Lockstep!

More than just Integrity worship.
I heard some of the upcoming releases from Lockstep tonight and was mighty impressed. They combine the sound of Integrity with a different and nuanced atmosphere and visions of society's collapse.

They play in SF this Friday, Dec. 4th.


MYSPACE

BLOG

2 SONGS

Thor movie update

I originally intended to keep updating about the Thor film but never really did beyond naming the actors who play Odin, Loki, and Thor.

In a move I can't say I support Anthony Hopkins is cast as Odin instead of Brian Blessed.
Other casting:
Stuart Townsend as Fandral The Dashing
Ray Stevenson as Volstagg the Valiant
(hhhmmm...?)
Tadanobu Asano as Hogun
Idris Elba as Heimdall
(I'm sorry... If that is for real, it is ridiculous. Elba, uh, doesn't look too Norse.)
Jaimie Alexander as Sif
and of course Natalie Portman as Jane Foster

Rumor is that Thor apparently starts with six warriors in Asgard: Thor, Loki, the Warriors Three and Sif. Loki, Odin's adopted son, usurps the throne and Thor is cast down to Earth. It supposedly ends with a battle between Thor and Loki. Loki escapes and goes on to be featured in The Avengers film.
It is also being reported that the alter ego of Donald Blake will NOT appear in the film (yay!).

Thor is also rumored to feature an appearance by Hawkeye.

I would like to start a fan drive to get Robert Plant in the film!

How Rich Are You?

Global Rich List allows you to enter how much you make and compare that in the context of the entire world.
It is an interesting thing to do since we view our wealth in terms of our peers or our country or whatever group we understand the context of.

Get Ready For The Apocalypse

My favorite sci-fi blog, io9, has created a list of How To Make Yourself Apocalypse Ready.
-Learn To Make Fire.
-Build a Team.
-Get a Gun. Learn to Use It.
-Stockpile
-Learn a Marketable Skill.

Here's the US Government's list
Here is Popular Mechanics' list.

Next April 15th

why not?

Review: The Road (film)

NO MOVIE SPOILERS



The Road may be my favorite novel (I don't read much fiction). I have been very excited for the film's release to provide an added visual to the horrific post-civilization world envisioned by Cormac McCarthy. The film is as loyal to the book as is possible. The main problem with the movie is that a book centered so much on one character's internal dialogue is difficult (or impossible) to translate to film. It loses a lot of the nuances that fuel the atmosphere.

I was pleased with the film overall... until I realized some of the key scenes left out of it. (Some were even shot and left out.) The Road does include some of the anxious and powerful scenes that make the book so special. I won't mention which ones so as to not give anything away. However, what I consider to be a scene from the book that captures all of the potential horrors awaiting the boy and his Papa was not in the film. Where was the marching army with slaves, impregnated birthing slaves, and makeshift weaponry?! The way McCarthy describes that army in the book was ominous and showed what could become of the boy if he was not careful.

The movie still did provide some cool visuals to accompany the book. On its own, it cannot carry the weight of the book... and perhaps it is unfair to expect a film to do so.
Without having read the book, I suspect the film would be an interesting tale of a man and his son's survival but still less a picture of the dystopian world they are surviving in and that was the goal of the director.

Thanks giving/taking

Thanksgiving always has two inseparable components to me.
With the holiday's history and traditions, it is intrinsically linked to TAKING: genocide, racism, imperialism, waste, consumption, subjegation, and the deaths of turkeys (as well as pigs and countless other animals).
As the name can and should reference, it is also about GIVING thanks to all the wonderful things in our lives.

It is crucial for all of us to create new traditions with family and friends. Move forward with positive alternatives to the dead past.
We also cannot forget that history. So many of our privileges stand on top of the aforementioned taking. Do not forget the indigenous people of North America or the nightmare of Manifest Destiny. Don't fall for the comfort of consumption.

Celebrate all that you are thankful for with those who you are thankful for. Celebrate family however you define it.
_____

A tradition of ours is Farm Sanctuary's annual Celebration For The Turkeys.
There is no substitute for witnessing the individual character of friendly cows, and goats firsthand. It is so special to hand feed a hungry turkey whose breathing is odd from a beak cut off by agribusiness.

Power of Occupations

George Ciccariello-Maher wrote an extensive and very insightful article on the recent UC occupations for CounterPunch.

What we are up against is the privatization of public education. It is being disguised by the state and UC Regents as crisis-imposed budget cuts (which is completely untrue).


“get ready for the beatdown.”
UC Berkeley has a militarized atmosphere and students are being vindictively attacked and charged by not only UC Police but also Oakland PD.


The real allies of the Regents, police, and the privatization of the University have shown themselves to be the liberal opportunists / wanna-be politicians among the student body.
George Lakoff was heard lying repeatedly to the occupiers, insisting that there had been no police violence, no rubber bullets, and no injuries outside the building, all in an effort to manipulate those inside into abandoning the occupation.
Cinthia Flores at UCLA is another junior politician bent on control over justice.
These supposed "mediators", in focusing their attention on calming crowds outside and encouraging the occupiers to leave, have effectively performed a “policing function” that protected the administration from the protesters. They do the job of the state.


Occupation takes power and immediately destroys its concentrated form. Beware of bureaucrats, occupy everything!

"War of National Resistance"

What would happen if they started speaking the truth. Well, former CIA agent Robert Bear (allied with the liberal progressive Brave New Foundation) is speaking truth from a pretty visible platform.
Robert Bear says that what the U.S. faces when it comes to the Afghan insurgency isn't terrorism, but a war of national resistance.

Links: What's up?

-Rupert Murdoch is at war with the internet.
He thinks people are still going to pay for news.

-Crippled Youth Reunion!
Yep, another reunion and this one is the proto-Youth Of Today gang... it is 21+.


-FIFA is turning a blind eye to MLS fucking over the players.
Don Garber is a douchebag and trying to frame the argument as if we should feel sorry for the owners and not for the pitifully paid players.

-Anarchist Andy Hurley is part of a new douche-metal band with Scott Ian.
I thought Scott Ian only did VH1 shows.

-Salinas, CA has brought in the U.S. military to apply counter-insurgency techniques against gangs.

-Delicious hummus brand, Sabra, is down with the Zionist IDF. Boycott them fuckers!
Victoria's Secret is also made with cotton from stolen Palestinian land!

Too Easy. Too Easy

RSL 2009 MLS Cup

Real Salt Lake won the MLS Cup!

I am so so so happy that they won it over LA Galaxy. (MLS can't bend enough rules to give LA the damn title.)
RSL's Nick Rimando is a top dude. He is Pinoy and down with Rancid so thumbs up.
(And to top it off- Although I do not consider myself an RSL supporter, I do get a kick outta the fact that their top notch stadium is built on the area I hung out as a teenager.)

However, this clearly illustrates why playoffs are stupid.
RSL won only two games in the final two months of the season and finishing the season with a losing record, becoming the fourth team to finish the season below .500 and win the MLS Cup.
_____

I <3 Eric Wynalda

Good Show(s)

Go to this:


...or, go to this mindblowing fest

Vampires Are Cool

Twilight is not.

BART Pig breaks glass with your head

ACAB


Listen to that tool swinging from the cop's balls! haha

Paula Deen Karma

Wrap up shit I hate like Southern hucksterism, fat rich Americans, and eating animals and you have Paula Deen just like she wraps up butter, bacon, and ham for a midnight snack.

She got hit in the face by a ham. It is funny.

WATCH HERE

Gitmo Rehabilitation?

There's a problem when you round up a punch of people and indefinitely throw them in a prison camp. You can't hold them all forever and what happens when you let them go?
Rehabilitation is something that has NEVER been discussed in regards to the Guantanamo Bay prisoners. These men have been rounded up secretly from all over the globe, detained without explanation, and tortured. That ought to piss anyone off and probably drive a decent amount of them right into the struggle against the United States.

Yemen is now faced with something interesting. The US has demanded that if Yemen does not build a rehabilitation center where former detainees can be "coached" to abandon all forms of radical ideology, it will transfer the men to Saudi Arabia.

Mehserle murder trial to be moved to L.A.

The former BART pig, Meherle, accused of murdering unarmed Oscar Grant early New Year's Day will be tried in Los Angeles County.

WTF?!?!
LA?! You gotta be kidding me!

Los Angeles County's demographics differ in some significant ways from those of Alameda County.

Occupy! Update

After I composed the entry below, I went to dinner. By the time I returned, it seemed like the situation in Berkeley had changed for the worse.

Follow here: http://twitter.com/UCBprotest

Courtesy Baader Brains:

Wheeler Hall occupation news from two hours ago via Chris: Police turned off campus wireless.

From Geo: "Berkeley PD just smashed a grad students finger into bits. Her hand was just resting on a barricade. Reconstructive surgery. The police response has been insane."

UC Berkeley PD train other UC PD's. From "pain compliance techniques" (torture) to "psychological policing" (intimidation techniques etc). They are to be taken seriously but in the end, they are Paper Tigers!

he mainstream news is totaly fucking up by not showing this at top stories...i thought the news was on our side?

all students inside (41) have now been arrested. people outside are attempting to stop the police from removing them from campus

This page is an aggregation of tweets that include the following keywords: #occupyca, #ucregents, #ucstrike, #ucdavis, #ucwalkout2, #kerroccupation, #ucbprotest.




click here for bullshit corporate coverage

Student protest/struggle is a sea of liberalism and pressure relief. Turn it into a world of radicalism!

Occupy!

I will admit to not initially paying as much attention to the current student struggles as they may have warranted. Often times, student struggle is a progressive ghetto with a fast track to bourgeois liberalism.


Some very exciting and unprecedented things are happening in the entire UC system and world in relation to radical student struggle against the privatization of education as well as capital in general.

The main tactics implored are demand-less student, faculty, and worker occupations of spaces on campus.
These occupations have either looked like the ones at the New School in New York City in the spring and the UCSC Graduate student commons occupation on Sept 24th (i.e. a hard locked down occupation by a smaller number of people) or the "european style soft occupation" like the ones blooming all through out Europe right now - a mass number of people literally taking over a space, keeping the doors open and free flowing, but always having enough people inside so it cannot be broken up.

This method of direct action has become exactly what it should be: a necessary component of a bigger struggle, realized and actualized by a large not necessarily radical majority.
_____


During the UC Berkeley Strike, Doug Gilbert was targeted specifically as an anarchist.
Upon leaving the rally, police on bicycles followed him down Telegraph Avenue. Inside of a local restaurant, police violently confronted two comrades, before proceeding to the back of the establishment and arresting Doug while in the restroom. Berkeley CopWatch filmed the arrest. When they asked police what this comrade was being arrested for, the pigs responded “he can tell you later.”
One of the supposed progressive student organizers pointed him out to the UC Police.
Doug G., is now sitting in jail with two felony charges and $15,000 bail for "inciting a riot".

_____

A major issue regarding our educational system is what the universities do with tuition money. Instead of putting
it towards instruction, they use tuition as collateral bonds for construction projects and as a way to get really good interest rates.


Major thanks go out to Bryan for all the info and links. Stay strong!

Global Metal

12 things I learned from watching Global Metal:

-aparently youth need to rebel (for or against what is unclear)
-metal is an integral part of youth rebellion
-zionism rules
-you should be scared of muslims
-filmmaker, Sam Dunn, looks like a primordial dwarf
-Lars really regrets the Napster fiasco that made Metallica look like dinosaurs
-Iron Maiden are the best metal band
-'Fear Of The Dark' is best Maiden song
-Arab governments hate metal and make you sit down to listen to Slayer
-Visual Kei is not metal
-heavy metal = modernization = good
-muslims hate metal

Coming Soon: Vegan Filipino Food

No Worries already makes vegan Filipino food. Come April 2010, Jay-Ar and No Worries will be serving food daily at Jack London Square Market in Oakland!

Finally!!

God Delusion

There is a direct correlation to a society that respects religion and a society where people argue by shouting one insult over and over as if that makes it right/dominant (rather than an explanation or attention to truth/history)

There is a direct correlation to a society that respects religion and a society where people dismiss complex answers for easy ones.

Links: Lazy Blogging

-CNN did a report on the rise/return of militias
(Militias are so 90's. What is the tipping point that will put such militias into action?)

-15 Dumbest Superhero retcons in comics.
(I don't think I can ever accept the Wolverine/Lupine shit.)


-The View <3's>
(Why are such views accepted from what is supposed to be the voice of American women?!)

-Take Back The Horns


-More People Are Stealing
"Though most thieves rationalize their acts, the current situation has many people feeling the entire system is broken, that politicians are too corrupt or inept to fix it, and that there's nothing wrong with stealing from these big companies and fancy stores that — the thinking goes — are themselves making out like thieves,"

-Radical lawyer Lynne Stewart has been ordered to prepare herself to surrender and enter prison.
What happens if the defense lawyers themselves face prison for representing government-targeted clients?

-What if we did as much to prevent rape as we do to prevent swine flu?
...the federal government urging colleges to stop the epidemic of rape by developing protocols for quarantining students who have tried to use drugs or alcohol to incapacitate women who would otherwise not consent to sex. Or university officials directing students to stay off campus or out of public areas until they are free of the belief that they are entitled to sex any time they want...

links

Lazy blogging aka links:

-The Indian Naxalites' Bandh tactic: Global Guerrilla describes, "The Bandh is simply the application of systems disruption to completely "take down" a locality for a set period of time (measured in days) in order to attain coercive control."
Naxalite Rage Site

-Again Global Guerrilla takes a look at what happens to struggle when we have one global economic model and nation states become outdated: The US, GLOBALIZATION and the RED QUEEN
(The comments get really odd.)

-Once again, the rightwing disregards history or truth: This article begins by differentiating between Communism and Nazis but then spends most of the writing decrying Nazis as socialists (like Obama). It openly worries about gender equality, equal standard of living, and is all around great for laughs.
"...communists were working their way against the U.S. starting in Nicaragua, Honduras, and eventually with an eye to attack the U.S. through Mexico. The woman told her they would do this by getting massive numbers of illegals into the U.S. and pushing the sanctuary movement. Werthmann said when she saw illegal immigrant marches in California carrying the Mexican flag and trampling the American flag, she knew this was actually happening.

“Keep your guns,” said Werthmann. “And buy more guns. And make sure you have plenty of ammunition.”

-RAIM Denver confronted Tea Baggers and it made for an interesting account.

Lou Dobbs on Italian Fascism

Discuss:


He has a point.
Stop supporting private industry and wealth!
Start supporting social services for the people!
(Somehow I doubt that is what Dobbs meant.)

Untouchable Force Organization

Let's take a step away from overt politics as I was twice reminded in the past 24 hours how amazing UTFO were.

Catholic Church: Fuck the Poor and the Gays!

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington DC issued an ultimatum saying that it will end the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law.

Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

The Catholic Church hates gays so much they are going to fuck over thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

V (episode 2) Critique

read my review of V's pilot episode HERE

At this point, I am still a fan of the V remake and do intend to continue watching (even after the upcoming forced 4 month hiatus).

V is written for idiots. To be fair, most television is. Here are some issues that bothered me:

-I was worried about the introduction of Visitor "drones" in the first episode and especially after their use in espionage in the 2nd episode. With roaming technology such as this, it seems that the Visitors would have such an upper hand against any resistance nearly impossible. (That is not to say that technology is superior to the will of the people.) However, I guess with all the space travel and human disguises, the Visitors are still lacking in photo/video technology so the "drones" are not as useful as I thought. WTF?!

-My biggest gripe about the show is how easily Father Jack and Eric are able to sneak around the Visitors/FBI. I got news for you viewers: The US government, even unaided by alien technology, can track you via satellite/GPS, has CCTV outside their headquarters, and probably can read lies even better than I can through poor acting.

Maybe the Visitors/FBI are allowing Father Jack and Erica to go about their resistance building in order to track them. Even if that was the case, however, X is an FBI agent and would be aware that casually talking to someone who was caught on tape at a hot location and has given information to the Feds right outside of FBI HQ might be a little fuckin suspicious.
The audience is left with only one option: The FBI doesn't do that. We are indirectly made to believe that our government has no interest in tracking its good citizens. Anyone who is familiar with security culture or the US government's actions throughout history and up to today, knows this is not the case.

At least when naive Erica called 911, it was immediately tracked by the Visitors.

Timing Makes All The Difference

Pretend it is 2000 and a band combines Hot Hot Heat and The Make Up then adds guitar. That woulda been pretty cool, huh?

Now, let's say it is 2009 and a band takes that same combination gets marketed by Pete Wentz and dresses like a bastard child of "hipster emo" with a clever "wiggerish" baseball cap. Not good.

Cobra Starship - Church Of Hot Addiction
by COBRASTARSHIP

See. Timing can make all the difference.

(Please note: comparing Cobra Starship to musical acts I like in a time period I enjoyed does not say that transporting them to that era would instantly make them cool.)

I'm not surprised

Legality shmegality.
Did you know abortions are almost impossible to get?

FREE ABORTIONS ON DEMAND!

Jeremy Piven Has Boobs

Douchelord Jeremy Piven has man-boobs. So, he blamed it on drinking soy milk.


Bullshit.
(no link because the internet is telling me soy is harmful and Obama is a socialist)

Maybe Piven ought to hang out with this retard.

Hit Squads

U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations University suggests the American government should set up something like a “National Manhunting Agency."

You can bet that if the US government is publicly floating the idea of hit squads, they are already in action.

Movies I Won't Be Seeing

The Killer In Me
Starring Casey Affleck and Jessica Alba

The trailer alone shows a brutal rape that, in typical bizarro style, ends with the woman giving in and enjoying the rape. The message is that rape is ok because the woman must really want it.
Affleck's character engages in BDSM and it is presented as a natural extension of his murderous ways. The message here is that BDSM is not about consent but actual power and subjegation for deviants.

Doghouse
Starring Danny Dyer, who is glad just to get a film role

This film seems to blatantly glamorizes misogyny.
All women are MAN-eating/hating zombies and must be brutally killed.

With that being said, I will note that the film's writer had this to say:
The real genesis for Doghouse was because I'd been getting a lot of hassle for writing female lead characters all the time especially from my Hollywood contacts. They kept saying to me ‘we don't want to sell these female leads, write something with a male lead' and I kept telling them ‘I don't want to do that' because I like strong women. But while I was sitting there with my girlfriend, who was ill at the time with a stomach bug; she looked like a zombie! She basically dared me to try and write something with guys so I said I could only do it if I really ripped the piss out of them and did it as a satire. So I was sitting there thinking ‘You look kind of freaky, you'd make a good villain.' She suggested: ‘Why don't you do a girls vs guys kind of thing?'

If your audience misses the irony or takes this film at face value as a celebration of laddism, then what they're going to see is the opposite of what it's really about, so yes it was a concern.

hhmmmm... OK, maybe I would see Doghouse.

How Not To Report On Soccer

Recently, ESPN's hackjob coverage of some brutal fouls not called by the ref in a match between BYU and New Mexico' s womens teams has made its viral way around the internet.

First of all that ESPN reporter obviously doesn't know enough about soccer to know that maybe half of the moves by Lambert are not atypical of the beautiful game. Of course, he could also just be shocked to see women acting aggressive. So, instead of ESPN reporting on the sport or the game, it is turned into some voyeuristic "cat fight" crap. Then, Julie Foudy is brought on, for only a second, to validate the sexist perspective of the segment.

Actions have been taken against the players involved AFTER THE FACT! As anyone with any interest in soccer knows from the recent Eduardo incident, retroactive punishment if practically unheard of.

Fuck you ESPN!
Report on soccer.

contact ESPN here


Jennifer Doyle of From A Left Wing has a great breakdown of the report as well.

RightWing Anti-Civ

I can't remember how but I stumbled upon a rightwing blog dedicated to the so-called "Threepers" or "Three Percenters" or "Oath Keepers" who are military or ex-military men preparing to lead a vanguardist pseudo-focoist insurgency against the US government (more-or-less).

The post that caught my interest was about post-civilization collapse and survival.
READ IT HERE

He starts by suggesting "the "survivalist community" is vastly underestimating the impact that other humans are going to have on their plans."
I would say that anti-civ anarchists underestimate a collapse to the point of romanticized naivete.

In a total collapse scenario without immediate restoration of the economy, basically everyone who lives in a city is doomed unless they can take over some kind of farm land.

In the USA, every one of them (or at least the vast majority) will be armed with firearms. The ones currently without firearms will obtain them by any means necessary including looting government armories.
I think this is important to highlight because if shit goes down anarchists and radicals are light years behind the right on arms and training. We need to make ground in this area.

Anyone who plans to hold out against that kind of threat is delusional.
In other words, we are not going to be able to act in an isolationist fashion and just ignore those forces wishing to take advantage or enforce "law."

Then this author takes an interesting turn.
Without central authority, people don't just starve and go away. They form their own polities

A much better approach is to be an integral part of the community and use the combined resources of the community to defend all of your resources together. This would be much easier if a high percentage of the community were like minded folks who were committed to sharing and cooperating.
It sounds like what he is actually advocating is anti-authoritarian socialism!

The section entitled "Finding a Mineshaft or a Gemeinschaft" is interesting. In it, he discusses the importance of community and how it is nearly impossible in metropolitan areas.
He even discusses the importance of keeping a defensive community without resorting to xenophobia.

It devolves into pure hilarity as the author has to go into great detail to convince his readers that charity is ok... because the Bible says so! ha ha

I also recommend reading the comments. Some of them are very insightful while others are pure comedy.

I post all this not so much to poke fun at this borderline fascist. I don't post this to be cruel to anti-civ anarchists. I post this because if we radicals remain in our intellectual ghettos, we miss the big picture. We can learn from this.

Friday. 11/6/09

A lot of art going on!

Hatch Gallery Oakland
New work by Derek Weisberg & James Kirkpatrick

Opening 5-10pm
Derek is not only one of my favorite 3D artists, he is a cool dude. Support!

Shooting Gallery SF
Art For The House: Urban Art auction to benefit the Central City Hospitality House
Select artists include: Greg Gossel, Van Arno, KMNDZ, Fanee, Ramblin Worker, Bryan Schnelle, and Joshua Petker.
6-10pm

Skulls Press SF
Mike Giant's Las Cholas de Frisco

6-9pm
I love Cholas... and my friend, Kristafawn, is one of the models.

Clone Wars

If in 1998, George Lucas announced a Clone Wars cartoon instead of ever making Episodes 1-3, I would have been almost equally hyped.
Do you think George Lucas watches the finished episodes of the current Clone Wars TV series? If so, do you think he realizes how superior it is to practically any combination of Episodes 1-3?

Clone Wars episode Landing At Point Rain turned it all up a notch.
The episode shows how after Episode 2, Geonosis didn't remain in the pockets of The Republic. The retaking of the planet by Republican troops plays out like a WW2 epic (of which I understand Lucas is a fan). For an animated Star Wars television show, I was a little surprised how brutal it was. We have seen death on the show before but in this episode of war, we see Republican troops kill countless Geonosians. They get slashed in half by lightsabers, shot by clone troopers, and burnt alive with flamethrowers. Are we to not think of Geonosians as equal beings because they are insect-like? Even the Clone Troopers constantly refer to them as "bugs" (and the Jedi's raise no objection).
The episode is even bookended with Anakin and Ahsoka comparing how many people they killed.

Every week I am impressed with this show.

I want an action figure or maquette of every type of Trooper.

PETA <3's Glenn Beck

I despise fascist leader Glenn Beck and I have almost nothing but contempt for PETA.
It comes as no surprise to me that PETA is allowing Beck to use them to exploit Al Gore. I can't call it a team up because it is on Beck's show, he is the shot caller, and PETA will do anything at all for publicity. (I should also note that I hate Al Gore too.)


Of course, Beck can't even get this right! He commends PETA and NRA as consistent. Neither of them are at all.
PETA preaches animal rights and pumps tons of money into promoting more efficient ways to kill animals for meat. The NRA preaches gun rights and spends most of its energy on diverting blame from gun owners onto anyone else they can (primarily Liberals and people of color). (I will also note that I have, at different times, been a member of both organizations.)

Watching Beck's snide facial expressions as he is listening to Newkirk makes me wanna punch him.
I also love how he acts like it is somewhow superior to do nothing at all and not care than it is to do something albeit halfway.
Nice touch adding a hint of racism with the Indiana Jones clip.

Goldstone

The United Nations General Assembly is debating a UN-sponsored report which says Israel committed war crimes during its military assault on the Gaza Strip.

Not surprising, the US House of Representatives has rejected the report as "irredeemably biased."

The report accused Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group, which has de facto control of Gaza, of war crimes during the 22-day conflict in December and January.
1,400 Palestinians - many of them women and children - were killed.
13 Israelis, including three civilians, were also killed, Israel has said.

The report called for the cases to be referred to the ICC in The Hague if Israel and Hamas do not investigate the war crimes allegations against them within six months.
Hamas has agreed to hold such an investigation, but Israel has not.

GOLDSTONE:
These attacks amounted to reprisals and collective punishment, and constitute war crimes.

I saw the destruction of the only flour-producing factory in Gaza. I saw fields plowed up by Israeli tank bulldozers. I saw chicken farms, for egg production, completely destroyed. Tens of thousands of chickens killed.

if they attack a mosque or attack a factory, and over 200 factories were bombed, there's just no basis to ascribe that to error. That must be intentional.

the bulldozing of agricultural fields... the only flour-producing factory, the water supply facilities of Gaza, the sanitation facilities, which caused an overflow of filth and muck into well over a square kilometer of land.

I don't accept that the destruction of the food infrastructure is necessary to fight terrorism from Gaza.

we've found that the only logical reason is collective punishment against the people of Gaza for voting into power Hamas

I think they were telling the people of Gaza that if you support Hamas, this is what we're going to do to you.

V: Pilot: Review

When the original V mini-series came out, I was 8 years old. It had everything I loved. I would fight with my parents about having to go to Cub Scouts and miss the show. I was uncertain about a remake. My main reservation is that we now know the secret that these "visitors" are human eating reptiles (assuming that is kept by the new series). However, I am always up for a good sci fi drama on TV.

I just recently learned that V was originally not supposed to be about reptile aliens. It was written by Kenny Johnson about fascists taking over the USA. Unfortunately, NBC didn't think Americans would understand that. Looking back on the original series, the fascist undertones make perfect sense.



I really enjoyed the new V pilot episode. Maybe my vision of the original show is clouded by 15 years but the new series seemed smarter. So far, the show has already written in key points to embed the sudden appearance by the visitors into our world and our socio-political environment. I paid close attention to any fascist undertones. They are still there but this time the visitors seem more in tune with making themselves outwardly acceptable (less militaristic, more sexy). I was/am a little skeptical of the visitor/terrorism connection but I suppose it is playing to the audience's fears. It has the makings of a strong political sci fi drama.

Ironically, in a Muse/Glenn Back misunderstanding of politics moment, some people are reading V out to be a hostile allegory against Obama. Oh, what will those paranoid White people think of next?

I think one of the strongest choices the new series has made is to forgo any "huzzah!" reveal of the visitors' reptilian-ness. After all, we already knew that was coming this time around. I was annoyed at what felt like overhanded branding with humans immediately referring to the visitors as "The V." The term 'alien' appears nowhere in the entire new series. Why? ABC determined that Americans do not react well to the term 'aliens' and don't like sci fi.

Hopefully, the series will last long enough to grow into what it could be. It is somewhat doubtful given the production problems and ABC's stupid decision to only show four episodes and pull it off the air for about four months!

TDS: News Crit

The Daily Show offered an excellent critique of news coverage.
The whole segment is funny but the good part begins at 5:10.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Indecision 2009 - Reindecision 2008 And Beyond
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Charges Dropped Against Twitter Anarchists

Pennsylvania authorities have withdrawn all charges Madison & Wallschlager, members of Tortuga, accused of using Twitter to aid protesters at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh.

Though it is a victory that all the charges against them were dropped in Pennsylvania, we cannot forget that there is still a mysterious grand jury and other “ongoing investigations."

Disney Is Confused (or just racist)

Someone ought to explain to Disney that Persia is a real place not a fantastical land of make believe. I promise. I can even show it to you on the map and despite what Disney's guess might be, it is not populated by White Europeans.

Persia/Iran

Sorry Swedish Jew, Jake Gyllenhaal, no matter how muscular and/or swarthy you get, you are not Persian.

Persian

Not Persian

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in HD

Trailer Park | MySpace Video

Zeroes

Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor are the writers/directors of Crank. Crank is THE absolute worst movie I have ever seen. It is blatantly racist, homophobic, and sexist. Hell, it glorifies rape!
Nothing these two douchelords do should be a success.

Now NBC may give them a TV show. As you would expect from this wonderful team, it is a completely braindead concept:
"a crisis show that doesn't bore you with all of the buildup leading to the crisis"

Neveldine and Taylor also recently wrote/directed the video game / raver movie, Gamer. So it should suck too.

Everyone is a Terrorist

1,600 are suggested daily for FBI's list
Number of names on terrorist watch list at 400,000, agency says

The U.S. intelligence community suggested on a daily basis that 1,600 people qualified for the list because they presented a "reasonable suspicion."

The FBI doesn't even need initial information that a person or group is engaged in wrongdoing before it can open a preliminary investigation.

SNITCHES
In 2006, approximately 219,000 tips from the public led to the FBI's determination that there were 2,800 counterterrorism threats and suspicious incidents that year. Regardless of the reporting source, FBI policy requires that each threat or suspicious incident should receive some level of review and assessment to determine "the potential nexus to terrorism."

Aoki

(not Steve)

Richard Aoki