing for humor. Probably helps if you've ever had that 'one lost love' or just like to imagine having had one. Probably helps if you can actually appreciate indy flicks, in general. Probably helps if you dig perfectly far-from-perfect dialogue (with more wit than you, yourself could ever muster) between a couple newly-reaquinted, trying to find the right thing to say, but mostly failing - just makes it that much more real. And definitely helps if there is at least one point in the movie when you would like to think and feel compelled to sigh aloud 'Oh my @!*&^%$....Gooooooooooosh!', and at once feel hopeful yet angry, but relieved that, alas, you are not the only one on this earth to be stung by the cruel irony of fate.

Somehow, after seeing Waking Life, I became an Ethan Hawke fan, so it was cool to see him do a good job here.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Paris kicks ass.

An Ode to Hershey's Chocolate Sundae Pie

I was always curious if anyone shared my intense love of Burger King's Hershey's Sundae Pie. The thing is just intense. Whatever problems you face - an HSP (or two) can take care of it. Trust me.

Then I stumbled onto this article in the Washington Post about the first Burger King - a slice of home - for GI's in Iraq:

The headquarters of the 1st Armored Division are across from the Burger King. Capt. David Gercken and Capt. Jason Beck, public affairs officers for the division, had lunch at the free dining facility one day recently, but their minds were clearly on Burger King and its storied Hershey's Pie -- a swirly mix of chocolate and whipped cream.

"It's $2 of heaven. It's the only thing getting us through this deployment," Gercken said in reverent tones.

"The perforated edge of that pouch, when you open it up it sings," Beck said.

"The pie completes the deal, the chocolate-crumb base," Gercken continued.

"It speaks for itself," Beck said.

Nice. Very nice...

Israel Knew!

I've pimped this conspiracy theory before, I link to it at the bottom of every email I send out, but I have to do whatever I can to keep this 9/11 Coverup in the spotlight. Every time I watch those Cameron Fox segments I'm just astonished - taken aback. I can't believe more people aren't excited about it. Unbelievable.

See for yourself.

Le Tour de Druggies

Le Tour de France is an awesome race, but I'm convinced that 99%+ of the riders are illegally doping. I'll still watch some of it anyways - we're all hypocrites at some level.

The Outdoor Life Network is covering the event - and they're doing a good job - live, taped, re-runs, etc. It seems like round-the-clock coverage. Nice.

I guess it helps that Lance is going for his sixth...

Nader to Debate Dean?

I usually don't sound off on breaking news, but this one is too much to resist. The WaPost is reporting that Nader is going to debate Dean on National Public Radio's weekly program "Justice Talking", on Friday, July 9.

Welcome to four more years for Bush. Can't believe the Dems signed-off on this. The *only* thing that can happen here is the obvious - Nader will gain more legitimacy, will reach millions of people with his very-sane message, and voters will vote for him because he has the best platform. I don't know how the Dems could come to any other conclusion - unless Dean just sort of manufactured this thing all by himself.

I'm all for the downfall of the two party system here in the U.S., but I wasn't overly committed to four more years of Bush and the possible end of our Republic as we now know it, just for my high-minded ideal of ending the two party stranglehold on our democracy. I can hear it already - the buzz of the Republicans backing Nader working furiously behind the scenes to promote this little Nader/Dean showdown. Too funny. With Kerry having friends like Dean, who needs enemies?! Hah! :D

Japan's Royal Family

This WaPost article is kind of bizarre. Entitled 'Tradition Afflicts a Modern Princess', it describes Princess Masako's struggle with living the rigid Japanese royal lifestyle - and, specifically, her struggle to fulfill her 'foremost imperial duty' - that of bearing a male heir to the throne. Last time I checked, it was the male, alone, who was responsible for determining the sex of the baby. (Am I mistaken? Is this urban myth?) Yet, the 1,623 words in this article say nothing of that fact - only that Princess Masako is under pressure from the courtiers to bear a male heir.

It all just seems a little bizarre to me - as if we've been transported back into the 1600's when men really did believe it was the woman, alone, who determined the sex of the child. Bizzarro, man...

Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bush Admin's Legacy of Fear

One line from the movie says something to the effect when people are afraid, you can make them do anything. It is stated by a U.S. Congressman who is a psychiatrist by training. This phenomenon of governming by fear has been recognized by many astute eyes for quite some time, but without Fahrenheit we can be pretty sure that the mainstream public would not ever pick up on it - because the mainstream press is gullible and is really only a mouthpiece for the government, as evidenced by a recent FAIR report. Only recently have any media begun to question Ashcroft's use of terror warnings as possibly being politically-motivated.

Moore's contention is that Bush and his people want you to be afraid - very afraid. Not because there are any real threats out there, but because they want you to get behind whatever legislation they try to pass - whatever war they wish to fight, etc. So you heard months of months of weapons of mass destruction, dirty bombs, and mushroom clouds. Why?

It wasn't because there actually was a serious threat from any of these things, it's because all the warnings helped to create a fearful mindset for everyone in the country. With everyone being so afraid of everything, they are apt to just say 'F it - do whatever you need to do to make my fears go away. If that means erasing Iraq, then so be it.' And there you have it - the Iraq war, Saddam, Osama, Zarqawi, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Islam, and whatever other 'boogeyman' Bush's crew wishes to drag off the shelf and put to good use.

Why is Homeland Security consistently underfunded by Bush? Because Homeland Security is just a joke - on the American people. The Homeland Security Department is just a farce - a media operation set up solely to support the terrorizing political tool called the Terror Alert System and to give that tool some legitimacy.

In today's Express paper there is a full pullout entitled Emergency Metro Guide. It includes the HOW-TOs of how the heck to escape all sorts of disaster that might strike you as you make your merry way to or from work - especially on the Metro system. It's classic Bush Administration scare tactics. I'm not saying that Bush and his people directly told The Washington Post to print this stuff - far from it. Bush and his people have created this incredible climate of fear and everyone - even newspaper editors - are brainwashed by it. How did they do it? Go see Fahrenheit. It describes many ways the Bushies have done this - the most prominent example being Ashcroft's manipulation of the Terror Alert Level - that candy-colored sign we talked about so long ago. Everytime the Bushies have to deal with some really negative news - BOOM! - raise the terror alert level to Orange or even Red. It's worked like a charm for a couple of years now. When you go back in time - over the past two years or so - you will be shocked at the timeliness of Aschroft's terror alerts - always falling on or near big bad news days for the Administration. Many good blogs like Atrios have been following these trends for quite some time now.

The latest piece of fearmongering by the Bushies is this latest warning put out by Bush officials - floating beer coolers. No, I'm not kidding. Check the opening graph from the Time article:

As the July 4 holiday approaches, Bush Administration officials are bombarding the nation's police, fire, emergency and corporate-security offices with another round of terrorism warnings. Although there are no plans to raise the threat level from yellow to orange, a senior Justice Department official says, "there's very serious intelligence that's corroborated, that's multiple sourced, that indicates that al-Qaeda is intent on hitting us and hitting us hard this year." The official concedes, however, that "we don't have specific information."

If you study the previous months and years you'll see we are always getting 'increased chatter' and there's 'new intelligence' and we have 'nothing specific'. In other words, be afraid, but no - there's really no way to protect yourself - so let us take care of that by letting us do whatever the hell we want - including passing the Patriot Act, fight unnecessary wars, etc. Check out the opening few graphs of an article titled 'Creating a Comfort Zone - How to How to Build Peace of Mind in Threatening Times' from the Washington Post on March 16, 2003:

There's something in the air -- the faint and persistent buzz of hazard. Some people are plainly scared. They've been told so often "it's not if but when" that images of terrorist attack pass through their minds every day. Some people seem untouched. They face the periodic and inscrutable announcements of threat with a mix of fatalism and defiance. But nobody doubts that they're living in a changed world.

After all, the unimaginable has already happened. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were so unlikely and -- let's face it -- so successful that large-scale death from terrorism on American soil is no longer just a theoretical possibility.

So what does one do with that feeling and that fact?

It's a good question. And a really hard one to answer.

What follows in these pages is our attempt to help you come up with a reasonable and livable stance against the threat of terrorism. We're most definitely not providing answers, let alone The Answer. But we're offering some building materials that may be useful in constructing the very personal edifice that is peace of mind.

And now we have floating beer coolers... Every time I think I've seen it all from these guys... But by the time this July 4 weekend rolls around we'll be hearing another line from the Bushies - 'go enjoy your weekend'. Just the type of mixed message that continues to keep us on our toes.

Good doggie. <Ruff>!

UPDATE: Another article on the Bush Administration's fear-mongering.

National Capital Barbecue Battle

Just a shout-out. Digital Cities page here, office page here. $8 to get in, but lots of music, and the money goes to a good cause. Plus, you probably get to stuff yer face with some pretty rockin' BBQ!

Reminded myself of a restaurant in NJ called Stuff Yer Face. The one I'm thinking of, in East Brunswick, closed down - but there's another - probably the original and now only - in New Brunswick.

Wal-Mart Discriminates?

A California judge has recently granted 'class action lawsuit' status upon the Wal-Mart sexual discrimination suit. No idea if that's the correct language or not, but once a judge says 'class action', it's pretty much over for a retailer like Wal-Mart - the world's BIGGEST company. Ummm, that's pretty big.

Retailers are particularly vulnerable to public opinion - boycotts directly affect the bottom line, and they hit quickly. So this is trouble for the big guys. Wal-Mart claims to have already 'righted the ship' - and there is some evidence of that, but this matter doesn't look to go away quickly. Wal-Mart's just made too many enemies with its heavy-handedness - and knowledge of their shoddy labor practices is growing.

But, screw 'em. They deserve it. If you follow Wal-Mart labor practices, you know they're a bunch of gangsters.

The employees' class action lawsuit website is here.

There are numerous anti-Wal-Mart sites out there - here are just a few: WAL-MART WATCH, WAL-MARTyrs, Wal-Mart Litigation Project.

More articles on how Walmart might just be hurting us all in the end: The Wal-Mart You Don't Know, The Wal-Mart Effect, Group: Wal-Mart subsidies no bargain.

PBS does a mini called 'Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes To Town', based on the documentary of the same name.

Did a quick search and found at least three anti-Wal-Mart books: The Case Against Wal-Mart, In Sam We Trust: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and How Wal-Mart Is Devouring America, How Wal-Mart is Destroying America and The World and What You Can Do About It. Just hard to imagine that the Wal-Marts of yesteryear - say GM Motor Company - provoked such antipathy. But, who knows?

On the other side of things, here's a non-sucky piece from Slate that seems to have something coherent to say - strange, since most of Slate's stuff recently is virulently right-wing, and therefore idealogical, anti-logic and non-thinking.

Le Monde Selon Bush

That's French for 'The World According to Bush'. Another Bush-bashing documentary - this time, in French! Reuters article here. Official site here.

Thanks to Drudge for the scoop.

Justin Raimondo's Reagan Meltdown

Everyone's been racing to see who can kiss Reagan's ass more, now that he's finally departed, and Justin Raimondo over at AntiWar.com apparently wants to get his fair share of the the Gipper's hind quarters. Specifically, he goes after my boy Greg Palast for penning an article titled 'Killer, Coward, Conman, Good Riddance Ronnie Reagan'. I'm all for criticism - it just has to make sense - so I've taken some of my precious time to rebut some of Raimondo's absurdities. Raimondo attempts to explain himself in 'the notes' of his next piece, but it's unconvincing. C'est la vie.

Now, you'll just have to take my word for it that Justin Raimondo actually wrote this stuff; at least, some guy signing articles over at AntiWar.com with the pen name 'Justin Raimondo' wrote this stuff. It's pointless and absurd - just like most of the right-wing wacko stuff out there - but it is what it is. I can only imagine the guy snapped a blood vessel or something - who knows?

Palast: And when Hezbollah terrorists struck and murdered hundreds of American marines in their sleep in Lebanon, the TV warrior ran away like a whipped dog ... then turned around and invaded Grenada. That little Club Med war was a murderous PR stunt so Ronnie could hold parades for gunning down Cubans building an airport.

Raimondo: So invading Grenada was a crime – but bombing the crap out of Beirut wasn't? Would Palast have preferred a full scale American occupation?

Yes - invading Grenada was a crime, but more, it was a 'murderous PR stunt.' Bombing Beirut? Who bombed Beirut? The terrorists? What are you talking about? Does Palast prefer a full-scale American occupation? Probably not - he doesn't say - but he makes clear that cutting and running was not in our best interests - militarily and otherwise. We're dealing with Reagan's leftover Beirut problems today - still (@see Israeli-Palestinian conflict).

Palast: Reagan's boys called Jimmy Carter a weanie and a wuss although Carter wouldn't give an inch to the Ayatolla. Reagan, with that film-fantasy tough-guy con in front of cameras, went begging like a coward cockroach to Khomeini pleading on bended knee for the release of our hostages...Ollie North flew into Iran with a birthday cake for the maniac mullah -- no kidding --in the shape of a key. The key to Ronnie's heart.

Raimondo: [Palast] also berates Reagan for being soft on the "maniac mullahs" of Iran...the alleged peacenik, seems to have disappeared: in his place is a snarling, ravening dog of war, straining at the leash to take a good bite out of those maniacal Iranians.

I think most of us would agree that a birthday cake is pretty soft. And the 'ravenous dog of war' is a figment of Raimondo's over-active imagination. Just because someone doesn't think that tending to the Mullahs' wishes on bended knee is the best option for American diplomacy does not mean someone is an advocate for total war.

Palast: Our President said in his speech in March that when we go into Iraq, we are going there because Saddam Hussein has harbored, trained and funded terrorists, including those connected to al-Qaeda. If we are going to attack a nation and occupy it because of a connection to al-Qaeda, which never appeared, then what are we doing with Saudi Arabia?

Raimondo: Palast, who opposed the war on the grounds that it was a "war for oil," thinks we ought to have invaded Saudi Arabia, instead.

Palast hasn't called for an invasion of Saudi Arabia, he merely pointed out that invading Iraq based on the false claims that Iraq had ties to al-Qaeda should have led Bush and his cronies to invade the state that actually *is* responsible for harboring al-Qaeda - Saudi Arabia.

Raimondo's ridiculous over-reaching here really does remind me of that wacky Ann Coulter-type stuff that gets printed. I can hardly believe it's the same guy I've been reading for the past few months who has been writing some *really* good stuff on the Iraq situation. I guess everyone deserves a pass once in a while, but I still had to get this on the record since Raimondo's absurd distortions of Palast's words are on the record.

Original Child Bomb

SilverDocs is a film festival put together by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel.

I went to see one of the co-winning movies - Original Child Bomb. It was good, but absolutely, horrifyingly annoying. Is that possible? I could recommend seeing it if you have a very high tolerance level for the 'artsy/farty' in independent flicks - otherwise, skip, and keep the blood pressure down. I figure it was named co-winner because everyone would have felt guilty for not including the 'H-bomb' movie in the winners list. Some good stuff - facts related to worldwide nuclear weapons programs - specifically testing, and its unsuspecting victims - including thousands of U.S. military personnel and millions of civilians worldwide. Gruesome footage of effects the bomb had on Japanese civilians in the aftermath. Rough.

I didn't get to see the other co-winner, Death in Gaza, but I suspect it's more in-your-face-type stuff.

Kinda odd how both winners are about 'mass murder' - as George 'loser-boy' Bush likes to say.