With $6,000 and a laptop computer, three kids from upstate New York make a documentary about 9/11 that raises a lot of questions about what we've been told so far by our government and the media.
Information Liberation has scans of the Vanity Fair article but damn Sam, buy the issue on the newsstand if you can to support Vanity Fair for having the courage to publish the story.
STATE SENATOR BILL NAPOLI: "A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life."
This last verse from the Leonard Cohen song Joan of Arc seemed to resonate with me while I thought about the life and death of Tom Fox this morning.
It was deep into his fiery heart
He took the dust of Joan of Arc,
And then she clearly understood
If he was fire, oh then she must be wood.
I saw her wince, I saw her cry,
I saw the glory in her eye.
Myself I long for love and light,
But must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?
My prayers are with Tom Fox, his family and friends and with those Tom tried to help. May God bless you and comfort you. May the true spirit of Jesus touch all of our hearts and may we work in whatever small ways we can to make this a better world.
Today we finally cancelled our directv. No more cable tv, no more sending $50/month to Rupert Murdoch, no more inane television shows and commercials. It feels great
We've been meaning to do this for a long time now. We rarely ever watch tv. I was fond of a couple of shows on TV Land and Comedy Central but that certainly isn't worth the price. A price which according to the Harvard Political Review is pretty high:
Murdoch even controls satellite dishes worldwide through his ownership of DirecTV. His programming extends from "American Idol" to the Superbowl, reaching hundreds of millions of Americans every day. According to BusinessWeek, as many as one in five American homes at any given time is tuned into a show Murdoch has either produced or delivered through his $35 billion global media empire.
According to Forbes magazine Rupert Murdoch is the 27th richest person in America. I don't think he is going to miss our $50 a month, but at least we won't be contributing any more to his bank account.
Way to go Tom Tancredo, you win the asshole of the week award. Thanks for making the world a little less safe for all of us.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican, was asked on a radio talk show Friday how the United States should respond if terrorists struck several of its cities with nuclear weapons.
"Well, what if you said something like _ if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.
When host Pat Campbell of WFLA-AM in Orlando, Fla. asked if he meant "bombing Mecca," the congressman responded: "Yeah."
Let's see, there are approximately 1.2 Billion Muslims in the world and this guy is hell-bent on pissing every last one of them off. We go from a small handful of extremists who hate Americans to over a billion people who want to kick our asses. I wonder if this guy likes to play with lit matches and gasoline for kicks.
btw Tom, there are currently around 295,734,134 Americans according to the CIA. Now you do the math and figure out who comes out on the losing end of your idiotic scheme. Nice move idiot boy.
Let's hope we don't get stuck with this yahoo as our next president:
Bush agrees to end Schiavo inquiry
Gov. Jeb Bush agreed to close an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the collapse of Terri Schiavo after a state prosecutor said there is no evidence of any crime.
BY GARY FINEOUT
TALLAHASSEE -The final chapter in the life, and death, of Terri Schiavo may have finally closed Thursday when Gov. Jeb Bush agreed to drop any further investigation into why Schiavo collapsed 15 years ago.Bush made his decision after a state prosecutor in St. Petersburg concluded there was no evidence to suggest that a crime caused Schiavo's heart to stop beating Feb. 25, 1990 or that there was enough evidence to suggest that her husband, Michael Schiavo, delayed calling for emergency help.
"I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims, did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaida. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11, 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.
"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong. And 100,000 people paid with their lives -- 1,600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies, 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a
pack of lies."
I was thinking earlier today that we need someone with some backbone and a conscious to come along and stand up to this Republican spin machine. If only we had someone like this in our government who would do this instead of needing a Brit to say what our politicians are too afraid to say.
I've come across a lot of disturbing information lately about the Religious Right and their plans for the future of this country. Much of it is so disturbing that I want to believe it is a hoax but after reading this piece by Bill Moyers I'm starting to believe it may be true:
There is a lot to read and digest there but of particular interest are the sections: Taking Over the Republican Party, Schools, and The Texas 2004 GOP Platform. The religious nuts are working in concert with the just plain old greedy conservative nuts like the folks at the Heritage Foundation and a number of other think tanks to form an unholy alliance determined to send us back to the Middle Ages.
So this morning George Bush is in Raleigh which is an hour's drive from here. MoveOn is having a protest there starting at 8:00 this morning. I woke up at 5:00. So why am I sitting here? Why does it feel so futile to try to fight these people?
I have to wonder; is this what God wants? Does he want what these people want? Does he want to get it through lies and deceit and manipulation? Does he want to get it on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable? Is he a God of Vengeance as in the Old Testament, or a God of Love as in the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels?
I don't know how we are going to get out of this mess, but I don't think my going to Raleigh this morning is going to make the difference. I don't think "framing" is going to make the difference. I think we need something much more powerful on our side. I want to believe that God and justice and karma and liberty and common decency are on our side and that somehow we will make this a better world for our children in the long run.
