February 28th, 2004
That was where the oil traders would gather whenever a journalist, actor or political figure would arrive in Iraq and openly praise Mr. Hussein. Experience taught them that the visitor usually returned to the hotel with a gift voucher, courtesy of the Iraqi president or one of his aides, representing the right to buy one million barrels or more of Iraqi crude.At least we now know what part of the appearance fee was to go over there as a "journalist, actor or political figure" and do that little dance.
[...]
"We used to joke that if you get one million barrels, you could make $200,000," Mr. Faraj, of SOMO, added, referring to a period when the vouchers sold for about 20 cents per barrel. "And yet the ones who got it were those people who used to come here and praise Saddam for his stand against imperialism."
Posted by fad at 3:11pm
February 27th, 2004
Posted by fad at 5:24pm
Based on this AP headline:
"G-15 Protesters Clash With National Guard"
I'd think they are protesting against the G-15. But here is the first paragraph.
Venezuelan National Guard troops fired tear gas and charged at opposition demonstrators Friday, as thousands of protesters took to the streets to demand a vote to recall President Hugo Chavez.So they were actually protesting Chavez using the G-15 gathering as a stage. That's quite a bit different.
Posted by fad at 4:49pm
ESPN is out of control. Or Disney, if you want to blame the parent company. Seriously, it is completely overexposed and bloated. It tries TV series, a series of movies (Dale Earnhardt this summer; Pete Rose this fall), and now a sports drink. Soon they'll have the ESPN paternity test for groupies.
Posted by fad at 4:02pm
Nothing like the oopses of elected officials the worldwide to make us all feel better about ourselves. Or maybe more scared that these people are running thing.
The politician, Stephen Harper, had to apologize after his office sent a letter to a native group, the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centers, congratulating it on a holiday celebrating India's independence from Britain.Somebody got fired right quick after that, I'd think.
Posted by fad at 2:30pm
Crushing of ... well something.
The state Democratic Party on Thursday accused media giant Viacom of political favoritism and corporate censorship for backing out of a deal to sell billboard space for a political ad.Wonder what the ad said that was so bad.
The ad, featuring a black man's face against an American flag, states: "Missouri Republicans have a plan. You are not a part of it."Yeah, that sounds about how they do politics around here.
Viacom spokesman Carl Folta said the company saw the billboard as an "ambush ad" that used race in a divisive way.And it has a refreshing aftertaste!
[...]
Scheve Reardon countered that the Democratic party ad was "fact-stating and informative."
Posted by fad at 2:06pm
Personally, this would be kind of cool.
Alan and Susan Sykes say they discovered their house's history by watching a TV documentary about Samson Perera, who killed his 13-year-old adopted daughter and hid her body parts around the house and garden in 1984.I'd be charging admission for tours. Just think of the interesting people you'd meet who are into that sort of thing.
[...]
"Knowing there were still undiscovered body parts in the house was particularly horrific," lawyer Clive Freedman told the appeals court.
Posted by fad at 12:16pm
A point by a comment to this post left me curious about something. Since I am also lazy, I thought I'd just mention it here rather look it up myself to see if anyone knows or has an idea. Are there currently any laws considering the presence of wireless internet access inside polling places?
Posted by fad at 11:46am
Hey, remember this story about a guy getting a false call about his wife's death in Iraq? Yeah, I was all sympathetic to him at the time. What a horrible hoax to play on someone, I thought. Welp, here's the followup.
Valentin was arrested Feb. 15 after police said he told a false story to news reporters about how the Defense Department called to tell him his wife died in an explosion in Iraq. Police said they later inspected his phone records and discovered that he made up the story.He faked the whole thing. Oh, he had a good reason though.
Police believe Valentin was courting another woman, who did not want to date a married man.Ain't love grand? Hold on, he gets even (allegedly) worse.
Edward Valentin, 43, was charged with first-degree sexual assault, fourth-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor, police said.What a piece of work this guy is.
[...]
The Republican-American of Waterbury reported today that the victim was a 14-year-old girl who had been staying with her mother at the Valentin house. The alleged incident happened in February 2003, the newspaper reported.
Posted by fad at 11:17am
Aw...there's no Friday Five today. I'll just have to answer 5 random-ass questions.
1. Are you now or have you ever been a communist?
Senator McCarthy, I keep telling you: you're dead. You can't ask questions anymore. Now stop talking in my head so that there's more time for that chick from New Mexico who tells me how cool I am all the time.
2a. If you could be a tree, any tree, which tree would you be?
The Mambibian Death Tree of Fire. It has the prettiest flowers. And causes mass death. Via fire.
2b. Which would you not be?
John Kerry. Ok, that's just a recycled Al Gore joke, but at least Kerry has that whole bark-face thing going.
3. What's 2+2?
That's a tough one, Chuck. Can I call you Chuck? No? Oh yeah, you're me. Anyway, when approaching a situation like this, one must be careful not to startle them. Wait until they are nice and logy and then pounce! Now you were sure to preboil a vat of water, right? Once the hippie is in hand, just drop him in the water for about 30 seconds. That really doesn't do anything except causing a lot of pain, but sure sounds fun. No, the only way to kill a hippie is to stake a "NO TRESPASSING" sign through their heart.
Oh wait, sorry. I misread the question. The answer is 4.
4. How would you describe your novel?
It's a disturbing tale of erotic dystopia set in a futuristic canning plant. You don't want to know what we do with vegetables in the future, but my work of staggering genius forces you to confront those fears.
5. How much time did you waste writing all this up?
A lot. And it was worth every lost minute of it.
Posted by fad at 10:17am
I guess one good thing about spam is that it can be educational. I just got one that I think contains every word that begins with 'z' except 'zeeble'.
Here's the list. Yes, that was the actual content of the message.
Posted by fad at 8:49am
US landmines to get shorter shelf life.
He is expected to promise that, from now on, all new US land-mines will be detectable to US authorities and designed to become inert over time.Of course detectableness for one eventually becomes detectableness for others as technologies are cracked or stolen. Being the BBC, they had to add this.
President Bush, who is anyway suspicious of multilateral agreements, has decided not to sign the treaty.Emphasis added with Love™. Nice, black & white statement. It is true that the administration isn't so keen on some agreements, but that is a gross over-generalization added for pure editorialness. It lacks, dare I say? I do! nuance.
Posted by fad at 8:19am
In that same article linked below is this sentence. Ok, I'll just give you a clause to help those of you on dial-up.
a former president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, an advocacy group.That's the blandest labeling of a group possible, isn't it? It's like saying, "The American flag, a rectangular cloth object." If they're going to be so pH7, they might as well just leave it out.
Posted by fad at 7:31am
One overlooked issue in this coming election is going to be the 2007 expiration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. During the 2000, a consistent theme amongst black callers to a radio show I listen to out of Chicago was that the main reason for George W. Bush's run was so that he could repeal or not renew that Act. There was an honest belief that among Bush's top goals was to completely disenfranchise blacks. Now that the sunset is even closer, I'm sure that rumor and fear will spread even wilder and wider than before. It's already being used in the Senate as a political tool. Bill Frist (R - At Least He's Not Trent Lott) tried to add this amendment to, of all things, the gun maker's immunity bill.
Dr. Frist's voting rights amendment, meanwhile, caught many lawmakers off guard. Dr. Frist said he decided to introduce the measure, which would have made permanent certain sections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, after a recent trip to Alabama and Tennessee with Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, a civil rights leader.This issue, a fear rather than a reality, got no play in the media coverage of the last election. It will certainly be a huge underground thing this year.
Posted by fad at 7:28am
Among the best parts about being on a political sideline are those moments where everyone makes a fool of themselves. This case involves a column about a group of performance protest women who flash their fur in an anti-George Bush something or other. It is designed to get attention and, of course, paint their opposition as prudes and against the power of the womb.
Surprisingly, so far, no one has called the risqué revue offensive, although the women figure it's bound to happen.Of course it's bound to happen. That's what they want to happen. That "surprisingly" should be "disappointingly". There's nothing worse than trying to shock and offend and have no one be either. Now to the fun part.
Another group called Babes Against Bush has been targeted as "tasteless" by women calling themselves Babes For Bush on a Web site that misspelled "their" as "there." "We say spending $9,000 for drapes to cover a statue's breasts (for a John Ashcroft speech) and bombing 10,000 Iraqis into oblivion is kind of tasteless, too," responded Babes Against Bush, challenging Babes For Bush to a national spelling bee.10,000 Iraqis? I don't even think Marc Herold could make up numbers at that speed. And while it wasn't tasteless, it was childish of the media to purposely frame Ashcroft photos so those tits would be in them (this not to excuse the wasted money covering them. This site is 100% pro uncovered tits).
So the right-wing babes can't spell, but the left-wing babes can't count. Which leaves neither side looking particularly good, but me very amused.
Posted by fad at 6:57am
February 26th, 2004
Answering nature's call in a public space may be distasteful and a public health threat, but it's not illegal in Kansas City — yet.Really, our civil rights are being eroded more and more everyday.
[...]
City Attorney Galen Beaufort has proposed a new ordinance that would make it a crime to urinate or defecate on sidewalks or in alleys and parks, or elsewhere in public view.
Beaufort emphasized the law would not punish people with a genuine excretory emergency — people can win an exception to the law if they are unable to control their bodily functions due to illness, disease, infection or physical infirmity. The defense won't work if the person has used illegal drugs or is drunk.What if I claim it's art?
(Sorry for the emerging potty theme today)
Posted by fad at 3:57pm
I wonder if they'll also peg him on 911 misuse.
O'Briant said deputies saw Vowell driving his 1985 Ford pickup in an erratic manner shortly before 2 a.m. Sunday on U.S. Highway 411 South. Vowell pulled over on Clover Hill Road, but then he spun the vehicle around and fled back onto the highway after hitting a sign and headed south again.Yeah, he was drunk.
[...]
It was about this time, O'Briant said, that Vowell dialed 9-1-1 and reported he was being chased and that he would not stop until he got to Vonore.
Posted by fad at 3:53pm
The Missouri State Supreme Court approved the Conceal Carry law here. Well, sorta.
The Missouri Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Missouri Legislature had the authority to permit citizens to carry concealed gunsIt ruled more that the legislature is constitutionally allowed to pass such legislation. However, they found a loophole in the way this particular law was written that may result in spotty implementation.
but it also ruled the law does not have to be enforced in four counties where it was shown to impose an unfunded mandate.There is a $100 fee associated that is supposed to be for "training and equipment". The current language does not expressly say that fee will be used to fund the mandate, to use that term. This will lead to another ugly fight with the governor to fix that language as they intend to do. Right now only those 4 counties have shown impact of unfunded mandate, but opponents to the bill plan to file for every other county that wants to dodge this (St. Louis is sure to be one as soon as it can).
One thing for sure, the Post-Dispatch's high-school-paper quality editorials will be hysterical (as in full of hysterics) tomorrow.
Posted by fad at 3:36pm
It's a sickness. Here is the train of thought I just had:
"Hmmm...since there won't be a Simpsons or anything else on Sunday night except the Oscars™©Ī¯, I think I'll try covering it live here even though I don't really care about any of it. Yeah, I'll do that unless something else comes up (and nothing ever does). Say, live coverage of an event like that reminds me of how fun the blog coverage of the 2002 election was. I can't wait to do that this year. Hey, I should take off election day this year so I can post all day!"
Yes, I actually just seriously considered using a sick day just so I could watch news coverage and type out my little jokes. That just makes me sad.
Oh, I'm still thinking about doing the Oscars™©Ī¯ thing on Sunday.
Posted by fad at 3:18pm
Michele reminds that 11 years ago today the first World Trade Center attack occurred.
Posted by fad at 3:10pm
I love it when archives scan their holdings and put them online.
The Johann Sebastian Bach Archive in Leipzig will restore and digitalize original scores by the composer, with the idea of giving people access to the works via the Internet, officials said today.Access, even in this way, to primary sources is precious. Unfortunately you still can't fully trust something unless it is directly in your hands, but this still gives people access they normally would never have.
Posted by fad at 2:31pm
Do artists actually have anything new to say, or is it all recycled same ole/same old.
At first glance, the 1,500 planes seem to be hung at random. A closer look from the gallery's second floor, however, reveals that groups of planes spell out short phrases - a kind of skywriting. The planes embody rhetoric on both sides of the conflict.Which kind of sounds really cool as a visual experience. If not for the tired, cliched equivalence that has to wreck the whole thing, I think I'd really enjoy seeing that.
On the Arabic side planes spell out "ILLEGAL OCCUPATION FORCES" and "NEO-COLONIALIST AMBITIONS." On the English side are "TERROR NETWORK INSURGENCY" and "RISK TO NATIONAL SECURITY." There is no one point from which all the phrases can be read.
There's a five-foot model of an aircraft carrier carrying small one-story buildings, which look like suburban department stores, and dozens of tiny cars and buses. It's called "USS Mall."Ooooo a mall metaphor. Suburban folk riding a military complex as they distract themselves with the baubles and trappings of bland, rote consumerism skewered by bland, rote art.
Opdyke, 34, also likes maps. He calls one pair "Suburbistan" and "Iraquiburg" - outlines of Iraq and Afghanistan covered with little dots that Opdyke said represent suburban American houses.Yawn. "Suburbs suck." Yes, we get it. A guy I work with here, socialist married to very rich chick, once explained to me that no one actually enjoys living in suburbs. They merely *think* they do, but are really fooling themselves. All authentic people either live in the city or in the country. Everyone, everyone!, else is living a lie. Glad he was there to tell me what everyone really thinks. Oh, he's also the type who cheered for the Panthers in the Super Bowl because cheering against the Patriots tickled his anti-American bone. Ok, one more. Just two days ago he explained that the Constitution must be obeyed and respected. Then went on a tale about how subverting and ignoring the law for social comment or good is the highest calling. Back to the art.
In "Taste Test 2000," houses and cars fill a map of the United States, turning it into one huge suburb. The results of the 2000 presidential election are reflected, state by state, in red and blue roofs - red for President Bush and blue for Al Gore - while the logos of Coke and Pepsi wind their way in white roofs from California to Maine.Yet another tired, boring suburbs and consumerism piece with a twist of the 2000 election showing that while the country may have been divided in its voting, it is still united in its corporatist nature making the election of one over the other little more than choosing one cola over another. Seriously, it's been done to death, dude.
Posted by fad at 1:47pm
Besides the whole dissent crushing here is a reminder that they'll be digging out those ever-so-clever BuSHITler posters for another round soon.
Mayor Daley on Wednesday defended the city's decision to deny a permit to anti-war activists planning a March 20 demonstration to mark the first anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.I'll bet a march is planned in your local city too. Thankfully it's a Saturday so the people with actual jobs won't be as affected. Personally, I began to fear my sea turtle costume would never get used again.
[...]
City Hall refused and offered alternative routes.
Posted by fad at 11:04am
Ladies, full equality is finally at hand.
(This probably should not be viewed at work though it isn't really pornographic in any way. Unless you're into that kind of stuff.)
Posted by fad at 10:12am
My email has been working a bit funny the last couple days. Anyone who tried to email me, though I doubt anyone did, may want to resend.
Posted by fad at 8:04am
The New York Times in today's primary endorsement of John Kerry (anyone who thinks that they won't also endorse him for president as well raise your hand. Now slap yourself with it.) explains away Kerry's flip-flopping and ridiculous efforts to have things every way.
What his critics see as an inability to take strong, clear positions seems to us to reflect his appreciation that life is not simple.And that child isn't a hyperactive brat, he's just "spirited". Cartman isn't fat, he's "big-boned".
He understands the nuances and shades of gray in both foreign and domestic policy.I wondered when the nuancetifarians would rear up again. "Nuance" in this context really means "he agrees with us, and we're so smart that it has to be good!"
Posted by fad at 7:18am
February 25th, 2004
The man scaled a fence along Pennsylvania Avenue and ran about halfway across the North Lawn before he was surrounded by uniformed Secret Service officers and led away in handcuffs.Halfway? Impressive.
photographer for The Associated Press, who witnessed the incident shortly after 5 p.m. EST, said the man was shouting, "I'm a victim of terrorism and I need the president's help."Well, it's definitely some sort of cry for help.
Posted by fad at 6:14pm
This story is one item short of a cycle.
A 64-year-old priest pleaded guilty Wednesday to criminal possession of $50,000 stolen from his Long Island parish - cash police found at his apartment along with a pistol, pornography and Nazi paraphernalia.Stolen church cash, porn and Nazi gear. Sounds like a character from a really bad novel. Hmmm...I write like shit...I think I should write this novel.
Posted by fad at 6:09pm
For the record, I have never been in New Jersey.
A Paterson man faces child endangerment charges after allegedly showing up at a Roman Catholic school clad in a diaper and pink stretch pants.Plus my stretch pants aren't pink.
Police said he showed up at Holy Spirit School at dismissal on Feb. 13 seeking a job application. When his request was denied, he defecated in the diaper and fled on foot, police said.Well, thank God he had the diaper on! That's planning ahead.
Posted by fad at 5:06pm
FOOD FIGHT!
France's agriculture minister has defended French food safety rules, saying a US ban on imports of French meat products was "unjustified".That's right, keep your stinking livers and cold cuts!
The one-month ban on meat products such as sausages, hams and foie gras was imposed on Tuesday on safety grounds.
US agriculture officials have denied that the ban was in retaliation for an EU-wide block on US poultry and egg imports after a bird flu outbreak in Texas.Of course it isn't. What a silly idea.
Posted by fad at 3:09pm
House of Squalor bulletin.
A gas company worker checking service at a trailer on the property Friday afternoon spotted two dead dogs on the porch. When police and an animal control officer went to inspect the animals, they found a third dead dog just inside the trailer.I'm a filthy person, but some people amaze even me. The only thing missing is the quote about the owner being an "animal lover". Have a happy lunch, everyone!
Police then discovered six dead cats inside a house at the back of the property.
"There was a lot of feces and obviously the dead animals in the house," said police Capt. Robert Larsen. Police found the dead cats scattered around the house.
Posted by fad at 1:18pm
Say you wanted to log in to read something at the Washington Post, but they want login information. Just on a hunch you may want to try using the email slappy@squirrel.com and the password funklord to login. You'd be a 71 year old CEO of a Packaged Goods company with over 10,000 employees.
Posted by fad at 10:36am
Human civilization has reached its peak. Long have I sought something this glorious.
Visitors to Britain will find a new stop on London’s site-seeing route this spring: a usable public toilet enclosed in one-way mirrored glass situated on a sidewalk near the River Thames. The contemporary art exhibit, which allows the user to see out while passers-by cannot peep in, toys with the concepts of privacy and voyeurism.They need to install those in the middle of malls. Of course people will probably just use them for screwing.
Posted by fad at 9:51am
Hmmm...quite a boring morning out there so far. I was going to tell my "'I dye my own hair!'" story just to post something, but that's one I think I'll save. So for lack of any other content today, here is my results of this "What Book Are You" or something quiz found at Two Braincells.
You're Mrs. Dalloway!
by Virginia Woolf
Your life seems utterly bland and normal to the casual observer, but inside you are churning with a million tensions and worries. The company you surround yourself with may be shallow, but their effects upon your reality are tremendously deep. To stay above water, you must try to act like nothing's wrong, but you know that the truth is catching up with you. You're not crazy, you're just a little unwell. But no doctor can help you now.
Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.
Posted by fad at 7:34am
February 24th, 2004
On Sept. 11, 2001, bin Laden told al Bahlul to set up a satellite connection so that bin Laden could watch televised news coverage of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the indictment said. Al Bahlul was unable to do so, it said.Sounds a bit fantastic (as in "fantasy based" not "swell!"), but, then, who knows when dealing with people like this?
Posted by fad at 5:20pm
Where it may have come from originally, I do not know. All I know is that it was from the now apparently dead Roe & Garry show on WLS in Chicago that I first heard the term "special kind of stupid".
An assistant principal who was trying to get a student expelled admitted planting marijuana in the boy's locker, police said.Hey, at least his intentions were pure.
Police say Pat Conroy told them this month that he placed the marijuana in the locker at South Haven High School last year because he suspected the boy was a drug dealer and wanted him expelled.
Police searched Conroy's office Feb. 9 and found a drawer filled with packets of suspected marijuana and assorted pills, the police report said.Isn't it the cliche that confiscated drugs just end up in the pockets of guys like this? How pedestrian of him.
Conroy told police he had been collecting the drugs confiscated from students to use at student expulsion hearings as evidence.
School Board President Ed Bocock said he never saw drugs displayed at any student expulsion hearing he attended.
Posted by fad at 3:25pm
A lot of these new low-carb chips and breads are using some sort of soy product as a replacement. I wonder if this will put the pause to a few.
The humble soya bean may play a role in the problem of male infertility, a team of researchers in Belfast has found.At least this has a chance of thinning the ranks of damn, dirty, tofu munching hippies. Though this is probably another case in which one would have to eat a bathtub full a day in order to see serious effects.
Posted by fad at 2:58pm
Finally some charges are being filed against those in Guantanamo.
Two men, alleged to have been key members of the al-Qaeda network, have been charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes.Still no timeline for the tribunals to actually start, though.
Posted by fad at 2:54pm
He may have taken from strangers, but at least it wasn't candy.
Ukrainian border guards stopped a man trying to take nearly a pound of uranium into Hungary on Tuesday, an official said.I get asked to do all sorts of things for money at gas stations.
[...]
Bargman said the man told officials he was paid an unspecified sum of money by men at a nearby gas station to take the material to Hungary for use "by a dentist's office."
Posted by fad at 2:25pm
I call next!
A security screener at Denver International Airport was reprimanded for sending his body through an X-ray machine.Whee! X-Treme airporting!
[...]
"The screener went through the X-ray machine voluntarily," Fierberg said. "I cannot ascribe any sort of motive to why anyone would do this."
Posted by fad at 2:20pm
By the way, this is a marriage debate free zone. I just don't care enough about the whole topic in general. I'll just say this, no matter what, such a thing doesn't belong in the Constitution. And that's it. Few things are more boring to me otherwise, especially when they involve repetitive cross-talking.
Posted by fad at 2:18pm
And now the overreactions to Rod Paige's idiocy.
"I can tell you what my first response was: Scary. That's really frightening," said Diana Garchow, a special-education teacher at Highland Elementary School in Bakersfield, Calif. "It's scary that you can't voice an opinion in this country without being called a terrorist.["]There's always room on the Persecution Complex Express. Paige's comments were disgusting and completely out of line. Ms. Garchow's and others reactions to it, though, are laughable. You can relax, Diana, your dissent isn't being crushed. That's Ashcroft's job.
Oh, and if we want to extend what she is saying there, that means only those who disagree with the administration have actual opinions. Any opinions in agreement aren't as valid, otherwise they'd be called a terrorist. Yes, it's a ridiculous small thing to pick at, but she speaks so generally, it begs to be nitted.
Posted by fad at 12:34pm
Time for your yearly dose of Latined up phrases.
First prize for devilish translating goes to “wet T-shirt contest” (certamen inter mammosas tunicis madefactis vestitas), closely followed by “sushi bar” (taberna Iaponica pulpamentorum incoctorum marinorum). The finest-resonance award goes to crapulentus sum (“I'm wasted!”). But since Latin is for lovers, special mention should go to a highly topical chat-up line containing the much-maligned future perfect: Nisi mecum concubueris, phobistae vicerint, “If you won't sleep with me, the terrorists will have won.”There's a definite focus to the translations, here.
Posted by fad at 10:27am
I'll be damned if I'll let so-called "experts" tell me what to do.
U.S. consumers who eat poultry are not at risk for contracting bird flu found in chickens because the virus is destroyed when meat is cooked, two experts said on Monday.It'll be a cold day in hell before I eat a cooked chicken! How else are you supposed to gain its strength?
Posted by fad at 9:42am
Once again the voice of the enemy explains why there is no negotiating. I'm sorry, did I say enemy? That would imply a war. According to John Kerry I should refer to them suspects in a criminal investigation.
"Bush, fortify your targets, tighten your defense, intensify your security measures," the voice warned, "because the fighting Islamic community - which sent you New York and Washington battalions - has decided to send you one battalion after the other, carrying death and seeking heaven."They want death. Death is a transition to glory instead of having to deal with a successful West versus their own stagnation. Then again, according to him, it is actually the West which is envious.
"The decision of the French president to issue a law to prevent Muslim girls from covering their heads in schools is another example of the Crusader's malice, which Westerners have against Muslims," the voice said in Al-Arabiya's tape. "This envy boils in their hearts and overflows in their chests and they pass it on to the generations."Yes. Western malice is the problem. Their desire to kill as many of us, liberal, conservative, child, man, woman, gay, straight, as possible is out of love and puppies. Oh, I'm sorry, puppies are unclean. Ok, love and semtex.
Al-Qaida is blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.Someday I hope we can solve the mystery of who actually dunnit instead of just throwing uncertain blame about like mayo at a party.
Posted by fad at 9:17am
The all knowing eye of the IAEA speaks.
The head of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency said Tuesday he was confident that Libya would be declared free of all traces of its nuclear weapons program within three months,In other words, exactly where it thought it was just a few months ago.
Posted by fad at 8:03am
Every year, sometimes multiple times a year, a big study is released telling us that commercial advertising to The Children™ is worse than ever before. We've all seen this same basic study for who knows how many years, probably decades at this point since I seem to remember it from the 80s even. You'd think by now things would be so bad that children would have tiny screens forcibly implanted on their eyeballs at birth by the advertising industry. Or that they'd talk like those junkyard Transformers from the Transformers movie. Stupid Optimus Prime dying.
The stories follow the same template. Children are under assault from advertisers. The same counter argument is always made.
"The child is not going to get in his car and go to the quick service restaurant or do the shopping," said Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers. "We don't think it is wrong for the parents to say no."But that argument is always spat aside. The proof of corruption is the Saganian numbers of dollars being spent. Money spent is a direct equal to corruption, or so the lazy thinkers want us to believe. Check that. More private money always means corruption; more public money always means good is being done, though never enough.
"That argument is now an anachronism when you now have $12 billion invested in targeting the youth market," he said. "We have advertising campaigns targeting younger and younger ages. It's not reasonable to expect parents to defend their kids from the strength of Madison Avenue's barrage."It takes a village, you know. Parents can't turn off their own TV, so the government must force it away. Keep in mind that they are using age 8 as the cut off line, here. We're not talking about parents having trouble controlling what an 11 year old watches. Oh well, if it's for The Children™, sign me up!
Posted by fad at 7:26am
Thanks to those who suggested books yesterday. I'll definitely be checking some of them out.
Posted by fad at 6:58am
February 23rd, 2004
UPDATE: I'll leave this at the top for the rest of the day. To clarify, this is a completely serious post. I am actually looking for recommendations.
Posted by fad at 6:08pm
Big-ass "but" coming, just in case you don't catch the huge blinking arrows pointing to it in the next couple lines. I can't stand the NEA primarily because it does its job too well. It's job is not to see kids educated, but to protect the jobs of its members. Because of this, education suffers greatly. However (ok, I went with "however" instead), Rod Paige's words are completely out of line.
Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation's largest teachers union a "terrorist organization" Monday, taking on the 2.7-million-member National Education Association early in the presidential election year.Shithead. Equivacation like this just 2.5 years away from September 11th, with war raging, from a member of the administratoin, any member, is totally wrong. He should know better. Plus, on a purely political level, if this gets spread about, he has damaged greatly any attempts by the administration to properly criticize the NEA. Yes, I know it's neat-o to split my infinitives whilst discussing education. Oh, he did have the standard excuse.
Paige said later in an Associated Press interview that his comment was "a bad joke; it was an inappropriate choice of words."Isn't it always?
UPDATE: Put in appropriate category.
Posted by fad at 4:29pm
Is glass in food an effective assassination technique?
The report came a day after Mugabe, in an interview marking his 80th birthday, revealed a suspected attempt on his life by a presidential cook who allegedly put ground glass in his food.At least he has food to eat. I wonder how many people starving under his rule wouldn't mind having to pick around a little glass to get at a decent meal.
Posted by fad at 1:04pm
Rich people who claim to so fervently believe in the "death tax", do more of this and I'll believe you.
H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest and his wife, Marguerite, have given away about a third of their $1 billion fortune over the past four years, and they say they want to give it all away before they die.At this point I don't care necessarily about which charities they are funding so well, just that they are actually doing this. Better still is the desire to see their charities spent clean after they are gone so that the charities don't just become fear mongering cash factories more interested in their continued existence than in actual charitable action.
[...]
The couple also wants foundations that survive them to have spent every penny within 20 years of their deaths.
Posted by fad at 6:33am
February 22nd, 2004
Posted by fad at 11:39am