The Samurai Chronicles [entries|friends|calendar] Jake [ website | crimson-samurai.com ] [ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ] [ calendar | livejournal calendar ]

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand [21 Apr 2008|01:37pm] Full Article: NY Times >> Washington ( Read more... ) The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air. Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized. Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks. Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley. In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access. A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis. “It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,’ ” Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said. ( Read more... ) Finally some investigative journalism.. and guess what, its not all over the news this is something really important EVERYONE needs to read, and yes this does affect our daily lives as it corrupts the news information process we are all involved in.. whether getting the news from or spewing off the exact misinformation we are informed, as I only found this out through one of my expanding research internet associations freepress.net Yesterday, the New York Times exposed a secret Pentagon campaign to infiltrate the media with pro-war propaganda. The scheme reaches all the way to the Bush White House, where top officials recruited dozens of "military analysts" to spread favorable views of the war via every major news channel -- without revealing they were working from Pentagon scripts and often lobbying for major military contractors. Spreading "covert propaganda" is illegal under federal law. Congress must investigate these military pundits and their ties to the Bush administration, defense contractors and our national news media. Tell Congress: Investigate the Propaganda Pundits ( Read more... ) I always knew there was something dopey and uninformed about the media, but I never knew there was a literal campaign involved to such an extent, seriously... there should be talks of perjury and impeachment right now, this is by far worse then anything involved in the clinton-lewinsky scandals of the previous administration, for something like this to be allowed to perjure our news distribution. 2 friends| smoke it up

HBO : John Adams (biographical miniseries) [03 Apr 2008|10:35pm] [ mood | curious ] [ music | Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm ] HBO : John Adams Quality: divx encoding bitrate: 121kbps dimensions: 624×352 duration: 01:07:39 filesize: 699Mb TVRage: http://www.tvrage.com/shows/id-18580 Info: Boston, 1770. In the aftermath of the Boston Massacre-a deadly street confrontation between American colonists and an occupying British brigade-John Adams takes an unpopular stand by agreeing to serve as defense attorney for the accused British soldiers. Counseled in his summation by his beloved wife Abigail, Adams wins the case-but surprises the British by turning down a lucrative position with the Crown. As pro-independent sentiment boils over in Massachusetts following the Coercive/Intolerable Acts, Adams is invited to join the newly created Continental Congress. After a rousing speech to his constituents, he says an emotional goodbye to his family before heading to Philadelphia--and an uncertain future. ( HBO : John Adams (miniseries) ) I will be updating and maintaining this individual post when new episodes arrive, until the miniseries is concluded. I especially urge anyone interested in politics or history to watch the second episode, as it details events in the continental congress leading up to the Declaration of Independance; and clearly shows why Thomas Jefferson is my favorite president and highly regarded personality of American History. 03/25 : Update Episode 03 added 04/03 : Update Episode 04 added smoke it up

PBS : Frontline - Ghosts of Rwanda [03 Apr 2008|10:14pm] [ mood | busy ] [ music | Guns N Roses - civil war ] PBS : Frontline - Ghosts of Rwanda ( PBS : Frontline - Ghosts of Rwanda ) smoke it up

Nipple Ring search procedures faulty, TSA claims [29 Mar 2008|04:54pm] [ mood | bitchy ] Full Article : cnn.com LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- The Transportation Security Administration said Friday its officers at a Texas airport appear to have properly followed procedures when they allegedly forced a woman to remove her nipple rings -- one with pliers -- but acknowledged the procedures should be changed. The woman involved -- Mandi Hamlin -- told reporters earlier Friday she was humiliated by last month's incident, in which she was forced to painfully remove the piercings behind a curtain as she heard snickers from male TSA officers nearby. The incident occurred at the Lubbock, Texas, airport. The officers "rightly insisted that the alarm that was raised be resolved," the TSA said in a statement posted on its Web site Friday afternoon. "TSA supports the thoroughness of the officers involved as they were acting to protect the passengers and crews of the flights departing Lubbock that day." However, "TSA has reviewed the procedures themselves and agrees that they need to be changed," the statement said. "In the future, TSA will inform passengers that they have the option to resolve the alarm through a visual inspection of the article in lieu of removing the item in question." Hamlin and her lawyer, celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, said they want a public apology from the agency, as well as a guarantee that future passengers with piercings will be treated with dignity and respect. Allred pointed out that TSA's Web site says passengers with piercings can undergo a pat-down inspection if they do not want to take their piercings out -- an option she said Hamlin was never offered. "The conduct of TSA was cruel and unnecessary," Allred told reporters at a news conference. "Last time that I checked, a nipple was not a dangerous weapon." She said if an apology was not forthcoming, "Mandi is going to have to consider her legal options." ( rest of article.... ) all the girls i know that have had and still have nipple rings, have never run into any problems before.... another reason why the TSA isn't really doing all that much of a competent job as it is, bush the best for the wer on terrorism? :jack: the economy and security of our nation is almost to the point of ruins.. any one mistake and the whole house of cards comes falling down imo. smoke it up

Birthday Jones [28 Mar 2008|07:55am] [ music | Superdrag - girl you really got me ] This year still sucks, considering my financial and work obligations, working all night until seven in the morning tomorrow, at least its not as bad as last year when i was all the way across the country without even my car or family. But this year i have hardly no money to celebrate nor any will to go out and celebrate considering due to most of my friends out here don’t drink anymore, which really isn't a necessity but nobody likes to go out if they dont drink or are too far away for me to hangout with on a consistent basis for them to even remember its my bday. strippers would be fun! ftw, if i could afford it. that and going on a road trip sometime soon would be nice, to get out of the city.. visit the countryside or mountains whatever.. 26 years old now... i feel like im getting old for my age. for now though i will treat my car to a few goodies considering i haven’t been able to take care of her in a long time, due to money and time being spent working on her, I already replaced the power steering pump last weekend, getting the rest of the system (rack and pinion where its now leaking through the cracked boot) repaired on monday, otherwise it would probably end up being an all day thing for me considering i have no lift or the wherabouts for a rentalift on this side of town, and the shop can get the remanned parts for $150 less then anywhere I can seem to find it on my own. Ive also been sanding my front hood, the one I was forced to get after the one in the picture tommyboy'ed on me back in denver; getting all the rust off, im going to try and primer it this weekend so that I can focus on what kind of design I want to implement in a few months, I will be painting this one myself since Im hoping eventually I can get another hood like that which i will get done professionally. It helps that i still have that $50 gift card for checkers from christmas. hey jess (denver) im finally fixing my car.. hopefully this time when the shaking is supposed to be fixed it will actually be fixed ;) yeah im still thinking about the peace corps.. but theres a few things i have to take care of before i can even fully apply, as my stomach problems are something that i need to get taken care of before they would accept me even if my qualifications end up being good enough. 2 friends| smoke it up

Clinton backers scold Pelosi on superdelegate comment [27 Mar 2008|12:38am] [ mood | annoyed ] [ music | Lost Prophets - last train home ] Full Article: cnn.com WASHINGTON (CNN) — Nearly 20 high-profile Hillary Clinton backers strongly criticized Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday over her recent suggestion that Democratic party superdelegates should not overturn the pledged delegate outcome at the party's convention this August. In a letter to the House Speaker dated Wednesday, the backers said that position is at odds with the party's original intent on what the role of superdelegates should be. "Superdelegates, like all delegates, have an obligation to make an informed, individual decision about whom to support and who would be the party’s strongest nominee," the backers wrote. "Both campaigns agree that at the end of the primary contests neither will have enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination," they also said. "In that situation, super-delegates must look to not one criterion but to the full panoply of factors that will help them assess who will be the party’s strongest nominee in the general election." ( rest of article... ) My Response: Isn't that altogether fair? now that shes losing is only when shes scraping at the bottom of the barrel.. if she would've lost ohio or texas I don't think this would have gone on this long anyway,.. but regarding texans look at their past choices anyways. however I do still agree with their right to weigh in the process and be heard. I feel that Ms. Pelosi is in the right here, she is just looking out for her party not to be crippled and deformed in lieu of Mccain and the GOP handing an easy route upon the DNC exactly because of all the ugliness and bitterness currently circulating the democratic primaries. Its not like we the voters get a chance to change our minds after our vote has been cast.. In my humble opinion if they hadn't done enough research on each candidate when they originally voted for them with their state's constituents then they shouldn't have been appointed a superdelegate.. Yes there are more insights about candidate knowledge (foreign and domestic) and character developments in the continuum of the primary but that does not count for the superdelegates regard for agreements on policy and character with their proposed electorate, which is what their vote was supposed to count for in the first place. If the clintons do use the superdelegates, in whatever ways necessary, to carry this tryst on further and escalate into deadlock or even reversal it will be the history repeating itself, the definitive account of a rebuke of the 2000 election all over again. If Ms Clinton can't statistically win the DNC primary vote, then why doesn't she just drop out of the DNC and run as an independent candidate?, Since she still attests and proclaims to being the choice of popular vote and the only candidate that could easily beat Mccain.. (insert any responding remark validated with common sense here)..... exactly smoke it up

Hillary Clinton: Truth or Consequences [27 Mar 2008|12:18am] [ mood | annoyed ] [ music | Creedence Clearwater Revival - Vietnam War Song ] Full Article: cnn.com/ac360 Carl Bernstein, contributing editor - Hillary Clinton has many admirable qualities, but candor and openness and transparency and a commitment to well-established fact have not been notable among them. The indisputable elements of her Bosnian adventure affirm (again) the reluctant conclusion I reached in the final chapter of A Woman In Charge, my biography of her published last June: Hillary Clinton "Since her Arkansas years [I wrote], Hillary Rodham Clinton has always had a difficult relationship with the truth… [J]udged against the facts, she has often chosen to obfuscate, omit, and avoid. It is an understatement by now that she has been known to apprehend truths about herself and the events of her life that others do not exactly share." As I noted: Almost always, something holds her back from telling the whole story, as if she doesn’t trust the reader, listener, friend, interviewer, constituent—or perhaps herself—to understand the true significance of events…” The Bosnian episode is a watershed event, because it indelibly brings to mind so many examples of this tendency– from the White House years and, worse, from Hillary Clinton’s take-no-prisoners presidential campaign. Her record as a public person is replete with “misstatements” and elisions and retracted and redacted and revoked assertions… ( rest of article.. ) My response: It especially irks me considering on her moments of innuendos and half truths as "slip ups" when she has been continuously been stating these lies all election season and then she tried to divert questioning, by bringing up Obama's pastor Wright and the still ongoing controversy surrounding it, considering no major news outlet considers to seize truth from the ill fated moments of hearsay and slander FOX news so blatantly expunged onto our body of politics in the recent outcries. I still haven't seen anyone on national news contribute any facts, that he was quoting a white diplomat who was a guest on FOX news and telling his congregation not to behave and think in such an outpouring negative way, instead continuing to run the same clips over and over and running on this story of edited controversy...that was clipped for the FOX News "fair and balanced" tirade of anti-truth and shameful journalism. This just goes to show you never can trust a politician, especially a Clinton. At this point im just tired of the families acting like they are here to gain power and having the people serve them, instead rightfully serving the people as their elected official. Right now as it stands either way, Im for four years with no more Family Feud politics and politicians... Clinton or Bush. Both political families have done nothing but a disservice and dishonor to the higher establishments of our political forum. In my humble opinion, im glad Ms. Clinton decided to show her true colors during this primary season.. so that if she does lose I will never stake any claim in her candidacy again, as I was still lukewarm about her to begin with and gave her the benefit of the doubt compared to the other side of the aisle. Don't get me wrong ladies and gents, Im all for a woman or black president to finally diversify our nations international portfolio, but I am not pulling those cards and instead basing my vote not on difference and change but agreement on policy and character... I simply just want a great leader, not a great politician... is that too much to ask for?? smoke it up

John McCain's Iraq War [25 Mar 2008|01:52pm] [ music | Bob Dylan - Blowin in the Wind ] Full Article : John McCain's Iraq War Today, March 20, 2008, is the fifth anniversary of the commencement of George W. Bush's war of choice to execute his plan for regime change in Iraq under the guise of an operation to seek out and destroy weapons of mass destruction ostensibly stored by the late dictator Saddam Hussein - all done, again ostensibly, as just and proper retaliation for the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington by an asserted alliance between the deposed Saddam Hussein regime and Usama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. This is an appropriate time to reflect on the sacrifices of U.S. troops and to think of ways to offer some comforts to those who remain deployed in the war zone. Hans Blix is a name all Americans should know as well as the name of Ronald Reagan by November 1, 2008. CNN, Fox News and MSNBC have a heavy task before them to correct the damage of misinformation worked by televised media in the 2002-2004 period. That period may well be remembered as the nadir for the profession of journalism in the United States. Writing in a British newspaper, the international jurist and former Swedish diplomat authors an important retrospective - A War of Utter Folly: Responsibility for this spectacular tragedy must lie with those who ignored the facts five years ago - in which he reminds the world and voters in Texas of the declared goal of the invasion of Iraq: elimination of weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Blix reminds us of the crucial relevance of dates in the assessment of any chronology by recalling the contrasting state of actual knowledge regarding the WMD situation in 2002 versus March of 2003. Those who ordered and authorized the invasion achieved a colossally costly miscalculation in the annals of history. Hans Blix summarizes each of the three major objectives: They could not succeed in eliminating WMDs because they did not exist. Nor could they succeed in the declared aim to eliminate al-Qaida operators, because they were not in Iraq. They came later, attracted by the occupants. A third declared aim was to bring democracy to Iraq, hopefully becoming an example for the region. Let us hope for the future; but five years of occupation has clearly brought more anarchy than democracy. Along with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mr. Blix helpfully reminds us of the purpose of international law whose purpose and authority the presidency of George W. Bush repeatedly sought to disparage and undermine: "Bush ridiculed any idea that the US would need to ask for a 'permission slip' before taking military action against a 'growing threat'." As one of George W. Bush's leading acolytes of that critical period of poor stewardship of the American national security and diplomatic portfolios, we will likely hear similar arguments concerning competence in diplomacy and international law from Senator McCain once the general election season begins. ( more of the article.. ) not necessarily new for anyone following politics and the recent debates on the matter of Iraq and its 5th anniversary lately, but this article is full of several excellent points, nonetheless. There are many more resources and links listed in the full article, I highlighted and directly linked those that are the most vital and important to the message of the article. smoke it up

rightwingwatch.org : Double Standards (politics and religion) [22 Mar 2008|09:58pm] [ mood | cynical ] [ music | Green Day - Jack Ass ] More Information : rightwingwatch.org Double Standards Although it wasn’t surprising to see John McCain spend much of the past few years courting the Religious Right in advance of securing the Republican presidential nomination, he continued to pander even after his primary victory was all but finalized. Beginning with his speech to the right-wing activists at CPAC—which followed shortly after his main rival, Mitt Romney, dropped out—McCain seemed to step up his embrace of the fringe, picking up more and more endorsements, campaigning with apocalyptic televangelist John Hagee and “Patriot Pastor” Rod Parsley, and reaching out to the Council for National Policy. McCain’s search for religious-right support might have raised a few flags. Hagee, for example, frames his support for Israel in terms of the end times, going as far as warning that any U.S. foreign policy decision that isn’t “pro-Israel” enough will result in God bringing a “blood bath” of terrorist attacks to America. Hagee also identifies the Catholic Church as the “great whore” of Revelation (a characterization he now denies) and said Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment on a sinful city. When confronted with some of Hagee’s extreme views, McCain simply responded “all I can tell you is that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee’s support.'’ After a lot of pressure from the Catholic League, McCain finally issued a bland statement: “I repudiate any comments that are made, including Pastor Hagee’s, if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics.” Indeed, McCain would have had difficulty criticizing Hagee any further—much less call the pastor out on his “profoundly distorted view of this country,” to quote Barack Obama’s critique of Rev. Jeremiah Wright—because McCain had sought out Hagee precisely for his extreme stance and the religious-right constituency he can reach. Just as McCain sought out Hagee for his political clout, it was politics that brought McCain and Ohio televangelist Rod Parsley together on the campaign. When McCain brought Parsley on stage and called him a “spiritual guide,” that didn’t mean the senator had sent the Word of Faith preacher a financial “seed” in hopes that God would bolster his campaign contributions. Instead, McCain was embracing Parsley’s far-right political views and the political machine of “Patriot Pastors” he leads. David Limbaugh, one of the many right-wing commentators who dismissed Obama’s speech on his pastor, claimed there was a “double standard” when it came to conservatives: “When the remotest connection can be inferred between a conservative and a bigoted supporter, there is always hell to pay.” But in fact the opposite double standard seems to be in play: While Obama continues to be attacked for his personal relationship with a pastor whose controversial political ideology he’s rejected, McCain’s ongoing ideological relationship with the far Right—consisting, in essence, of him telling them he embraces their political views—remains unconnected to McCain’s political reputation. smoke it up

BBC : Jesus (Isa) - The Real Story (or another Theory?) [22 Mar 2008|04:13am] [ music | Superdrag - im expanding my mind ] BBC : Jesus - The Real Story Quality: divx encoding bitrate: 128kbps dimensions: 689×359 duration: xx:50:00 x 3 filesize: 700Mb Imdb: none Info: Jesus has been the source of faith to billions, the cause of a thousand wars, and the subject of countless works of art and music. But who was he – a rebel, a prophet or something much more? Join experts as they reconstruct the life of Jesus using archaeology, history and science. Through re-enactments set in Israel/Palestine and computer generated backgrounds, relive the main events of his life and death. For the first time, experts strip away the layers of history that cover almost every biblical site – revealing the Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth that Jesus himself would have known. ( BBC : Jesus - The Real Story ) smoke it up

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