http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Tue, 3 Feb 2004 23:15:27 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/02/03/231527.php Kriselda JarnsaxaThe world is all a-titter about the exposure of Janet Jackson's breast during the Super Bowl halftime show yesterday. In fact, the FCC is starting an investigation immediately (it took how long to get investigations started into the 9/11 attacks and the validity of the intelligence used as a basis for the Iraqi war?) into not just the breast exposure, but the entire halftime show as a whole. Powell said his unhappiness with the halftime show went beyond Jackson's exposure. It "wasn't even the most offensive part," the FCC chief said in an interview. "It was the finale of something that was offensive. The whole performance was onstage copulation." He added, "This really crossed a heinous line." The FCC has defined broadcast indecency as "language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community broadcast standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities." Earlier this year, I had written about a scene on ER in which an elderly patient's breasts were fully exposed. Something threw me for a bit of a loop, though - namely, a pair of naked, on-camera, human, female breasts. Last I heard, those were a no-no on broadcast TV - unless, of course, the show is a nature documentary on PBS. Now, I've never quite understood why, exactly, it was ok to show the naked breasts of women in tribal Africa but not the breasts of white women in America, but it was one of those things I just sort of accepted as being the one exception to the rule.This week's ER, however, apparently decided that there's a second exception to the rule. If the breasts are over a certain age, it seems, they're safe to show. The woman who's topless shot was included in the show is probably around 75 or so. Interestingly, she, like the African women, is black - and, in both cases, the breasts in question are saggy and what most people would consider unattractive.Of course, we now know that attractive black breasts are also offensive. Glad that got cleared up. In what has to be a bit of unplanned irony, the ER episode in question was repeated this past Thursday and the breasts were still in plain view, having not caused any kind of a stir following the original broadcast. Personally, I still think that if people are going to be concerned about the potential negative effects of something shown on broadcast TV, it'd do more good in the long run to focus on the effects of violence rather than nudity (not that I'm in favour of having the government step in and censor either - I'd prefer that viewers make it less profitable for broadcasters to exploit sex and violence to get ratings instead of producing high-quality programming, but that's a whole different rant) - but I find this double standard about women's breasts to be both bizarre and somewhat disturbing. As I wrote in my previous entry on this topic, I can't imagine that it would be considered any less scandalous to show a 75-year-old man's penis than it would be to show a 25-year-old man's penis, yet here we see a clear distinction in how the public reacts to a 75-year-old woman's breasts as opposed to a 37-year-old woman's breast. I still don't get it. Sports12351@blogcritics.org Tue, 3 Feb 2004 23:15:27 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/10/18/091118.php Kriselda JarnsaxaThere's been a lot of discussion on blogs recently about the new touchscreen voting machines (sometimes called "black boxes") that are being purchased by states eager to comply with the Help America Vote Act of 2002. An article in the Independent (UK) earlier this week offered an overview of some of the allegations and concerns raised by these new voting systems, and Wired is running a story alleging that patches were applied to the system before last year's Georgia elections, but that the machines were never recertified after the changes were made, something that should have been done, according to election laws.I'm not really in a position to get into a serious discussion how much of a threat there may or may not be from the reported security problems with the machines or the concerns that there may be something of a conspiracy afoot to use them to help ensure Republican victories. Most of what I've read has been from the BlackBoxVoting site - a site who's sole purpose is to raise awareness of the potential threat to democracy that the operators believe these machines present, but I've not found much offering any other side to the story. Still, there are solid reasons to be concerned about these machines. They leave no paper trail and there's no way to verify that the votes recorded are actually the votes that were cast. There are extensive security concerns about the machines - many of them listed in a report done by testers at John Hopkins (file is in .pdf format) - that, if left uncorrected, could leave the machines vulnerable to tampering both locally and from a remote location. On top of that many of the executives working for or otherwise associated with the firms designing and marketing these machines are staunch supporters of the Republican party. Walden O'Dell, the chief executive of Diebold has - in a fund-raising letter recently sent to Republicans in Ohio - made a promise to "deliver" that state's electoral votes to Bush. Additionally, US Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) holds an ownership interest in ES&S, another firm that makes these machines.There's another danger, though, posed by these machines, that I've not yet seen widely discussed - and in my opinion, it's the most dangerous one of all. In comments on several threads I've read about the black box voting machines, I've noticed a number of people saying that with these new machines being so vulnerable to tampering and with the companies that make them so firmly in the Republicans' pockets, they feel like there's no point at all to voting next year. The Republicans are going to win, these people figure, so their vote won't matter - especially since there's a good chance that their vote won't even be counted correctly by the machines. What I find really ironic is that, the way things are going right now, the Republicans and their supporters in the election-machine industry may not have to do a thing if they want to win. The more alarmist stories that are published, with bold headlines shouting that the next election is already rigged, the more dispair I see in the comments being posted in response. By offering little or no defence to the charges, giving few answers to the questions being asked and paying minimal attention to the concerns being raised, all that's being heard are the voices of doom, telling us that the fix is in. But if we buy into that mentality - if we let the frustration, cynicism and anger we feel silence our voices - then the Republicans will win. They won't have to use any dirty tricks or try to manipulate the data. They'll win by default.Like I said, there's plenty of reason to be concerned, and any problems that are found must be fixed - but we can't let the concerns get us down. If we do, then it won't matter if every single vote in every single district in every single state across the country is registered accurately and counted correctly. We will have defeated ourselves. ~==~ ~==~ ~==~Are you registered to vote? Are your friends? If not, be sure to give them the link! Make sure you know when your state's registration deadline is! Politics9296@blogcritics.org Sat, 18 Oct 2003 09:11:18 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/10/10/214457.php Kriselda JarnsaxaI really haven't said much yet about Rush Limbaugh's drug situation. It's kind of a difficult subject for me, because I have more than a bit of experience of my own with hydrocodone and other prescription painkillers. Part of me wants to have compassion for him - drug addiction is a hard thing to deal with and can be very difficult to kick. Where I get hung up, though, is in my own experience, which has been that if you use the medications according to the doctor's instructions addiction can also be avoided.In his Statement on Prescription Pain Medication Stories, Limbaugh points out that he was prescribed the painkillers following back surgery, and that he still has severe pain in his back. While he says he's not making excuses, the feeling I got from his statement is that he hopes we will understand that because he still has pain he "had" to take more drugs than he should have or that we're supposed to feel sorry for him because he's in pain.I know what it's like to live with chronic, severe pain. Along with the depression and Tourette's Syndrome I've mentioned before, I also have severe arthritis. It's mostly in my knees, but it's starting to develop in other joints as well, and it's severe enough that it's the main factor in my being homebound for the last 5 years. To deal with the pain, I take prescription painkillers every day. I've always taken care, however, to make sure that I use them in accordance with my doctor's instructions. He prescribes a certain number of pills to last me for a certain amount of time. I make it a challenge to myself to make the pills last longer than I have to (and usually succeed). I take one dose when I first get up, because the pain then is at its worst. For the rest of the day, I only take more if I truly need it. There are some days I take the full allotment for the day and some days when, admittedly, I may take an extra dose, but there are also days where I take fewer than allowed and some where I only take the morning dose. Often I make a conscious choice to put up with more pain than I maybe have to, in order to ensure that I don't start abusing them. Every time I pick up the bottle of pills, I make a conscious choice to take them or not. If I'm having an extremely bad day, and I choose to take more pills than would be allotted for that day, then I know I'm going to have to also choose to put up with extra pain another day to make sure I don't go through the bottle too fast (which would be a sign of a problem, as far as I'm concerned). Yes, it takes some work to make sure that I don't take too many pills or go through them so fast that I run the risk of addiction, but I know the dangers and I deliberately choose to exert caution. By the same token, if I started taking more than I'm supposed to on a regular basis, it would be by my own choice - I'm the one that's in control, here. I decide how many I take and how often I take them. If I ran through my "stash" too soon and wanted more, I would have to make a deliberate choice to obtain more - whether it meant trying to find another doctor to prescribe them through a different pharmacy or finding someone to go make deals in the parking lot of the local Denny's. These aren't things that just "happen" on their own.So, while part of me has sympathy for a fellow pain sufferer, part of me is angry that he's trying to explain away the choices that he made to abuse what could have been a useful tool - if used properly - to help alleviate the pain. Believe me, I understand the temptation. The pain killers I take never make the pain go away entirely, but they do reduce it to a point where I can at least function somewhat normally - even if I still can't get out of the house. But they can also give me a nice, warm buzzy feeling that just makes it easier not to care so much about the pain I feel. I won't deny there are days I want to be able to crawl into that little bottle of white pills and just not give a damn about anything, but I choose not to. Instead, I rely on my faith and the Gods to help me find the strength to keep going and I find ways to keep myself distracted from how I'm feeling - this blog is one of the biggest sources of pain management therapy I have. Playing the guitar and video games are a couple others. Each of them give me different ways to keep my mind distracted, and different ways to deal with the anger I feel as the injustice of having to live with all this pain. Yelling about Bush, researching a story that I find interesting or important, trying to sort out what's true, what's rumour and what's spin, soothing myself with music, numbing my mind with the repetition of practicing a certain lick or riff until I get it right, working out aggression playing a loud, rocking tune, blasting little pixelated men and beasts with my little pixelated warrior, solving puzzles, letting myself slip - temporarily - into some ancient magical world, all of these are ways I cope. And when they don't work, I seek solace in my faith.So I really don't know how to approach this story. I don't want to condemn Rush Limbaugh - each of us have our weaknesses, and, apparently, this is one of his. I certainly wish him the best and hope that this time, his efforts at getting off and staying off the drugs succeed. But I don't want to see people lose sight of the fact that he has this problem because of the choices he made - and that there are other options to drug abuse for dealing with severe pain. Politics9076@blogcritics.org Fri, 10 Oct 2003 21:44:57 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/09/09/032217.php Kriselda JarnsaxaMichael Meacher, a Member of the British Parliament until recently, has written a very provocative article providing his analysis of the events leading up to 9/11, the War or Terror™, the failure of US forces to capture Osama bin Laden and the true goals of the Iraq war. It's a doozy. Meacher works primarily from documents already in the public media, and the article lists the publications and dates he's gotten his information from, though it does not provide clickable links. As with anything that tends to get into conspiracy theory territory, I like to try and at least verify the information being provided and a sense of the context it was initially presented in, so I figured I should start checking what I could of the references he gave - and since I was going to do all that for myself, I figured I might as well provide some of what I find to you as well. Understand - I have not yet made up my mind as to whether I find Meacher's theories credible or not, but given his recent position and how widespread this article is going to be (there are already about 5 pages at Google that are just links to reposts of this article at various sites around the world), it's at least worth looking at. The quotes below are from what I've judged to be the most likely part of each article he's referencing, and occasionally a bit addition to help provide context (especially where the additional material - in my opinion - either strongly supports or potentially weakens his arguments). As with anything, I strongly recommend that you read the entire article for yourself. You might also want to review the companion article "Meacher sparks fury over claims", also published in the Guardian, which provides a small amount of information on Meacher and comments by a few who disagree with his views.Because of the nature of the claims made in this article, I feel it should be approached with caution. Meacher's standing as a recent member of the Blair Parliament gives his comments an extra veneer of crediblity such that many people will likely latch onto this article as proof of their worst fears. While it is possible that what he's saying is true (and if it is, we have been witness to one of the most heinous crimes in the history of mankind, paleing only - in my opinion - to crimes of genocide such as the Holocaust), it is also possible that he is seeing connections and links where there are none. As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once wrote: "Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing." ... "It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different."That said, here are the quotes and links referenced in the article that I've been able to locate. Daily Telegraph (UK), September 16, 2001 - Israeli security issued urgent warning to CIA of large-scale terror attacks"The Telegraph has learnt that two senior experts with Mossad, the Israeli military intelligence service, were sent to Washington in August to alert the CIA and FBI to the existence of a cell of as many of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation."They had no specific information about what was being planned but linked the plot to Osama bin Laden and told the Americans that there were strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement," said a senior Israeli security official." Politics8224@blogcritics.org Tue, 9 Sep 2003 03:22:17 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/08/08/150430.php Kriselda JarnsaxaIMDb offers a daily poll that is usually good for a few laughts. Today's question is "What Arnold Schwarzenegger movie line do you see best summing up his political philosophy/message?", with several of his more famous catch phrases from his movies for you to choose between.Well, I don't know which one best sums up his political philosophy or message (I'm still not even quite sure what they are), but THIS one, from True Lies (a movie title that sums up just about everyone's political philosophy, near as I can tell) is the one that I think is opponants should insist he make his official slogan: "If I break it, they can take it out of my pay."Hey, he makes enough, and it might be the only way to fix the California economy, eh? Politics7455@blogcritics.org Fri, 8 Aug 2003 15:04:30 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/07/29/102457.php Kriselda JarnsaxaIn Fallujah, a city that has hosted some of the worst of the fighting and anti-American sentiment, it looks like the military is trying some different tactics in hopes of reducing the violence against our troops and begin working toward the ability to cooperate in the rebuilding of Iraq. One of the bigger things they're trying is paying attention to the fact that for many Iraqis, retaliation upon American troops is a way for them to reclaim their honour after the loss or wounding of family members. Now, the idea of killing to satisfy a person's honour may sound outmoded to us in the West, but whether we like it or not, it is a part of their culture, and we'd be foolish to ignore it. Their culture, however, apparently offers another way for honour to be redeemed - the payment of "blood money". Some may think is appalling to even consider giving people money for having killed or injured their families. Some may think it sounds a lot like what we do everyday in personal injury or wrongful death lawsuits. What matters, though, is if being willing to satisfy the honour of a family who has lost someone to the actions of the US Armed Forces without further bloodshed is a reasonable solution. The way the military in the Fallujah area has handled it has been to offer offer formal apologies to the local tribal leaders and payment of $1,500 for each non-combatant killed and $500 for each non-combatant injured. I think it's important to stress that these payments are only for the death or injury of non-combatants and not for anyone who had taken up arms against our soldiers. That, I think, is very reasonable.It's just one of the new tactics the military has tried in Fallujah. Officers have ordered soldiers to knock on doors before conducting most residential searches. They have also permitted the mayor to field a 75-member armed militia and doled out nearly $2 million on municipal improvements instead of waiting for private American contractors to arrive. In the most significant concession, the commanders have pulled soldiers out of every fixed location in the city, including the police station and city hall, leaving a police force run by Iraqis to man checkpoints and guard key installations. As of now, it remains to be seen if measures like this are any kind of a permanent solution or just a "quick fix", but they do seem to be having an effect. In the turquoise-domed Abdelaziz Samarrai mosque, prayer leader Mekki Hussein Kubeisi used to rail against the presence of U.S. troops in this city. On Friday, he urged hundreds of men in ankle-length tunics to "be patient" and not to tolerate people who resort to violence.[...]Even Saleh, whose right foot was amputated after the school shooting, has mellowed. "I have nothing against them now," he said as he showed off five crisp $100 bills he received from the U.S. military by way of the mayor. He said that U.S. soldiers have visited his house four times -- to apologize, to provide a medical check-up and twice to assess damages to his property. "They've changed my opinions," said Saleh, 41, who hobbles around on crutches. "I used to hate them, but now I realize they made a mistake and they really want to help us."Other things they've been trying have been to come to town and speak with the religious leaders, whose opinions and very important to the Iraqis living in Fallujah. The sheiks and clerics wanted the brigade commander to pull his troops out of the city. That request was immediately rejected. But instead of storming out, the sheiks made a series of alternative demands. They asked that tanks not be driven through residential neighborhoods at night. They beseeched soldiers not to frisk women or clerics. And they insisted that searches of cars and homes be conducted without a presumption of guilt that led to soldiers knocking down doors and dragging out occupants in handcuffs. By agreeing to make these changes - with the understanding that if a woman or cleric pulled out a gun and started shooting "all bets were off" - the military showed that they were willing to work with the people in the city rather than constantly working against them. They also managed to show the city's inhabitants that they could treat them with a basic level of respect, which tends to go a long way in any society. The agreement to make payments for deaths or injuries wasn't an easy one to make. Some were concerned that it might make us look like we were admitting some kind of fault or failure, but because it appeared that many of the attacks on our soldiers were direct retaliation by the relatives of people we had killed, it sounded like it might be effective. In my opinion, even if it does make it look like we may have done something wrong (and, I have to say, that killing non-combatants isn't very high on my list of things that are 'not wrong' - even though at times it may be unavoidable if they're mixed in with others who ARE trying to kill our soldiers), swallowing a bit of our pride to save the lives of our soldiers is well worth it. Another way in which we seem to be buying a bit of peace in Fallujah is the use of $2 million dollars to help with reconstruction around town. By being able to help do things like restore water service, hospital and schools to functionality, we've managed to show that we're serious about helping the people rebuild from the devastation our war created. That, I think, is a lesson that needs to be applied all over Iraq. The Iraqis have so many reasons to be angry at us right now, but even if we'd handled other aspects of the war better, the amount of time it's taking to get basic functionality of things like electrical service and clean water restored is, by itself, reason enough for many Iraqis to be angry and uncooperative (though I don't think if our incompetence was limited to just providing utilities there'd be quite so many soldiers being killed). Imagine for a minute that it's the hottest part of the summer, and you have no electricity (and thus no air conditioning) and no running water. Even if you have a nearby hotel that you could go to and rent a room in for a few days, until power is restored, you're likely to be pretty grumpy about it (or at least every person I spoke to when I used to work customer service for a company that repaired things like electricity and water systems - and would pay for the hotel room while the work was being dine - were... I think I learned more swear words on that job than anywhere else, and had more than a few people say they wished they knew where our office was so they could come by and "pay us a visit"). Add that base level of frustration to the indignity of having your country's government overthrown by an arrogant group of blockheads (the President and his advisors, not necessarily our soldiers, though from some of the quotes I've read, I'm sure at least a few would qualify), and throw in everything else that's happened since we invaded, and it begins to become easier to understand why they've been so enraged. Showing even a bit of compassion, competence and respect can go a long ways under circumstances like that.Still, even with the concessions we've made, things in Fallujah aren't perfect. We've helped establish and train a police force, a contingent of armed guards and a small (75 member) mayoral militia, so that most of the law enforcement and patrol duties are being handled by Iraqis, but US soldiers still run patrols as well, and not everyone is thrilled with the situation. The reaction of people in the city has been cautious. Many who so ardently wanted American troops to leave now express deep reservations about the decision to allow the mayor -- who was not popularly elected -- to have his own militia. "This is the same thing Saddam did," said Nadir Mukheef, the owner of a juice bar.Many are still unsure of our motives for having attacked their country in the first place, and question if we're really needed to keep the Ba'athists from regaining power. A lot of what the military is doing there may be controversial. I expect that many - conservatives in particular - will find the idea of paying blood money for the deaths and injuries of even non-combatants too much of a concession, and letting the Iraqis police themselves too great of a risk. But on the whole, things do seem to be settling down a bit in the Fallujah area (though that can always change with one stupid move or misunderstanding on either side). I think it's great that these commanders decided that, rather than ratcheting up the violence and aggressiveness further, maybe backing off a bit would help win some cooperation. I also hope it continues to go well. If it does, maybe some of these tactics could be tried elsewhere in the country - and maybe our troops can be home sooner, and in greater numbers. Politics7300@blogcritics.org Tue, 29 Jul 2003 10:24:57 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/07/19/091935.php Kriselda JarnsaxaAccording to an article by Warren Hodge and Judith Miller of the New York Times (the copy I found was published by SF Gate), Dr. David Kelly's wife has confirmed that the body found yesterday was his, and that the police have told her he committed suicide. She also noted that the police have asked her not to speak about the case.I know most blogs have been reporting that it was him since yesterday, and it's been pretty obvious all along that it was, but on a story like this I'm trying to avoid jumping the gun on much of anything. It's going to be an explosive enough situation as it is - it doesn't need help from people passing on speculation as if it were fact. There's already a lot of haziness surrounding the story. After reading several reports in a number of British papers (The Guardian, BBC, Independent, This is London by the Evening Standard, and Financial Times), here is what I understand happened as of this point. Andrew Gilligan, a reporter for the BBC who also works for the Daily Mail, issued a story indicating that the September dossier (which, I believe, is the same one that Bush and company are relying upon when they say that the British published a report saying that Saddam was trying to get nuclear materials from Africa), which had been compiled by the British intelligence service, had "sexed up" on the orders of Alastair Campbell, who is Prime Minister Blair's communications chief. In the story, the source was identified as a "senior intelligence official".Immediately, Campbell started demanding that the BBC identify who had made the accusation, and demanding apologies and retractions. The BBC, however, choose to stand by the story and by Gilligan. Meanwhile, Dr. Kelly was concerned that he might have been a source for the story, and spoke to his manager at the Ministry of Defense. The MoD then gave his name to The Intelligence and Security Committee, and disclosed it to the BBC governors in a private letter. According to the Financial Times, if Parliament could show that Dr. Kelly has been the source of the report - and Downing Street felt very confident that he was - it would be very embarrassing for the BBC, because they had claimed their source was a "senior intelligence official" and that description could not be applied accurately to Dr. Kelly. Dr Kelly's name then became public when the description of the MoD official who had admitted speaking to Gilligan was released. While his name wasn't mentioned specifically, there aren't many MoD officials who would fit the same description, so it wasn't difficult for people to figure out. The phone calls to David Kelly's home and office from journalists began shortly after the BBC report which sparked the controversy over whether the Government had "sexed up" its Iraq dossier.At first the calls were tactful approaches from specialist reporters, many of whom Dr Kelly had spoken to unofficially over the past 10 years for guidance on the issue of arms control, to ask whether he was the "senior British official" cited by the BBC.By early this week, the media maelstrom had become so intense that Dr Kelly moved to a secret address. To add to his discomfort, newspapers on Wednesday were full of reports lampooning his performance before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and pointing out his resemblance to Britain's most prolific murderer, Harold Shipman.For the media, the notion of a mole within the higher echelons of Whitehall with the power to damage the Government was impossible to resist. Within hours of the original BBC report by Andrew Gilligan on 29 May a race was on to find the latterday "deep throat". One part of the story is a bit puzzling to me, because the information I've read about it seems to be rather contradictory. One article notes that Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of Defense and Kelly's boss, had said that Kelly had come forward to report that he'd had an unauthorized meeting with Gilligan, but that he had not mentioned Campbell in his interview. It then goes on to say that "[t]he BBC has not denied that, but did say that its source did not work for the Ministry of Defense", and notes that the "Oxford-educated microbiologist, Kelly, 59, has been the senior adviser to the Proliferation and Arms Control Secretariat in the Ministry of Defense for more than three years", which would seem to exclude Kelly as the source for Gilligan's story.As noted above, however, another article says that Downing Street was confident that Dr. Kelly was the source of the report, but that "...Mr Blair's spokesman said the person who had made himself known to the MoD "did not work for the MoD . . . but was a technical expert who had worked for a variety of government departments, including the MoD, with whom he was currently working. His salary was paid by another department."At any rate, Dr. Kelly ended up having to testify before a Parliamentary committee, something that seems to have been very difficult and very upsetting for him. A soft-spoken civil servant in the Defense Ministry accustomed to working behind the scenes, Kelly was pressed repeatedly by committee members to say whether he was the "fall guy" in the bitter dispute that has pitted the government against the BBC. The implication of the committee's questions was that the scientist had been set up by British Prime Minister Tony Blair's communications and security director, Alastair Campbell, to rebut BBC reports about possible government manipulation of intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Tom Mangold, a journalist for the British news network ITV and a friend of David Kelly's, said that he had spoken on Friday morning to Jan Kelly, who said her husband had been "very, very angry about what had happened at the committee" on Tuesday. "She didn't use the word 'depressed,' " Mangold said, "but she said he was very, very stressed and unhappy about what had happened and this was really not the kind of world he wanted to live in." Meanwhile, a friend of Dr. Kelly's is now saying that, contrary to what Dr. Kelly told the committee, he did believe that he was the primary source for Gilligan's articles, though he maintained that he had not spoken of Alastair Campbell nor the British claim that Saddam could have weapons of mass destruction ready to use in 45 minutes after giving the order. If this is the case (which, unless Gilligan decides to reveal his sources, we'll really never know), it would mean that Gilligan had lied in writing his story (by adding that "his source" had told him that Alastair Campbell had insisted on adding the 45-minute claim, and that Dr. Kelly lied before Parliament yesterday when he said he didn't believe he was the primary source. Mr Mangold said Dr Kelly had maintained that he had not spoken of Alastair Campbell adding the 45-minutes claim. "He was keen to explain that he felt the JIC [Joint Intelligence Committee] assessment was a little bit hyperbolic for his taste and that it wasn't quite as simple as the assessment appeared to show," Mr Mangold said. "At the same time he certainly told me he never mentioned 45 minutes and he knew nothing about that." Asked why Dr Kelly had told the committee that he was not the main source, Mr Mangold said: "I think his famous ... precision let him down there, because what he said to me was that there were parts of the Gilligan transmission that he did not recognise, but that did not mean that he wasn't the main source." Mr Mangold's statement adds fuel to theories that Mr Gilligan may have "sexed up" his stories. The judicial inquiry may also present further concerns for Mr Gilligan and the BBC if they are asked to reveal his "major source". Outside of Britain, the coverage gets almost bizarre. The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) in Iran is reporting that the Telegraph and Daily Mail are calling for at least Campbell and Hoon to resign (though I've not been able to find any online articles from either paper to support this), and the Turkish paper Zaman goes even further with a story that called Dr. Kelly's death a "murder" (despite no such finding - either way - having been released yet), says the BBC has confirmed that Dr. Kelly was their source (despite no other paper nor anything on the BBC site that I can find supporting that) and indicates that Britain's Sky media (owned by Fox's Rupert Murdoch) has said that "Campbell has no choice but to resign" and that Hoon is also at risk. It worries me that people will start repeating things from this Turkish story (or others like it), even though by looking at the British coverage, it doesn't appear that any of their claims have much current validity (though if any of them are true, my guess would be that their statement about Campbell and Hoon being at risk of losing their jobs is by far the closest of the three to being supportable at this time, though, of course, until more is known about how Dr. Kelly died and as the row between Campbell and the BBC continues, anything is still possible). Prime Minister Blair, who is traveling in Asia as the story broke, was questioned about Dr. Kelly and whether or not Hoon and Campbell should resign. He was also asked if defence secretary Geoff Hoon or his communications chief Alastair Campbell would resign over the affair, but refused to be drawn. "I don't think it is right for anyone, ourselves or anybody else, to make a judgment until we have the facts," he said. "The person who can conduct this inquiry is someone who is highly respected and will get to the truth of what has happened."Blair has said that there will be an independent judicial inquiry into the death of Dr. Kelly.This is a story that will likely take some time to unfold, and has the potential to have an impact on both sides of the Atlantic. Obviously, the effect will be greater in Britain than here, but since the testimony Dr. Kelly was called to give related to the September "dodgy dossier" that the British had published, and given that the dossier is what Bush is now relying on to help back up his "uranium from Africa" claim, if the investigation into Dr. Kelly's death turns up anything that discredits the September dossier further than it already has been - and in particular if anything is turned up that would refute the uranium claim, it would certainly have an effect here as well.In the meantime, my heart goes out to Dr. Kelly's family. These last weeks have likely been hard on all of them, and for him to have died - and under circumstances like this - will only compound that a thousand-fold. Politics7049@blogcritics.org Sat, 19 Jul 2003 09:19:35 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/06/24/233620.php Kriselda JarnsaxaBack in 1999, after discovering a website parodying his campaign for the Presidency, George W. Bush famously declared that "There ought to be limits to freedom". Since his installation as President, we've come to see that he was being quite sincere when he said that. Bush does not like to be aware of anyone disagreeing with him or his policies. One current example can be found in an article published by the Economist. Brett Bursey, a long time activist, had decided to join a crowd of people greeting the President at the Columbia, SC, airport. While the majority of the people gathered were there to show support for President Bush, Bursey brought a sign with him to express his opposition to Bush's policy in regards to Iraq. The sign said simply "No War for Oil". He was arrested by the South Carolina police for trespassing, but those charges were dropped. Soon after, however, he was charged under a federal statute that allows the Secret Service to restrict access to areas near the President. This rule, apparently, isn't invoked very often, but the Justice department has pressed for the prosecution of this case, in part, at least, to test out their ability to use it more often. It seems they want to spare President Bush the trauma of having to see or hear any indication that not everyone likes him. The prosecutors say that Mr Bursey was not in a special "free-speech zone" that was set up for protesters half a mile from the hangar. The pro-Bush people did not need to be there because they were not protesting. Mr Bursey told the cops, defiantly, that he was under the impression that the whole of America was a free-speech zone. The prosecution is being brought specifically because Bursey was standing in the crowd to protest against President Bush. As noted above, none of the pro-Bush people were considered to be trespassing, and thus none were not arrested. The only difference between the pro-Bush people in the crowd and Bursey was the opinion he was expressing. In fact, one of the officials involved in his arrest told him "It's the content of your sign." He was also told that if he wanted to protest President Bush or his policies, he would have to go to the "Free Speech Zone" a half-mile down the road, out of Bush's sight or hearing. In essence, he could only say something in opposition to the President if he said it where the President wouldn't be subjected to it. And, if all of that wasn't bad enough, when Bursey requested a jury trial - so that his guilt or innocence could be determined by his peers - the judge presiding over the case refused his request, saying that petty offenses, such as this, are not covered by the right to a jury trial. Eleven Congressmen have written to Attorney General Ashcroft about the situation, asking that the charges be dismissed. In the letter to Ashcroft recently released, the members of Congress called the prosecution of Bursey for carrying his sign outside the designated free speech zone "a threat to the freedom of expression we should all be defending.""As we read the First Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is a 'free speech zone.' In the United States, free speech is the rule, not the exception, and citizens' rights to express it do not depend on their doing it in a way the President finds politically amenable ... We ask that you make it clear that we have no interest as a government in 'zoning' Constitutional freedoms, and that being politically annoying to the President of the United States is not a criminal offense. This prosecution smacks of the use of the Sedition Acts two hundred years ago to protect the President from political discomfort. It was wrong then and it is wrong now. We urge you to drop this prosecution based so clearly on the political views being expressed by the individual who is being prosecuted."From the reports I've read, there was nothing in Mr. Bursey's appearance, demeanor or actions that would indicate he was any kind of a threat to the President. He was simply a man in a crowd with a sign saying "No War for Oil". He was singled out for arrest and prosecution under federal statutes and charged with trespassing because his opinion was someplace it didn't belong. I think that's the scariest part of this story to me. What we're talking about here isn't a matter of protecting the President's physical safety. If someone wanted to hurt or kill the president, they could easily blend in with a pro-Bush crowd if they needed to. It's a matter of saying that the government is now going to discriminate against certain people if they don't like the opinion being expressed - even if that opinion is entirely legal and protected by the First Amendment - and that expressing an "inappropriate" opinion in certain circumstances can now get you charged with a federal crime.I could understand if ALL members of a crowd - both for and against the President and his policies - were required to gather in a certain area, away from where he was appearing. I wouldn't necessarily like it, but it would be treating all opinions and opinion-holders the same way. The way it is right now, though, people who support the President are being given preferrential treatment, and those who oppose him are being pushed off as far to the side as possible. That is nothing short of a violation of the basic principle of free speech - one of the foundational values of this nation - and its a travesty of justice. Politics6476@blogcritics.org Tue, 24 Jun 2003 23:36:20 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/06/01/101742.php Kriselda JarnsaxaThis past Monday was Memorial Day, a day to honour America's Einherjar - the brave men and women who chose the lives of warriors and were called to their ultimate destiny as a result. They are rightly considered heroes. Memorial day should also be a time for reflection - and for making sure that the Einherjar have not had their lives taken by wars that are fought for ill purpose, or are predicated on lies, half-truths, "bad" information or are otherwise decitful. In choosing the life of a warrior, these people are saying they consider the good of the nation to be of higher value than that of their own lives, and they then put their lives into the hands of our government leaders. Those leaders have an obligation to use those lives carefully - not just to "send a message" or prove how tough America is.Yes, getting rid of Saddam Hussein is a good thing. He was an evil man and he treated his own people horribly. There is no question about this. Yet that isn't why we fought this latest war. As has been noted by many others as well, if getting rid of evil dictators were sufficient justification for war, there are many other who deserve the same treatment, in many countries around the world, yet we aren't going after them. And while we may have succeeded in getting rid of Saddam, as Senator Robert Byrd noted, we have hardly brought the Iraqi's anything resembling "liberation": What makes me cringe even more is the continued claim that we are "liberators." The facts don't seem to support the label we have so euphemistically attached to ourselves. True, we have unseated a brutal, despicable despot, but "liberation" implies the follow-up of freedom, self-determination and a better life for the common people. In fact, if the situation in Iraq is the result of liberation, we may have set the cause of freedom back 200 years. Despite our high-blown claims of a better life for the Iraqi people, water is scarce and often foul, electricity is a sometime thing, food is in short supply, hospitals are stacked with the wounded and maimed, historic treasures of the region and of the Iraqi people have been looted, and nuclear material may have been disseminated to heaven knows where, while US troops, on orders, looked on and guarded the oil supply. Meanwhile, lucrative contracts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and refurbish its oil industry are awarded to Administration cronies, without benefit of competitive bidding, and the United States steadfastly resists offers of UN assistance to participate. Is there any wonder that the real motives of the US government are the subject of worldwide speculation and mistrust? No, the war in Iraq was fought because we were told Saddam was more than just an evil dictator who treated his own people horribly. We were told he was an immediate threat to the US - that he had thousands of gallons of biological and chemical weapons and was pursuing nuclear weapons as well. It was because of these weapons - and the liklihood Saddam would give them to al-Qeada - that was the justification for killing not only hundreds, if not thousands of Iraqi citizens, but which also took the lives of our soldiers - adding them to the ranks of America's Einherjar.Many in America seem to think that it's no big deal if we never find these weapons or any evidence of their existance. They accuse those who opposed the war - and who still feel the war was wrong - of not being "patriotic" or of not supporting our soldiers. Yet it is their own attitude that dishonours the memory of our Einherjar, by trying to cover up the fact that they died in a war that - when judged by the reasons offered to us prior to the start of the war - has not been shown to have been justified. The weapons that made Saddam such an immediate threat have not yet been found, and unless they are, the lives of those soldiers were sacrified in vain.What's worse, the Pentagon is now talking about possible "regime change" in Iran, and the same people who told us that there was no question that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction are now telling us "[T]here's no question but that there have been and are today senior al-Qaida leaders in Iran, and they are busy."The Pentagon has proposed a policy of regime change in Iran, after reports that al-Qaida leaders are coordinating terrorist attacks from Iran. But the plan is opposed by the US state department and the British government, officials in Washington said yesterday. The Pentagon plan would involve overt means, such as anti-government broadcasts transmitted to Iran, and covert means, possibly including support for the Iraq-based armed opposition movement Mojahedin Khalq (MEK), even though it is designated a terrorist group by the state department. The state department and Britain have objected to the plan, saying that it would backfire, undermining the moderates around President Mohamed Khatami. We cannot allow this administration to make more Einherjar without first demanding unquestionable proof that, if al-Qeada are active in Iran, it is with the knowledge and the support of the Iranian government. If our leaders start to make claims about Iran having Saddam's WMD's (which they earlier suggested about Syria), we need to demand evidence that those weapons do exist and that they are, indeed, in Iran - again with the government's knowledge and support. After the debacle in Iraq, we cannot simply take their word for it. In honour of Memorial Day, let us honour the men and women who are willing to make that great sacrifice for this country by holding our leaders to a higher standard of justification before supporting futher wars (or other military action - regardless of how they choose to term it), and make sure that the war is truly needed, sufficiently warranted, and will not result in a worse life for the people who live in whatever country we target next. We owe them at least that much. Politics5787@blogcritics.org Sun, 1 Jun 2003 10:17:42 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/05/21/201821.php Kriselda Jarnsaxa[NOTE: This review is by Nyghtfall for reviews @ different strings and is reprinted here with permission.]In 1999, a movie was released that would garner a cult following that hasn't stopped growing since. That movie was The Matrix. The movie combined gravity-defying martial arts, over-the-top, never-before seen special effects, and a premise that proved resoundingly effective in inducing a cerebral wet dream for philosophy junkies.What is The Matrix? Put simply, it is that which we perceive as reality, and that reality is nothing more than a dream world concoted by super, artificially intelligent machines, in an effort to keep us oblivious to the truth:Our bodies are being used as a natural power source to keep the machines alive, hundreds of years in the future, from what we are being led to believe is present day 2003. That which we perceive as our physical bodies is nothing more than a digital representation of our physical selves. Worse, we were never actually born. We were grown and harvested.Remove the veil that is The Matrix, and we see the world for what it truly is: A post-apocolyptic landscape ruled by machines.I have lost count of the number of times I've watched my DVD copy of The Matrix. It is absolutely that good.Fast forward four years later, and The Matrix Reloaded has arrived at last. The movie picks up 6 months after the events of the first film. Several hundred more people have been 'unplugged' from the Matrix, and the machines are now boring down toward Zion - the only remaining human city on Earth, located several miles under the surface - in a final attempt to destroy Zion, and exterminate the human race once and for all.The action takes several minutes to pick up, but once it does, the eye candy is delivered in spades. Unfortunately, the eye candy is about the only thing The Matrix Reloaded has going for it. Worse, it leaves one feeling a sense of been-there-done-that, which winds up inadvertantly lifting the veil from the script to reveal plot holes that are too blatant to be ignored. To add insult to injury, the plot holes can be traced back to the original film. We were simply too dazzled by the special effects to notice them:Injuries in the Matrix cause injuries in real life: If you want to break my leg or rupture my internal organs, you have to hit me with something.Déją vu: During one scene in The Matrix, Neo sees a cat walk by, then sees the exact same event again, like an instant replay, and says, "Déją vu." It is then explained that déją vu is a glitch in the Matrix.Déją vu is a wholly mental phenomenon; an odd sense that you've been somewhere or done or seen something before, when you know you couldn't possibly have. It is not the repeated perception of something. Additionally, since the Matrix only controls sensory perceptions, not thoughts, real déją vu couldn't possibly be a glitch in the Matrix.If one can violate the rules of the Matrix by simply willing it, then the machines are terrible software engineers: In any decent client-server system, all security is done on the server side, where actions attempted by clients are carefully checked against their list of allowable actions. If the Matrix was properly configured, the physics-defying antics of Neo and his friends would be quite impossible.The Matrix is our false reality: The purpose of the Matrix is to convince us that what we perceive as reality is truly reality. Nothing is real, yet, we cannot possibly know that until we are 'unplugged'. To that end, one significant question demands an answer that we have yet to be given: Why do none of the earth-shattering, over-the-top action sequences that take place within the Matrix seem to have any visible effect on the reactions of those civilians who are still part of the system? Imagine yourself on a freeway one morning, and you see a well-groomed man in a three-piece suit climb out of a car and leap onto the hood of another, competely crushing the front end of the car, causing it to flip over several times, resulting a multi-car collision. Would that not cause considerable upset among other civilians traveling on the same highway?Clearly, it's not a case of people being conditioned to accept such extraordinary feats as normal, because when Neo was first unplugged, one of the primary tasks he had to accomplish was to learn to believe that he could perform such super-human feats while in the Matrix. If these feats were thought to be routine by the people living in the Matrix though unaware of it (ie those who've not yet been unplugged) - then there would be no need for someone to develop the belief that they can do anything since they would already assume that they could.Finally, and briefly, I found Reloaded a far too preachy, and meandered too long on some of the philosophical concepts. While I didn't find it difficult to wrap my head around some of those concepts, there were several occasions during the movie that I found myself thinking, "Ok, I get the point! Move on!"Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Reloaded, and am looking forward to the conclusion of the trilogy, but it's definitely not the Sci-Fi/Action blockbuster of the year that I was hoping it would be.It's currently rated at around 73% fresh at rottentomatoes.com. I would concur with that. Video5507@blogcritics.org Wed, 21 May 2003 20:18:21 EDT