This week: • Iran • Irish scream • Bangs on Gongs • TWOT™ loss •
• Spinoza • 4-20 • Leaking • Brainwashing • Stuff •

 

Ahmadinejad: Lost in translation

It was October last year when we came home, flicked on the radio and listened aghast to the news that the Iranian president denied the Holocaust had happened and said the state of Israel should be wiped off the map. ‘Christ,’ we thought, ‘this nut job’s playing into their hands with this kind of rhetoric.’ Since then “the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion” as one US academic has described the Iran/US imbroglio has ratcheted up to high alert with Seymour Hersch of the New Yorker reporting that the White House is all prepared for nuclear strikes. It would take just 12 hours to deploy nuclear weapons for a bunker busting strike that would kill a million Iranians according to conservative estimates commissioned by the Pentagon. Nuclear armed planes are now on constant alert and public opinion has been framed around those mad, mad statements on Israel by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But what if the pronouncements by Ahmadinejad that cast him as this season’s baddie incarnate had been a) mistranslated and b) taken out of context?

When properly translated the Iranian president actually calls for the removal of the regimes that are in power in Israel and in the USA as a goal for the future. Nowhere does he demand the elimination or annihilation of Israel. He called for greater governance for Palestine. The word map does not even feature. And the president makes plain that the Holocaust happened, but, he argues western powers have exploited the memory of the Holocaust for their own imperialistic purposes. What the mainstream ran with is complete deception.

The deception has been aided by the fact that much of the media use an ‘independent’ company called Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri) for translating Middle Eastern languages. Memri just happens to be owned by two right-wing neo-con Israelis: Meyrav Wurmser, the wife of one of Dick Cheney’s aides (and ex-special assistant to ‘Strap-on’ John Bolton), David Wurmser and former(?) Israeli Military Intelligence officer, Colonel Yigal Carmon. Indeed a look at Wikipedia’s incomplete staff list seems to suggest a heavy Israeli bias in staffing and at least two more ex-Israeli Military Intelligence people. Still the little red email is sure that’s just a coincidence, as is the fact that the Israeli army (presumably military intelligence) has also used this mistranslation tactic in the past.

And once Ahmadinejad had been brushed with the wacko Jew destroyer tag, it was a short hop, skip and ein Sprung before he was alongside Adolf Hitler in the pantheon of baddies. Like Milosevic and Hussein before him, Ahmadinejad’s Hitler comparison is as sure a sign war is imminent.

Unlike Hitler though Ahmadinejad doesn’t rule Iran, nor does he control its foreign or military policy. The man in charge of all that is Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran is a theocracy, and Khamenei is the theocrat-in-chief. To give you an idea of where Ahmadinejad lies in Iran’s political hierarchy, note that no one can even run for the presidency in the first place without the approval of Khamenei and the Guardian Council, a group of six clerics and six conservative jurists that are selected by Khamenei.

Ahmadinejad serves the purpose of being a believable bogeyman. He’ll find his Ph.D. in civil engineering and being a founding member of the Iran Tunnel Society useful if Seymour Hersch’s bunker-busting nuke allegations come true.

 

 

Ben & Jerry go red over black & tan

Sales of Haagen Dazs are expected to soar in the Republic of Ireland following a classic PR screw up by its main rival. Back in the day, Ben & Jerry’s’ image was one of two right-on fat hairy hippies who seemed to have stumbled upon an icy goldmine with their tasty (and pricey) ice cream recipes such as Cherry Garcia® Ice Cream, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream and Chunky Monkey® Ice Cream. But then the firm was bought out by nasty multinational Unilever whose list of corporate malfeasances make the Stop Drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge initiative on Ben & Jerry’s homepage appear like total BS PR efforts to maintain their nice guy image.

So Unilever got its comeuppance big time last week when it had to apologise for causing offence by calling a new flavour “Black & Tan” — the nickname of a notoriously violent British paramilitary unit, the Royal Irish Constabulary Reserve Force, that operated during Ireland’s war of independence.

The ice cream, available only in the United States, is based on an ale and stout drink of the same name.

“Any reference on our part to the British Army unit was absolutely unintentional and no ill-will was ever intended,” said a Cherry Garcia®-faced Ben & Jerry’s spokesman.

“Ben & Jerry’s was built on the philosophies of peace and love,” he added. Ben & Jerry’s laughable mission statement includes a pledge to show “a deep respect for human beings inside and outside our company and for the communities in which they live.”

Just to remind you, Ben & Jerry’s is now owned by a company that has been attacked for child labour, chemical spills, genetic engineering and discrimination among a litany of nasty practices highlighted by the Responsible Shopper website.

The Black and Tans, so-called because of their two-tone uniforms, were recruited in the early 1920s to bolster the ranks of the police force in Ireland as anti-British sentiment grew.

They quickly gained a reputation for brutality and mention of the militia still arouses strong feelings in Ireland.

“I can’t believe that Ben & Jerry’s would be so insensitive to call an ice cream such a name and to launch it as a celebration of Irishness ... it’s an insult!” wrote one blogger on www.junkfoodblog.com.

“I hope they don’t try to launch it here in Ireland or I imagine they’ll lose a lot of their fans.”

On Ben & Jerry’s website you can actually suggest new flavours. We’d recommend Humble Pie®.

 

 

Bangs on Gongs

Yahuda this week regails us with his views on “Scientology with Chinese Characteristics”. He awaits a hoarde of outraged Falun Gong members to protest outside his apartment with glee and specially-prepared marshmallows on sticks.

What I’m about to write will no doubt make me unpopular with the eternally effervescent “hooray for people power” crowd. It certainly won’t make me any friends in the “Bash China Now!” American media. But if it gets up the nose of a certain long-standing friend and political sparring buddy (who’s opinion on the matter is, in my opinion, the definition of knee-jerk), it’ll all be worth it. So here goes:

Wang Wenyi’s three minute tirade against Hu Jintao was neither a spontaneous nor courageous act.  It was not a legitimate act of rebellion (like Tian’anmen Square) or even a meaningful kick against the pricks (like Cindy Sheehan’s Crawford camp-out). It was political theater designed specifically to embarrass China, processed for mass consumption by a willing media, and if not engineered by Bush’s neo-con brigade, than certainly done with their blessings. 

The American media is presenting Wang’s act as justified civil disobedience, a desperate stand by a plucky, courageous Falun Gong practitioner designed to wake up a sleeping American public to the idea that Bush’s meeting with Hu is the worst knuckling under since Chamberlain met Hitler.  Wang’s actions, they would have us believe, were completely spontaneous (albeit media-perfect).  Not once in the mainstream American media have I seen it mentioned that whoever vetted Wang’s press pass must have known that Wang, a reporter working for the Epoch Times (widely acknowledged as being a mouthpiece for, if not wholly owned, by Falun Gong) might use her journalist’s credentials to launch just such a tirade.  Except for an article in Britain’s Independent, I’ve similarly seen no mention of the fact that Wang did precisely the same thing four years ago, launching the same tirade against Jiang Zhemin on a visit to Europe.

It would be a stretch to expect the American media to connect the dots to their logical conclusion (that Wang was brought in precisely to embarrass Hu Jintao). However, they might have at least brought up the connection between Wang’s employer, Epoch Times, and Falun Gong.  Wolf Blitzer’s dialogue with Wang the next day was the most kid-gloved interview since Rush Limbaugh called Donald Rumsfeld onto his radio love-in couch earlier in the week. Watching the interview on CNN, one might be forgiven for equating Wang’s act with Gandhi’s salt protest. 

In the three minute interview, Blitzer called Wang’s action “a shot that was heard around the world.”  He then got down to the business of serious journalism by asking Wang the most hard hitting question of the interview, namely if the organization that provided her with the credentials know of her plans, to which Wang answered “No.” 

Wolf (and my disagreeable comrade) will forgive me if I now, in print, call “bullshit” on that.

I don’t have adequate space to get into my beef with Falun Gong (a philosophy that I have studied extensively enough to have come to the conclusion that its basically Scientology with Chinese Characteristics). Of the thousands of Falun Gong practitioners who have gone to jail for the right to practice their religion, I have nothing but sympathy and respect, even if I find their belief system, to put it mildly, goofy. But as far as I’m concerned, Li Hongzhi (Falun Gong’s L. Ron Hubbard) is a manipulative charlatan who sold out his Chinese base to gain global recognition. By instructing his followers to gather in Tian’anmen in 1999, he ensured that the Chinese government would respond in the most ham-fisted way. He threw his most devoted adherents to the lions in exchange for a global advertising campaign that no amount of money could buy. 

Li Hongzhi — safe and sound on Manhattan bedrock — couldn’t have seen the outcome as anything but, and cynically swapped the well being of his followers in China to gain a slew of global adherents and the political leverage that he now enjoys.  Don’t believe me? Ask yourself this: Had you even heard of Falun Gong before the Chinese government, stupidly, heavy-handedly, and as if following a script, began persecuting them?

My other beef with Wang’s political theater is this: By using her press credentials to make (and not, as the job description entails) to report news, she further weakened the implied protocol that should exist between those who make news and those who report it.  As a journalist living in an age when journalists are increasingly under fire, this strikes me as a dangerous and particularly short-sighted move, akin to shooting an enemy under the flag of truce, or using a Red Cross vehicle to transport weapons.

Intelligence is not necessarily a bulwark against manipulation; it should, however, afford one the eyes to spot when and how they’re being manipulated.  The persecution — and yes, it is persecution — of Falun Gong has long been a favorite and easy topic for the American to use to paint the picture of China as some evil, monolithic government bent on enslaving it population in the name of Wal-Mart.  Wang’s actions didn’t help jailed Falun Gong practitioners in China.  It just gave America’s burgeoning anti-China brigade more ammunition, and obscured even further the already blurry line between useful protest and cynical political theater. It did more harm than good.

 

 

TWOT™ opening a damp squib

While US forces remain hemmed into their Green Zone in Baghdad, rightly scared to step outside into the anarchic conditions they have created throughout Iraq; spare a thought for the country the US chose to launch the War on Terror™ (TWOT™). Over in Pipelinistan, aka Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai rules over a minute fiefdom that essentially involves a few square metres of the capital while throughout most of the rest of the country, and also in neighbouring Pakistani provinces, the Taliban is thriving. Afghanistan has become a media black hole because the Allies have to all intents and purposes given up here, acknowledging that this is a land that no westerner will ever truly be able to subvert.

According to an excellent report in G2 Bulletin one-eyed Mullah Omar and his army of radical Islamic students are currently in control of all of the rural and mountain areas of Afghanistan, including Khost, Paktia, Paktika, Ghazni, Zabul, Helmand, and Oruzgan, as well as a vast expanse of eastern and southern provinces including sections of Kandahar. They also have become the central governing body in South and North Qaziristan and other tribal territories of Pakistan.

Pakistanis in government vehicles are no longer permitted to enter Waziristan, Baluchistan, and other tribal areas without the permission of local Taliban commanders. Muslim men who wander into this area without beards are routinely cast into prison as apostates. Kafirs (non-Muslims) are assumed to be enemy agents; most are put to death. Women are only permitted to appear in public in full burqa. And Shariah has become the rule of the land with regular occurrences of stoning, crucifixion and decapitation.

Over 1,500 Pakistanis in recent months have been publicly executed for saying something in support of the regime of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and the coalition forces.

And the reason why the US and the UK should be worried with all of these developments? A major blowback of TWOT™ is that Iran and Russia are now allied in Afghanistan on the side of their old enemy.

The Iranian-Taliban alliance is a new, unique and disturbing development — former Sunni/Shiite enemies coming together for a common cause. When the Taliban came to power in 1996 and the US spent much time canoodling with the regime to coax a pipeline through the country to shift some of the $4 trillion oil reserves in the Caspian basin, the Shiite Iranians were appalled with Mullah Omar and armed the Northern Alliance until the US launch of Operation Enduring Freedom in October, 2001 at which point the Iranians changed sides, helped the Taliban flee Tora Bora and find refuge in plush accommodation in Iran.

This monumental event — the union between Sunni with Shiite — remained largely ignored by Western observers and now the country is set to tilt towards total oblivion for generations to come.

 

 

Spinoza and the French connection

It is satisfying to read the squeals of elite dismay at recent events in France. Like Lord and Lady Douchebag of the ancien regime, elite circles resound with puzzlement at a bloody-minded insistence on turning the established and rational order of things tits up.

Even many progressives outside of France are astounded at this insistence on such an apparently minor privilege: not to be fired summarily. Indeed, who is asserting a droit de seigneur?

The solution to this puzzle lies in examining unemployment, and what we Americans mean, precisely, by “employment at will”.

“Unemployment” has three meanings.

Amazingly, there is no such thing, according to economists, in underdeveloped economies. This is because physical existence in an underdeveloped economy depends on keeping your rock knocker job, and if you lose your job knocking rocks, you have to get a job doing something else. Otherwise you die.

But in developed world outside America, you are able to insist that you are a “professional” rock knocker, and you’re able to seek work in your chosen vocation while getting some support on an ongoing basis.

But in the most advanced, whiz-bang economy — that of the USA — unemployment is limited. The State is not your Nanny: it is your ex-wife. Your job is finding a job.

Economic development creates unemployment. However, it is being used as a reason for stupid ideas such as “hire and fire young sprats at will”, as if unemployment were a fact of nature. This brings me to my next point: the meaning of “employment at will”.

In American law, “employment at will” means that the employee can get canned, “for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all”.

In France, it was and is possible to fire an employee. All you have to do is fill out some forms and in these forms, all you have to do is explain why Pierre or Yvette is a stone fuckup.

Boo hoo. Businesspeople effectively fill out forms all the time. Why, we have computers to help us! Why should a person’s fate be decided “for no reason at all”?

Let me get personal. America’s employment at-will ruined my life, and caused my family unnecessary suffering.

Employment at-will, that is, in an undecidable combination with my defective character: I won’t deny the three-Martini lunches, nor regret the noon hour Quickies. They were cofactors, and je ne regrette rien.

Commencing in 1981, as a computer programmer, I was fired more than once under at-will, despite the fact that I have published a book on my profession, and, the Terminators acknowledged I knew my trade.

Uner the rose of “no reason at all”, it don’t mean shit how hard you work or what you know. If I had a dollar for every time some employer or co-worker said I was a genius “but”, my kids would have gone to Princeton.

“But” I didn’t manifest with sufficient consistency ideological loyalty to Profit.

“But” I insisted in changing deadlines and redesigning horseshit, mostly for the better.

But in the American playbook, here I am no  longer a detached Subject, but instead an Object, a plaything of forces hypostatised as objective, and I lose the right to stand off from my situation. Everything I say is an “excuse” for not accepting a Reality.

But, I here question this Reality.

I think the French students are at long last objecting to this Philistine denial of human freedom. I think it’s just intellectual laziness to say that we all most “compete” with everybody else, because neoclassical economics itself also declares that we should obey “the law of comparative advantage”.

Well, the “law of comparative advantage” would say that at no conceivable time will France become a chip factory of the world, or its iron-monger. Never was, probably always will be instead the place where rich SOBs go to be put down by snooty waiters and to go to the Palace Louvre to gape.

Well, if you destroy the self-esteem of the French, they will turn into a nation of sniveling shopkeepers auctioning off their Poussins for spare change.

This “competition” makes no sense…from which tenured conservatives and other members of the neo chattering class exempt themselves.

 

 

4-20: the happiest holiday?

Forget the queen’s 80th birthday bash, the key event was April 20. Nope, we are not talking about celebrating Adolf Hitler’s birthday.

On the same day, referred to as 4-20 there is a little known marijuana celebration day throughout North America.

The true origin of the phrase 4-20 as a code for marijuana smoking is highly debatable.
One rumour asserts 4-20” is the number of active chemicals in marijuana. Actually there are far fewer, depending on the strain of plant being smoked. Another urban legend suggests that 4-20 is the police dispatch code for possession of marijuana — also wrong.
The actual origin of the 4-20 reference is much simpler.
Steven Hager, editor-in-chief of High Times (NICK SOURCE LINK) magazine, a publication devoted to the pot-smoking subculture, discussed the origins of 4-20 in an interview on ABC News.
“[4-20] has been a code word for many years,” Hager said. “In 1971 six students at San Rafael High School invented it and it just sort of spread through the Grateful Dead underground for many years, and then ‘High Times’ discovered it. And once we started publicizing it, it became global.”
The kids at San Rafael, who called themselves the Waldos, met at 4:20 p.m. every afternoon to get high and used 4-20 as a way to discuss their pot smoking without their parents knowing.
Since the term has worked its way into the subculture, April 20 has become a day of celebration for marijuana enthusiasts throughout North America and a chance for activists such as the Cannabis Action Network and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws to rally for pot legalisation

“It’s hard to get anyone motivated for a cause, let alone stoners, so we use the day to get people together,” a spokesperson for CAN said.
4-20 has been used subtly throughout the media as Wikipedia catalogues. For instance, while Bob Dylan claims his song "Rainy Day Women #12 & #35" on the album Blonde on Blonde, in which the chorus is "Everybody must get stoned", has no relation to marijuana, the numbers 12 and 35 multiply to 420.

The airline flight featured in the 1954 John Wayne film The High and the Mighty was Trans-Orient Pacific Airlines flight 420

In Sean Penn’s great debut Fast Times at Ridgemont High, all of the clocks show the time as 4:20 and the final score of the football game in the movie was 42-0.

Moreover, in an episode of the show Futurama (made by the Simpsons creators) called The Farnsworth Parabox, an alternate universe where everyone is a hippie is numbered as Universe 420.

In Portsmouth, Ohio, from 2000 — 2002, the FM radio station 94.9 WZIO (now defunct) used to air a segment during "The Traffic Jam with Tony Phillips" entitled "Get the Led Out" at 4:20pm weekdays, where 15-20 minutes of "non-standard" Led Zeppelin music was played (time enough to roll and smoke a joint with some friends). The segment was sponsored in part by Visine Eye Drops, "because they get the red out when we get the Led out..."

Douglas Adams wrote that the number 42 is the answer to "Life, the Universe, and everything" in the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. The number is followed by a picture of Earth (which was destroyed in the beginning of the story), thus looking like 420.

Finally, the California law that authorizes and regulates medical uses of marijuana is Senate Bill 420.

So have something rolled for April 20 next year.

 

 

To leak: I declassify, you leak, he’s fired

A classic version of rules working one way for ordinary folk and not at all for people in senior positions took place last week. And in true White House fashion it was another great vindictive act.

The CIA fired an agent recently for doing same thing Bush, Rove and Libby did — leaking classified info to media. The dismissal was related to a story in The Washington Post about the United States holding terror suspects in secret prisons overseas. Post reporter Dana Priest spearheaded the reporting on the “black site” prisons and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize at the beginning of April.

Funny that it’s okay for George Bush, Karl Rove, and Scooter Libby to leak classified information to the media — information that was NOT yet declassified (which is still a crime) — but when a CIA agent does the same thing to reveal that the US government is illegally spying on innocent American citizens, that leaker is fired.

Has that leaker been indicted? No. Arrested? Not that we know of. All we needed was the simple admission, and he was fired. Yet Karl Rove has been permitted to keep his job in the Bush White House for two, or was it three years now, that the administration knew Karl and Scooter were the leakers, and they did NOTHING to correct the situation. They wouldn’t fire Scooter until he was indicted (and Scooter was leaking false information to help the American people to support a war!), and Karl Rove is STILL working for the Republicans, and likely out of the White House, running the autumn elections, even though we now know for a fact that he leaked classified information to the media.

Then there’s Bush authorizing the Scooter Libby leak even though he hadn’t yet declassified the information. And let’s not forget Bush’s leak of classified information to Bob Woodward for his first post-9/11 book. Leaks are wonderful things in the Bush administration so long as they’re not whistleblower leaks.

It’s okay for George Bush, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby to leak and keep their jobs until they’re indicted, but not someone who actually reveals illegal and immoral activities of the Bush administration.

 

 

Enforced advertising by Philips

Canned Revolution is calling upon its subscribers to boycott Philips, the Dutch electronics manufacturer. The evil folk at this conglomerate have applied for a US patent for a technology they have created which will force television viewers to watch commercials with a system that prevents channel-switching during the ad break, the moment the little red email always either hits mute or switches over.

The technology lets broadcasters freeze up a channel during a commercial.

The pending patent, published March 30, said the feature would be implemented on a program-by-program basis. Devices that could carry the technology would be a television or a set-top-box.

Advertising is everywhere as we elaborate in our manifesto. Philips are moving to make sure we can’t avoid this commercial brainwashing. You wait; they’ll be making kettles that can’t be used during commercials next. Avoid Philips products for the sake of free choice.

 

 

Stuff we like

A hotchpotch of stuff we’ve found and enjoyed recently on the Weird Wide Web.

Get your lovely T-shirts while they’re hot!
Everybody loves a winner. Nobody likes a loser. Nobody likes to be a loser. So with this in mind, Canned Revolution have set it up so that you can now buy your own Canned Revolution T-Shirt, and pretend that you won it in our competition. We’ll back up any claims to being a lucky winner by anyone who purchases a freshly tinned t-shirt to help the cause.

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! Buy your way into coolness today by clicking here.

 

Dolphin Days
The Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society (HKDCS) has a 3 day event planned for the May 5-7 bank holiday, called Help Us Help Them 2006. The event is to raise awareness and provide information about the lives, status and threats facing the Hong Kong Chinese white dolphin and the indigenous finless porpoise species.
Day one To know them is to love them. Day one consists of a jumble sale, children’s games, information booths, relay races, treasure hunt activities and a BBQ in order to arouse public awareness and promote the local species and their habit. Through the display of banners, information posters, and photos, the participants and volunteers will gain a hands-on understanding of the animals, coastal areas, and marine ecosystem that surrounds them.
Day two What threatens them threatens us. Day two provides a real visual experience of the impacts of boat collisions, by-catch, dredging, habitat loss, and water pollution. Through the educational lectures given by the Director of the HKDCS, Samuel Hung and his research assistants, the participants and volunteers will benefit from an educated first hand account of the impacts of human activities on the local species. The photo exhibition introduces the extent of the injuries the animals have incurred through the use of real documented photos of the HKDCS. The evening of day two is designed to be a community event with the active participation of local artists and venues. The local artists and venues will provide various activities including games and musical performances.
Day three Celebrate hope with HKDCS Day three is a fun day that provides a platform for the participants and volunteers to discuss, interact, and recall the lectures, photo exhibitions, and poster display boards. The participants will be given the opportunity to win a free dolphin watching trip to the western waters of Hong Kong, memorabilia, photos, and other donated items through auctions, taffies, and talent shows prizes. Prizes will also be awarded for winners of the registration lottery, first, second, and third place winners of the children’s games, relay races and treasure hunts. Throughout the campaign point cards will be issued to the participants that can later be exchanged for gifts and other display items.
Details are available from the HKDCS.

 

9-11 Stuff The ‘dust’ from ground zero
Interesting new conspiracies from Daryl Bradford Smith: DU used in the WTC? The little red email thinks probably not, on the grounds that it would be too fiddly and expensive to organise and too neglible an effect to justify its use; but then again we’ve been wrong before.

 

9-11 Stuff That ‘dust’ at ground zero again
We might pooh-pooh the DU idea, but that’s not to say we think the dust isn’t dangerous stuff, as this report highlights.

 

Conspiracy of the week The buck starts where?
North Korea has charged the United States with counterfeiting its own currency and shifting the blame to Pyongyang, Reuters reports here.

 

Where journalism has gone astray
Seymour Hersh, John Pilger and Robert Fisk in the same room to discuss the moribund state of the fourth estate — essential reading.

 

Koo-Koo-Ka-Choo
I am me and Rummy’s he, Iraq is free and we are all together
See the world run when Dick shoots his gun, see how I lie
I’m Lying...
Sitting on my own brain, waiting for the end of days
Corporation profits, Bloody oil money
I’m above the law and I’ll decide what’s right or wrong
I am the egg head, I’m the Commander, I’m the Decider
Koo-Koo-Kachoo
Click here for this great humourous Beatles rehash.

 

Popbitch claws out at Donnie
According to Popbitch the US Defence Secretary is under attack:
Already under fire from the military, Donald Rumsfeld is now the subject of embarrassing rumours in the American blogosphere. Someone claiming to be a White House insider says that Rumsfeld:
• Needs to wear iced underwear because of a medical condition.
• Has uncontrollable long-term erections and because of this he always has to stand behind his desk (so no-one can see.)
• Wears nylon stockings because of bad veins.
Then again, this source also claims that there used to be a sealed room in the White House that was home to a half-ton cheese for more than thirty years...

 

Audio Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was not an isolated episode. It was the culmination of a 110-year period during which Americans overthrew fourteen governments that displeased them for various ideological, political, and economic reasons. Hear it all on Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq.

 

Video The Disco Samaritans
In a deep funk? Feeling beat? Don’t know what to do. Call the Disco Samaritans.

 

Computer-generated science papers detected by computer
The New Scientist Technology Blog highlights a new fake paper detector. After several computer-generated science papers have been circulated (and some even accepted for meetings or publication), there now comes an application to detect application-generated papers.

 

Nevermind the Baigents, here’s the San Greal?
Forget Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, and Dan Brown; the real Holy Grail, is allegedly to be found here. Although we should probably point out that “award-winning spiritual lecturer and author”, Ysatis De Saint-Simon’s claims to once have been “a successful actress under contract with Universal Studios in Hollywood” came up with a blank on a cursory search on IMDB, which bodes badly for her other, less-believable claims.

 

Number of the Week 100,000: The number of the beast?
100,000 is the number of Mibs worldwide working for the US government as revealed for the first time by the Mib-in-chief John Negroponte.

 

Video nasty Inside the Chinese fur trade
Peta runs a video investigation into the Chinese fur trade. The full story is on their “fur is dead website”.

 

Computer geek or a serial killer
Do you know your slash dots from your slashers? Try this quiz!

 

Video Poodle spam
And now a rest from any political message. This video is just nonsense.

 

Get yer Media Goggles on: Iraq
Media Lens finally has some good things to say about the UK media’s coverage of Iraq, to whit: “no matter how deeply media corporations may be compromised by profit-orientation and links to establishment power, some journalists will always be willing to respond reasonably to criticism.” Plaudits for apologising about telling it how it isn’t went to the BBC’s World Affairs Correspondent, Paul Reynolds, about his article reviewing the possibility of a US attack on Iran; the Observer journalist Mary Riddell for calling the major war crimes of Iraq and Afghanistan “two... ill-judged interventions” (Riddell, ‘The soldier’s song has become a lament,’ The Observer, February 5, 2006).
The BBC also got kudos for ‘Soldiers: Coming Home’ on Newsnight March 29. The film followed members of Iraq Veterans Against The War on their “Walkin’ to New Orleans” protest march against the Iraq war. Which had some disturbing revelations for those with a romantic view of the military: Asked if the US military had been concerned about the people of Iraq, veteran Jody Casey replied: “Oh no. Definitely that was not a concern at all... I was not concerned about them at all.” More shocking was the carrying of shovels and AK-47 rifles on US patrol vehicles — to be dumped beside bodies to give the impression that they had been planting roadside bombs. Casey explained the orders he had been given:
“‘Keep shovels on the truck and an AK, and if you see anybody out here at night on the roads, shoot them. Shoot them, and if they weren’t doing anything, throw a shovel off.’ At that time when we first got down there, you could basically kill whoever you wanted — it was that easy...
“You’re driving down the road at 3 in the morning, there’s a guy on the side of the road, you shoot him... you throw a shovel off.”
Media Lens went on to praise the Nation and Time magazine for breaking the Haditha massacre story. They then drew attention to the awkward truths still ignored:
“The mortality of children in Basra has increased by nearly 30 percent compared to the Saddam Hussein era,” according to Dr Haydar Salah, a paediatrician at the Basra Children’s Hospital.
Dr Salah added: “Children are dying daily, and no one is doing anything to help them.” (IRIN, ‘Doctors, NGOs warn of high infant mortality in Basra,’ April 11, 2006).
The causes are water-borne diseases and a lack of medical supplies. Marie Fernandez, spokeswoman for European aid agency Saving Children from War, reported:
“For weeks, there were no I.V. [intravenous] fluids available in the hospitals of Basra. As a consequence, many children, mainly under five-years old, died after suffering from extreme cases of diarrhoea. Hospitals have no ventilators to help prematurely-born babies breathe.” Fernandez added that, for the last three years, the Maternity and Children’s hospital in Basra has not received any cancer drugs from the health ministry: “In all of Basra, a city with nearly two million inhabitants, there’s no radiotherapy department available.”
This was reported by the UN’s Integrated Regional Information Network but has not been covered since by a single British newspaper. Recall that the protection of the civilian population of Basra is the legal responsibility of the British occupying forces. Why is the catastrophe befalling the children of Basra not filling the front pages of the Guardian and Independent? Why are government ministers not being called to account? Where are the demands for increased medical assistance and supplies from one of the world’s wealthiest countries? Where are the campaigns for donations and support? Is this not a clear example where even minimal media compassion would actually save lives?
Fadia Ibraheem, a senior official at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in Iraq, said of Baghdad: “We have to admit, this city is getting worse everyday in regard to the quality of life. As long as US troops remain, the city will continue to deteriorate.” (‘For quality of life, Baghdad ranks last in world, survey finds,’ April 11, 2006).
Read the full story here.

 

A picture worth a thousand IBC words
Following on from last issue’s critique of Iraq Body Count, here is a picture that beautifully illustrates how the reliance on English reporters who are basically stuck in Baghdad is skewing the figures to the point of uselessness. Can we really believe that the deaths in Baghdad are ten times higher than anywhere else in Iraq? If that were really so, why can’t the coalition control the capital like the rest of the country?

 

Get yer Media Goggles on: Iran
The people at MediaLens had much less praise for the coverage of Iran on the BBC:
In a recent speech at New York’s Columbia University, John Pilger commented: “We now know that the BBC and other British media were used by MI6, the secret intelligence service. In what was called ‘Operation Mass Appeal’, MI6 agents planted stories about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction — such as weapons hidden in his palaces and in secret underground bunkers. All these stories were fake.” (John Pilger, ‘The real first casualty of war,’ New Statesman, April 24, 2006)
Wittingly or otherwise, the BBC may now be participating in a rehashed ‘Operation Mass Appeal’ to generate support for an assault on Iran. Consider the focus of yesterday’s BBC online article, ‘Mid-East executions are condemned’:
“Amnesty International has said that Iran executed 94 people in 2005, while 86 were executed in Saudi Arabia.
“Iran, the rights group said, was the only country known to have executed juvenile offenders in 2005.
“At least eight people were killed for crimes committed when they were children, including two who were still under 18 at the time of execution.
“Some detainees in Saudi Arabia had been tried and sentenced in a language they did not speak or read.”
Compare and contrast the above with the opening paragraphs of yesterday’s Amnesty International press release, ‘Death Penalty: 20,000 on death row across the world,’ from which this information was taken.
Notice that Amnesty initially focused collectively on China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States, before focusing in separate paragraphs on China — “the country that accounts for almost 80% of all executions” — on Saudi Arabia, on the United States, and only then on Iran. Curiously, the BBC article omitted to mention the following statistic reported by Amnesty:
“Iraq: Following reinstatement of the death penalty in 2004, criminal courts handed down more than 50 death sentences during 2005. There were three executions.”
In a 900-word press release, Amnesty devoted 47 words focusing specifically on Iran in the 11th paragraph of a 19-paragraph article. While the press release discussed the death penalty “across the world”, the BBC’s title chose to focus on “Mid-East executions”.
Why did the BBC decide to focus so prominently and heavily on Iran — a country under serious threat of attack by the United States and perhaps Britain? Why would the BBC choose to isolate and highlight the sins of an official enemy, thereby boosting the government’s propaganda campaign? Is this innocent, or are more cynical forces at work here?
Read the full deal here.

 

Video Classic K Foundation
A premiere adbust organisation, or the most cynical media manipulators outside the Bush administration? This Omnibus from 1995 looks at the JAMs, the KLF, and the K foundation and focuses on their burning of £1 million in brand new fiftys. The little red email admires them either way.

 

Video Nearly Adbust Still Free
Is Marc Ecko the man who pulled off the cheekiest tagging in history? The tagging of Air Force One? Sadly not, it’s a hoax and a bit of viral advertising. But we hope it gives people ideas. Big ideas.

That’s right! You too can get one of our t-shirts. Simply brush up your Photoshop skills and send your corporate subversion images to adbusting@cannedrevolution.com, such as the one above to stand a chance of being selected the weekly winner of our brand new little red adbuster of the week competition. The winner will be chosen by the revolutionary collective here on our own Fantasy Island. Alternatively, for those who don’t fancy your chances of winning but are still budding anti-establishment artists and hanker for one of our shirts, you still have hope. Simply send us five of your designs in five consecutive weeks and, so long as the images, are yours (and we have ways of checking!), a t-shirt will be winging its way to you.
Adbusting — the choice of a new generation. For more on adbusting, click here.

 

Ad — unbusted
From a veiled ad to an outright one: Yes this is a genuine print ad from a Hong Kong magazine, and normally we wouldn’t propagate it but … we think you’ll understand why we couldn’t resist this ad for correction pens.

 

The Meteor-illogical Office report
This week, we ask: if the “there’s no global warming honest, no, really, we might be funded by big energy, but trust us” brigade are right, then what is former Veep Al Gore blathering on about in his provacative documentary An Inconvenient Truth.