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Che Guevara: The Killing Machine
Che's lust for power had other ways of expressing itself besides murder. The contradiction between his passion for travel--a protest of sorts against the of the nation-state--and his impulse to become himself an enslaving state over others is poignant. In writing about Pedro Valdivia, the conquistador of Chile, Guevara reflected: "He belonged to that special class of men the species produces every so often, in whom a craving for limitless power is so extreme that any suffering to achieve it seems natural." He might have been describing himself.
comment posted at 11:24 AM on Jul-12-05
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comment posted at 12:15 AM on Jul-13-05

“The nature of the explosives appears to be military, which is very worrying,” said Superintendent Christophe Chaboud, the chief of the French anti-terrorist police, who was in London to help Scotland Just because this may have been the work of one or two or three men does not mean there is no infrastructure. A message to the terrorists. Why have these Mullahs been allowed to operate in London with impunity?
comment posted at 9:05 PM on Jul-11-05

This series of photographs largely taken from the P.O.V. of a sniper are interesting, almost like a real world recreation of a video game.
comment posted at 3:19 PM on Jul-11-05

Alarming Article on Security Procedures What is alarming is not necessarily that there is a "no-fly" list, or that we have security measures in response to a percieved terrorist threat. What's alarming is that there seems to be no accountabity or due process demanded from public officials. Without accountability, what's to stop public officials from acting arbitrarily, or for some political endeavor? (See the Plame case.) Combined with the Right's seeming position that the president is above the law in prosecuting a war, U.S. Supreme Court Case No. 03-1027 (Rumsfield v. Padilla) and Case No. 03-6696 (Hamdi v. Rumsfield), (see also the recent DOJ position papers), and for the 1st time I am becoming nervous that America might devolve into something like a police state.
comment posted at 12:11 PM on Jul-7-05

Judith Miller Goes to Jail...for not revealing her source. Opinions seem to differ on Miller's personal credibility and reporting history. But is that the issue?
comment posted at 12:25 PM on Jul-7-05

Major Incident on London Underground reported. Anyone have any further information?
comment posted at 6:24 AM on Jul-7-05
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Fuck Natalee Holloway
comment posted at 12:49 AM on Jul-7-05

Greenlighters are an emerging underground movement of sexually promiscuous teenagers, including bisexual, homosexual, and heterosexual members. Members of this movement wear a green polo shirt with the collar up, indicating that they are open to pretty much any sexual adventure. When someone comes up to them and puts the collar down, they are "collared" and will go with that person and do whatever sexual act they ask. Transfer of money is not usually involved. Some parent groups are starting to get involved - urging parents to go through their kids clothes and confiscate green shirts and polos. Supposedly this has been going on since mid-2004 and may be related to the "chavs" in Britain somehow.
comment posted at 8:35 PM on Jul-2-05

Fan Death is death resulting from hypothermia or lack of oxygen, caused by the vortex that is created by an electric fan, or air conditioning in closed rooms. Strangely, it only occurs in South Korea.
comment posted at 11:38 AM on Jul-1-05

Friday Flickr fireworks fun for the 4th!
comment posted at 11:35 AM on Jul-1-05

BMX Backflips. BMX Star. BMX Park. Enjoy.
comment posted at 9:40 AM on Jul-1-05

Recycling Grinds On in Minnesota even if the state doesn't have a budget; the Star Tribune is only too happy to tell us how it works with lots of interesting information. (I'm keeping an eye on the Star Tribune since the rightwing loonies are trying to tear it down over its support for Dick Durbin). Besides, it's a good paper. No, I don't work there and never did.
comment posted at 8:23 AM on Jul-1-05

Time to name names in Plame affair. Time Magazine has announced that they will hand over the full notes and emails of their reporter to federal investigators, revealing the identity of the White House official(s) who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA officer. Will Joseph Wilson finally get his frog march?
comment posted at 12:57 PM on Jun-30-05
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comment posted at 8:07 AM on Jul-1-05

As a follow up to this earlier thread, the BBC has just posted the final installment of their Beethoven Experience, free mp3s of Beethoven's symphonies 6 through 9. Get them while you can, they're only up for a week (Number 6 goes down on Monday).
comment posted at 12:58 PM on Jun-30-05

Why does the National Council of Churches hate America? The NCC -- a coalition of 36 Christian denominations -- makes a firm statement against the war in Iraq: "This year our nation is at war as we observe the 4th of July, a day that honors those founders who spoke out for independence from tyranny. Today in Iraq a cruel dictator has been deposed, yet the suffering of the Iraqi people continues. Mandated elections have been held, yet the future of Iraq remains as uncertain as ever. Day by day the cost of this war for the United States, for Iraq, for peace grows clearer. No weapons of mass destruction have been found; no link to the attacks on September 11, 2001 has been shown. It has become clear that the rationale for invasion was at best a tragic mistake, at worst a clever deception." Mainstream Christians are starting to take back Christianity from the theocrats.
comment posted at 1:13 PM on Jun-30-05

Roger Moore's fantabulous eyebrows
comment posted at 9:34 AM on Jun-27-05

The Supreme Court broadly expanded eminent domain in Kelo V. New London last Thursday. The city of Freeport, TX wasted no time. City attorneys are preparing legal documents to seize three pieces of waterfront property from two seafood companies for construction of an $8 million private boat marina.

Coming to a city near you soon?
comment posted at 7:06 AM on Jun-27-05
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comment posted at 9:13 PM on Jun-27-05

US acknowledges torture at Guantanamo; in Iraq, Afghanistan (Forbes) GENEVA (AFX) - Washington has, for the first time, acknowledged to the United Nations that prisoners have been tortured at US detention centres in Guantanamo Bay, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq... So what happens to us now?
comment posted at 11:14 AM on Jun-25-05

Operation Yellow Elephant is an attempt to shame young Republicans into enlisting in order to prove their commitment to their leaders' military objectives.
comment posted at 10:17 AM on Jun-24-05

Fernando Botero on Abu Ghraib Fernando Botero, the Colombian artist best-known for his odd and cute depictions of fleshy men and women, has just opened an exhibition in Rome featuring his own interpretations of the Abu Ghraib abuses. Expect to be shocked all over again - which is apparently exactly what he wants. (Link in Spanish).
comment posted at 9:03 PM on Jun-21-05

Guantanamo Defended. DoD explaining the value of the intelligence coming out of Guantanamo using the specific case of Mohamed al Kahtani as an example. (via cryptome)
comment posted at 2:41 PM on Jun-20-05

Wal-Mart Institutes "availability requirement" Imagine your boss (a guy named 'Knuckles') comes to you and tells you you need to be available to work anytime between 7:00am and 11:00pm, 7 days a week. Oh, and if you can't be available, you'll be fired. This should be expected in a slave labour camp, but couldn't exist in the pride of Corporate America, could it? Updated during preview: Whoops, perhaps the bad press caused a flip-flop.
comment posted at 1:44 PM on Jun-20-05

GoDaddy.com condones torture. One of the most important assets we are using to protect Americans both at home and abroad is our military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- “Gitmo.” (Blog posting from founder Bob Parson's highlighted on the front page of GoDaddy.com) [update: recanted]
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Destroyed. No, annihilated
Let the countdown to the fall of the Bush administration begin! I wanted to sum it up. But oh, just read it!
comment posted at 5:54 AM on Jun-20-05

Never use a debit card to pay at the pump: "Each day millions of Americans use their debit card at gas stations to "pay at the pump." What you probably do not know is gas stations have the right to overcharge you a certain amount to ensure they get their money. Each gas station decides how much to overcharge and hold on your account. Some put a $75 or $100 hold on the account while others only hold $5 or $10. But, these stations also decide how long to hold that money. Some hold the money for up to three days. . ." How is this even legal? Am I the last schmuck in the U.S. to find out about this? I just found out that Sam's Club (for example) charges $50 and deposits your change three days later.
comment posted at 6:23 AM on Jun-20-05
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The 'Captain' and his buddies have been stuck with the 'Downing Street Memos' that have to be dealt with on the merits of what they say because no one has questioned their validity. Not anymore. What do you do when you need a miracle? Go back to what has worked in the past and scrutinize the paper and typeface .
comment posted at 6:14 AM on Jun-20-05
comment posted at 9:12 AM on Jun-20-05

American's censored Nagasaki A-bomb report unearthed after 60 years: The first reporter to reach Nagasaki following the August 1945 “Fat Man” atomic attack had his newspaper stories censored and banned by US General Douglas MacArthur’s office. The reporter, George Weller, who worked for the (defunct) Chicago Daily News, was prevented from reporting on a mysterious “Disease X” out of fear that the stories of radiation poisoning would horrify the world and shift public attitudes regarding the bomb.

Weller died two years ago. Carbons of the articles were discovered by his son, Anthony.

Four of them were published today for the first time by the Tokyo daily Mainichi Shimbun, which purchased them from Anthony Weller.
comment posted at 9:48 AM on Jun-17-05

"She's been a republican for a couple of days," and appears to be pretty happy with the new title. Wonder how the right-wing folks who put dubya in office [again] feel about the new addition to their political family?
comment posted at 9:56 AM on Jun-15-05

A distinction between “old” and “new” wars is vital. “Old wars” are wars between states where the aim is the military capture of territory and the decisive encounter is battle between armed forces. “New wars”, in contrast, take place in the context of failing states. They are wars fought by networks of state and non-state actors, where battles are rare and violence is directed mainly against civilians, and which are characterised by a new type of political economy that combines extremist politics and criminality... I argue in this article that the United States viewed its invasion of Iraq as an updated version of “old war” that made use of new technology. The US failure to understand the reality on the ground in Iraq and the tendency to impose its own view of what war should be like is immensely dangerous and carries the risk of being self-perpetuating. It does not have to be this way.
Iraq: the wrong war - Mary Kaldor writes of what was happening in pre-invasion Iraq, what happened thereafter and what the alternatives were. Well, there is always Exit strategy: Civil war. And on that, note this: Kurdish Officials Sanction Abductions in Kirkuk--a city from which, I am afraid, we will hear more and more as time goes by.
comment posted at 9:21 AM on Jun-15-05

How do you attack the monster that is hype/commersialism/advertising, a monster that turns every rebellion into a profitable fashion? The preferred answer seems to be: with a practical joke. Practical jokes as media criticism is a current trend in art and documentary movies. An early example is Michael Moore's TV Nation. But there's always the bigger prank. Two Czech filmmakers made a huge advertising campaign for the opening of a new supermarket which didn't exist. 3,000 people showed up on an empty field. This is their story. Thanks, dabitch!
comment posted at 10:03 AM on Jun-15-05

In Congo, 1,000 die per day: Why isn't it a media story? "A media story is currently developing around the Congo - focusing, paradoxically, on how the conflict is not a media story." A journalist's-eye view of a story approaching the tipping-point towards widespread media coverage.
comment posted at 10:00 AM on Jun-15-05
comment posted at 5:57 AM on Jun-16-05

Debt relief cannot come too soon for Swaziland's King Mswati III who took an 18-year-old former Miss Teen Swaziland finalist as his 12th wife during the weekend, barely two weeks after marrying his 11th. Swaziland the smallest country in Africa ranked 137 on the UN's Human Development Report also has one of the world's highest AIDS rates with 40% of the adult population infected with HIV. Perhaps Bono, who recently complained that the corruption is just an excuse for inaction, will send some condoms as a wedding gift.
comment posted at 10:13 AM on Jun-13-05

Billboards by Ron English.
comment posted at 10:14 AM on Jun-13-05

Republican Congressman Pete Sessions from Texas introduced a bill that would make all free, public, municipal WiFi illegal. Sessions, as it turns out, is a big fat recipient of SBC funds. Why stop there? Should we privatize highways as well? How about subways? Glad the liberal media is all over this one. Here are a couple of links: Original post on DailyKos, An informative editorial from the Fort Wayne paper
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comment posted at 7:58 PM on Jun-9-05