....LMB: "Swirly News"....

March 26, 2004

U.S. Officials Fashion Legal Basis to Keep Force in Iraq- sigh. The US has managed to creatively interpret UN resolutions so that they mean that the US can "transfer authority" to Iraq on June 30, 2004, yet keep American troops there through December 31, 2005.

The Apparat: George W. Bush's back-door political machine- the network of fundraisers and thinktanks that sneakily champion the conservative cause.

Bush Wants More Personnel in Colombia- that don't sound good.

Imperial Arrogance: The US in Haiti- latest on Haiti and the US' rather insulting response.

Turning the Tide- Chomsky's got a blog! Well, kinda. Looks like Z Magazine has set up a blog that will include excerpts from his recent speeches, articles and interviews, with some original Chomsky content here and there.

Advertisers try subtle approach to brand plugs- new TV ad strategy:

Through Chicago-based Starcom Entertainment, Allstate is sponsoring vignettes of "Gilmore Greats"--snippets of "pivotal moments" from past "Gilmore Girls" episodes.

The vignettes, which run for 30 seconds during the episode, are branded as "This Gilmore Great is brought to you by Allstate" and ends with the tagline, "Prepare yourself for life's great moments. Are you in good hands?"

Allstate then runs a regular 30-second ad following the vignette.

I dunno. Might work.

The Emperor of Scrounge- university professor decides to be a dumpster diver for a year, eschewing his job and getting as much of life's necessities as he can from what wasteful Americans throw away. While this probably sounds gross to most of you, but it's really the ultimate in recycling/reusing, and is a glaring example of how much we overconsume.

Just Wondering- Geov Parrish asks the questions that the 9/11 commission won't: Why did we wait 2 years to have hearings on 9/11? Why has no one been fired for failing to prevent the deaths of 3000 innocents? How much as the Iraq war set us back in our fight against terrorists?

The SD GOP discovers blogs- as a political blogger myself, I think I am legally required to post this. Democrat Stephanie Herseth is running for a seat in the House, and has been raising money via ads on political blogs. The ads take you to a specific donation page on her website that relates to blog readers that is different from the main donation page. Local Republicans are now accusing Herseth of having a "secret web page" on her site, and that, well, I don't know. It's secret (although it isn't) and therefore it's proof that she's "hiding something" which means that she's bad. I think. It seems that the Reps reason for bringing this up is the hope that they can "smear" Herseth by associating her with the content of these blogs, which they probably hope are more liberal than the general voting population. Weak.

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Lying Media Bastards is both a radio show and website. The show airs Mondays 2-4pm PST on KillRadio.org, and couples excellent music with angry news commentary. And the website, well, you're looking at it.

Both projects focus on our media-marinated world, political lies, corporate tyranny, and the folks fighting the good fight against these monsters.

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Media News

November 16, 2004

Tales of Media Woe

Senate May Ram Copyright Bill- one of the most depressing stories of the day that didn't involve death or bombs. It's the music and movie industries' wet dream. It criminalizes peer-to-peer software makers, allows the government to file civil lawsuits on behalf of these media industries, and eliminates fair use. Fair use is the idea that I can use a snippet of a copyrighted work for educational, political, or satirical purposes, without getting permission from the copyright-holder first.

And most tellingly, the bill legalizes technology that would automatically skip over "obejctionable content" (i.e. sex and violence) in a DVD, but bans devices that would automatically skip over commericals. This is a blatant, blatant, blatant gift to the movie industry. Fuck the movie industry, fuck the music industry, fuck the Senate.

Music industry aims to send in radio cops- the recording industry says that you're not allowed to record songs off the radio, be it real radio or internet radio. And now they're working on preventing you from recording songs off internet radio through a mixture of law and technological repression (although I imagine their techno-fixes will get hacked pretty quickly).

The shocking truth about the FCC: Censorship by the tyranny of the few- blogger Jeff Jarvis discovers that the recent $1.2 million FCC fine against a sex scene in Fox's "Married By America" TV show was not levied because hundreds of people wrote the FCC and complained. It was not because 159 people wrote in and complained (which is the FCC's current rationale). No, thanks to Jarvis' FOIA request, we find that only 23 people (of the show's several million viewers) wrote in and complained. On top of that, he finds that 21 of those letters were just copy-and-paste email jobs that some people attached their names to. Jarvis then spins this a bit by saying that "only 3" people actually wrote letters to the FCC, which is misleading but technically true. So somewhere between 3 and 23 angry people can determine what you can't see on television. Good to know.

Reuters Union Considers Striking Over Layoffs- will a strike by such a major newswire service impact the rest of the world's media?

Pentagon Starts Work On War Internet- the US military is talking about the creation of a global, wireless, satellite-aided computer network for use in battle. I think I saw a movie about this once...

Conservative host returns to the air after week suspension for using racial slur- Houston radio talk show host (and somtime Rush Limbaugh substitute) Mark Belling referred to Mexican-Americans as "wetbacks" on his show. He was suspended for a couple of weeks, and then submitted a written apology for the racial slur to a local newspaper. But he seems to be using the slur and its surrounding controversy to boost his conservative cred with his listeners.

Stay Tuned for Nudes- Cleveland TV news anchor Sharon Reed aired a story about artist Spencer Tunick, who uses large numbers of naked volunteers in his installations and photographs. The news report will be unique in that it will not blur or black-out the usual naughty bits. The story will air late at night, when it's allegedly okay with the FCC if you broadcast "indecent" material. The author of this article doesn't seem to notice that Reed first claims that this report is a publicity stunt, but then claims it's a protest against FCC repression. I'd like to think it's the latter, but I'm not that much of a sucker.

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Mission: Mongolia

Jake's first attempt at homemade Mongolican barbecue:

Failure.

What went right: correctly guessing several key seasonings- lemon, ginger, soy, garlic, chili.

What went wrong: still missing some ingredients, and possibly had one wrong, rice vinegar. Way too much lemon and chili.

Result: not entirely edible.

Plan for future: try to get people at Great Khan's restaurant to tell me what's in the damn sauce.

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