Palin complains that press criticism is an attack on her First Amendment rights

In a Friday interview with WMAL-Am radio Sarah Palin made a bizarre statement relating to First Amendment rights. She said that criticism she's been getting from media outlets that allege she has been engaging in negative campaigning amounts to nothing less than "attacks" on her First Amendment rights.

Palin's ongoing negative attacks on Obama, make use of Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright as bogeymen. She regards press criticism of her low tactics as nothing less than 'an attack that threatens a candidate's (her) free speech rights under the Constitution.'

This is warped thinking, and one more reason why Palin could prove to be a menace if elected to high office. In fact the First Amendment guarantees the freedom of the press ... criticism of candidates is part and parcel of the exercise of that freedom.

Glenn Greenwald put it succinctly in a Salon piece:

The First Amendment is actually not that complicated. It can be read from start to finish in about 10 seconds. It bars the Government from abridging free speech rights. It doesn't have anything to do with whether you're free to say things without being criticized, or whether you can comment on blogs without being edited, or whether people can bar you from their private planes because they don't like what you've said.

To suggest that criticism of her attacks on Obama may be nothing less than unconstitutional makes Palin, not the press, the greater threat to freedom of speech.

Tags: Sarah Palin, negative campaigning, First Amendment rights

Did the Prophet Muhammad really exist?

The Prophet Muhammad has been a hot topic for debate in German academic circles lately. The debate isn't just about the Prophet's teachings, but about whether or not he even existed.

It is generally believed that the Prophet Muhammad was born in the Arabian Peninsula in 570 AD and that he died in Medina in 632 AD. However some German academics call into question traditionally recognized 'truths' about the Prophet, some even going so far as to claim he never existed in the first place.

Der Spiegel recently interviewed Michael Marx, director of the "Corpus Coranicum" project at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.

Der Spiegel : There is a group of prominent German Islamic scholars, who are becoming increasingly aggressive about questioning whether the existence of the Prophet is even historically accurate. The theory got its most recent backing from the University of Münster's Professor Muhammad Sven Kalisch, who is in charge of training teachers for Islamic education at the secondary-school level.

Karl-Heinz Ohlig, is another outspoken academic who has cast doubt on the existence of Muhammad. He takes the view that that the Qur'an was an early Christian text. Marx disagrees with Ohlig's claim that Muhammad never existed:

Marx : There are far too many pieces of evidence that make Ohlig's thesis that the Prophet never lived untenable. In the 14 centuries of polemics between Christians and Muslims, this issue has never made an appearance. Even in Syrian-Aramaic sources, however, there is some documentation about the prophet from an earlier time.

Marx stressed that it is difficult to scientifically prove the existence of historical figures - including great leaders such as Charlemagne. He speaks of an "evidentiary thread" and claims that the evidentiary situation offered by the Qur'an is better than for any other religions.

You can link to the full Spiegel interview with Marx here.

Tags: Prophet Muhammad, Michael Marx, Corpus Coranicum, Karl-Heinz Ohlig, Muhammad Sven Kalisch, Koran

Sarkozy fails in bid to have his voodoo doll banned

French president Sarkozy has failed to have the Nicolas Sarkozy voodoo doll banned. A French court threw out the ban attempt.

A judge ruled that the doll and how-to manual that explains how to put the evil eye on the president, falls within the boundaries of "free expression" and "right to humor."

Sarko's lawyer argued that the president owned the right to his own image, which was violated by the sale of the doll. So what about the liberties taken by creators of inventive cartoons and doctored photographs?

Unlike Sarkozy, his Socialist rival Ségolène Royal who has a similar voodoo doll circulating in her likeness, didn't sue. She praised the verdict as a victory for the freedom to "caricature the world's most powerful." Couldn't agree more. How about extending it to the right to "caricature the world's most obnoxious?" A Sarah Palin voodoo doll would sell like hotcakes.

It's unknown if Sarkozy will appeal.

Tags: Nicolas Sarkozy, voodoo doll, Segolene Royal, evil eye

Chemical Wedding : Aleister Crowley fantasy

During the summer a film titled Chemical Wedding, premiered at the 7th Annual London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film. The film attempts to resurrect the English mage, Aleister Crowley. It has been billed as an 'occult thriller' but 'flaky fantasy' might be the more accurate description.

The original screenplay was written by Bruce Dickinson, front man of the metal band Iron Maiden.

In Chemical Wedding the Professor Haddo character, played by Simon Callow, is 'possessed' by Crowley. This unlikely indwelling occurs when Haddo is hooked up to a virtual reality simulator connected to a supercomputer, Z93 - programmed by a lab assistant who amazingly reduced the magickal rituals of Crowley into binary code.

This stratagem provided cover for Dickinson to push the limits, even to the point of having his Crowley surrogate commit murder - an activity the original didn't engage in.

Fortean Times has a review that does a decent job at describing the descent into silliness - here's an excerpt:

The film begins with a flashback to 1947 and Crowley’s death in Hastings, seemingly brought about by rocket scientist and Thelemite Jack Parsons’s attempt to perform the Babalon Working in far-off Pasadena – a plot point that not only resonates later in the film but also provides a springboard for its theme of the confluence of science and magick.

Fast-forward to Cambridge in the year 2000, where scientists are experimenting with a state-of-the-art Virtual Reality suit brought over from Cal Tech and a super-computer called Z93, whose programmer is an obsess­ive Crowleyite. When his friend Professor Haddo (Simon Callow; the name is pinched from Somerset Maugham’s Crowley-inspired novel The Magician), an eccentric English professor with a speech impediment and a secret life as a Mason, tries on the VR suit, things go badly wrong. At the next morning’s Shakespeare lecture, Haddo appears with a shaven head, declares that the bard was an occultist and urinates over his students. It’s clear that the professor is not quite himself – in fact, he’s been ‘possessed’ by Crowley, who plans to stay in this new body.

And it’s really from this point that things go downhill fast, with the film jettisoning its sense of humour and turning into a standard contest between good and evil in which a student journalist and a visiting American scientist try to prevent the Beast from completing the occult ritual that will allow him to remain on Earth and continue doing bad things.

Also a short SCI-FI LONDON review here.

Viewed as a campy take-off the film works ... a sort of schlock-horror flick. I'm sure even Crowley would have enjoyed it on that level, but it's too heavy to be passed off as camp.

Most views of Crowley reflect the yellow press opinion of his day that painted him as a 'black magician' and depraved debauchee. Typically there is a tendency to zero in on Crowley's more outrageous antics and personal idiosyncrasies. These traits are played up in Chemical Wedding in a manner that robs the film of credibility - assuming credibility mattered.

Chemical Wedding leads to a corny good-versus-evil struggle with a student attempting to prevent Haddo/Crowley from enacting the ritual that will permit him to remain earthbound.

Crowley is often incorrectly identified with the Judeao-Christian 'devil.' In fact he didn't buy into the Bible at all - and certainly didn't see himself as an agent of the inverse side of that mythology. Anton LaVey ... the buffoon Satanist ... Crowley was not.

In reference to the Bible he had this to say:

“If one were to take the bible seriously one would go mad. But to take the bible seriously, one must be already mad.”

He also said:

"To practice black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires ... I have been accused of being a 'black magician.' No more foolish statement was ever made about me. I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practice it."

Perhaps someone will get around to making a film about Crowley that is worth watching - Chemical Wedding isn't it.

Tags: Chemical Wedding, Aleister Crowley, Bruce Dickinson, London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film, Anton LaVey

Election watch : voting machine problems raise a red flag

Peter Tatchell posting in the Independent's 'Open House' describes a disturbing test involving ES&S iVotronics touch-screen voting machines. The machines have been observed in four states flipping the votes, mostly from Obama to McCain, also to third party candidates.

Tatchell describes a similar event in West Virginia:

A county clerk in West Virginia invited a video crew to watch his demonstration of the reliability of the disputed voting machines but instead he saw the machine flipping the votes, as critics claimed. He put this down to the faulty calibration of the voting machine. However, even after he recalibrated the machine it continued to flip votes.

You can watch the video of the machine in action here.

Some of the machines that will be used in the presidential election are far from tamper-proof:

The discrepancies between paper and electronic voting could be the result of simple technological glitches. But some experts detect something more sinister: outright vote fixing by interference with voting machine and tabulation software.

Meacher reported that Diebold company voting machines and optical scanners may not be tamper-proof from hacking, particularly via remote modems. Diebold machines were used in counting a substantial proportion of the 2004 votes and will be used again in next week's presidential poll.

Two US computer security experts, in their book Black Box Voting, state that "by entering a two-digit code in a hidden location, a second set of votes is created; and this set of votes can be changed in a matter of seconds, so that it no longer matches the correct votes".

This is entirely possible, according to Clinton Curtis, a Florida computer programmer. He has confirmed that in 2000 he designed an undetectable program for Republican congressman Tom Feeney. It was created to rig elections by covertly switching votes from one candidate to another to ensure a predetermined ballot outcome.

Most western democracies have Independent Election Commissions to oversee voting and the results. The United States doesn't have an overarching Commission of this sort. Maybe it's about time.

Tags: US presidential election, voting machines, ES&S iVotronics touch-screen screens, vote fraud

Palin's status upgraded from 'Diva' to 'Whack Job'

Not long ago a McCain insider described Palin as a "diva." Charges that she has "gone rogue" relate to difficulties with her campaign handlers and a tendency to go off message. More recently a member of the McCain team told Politico's Playbook that Palin is a "whack job."

Huffington Post and others blew the whistle on her upscale outfits and makeup expenses. The whistle blowing resulted in some fast back-peddling, with Palin claiming the clothes "aren't my property." The criticism must have hit home because she is now appearing in less exotic threads. The McCain campaign it seems is kind of like a traveling circus with a wardrobe for the performers.

Despite the calls of some conservatives to "let Palin be Palin," the McCain campaign continues to pull on Palin's leash. Today McCain and his running mate somehow managed to sit togather in the same CNBC studio for an interview. But it was super brief - the McCain camp would only allow five live minutes. The interview was abruptly terminated when CNBC's Maria Bartiroma stepped into the danger zone with: "I'd like to ask you how your partnership is going, and how unified you are, actually!" The explanation given for the sudden cut-off was that the five minutes were up.

As the campaign heads into the final days, there will doubtless be an effort to plaster over the differences between McCain and his running mate.

Despite the adulation of the 'Sarah dude' crowd, who would likely give high fives to any Jesus-loving looker with populist appeal and an extra-large flag pin, serious doubts remain about Palin's temperamental suitability - also about her judgment.

A McCain insider said : "She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone. She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else."

Another McCain source said: "Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic."

Tags: Sarah Palin, John McCain, rogue, diva, whack job, CNBC interview

McCain-Palin : 'he says ... she says'

Tags: John McCain, Sarah Palin, tensions

Villa Anders : New gay and lesbian housing project in Cologne

Gay and Lesbian Germans have been offered the opportunity to live in a discrimination-free environment. The Gay and Lesbian Living Association (VSLW) are behind a housing project named Villa Anders ("Alternative Villa") in the working-class district of Ehrenfield.

Kate Connolly reports in the Guardian:

The €6.7m (£5.3m) project will receive some state support, but is essentially meant to be self-financing in what developers have recognised as a commercially viable enterprise. So far, tenants have been found for all but 15 of the 70 flats, which they are expected to move into by the end of 2009.

Cologne has the largest gay and lesbian community in Europe. The city is widely regarded as one of the most tolerant.

Concerns have been raised about the 'ghetto effect' that could follow from setting up exclusively gay and lesbian neighborhoods. Stefan Jüngst, a spokesperson for the project, doesn't buy into this thesis:

"I don't buy the 'ghetto' arguments ... The point is, this puts us in the middle of the community. In many European cities, like Warsaw or Moscow, this sort of thing would not be possible - because there's so much homophobia that the place would be firebombed within days."

While Jüngst makes a good point, there is a danger that a housing project along Villa Anders' lines could send the wrong message. The whole point in the fight for LGBT rights is to challenge those societal prejudices that have kept gay and lesbian people on the periphery.

Tags: Villa Anders, Cologne, Germany, Gay and Lesbian Living Association, Stefan Jungst, LGBT

Vote grab : Voter Purge might add to McCain's chances

For reasons not always transparent there is a litany of problems every time the voting season comes around in the US. The largest democracy in the world is far from streamlined when it comes to the actual ballot process. Registration problems, computer fraud and other glitches frequently crop up.

Activist Peter Tatchell raised a red flag in a recent post on the Independent. He warns that the outcome of the presidential election could be skewed in McCain's favor as a result of a widespread voter purge:

Around 13 million US voters have been purged from the electoral rolls since 2004. That's 10 per cent of the 120 million votes cast in 2004 and twice as many voters as have been added through recent massive voter registration drives.

The proportion of electors dropped from the voters' lists is staggering: 17 per cent in Colorado, 15 per cent in Washington State, 14 per cent in New York, 13 per cent in Nevada and 10 per cent in Missouri.

This means that millions of Americans will not be allowed to vote on 4 November. It could cost Barack Obama the White House, even if he is ahead in the opinion polls on 4 November.

Tatchell mentions research done by the New York Times:

This sensational claim is confirmed by the New York Times (NYT). Its researchers have found that in some states for every new voter registered in the last couple of months, two voters have been removed – negating Obama’s massive voter registration drive. This voter purging could mean fewer people voting in 2008 than voted in 2004.

There will be voters who show up on November 4th only to find they aren't listed. If this happens don't take 'no' for an answer, but instead fill out a provisional ballot and call a voter hotline.

Read Peter's full post here.

Tags: voter purge, US presidential election, vote grab, McCain, Obama

Neo-Nazi plot to assassinate Obama disrupted by ATF

A bizarre plot to assassinate Barack Obama has been broken up by US law enforcement officials. Two skinheads, Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, Tennessee and Paul Schlesselman, 18, of Helena-West, Helena, Arkansas, are being held without bond.

The report includes macabre details such as the plan of the two skins to kill or decapitate 88 black people (the number 88 is symbolic in Neo-Nazi circles - two '8's' or 'H's' stand for "Heil Hitler" ). The plan was then to gun for Obama wearing ... get this ... white tuxedos and top hats - kind of like the plot of an over-the-top Tarantino movie.

Cowart and Schlesselman weren't just acting out a fantasy, they were looking after the practical details. Agents seized a rifle, a sawed-off shotgun and three pistols from the men when they were arrested. The duo were working on a plan to break into a gun shop and steal more weaponry.

Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the ATF's Nashville field office said they took the threat very seriously.

Read the full report here on Huffington Post.

Tags: Barack Obama Obama, Neo-Nazis, assassination plot, ATF

Obama draws 100,000 in Denver

Little surprise that McCain has all but conceded Colorado. Obama drew over a 100,000 in Denver, a tally confirmed by Denver police.

Full report here.

Tags: Barack Obama, Denver, Colarado

Prayer booth in Orlando

If you have the need to call God when you're in Orlando you can make use of a prayer booth. It is like a phone booth, and comes with instructions that inform you how to "operate" your prayer booth experience.

The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation site has information about the creator of the prayer booth - a guy named Dylan Mortimer - read about it here. The site offers this info on Mortimer's work:

Dylan Mortimer’s work deals with how private faith functions in the public realm. The interactive Public Prayer Booth is a synthesis of a telephone booth and a prayer station. The viewer can flip down a kneeler and engage in prayer.

Judging from the blurb Mortimer appears to bring a sense of humor to his work but you can be sure if these booths become widely available there will be Christians who take them entirely seriously.

They look as though they are run and operated by the Heavenly Telephone Network (HTN). As we all know right wing Christian types are comfortable with thinking of God-as-CEO, so when they do the prayer booth thing they can imagine they are using the services of a kind of celestial AT&T.

There is something absurd about taking time out on the sidewalk to kneel on a metal contraption with knee pads that could be taken at a glance for some kind of S & M equipment. If there was a dominatrix nearby flexing her whip, she would seem right at home. Perhaps that is where Mortimer's sense of humor comes in, because it's hard to believe he sees this as a serious proposition.

The prayer booths outdo any Muslim prayer-related strangeness you care to name. The praying position required is perfect for Christian exhibitionists - kind of like the public praying of the Pharisees who Jesus allegedly condemned for making their prayers into a show of righteousness.

Here's hoping they remain in the realm of an art project.

Tags: prayer booths, Orlando, Christians, God

Anchorage Daily News : Palin's hometown paper endorses Obama

The Anchorage Daily News isn't buying their governor's pitch on behalf of John McCain. Neither is it swayed by the likelihood that the Republican ticket might prevail in its own backyard.

In a recent editorial the paper offers clear and considered analysis to back its recent endorsement of Barack Obama:

Gov. Palin's nomination clearly alters the landscape for Alaskans as we survey this race for the presidency -- but it does not overwhelm all other judgment. The election, after all is said and done, is not about Sarah Palin, and our sober view is that her running mate, Sen. John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand. The same cannot be said of Sen. McCain.

Since his early acknowledgement that economic policy is not his strong suit, Sen. McCain has stumbled and fumbled badly in dealing with the accelerating crisis as it emerged. He declared that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" at 9 a.m. one day and by 11 a.m. was describing an economy in crisis. He is both a longtime advocate of less market regulation and a supporter of the huge taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailout. His behavior in this crisis -- erratic is a kind description -- shows him to be ill-equipped to lead the essential effort of reining in a runaway financial system and setting an anxious nation on course to economic recovery.

It is Sen. Obama who truly promises fundamental change in Washington. You need look no further than the guilt-by-association lies and sound-bite distortions of the degenerating McCain campaign to see how readily he embraces the divisive, fear-mongering tactics of Karl Rove. And while Sen. McCain points to the fragile success of the troop surge in stabilizing conditions in Iraq, it is also plain that he was fundamentally wrong about the more crucial early decisions. Contrary to his assurances, we were not greeted as liberators; it was not a short, easy war; and Americans -- not Iraqi oil -- have had to pay for it. It was Sen. Obama who more clearly saw the danger ahead.

The unqualified endorsement of Sen. Obama by a seasoned, respected soldier and diplomat like Gen. Colin Powell, a Republican icon, should reassure all Americans that the Democratic candidate will pass muster as commander in chief.

Read the full editorial here.

Tags: Anchorage Daily News, Sarah Palin, Obama endorsement

Cyber murder: Japanese Maplestory player kills virtual husband

Online fantasy games effect people differently. Some suggestible types can become so deeply identified with role playing it becomes a private reality, equal to or even more 'real' than day-to-day life.

This appears to be what happened in a gaming related crime involving a Japanese woman. She may face charges of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating data after she commited a 'crime of cyber passion.'

The 43 year old female player of the online game, Maplestory, became enraged when she discovered that her virtual husband had divorced her without warning. She was so incenced she illegally accessed the log-in details of the man who was playing her husband. Once inside his computer she did the evil deed - offing the man's unfortunate avatar.

She was arrested in Sopporo, where her fantasy "husband" lives. If convicted she could face as much as five years in jail and a fine of up to $5,000.

Maplestory is a Korean-made game that has grown in popularity. Its main fan base is in Asia. Much of the game involves fighting digital monsters, but players can also engage in social activities, form relationships - including staged cyber marriages.

Tags: Maplestory, Japanese woman, kills husband, computer crime

Serge Gainsbourg : new exhibition opens in Paris

Serge Gainsbourg is the subject of an ambitious exhibition that opened this week at the Musée de Musique in Paris.

John Lichfield writing in the Independent provides some background:

The exhibition, Gainsbourg 2008, is part of a series organised by the Cité de Musique in the 19th arrondissement, whose classically oriented museum has paid tribute in recent years to giants of rock music from John Lennon to Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd. Serge Gainsbourg is the first French pop musician to be honoured.

The curator of the exhibition, Frédéric Sanchez, describes the choice of Gainsbourg as a "consecration" and an "apotheosis". The show, which lasts until 1 March, presents Gainsbourg as not just a pop star and rebel but an intellectual and artist, who also dabbled in cinema, painting, poetry and novel-writing.

Great talent though he was, it was the hit "Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus" that brought Gainsbourg international fame, due in large part to the orgasmic moaning of a female co-performer. He never tried to hide his unconventional tastes. In his incarnation as 'Gainsbarre in France' he acquired the image of an aging roué - a rep added to by his fascination with the sexual allure of teen lolitas.

Gainsbourg's lyrics were often sexual and at times morbid, but this wasn't always apparent. Double-meaning and sexual innuendo cleverly masked his true intent. For example the song, "Les Sucettes," that he wrote for the French singer France Gall, was really a metaphor for oral sex - something Gall didn't catch onto at first.

In an article that appeared in the Independent in 2006, Philip Sweeney writes of the enduring Gainsburg legend and the manner in which it has been resurfacing in tribute albums such as Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited:

A new album, Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited, features the maestro's work, translated into English, performed by a couple of dozen choice members of the UK and US music scenes, and the flagship French Gainsbourg TV show broadcast last month was devoted largely to these performers. Along with Gainsbourg contemporaries such as Birkin, Marianne Faithfull and Françoise Hardy, a new crop of Gainsbourgians - Franz Ferdinand, Placebo, Tricky, Jarvis Cocker - was in the studio to testify to the unshaven anti-hero's greatness, and to comment, almost without exception, that their first experience of his music was that number, you know, with the girl moaning, "Je T'Aime".

In his later years Gainsbourg was a regular on French television. This certainly didn't signal a toning down of his idiosyncratic ways. He often showed up unshaven and at times under-the-influence. He was reliably unpredictable. In 1986 when he appeared on Michael Drucker's show with the American singer, Whitney Houston, he announced out loud "I want to to fuck her."

Gainsbourg was one of the first music pop artists of the late 1960s. While artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein explored modern iconographic consumer culture through painting, Gainsbourg explored similar territory in music. Love him or hate him - he was a true original.

Serge Gainsbourg died on 2 March 1991 of a heart attack. His funeral brought Paris to a standstill. Then French President Mitterand said of him, "He was our Boudelaire, our Apollinaire."

Tags: Serge Gainsbourg, Paris exhibition, Cité de Musique, Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus

Making up Palin : Make-up artist Amy Strozzi earns $22,800 for two weeks work

Tina the waitress who lives in the same small town as Ed the Electrician, Bob the Builder and Ralph the Roofer puts on her make-up unaided. She gets out her lipstick and eyeliner in the washroom and does the needful with the help of a mirror.

Not Sarah "Six-Pack" Palin. Her make-up artist was the highest paid McCain staffer in the first two weeks of October. Amy Strozzi - who was nominated for an Emmy for her makeup work on the TV show "So You Think You Can Dance" - made $22,800 for two weeks work.

When you put Palin's fashion expenses alongside her pricey high end make-up artist, you have to think that her pitch to Joe the Plumber, Ed the Electrician, Annie the Nurse et al is kind of errr ... off-base.

According to conservative columnist, Kathleen Parker, McCain's choice of Palin had a good deal to do with her looks:

... there can be no denying that McCain's selection of her over others far more qualified -- and his mind-boggling lack of attention to details that matter -- suggests other factors at work. His judgment may have been clouded by . . . what?

Science provides clues. A study in Canada, published by a British journal in 2003, found that pretty women foil men's ability to assess the future. "Discounting the future," as the condition is called, means preferring immediate, lesser rewards to greater rewards in the future.

For some reason Parker felt the need to add at one point in her article "... By no means am I suggesting anything untoward between McCain and his running mate." Okay then, now that we have that out of the way, what was it that so drew McCain to the former beauty queen? Well according to Parker:

McCain didn't know her. He didn't vet her. His campaign team had barely an impression. In a bar one night, Draper asked one of McCain's senior advisers: "Leaving aside her actual experience, do you know how informed Governor Palin is about the issues of the day?"

The adviser thought a moment and replied: "No, I don't know."

Blame the sycamore tree.

McCain had met Palin only once -- in February, at the governors' convention in Washington -- before the day he selected her as his running mate. The second time was at his Sedona, Ariz., ranch on Aug. 28, just four days before the GOP convention.

As Draper tells it, McCain took Palin to his favorite coffee-drinking spot down by a creek and a sycamore tree. They talked for more than an hour, and, as Napoleon whispered to Josephine, "Voilà."

Link here for the Huffington Post story and slide show.

Tags: Amy Strozzi, Sarah Palin, make-up expenses, McCain camapaign, Kathleen Parker, Joe the Plumber

Republican fashion show

Tags: Sarah Palin, John McCain, presidential campaign

Kucinich slams Wall Street bonuses that may include cash from $700 billion bail-out

Bill Maher wondered out loud recently on Larry King why Americans aren't more angry. He pointed out that with the Iraq war and the state of the economy there is a hell of a lot to be angry about. Perhaps the reason there isn't more anger on public display is because people are afraid and are grimly hoping for the best in a time of great uncertainty.

Forget about anger after-the-fact though, it's tough to understand why years ago Americans weren't more riled up by the rip-off capitalism of a free market that was spiraling toward disaster driven by greed and cynical opportunism. There was plenty of evidence ... lots of canaries warning of a looming crisis. But for the most part the perp walks of CEO's caught red handed gaming the market and enriching themselves beyond the average Joe's wildest dreams were just passed off as a case of a few bad apples. There was still the belief on the part of the public that the foundation of the economy was secure.

After the recent collapse and federal bailout you would like to believe that the lesson has hit home hard. Not hard enough apparently. That's certainly the impression you got when Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) revealed this week that Wall Street firms that received billions in the bailout may still go ahead with large executive bonuses.

Part of the deal with the bailout was that excessive executive compensations would be reined in. Kucinich, who voted against the deal, has stated that not only may this not be the case, but that firms may actually dip into cash from the bailout package to reward employees.

Kucinich's revelations follow closely on the heels of a Guardian report that claims more than $70 billion in bonuses might be paid out by Wall Street banks this year. The Guardian named Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley in the report.

Kucinich had this to say:

"This is a disgrace ... The bailout continues to be perverted by those who led us into the problem to begin with and who stand not to just profit in a corporate sense but to profit personally through bonus packages."

Tags: Dennis Kucinich, federal bailout, Wall Street bonuses, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley

Palin's lavish spending : Joe the Plumber she ain't

When you listen to Palin doing her down-home hockey mom routine, you wonder who she is trying to fool. The winking, back-to-basics gal with the grin and the 'you betchas' - is a big act. A fraud. A phony in Neiman Marcus outfits.

This from HuffPo:

Since her selection as John McCain's running mate, the Republican National Committee spent more than $150,000 on clothing and make-up for Gov. Sarah Palin, her husband, and even her infant son, it was reported on Tuesday evening.

During a week in which the Republican ticket is trying to highlight its connection to the working class -- and, by extension, promoting its newest campaign tool, Joe the Plumber -- it was revealed that Palin's fashion budget for several weeks was more than four times the median salary of an American plumber ($37,514). To put it another way: Palin received more valuable clothes in one month than the average American household spends on clothes in 80 years. A Democrat put it in even blunter terms: her clothes were the cost of health care for 15 or so people.

Palin's penchant for pricey outfits isn't one that can be dismissed lightly as 'just clothes' since the candidate herself has made such a big play out of presenting herself as a small-town "Joe Six-Pack" American. How are the low-income Americans she has been preaching to supposed to relate to a candidate who is attired in a pricey new outfit every time they look around. At what point do cosmetic excesses start to make Palin seem more like a showboat than a candidate anyone can take seriously - particularly given the current economic downturn. Quite aside from the amount of money involved in getting glammed up to the nines, is Palin a candidate liable to inspire confidence in anyone except the naive and impressionable, or those who are such resolute Republican backers you could trot out the infamous 'pig in lipstick' and it would get their vote irrespective.

As a possible VP Palin is a joke. The oft repeated warning that she would be a heartbeat from the presidency is a sobering consideration. That realization has long since dawned in some conservative circles - even it seems on the part of some in the McCain campaign itself. There have been signs that internal tensions have been buffeting the campaign.

NBC News Political Director, Chuck Todd, commented recently on a joint interview with McCain and Palin conducted by NBC's Brian Williams. He noted how tense the candidates seemed:

"I couldn't see chemistry between John McCain and Sarah Palin. I felt as if we grabbed two people and said 'here, sit next to each other, we are going to conduct an interview.'

Todd wondered if the realization that the Republicans are losing the campaign may have disposed McCain to hold Palin responsible for their decline in political fortunes.

None of this will be a surprise to those Democrats who were skeptical from the moment Palin sashayed onto the stage at the RNC to deliver her first big speech. How anyone could have regarded her as a winning addition to the McCain team is hard to fathom. From day one Palin came off as a stage-managed product - over-the-top on image considerations. When a presidential ticket becomes a fashion opportunity for a candidate, her fashion allowance rightly becomes a legitimate campaign talking point.

Tags: Sarah Palin, big spender, designer outfits, hypocrisy, Joe the Plumber, presidential race, McCain campaign

French President threatens to sue maker of 'Nicolas Sarkozy voodoo doll'

The publisher K&B has issued 20,000 editions of a voodoo doll in the likeness of Nicolas Sarkozy. The kit comes with pins and instructions on how to put the evil eye on the French President.

The Sarkozy 'voodoo doll' has sayings by the President printed on its body. Users have the option to stick their pins into the most hated quote. Some of the choices include "work more to earn more" and "get lost you pathetic asshole" (the BBC report translates it as "get lost, jerk") which is what Sarko reportedly said to a man who refused to shake his hand at an event last year.

Perhaps Sarkozy has a superstitious streak because he's very unhappy about the voodoo doll kit - so unhappy he has threatened to sue K&B if they don't pull the kit from the shops. His lawyer claims the president has "exclusive and absolute rights over his own image."

So far K & B has refused to oblige. The publisher characterized Sarkozy's reaction as "totally disproportionate."

Tags: Nicolas Sarkozy, K&B publishers, voodoo doll

Super Sarko and the curse of the voodoo dolls

Tags: Nicolas Sarkozy, Carla Bruni, voodoo dolls

Cyber front in 'war on terror'? : pro al-Qaeda websites shut down

A Guardian article suggests that western intelligence may be targeting websites that spread al-Qaeda related information:

Websites being used to disseminate propaganda by al-Qaeda appear to have come under systematic cyber-attack, forcing the closure of three for well over a month and fuelling speculation that governments are targeting them in a shadowy new front in the "war on terror".

Al-Ekhlas, al-Buraq and al-Firdaws, all linked to al-Fajr - the media distribution arm of al-Qaeda - have been down since just before September 11, when the broadcast of a video commemorating the 2001 attacks was inexplicably delayed.

All have suffered occasional disruption but this is the longest period they have been out of action. Al-Fajr blamed technical problems and denied that the sites had fallen "into the hands of the enemy".

Yet suspicions of a deliberate disruption campaign have been fuelled by the fact that a fourth website, al-Hesbah, continues to operate unimpeded, with several experts suggesting it may be being used by Saudi intelligence to monitor and entrap jihadi militants.

Rumors of joint Anglo-American operations have been doing the rounds. William McCants, a consultant at West Point military academy said: "I think it's probably being orchestrated by several governments and it would have to be on the black operations (illegal but deniable) side ... Whoever is doing this knows what they are doing. They are being surgically precise."

Dia Rashwan, an Egyptian expert, takes the view that the Americans are behind it : "I believe there has been a decision by the US to close down these internet forums as part of their strategy of defeating al-Qaida and to stop it getting attention in the Arab world."

Anne Hennesen of Norway's Defence Research Establishment said: "There must be a big organisation behind this. It seems to me perfectly reasonable to assume that this is the work of an intelligence agency."

The western intelligence angle is disputed by some. Mustafi Alani of the Gulf research Center in Dubai, believes that the sites may have been attacked by Shia groups engaged in tit-for-tat sectarian payback.

Yet another theory is that the sites may have voluntarily closed down their own operations believing that the information they were providing was too good a source of intelligence for their enemies.

For more detail link to the Guardian article by Ian Black here.

Tags: Al Qaeda websites, cyber attacks, western intelligence, Al-Ekhlas, al-Buraq, al-Firdaws, William McCants, Mustafi Alani, Anne Hennesen

Atheist friendly slogan to appear on London buses

A campaign in the UK backed by the British Humanist Association (BHA) and Professor Richard Dawkins, is going to place a slogan on London buses that reads "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

The BBC reports:

As the campaign has raised more than anticipated, it will also have posters on the inside of buses as well.

The BHA is also considering extending the campaign to cities including Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.

Professor Dawkins said: "Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride - automatic tax breaks, unearned respect and the right not to be offended, the right to brainwash children.

"Even on the buses, nobody thinks twice when they see a religious slogan plastered across the side.

"This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think - and thinking is anathema to religion."

Hanne Stinson, chief executive of the BHA, said: "We see so many posters advertising salvation through Jesus or threatening us with eternal damnation, that I feel sure that a bus advert like this will be welcomed as a breath of fresh air."

The BHA campaign is long overdue. It brings a secular voice to a public square where religious symbols and messages have long gone unchallenged. The slogan isn't particularly hard hitting, but it will certainly grab attention and provoke a debate.

Belief in the monotheistic God of organized religion is akin to belief in Santa Claus - just much less healthy. There is no other concept that has such a massive following worldwide without so much as a shred of hard evidence that would allow an objective scientific observer to conclusively state that, yes ... such a God exists.

When you consider that the Old Testament which many Christians believe to be the 'literal word of God' is chock full of alleged miraculous events - you have to ask yourself what happened to this grand supernatural show? Miraculous spectacles featuring chariots of fire, dividing seas, tumbling Jericho walls, itinerant angelic visitors etc must have been packed away along with the rest of the props. The omnipresent master-of-ceremonies himself mysteriously vanished - he no longer even bothers to set the occasional bush on fire in order to signal his presence. Could it be that he never existed in the first place, aside from in the over-active imaginations of his early tribal followers?

His alleged "son" Jesus, purportedly said 'after me you will see even greater signs and wonders.' Even greater signs? Well considering that Jesus was alleged to have raised the dead and walked on water we ought to be able to anticipate awesome things. The only problem being ... where is the evidence? Nowhere - unless you regard a hokey 'healing' by Benny Hinn or Catholic claims about a 'weeping' statue of the virgin Mary as evidence for the existence of something-out-there. If you do, it might be wise to follow the advice Bill Maher gave to Sherri Shepherd and give Bellevue hospital a call.

A casual reading of the Bible makes clear that the 'God' of monotheism - or more to the point his inventive channelers - was all about patriarchal authority, law and taboo, the subjugation of women, war and endless enmity between peoples. The advent of Jesus and his gospel hasn't shaken the influence of the old sky father. Many still adhere to a literal or quasi-literal interpretation of the Old Testament.

While the rights of the religious aren't in question, the views that go along with God belief are out of step with the needs of modern society. The BHA campaign raises important questions that need to be asked and the London buses are as good a venue as any for kick starting the debate.

Tags: Atheist slogans, London buses, God, Richard Dawkins, British Humanist Association

McCain's down n' dirty robocall tactics

Back in the 2000 primaries McCain was the subject of malicious calls that targeted him and his family. At that time McCain denounced the practice saying:

"I promise you I have never, and will never, have anything to do with that kind of political tactic."

Yeah well, the robocalls going out around the country on behalf of "John McCain and the RNC" engage in similar tactics. The flip flop shouldn't surprise anyone. McCain wasn't nicknamed 'McNasty' for nothing. McCain's flip flop history demonstrates clearly that in his political career principle took a back seat to expediency more times than not

Here are some excerpts from the McCain robocall message:

"You need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the US Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans. Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington."

Sixty percent of Americans say that the saga of 60's radical Bill Ayers isn't relevant in the presidential campaign, yet McCain persists in irritating people by revisiting ancient history that went down when Obama was just a kid.

Then we have this:

"You need to know that Barack Obama ... opposed a bill requiring doctors to care for babies born alive after surviving attempted abortions ... Barack Obama and his liberal Democrats are too extreme for America ..."

More here from the Guardian.

The McCain campaign is scraping the bottom of the barrel with this. Senate Democrat Majority Leader, Harry Reid, describes the robocalls as "scummy tactics."

Automated scare tactics might work with a few paranoid types who don't get out much and trust their judgment to the GOP, but they will repel and anger many more people.

When this presidential campaign is over, fewer Americans will continue to regard McCain with the respect he once enjoyed. Sad trip downhill for a man who began the campaign on a high note calling for respectful conduct, but who has has since demonstrated that there are few places John McCain won't go if he believes it will get him in the door of the White House.

Tags: John McCain, robocalls, GOP, RNC, presidential campaign

"Senator Obama, I'm not President Bush ..."

When John McCain said "Senator Obama, I'm not President Bush ..." in the third debate, it was supposed to be a defining moment. Defining moments are defining because they magnify some essential truth. What McCain's statement succeeded in magnifying was the fact that while he may not be the man himself ... he was one of the man's chief enablers.

As Mitchell Bard points out in the Huffington Post ... in 2007 McCain voted with Bush 95 percent of the time. Since Bush took office McCain voted with him 89 percent of the time - according to this Congressional Quarterly voting study.

McCain's loyalty extended to fellow Republicans in the Senate. He voted with them 98 percent of the time in 2007 (43 out of 44 times).

In the early going McCain saw a career opportunity in siding with Bush. But now that he's on the stump, he remains shackled to the carcass of failed Bush policies ... policies that he voted for ... but that hey ... he's going to change.

Rarely have American politics witnessed such a breathtaking act of hypocrisy as the spectacle of McCain trying to distance himself from the President he was in bed with.

"Senator Obama, I'm not President Bush..." was indeed a defining moment ... a defining moment in the history of denial.

Tags: John McCain, George Bush, hypocrisy

McCain couldn't get enough Bush back in the day

Tags: John McCain, George Bush, GOP

Racist Greek cops force man to drop trousers and underwear in the street

The Greek site Ethnos has a report entitled "Guantanamo images in the center of Athens," that includes photos of a public strip search in the downtown area. The photos were taken from the window of an Athens organization that campaigns on behalf of immigrants.

To call this a strip search is inaccurate. It is a public humiliation of a man who appears to be of Asian or Middle Eastern origin.

The man was ordered by the cops to drop his trousers and underwear in the middle of the street with pedestrians passing by. A spokesperson for the immigrant rights organization, Petros Constantinou, described the incident as a case of extreme racism.

Downtown Athens, especially around the Omonia Square district, has seen an upsurge of crime. However no amount of crime can justify these police tactics. This was clearly a cynical abuse of police power conducted with complete impunity in front of passing citizens.

The Athens police have launched an internal inquiry and say that any officer implicated in the incident will be subject to disciplinary sanctions.

Tags: Greek police, strip search, Athens, Petros Constantinou, Omonia Square

Heil Haider! : state funeral for Nazi sympathizer

Joerg Haider spent the evening prior to his death in a gay club in Klagenfurt where he was seen in the company of a young man. Haider lacked the integrity to come clean about his gay preferences, and instead fronted the public image of the family man. Just one more contradiction in a life full of contradictions.

That night in the Klagenfurt club Haider downed the better part of a bottle of vodka and became so obviously drunk, a customer at the bar offered to drive him home, but was turned down.

On the drive home in his VW Phaeton, Haider passed another vehicle. He was speeding, clocking 142 k's when he ploughed into a concrete barrier. The Phaeton flipped over a number of times. Haider was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital. It has subsequently been reported that he was more than four times over the limit with a blood alcohol level of 1.8 milligrams per millilitre of blood.

The public expression of grief in Austria is on grand display, with overblown comparisons being made with the death of princess Diana. The grief fest has only been outdone by the pomp and ceremony of Haider's state funeral, where prelates of the Catholic Church were front and center. Hardly surprising, given the political accommodations of the Vatican in the not so distant past.

All of this for a man who was so far right in his thinking in the 1990's that he engaged in public praise of the Nazi era - lauding Hitler's employment policies. He attempted to downplay Nazi crimes by referring to WW2 concentration camps as "punishment camps," and argued that the SS should be honored. He also compared the deportation of the Jews to death camps with the expulsion of Sudetan Germans from Czechoslovakia after WW2.

Despite Haider's less radical stance as leader of the Alliance for Austria's Future, he left a legacy in Carinthia that was difficult to shake. He was responsible for promoting discriminatory practices directed against the minority people of southern Carinthia - an autochthonous Slovene ethnic community, known as the Carinthian Slovenes. Haider pushed for Slovene students to be segregated in schools from German-speaking students. He also put up opposition to the Austrian Constitutional Court ruling that called for bilingual road signs.

When the Court ruled that the road sign of the town of Bleiburg was unconstitutional because it was written only in German, Haider personally moved the road sign several meters in a theatrical protest. He compared his action to Jesus Christ moving the stone from over his tomb.

This is a man of whom Austrians are proud. So proud in fact that the public expressions of grief have to be seen to be believed. In a Guardian article Kate Connolly describes the carnival surrounding the passing of Haider:

Amid a sea of red candles one teenager has written: "To a great man of the nation who fought for his land. Our hero, our fighter, our sunshine." Another note reads: "Our king of hearts". Slipped in between are pictures of Haider, an orange sweater - the colour of his breakaway Alliance for the Future of Austria party (BZO) - draped over his shoulders, glass of beer in hand; another shows the maverick fascist bungee jumping off a bridge.

The Carinthian writer, Egyd Gstättner, speaks with disgust of the "fuhrer cult" that surrounded Haider. He said that every Monday morning his 10 year old child was required by the religious affairs teacher to fill up a page of her exercise book with a black cross and Haider's name.

The creeping influence of the far right is gathering momentum in Europe. The economic downturn will add to their influence. It shouldn't be forgotten that it was high unemployment in Germany in the 1930's that facilitated the mercurial rise of Adolf Hitler.

Tags: Joerg Haider, state funeral, Klagenfurt, Austria, Nazis, Egyd Gstattner, Carinthian Slovenes

Nancy Pfotenhauer insults Northern Virginians : Palin insults Americans

Recent McCain-Palin rallies have attracted an ugly crew. One guy at a rally in Pennsylvania was caught on video waving a stuffed monkey wearing a paper crown with "Obama" printed on it.

The racists and xenophobes in the crowd that line up to hear Palin are also flag waving patriots. This uneasy combo of extremism and patriotism, is a mix that Palin appears to relate to. If it bothers her, she certainly hasn't come out and said that it does. On the contrary, she said that she "loved to visit the pro-American areas of the country."

What the hell does "pro-American areas of the country" mean? Is this code for "rednecks like me" because it sure sounds like it. Is an American Democrat who doesn't buy her brand of jingoism less of an American? Are American Democrats, who are as likely as any Republican to have a son or a daughter serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, less American because they don't comport themselves in a manner that Palin deems to be acceptably pro-American?

Republican bigotry is all over this campaign and not just from the rank and file. McCain adviser, Nancy Pfotenhauer, said recently on an MSNBC interview that the "real Virginia" doesn't include Northern Virginia. McCain is doing poorly in Northern Virginia. Pfotenhauer's implication appears to be that Northern Virginians aren't 'real Repub lovin' Virginians' and so by extension not 'real Americans' - kind of like Americans who Palin deems to be not-American-enough because they don't buy into the McCain-Palin brand.

This is a watershed election. America has a chance to shake off the chains and shackles of the GOP that has kept a large percentage of the American population on ideological plantations. Every election, these loyalists head out to the polls and dutifully vote Republican against their own best interests. The GOP plays this constituency like a fiddle. They fed it the BS about Saddam's WMD to drum up justification for war. Now it's Obama's 'terrorist connections' .... Acorn's evil designs ... and whatever fiction FOX news and surrogates dream up and pass off as news.

Americans are a strong minded people and the polls prove that. Despite the slander that has been directed against Barack Obama, Americans have shown remarkable resistance to the bag of tricks the GOP has long played to great advantage. The same courage and judgment will win out at the polls in November, when our neighbors to the south demonstrate what it truly means to be pro-American in the very best sense of that term.

Tags: Nancy Pfotenhauer, Virginia, Palin, pro-American, bigotry, GOP, presidential campaign

McCain's lies about ACORN : GOP's bogus anti-fraud campaign

John McCain's scare tactics when it comes to allegations about Acorn 'voter fraud' is in large part bullshit.

ACORN is a community organization that is attempting to get out the vote. In their drive to register low-income and minority voters a small number of forms were filled out by people who submitted incorrect or obviously off-the-wall details such as signing up as "Micky Mouse." Overzealous employees eager to make a quick buck sometimes cut corners - but to cite this stuff as evidence of a conspiracy to perpetrate a fraud at the polls is rubbish.

Election experts have weighed in on the debate to help calm fears arising from McCain's unscrupulous allegations. This from ABC online:

McCain's voter fraud worries – about Acorn or anyone else – are unsupported by the facts, said experts on election fraud, who recall similar concerns being raised in several previous elections, despite a near-total absence of cases.

"There's no evidence that any of these invalid registrations lead to any invalid votes," said David Becker, project director of the "Make Voting Work" initiative for the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Becker should know: he was a lawyer for the Bush administration until 2005, in the Justice Department's voting rights section, which was part of the administration's aggressive anti-vote-fraud effort.

It's not as though ACORN treats all submitted forms as equally valid - they take the time to sort the forms, separating bona fide forms from those that contain suspect information. Moreover it should be clearly pointed out that ACORN has not been registering voters directly on Obama's behalf.

The partisan role of the FBI in this is an abuse of their power. The investigation they are undertaking into fraud is nothing less than the politicization of justice.

Obama attorney Bob Bauer has criticized leaks by law enforcement officials. Strange isn't it that the leaks occurred 24 hours after McCain's statement during Tuesday's debate that ACORN was threatening "the fabric of democracy."

Bauer also characterized the McCain campaign hype about ACORN as "reckless and incendiary," aimed at intimidating voters. He's absolutely right - of greater concern than fraud, is the the very real concern that the hyping of this issue out of all proportion could well keep low-income voters away from the polls out of fear that they might be subjected to harassment.

More detail from Raw Story here. Also read "ACORN's response to McCain's Lies" here on American Chronicle.

Tags: John McCain, ACORN, FBI, abuse-of-power, Obama, voter registration

John Cleese says Sarah Palin is a 'nice- looking parrot'

John Cleese says that fellow Monty Python funny man Michael Palin is no longer the funniest Palin - that distinction now goes to McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin.

Cleese had this to say in a recent interview (video link here) :

What fascinates me is: people watching her on television - can they not see that she's basically learned certain speeches? She does them very well, she's got a very good memory, but it's like a nice-looking parrot.

Because the parrot speaks beautifully and kind of says 'aw shucks' every now and again, but doesn't really have any understanding of the meaning of the words it is producing, even though it's producing them very accurately.

She's been in these training sessions with (Vice President Dick) Cheney's pals, and she's learned these speeches, and the extraordinary thing is that so many people are taken in by it.

Americans who buy Palin's weird parody of the down home gal with the folksy winks and "betchas" are the same people who would get rolled for coin by a smarmy two-bit evangelist.

Behind the mask Palin is an empty vessel. The vacuum-within surfaces when she's required to provide an in-depth answer without a memorized response on hand or an overhead script. A "nice-looking parrot" is the perfect metaphor.

Cleese makes the point that outside the USA almost nobody in their right mind takes Palin seriously:

The truth is that Sarah Palin is no way good enough. And if you lined up from Europe Left-wingers, centrists, Right-wingers, you wouldn't find 10 per cent - probably wouldn't find five per cent - who think she's good enough to run the United States, and she's running as the partner of a 72-year-old cancer survivor.

The adulation of Palin in some Republican circles is evidence of just how dysfunctional American Republican politics really is. Palin's supporters are challenged in a lot of ways ... not least when it comes to the correct spelling of "moron."

Tags: John Cleese, Sarah Palin, parrot, Monty Python, McCain campaign

John Cleese and the Wasilla Parrot

Tags: Cleese, Sarah Palin, parrot

Canada votes : Stephen 'minority man' Harper re-elected : lowest turn-out ever

Harper broke his own rules to call the general election in Canada. Canadians were pushed into voting a full year before the date set by the Conservatives for the next election.

Control freak that he is, Harper couldn't endure what he described as a "dysfuctional" Parliament - one in other words that didn't march to his tune. He was gambling that his frustrations would be matched by Canadians who would cut him the slack he needed.

Voters were less than enthused. The turn-out was the lowest in the history of Confederation, with just 59.1 per cent of Canadians casting votes.

The Tories called the election believing they were well placed to secure a majority government. The conditions couldn't have been better with a Liberal leader perceived as weak and ineffective. But even with a challenged Liberal opposition, the Tories failed to secure a majority, however slim - which says a lot about the distrust which Harper engenders in Canadians

A major reason the Tories came up short was a series of blunders in Quebec that played into the hands of their opponents. A few days before Canada voted, Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe came out with both guns firing. He called Harper a "cheater," a "reactionary" and lacking "judgment and all moral sense."

At a rally in Montreal, Duceppe described Harper's philistine attitude to the Arts as 'culturally ignorant.' He also characterized the Tories as anti-women and targeted Harper's repressive young offender agenda.

Tory set-backs in Quebec are ironical given the fact that Harper has bent over backwards to appease the nationalist sentiment - including giving Quebec status as a "nation" within Canada and giving it quasi-national status at Unesco.

Despite Harper's efforts to play up the election result as a victory for the Tories, he can't be a happy camper. Canadians simply don't trust him with a majority and are keeping him on a short leash. As for the claim that he is willing to work with other parties, don't hold your breathe. Harper has shown himself to be a mean spirited political actor with little tolerance for opposition.

Tags: Canada, general election 2008, conservative minority, Stephen Harper, Bloc, Gilles Duceppe

Obama-Biden opens 14 point lead in CBS news/New York Times poll

The Obama-Biden ticket has made significant gains in a new CBS news/New York Times Poll.

Obama-Biden leads the McCain-Palin ticket 53% to 39% among likely voters - a 14 point margin.

This result shows a dramatic shift from a week prior to the Town Hall debate when the margin was a tight 3%. Obama was widely perceived to have been the debate winner and that appears to have contributed to his improved poll results - especially among independents.

McCain's negative campaigning and the perception that he has been unfocused appears to have worked against him, with 21% of voters saying their view of McCain has changed for the worse in the last few weeks.

Obama-Biden is widely viewed by voters as the more positive campaign.

Tags: Obama-Biden, CBS news/New York Times poll, October 14 2008

McCain 'my fellow prisoners' : master list of his gaffes and flip flops

At a rally earlier in the week McCain addressed the crowd as "my fellow prisoners."

"Across this country, this is the agenda I have set before my fellow prisoners. And the same standards of clarity and candor must now be applied to my opponent."

Check out the video here.

Gaffes and flip flops are part of the McCain legend. Now a master list has been compiled. You can link to the Master List of Flip Flops and Gaffes here.

Tags: John McCain, fellow prisoners, gaffes, flip flops

John Cleese pens an Ode to Sean Hannity

John Cleese, the comic genius behind Monty Python's Flying Circus, has turned his talents to poetry. Recently he penned an 'Ode to Sean Hannity.' It perfectly captures the essential inanity of the right wing motormouth.

The show Hannity and Colmes seems designed to perpetuate Fox's fairness fiction. The unbalanced Hannity being counterbalanced by the more liberal leaning and usually more balanced Alan Colmes. Colmes is by far the brighter light, which isn't hard when set alongside Hannity's ham fisted ranting.

The balance proves elusive though because Colmes can barely get a word in edgeways. Hannity routinely hogs the camera and assaults viewers with his dogged line of commentary - working every topic to death like a dog with a bone.

The Cleese poem captures the essence of Hannity with a few well chosen words.

Ode to Sean Hannity

by John Cleese

Aping urbanity
Oozing with vanity
Plump as a manatee
Faking humanity
Journalistic calamity
Intellectual inanity
Fox Noise insanity
You’re a profanity
Hannity

Tags: Sean Hannity, John Cleese, Ode to Sean Hannity, Hannity and Colmes, Monty Python's Flying Circus

Titanic magazine to stage a Prophet Muhammad lookalike contest at Frankfurt Book Fair

The German satirical magazine,Titanic, plans to stage a Prophet Muhammad look-a-like competition at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The magazine advertises the event on its web site this way:

"Come along to the most dangerous event of the Frankfurt Book Fair ... It will be a blast."

The competition is scheduled for October 18 and will take place on a stage built by the Caricatura Museum in Frankfurt. The museum director, Achim Frenz said: "Of course it is a sin to represent the prophet. For this reason, we are trying to do something exceptional."

A look-a-like isn't of course a direct representation of the Prophet but nonetheless a percentage of Muslims are certain to view the event more as provocation than entertainment. In fact, as Der Spiegel reports some media outlets in Turkey have already protested the event:

Turkish newspapers were quick to react to the "unbelievable competition," which is to be held parallel to the Frankfurt Book Fair, where Turkey will be the guest country this year. The popular Turkish daily Sabah drew parallels with the infamous Muhammad cartoons published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2005, which sparked death threats and protests across the Muslim world, with some escalating into violence.

It would be a mistake to take this stunt too seriously. This is the same Titanic magazine that formed it's own political party, Die Partei (the party), and lists as one of its primary goals the rebuilding of the Berlin Wall.

Tags: Frankfurt Book Fair, Muhammad look-alike contest, Titanic magazine

Joerg Haider: far right Austrian politician killed in road accident

Austrian police are investigating a road accident that took the life of Joerg Haider, head of the far right Alliance for Austria's Future.

According to reports Haider lost control of the Volkswagon Phaeton he was driving and went off the road. The vehicle overturned and Haider suffered severe head and chest injuries. There are no reports of any other vehicles being involved.

Haider was 58 years old. He was a far right Austrian politician known for his anti-immigration and anti-EU views. He made the news as governor of the province of Carinthia when he praised the employment policies of Nazi Germany. This wasn't his only pro-Nazi comment. He stirred up controversy when he referred to Nazi concentration camps as "punishment camps" and argued that the SS were "a part of the German army which should be honored." He was known to have a fondness for Waffen-SS veterans and attended a number of their ceremonies.

Haider was a former head of the Austrian Freedom Party which took 27% of the vote in 1999. When the Freedom Party broke up in the midst of serious internal conflicts, Haider founded the Alliance for Austria's Future. In the recent elections the Alliance won 11% of the vote.

Tags: Joerg Haider, road accident, Austria, Alliance for Austria's Future

McCain's double talk express : acknowledgement of Obama isn't enough

At a rally Friday, McCain responded to a supporter who said he was concerned about raising a child under a president who "cohorts with domestic terrorists such as Bill Ayers." Despite the fact that McCain and Palin have repeatedly engaged in gross distortions on the subject of Ayers in an attempt to smear Obama, McCain responded with:

"[Senator Obama] is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared about as President of the United States," he said, before adding: "If I didn't think I would be one heck of a better president I wouldn't be running."

McCain responded this way because he has no choice. He has to say this. The backlash in the media against the appalling tactics used by his campaign risk painting him into a corner with xenophobes and racists. But he should have gone further. He should have told his backers that the rhetoric of hate and division is unacceptable - he should have spelled it out loud and clear. Instead he said:

"If you want a fight, we will fight. But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments. I don't mean that has to reduce your ferocity, I just mean to say you have to be respectful."

How is it possible to take this admonition at face value, when hours previous the McCain campaign sent out a statement to reporters defending the increasingly extremist rhetoric of the crowd.

The statement read in part:

"Barack Obama's attacks on Americans who support John McCain reveal far more about him than they do about John McCain. It is clear that Barack Obama just doesn't understand regular people and the issues they care about. Even worse, he attacks anyone who dares to question his readiness to serve as their commander in chief in chief. Raising legitimate questions about record, character and judgment are a vital part of the Democratic process, and Barack Obama's effort to silence and shame those who seek answers should make everyone wonder exactly what he is hiding."

The problem is that elements in the crowd haven't simply been 'raising legitimate questions about record, character and judgment' - they have been engaging in a no-holds-barred smear campaign that at times veered into outright calls for violence.

Writing in the Huffington Post, Sam Stein gives a list of those who have spoken out forcefully against McCain's tactics:

John Weaver, the Senator's former top strategist, has said McCain is making a tactical mistake by letting abusive hecklers have their voices heard during his forums. David Gergen, a longtime Washington strategist, has warned that the rhetoric from these attendees could "lead to some violence."

Veteran Republican Congressman Ray LaHood criticized Sarah Palin in particular, saying her rhetoric did not "befit the office she's running for."

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney denounced the recent campaign stops as dangerous and expressed alarm that the top of the Republican ticket would not protest the crowd's language.

"Sen. John McCain, Gov. Sarah Palin and the leadership of the Republican party have a fundamental moral responsibility to denounce the violent rhetoric that has pervaded recent McCain and Palin political rallies. When rally attendees shout out such attacks as "terrorist" or "kill him" about Sen. Barack Obama, when they are cheered on by crowds incited by McCain-Palin rhetoric -- it is chilling that McCain and Palin do nothing to object."

Veteran reporter Dan Balz has opined that "McCain's tactics are over the line, with no restraint in sight, and threaten to provoke reactions among partisans on both sides that will continue to escalate."

Stein also mentions a column by Frank Schaeffer that appeared in the Baltimore Sun, in which Schaeffer directly addressed McCain himself:

"If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as "not one of us," I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence."

Despite the recognition McCain has finally given to Obama in the midst of all of this, he is still leaving the door open for "the ferocity" of his supporters. If he is serious - McCain needs to more forcefully denounce the rhetoric of hate and division that has been turning his campaign rabid, making it a magnet for haters of every stripe.

Tags: John McCain, Barrack Obama, Bill Ayers, John Weaver, Ray LaHood, John Sweeney, Palin, Frank Schaeffer, extremism

McCain rally : soothing the savage beast

Tags: John McCain, rally, Obama

Philip Gale : 'Death of a Nethead' unspiked

Gawker has unspiked a story titled "Death of a Nethead" - about the strange suicide of Philip Gale, an MIT student who grew up in Scientology circles. Gale became disenchanted with Scientology and became a member of a postmodern parody religion called Church of the SubGenius.

Gale earned roughly a million dollars worth of stock options for his innovative internet service provider (ISP) programs at EarthLink, a firm established and financed by members of the Church of Scientology. Not apparently content with what life had to offer, Gale jumped to his death from the window of a campus building on March 13 1998, the birthday of Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

Rolling Stone assigned the story to Hollywood reporter, Mark Ebner, but it didn't make to print because the Church was displeased. John Travolta allegedly used his connection with RS owner Jann Wenner to get the piece canned. The Church is less controlling around info these days, and not necessarily because it has become more laid back - the internet has a way of getting around even the best defenses.

Link to the intriguing Death of a Nethead here.

Tags: Philip Gale, Mark Ebner, Death of a Nethead, Gawker, Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard

Banksy update: 'Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill' animatronic show

A faux pet store at 89 7th Avenue in the West Village of NYC, has a visual treat in store for those who can actually find the place. It only opened a few days ago, and the 'pets' on display are animatronic creations by Banksy, the elusive graffiti artist.

The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill is tiny - just 300 square feet. This is nothing remotely like the large LA show last year where Brad Pitt was a buyer. You wouldn't even know it was Banksy's work because there is no graffiti in evidence at all. Instead there is work that is a radical departure from what most have come to expect from Banksy. The animatronic works include breaded fish swimming in a bowl and Chicken McNuggets that look kind of like bizarre featherless birds.

Colossal Media has put up Banksy billboards at the corner of Houston and Macdougal, also at Canal and West Broadway. Two guys were spotted checking out the work-in-progress, and some people think the guy in the hood (below) is Banksy.

Gawker has video of Banksy's pet store in motion ... here.

Tags: Banksy, Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill, animatronics, New York, Colossal Media

Foo Fighters tell McCain to quit playing their music

Foo Fighters has said no to the McCain campaign's use of their song "My Hero."

Foo Fighters isn't alone. A number of bands have asked the McCain campaign not to use their songs. This is entirely understandable on a number of levels. Quite aside from running roughshod over intellectual property issues, when you look at the divisive and rancorous rhetoric coming from the McCain campaign, it's really little wonder there is scant respect shown for musicians - it fits the larger picture.

McCain is turning into a vindictive crank who in the most recent debate had difficulty treating his Democratic opponent with ... forget respect ... basic civility. Apparently if you're a black Democratic nominee with the nerve to rock the boat, you can expect to be smeared, called a terrorist-lover, a traitor and dismissed contemptuously as "that one."

No self-respecting band would want angry man McCain and his xenophobic sidekick from Alaska playing their music.

McCain is an embarrassment. With Palin's help, he has stooped to scaring up xenophobia, racism and hate in his supporters. At LeHigh University his attacks on Obama were followed by shouts of "terrorist," "socialist" and "liar" from his supporters. There were shouts of "kill him" at a rally in Florida, after Palin's "palling around with terrorists" provocation - a statement that completely distorts the facts.

Foo Fighters has joined the list of musicians who have rightly objected to the McCain campaign using their music.

In a statement the band said:

"This isn't the first time the McCain campaign has used a song without making any attempt to get approval or permission from the artist. It's frustrating and infuriating that someone who claims to speak for the American people would repeatedly show such little respect for creativity and intellectual property. The saddest thing about this is that 'My Hero' was written as a celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential. To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song. We hope that the McCain campaign will do the right thing and stop using our song--and start asking artists' permission in general!"

Read about other musicians who have asked the McCain campaign to refrain from playing their music here ... here ... and here.

Tags: Foo Fighters, McCain campaign, My Hero, Palin, LeHigh University, Barack Obama

Obama presidential in debate two: McCain disdainful - calls Obama 'THAT ONE'

There were holes in a lot of what John McCain had to say in the course of the second presidential debate - but his muttered asides, sneers, smirks, jibes, shrugs and off-hand cheap shots filled in the gaps. What we do get is the message he wants to get across most of all - his disdain for Barack Obama.

In the course of a discussion about energy McCain said that his opponent had voted for the 05 energy bill. He didn't identify Obama by name, instead he signified who had done the voting by jabbing a finger across his chest in Obama's direction and hissing "THAT ONE!"

That one? Aside from the racist sub-text, it also brings to mind the McCain campaigns' cynical references to Obama as 'the one' ... the contender who may be a world celebrity but who is not 'one of us.'

McCain clearly loathes Obama. He loathes Obama because he views him as an interloper who has had the temerity to stray onto the turf he, McCain, believes is his rightful inheritance. Worse ... the upstart is threatening to steal the whole damn show. You can just see the rancor.

The New York Times has an editorial today in which it describes the McCain-Palin campaign as "one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember." The editorial accuses McCain and associates of sinking to "race-baiting and xenophobia."

The type of patriotism paraded by McCain and Palin is deeply off-putting. You would think they held the copyright to the American identity, and all they have to do is give voice to their God n' country cliches, patriotic catch-phrases and sob stories to get the voters herding like sheep. Their stance is anti-intellectual, anti-progress and most all anti-change ... despite all their Maverick and reform talk. Worse, their attitude masks entitlement ... you would think they, and they alone, are the true Americans and that Obama is little more than a pretender.

The downhill slide of the McCain campaign into the dirt threatens to get very nasty in the coming weeks. Palin's rabble rousing at a recent Florida rally drew cries of "kill him!" in reference to Obama. She is knowingly stoking hate, even racism. A few less charitable observers have even suggested that she is trying to foment violence directed at the person of Obama himself.

By contrast Obama's grace-under-pressure, clarity of thought and genuine substance during the debate added distinction to a presentation that was in every sense presidential. The taller Obama stood, the more McCain seemed to shrink.

The Washington Post described McCain as "... very self-conscious" and added "His breathless voice tonight sometimes seemed strained and unnatural."

Andrew Sullivan said: "... this has not just been an Obama victory. It has been a wipe-out.It has been about as big a wipe-out as I can remember in a presidential debate."

Arianna Huffington put it this way:

"In Debate II, John McCain twice laid out the criteria for how the American people should judge the candidates: In tough times, we need someone with a steady hand on the tiller. By that measure, Obama was the clear winner. He was centered where McCain was scattered. Forceful where McCain was forced. Presidential where McCain was petulant. In the first debate, McCain wouldn't look at Obama. In this one, he referred to him as "that one." The contempt was palpable, and unpalatable."

Most noticeable was the way in which Obama dominated the debate. He brought grace and timing to his delivery. He was focused, steady, calm. The most qualified to place a "steady hand on the tiller" is clearly Obama and not the unfocused, angry old man who sometimes gives the impression he's about ready to throw gasoline and a match just so long as he can get a foot in the door of the White House.

Tags: John McCain, Barack Obama, 'that one', presidential debate, Palin, fear mongering

Brigitte Bardot takes a swing at Sarah Palin

Brigitte Bardot has said some bigoted things about French Muslims and gay people, but on the subject of Sarah Palin she gets it right for a change.

Bardot is incensed by the 'disconcerting stupidity' displayed by Sarah Palin. In an open letter to Palin, she doesn't pull any punches:

"I hope you lose these elections because that would be a victory for the world. By denying the responsibility of man in global warming, by advocating gun rights and making statements that are disconcertingly stupid, you are a disgrace to women and you alone represent a terrible threat, a true environmental catastrophe."

Bardot, a silver screen star of the 1960's, is now an animal rights activist. She heads up an animal rights foundation and is angered by Palin's emphasis on oil exploration at the expense of polar bear habitat.

In a final shot, Bardot picked up on Palin's self-reference as a 'pitbull wearing lipstick.' She implored the governor to refrain from comparing herself with dogs.

She wrote:

"I know them well and I can assure you that no pitbull, no dog, nor any other animal for that matter is as dangerous as you are."

Touché!

Tags: Brigitte Bardot, Sarah Palin, animal rights

Pope points the finger of blame at 'modern culture'

Pope Benedict is on his favorite hobby horse again - attacking modern culture. He would be much happier if modern society was once again under the shadow of the Church with the guilt-ridden muttering Hail Marys, doing the stations-of-the-cross and living in superstitious fear of eternity.

The Pope can't stand the idea that there are people who are God-free and liking it. He dislikes even more the possibility that there are people out there who are liberated from the religion -induced guilt complex that is central to the Catholic sin brand. The Church can only manipulate the sin-burdened ... independence of conscience and freedom of choice offends them.

So naturally Benedict casts modern society in terms of "rebellion" and accuses free-thinkers of being self-deluded "masters of creation." The Roman Catholic Church holds the answer to the fully rounded life don't you know.

This would be the same Catholic Church that presided over the Inquisition and that gave its blessing to slaving ships and wars of religious triumphalism. The same Church that is responsible for the sexual abuse of untold thousands of children worldwide in schools, churches and orphanages ... the same Church that contributed to the breakdown of indigenous cultures in the name of "Christianizing" them ... the same Church that has created a humanitarian crisis in Catholic countries by subjecting women to inhumane contraception and abortion dictates ... the same Church that has been host to corrupt Popes who exploited the power of the pontificate to gratify their own perverted appetites and power mongering. This is a Church now led by a man who has described homosexuality as a tendency toward "intrinsic moral evil" - not unlike his predecessor who said gay marriage was part of "a new ideology of evil."

With that background, the Pope still feels that he's on high ground when it comes to lecturing "the modern world." As Jesus was alleged to have said: "Thou hypocrite, first cast the beam out of thine own eye ..."

Tags: Pope Benedict, modern culture, Catholic Church

A History of Vatican Vice (updated)

Tags: Catholic Church, denial, sex abuse

Rev Peter Mullen: homophobic Brit clergyman says gay people should be tattooed on the backside

Rev Peter Mullen, a Church of England clergyman, wrote in his blog that gay people should have the inscription "sodomy can seriously damage your health" tattooed on their buttocks. Mullen isn't just your local doddering vicar - he is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange in London.

After the comment generated heat, Mullen came out to say that he has nothing against gay people and that it was all a big joke. Like a lot of gay bashers he resorted to the old 'many of my friends are gay' line of defense.

The remark about the tattoo isn't the only entry about gays on Mullen's blog. He described gay pride parades as "obscene" and called for them to be outlawed:

'In addition, the obscene 'gay pride' parades and carnivals should be banned for they give rise to passive corruption, comparable to passive smoking. Young people forced to witness these excrescences are corrupted by them.'

He makes it sound as though gay pride watching is obligatory. Young people aren't "forced" to watch a pride parade, any more than they would be forced to watch any other parade.

He also criticized the blessing of two gay priests at a wedding held in a city of London Church.

The tattoo-on-the-buttock comment is very much in tune with the rest of Mullen's homophobic commentary. The gay rights group Outrage described Mullen's comments as "Neanderthal" - spokesperson David Allison said: "It's the kind of remark you might expect from a drunk on a Saturday night, not someone in a supposedly responsible position."

A Diocese of London spokesperson said officials had met with Mullen and it was agreed the comments should be removed. She said: "While clergy are entitled to their own personal views, we fully recognize that the content of this text is highly offensive and it is in no way reflective of the views of the Diocese of London."

Tags: Rev Peter Mullen, tattoo, gay pride, Outrage, Diocese of London, David Allison

Obama and Ayers: McCain ... right wing racists and contras

With Obama moving ahead in the polls, the McFailin team aka McCain/Palin, has resorted to mud slinging. Desperate people resort to desperate measures.

The McCain team' tactics have shifted from the issues to character assassination. They have resorted to dragging up the name of William Ayers, a guy who engaged in militant activism back in the 1970's when Obama was a kid.

McCain's credibility has taken a serious hit. Fact is, he spent half his career engaged in deregulating and cronyism and now America is supposed to buy his reformer act! The cynicism in his about-face leaves you breathless ... the man has no shame.

Obama happened to cross paths with Ayers in Chicago where Ayers was employed in the education sector. Efforts by McCain to make something out of this is ludicrous - it is nothing more than an effort to give the appearance of guilt-by-association. It goes to show how desperate his campaign has become in these waning days.

The dirt goes both ways. Paul Begala pointed out recently that McCain sat on a board that included right wing extremists, racists and anti-Semites. This was the U.S. Council for World Freedom chaired by a guy named John Singlaub who was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal.

The Council was a backer of the infamous Nicaraguan 'Contras' - the name given to various rebel groups that opposed the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional, following the overthrow in 1979 of Somoza Debayle. The Contras received military and financial support from the US, and were responsible for a litany of human rights abuses that included:

1. Targeting health care clinics and health care workers for assassination.
2. Kidnapping civilians.
3. Torturing civilians.
4. Executing civilians, including children, who were captured in combat.
5. Raping women.
6. Indiscriminately attacking civilians and civilian houses.
7. Seizing civilian property.
8. Burning civilian houses in captured towns

An NGO cited an eyewitness report of their atrocities:

An eyewitness to a Contra raid in Jinotega province said: "Rosa had her breasts cut off. Then they cut into her chest and took out her heart. The men had their arms broken, their testicles cut off and their eyes poked out. They were killed by slitting their throats and pulling the tongue out through the slit."

McCain was a big Contra backer. You can go to Google News Archive or the NYT Archives and search 'McCain+Contras.'

In fact, he was such a committed backer of the Contras that when their miltary and financial aid was cut off, the straight talkin' man had this to say:

''Historians will look back and view the vote that cut off military and humanitarian aid to the contras as a low point in United States history.'' - Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.

This via KOS:

When the Reagan Administration began organizing the Nicaraguan Contras in 1981, allied but nominally private groups were formed to build support for the Contra plans.

One of those groups, formed shortly after the first Reagan inauguration, was the US Council for World Freedom, headed by Major General John Singlaub. The USCWF quickly became the US branch of the World Anti-Communist League. The USCWF began building support for the Reagan policy of aiding not only the Nicaraguan Contras but RENAMO and UNITA in southern Africa and rightist Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan. Singlaub informed CIA director William Casey and NSC staff of his actions and operated with their consent if not under their direct influence.

One of the early USCWF financial backers was Joe Coors, according to two former USCWF treasurers. Coors shared Reagan's enthusiasm for the Contras despite early indications of the unsavory background of certain Contra leaders and reliable reports of Contra acts of brutality. The Contras were originally known as the 15th of September Legion. Their earliest training came from Argentinean military intelligence, which ran death squads in that country and sponsored a Latin American conference of death squad leaders in 1980. That death squad network was also the Latin American branch on WACL. In 1982, Argentinean intelligence worked with Moon's Unification Church and fugitive Nazi Klaus Barbie to establish a Nazi-style state in Bolivia.

This Council of which McCain was a member was an ultra conservative right wing group of such a questionable nature that it drew the attention of the Anti-Defamation League.

Tags: John McCain, US Council for World Freedom, Obama, Bill Ayers, John Singlaub

McCain and the US Council for World Freedom

Tags: John McCain, US Council for World Freedom, Contras

Bernadette McAliskey née Devlin roars back with The Roaring Girl

Bernadette Devlin ... as she was known in the North of Ireland back in the 1960’s was a fierce fighter for justice and civil rights. They called her a “blazing star” and an "icon of the civil rights movement."

An article in the Independent this week describes a meeting with Bernie McAliskey née Devlin, who is now a director of the South Tyrone Empowerment Programme (STEP) with offices in Dungannon.

The article speaks of Bernadette’s unique power to inspire:

This diminutive 61-year-old is the same woman whose maiden speech was described – by opponents – as "brilliant" and "electrifying". Listening to a broadcast of it, a young American scholar knew he wanted to be in politics. His name was Bill Clinton.

On Sunday Bloody Sunday in Derry (1972) the Parachute Regiment opened fire on Republican marchers killing 14 people. Devlin protested the murders in a manner that was both symbolic and dramatic. In the House of Commons, British Home Secretary Reginald Maudling, stood up and said the Paras had acted in self-defence. Devlin crossed the floor and headed straight for Maudling’s bench. She hauled off and punched him in the face, with a cry of “murderous hypocrite!”

At the Cannes film festival this year a biopic of Ms McAliskey was announced, to be called The Roaring Girl. She will be played by Sally Hawkins, but is none too happy about any of it: "The whole concept is abhorrent to me. How dare anybody make a pretend life for me while I'm still living the real one?"

Link to the full Independent article here.

Tags: Bernadette McAlisky, Devlin, The Roaring Girl, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Derry, Reginald Maudling

Chuwit Kamolvisit : candidate for Bangkok governor assaults TV host

Politics in Bangkok makes Sarah Palin watching seem kind of tame.

A candidate in the election for governor of Bangkok, Chuwit Kamolvisit, staged an on-air assault during an interview - punching and kicking TV host Visarn Dilokwanich.

Chuwit, a former body builder, has been dubbed "Bangkok's massage parlor king" by the Thai press. He claimed that Visarn had humiliated him on-air. It seems Visarn's offence was to suggest that what Chuwit said on-air was quite different from what he said off-air.

Despite being one of the kingpins of the Bangkok sex industry and admitting to taking under-the-table payments, Chuwit claims that he is a corruption fighter. Many Thais however seem prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

He said this in his defense:

"I am not a clean guy, but I know how dirty politicians are, how little they care about real people. I don’t know whether I can be a great governor, but I know the other candidates will not be and I can try to do something about corruption."

Visarn filed a complaint with the police and complained that Chuwit had "behaved like a thug." He also made a point of displaying the bruises to his head and neck for the benefit of reporters covering the story.

Chuwit later apologized for the assault, claiming he been provoked: "I admit I did it. I couldn't stand it when he humiliated me on air ... What I did was a petty crime and I am happy to pay the fine for elbowing him and kicking him."

Tags: Chuwit Kamolvisit, Visam Dilokwanich, Bangkok elections, Thailand

Choi Jin-sil : internet rumours blamed for Korean star's suicide

The internet is a powerful tool - never more so than in South Korea where 80% of households have broadband access. Many web sites allow for anonymous postings on bulletin boards and when a web rumor gets started it can quickly become a major talking point.

South Korean police have linked the suicide on Thursday of this week of actress Choi Jin-sil, 39, to internet rumors. Her body was found in the washroom of her apartment. It was an apparent suicide by hanging. Prior to her death Choi sent a text message saying "take care of my children no matter what happens."

Choi was going through a tough divorce. She married baseball star Cho Sung-min, a pitcher for the Japanese pro baseball team Yomiuri Giants in 2000. The couple split in 2002. The break-up became tabloid fodder along with the accusation that Cho was physically abusive.

Online rumors accused Choi of being the instigator in the death of an actor named Ahn Jae-hwan, who gassed himself in his car. Choi allegedly put heavy pressure on Ahn to come up with money that he owed her, even though the actor was going through difficult financial times. Prior to her suicide, Choi contacted police about the online rumors and claimed they were false.

Choi Jin-sil is by no means the first casualty of online rumor mongering. in S. Korea Many victims have complained about having their reputations ruined overnight. The singer Yoo Na, also committed suicide after a spate of online rumors suggesting that she had had plastic surgery.

Tags: Choi Jin-sil, suicide, Ahn Jae-hwan, S. Korea, Yoo Na, Cho Sung-min

Joe Biden debates a tape recorder

After the Katie Couric interview the bar was set pretty low for Palin in the VP debate. Short of being a gibbering idiot it was jumpable and she cleared it after being primped, rehearsed, rehearsed some more and being supplied with key talking points, plus a few Ronald Reagan quotes. Improvisational or original thinking is not what Palin is about ... well with one exception ... when she's doing the "Joe Six Pack" routine, or chanting "drill, baby drill"or winking like a hooker for Jesus.

The voice is like a tenth grader intent on torturing a small animal to death ... nasal and remorseless. Up and down it goes like a spooky school kid reciting a poem by rote. She never strays far from the script. When she was cut off from her supports in the Couric interview, she became vacant, speaking in a circular and disconnected fashion about matters that would have been a cinch for any governor who was really on top of his/her game.

The Canadian journalist, Heather Mallick, took heat for her no-holds-barred portrayal of Palin, She nailed one of Palin's central features - the porno appeal. Mallick describes Palin this way: " ... a toned-down version of the porn actress look favored by this decade’s woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression."

By contrast Biden came across as relaxed, genial, informed, and human ... not hard when up against a tape recorder with "play," "fast forward" and "rewind" options for getting out of tight corners - and Palin did a lot of rewinding to her notes on energy, at one point she all but ignored Ifill's question. Joe even smiled and stayed tres cool when she dropped the "O'Biden" slur and a few other cheap shots. Class act is Joe Biden.

Her constant 'we're Mavericks and reformers' refrain was demolished by Biden who gave the straight talk on McCain Americans need to hear. Palin is just a tool of the Republican party - a vote catcher.

If Americans put McCain-Palin in the White House after eight years of Bush, they might as well join Johnny in the casino because the odds are high they'll come up snake eyes.

Tags: Sarah Palin, Joe Biden, VP debate, drill baby drill

Is Harper lying about the Howard speech?

Despite his criticism of the arts, Canadian PM Stephen Harper is in fact an artist in a class of his own when it comes to keeping himself above the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. No matter what hits the fan, Harper always appears on TV looking like Mr Clean - whether it be accusations related to Mulroney, the Obama memo, the Cadman affair or any other murky behind-the-scenes dealing. Harper is above such doings, kind of like Saint Teflon-of -the -Hill.

Here we are again. Yet another incident comes to light - involving plagiarism this time - and while an aide commits political hari kari, we are meant to see Harper as the blameless victim-of-circumstance, duped into parroting a John Howard speech in the Canadian parliament in 2003 when he was leader of the opposition.

Harper is a man who micromanages the details - a perfectionist who rewrites speeches just to make sure every "t" is crossed and "i" dotted - and we are supposed to believe that he stood up in the Canadian parliament and reproduced a doctored version of a speech given by Aussie PM, John Howard, without any knowledge of its source?

The speech writer who recently fell on his sword was one Owen Lippert. We aren't talking about some insider here who developed his skills in back rooms. Lippert is an experienced foreign policy researcher with a PhD and expertise in intellectual property. He is an unlikely candidate when it comes to lifting chunks from a foreign leaders speech on-the-fly and handing it to the leader of his party during a critical time in 2003 when conservatives had to stake out an authentic position in relation to US foreign policy initiatives. It is more likely that he proceeded on the understanding that parts of the Howard speech could be reworked and that nobody would know the difference - as in fact turned out to be the case. It has taken years for this to come out.

Harper and Howard, H & H, were political compadres. In fact the relationship was so symbiotic the Aussie paper, The Australian, in a May 2006 edition described Harper's campaign as being "straight from Howard's election handbook in almost every way."

Howard was the first foreign leader invited to address Parliament in 2006. Like Harper, Howard is a small "c" conservative. When the two got together they had a lot in common - support for the Iraq war, opposition to Kyoto being two of the more obvious. They were also Bush cheer leaders.

The Harper speech delivered in 2003 when the Tories were in opposition is identical in parts to the Howard speech:

Howard: "Over the last four months we have seen no evidence to suggest that Saddam Hussein will willingly comply with resolution 1441."

Harper: "Over the last four months we have seen no evidence to suggest that Saddam Hussein will willingly comply with resolution 1441."

If Harper and associates had absolutely no knowledge of any cross-over, what planet do they live on? Any of them try Googling even a sentence or two of Lippert's offering? Nobody in their circle tune into the Howard speech when it was given? I mean this wasn't a lightweight speech about the problems of municipal garbage collection in Sydney, it dealt with weighty matters of the day - and the Tories are telling Canadians that none of their insiders had the foggiest clue what Howard had to say when he delivered his speech in the Australian Parliament. And if one or two did pick up the speech, they have what ... short term memory issues?

This is yet more Tory BS. Harper and associates really are artists, cutting edge ... kind of like the Mothers of Invention.

Tags: Stephen Harper, John Howard, plagiarism, Owen Lippert, The Australian, Bush, Iraq

Stephen Harper channels Aussie PM John Howard

Tags: Stephen Harper, John Howard, channeling

Asif Ali Zardari : Pakistani President criticized for flirting with Palin

Newly elected President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, has managed to offend both Islamic conservatives and Pakistani feminists by getting enamored with Sarah Palin and gushing a little too much. It was believed he had even drawn a fatwa for his efforts, but this claim is being denied on some news sites.

Zardari, formerly known as Mr Ten Percent, has a history that some might describe as shady or even sleazy. He has been dogged with corruption charges over the years related to money laundering and questionable real estate deals. The former leader of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, described him as "a likable rogue" who enjoyed chattering about his real estate and export deals.

When he set eyes on Palin, Zardari couldn't contain his enthusiasm. He described her as "gorgeous" and said "now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you" - a gross exaggeration if ever there was one. They shook hands for the cameras and Zardari said that if asked by his handler he would "hug" Palin.

The video of the encounter inflamed opinion in Pakistan. A Muslim prayer leader said Zardari was guilty of "indecent gestures, filthy remarks, and repeated praise of a non-Muslim lady wearing a short skirt." Pakistani feminists said the President had embarrassed the country with sexist remarks.

But you have to ask yourself what it is about Palin that invites this sort of attention (or is that a sexist consideration?). She claims to be a feminist and yet projects an image and a persona that the Canadian journalist Heather Mallick describes this way: " ... a toned-down version of the porn actress look favored by this decade’s woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression".

Zardari isn't the first Pakistani leader to get overly personal while engaged in affairs of state. Pakistani Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, is mentioned in Marcus Mabry's biography of Condoleezza Rice. Aziz allegedly tried his charms on Ms Rice, but without success. He is known to have bragged to Western diplomats that he could "conquer any woman in two minutes".

Tags: Asif Ali Zardari, President of Pakistan, Sarah Palin, fatwa, sexism, Shaukat Aziz

Ahmadinejad signals that Iran may accept Israel's right to exist

Writing in the Guardian Peter Tatchell says what mainstream newspapers have been slow or reluctant to report ... Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad implied in a New York interview that Iran may be willing to acknowledge the existence of the state of Israel.

Ahmadinejad was asked: "If the Palestinian leaders agree to a two-state solution, could Iran live with an Israeli state?"

This was his astonishing reply:

"If they [the Palestinians] want to keep the Zionists, they can stay ... Whatever the people decide, we will respect it. I mean, it's very much in correspondence with our proposal to allow Palestinian people to decide through free referendums."

Since most Palestinians are willing to accept a two-state solution, the Iranian president is, in effect, agreeing to Israel's right to exist and opening the door to a peace deal that Iran will endorse.

Link to the rest of Tatchell's article here.

This is certainly cause for guarded optimism, however given the track record of Ahmadinejad the initial response of many will be to question his motives and sincerity. After all this is the same man who has repeatedly called for the destruction of the state of Israel.

Despite Ahmadinejad's fire and brimstone rhetoric, there is more flexibility than many believe to be the case. The way language is employed is key to understanding the Iranian position. Notice that Ahmadinejad said 'the Zionists can stay' without referring directly to Israel. However a two-state solution with Israeli concessions could lead to a change in the Iranian tune.

Fact is, when you get behind the bombast and posturing, the Iranian position is quite similar to the position held by the Arab League on Israel ... namely the requirement for a just peace. However given Israel's track record - it's bulldozing, military aggression and the maintenance of a quasi-apartheid state what are the chances that it will ever be ready to make the concessions that will pave the path to peace?

Skepticism aside, Ahmadinejad's comment provides an opening and Tatchell is right in saying it should be followed up. Peter also makes this key point with respect to what needs to happen in order to create the conditions for a peaceful settlement:

The key to peace in the Middle East is concessions from the occupying power. As the stronger, wealthier and conquering partner, Israel should take the initiative and help kick-start the peace process by withdrawing unilaterally and totally from the territories it has occupied illegally (according to international law) since the 1967 war. This means pulling out from all of the West Bank and dismantling all the illegal Israeli settlements.

Tags: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Israel, right to exist, Iran, Tatchell

Joe Bageant : rednecks, Palin and fried cupcakes

Joe Bageant, author of "Deerhunting with Jesus," has written an article titled "Why rednecks may rule the world." Bageant is something a redneck specialist. Although there are aspects of redneck culture he clearly admires, he also has an ironical view at times.

The scenario he evokes is likely to send shivers down the spine of anyone with a redneck allergy:

We represent at least a third of all voters and no US president has ever been elected without our support.

Consequently, rednecks have never had so many friends or so much attention as in 2008. Contrary to the stereotype, we are not all tobacco chewing, guffawing Southerners, but are scattered from coast to coast. Over 50% of us live in the "cultural south", which is to say places with white Southern Scots-Irish values - redneck values.

You have to smile at "Scots-Irish values". I don't know if Bageant has ever spent any time in Scotland or N.Ireland but the bastardized Southern States redneck version of Scots-Irishness bears only a very distant resemblance to the original. The surname "Bageant" itself is a far cry from Scots-Irish roots, to my knowledge it is French in orgin.

The term 'redneck' is about as generic as it gets. In some parts of the south being white, going back a few generations and digging the music and lifestyle can qualify you even if you don't have any Scots-Irish blood coursing in your veins. Urban C&W enthusiasts have been known to use the name with pride. It's a diverse group of people. What I'll be referring to in this post though is the hardcore southern States brand - Scots-Irish or not.

Bageant doesn't go into much depth on the downside of a southern bible belt culture that is insulated against outside influences and in many cases not only ignorant, but proud-to-be-ignorant. This is the type of ignorance that is inoculated against Sarah Palin's glaring deficits and quick to blame the 'liberal media' for misrepresenting her - not to mention blaming it for being behind every ill afflicting America.

Bageant in fact describes Palin as "a redneck," and says that the more liberals attack her, the more rednecks will come to her defence. Presumably she could be operating at the level of a 10 year old and they would pile on with the flag waving and blind support irrespective.

There is much about what Bageant calls 'Redneckia' that is responsible for a political climate in America that is characterized by patriotic BS, fundie tribalism and knee-jerk ideology - the type of mix that could well enable a Sarah Palin to potentially rise to the highest office in the land.

In "Deerhunting with Jesus" Bageant talks about the class divisions in America, and there is no greater truth. America is deeply divided by class. However when rednecks keep voting in large numbers for the plantation owners rather than liberal or left-leaning candidates (assuming such political animals even exist in the deep Bushland of Redneckia), you have to say they have contributed to the making of their own bed.

Bageant claims that rednecks make up a third of all voters. That sounds kind of high. Rednecks are a tough group to run a demographic survey on for obvious reasons - not exactly a 'correct' ethnological term. With the increasing diversity in American society, the demographic map is rapidly changing. Hopefully the day will soon dawn when America is no longer held hostage by the redneck tribal vote.

Tags: Joe Bageant, Why rednecks may rule the world, Redneckia, Sarah Palin, Deerhunting with Jesus