] Clear Channels List of
] Songs with Questionable Lyrics
] Artist Title
snips out a few of the 150 songs banned
] Black Sabbath "War Pigs"
] U2 "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
] Cat Stevens "Peace Train"
] John Lennon "Imagine"
] The Clash "Rock the Casbah"
] Nina "99 Luft Balloons/99 Red Balloons"

Why on earth should would songs be removed from airplay on all of Clear Channel's stations following the 9/11 attacks, when all of these are Anti-war?

Warpig - Politians start meaningless wars that cause pointless deaths, but don't worry, they will go to hell in the end

Sunday Bloody Sunday - Religious feuds only kill innocents, and no one talks about all the evils their cause inflicts. Stop the Cycle.

Peace Train - I'm sad because people are hating each other, but I am also happy because I know soon the world will grow up and be at peace

Imagine - Imagine all the people living in harmony

Rock the Casbah - Damn Arabs with their dicking us over oil

99 Luft Ballons - Some little event could trigger our total destruction, and would anyone even remeber us? War is all so petty and silly.

Songs with Questionable Lyrics

Ryan-- this is really important. I really would like to learn more on this. Are there any good studies or academic papers anyone knows about? This could be the defining point for our generation.

This is an issue I've tracked for a couple of years. The voices are growing. It's kind of like when one person says something contrary to popular opinion, you just laugh it off. Then more people start saying, "Hmm, well you know they might be on to something," Those that choose to ignore it will plug their ears as the voices grow.

The truth is, we are going to run out of cheap fossil fuels in our lifetimes. Our way of life is going to change dramatically very soon, within decades. Once oil production peaks, it's all downhill, literally, as we ride the downslope of the bell curve.

This page has a really good collection of starting points and quotes. I'm reading one of the books that is quoted here, "The Party's Over." It's doesn't paint a pretty picture of things to come.

Understanding how oil production affects what we have all come to accept as our way of industrial life, it underscores every war we are going to be fighting in the Middle East from here on out.

I'm curious to know, how many of you think this is even an issue? Is the talk of "peak oil" just Bravo Sierra or is it prophecy? It makes sense to me. I'm not in the camp that thinks it is just going to work itself out, not without readjusting to pre-industrial population size.

Observations and the State of Affairs - Peak Oil

Dude, I am 99% sure that was sarcasm. You got plenty of tinfoil hat sympathizers around here. I don't know how much I believe the specifics of your link, but there are definitely some interesting questions involved here. Something does not smell right. His family was petitioning the govt to get him released not a week before he was "kidnapped." And one of the 9/11 subjects used his email address to communicate to the rest of the al qaeda cells. The govt is playing it off as a coincidence, but c'mon. Something is not right.

RE: BERG- 98% Chance That This is a Military-Industrial Complex Psyop

] Field 13.02.2004
]
] 1301 fluorescent light tubes powered by the electro
] magnetic field emitted from the overhead powerlines.

wow. this is really cool. I saw this first in Smithsonian magazine-- artist who works in the physics department at the Univ. of Bristol planted 1301 unwired fluorescent lights into the ground underneath high-power transmission lines. Go read the press section of the site as well. he has done some other neat things, as documented on the site, as well.

Richard Box- Archive

just read it

Doonesbury@Slate - Daily Dose

Dude, there is a general policy of the American press to not show people being KILLED versus simply fucked with. And I don't care to argue the level of abuse. It was abuse. It was not right under international law. But it was not mutilation nor murder.

Decius wrote:
] ] It's time to put up or shut up. Last week I wrote a column
] ] saying that CBS should have thought twice before showing
] ] the photos from Abu Ghraib prison. The response from
] ] readers and even some journalists was like I'd proposed
] ] banning the printing press. Numerous e-mailers said I'm
] ] no different than a Holocaust-denier who'd ban photos
] ] from Auschwitz.
] ]
] ] Well, now we have the horrible news that Nick Berg, an
] ] American contractor, was beheaded by an
] ] al-Qaeda-affiliated group explicitly in response to the
] ] release of the Abu Ghraib photos.
]
] There has been an ongoing discussion on MemeStreams for over a
] year about the ethics of publishing raw war footage. Here is
] an right wing view. I think it sheds some light on the
] subject. Be sure to follow the link through to the column he
] references and read it as well.
]
] Despite rambling off into crypto racist commentary about the
] literacy rate in Iraq, this article does make a valid
] observation. Why do we show pictures of prison abuses but we
] don't show the beheading video? Because the press uses its
] position to exhert greater pressure on those in power to be
] responsible then it does on those who are already assumed to
] be monsters. In general, there is no problem there. The abuse
] photos have certainly cost us a lot of ground in Iraq, and an
] arguement can be made that they should have been supressed,
] but honestly, if our political institutions are as strong as
] we beleive they are they ought to be able to weather such
] scrutiny, and communicate effectively about how we're handling
] it with the Arab public.
]
] The issue at hand is that clearly the press does not make
] choices about what footage to air and what footage not to air
] on the basis of the nature of the footage alone. The press
] makes these decisions on a political basis. While this
] author's reference to footage of "partial birth abortions" is
] partisan and oversimplified, the general point must be
] considered. The press makes political decisions about what to
] air. In that sense they cannot be seen as objective. Once
] we've reached that conclusion we must ask what the political
] motives of the press actually are, and whether we feel like
] those motives are in line with our interests.

RE: Jonah Goldberg on Abu Ghraib on National Review Online

] When President Bush mentioned steroids in his State of
] the Union earlier this year, some people wondered why the
] president seemed interested in an unfolding criminal case
] involving a Bay Area drug lab and some of the country's
] best-known athletes.
]
] Now, J. Tony Serra, who's defending San Francisco Giants
] slugger Barry Bonds' personal trainer, says he's figured
] it out.
]
]Serra said the government is rushing to trial and wants to get ]convictions so Bush can use the case to help win re-election.

law.com - Article

"Congress and Bush enacted an $87.5 billion package last November for this year's U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In April 2003, a $79.5 billion measure was approved for that year's activities. "

This is what the war is costing us people. 764 solder's lives, and 192 Billons dollars.

And what is our return? What have we gained? No WMDs, but of course we stopped the horror that was Saddam. And thats a good thing right? I mean just forget the fact that Bush has single handedly mortally wounded the NATO Alliance, the fact we have troops "blow[ing] off some steam" as Rush says by by pseudo-sodomizing some of the same people we are liberating. We "stopped" WMD proliferation in Iraq while we overlook our ally Pakistan selling outlawed Nuclear Weapons Technology. We removed a horrible dictator who didn't value civil rights, so overlook our other allies who are just as guilty of denying its citizens these rights.

And Powell was right when he told Bush if we start this war, we will have to own Iraq. And we do. The administration glosses over it everyday, but the line between fighting Saddam's Army and fighting in the Iraqi Civil War was crossed a *long* time ago. And take a look at the deaths per month: the Iraqi Civil War is killing us faster than Saddam ever could or did.

That is what we have in Iraq now. Civil War. Think about that. Civil War. Yet there are no UN peace keepers helping to secure and police the country. No UN assistance in drafting a constitution, or in organization a vote. No Red Cross personal visiting prisons like Abu Ghraib until the Army so nicely invited them yesterday. Iraq is engaged in a Civil War, and because of Bush's arrogance, we are largely fighting it alone.

So, to get where we are today, its costing us 764 deaths and 192 Billion Dollars. But its not over. We aren't leaving. We can't. Iraq is in anarchy. Yet we insist on transfering sovereignty of a country that is so unstable that it requires 138,000 US, not Nato, not UN, but US troops to stay until 2006 by June 30 for some stupid ass reason or another. Why? This is a country where the major faction leader who is even the closest to a moderate, Sistani, is calling the quasi-defined government we are supposedly handing sovereignty to illegitimate. Yet we stick by this meaningless date of June 30, instead of creating a government that will in some way be effective and will be viewed as legitimate to even a small segment of the Iraqi population.

And to those who say that having an democracy in the Middle East, an "island of stability, "a "foothold" is worth the cost, I ask you to remember. Remember the last "island of stability" the US tried to create in the Middle East. And by "tried" I mean preemptively overthrew a government and set up a government that was more alike to our thinking. It was Iran. It was the Shah. And People saw it was a puppet government, and the Ayatollah Khomeini was what we got. "The Great Satan" is what we got. Radical Islam as mainstream policy is what we got.

Yes we rebuilt Europe at the end of WWII. We also had the support of our biggest trading partners, a strong economy, and no brain drain or job flight. We have none of that now, and oh by the way, the war to liberate the country is still raging, and is bloodier than ever before.

Ultimately, its the Iraqis who will suffer from our vanity, our belief that the US, and not the UN, and through them the whole world should rebuild Iraq. Sure we can do it, but it will be half done, like some 50 year old Hollywood star that looks beautiful in glance, but whose insides rot.

What will the return on our investment of blood and bucks be in Iraq, and will our current policies create the best return? I have no answers, but the are Things to Ponder

Things To Ponder : Return on Investment in Iraq

] The Bush administration is spending $18 million on a new
] round of taxpayer-funded television advertising to
] promote the Medicare discount drug card, the Medicare
] administrator said Tuesday.

So id this an $18 million dollar ad to try to get people to vote for the shrubbery or is it $18 million dollars that could be spent on something practical, like maybe a medicare system that doesn't suck?

And oh yeah... this is the benefit plan that it was said would "only" cost $400 billion, whenthey hid numbers saying $500+ billion, and it is only covering about 7 million out of 41 million people eligible?

Wait... does that mean if everyone signs up it costs $3 trillion???

[ As far as i can tell it means "fuck off, no coverage for you" for the vast majority of people.

400 billion, 500 billion, what's the difference? Dammit stop distracting us from the real issues. You're going to be gassed in your sleep by Osama if you question medicare. Why do you hate america so much?

Mars, bitches! -k]

Yahoo! News - White House Spends $18M on Medicare Ad

] I write to strongly protest your decision to instruct
] Sinclair's ABC affiliates to preempt this
] evening's Nightline program. I find deeply offensive
] Sinclair's objection to Nightline's intention
] to broadcast the names and photographs of Americans who
] gave their lives in service to our country in Iraq.
]
] I supported the President's decision to go to war in
] Iraq, and remain a strong supporter of that decision. But
] every American has a responsibility to understand fully
] the terrible costs of war and the extraordinary
] sacrifices it requires of those brave men and women who
] volunteer to defend the rest of us; lest we ever forget
] or grow insensitive to how grave a decision it is for our
] government to order Americans into combat. It is a solemn
] responsibility of elected officials to accept
] responsibility for our decision and its consequences,
] and, with those who disseminate the news, to ensure that
] Americans are fully informed of those consequences.
]
] There is no valid reason for Sinclair to shirk its
] responsibility in what I assume is a very misguided
] attempt to prevent your viewers from completely
] appreciating the extraordinary sacrifices made on their
] behalf by Americans serving in Iraq. War is an awful, but
] sometimes necessary business. Your decision to deny your
] viewers an opportunity to be reminded of war%u2019s
] terrible costs, in all their heartbreaking detail, is a
] gross disservice to the public, and to the men and women
] of the United States Armed Forces. It is, in short, sir,
] unpatriotic. I hope it meets with the public opprobrium
] it most certainly deserves.

[ John McCain proves again that you can garner respect and admiration without pandering. I disagree with damn near all his political stances, but I absolutely respect the honesty and commitment to *public service* with which he approaches his job. I'm glad someone with a little clout is responding to this situation -- my rant earlier, while genuine, isn't likely to go far. -k]

U.S. Senator John McCain -- Letter to Sinclair