Michigan KKK Hits the Airwaves

The South, it would seem, has risen...to Michigan:

“The Klan,” a video news program distributed by the Ku Klux Klan will be airing on MCTV in Midland. The first airing of the program will be on Saturday, October 22nd at 11:30 pm.

According to their website, the Ku Klux Klan brings “a message of hope and deliverance to white Christian America. A message of love, not hate.”

On the site can be found links to sign anti-gay marriage petitions, messages that ‘race-mixing’ is unholy, and articles stating Martin Luther King Jr. had ties to the communist party.

Americans Starving Civilians

Against international law (how quaint, I know):

A senior United Nations official has accused US-led coalition troops of depriving Iraqi civilians of food and water in breach of humanitarian law.

Human rights investigator Jean Ziegler said they had driven people out of insurgent strongholds that were about to be attacked by cutting supplies.
Mr Ziegler, a Swiss-born sociologist, said such tactics were in breach of international law. A US military spokesman in Baghdad denied the
allegations.
"A drama is taking place in total silence in Iraq, where the coalition's occupying forces are using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population," Mr Ziegler told a press conference.

He said coalition forces were using "starvation of civilians as a method of warfare."

"This is a flagrant violation of international law," he added.

Sporadic Posting Likely

Time taken by tedious tasks.

Congrats!

Well-deserved:

Controversial British playwright and campaigner Harold Pinter has won the 2005 Nobel Prize for literature.

Pinter, 75, whose plays include The Birthday Party and Betrayal, was announced as the winner of the $1.3m (£723,000) cash prize on Thursday.

The Nobel academy said Pinter's work "uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms".

Breakthrough?

I really, really hope that it is. If so, this is the happiest news I've heard in a very long time:

A novel vaccine targeted to multiple HIV subtypes found worldwide has moved into the second phase of clinical testing, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced on Wednesday.

But Did They Have Unlimited Free Breadsticks?

Because that is the true marker of civilization.

It was a long time to wait for a portion of noodles. Scientists have uncovered the world's oldest known noodles, dating back 4,000 years, at an archaeological site, Lajia, along the upper reaches of the Yellow river in north-west China. They were preserved in an upturned bowl among the debris of a gigantic earthquake. Until now, the earliest evidence for noodles has been a Chinese written description of noodle preparation dating back 1,900 years.

An Early Christmas Gift Idea
















Plush Cthulhu!

and Plush Cthulhu Slippers!

Great Danes

Horrible pun, I know. But anyway, it is good to see citizens attempting to control their government's actions--as they should, in a democracy. We in the United States, of course, wouldn't recognize democracy if it bit us on the ass:

Twenty-four Danish citizens have brought suit challenging Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's decision to go to war against Iraq.


While Denmark's contingent in Iraq is small -- about 500 troops -- Rasmussen has been criticized widely for misleading the people and Denmark's Parliament that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.


The Danish force was an original member of the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003, the BBC reported.

Under Denmark's constitution, the group says the nation must be threatened directly or be acting under a U.N. mandate to go to war. The group says neither condition was met.

Chavez Blocks the Christers

Well done, I say:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he is about to expel a US missionary group, New Tribes Mission.

The leftist leader said the group were "imperialists" and that he felt "ashamed" at their presence in indigenous areas of Venezuela.

He accused the Florida-based group of making unauthorised flights and setting up luxurious camps amid poverty.

Horror Novel Cover o' the Day

America Still Osama's Suckers

This letter is unnerving in that I have no problem imagining that events will transpire thus:

Osama bin Laden's deputy has sent a letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the militant leader in Iraq, setting out a blueprint for taking control of the country when American troops leave, according to US intelligence officials.

The plans are set out in a 6,000-word letter dated July 9 this year from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born doctor who is regarded as al-Qaida's second-in-command.

The Woman Behind Me Is About to Get Her Eyes Clawed Out




Serious Black, an Exotic Shorthair, models a Halloween outfit during the 3rd Annual Cat Fanciers Association-IAMS Cat Championship at Madison Square Garden in New York .

Catholics Admit to Doing Evil

But only, of course, under duress:

After nearly three years of legal wrangling, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has released information from the personnel files of 126 clergy accused of sexual abuse.

The confidential records show that for more than 75 years the nation's largest archdiocese shipped accused priests between therapy and new assignments, often ignoring parishioners' complaints.

And, in many cases, there was little mention of child molestation. Instead, euphemisms such as "boundary violations" were used to describe the conduct.

Stalag New Orleans

Having been arrested on false charges and beaten in the process, I am unsurprised by this, but it seems to be intensified these days:

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans authorities are arresting hundreds on minor charges such as breaking curfew or public intoxication, housing them in brutal conditions and then pushing them through a court process that forces most into working on clean-up projects at police facilities, according to numerous interviews and documents obtained by TNS.

Cutting the Strings

Honestly, it is hard to imagine Bush performing more idiotically than has thas far been case, but we may well be subjected to that very spectacly soon--with a Rove-less Bush:

For nearly a quarter century, Karl Rove has been George Bush's political mentor. Bush calls him "the architect," the "boy genius." Others have called him "Bush's brain."

Now, with a federal grand jury nipping at Rove's heels in its CIA leak investigation, the president may have to contemplate the previously unthinkable: managing without his right-hand man.

Rove helped Bush create a political persona and steered him to victory in two Texas gubernatorial and two presidential races. He polished Bush's message, nurtured ties with conservatives, oversaw crisis control and helped frame major policy initiatives.

"He's the president's alter ego on political and domestic policy," saidveteran Republican strategist Charles Black. While Rove's most important past service to Bush — as a campaign strategist — is no longer needed by Bush, "he's still very valuable in terms of running domestic policy," Black said.

Cultural Timebomb

The defense that is in vogue these days:

A violent gang rapist should have been given a lesser sentence partly because he was a "cultural time bomb" whose attacks were inevitable, as he had emigrated from a country with traditional views of women, his barrister has argued.

MSK, who, with his three Pakistani brothers, raped several girls at their Ashfield family home over six months in 2002, was affected by "cultural conditioning … in the context of intoxification", Stephen Odgers, SC, told the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday.

Begin Your Day with a Little, Um, Romance?

Counting Sheep

An ideal story for this time of night:

The "puszta" flatland, traditional home to more than a million sheep, is running out of qualified shepherds and is now importing them from neighboring Romania.

Not only are herd numbers growing, but shepherds must have accountancy skills and, since the country joined the EU last year, be capable of applying for grants, the newspaper Nepszabadsag reported Tuesday.

Kurds Smuggling Humans

The scale is astounding:

The suspected ringleaders of what could be Europe's biggest trafficking ring were being questioned by detectives last night about an operation which is thought to have brought tens of thousands of illegal immigrants into the UK.

Officers arrested 19 people - three of whom are the alleged linchpins of the network, and others key lieutenants - when they stormed 12 houses in north, east and west London and one in Boston, Lincolnshire. Scotland Yard chiefs believe the ring is the biggest criminal enterprise of its type they have encountered. Police sources described the multimillion-pound racket, which involved hundreds of handlers smuggling tens of thousands of people - the vast majority Turkish Kurds - across Europe into Britain, as "absolutely massive" and "frightening" in scale.

...
The trips often took months, with the illegal immigrants sometimes travelling hundreds of miles, as many as 20 of them lying flat, barely able to move, in cramped, secret compartments in lorries, and paying £3,000 to £5,000 each for the journey. "It's a tortuous journey, full of discomfort and danger, but they are determined to get here, given the particular attraction of London's established Turkish community," said a senior police source.

Smurficide Follow-Up

Treacherous Gay Texans

Can you imagine a greater threat to the nation today? I think not.

Fliers are being distributed throughout Texas accusing gays fighting a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage of voter fraud.

The fliers claim that gay groups have been bussing out-of-state voters into Texas to register here and steal the election. The leaflets have been stuffed in mailboxes and left in public buildings, but no one is claiming responsibility for them.

Voters go to the polls Nov. Nov. 8. The proposed amendment would define marriage as a union solely of a man and a woman and bar civil unions in Texas.

The LGBT rights group opposing the amendment calls the fliers "scurrilous".

"If you go down and ask the County Clerk in Bell County or McLennan County or any of the central Texas counties, have they seen busloads of people showing up to register to vote? No. It's not real credible," said Glen Maxey, Director of No Nonsense in November.

Best Defense...

As always with DeLay, the best defense is to be offensive:

Lawyers for indicted Rep. Tom DeLay on Tuesday subpoenaed the prosecuting Texas district attorney in an effort to show he acted improperly with grand jurors.

The subpoena for Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, filed in Austin, asked that the prosecutor and two of his assistants appear in court to explain their conduct.

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

The more obvious we make it that we live in a queer world, the more rights queers will have.

Human rights are for ALL humans:“Talk About It” will be the theme of this year’s National Coming Out Day, to be celebrated on Oct. 11, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation announced today. HRCF’s Coming Out Project is an ongoing campaign to empower gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and allied Americans to live openly and honestly about their lives.

“Every single time we talk about our lives as GLBT Americans, we are another step closer to equality,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese. “Each word helps build bridges that change hearts and minds — and eventually our laws.”

A poll of GLBT Americans last year showed that startling amounts of people not only conceal their sexual orientation or gender identity from people in their lives, but many people who consider themselves to be “out” also refrain from speaking to others about GLBT issues. Among the findings of the poll: only 3 percent of members of the GLBT community are out to their doctors, and less than half are out to their bosses at work.

Smurficide

Odd:

The ad pulls no punches. It opens with the Smurfs dancing, hand-in-hand, around a campfire and singing the Smurf song. Bluebirds flutter past and rabbits gambol around their familiar village of mushroom- shaped houses until, without warning, bombs begin to rain from the sky.

Tiny Smurfs scatter and run in vain from the whistling bombs, before being felled by blast waves and fiery explosions. The final scene shows a scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably, surrounded by prone Smurfs.

The final frame bears the message: "Don't let war affect the lives of children.''

Philippe Henon, a spokesman for UNICEF Belgium, said his agency had set out to shock, after concluding that traditional images of suffering in Third World war zones had lost their power to move television viewers.

Crazy Charity

Good for him, but really, oughtn't some adult or other have said something about this?

A nine-year-old boy has just finished a pretty tough morning swim - from Alcatraz to San Francisco.

Johnny Wilson, from Hillsborough, made the 1.4-mile swim in under two hours, braving choppy morning waters and rough winds in a portion of the San
bay known to have sharks as well.

Wilson's classmates were waiting for him on shore, cheering as he made it all the way to Aquatic Park.

His effort raised about $30,000 for the Red Cross Katrina Hurricane Victims Fund.

GM Crops a Lasting Blight

An unnerving new study:

GM crops contaminate the countryside for up to 15 years after they have been harvested, startling new government research shows.

The findings cast a cloud over the prospects of growing the modified crops in Britain, suggesting that farmers who try them out for one season will find fields blighted for a decade and a half.

New Orleans Truly Is Back to Normal

This very thing happened to me a few years ago, leading to a tremendous beating by two NOPD cops and 24 hours in OPP (the charges were bullshit and were dismissed). The only difference is that there was no video, so the cops were never charged. Anyway, some things just never change:

Two New Orleans police officers repeatedly punched a 64-year-old man accused of public intoxication, and another city officer assaulted an Associated Press Television News producer as a cameraman taped the confrontations.
...
The assaults come as the department, long plagued by allegations of brutality and corruption, struggles with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the resignation last month of Police Superintendent Eddie Compass.

The APTN tape shows an officer hitting the man at least four times in the head Saturday night as he stood outside a bar near Bourbon Street.

Due Process Is So Passe

Time for a high-speed kangaroo court:

Saddam Hussein could be executed before the Iraqi Special Tribunal finishes charging him with all his alleged crimes, a source close to the tribunal said Sunday.

For members of some groups allegedly abused by Saddam, the possibility that he'd not face their allegations drew mixed feelings.

New Orleans Lives

Quicker than I'd expected, the city is moving toward normalcy:

"Help wanted" signs are slowly replacing spray-painted plywood boards warning looters to stay away on the windows of New Orleans' restaurants and businesses.

The buzz of activity gave some neighborhoods an appearance of normalcy on Saturday even though the city's population remains a fraction of what it was
before Hurricane Katrina struck at the end of August.
...
On Bourbon Street in the historic French Quarter, nearly half the bars,
restaurants and tourist shops hawking everything from T-shirts to Mardi Gras
beads and feather boas were open.
...
Late this week, state officials certified that water in much of the city
was safe to drink, eliminating a key stumbling block in Nagin's aggressive
repopulation
efforts.