Saturday, March 22, 2003
Friday, March 21, 2003
more proof of american imperialism.
more proof of american imperialism.
was the world better when america practised a 'laissez faire' foreign policy?
Friday, March 21, 2003
THE MORON MAJORITY
NEW YORK--Now it's official: most Americans are idiots. Decades of budget cuts in education are finally yielding results, a fact confirmed by CNN's poll of March 16, which shows that an astonishing 51 percent of the public believe that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. There is no reason to think that. None. True, George W. Bush has asserted the existence of indirect links between low-level Al Qaeda operatives and Iraqi intelligence officials--a lame lie repeatedly denied by the CIA (news - web sites)--but even our professional prevaricator has never gone so far as to accuse Saddam of direct involvement in 9-11. Despite their increasingly tenuous grasp on reality, not even the Bush Administration's most fervent hawks deny that the secular dictator of Iraq (news - web sites) is a mortal enemy of the Islamist extremists of Al Qaeda. No mainstream media outlet has ever reported otherwise. So why do these pinheads think such a thing? [...] Yahoo News
MTV: supporting war, and the pacification of youth.
Dear all In the light of the outbreak of war in Iraq in the last 12 hours, our recommendations for the scheduling and content of videos and programmes are as follows: 1. Video recommendations Obviously, there will be heightened public sensitivity to representations of war, soldiers, bombing, destruction of buildings and public unrest at home. The ITC Programme Code requires us not to broadcast material which offends against good taste or is offensive to public feeling. We therefore recommend that videos featuring the following are not shown at the moment: war soldiers war planes bombs missiles riots and social unrest executions other obviously sensitive material Examples include: System of a Down "Boom!" - anti-war video containing facts and figures about, amongst other things, the projected casualties in the war in Iraq. Aerosmith "Don't want to miss a thing" - contains footage from the film "Armageddon". Manic Street Preachers "So Why So Sad" - contains footage of soldiers being killed and man throwing a hand grenade. Passengers/U2 "Miss Sarajevo" - contains missiles, guns and buildings being blown up. Bon Jovi "This ain't a love song" - contains war scenes and victims in distress. Iggy Pop "Corruption" - contains wars, riots, guns and captions "we love guns" and "we love rifles". Paul Hardcastle "19" - contains war footage. Radiohead "Lucky" - contains war footage including injured children. Billy Idol "Hot in the City" - contains an atomic explosion. Armand van Helden "Koochy" - contains an atomic explosion and ships being blown up. Trick Daddy "Thug Holiday" - contains soldiers being killed at war. Furthermore, videos with words such as "bomb", "missile", "war" or other sensitive words in the artist or song title should not be shown at the moment. Examples include: Outkast "B.O.B (Bombs over Baghdad)" - song title may offend. Radiohead "Invasion" - song title may offend. Megadeth "Holy Wars" - song title may offend. Gavin Friday "You, Me and World War Three" - song title may offend. B-52s videos. Also, please note that some evergreen tapes contain sensitive videos e.g. until recently, the MTV2 evergreen contained the Outkast "B.O.B. (Bombs over Baghdad)". We therefore recommend that music programmers ensure that inappropriate songs are removed from the evergreen tape for the duration the war. Please note that this is not a definitive list of videos. Please use the ITC video restrictions database to check each song before broadcast. If you are aware of any other videos featuring the above images, titled with the above words or which may be unsuitable for broadcast in the light of the outbreak of war, we recommend that these are pulled from your schedules. 2. Programme recommendations Under the ITC's rules, we have two main obligations regarding programmes: (a) Not to broadcast material which offends against good taste or is offensive to public feeling. For example, no programme should contain: (i) images of war, bombs, missiles, etc that are likely to be seen as insensitive or offensive at this time (see above for further guidance). (ii) jokes about the war, about bombing Iraqis, about the American, Iraqi or UK troops. (iii) comments about the war that are likely to be seen as insensitive or offensive. Furthermore, the content of each long-form show should be considered before scheduling. Scripts for presenters and news pieces must also be treated with great sensitivity. (b) To ensure that our programmes treat the issue of war in Iraq with "due accuracy" and "due impartiality". Therefore, we need to ensure that any programme which deals with issue of war in Iraq: (i) deals fairly with each opposing view. It cannot be one-sided. Both sides of the argument need to be dealt with, and dealt with fairly. (ii) does not give the view of MTV or the views of MTV presenters. (iii) does not give facts, or opinions based on facts, that are incorrect e.g. an anti-war argument that states the war is bad because 50 million Iraqis will die (the official estimates are much lower than that), a pro-war argument that states Saddam Hussein should be toppled because he is going to invade Israel (there is no evidence of this). You need to ensure that any facts included in your programmes are accurate, and verified by an official source e.g. an Amnesty International report, a UN report, Reuters news service. If you are unsure about the suitability of a video or programme, please call the Broadcast Standards Managers: Mark (x6195 (HC)) Dan (x7734 (HC)) or Aurea (x6197 (HC)). Mark Mark Sunderland Broadcast Standards Manager MTV Networks Europe Internal Memos.com
Thursday, March 20, 2003
:: how jedi are you? :: better looking though of course ... and for the record, being a canadian has nothing to do with being a slut. i took the test twice and i still scored
small attempt at spirit raising. everything i write seems trite at the moment.
Listen to the commentary. [npr.org] Transcript follows...
PETER FREUNDLICH:
All right, let me see if I understand the logic of this correctly. We are going to ignore the United Nations in order to make clear to Saddam Hussein that the United Nations cannot be ignored. We're going to wage war to preserve the UN's ability to avert war. The paramount principle is that the UN's word must be taken seriously, and if we have to subvert its word to guarantee that it is, then by gum, we will. Peace is too important not to take up arms to defend. Am I getting this right?
Further, if the only way to bring democracy to Iraq is to vitiate the democracy of the Security Council, then we are honor-bound to do that too, because democracy, as we define it, is too important to be stopped by a little thing like democracy as they define it.
Also, in dealing with a man who brooks no dissension at home, we cannot afford dissension among ourselves. We must speak with one voice against Saddam Hussein's failure to allow opposing voices to be heard. We are sending our gathered might to the Persian Gulf to make the point that might does not make right, as Saddam Hussein seems to think it does. And we are twisting the arms of the opposition until it agrees to let us oust a regime that twists the arms of the opposition. We cannot leave in power a dictator who ignores his own people. And if our people, and people elsewhere in the world, fail to understand that, then we have no choice but to ignore them.
Listen. Don't misunderstand. I think it is a good thing that the members of the Bush administration seem to have been reading Lewis Carroll. I only wish someone had pointed out that "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" are meditations on paradox and puzzle and illogic and on the strangeness of things, not templates for foreign policy. It is amusing for the Mad Hatter to say something like, `We must make war on him because he is a threat to peace,' but not amusing for someone who actually commands an army to say that.
As a collector of laughable arguments, I'd be enjoying all this were it not for the fact that I know--we all know--that lives are going to be lost in what amounts to a freak, circular reasoning accident.
Global Politics Quiz
1) Which is the only country in the world to have dropped bombs on over twenty different countries since 1945? 2) Which is the only country to have used nuclear weapons? 3) Which country was responsible for a car bomb which killed 80 civilians in Beirut in 1985, in a botched assassination attempt, thereby making it the most lethal terrorist bombing in modern Middle East history? 4) Which country's illegal bombing of Libya in 1986 was described by the UN Legal Committee as a "classic case" of terrorism? 5) Which country rejected the order of the International Court of Justice(ICJ) to terminate its "unlawful use of force" against Nicaragua in 1986, and then vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling on all states to observe international law? 6) Which country was accused by a UN-sponsored truth commission of providing "direct and indirect support" for "acts of genocide" against the Mayan Indians in Guatemala during the 1980s? 7) Which country unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile(ABM) Treaty in December 2001? 8) Which country renounced the efforts to negotiate a verification process for the Biological Weapons Convention and brought an international conference on the matter to a halt in July 2001? 9) Which country prevented the United Nations from curbing the gun trade at a small arms conference in July 2001? 10) Aside from Somalia, which is the only other country in the world to have refused to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? 11) Which is the only Western country which allows the death penalty to be applied to children? 12) Which is the only G7 country to have refused to sign the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, forbidding the use of landmines? 13) Which is the only G7 country to have voted against the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998? 14) Which was the only other country to join with Israel in opposing a 1987 General Assembly resolution condemning international terrorism? 15) Which country refuses to fully pay its debts to the United Nations yet reserves its right to veto United Nations resolutions? Answer to all 15 questions: The United States of America. Here's a list of the countries and dates that the U.S. has bombed since the end of World War II, compiled by historian William Blum: China 1945-46 Korea 1950-53 China 1950-53 Guatemala 1954 Indonesia 1958 Cuba 1959-60 Guatemala 1960 Congo 1964 Peru 1965 Laos 1964-73 Vietnam 1961-73 Cambodia 1969-70 Guatemala 1967-69 Grenada 1983 Libya 1986 El Salvador 1980s Nicaragua 1980s Panama 1989 Iraq 1991-2003 Sudan 1998 Afghanistan 1998 Yugoslavia 1999 Afghanistan 2001 QUICK POLITICAL SCHOLASTIC APTITUDE TEST This test consists of one (1) multiple-choice question. In how many of these instances did a democratic government, respectful of human rights, occur as a direct result? Choose one of the following: (a) 0 (b) zero (c) none (d) not a one (e) a whole number between -1 and +1
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)