] Then Rush Limbaugh put it all in perspective, after a
] caller remarked that the "stack [of] naked men" was "like
] a college fraternity prank."
]
] RUSH: Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no
] different than what happens at the skull and bones
] initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it
] and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then
] we are going to really hammer them because they had a
] good time. You know, these people are being fired at
] every day. I'm talking about people having a good time,
] these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of
] heard of need to blow some steam off?

[ Jesus. There's so much wrong with this I don't even know where to start. Fucking asshole Limbaugh. If you need to demean someone in this fashion in order to "have a good time" or get some "emotional release", then you're a monster, and deserve no less than the harshest punishment under military law. A dishonorable discharge shouldn't even be a question... the number of years spent in a dark, cold, uncomfortable cell should be the only topic of discussion as pertains to these individuals. It's like slamming puppies against a wall for fun, only worse, because it's not to cute and cuddly, but dumb, animals, but to real people, with intellect and, well, once they probably had some dignity.

You want to talk about hampering our military effort... you have no concept of how much damage these acts have done to america. None. We've engendered more hatred and anger with a few photos than I ever thought possible. This war is lost. Period. The message is gone. The good intent, whatever there was, is gone. The enemy is stronger than ever, and we're to blame. More Americans will die as a result.

But then, I suppose someone like Rush would argue that it wouldn't be a problem if the military would have suppressed these photos. Torture and humiliation is bad PR, but it's a necessary OUTLET for our uniformed men and women... we just need to keep quiet about it, for the safety of the US fucking Fatherland. Fuck you Rush, for insulting the thousands of HUMAN BEINGS that make up our armed forces. No one can call themselves a patriot who believes that actions such as these are anything less than reprehensible. End of story. -k]

Wonkette

Acidus wrote:
] ] (CNN) -- Sinclair Broadcast Group has ordered its seven
] ] ABC stations not to broadcast Friday's "Nightline" that
] ] will air the names and photographs of the more than 500
] ] U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war.
] ]
] ] In a statement online, the Sinclair group said the
] ] "Nightline" program "appears to be motivated by a
] ] political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the
] ] United States in Iraq."
]
] And of course the order to pull the program isn't political
] either.
]
] We have talk about this on Memestreams alot, and this is yet
] another example: Who do you trust for news, when the news is
] filtered by large companies. This is complete and utter
] bullshit

[ It sure is. How about this... even (especially!?) if the show is motivated by a political agenda, it should be shown, because that's how people become involved in the political process. For fucks sake, the State of the Union is seldom more than a couple hours of presidential auto-eroticism and we don't censor that... fuck man, this year the president's dick sucking wasn't even that good, talking about steroids and mars and god only knows what the fuck was going thru his brain.

I'd argue, of course, that this program isn't a political stunt at all, but an ideological one... too many people have unbelievable trouble separating those two things. Yes, my ideals and moral beliefs inform my political choices, but that doesn't mean they're inextricable or even 1-to-1 (see, for example, John Kerry, who I support politically, but am not ideologically matched with). Obviously ABC likes the idea, at least in part, because it'll be so controversial, and in that sense, I'm somewhat put off by profiting from dead soldiers. However, I think the positive implications outweigh that. Regardless, it's not the company's job to censor political speech, ever. If they had tried to hide behind a "this isn't news, so we're not showing it as news" that'd be bullshit, but somewhat more defensible... I'm not sure if I'm happier that they're outright telling people that they're censoring speech that they believe is political in nature. I guess the MS community is probably mostly on the same page, but this should flatly outrage people of every political leaning, because this sort of censorship is the ideological enemy of free society.

Some particularly relevant bits from the article :

* "We find it to be contrary to public interest," [Sinclair general counsel Barry Faber] said.

ABC said that on the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks it aired the names and pictures of all those who died on that day.

"ABC News will continue to report on all facets of the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism in a manner consistent with the standards which ABC News has set for decades," it said.

* Sinclair's sta... [ Read More (0.4k in body) ]

RE: CNN.com - 7 ABC affiliates ordered not to air 'Nightline' - Apr 29, 2004

] At issue was a passage in Woodward's "Plan of Attack," an
] account published this week of Bush's decision making
] about the war, quoting Rumsfeld as telling Prince Bandar
] bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, in
] January 2003 that he could "take that to the bank" that
] the invasion would happen.

] Pentagon officials omitted the discussion of the meeting
] from a transcript of the Woodward interview that they
] posted on the Defense Department's Web site Monday.
] Rumsfeld told reporters at a briefing yesterday that he
] may have used the phrase "take that to the bank" but that
] no final decision had been made to go to war.

This is continues a scary trend the Bush Administration has done since it came into the Whitehouse: Trying to Change history. They have already modified their robots.txt to prevent indexing of Iraq related information on whitehouse.gov, and now they are released transcripts that aren't complete?

Sure we have the Washington Post to nail their ass, but will we always? As Clear Channel grows in power, ask yourself this: What would a politian be willing to do for a company that could literally change recorded history with its hold over all forms of media?

Pentagon Deleted Rumsfeld Comment (washingtonpost.com)

] She cites another example. In September 2002, The Onion
] ran a piece called, "Al-Qaida Allegedly Engaging in
] Telemarketing." The piece told of the terrorist
] organization's nefarious plan to raise funds through
] various phone scams. It also showed screenshots of a
] videotape the CIA had uncovered in which al-Qaida's
] second in command, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, is seen with a
] headset, presumably tricking an unsuspecting victim.
]
] Thus, upon seeing the story, the Branch County sheriff's
] department in Coldwater, Michigan, which had been
] investigating telemarketing scams targeting the elderly,
] issued an urgent press release.
]
] "In the course of this investigation, it was learned that
] this is going on throughout the United States, and some
] of these telemarketing programs are believed to be
] operated by al-Qaida," the release stated. "The CIA has
] announced that they acquired a videotape showing al-Qaida
] members making phone solicitations for vacation home
] rentals, long-distance telephone service, magazine
] subscriptions and other products."

Wired News: Onion Taken Seriously, Film at 11

Ahh yes, let's take a trip back to our childhood, shall we? Do you remember that magical moment when you first realized that your favorite video game hero looked kind of like he was humping a trash can? This site is filled with all of those accidental porn shots. Check it out!

[ This is awesome in the most childish way. Totally rad. The best are Kirby and Michael Jackson's Mookwalker... so wrong. -k]

Accidental Video Game Porn

] First off, Kushner has erected a straw man. No one is
] claiming that the White House should have "foreseen what
] would happen" on September 11. But many do argue that,
] having received the August 6 memo, the administration
] should have reacted more aggressively. Kushner doesn't
] have to agree, but he can't dismiss that argument out of
] hand.

[ This is basically my feeling too. No one with any sense thinks that the PDB is damning evidence that the administration absolutely could have prevented 9/11. What it is, though, is another sign that the attention being given to terrorism and homeland security was not as high a priority as the administration has been claiming. And it also tends to undermine the statement that they lacked evidence that Al Qaeda was planning an attack within the US.

Probably the attacks were still not preventable in that time frame. Probably the FBI / CIA / etc. did and do have systemic problems and suffer from lack of communication, but I'd feel a lot better if it seemed like the administration had acknowledged the threats, the internal problems, and been working to resolve them. At this point, I basically don't see that this was the case. -k]

CJR Campaign Desk: Archives

] With government funding and access to a large swath of
] radio spectrum, four RFID developers are starting work on
] a new generation of RFID products aimed at bringing
] greater safety and new wireless applications to U.S.
] roads.

[ Domino motherfuckers! I've been predicting this one for a while now... lots of potential, both good and ill, with this kinda tech. We're truly not too far from car-to-car comms, automated crash avoidance, network blackbox reporting, emergency services overrides/lockdowns, etc. Gonna be very interesting to watch how this evolves. -k]

RFID Journal - Automotive RFID Gets Rolling

] To Bush, credibility means that you keep saying today
] what you said yesterday, and that you do today what you
] promised yesterday. "A free Iraq will confirm to a
] watching world that America's word, once given, can be
] relied upon," he argued Tuesday night. When the situation
] is clear and requires pure courage, this steadfastness is
] Bush's most useful trait. But when the situation is
] unclear, Bush's notion of credibility turns out to be
] dangerously unhinged. The only words and deeds that have
] to match are his. No correspondence to reality is
] required. Bush can say today what he said yesterday, and
] do today what he promised yesterday, even if nothing he
] believes about the rest of the world is true.

Fantastic commentary on the seperation of Pres. Bush from reality as noted in his *incredible* press conference yesterday. And yes, I am using incredible by its other meaning-- not credible.

Trust, Don't Verify - Bush's incredible definition of credibility. By William Saletan

] President Bush and his wife saved about $31,000 as a
] result of the tax cuts he championed, according to
] documents the White House released yesterday, but Vice
] President Dick Cheney and his wife lost nearly all of
] their Bush tax cuts to another levy that will soon take
] away part or all of the cuts from 35 million households.

The Washington Post story notes that Sen. Kerry's taxes tripled this year. And no, he does not file jointly with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry.

The New York Times Washington Tax Cuts Helped President but Far Less So the Cheneys

] APRIL 12--With the September 11 commission set to focus
] on intelligence and law enforcement failures prior to the
] 2001 terror attacks, warnings unheeded--or simply
] ignored--are central to analyzing whether CIA and FBI
] officials could have done more to derail Osama bin
] Laden's deadly plot.
]
] Below are links to three government memos, all drafted
] prior to 9/11, containing red flags about possible terror
] threats.

Unheeded Warnings: Intelligence Memos Cited Possible Terrorist Attacks