Wednesday, 07 June 2006

CIA Spider Web

Here's a pretty striking image of the 'spider-web' the US has woven of illegal detentions and transfers, with collusion of Council of Europe member states:


click to enlarge

Posted by flow Frazao on June 7, 2006 at 08:26 PM in America, Current Affairs, Iraq, Scary Bush, War on Terra | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Jon Stewart Trounces Bill Bennett

Last night conservative douchebag Bill Bennett managed to tear his fat ass away from the slot machines long enough to appear on the Daily Show, where John Stewart took Bennett to school on the issue of gay marriage:

Stewart: So why not encourage gay people to join in in that family arrangement if that is what provides stability to a society?

Bennett: Well I think if gay..gay people are already members of families...

Stewart: What? (almost spitting out his drink)

Bennett: They're sons and they're daughters..

Stewart: So that's where the buck stops, that's the gay ceiling.

Bennett Look, it's a debate about whether you think marriage is between a man and a women.

Stewart:I disagree, I think it's a debate about whether you think gay people are part of the human condition or just a random fetish.


It's all downhill from there. Seriously, don't miss this one. It'll make your day.


Posted by flow Frazao on June 7, 2006 at 06:03 PM in America, Culture, Current Affairs, Television, US News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 23 April 2006

Living With War

In case you haven't heard, Neil Young has a new album coming out that's entirely dedicated to George W. Bush. The first single is called "Impeach the President".


“This talk about a 9/11 mentality. No one, George Bush or anyone else, owns the 9/11 mentality. It belongs to the United States of America. It belongs to everyone who was sitting there with their family, watching those buildings get hit by those jets. It belongs to George Bush and his family, it belongs to John Kerry and his family, it belongs to me and my family, my American family. I have a post 9/11 mentality. It’s just not the same as George Bush’s.”

Posted by flow Frazao on April 23, 2006 at 04:17 AM in America, Current Affairs, US News, War on Terra | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wednesday, 01 March 2006

Woman faces jail if she doesn't watch video of her rape

A suburban Chicago woman's refusal to watch a videotape that reputedly depicts her gang rape could end up derailing the trial of one of her accused attackers. Also, she could be held in contempt of court:

A Naperville woman's refusal Tuesday to view or comment under oath on a videotape that reputedly depicts her gang rape could end up derailing the trial of one of her accused attackers.

Fifth District Cook County Circuit Court Judge Kerry M. Kennedy has given the woman until this morning to decide whether she will answer a defense attorney's questions about the video.


What's with this judge? Is he trying to get a seat on the Supreme Court or something?

UPDATE: The judge has decided not to make her watch herself get raped after all. What a guy.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 1, 2006 at 04:35 PM in America, Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday, 26 January 2006

From the Dept. of Irony

Bush Says No To Hamas:

"President Bush, in an Oval Office interview, declared that he isn't ready yet to deal with the radical Palestinian Islamist group Hamas no matter how well it does in Wednesday's Palestinian elections. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal as Palestinians were electing a new parliament, Bush lauded the Middle Eastern trend toward democracy that produced Palestinian elections, but he said that Hamas isn't a suitable partner for diplomacy until it renounces its position calling for the destruction of Israel. 'A political party, in order to be viable, is one that professes peace, in my judgment, in order that it will keep the peace,' the president said.

Posted by flow Frazao on January 26, 2006 at 06:03 PM in Current Affairs, Scary Bush, World News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 03 January 2006

Please God, No

Kerry Positioned for '08 White House Bid:

The Massachusetts Democrat, defeated by Bush in 2004, insists it is far too early to talk about the 2008 race, but some analysts assume he has already positioning himself for another shot at the White House. "Obviously, Kerry has all but said he wants another crack at the thing," said Neal Thigpen, a political science professor at South Carolina's Francis Marion University. "He's going to make a second try."

The only way I could possibly imagine this even coming close to being a good idea would be if Kerry were to completely change every single aspect of his personality and strategy. Perhaps he can undergo some sort of combination face/brain/testicle replacement procedure and then we can take Kerry 2.0 for a test drive. At the very least it would be more exciting than watching Frankenstein in a "debate" all over again.

I think this GOP strategist sums up the situation thoroughly:

"He believes in his heart and soul that he came just a whisker away from being president," said Ronald Kaufman, a veteran GOP operative with Massachusetts roots. Kerry's image as a Northeast liberal with fuzzy views on major issues like Iraq would make him vulnerable once more, said Kaufman, who was White House political director for Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush.

"I go to bed every night praying Kerry is the nominee again," he said.

Posted by flow Frazao on January 3, 2006 at 03:36 PM in America, Current Affairs, US News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 21 March 2005

Those Were The Days

"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals -- if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is."

-Ronald Reagan

Posted by flow Frazao on March 21, 2005 at 04:45 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 19 March 2005

All Patients on Life Support Are Equal
Some Are Less Equal Than Others

Not to mention a different color:

"The baby wore a cute blue outfit with a teddy bear covering his bottom. The 17-pound, nearly 6-month-old boy wiggled with eyes open, his mother said, and smacked his lips. Then at 2 p.m. Tuesday, a medical staffer at Texas Children's Hospital gently removed the breathing tube that had kept Sun Hudson alive since his birth Sept. 25. Cradled by his mother, he took a few breaths, and died . . . Sun's death marks the first time a U.S. judge has allowed a hospital to discontinue an infant's life-sustaining care against a parent's wishes, according to bioethical experts.”

Houston Chronicle
Baby dies after hospital removes breathing tube
March 16, 2005

Of course, being born in Texas didn't help, either:

"Texas law allows hospitals to discontinue life-sustaining care, even if a patient's family members disagree. A doctor's recommendation must be approved by a hospital's ethics committee, and the family must be given 10 days from written notice of the decision to try and locate another facility for the patient. Texas Children's said it contacted 40 facilities with newborn intensive care units, but none would accept Sun.

(Via Wild Sects and No More Mister Nice Blog)


Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

"ABC News obtained talking points circulated among Senate Republicans explaining why they should vote to intervene in the Schiavo case. Among them, that it is an important moral issue and the "pro-life base will be excited," and that it is a "great political issue -- this is a tough issue for Democrats."

ABC News
DeLay Says He's Not Giving Up Schiavo Fight
March 19, 2005

Entire post stolen from Billmon.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 19, 2005 at 05:14 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 18 March 2005

I Read The News Today (Oh Boy)

Posted by flow Frazao on March 18, 2005 at 02:55 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 17 March 2005

Crunch Time

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we're finally there:

Despite a pledge by OPEC ministers to increase oil production, don't expect much of a break on oil prices. With crude oil prices hitting a record $56 a barrel Wednesday, OPEC ministers meeting in Iran have been grappling with a problem they haven’t confronted in the cartel’s 45-year history. In the past, OPEC tried to cool overheated prices by pumping more when supplies got too tight. But most OPEC producers say they’re already pumping as fast as they can. And despite the high cost of a barrel of crude, world demand shows no signs of slowing.

Oil is at a record high, and we're currently pumping it out of the ground as fast as possible. Since demand for it continues to increase, then it's pretty safe to assume that prices will rise steadily as well.

Which, as Atrios points out, is not to say we're running out of oil. We're not. There's plenty of that sweet sweet black gold to keep up sated for years. However, it does mean that we may have reached a point where the market will seek other means to fill the demand for energy. As crude prices increase, alternative energy will appear more and more attractive.

Remember - it wasn't a bunch of laws or a worldwide shortage of ponies that made the horsedrawn carriage obsolete. It was simple market forces (which also explain the 17 percent decrease in US Hummer sales in 2004).

Posted by flow Frazao on March 17, 2005 at 06:32 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 13 October 2004

Bill O'Reilly Sexual Harrassment Suit

You really ought to read this:

"During the course of O'REILLY's telephone monologue on August 2, 2004, he suggested that Plaintiff ANDREA MACKRIS purchase a vibrator and name it, and that he had one "shaped like a cock with a little battery in it"...

Suffice it to say, it goes on from there. For those of you thinking ahead to Christmas, remember that Bill O'Reily likes cock shaped vibrators. Sadly, he does not specify whether or not he prefers jelly or plastic.

Posted by flow Frazao on October 13, 2004 at 09:05 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 14 July 2004

The Federal Marriage Amendment Gets Spanked

Andrew Sullivan, once the gay poster boy of the Republican Party, has changed his tune when Bush started trying to push the case for the Hate Amendment. The absurdly offense measure (and the GOP) is thankfully headed for a humiliating defeat, and Sully sums it up:

THE FMA COLLAPSES: Even I didn't anticipate quite how humiliating the FMA debate would be for the religious right. They cannot agree on amendment language, they have managed to make the GOP look exclusionary and intolerant, and they look likely to lose by a big margin. Meanwhile, not only Lynne Cheney and John McCain have been standing up for conservative principle. Here's Richard Epstein from CATO, making the obvious case; even the Wall Street Journal has balked at the Allard-Musgrave language; and the conservative Chicago Tribune has also come out against. Maybe the Rove strategy - to use fear of homosexuals as a rallying cry for his fundamentalist base - will pay dividends. But maybe the abject failure of this measure, the splits it has opened up among Republicans, and the way in which many leading figures in the party just cannot go along with the far right's agenda, will only anger the religious right sufficiently to stay home in November. All I can say is that, from one perspective, that of the gay community, president Bush has done what no Democratic candidate has been able to do for a couple of decades: he has united the entire community around the Democrats. The effort by many of us to persuade gay voters to consider the Republicans, to give Bush a chance, has been rendered almost comically moot this fall. Bush won a quarter of gay votes in 2000. I wonder if he'll even get a tenth of them this year. He deserves fewer.

UPDATE: The Senate vote for cloture (to end debating and get to voting) was defeated this morning:

"On 48-to-50 vote, proponents fell 12 short of the needed 60 to clear a Democratic procedural hurdle and move to a vote on passage of the proposed constitutional amendment. Sixty-seven votes would be needed to approve the measure."

The sad and pathetic Republicans couldn't even manage to get a majority to vote for their hateful Amendment. I'd like to think they'd be humiliated into dropping the whole ridiculous idea, but we all know better.

Posted by flow Frazao on July 14, 2004 at 10:28 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 13 July 2004

Pick Up the Phone, Dammit

A friend of mine just sent me an email reminding me that the FMA is coming up for vote in the Senate tomorrow. Sez she:

"I've read that a phone call is worth 10 emails when congressional aides pass along their inbound contact tallies. spend 45 seconds and make 2 phone calls: note that you are a constituent (not an out-of-stater), and ask them to vote no on the federal "hate" marriage amendment

(scheduled to go up for a vote in the senate tomorrow.)"


Yet another friend told me that he'd recently called his Senator in Virginia and was told that the calls had been coming in like crazy and were five to one in support of the FMA (that's a 5 to 1 majority of people who want to deny homosexuals the right to marry).

Additionally, we are now 15 working days away from the end of the current session of congress and the assault weapon ban is due to expire on September 15 with no effort being made to preserve this popular and reasonable restraint on gun violence.

As Atrios points out, even George W. Bush himself supports the Assault Weapons Ban:

"It makes no sense for assault weapons to be around our society."
George W. Bush
1999

"The president supports the current [assault weapons ban] law, and he supports reauthorization of the current law."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan
April 2003

Obviously, this is totally unacceptable. Use this handy website to find the phone numbers of your senators and tell them what to do. Please don't let this insane shit slip through the cracks.

(Thanks to the real Ali G for the tip and the Senate link)

Posted by flow Frazao on July 13, 2004 at 04:03 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 02 July 2004

What the Hell?

This is not a good sign:

"Sudanese government officials emptied a camp of thousands of refugees hours before UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was to arrive here Thursday, preventing him from meeting some of the hardest-hit victims of the humanitarian crisis in the province of Darfur.

"There may have been 3,000 to 4,000 people here as of 5 p.m. yesterday," UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said as he gazed upon the empty camp at Mashtel. "Now, as you can see, no one is here. I can't imagine they spontaneously moved."

[...]

As many as 30,000 people have died and 1 million more have been driven from their homes by a scorched-earth campaign carried out by pro-government Arab militias. The militias, called the Janjaweed, were recruited to wipe out a rebel insurrection that began 16 months ago, but they have unleashed their fury on civilians who belong to the same tribes as the rebels.

[...]

At the Zam Zam refugee camp, Annan talked with tribal elders. Senior Sudanese officials listened to every word.

Ahmed Noor Mohammed, one of the elders, was asked if women were being abused in the camp. He rattled off a long sentence in Arabic.

"Some women face some difficulties. Masked men, even soldiers ..." Annan's translator began. Before he could finish the sentence, Sudanese government minders and officials cut him off, saying he had translated it wrong.

"They are afraid, but they don't have any problems," said Ibrahim Hamid, the minister of humanitarian affairs, who was seated next to UN leader.

After Annan's entourage left, Mohammed said women were scared to leave the camp because of the Janjaweed. "


Just yesterday, Colin Powell visited Sudan and was ouspoken regarding it's urgency:
"Powell and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan met in Khartoum during a rare coordinated visit aimed at making sure the crisis that has forced more than 1 million people to flee their homes and killed 30,000 over the last 16 months is not ignored as Rwandan killings were a decade ago.

Annan, meeting with Sudanese officials, said urgent action was needed and that he hoped "to make some real progress in the next 24 to 48 hours."

The United Nations has called the situation in Darfur the world's most serious humanitarian crisis. Powell has described it as "horrific" and "catastrophic."


However, did this get Colin Powell down? No way!! He was right back on his feet today singing YMCA in Jakarta:



After all, it's only genocide, right?

Posted by SmooveJ Zao on July 2, 2004 at 03:21 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fox Porn, part 2

Just received this email from the FCC:

You are receiving this email in response to your inquiry to the FCC.

Good morning,

FCC is not permitted to censor or restrict the availability of non-broadcast programming shown over cable systems, even when the program in question may be offensive to some viewers.

Cable operators do not have the same restrictions on program content as regular television broadcast stations.

Information addressing broadcast journalism is being e-mailed for your review.

Regards,
FCC, CGB, Gettyburg PA

**************************
You wrote:
I would like to file a complaint against The Fox News Channel for showing the penetration of a vagina by a penis during the hours between 6 AM and 10 PM.

The incredibly offensive image was shown during "On The Record with Greta van Sustern" and "Your World with Neil Cavuto" on 6/29/04.

If I had children, they could have been watching during this time. Is there no decency in this world? I shudder to think of the fragile little minds which have been warped by Fox News.

Sincerely,
[SmooveJ]


Oh well. Twas fun while it lasted.

Posted by SmooveJ Zao on July 2, 2004 at 11:48 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

The Coz Lays It Down Again

"Let me tell you something, [the black community's] dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day, it's cursing and calling each other [racial epithets] as they're walking up and down the street," Cosby said during an appearance at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Fund's annual conference.

"They think they're hip," the entertainer said. "They can't read; they can't write. They're laughing and giggling, and they're going nowhere."

Cosby elaborated on his previous comments in a talk interrupted several times by applause. He castigated some blacks, saying that they cannot simply blame whites for problems such as teen pregnancy and high school dropout rates.

"For me there is a time . . . when we have to turn the mirror around," he said. "Because for me it is almost analgesic to talk about what the white man is doing against us. And it keeps a person frozen in their seat, it keeps you frozen in your hole you're sitting in."


- Dr. Huxtable

Posted by SmooveJ Zao on July 2, 2004 at 08:04 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 01 July 2004

The Big Apple Bites Back

It looks like W won't be visiting Ground Zero when he makes the trip to NYC for the Republican National Convention in September.

Man, between Cheney getting booed at Yankees Stadium and Bush being afraid to set foot near the WTC, it's starting to look like this whole New York thing might not have been such a great idea after all.

Posted by flow Frazao on July 1, 2004 at 01:39 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fox Porn

Click here to view the unedited porn sequence which appeared on Fox News on 6/29/04.

If I had kids, they could have been watching during this broadcast. I shudder to think how many fragile little minds would have been warped by Fox News.

Luckily, the above link describes how to file a complaint with the FCC.

Posted by flow Frazao on July 1, 2004 at 01:06 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 29 June 2004

Fahrenheit 9/11 - Never Again

I've seen Fahrenheit 9/11 twice now, but I'm not going to subject you to any kind of review or anything. Plenty of people have already done that, and they've done a much better job than I could hope to.

Naturally, I recommend that you see the movie yourself instead of relying on somebody else for an opinion, but I digress...

It's been pointed out in numerous places that there is absolutely no way to predict what the impact will be on the election in November. Will it be a fatal blow to the Bush campaign? Or will it serve to mobilize the right wing? The movie is an unprecedented factor in this election so all anyone can do is guess, right?

Well, sort of. There might not be any way to foretell the movie's effect on the Presidential race, but the powers that be have found a way to ensure that this little inconvenience won't pop up again anytime soon:

"Loews Cineplex Entertainment Corp. has been sold for the second time in three years for close to $1.5 billion to a private equity group composed of Bain Capital, the Carlyle Group and Spectrum Equity Investors.

[...]

Loews is the third-largest movie theater chain in the world, with more than 220 theaters and 2,200 screens worldwide."


If you've already seen Fahrenheit 9/11 then you know all about the Carlyle Group. If you haven't, here's a little background (via Fortune Magazine):
"The Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C., buyout firm, is one of the nation's largest defense contractors. It has billions of dollars at its disposal and employs a few important people. Maybe you've heard of them: former Secretary of State Jim Baker, former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, and former White House budget director Dick Darman. Wait, we're just getting warmed up. William Kennard, who recently headed the FCC, and Arthur Levitt, who just left the SEC, also work for Carlyle. As do former British Prime Minister John Major and former Philippines President Fidel Ramos. Let's see, are we forgetting anyone? Oh, right, former President George Herbert Walker Bush is on the payroll too.

The firm also has about a dozen investors from Saudi Arabia, including, until recently, the bin Laden family. Yes, those bin Ladens."


These guys now own the third largest cinema chain in the world. Something tells me the next Michael Moore movie won't enjoy a 900 screen opening weekend.

Of course, the Carlyle Group can't stop Loews from showing Fahrenheit 9/11. It's too late for that. What they're essentially doing is saying:

"Fool me once shame on...
Fool me, don't get fooled again."

Posted by flow Frazao on June 29, 2004 at 03:48 PM in Current Affairs, Film, US News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 24 June 2004

Michael & Me

Last night I went out to do the grocery shopping, and I walked right past a whole mess of tv cameras and red carpet style hubbub. Turns out it was the US Premiere of Fahrenheit 911.

This was all happening at the Uptown movie theatre - an old-school 1940's style movie house/Washington DC icon which just happens to be right across the street from our apartment.

I didn't get to see the movie, but Fiona and I did get to shake hands with Michael Moore. It was like shaking hands with a glove full of ground beef - meaty, yet surprisingly firm.

The next morning Fi woke up and went online to read the news. There was a Yahoo slideshow of the premiere, and guess who's photo got picked up by Reuters:



(Reuters)

We're just chillin, as you can plainly see. Here's how it went down:

Me: Mike, can you believe all this commotion? It's crazy.
MM: Yeah, this kinda blows.
Me: My pad's across the street. There's a Miller Lite there with your name on it.
MM: Are you my caucasian or what? Let's get outta here.

We spent the rest of the night drinking beers and watching Enter the Dragon.

Posted by SmooveJ Zao on June 24, 2004 at 10:32 AM in Current Affairs, Film | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 23 June 2004

Now THAT'S Power

While I realize that Bill Clinton committed the Worst Crime in the History of America, I do think the whole impeachment thing was a bit much. But here's what really gets me - after the Clenis got busted, Hillary put the smack down:

Bill Clinton says in his new autobiography that his wife looked as if he had punched her in the gut when he finally confessed to his affair with Monica Lewinsky, and he slept on the couch for at least two months after that.

Getting some action from a tubby intern: One cigar
Being the subject of Ken Starr's inquiry: $60 million
Making the most powerful man in the world sleep on the couch:

Priceless.

Posted by SmooveJ Zao on June 23, 2004 at 05:28 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack