Three minutes of silence for tsunami victims

OK, so let me just make this clear…

Victims of World War I and other wars (some lovely statistics available here) get one or two minutes. Every year.

Victims of the September 11th atrocities got two minutes, but only for one year. (Though, granted, we also managed to silence a few telemarketers.)

Victims of the Asian Tsunami (the Tsunami With No Name) get three minutes… not counting the extra one or two minutes given in many areas on New Years Eve that mostly allowed us to piss away a few million on gunpowder and not feel too bad about it.

Victims of the Totally Justified Iraq War get… no minutes. Not even a minute minute. Perhaps this is because Jack Straw has yet to crunch the numbers and calculate how many minutes (or perhaps even seconds) all those dead Iraqi civilians should be allocated.

UPDATE – We interrupt this silence for a timely sermon from Tom DeLay. More here.








Posted in Humanity | 1 Comment

Freedom of (Some) Information

50,000 files opened as act sweeps away 30-year rule

Of course, in the interests of job national security, some things must remain secret.

I’m thinking of a few interesting things to do with this. If you are too, then the following guide may be useful:

BBC Guide: How to get information from public bodies








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Iraq Elections: shaping up for success

Knight Ridder – As Iraqis register to vote, Shiites enthusiastic while fear grips Sunnis: Block by block, and neighborhood by neighborhood, Iraq’s election process is unfolding in starkly different ways. In areas populated by Shiites, who are the majority in Iraq, the process is going relatively smoothly. In contrast, intimidation and fear are rampant in some areas where Sunnis reside. The success of the registration drive – and the success of the parliamentary election itself – matters greatly. If enough Sunnis don’t register, the Shiite population is certain to dominate the election, leaving the minority Sunnis without a voice or incentive to support the government. After such an election, Iraq might be rocked by charges of minority disenfranchisement, weakening hopes for quelling violence and reducing sectarian strife.

SFGate – Bush considers election tweaks to assure Sunni representation in Iraq: The Bush administration is talking to Iraqi leaders about guaranteeing Sunni Arabs a certain number of ministries or high-level jobs in the future Iraqi government if, as is widely predicted, Sunni candidates fail to do well in Iraq’s elections.

AFP – Iraq battling more than 200,000 insurgents: intelligence chief: Iraq’s insurgency counts more than 200,000 active fighters and sympathisers, the country’s national intelligence chief told AFP, in the bleakest assessment to date of the armed revolt waged by Sunni Muslims. (link via deficient brain)

Independent – Three Britons killed in Baghdad car bomb attack: Three Britons were killed in a car bomb attack in Baghdad yesterday on a day of bloody ambushes, bombs and suicide attacks across Iraq thought to be aimed at undermining the elections due later this month.

Reuters – Baghdad Governor Assassinated; Bombing Kills 10: The targeting of Governor Ali al-Haidri showed insurgents’ power to strike at the heart of Iraq’s governing class, raising fresh doubts whether Iraqi security forces can protect politicians and voters as the national ballot draws near.

You know, I get the strangest feeling that some Iraqis may emerge on the far side of January feeling that their democratically-elected leaders are somewhat lacking in legitimacy…

UPDATE – Back to Iraq 3.0 – Iraqi President (sorta) reverses himself on election timing: So maybe I’ll win that $5 bet I made with a colleague that they’ll delay the elections after all. I mean, I’ll admit that while there doesn’t appear to be any legal way to postpone the election, people may eventually bow to reality and just not hold them. I’m sure the Iraqi Bar Association would eventually recover. And the U.N. is used to being snubbed by now, I guess. Oh, hell. I’m just giving into despair. From my perspective on the ground, it seems like a really fool-hearty idea to hold an election when high-level officials are being assassinated, multiple car bombs are going of every day and U.S. troops — to say nothing of Iraqi civilians — are dying all the time. But hey, guys in the south say things are cool! And Sadr City has garbage pickup now. Admittedly, the south is a lot better off than the center and west of the country and garbage pickup is progress, but such forced silver-lining spotting seems bit like bailing sea water with a thimble while you’re on the Titanic.

UPDATE – Baghdad Burning – New Year and Elections: There are several problems. The first is the fact that, technically, we don’t know the candidates. We know the principal heads of the lists but we don’t know who exactly will be running. It really is confusing. They aren’t making the lists public because they are afraid the candidates will be assassinated.








Posted in It's War! It's Legal! It's Lovely! | Comments Off on Iraq Elections: shaping up for success

Murdoch’s push for terrestrial TV in the UK

Guardian – Files show extent of Murdoch lobbying : Freedom of information files released to the Guardian reveal how the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch wields extensive lobbying clout over the Blair government. Mr Murdoch secured private reassurances from ministers during heavy lobbying that he would be able to buy Channel Five if he wanted to, according to partly censored documents released by the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell. In previously undisclosed meetings, representatives of the Murdoch empire were able to lobby ministers six times in a crucial five-month period when an important bill was passing through parliament. Citizens’ groups have said they were unable to get similar face-to-face access to ministers.

Please try to wipe that surprised look off your face.

Murdoch Wants Five. And when he gets it, he’s sure to throw all sorts of money and resources at it to make it a major channel. You can also look forward to Sky News abandoning their moderate tone within a few weeks (or perhaps hours) of this purchase going through.








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Whore? Moi?

Scaryduck notes with interest that Belle du Jour is blogging again now his/her book is out.

You may also be amused by the (still developing) “Customers who bought this item also bought” list at Amazon, which currently includes Moby Dick and The Big Bang.








Posted in Teh Interwebs | Comments Off on Whore? Moi?

Eclectic link dump #3

Tsunami link (blogged), tsunami link (blogged), tsunami link (blogged).. mostly familiar links on Blogdex today, but one new disaster-driven link covers all bases and also happens to be in the No. 1 spot:

Webloggers: Give to tsunami victims and I’ll give too!

Aside from that, there’s this video you might want to take a look at before Getting Your Stuff Done, a report on weblog penetration, a weblog about t-shirts, not yet-another-weblog-award, but this year’s return of the original weblog awards, an article about Google, Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism, a ‘call Jenny’ project based on the old Tommy Tutone song that I’m sure would intrigue Dave Gorman and this…

James Wolcott Kind of a Shame: …they detained 70 men from districts identified by their informant as ‘bad.’ In near-freezing conditions, they sat hooded and bound in their pyjamas. They shivered uncontrollably. One wetted himself in fear. Most had been detained at random; several had been held because they had a Kalashnikov rifle, which is legal. The evidence against one man was some anti-American literature, a meat cleaver, and a tin whistle. American intelligence officers moved through the ranks of detainees, raising their hoods to take mugshots: ‘One, two, three, jihaaad!’ A middle-tier officer commented on the mission: ‘When we do this,’ he said. ‘We lose.’








Posted in Riding High on Blogdex | Comments Off on Eclectic link dump #3

Eclectic link dump #2

How to fix your Mom’s computer. You know how it is; all us drivers are mechanics, right?

Every end-of-year list you are likely to need and some good news from FOXNews. I’m sure it’s all true.

Technorati – New Year’s Resolutions 2005: Read blogger resolutions and add your own.

Photos and Videos from the aftermath of the Asia Tsunami

Eyewitness accounts via Guardian Unlimited

Briton in Sri Lanka: I surfed the tsunami

Comparing the death count from the Tsunami to the deaths at the World Trade Center

Westboro Baptist Church: “Thank God for Tsunami & 2,000 dead Swedes”

Won’t somebody please think of the (white) children?

Gadflyer – WSJ, Washington Times capitalize on tsunami tragedy: Note how ‘stingy’ is in quotes in the first graph and ‘the United States and other Western nations’ is not. That’s because Egeland referred to ‘wealthy states’ and ‘donor states,’ but at no time did he single out the United States. In fact, when a reporter asked Egeland to name the countries he believed to be “stingy,” he pointedly declined to do so (you can stream the 48-minute press conference with RealPlayer and see for yourself).

Note also how the dreadfully wounded and maligned Bush administration is forming its own aid coalition, as the U.N. obviously can’t be trusted to run the show.

New York Times – Are We Stingy? Yes: The American aid figure for the current disaster is now $35 million, and we applaud Mr. Bush’s turnaround. But $35 million remains a miserly drop in the bucket, and is in keeping with the pitiful amount of the United States budget that we allocate for nonmilitary foreign aid. According to a poll, most Americans believe the United States spends 24 percent of its budget on aid to poor countries; it actually spends well under a quarter of 1 percent.

Independent – Blair refuses call to convene G8 summit: Mr Blair’s support for the UN is in marked contrast to President George Bush’s announcement yesterday that a core group of donor countries – the US, India, Australia and Japan – would co-ordinate the effort. The US belatedly added the UN to that group last night.

Oh my God! Do I actually spy a pair of testicles? (Aaaand moving Right along…)

Guardian – A state of chaos: George Bush has purged the last of his father’s senior advisers, handing over control to his neocon allies.

Greg Mitchell – Some Readers Want to Lock Up Al Neuharth: Apparently, it is now an act of treason to offer an editorial opinion on the Iraq war that goes against the conventional wisdom.

Curse the liberals and their callous attacks on magnetic ribbons!

OK, I’m done. Avery Ant and his One Minute Rant should carry you over into the New Year. If not, the following should keep you out of trouble…

Stuff:
De-metricate some road signs
Help to sabotage some IKEA posters
View some photographs from the Arkansas State Prison (circa 1915-1937)
Psst! Wanna buy a watch?

Music and Video:
Dancing Transformers!
Narcolepsy explained in song
Get jiggy and downright weird with Darth Vader
I Am a Liberal (read more about this last movie here)








Posted in Riding High on Blogdex | 1 Comment

Carriers & Barriers – Condoms, AIDS and the HIV Virus

Teaching the kids about teeny tiny holesThanks to this reworked tract by Jack Chick and this pamphlet from ‘Truth’ For Youth Teh Kids now ‘know’ that the AIDS virus is so small that it can pass through teeny-tiny holes in latex condoms.

Summary:

– The assertion that AIDS/HIV can pass through latex condoms is a false one; a lie based on cherry-picked/misinterpreted science, pseudo-science and – in some cases – studies that simply don’t exist.

– A life-or-death medical problem is clearly being used to push a moral agenda.

– Studies focusing on science are being suppressed; education based on religious belief is being pushed.

– Granted, abstinence is the only 100% effective way to avoid STDs, but this 100% figure is based on the assumption that abstinence itself is totally reliable. Catholic priests have trouble with abstinence; teenagers are far more prone to a breakdown of willpower.

– Abstinence-only education results in teenagers not being educated in the correct use of condoms, so when a willpower-failure occurs, condoms are used improperly or not at all.

– There is no proof whatsoever that condoms allow passage of HIV/AIDS. Granted, there is the possibly of imperfections, but the risk of not using condoms or using them improperly is far, far greater (see above).

Further Reading:

Pros & Cons – Voices on the Church’s Condoms Policy
Bush on Condoms and AIDS
The Silver Ring Thing – The Lies of Denny Pattyn

Guardian – Vatican: condoms don’t stop Aids: The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass – potentially exposing thousands of people to risk… In Lwak, near Lake Victoria, the director of an Aids testing centre says he cannot distribute condoms because of church opposition. Gordon Wambi told the programme: “Some priests have even been saying that condoms are laced with HIV/Aids.”

BBC – Sex and the Holy City: Panorama has travelled across four continents to talk to those directly affected by the Pope’s conservative teachings on sex. The team has discovered that the Catholic Church – contrary to mainstream scientific opinion – is claiming that condoms have microscopic holes in them which allow the HIV virus through. The World Health Organisation has condemned this view as dangerous.

LA Weekly – Bush’s War on the Condom: But in May (2002), at the U.N.’s Special Session on Children, Bush formed an unholy alliance with Iraq and Iran – you remember, two-thirds of the “axis of evil” – to successfully eliminate from the official declaration any references to the right of the world’s children to “reproductive health services and education,” including condoms for HIV prevention… Bush (also) threatened countries with trade and aid reprisals if they didn’t toe the no-condoms, abstinence-only, anti-abortion line in the vote to weaken the U.N.’s commitment to providing life-saving information to those young women… And, here at home, Bush – under the direction of political commissar Karl Rove – has been systematically placing HIV-prevention efforts into the hands of the Christian right – which is pushing the censorious line that abstinence before heterosexual marriage is the only permissible form of HIV-prevention education – and putting condom opponents i








Posted in Christ... | 4 Comments

Climate Change, Tsunamis, and The Rapture

This'll learn 'em!Oh, you are so going to love this…

From Joel Makower: A neocon climatologist… has condemned “environmental experts busily creating links between the recent tsunami and global warming” (though no such claims are being made). Others are busy blaming a lack of an early-warning system (see also) on a funding drain caused by – you guessed it – those same global warming fantasists.

Louis Hissink: This is due to presumably a lack of funding to earthquake science etc, since most science funds are being directed to “Global Warming”. So in an extremely peverse way, one could blame the death toll on the Global Warming lobby and the IPCC… In Short, the tragic loss of life from this latest natural catastrophe, would have been far less if funding for the geosciences, in preference to climate, had been greater. Putting it bluntly, the Greens and their fellow travellers must accept responsilibility (sic) for the loss of life on December 27, 2004 from the tsunamis of that day.

Louis also suggests that “a meteor impact off Sumatra” may have been the driving force behind the tsunami. Presumably because this ties in cosily with your average Rapture theory concerning big-ass rocks falling from the sky (more here, here, here and here).

Not that big-ass rocks falling from the sky don’t fit into my own world-view. I blogged a small concern about them just yesterday. But I can tell you 100%-of-fact-and-for-true that a meteor did not cause this tsunami. Not because I’m so arrogant that I think I can predict God’s every move, but because I know the difference between a meteor and a meteorite.

I won’t insult these people quite so much as to insist that creationism is a fantasy… but I would like to point out that they’re creating fantasists out of thin air. But why is so much effort going into the painting of environmentalists as fantasy-driven nutbags? Well…

Bill Moyers: Remember James Watt, President Reagan’s first Secretary of the Interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, ‘after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.’ Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn’t know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true – one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index. That’s right – the rapture index.

Grist Magazine – Christian-right views are swaying politicians and threatening the environment: Today’s Christian fundamentalist politicians are more politically savvy than Reagan’s interior secretary was; you’re unlikely to catch them overtly attributing public-policy decisions to private religious views. But their words and actions suggest that many share Watt’s beliefs. Like him, many Christian fundamentalists feel that concern for the future of our planet is irrelevant, because it has no future. They believe we are living in the End Time, when the son of God will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire. They may also believe, along with millions of other Christian fundamentalists, that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed – even hastened – as a sign of the coming Apocalypse.

Remember; it’s the scientists who are fantasists. Quite possibly evil ones, at that. (PS – This recent tragedy is all part of God’s plan as predicted in Revelations. You can track this and other new items that relate to Bible prophecy here.)

Bush cannot survive on fundamentalist support alone. Indeed, he would be royally screwed if people took the time to absorb just how much of a fundamentalist he is and what the possible consequences might be…

Guardian/Observer – Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us: Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters. A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world… The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.

Please do note that Bush’s version of national defence involves the illegal invasion of a country with no links to terrorism (until the US went charging in thereby creating a terrorist’s playground). And a road-map to peace in the Middle East, of course…

Village Voice – Bush White House checked with rapture Christians before latest Israel move: While the language of apocalyptic Christianity is absent from George W. Bush’s speeches, he has proven eager to work with apocalyptics – a point of pride for Upton. “We’re in constant contact with the White House,” he boasts. “I’m briefed at least once a week via telephone briefings… I was there about two weeks ago… At that time we met with the president.”

Guardian – Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power: What makes the story so appealing to Christian fundamentalists is that before the big battle begins, all “true believers” (ie those who believe what they believe) will be lifted out of their clothes and wafted up to heaven during an event called the Rapture. Not only do the worthy get to sit at the right hand of God, but they will be able to watch, from the best seats, their political and religious opponents being devoured by boils, sores, locusts and frogs, during the seven years of Tribulation which follow. The true believers are now seeking to bring all this about. This means staging confrontations at the old temple site (in 2000, three US Christians were deported for trying to blow up the mosques there), sponsoring Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, demanding ever more US support for Israel, and seeking to provoke a final battle with the Muslim world/Axis of Evil/United Nations/ European Union/France or whoever the legions of the antichrist turn out to be.

Of course, these articles come from evil leftists (see: ‘fantasists’) who support the terrorists, so the information is not to be trusted.








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Murdoch: Fox-watching and Xmas Xtras

Come the New Year, I’ll have to get around to building the early stages of The Anti-Murdoch Network. The Sun-watching blog may be held up by the general election, but I appears we already have some worthy Fox-watchers in place…

News Hounds – We watch FOX so you don’t have to!

More on the War on Christmas

Bob Ben from Insert Joke Here has a close-to-final round-up of War on Christmas links which leads us to A Suggestion for the Season and Bob Piper notes here that Ann Coulter has the following message on her webshite: To The People Of Islam: Just think: If we’d invaded your countries, killed your leaders and converted you to Christianity YOU’D ALL BE OPENING CHRISTMAS PRESENTS RIGHT ABOUT NOW!

BNP Chairman Nick Griffin takes the ball and runs with it on his Christmas video, blaming “Neo-Marxist political correctness and Islamic fundamentalism” and stating that the (obviously very real) attack on Christmas has been getting worse year-on-year, and that this year has been “particularly bad” – so much so that “we are becoming dhimmi in our own land.”

He goes on to state that Council Tax and mortgage schemes unfairly benefit Muslims and warns you that his people “see what’s going on at the low level, in the streets and in the martial arts class…. and there is a significant section of the young Muslim population preparing for war against the people of this country” (and unless it’s nipped in the bud, it could lead to civil war).








Posted in Rupert 'The Evil One' Murdoch | 4 Comments