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This week: • Election • OsamaTV • Open letter • CIA •
• Body count • Chile • Cameroon • Black boxes • Stuff •
Think back four years ago, remember the slow dawning horror that was the US 2000 presidential election — democracy inaction if there was. Bush cronies, such as former secretary of state, the lawyer James Baker, flocked down to Florida, governed by Jeb Bush with the help of the misleading Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris to snaffle up the vote. The theft of the White House was insane; a stopped recount by a Republican dominated Supreme Court, allowing Bush to creep into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue despite coming second in the overall national vote count, further eroding the US’ mistaken claims to having a model democracy. Electoral collages — I mean how unrepresentative a vote is that?
Think back. What did you do during those weeks? Gaped in front of the TV listening in shock? Muttering what a disaster it was for mankind? Annoyed but at the same time indifferent or not bothered enough to get up and do something?
This time round, friends, the situation is already a disaster with the amount of vote rigging going on an absolute disgrace. No matter that there will be more international election monitors at Tuesday’s vote than there were in Afghanistan’s recent vote, the Republicans moved early this time to steal counties in key swing states via myriad means — incorrect ballots, no ballots, denied registrations, extremely limited and questionable electronic voting machines that leave no paper and no need for a recount, fudging the overseas vote — all these measures and more have given Bush a generous advantage come voting. The good news is that in early voting it appears Democrats are turning out in record levels.
Last election’s “Florida” is likely to be Ohio where the most outrageous electoral crimes have been perpetrated (See Stuff We Like for a smattering). No Republican has won the presidency without Ohio — it is an absolutely vital state and it is being stolen right under our noses as are many other states.
This time round we fear, if the not the worst, then at best another tied vote where the thousands of lawyers deployed to monitor states across the country (2,500 Republican lawyers have been dispatched to Florida alone) will then do their best to subvert the democratic process.
This time, will you sit on your arse moaning at Dan Rather on the screen in front or will you do what we should have done four years ago?
Take to the streets, demand a reform of this sham for a democracy — the two party state has outlasted its welcome, the constitution needs amending to make voting a standard format across all states — a simple cross or two on a simple of piece of paper — no chads and certainly no bloody computers. No electoral colleges. Multiparty not Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Restrict campaign donations to under $10,000 per person or company. Reduce or eliminate advertising on television. Reform media to stop being so darn obsequious. Keep party lawyers and administrators out of polling offices on election day. Call for a complete overhaul of the electoral process that has been impure from day one, but has since been hijacked by international war criminals.
Until then the US cannot claim to be a leading democracy.
Years from now the full truth will emerge about this Osama video that has pressed the US electorate’s fear button once again. It was a most likely a Bush administration production, designed to bring electoral victory, obfuscating the failures of the Bush administration behind a sheen of pristine ‘terror’. This video was only to be used in an emergency.
That emergency came Friday, with polls tied and Bush taking flack from all sides because of faked photos (see Stuff We Like), 350 tons of explosives going missing in Iraq, ongoing election fraud allegations and the FBI investigating whether the Pentagon improperly awarded no-bid contracts to Dick Cheney’s former company, Halliburton.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee who has been investigating Halliburton’s contracts, said his office was told the FBI recently sought documents from various government offices. The requests focused on how and why Halliburton got the Iraq contracts.
“This multibillion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton was suspicious from day one, and now our worst suspicions are confirmed,” Lautenberg said “The FBI doesn’t get involved unless there are possible criminal violations.”
The video concentrates people’s mind on what Bush’s handler, Karl Rove, believes is the president’s strength – the War on Terror™ - TWOT™, while pushing the desperate economy and Iraq to the sidelines. We knew Osama would make an entry, and we remained convinced that what has been perpetrated with this film constitutes election theft.
It also diverts attention from Tom Ridge, the Minister of Fear, err Homeland Security’s admission that his previous “Henny-penny” election-related terror attack warnings were not only wrong, but utterly baseless. They knew that raising the terror alert again would have been too obvious. They are playing it light, letting Kerry tie his own noose, as he attacks the president over the video, while Bush stands firm against terrsts.
Could the car bombing of television channel Al Arabiya’s Baghdad office have anything to do with it? Was the Arab news channel being warned off from questioning the veracity of the video? These and many questions, such as the different look of Osama, who was in very different surroundings than the past, remain unanswered.
And saaay, is that a lump on Osama’s back? Is he wired for sound? Does he share a script writer with Iyad Allawi?
To the Prime Minister of Canada, Paul Martin
Email: pm@pm.gcca
Sir,
Given Canada’s commendable claims to being an open, fair society, we write to request you intervene in the ongoing dreadful desecration performed by Calgary-based mining outfit, Toronto Ventures Incorporated in the south of the Philippines.
For the past 10 years this company has consistently undermined the local ethnic population in Zamboanga del Norte, the indigenous Subanon of Canatuan, using violence and threats to get their way. The area they are mining are ancestral landholdings, often sacred ground according to the tribe, with the holiest site being the top of Mount Canatuan, which TVI are cracking the top off.
The Subanon, which means people of the river, are the original inhabitants of the Zamboanga peninsula of Mindanao. Today there are more than 300,000 Subanon mostly living high in the mountains. Much of their best land in the river valleys and their resources have been taken from them by settler plantations, loggers and miners.
There are countless episodes of intimidation by TVI as it moves to butcher the area. TVI has no support in the community, no kind will has been generated since the firm arrived in 1994.
TVI has militarized the zone, putting in checkpoints and blockades, shooting and wounding locals, violently dispersing peaceful protests, bulldozing other businesses into the ground. TVI have moved to further erode the region, by building a cyanide processing plant to go alongside the mines.
A 150-strong private army called the Special Civilian Armed Auxiliary (SCAA) made up of retired military officers is armed and trained by the Philippine military but paid by the company. This paramilitary group carries high-powered weapons including sub-machine guns, high-powered rifles, and even a 105mm howitzer field gun. This force uses blockades to limit the movement of the tribes people and uses military hardware to intimidate and surpress.
A huge inventory of trees and species will be uprooted due to the expansion program of TVI, its drilling operation, and further road projects as it tries to speed up mining. TVI prospected from 1994 to 1998, then faced a year’s halt, before returning in 1999 and has since then geared up for large work.
Timuay Jose Anoy, leader of the Subanon tribe, has said the group was a signatory to the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA) and had been awarded a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title covering their settlement on Mt. Canatuan where they have lived since the 17th century.
“(Toronto Ventures)... has no respect for our people and our way of life. They bulldozed the tip of the mountain, destroyed our most holy place, and in a matter of weeks, our community will be wiped out due to their mad drive for gold,” Anoy said at a press conference seven days ago.
In a statement, Bishop Jose R. Manguiran of nearby Dipolog has called on the cancellation of TVI’s contract, saying that “one day in 1994, Canadian mining prospectors arrived in Canatuan like an army of occupying forces.”
We write to you as the Philippine president, Gloria Arroyo, appears, incapable or unwilling of intervening in this episode despite her avowed commitment to the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act. The 1995 Mining Act gives foreigners far too much clout in this poor archipelago. Indigenous people throughout the Philippines have been harmed by government and big business colluding to oust people from their long held lands.
Canada preaches a multicultural society, and respects the boundaries of her indigenous people; it’s time irresponsible Canadian firms abroad did too, respecting Canadian and international standards of human rights as well as the.environment.
Best regards
Canned Revolution
Speculation is rife in the Philippines that the CIA are moving to oust President Gloria Arroyo, thanks to her decision to pull out troops from Iraq early this July, to spare the life of a kidnapped Filipino in Iraq.
The US has not forgiven Arroyo for this desertion and has now opened up a huge can of worms in the form of gross corruption in the Armed Forces of the Philippines which will sooner or later land in the lap of the commander in chief — Arroyo.
The former AFP comptroller Major General Carlos Garcia has been suspended as his sons were found bringing in suspiciously large sums of money to the US.
Details of military retirement scams began to emerge, called pabuon, whereby senior army officers on retiring would stash away up to three million pesos.
The US leaked large details of alleged corruption to the local press and now Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr speculates that it is the CIA who are trying to destablise the Arroyo administration who he says, in an interview qith the Philippine Daily Enquirer is “ripe for another people power, or worse, a coup.”
“I’m getting information that the CIA is involved here,” the senator said. “But the facts are that the sons of Garcia were nabbed [by US customs] more than six months ago, and the expos‚ as to the arrest... or the attempt to bring in $100,000, was only revealed recently,” he pointed out.
US authorities have hinted that two other generals and three Cabinet-level officials had sizeable dollar deposits in the United States.
“The hand of America is here, and it is a signal to Gloria (Ms Arroyo) that things are not well between her administration and the Americans,” Pimentel said. He said the only way for Ms Arroyo to keep the presidency was to ensure that Garcia and whoever “plundered the money” of the soldiers were punished.
Pimentel said it was possible that the CIA, or other US agencies, could orchestrate a plot to overthrow Ms Arroyo and replace her with another official to keep the Philippines a “loyal ally.”
He pointed out that the CIA was involved in the downfall of presidents of Latin American countries in the 1970s, and also helped overthrow the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.
Asked whether Philippine-US relations were beyond repair, Pimentel said: “I would not say so because the US needs us. There’s no question about that. The US needs us because of the cliché that we are strategically located. It can’t say, ‘We will let go of the Philippines.’ So, either they repair the problem with Gloria, [or] if they feel that it is beyond repair, then Gloria is in big trouble.”
As if to back up the CIA claim, as is standard practice, a right wing US think tank, has recently issued a report stating that Arroyo is the weakest leader in Asia. Obviously, corruption is an endemic problem in the Philippines and something that needs stamping out. And Arroyo’s record as president has been poor with the economy in a dire state. However, there is something that is clearly fishy about this latest corruption scandal.
The smear campaign, organized by Langley, is well underway.
The most exhaustive count yet of the numbers of Iraqis dead from the US invasion has been concluded with the terrifying toll set at 100,000. Iraqi and US health experts carried out extensive research which has been printed by the British medical magazine, the Lancet. You are now 58 times more likely to die a violent death in Iraq, since the illegal invasion 18 months ago, the study revealed.
Lancet editor Dr Richard Horton noted the US and British governments “must have considered the likely effects of their actions for civilians”.
The researchers found an increase in infant mortality from 29 to 57 deaths per 1,000 live births since the Americans started butchering. Falluja was singled out for especially high death rates. The team criticized the US military for its failure to look into the number of Iraqi dead.
“US General Tommy Franks is widely quoted as saying ‘we don’t do body counts’,” they write, but occupying armies have responsibilities under the Geneva convention. “This survey shows that with modest funds, four weeks and seven Iraqi team members willing to risk their lives, a useful measure of civilian deaths could be obtained.”
In the event that Bush wins on Tuesday, he’s scheduled to head to Santiago on November 19 for a summit of Asia Pacific leaders, where he could face a very hot reception. A group of Chileans, Poder Democrático y Social, have filed a suit to local courts demanding they invoke international human rights treaties ratified by both countries to arrest Bush and his Cabinet members for questioning. The suit accuses President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the former U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, of torture and war crimes.
In a statement, the leftist group said “this action represents the sentiments of millions of Chileans who reject the violence and the terrorism projected by the figure of Bush.” The organization’s members demonstrated outside the court while the suit was presented on Tuesday.
“Without doubt, (attaining an interrogation of Bush) is difficult, but we are doing something because our consciences are troubled by the crimes committed by North Americans in Iraq,” Hugo Gutiérrez, one of the human rights lawyers who submitted the suit, said.
“We are part of the universal conscience that is doing this today, in this distant country, concerned that human rights are not violated anywhere in the world,” Gutiérrez added, emphasizing that “crimes against humanity” could be prosecuted from any nation.
Meanwhile, Interpol and the local police have been literally sweeping the streets in the run up to the meet, turning the Chilean capital into a semi-police state, with demonstrations banned and blacklists of activists drawn up.
As an aside one thing that has also bothered us about Chile is its identical flag to the Texan one — that whole US ruling the western hemisphere vibe!
The people of Central Africa’s republic of Cameroon face yet another seven year term in office of the corrupt Paul Biya, who was ‘re-elected’ this week taking ‘70.9%’ of the ‘electorate’, down from his miraculous ‘92%’ in 1997 which was boycotted by the opposition. The Supreme Court threw out allegations of vote rigging and gave its verdict this Monday on the outcome of the October 11 elections.
In opposition strongholds, state intimidation was evident in the run up to voting. For instance a strong police presence in north-western Cameroon — where the lead opposition part is strongest — was noticeable. An opposition party official, John Nkonteh, was killed there on August 20, apparently after he complained about irregularities in voter registration.
Observers from the Commonwealth voiced concern at the fact that “many people who wished to vote were not on the Voters’ Register, so were denied the right to vote.”
Of Cameroon’s 4.6 million registered voters, 3.8 million cast ballots. About eight million of the 16 million people in the country are apparently eligible to vote.
A 1996 constitutional amendment extended the term of the presidency to seven years, and set a two-term limit for heads of state. However, this provision was not retroactive.
As a result, Biya - who came to power in 1982 - was able to stand in the 1997 presidential election.
“President Biya’s societal plan will remain an illusion. In two decades he’s done nothing, so another seven years will not make a miracle,” Abdoulaye Math, president of the Movement for Human Rights, told news agency, IPS.
Since Biya took power, he has plunged the country into a deep economic malaise with infrastructure waning, corruption endemic and debts burdensome.
“The economic crisis will worsen (under Biya). Political predation will continue. The powerful will benefit from the uncontrolled deregulation of the productive sectors and commercial networks, and the little people will try to manage to survive,” political analyst Celestin Bedzigui told IPS.
“Led by an absentee captain,...our country will continue its descent into hell once that October 11 charade is legitimized,” he added. Biya made few appearances during the election campaign and, according to one report, has held only one cabinet meeting during the past six years.
A student further noted, “In the end, Biya won the election - but it’s Cameroon who loses.”
Human rights organizations have once again slammed the Biya administration this year. Amnesty International says the country’s political system still remains in chaos and human rights abuses are on the rise. The government banned opposition meetings and detained government critics, including political activists and journalists during the campaign.
Freedom House, meanwhile, described the Paul Biya regime as one of the most repressive in the world alongside the likes of Zimbabwe, Liberia, Haiti, Congo, Iraq, North Korea and Afghanistan.
Last November the UN Committee against Torture expressed grave concern about systematic torture by police and gendarmes after the arrest of suspects, with perpetrators almost always enjoying impunity. It highlighted reports of severe overcrowding in prisons with life-threatening conditions amounting to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
Njualem Columbus writing in Afrol News concludes: “Rampant and poor human rights policies deter foreign and domestic investments; they hamper tourism, weaken an individual’s initiative to progress, and only help in ravaging Cameroon’s dangling economy and render our country and people to wallowing in poverty.”
Two men who worked in Ground Zero have claimed the government is lying and making a huge cover up over the tragic events of September, 11, 2001 — the men claim they helped the FBI find three of the four black boxes from the airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center — something authorities and the 9/11 Commission have denied finding. Black boxes (which are, in fact, orange) are the flight and cockpit data recorders, deemed virtually indestructible that often help to piece together how airline tragedies happen.
New York City firefighter Nicholas DeMasi has written in a recent book that he escorted federal agents on an all-terrain vehicle in October 2001 and helped them locate three of the four recorders. His account has been backed up by a volunteer working at the site. Mike Bellone.
Black boxes are built to survive an impact of enormous force - 3400 Gs - and a fire of 1100 degrees Celsius for one hour, somewhat higher than official estimates of the World Trade Center blaze.
“It’s extremely rare that we don’t get the recorders back. I can’t recall another domestic case in which we did not recover the recorders,” Ted Lopatkiewicz, spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, told CBS News in 2002.
DeMasi recalls in his book: “At one point, I was asked to take Federal Agents around the site to search for the black boxes from the planes,” he wrote. “We were getting ready to go out. My [all terrain vehicle] was parked at the top of the stairs at the Brooks Brothers entrance area. We loaded up about a million dollars worth of equipment and strapped it into the ATV..”
“There were a total of four black boxes. We found three.”
In years to come, the full details of what actually happened and why on that fateful day will shock Americans and indict the Bush regime once and for all.
In the meantime, we strongly urge you to saddle on over to this here website — for further details of the huge 9/11 cover up.
A hotchpotch of stuff we’ve found and enjoyed recently on the Weird Wide Web.
Stuff we don’t like:
John Peel’s passing
A sad, sad week for music fans. We at the little red email mourn John Peel’s passing. Without John, the music scene would have been very different and much more corporate. A minute’s silence seems inappropriate, really, and the little red would rather offer a minute’s noise. To this end, we present a collection of tributes in remembrance of all the good tunes, the bad tunes and the “what on earth was that?!?!” tunes that Peel provided us. The first tribute from Radio 1 is here, the second is here, the third here. If you don’t feel up to all 6 hours, just fast forward the first tribute to 09:03:38 for Milk Banana. Play loud and reflect: who is going to play this on the radio now? For those who feel Milk Banana is a bit much, perhaps the Home Truths tribute would be more your cup of tea.
Pick up a new T-shirt!
That’s right our new competition is up — all you need to do is tell us the correct countries shown in the pictures and you too could be looking lovely in one of our Canned Revolution shirts! As happy as the people in this picture in fact.
Owning your own Canned Revolution shirt could be a great way of life for you — imagine the friends, the opportunities, the fame, the copious offers of gratuitous sex. Don’t delay! Apply for your chance to be cool today by clicking here.
Flores Man
Possibly one of the bigger finds in recent years: Flores man provokes some interesting questions about both evolution and creationism.
A dozen ways the republicans are stealing this year’s ‘Florida’ - Ohio
The Republican “November Surprise” to steal the 2004 election is in full force in Ohio. With polls showing a dead heat, the GOP is staging an all-out attack on a fair vote count in the Buckeye State.
Here are a dozen ways they’re doing it:
· Under an archaic Ohio law, both the Republican and Democratic Parties, or any slate of five candidates, may embed official election challengers inside polling places. The New York Times reported on Oct. 23 that the Republican Party intends to place thousands of lawyers and other GOP faithful inside the polls to challenge voters. Republican insiders confide here that the key goal is to jam lines and frustrate new voters. The GOP apparently figures many voters in key Democratic precincts won’t wait in line more than 15 minutes to vote. This is certain to be a major tactic in Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County and other Democratic strongholds. The GOP is not planning to challenge voters in Republican districts.
· The Republican Party has sent letters challenging thousands of Franklin County students who are registered to vote absentee. Franklin County is home to Columbus, the state’s largest city and its capitol. Though it is also home to Ohio State University, thousands of local students go to schools outside the county or state. The GOP apparently does not want their votes counted. This unprecedented mass challenge has prompted the Franklin County Board of Elections, whose director is a conservative Republican, to reserve the large Veterans Memorial Auditorium downtown to process the challenges this Thursday, as John Kerry comes to town with Bruce Springsteen. The County has told thousands of students that if they don’t appear in Columbus to answer the GOP challenges, they may lose their right to vote.
· The Franklin County Board of Elections has called or written an undetermined number of voters who obtained absentee ballots, challenging their addresses. In at least one case, after a series of angry phone calls, the Board admitted there was nothing wrong with the address in question and re-instated voting rights. The voter in question was a registered Democrat. His wife, an independent at the same address, was not challenged. It is unclear how many others have been wrongly knocked out.
· Even if they are counted, Franklin County’s absentee ballot forms are rigged in ways strikingly reminiscent of those in Florida 2000. On many absentee forms, Kerry is listed third on the list of presidential candidates. But the actual number you punch for Kerry is “4.” If you punch “3” you’ve just voted for Bush. Sound familiar?
· Franklin County’s right wing Elections Director is insisting on e-voting machines which have malfunctioned in at least two Congressional elections, and which have no paper trail. The November issues of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics Magazines ran the following headlines on their covers, respectively: “E-vote emergency: And you thought dimpled chads were bad’” and “Could hackers tilt the election?” Vigorous protests against the paperless machines have been staged here, but many will be used, rendering a meaningful recount impossible.
· In four other Ohio counties, the notorious Diebold Company, whose CEO Wally O’Dell has pledged to deliver Ohio’s votes to Bush, will provide the e-voting machines to count votes without any paper trail while using proprietary “secret” software. O’Dell lives in the wealthy Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington and is a major Bush donor.
· Twenty GOP-dominated Ohio counties have given wrong information to former felons about their voter eligibility. In Hamilton County, home of Cincinnati and the Republican Taft family, officials told numerous former felons that a judge had to sign off before they could vote, which is blatantly false.
· Franklin County, which normally cancels 2-300 registered voters a year for felony convictions, has sent at least 3500 cancellation letters to both current felons and ex-felons whose convictions date back to 1998. The list includes numerous citizens who were charged with felonies but convicted only of misdemeanours.
· Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has reversed a long-standing Ohio practice and is barring voters from casting provisional ballots within their county if they are registered to vote but there’s been a mistake about where they are expected to cast their ballot. In this year’s spring primaries, Blackwell allowed voters to cast provisional ballots by county, even if they were in the wrong precinct. But this fall, such voters will have to leave the wrong precinct and find their way to the right one. Blackwell hopes to succeed Republican Bob Taft as governor, and has laboured hard to install e-voting machines with no paper trail, to give the state-wide contract to Diebold, and to take a long series of steps apparently designed to help hand Ohio to George W. Bush. Blackwell is being widely compared to the infamous Katherine Harris, who handed Florida to George W. Bush in 2000 and was rewarded with a safe Congressional seat.
· The Columbus Dispatch (which has endorsed Bush) and WVKO Radio have both documented phone calls from people impersonating Board of Elections workers and directing registered voters to different and incorrect polling sites. One individual was falsely told not to vote at the polling station across the street from his house, but at a “new” site, four miles away. Under Blackwell’s new rules, such a vote would not be counted.
· In Cincinnati, some 150,000 voters were moved from active to inactive status within the last four years for not voting in the last two federal elections. This is not required under Ohio law, but is an option allowed and exercised by the Republican- dominated Hamilton County Board of Elections.
· Secretary of State Blackwell ruled that any voter registration form on other than 80-pound weight bond paper would not be accepted. This is an old law left over from pre-scanning days. Many voters who had registered on lighter paper, had their registration returned, even though the forms had been officially sanctioned by local election boards.
No Republican has ever won the presidency without carrying Ohio. This year the GOP seems determined to win it, no matter what they have do to the electoral process.
Greg Palast’s Newsnight report
Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign’s national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called “caging list”. It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida. An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: “The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day.”
See the report here.
Fear & loathing in the Independent: a mutated guide to the election
The Good Doctor, Hunter S Thompson on the upcoming election.
Eminem not a Republican
Eminem times his latest release, mosh, to have its own impact on November 2.
9-11 Cover up timeline
Follow the timeline set out here and then try telling yourself they didn’t let it happen.
Body count spirals during PM’s reign
Published on October 27, 2004 in The Nation
It was yet another black day for Thaksin Shinawatra’s premiership. When more than 80 Thais perished at the hands of Thai troops in the deep South on Monday - six in the clash between protesters and security forces and 78 reportedly from suffocation after being rounded up and put in the back of military trucks - everything else that has marred his highly controversial reign now pales in comparison.
His contempt for human rights has resulted in a scattering of personal tragedies, masked by the proclaimed success of the war on drugs. But now this flawed trait of his leadership is threatening to plunge the country into the bitterest and most detrimental divide between the people and the state.
Read the full story here.
Total film’s evil-doer of the year: W!
Think of the most intimidating baddies in Hollywood history — Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter, Dr. Strangelove etc etc. Now a monkey has been added to that roll call.
10,000 readers of the UK’s Total Film magazine have nominated President George W Bush as the year’s top screen villain for his appearance in the Michael Moore documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11.
Bush beat out a host of this year’s celluloid baddies to grab the award which included, Doctor Octopus in Spiderman 2, played by Alfred Molina, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s cannibalistic Leatherface; Andy Serkis’ creepy Gollum from the Lord of the Rings trilogy; and Elle Driver, the eyepatch-wearing assassin played by Daryl Hannah in Kill Bill.
“It is possible that people have been a little bit tongue in cheek here, but they are also saying that Bush was very scary in Fahrenheit 9/11,” said the magazine’s editor, Matt Mueller.
As far as we know, Bush has not turned up to pick up the gong yet.
An army of one photo
The Bush campaign pulls a bit of photo opportunism.
An excellent take down of Karl Rove
The Los Angeles Times take a look at Karl Rove — America’s Mullah.
The choice is yours: Bush or... err
Absentee ballots missing the names of John Kerry and John Edwards were mailed to Ohio voters.
Lost in China
New Scientist, China’s GM trees get lost in bureaucracy.
Over a million GE trees have been planted in China, but no-one knows exactly where, or what impact they’ll have on native trees.
The GE poplars are part of plantations which are intended to halt the spread of deserts and flash floods. But scientists are worried that there are no proper records about where they’re planted, and no monitoring of their impact on native trees. Experiments have shown that genes from the GE poplars are already turning up in native trees.
Trials of the GE trees began in the late 1990s, after plantations were plagued by insects. New Scientist magazine reported that a number of scientists complained about the lack of controls over GE trees in China, at a safety meeting in Beijing in July.
Prelection pork for merchants of death
So screams Information Clearing House. Click here to find the whacking great defence contracts handed out to the Machine, totalling more than $860m to a who’s who assortment of the military industrial complex, on Friday, four days before the election.
The Little Red Email Osama bin Laden Sweepstakes Shirt Contest!
Well we have been for sometime advocating that Osama bin Laden will be paraded in front of the US electorate sometime soon as a great smoke screen to the whole messed up presidency presided over by George Bush in the run up to the 2 November presidential election. Time ran out for the little red email, but not for you. We guessed October 23rd for Osama... and we feel a mite foolish, although Osama did show up on video. If you fancy a free Canned Revolution t-shirt, why not sign up. There is of course much speculation that Osama was caught ages ago and now is stewing in jail awaiting his upcoming moment in front of the cameras. Now, by simply guessing the date of Osama’s media debut as a US prisoner you can win a t-shirt. Send your expected date of bin Laden’s first television appearance as an American prisoner to osamasweepstakes@cannedrevolution.com. May you be luckier than us.