Elderbear's Den

I came across some startling images on a little know German web site called Fotos. The photographs were taken in Iraq during the early stages of the war, and provided an unsanitised view of the Allied military presence in that country.

# posted by Elderbear : 09:14
 
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The 184-nation International Monetary Fund and World Bank wrap up their spring meetings with a pledge to focus on the need to support and enhance education, especially for women, in the developing world.

# posted by Elderbear : 08:35
 
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Man, there just isn’t any form of deception these assholes won’t employ to get you to come by their websites. I just got one today which had the subject line: OSAMA BIN LADEN CAUGHT! The message body basically says the news is on CNN (which it isn’t) and the person sending you the email has loads of pics with video to follow soon at a URL that’s an IP address as (opposed to text) in a subfolder named “pics” so you don’t have an reason to suspect it’s spam (which it is).

# posted by Elderbear : 00:35
 
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It's Over

Call me premature, but there’s no hope for anyone or anything in Iraq. In the oft-touted struggle for the exportation of democracy to Iraq, the government has done a fine job in replacing a single, secular, regime with a horrible human rights attitude with hundreds of religious regimes with horrible human rights attitudes. I know it wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. I know it’s only been a year, but when is enough enough? Is enough 1,000 American dead, an 5,000 wounded? Or is it 10,000 dead and 50,000 wounded? It’s easy to talk about resolve and “staying the course” when the course is 18 holes long, the resolve is a job milking cows or framing houses, and the closest thing anyone gets to blood on their hands is a bit of newsprint ink...

Which brings me to what another Vietnam veteran, a man for whom I have the highest respect, said. “After my experience in Vietnam was over, I looked back and thought, ‘If nothing else, at least we as a nation have learned something from this.’ But now, when I read the news, I see the exact same reasons and hear the exact same justifications for the war in Iraq. And I know we have not learned anything.”

# posted by Elderbear : 17:46
 
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NAPLES, Fla. (Reuters) - President Bush on Friday stood by an order that no more photographs be released of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq, a restriction critics say is aimed at sanitizing the war for the public....

Bush has come under fire from Democrats for not attending a single funeral of the soldiers killed in Iraq.

# posted by Elderbear : 17:22
 
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I concluded with the gist of Carlyle's idea of war as a quarrel between two thieves, themselves too cowardly to fight, compelling boys of one village and another into uniforms with guns in their hands and then letting them loose like ferocious beasts against each other.

# posted by Elderbear : 16:20
 
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April 21, 2004

Friends,

I just got word that my new film, "Fahrenheit 911," has been selected by the Cannes Film Festival to premiere there in competition next month!

This is only the second time in the last 48 years that a documentary has been chosen to be in the main competition (the first being "Bowling for Columbine" in 2002) -- and, in fact, another documentary has also been chosen for this year. The non-fiction film revolution rolls on!

I am deeply honored by this announcement, considering it comes from our mortal enemy, the French.

This year's jury in Cannes is headed by Quentin Tarantino and also includes director Jerry Schatzberg, Kathleen Turner, Tilda Swinton and others.

"Fahrenheit 911" will be in theaters across the U.S. (and the rest of the world) this summer. More info, gossip and all the juicy details to follow...

Thanks everyone for your support.

Michael Moore

# posted by Elderbear : 01:36
 
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• A Picture's Worth: Amazing photography site. Stirs deep stuff within my soul viewing these images. Not only images, but short essays about them, by the photographers. Lots of beauty in a time of political ugliness.


• transphormetic: A wonderful work of mathematical genius. Cold, hard equations that create visually beguiling and enthralling images. Interactive. If you miss this one, you'll be left with 42 as the answer to the ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything.

# posted by Elderbear : 01:13
 
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# posted by Elderbear : 01:06
 
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One technical objection, not a big one, but perhaps worth mulling philosophically: I do not "agree" with your theme of "creeping fascism," since I really don't believe that fascism can creep, but it's really a question of semantics, not your theme to which I object. Repression can creep, and =is= creeping: groundwork is being systematically laid for more and more repression, and that's dangerous, I agree. But whether this repression will result in "fascism" awaits to be seen. Because "fascism" is a total system, with some very specific defining characteristics. Once it is here, we would not be writing blogs like this, we would not have the freedom to do so, there would be immediate retaliation I think. So my main objection is that when people throw the term "fascism" when they are referring to anything generically repressive, it dilutes the meaning of the term, and -- I fear -- may be like crying "wolf," making people become blase, think "same-old same-old" repression, and so not recognize the real danger of the identity and totality of fascism until too late...

still, it's a catchy phrase, and I doubt "creeping repression" would resonate as well . . .

This machine kills fascists

# posted by Elderbear : 14:48
 
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What caught me, however, was what I did hear within the hour. Anyone else in another job would have been fired for this kind of rank stupidity. The phrases I kept hearing the most were:

"My opinion is..."
"Not that I recall..."
and
"No one told me to do anything."

This is the last one that caught me the most. No one told me to to do anything. WHAT?! No one /told/ you to do anything? Is it really the job for the National Security Adviser to sit around and WAIT for people to tell her to do things?

Anyway, gimmicky as that chart may seem, there really is no reason to use IE in this day and age unless you're forced to, either by circumstances at work or just because you were born a masochistic Microsoft crony, or because some of the following reasons:

You've never heard of Mozilla Firebird - "The Best Browser, Bar None". Yes it may sound corny and somewhat unbelievable, but take my word for it - it's true.

Thanks to Torontonian AllSeasons for providing this simple list:

Peanut Butter
Canned Fish
Baby Formula
Mac & Cheese
Cereal & Bread
Soup
Pasta & Sauce
Rice
Fruits & Vegetables

It's the list of suggested items on the brown paper bag from the local food bank. "Your grocery list is someone else's wish list" it says above the list.

Speaks for itself.

Tomorrow's my birthday. I'm not sure how I feel about that. When I was a kid, I dreamed about growing up. Now that I'm well into adulthood, I can't figure out the attraction that growing up had on me back then. Somebody once said that childhood is wasted on the young. If so, then adulthood must be payback time.

This is what I do every year, mark the occasion by fretting. I fret my way through celebrations and special occasions. I tend to see the clouds for the silver lining. Or, as I like to say, how can you possibly appreciate the rainbow if you don't get struck in the ass by lightning first?

...

Missing your own birthday party! That's a little bit how I felt when Bush was anointed president.

Six out of 10 Americans say the Bush administration underestimated the threat of terrorism prior to Sept. 11, 2001, and nearly two out of three are at least somewhat concerned Iraq could become another Vietnam, according to a Newsweek Poll released on Saturday.

# posted by Elderbear : 23:22
 
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Globalisation and the US pose a more serious threat to the world than war and terrorism, according to a BBC poll. Corruption came second on a list of the biggest problems facing the world, the survey of BBC viewers worldwide found.

Conflicts - war and terrorism - ranked third, with 50%, followed by hunger, 49%, and climate change with 44%.

BBC World asked 1,500 viewers of its news and international channel for the biggest problems in the world with 52% saying the US and globalisation.

Respondents from Europe, Asia, North and South America, the Middle East, Africa and Australasia, ranked the power of the US and large corporations as the biggest worry (52.3%).

# posted by Elderbear : 14:49
 
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Calling Google Bombing "cybergraffiti" as the New York Times does is appropriate. Google did have good listings for this query, for the few who were probably doing it before this prank emerged. Now, Google appears happy for this blogging campaign (and now new ones) to spray paint whatever it wants above more relevant listings.

• The miserable failure search that returns George Bush's official Whitehouse biography. Now that right thinking people (but wrong thinking from my perspective) have figured out this little trick, Jimmy Carter's biography and a bunch of Hillary Clinton pages have also moved high onto Google's ratings. Carter may not have been the most effective president we've ever had, but shame on you for branding him a “miserable failure!” What president has done more for humanity after he left the Whitehouse than Jimmy? If you can't admire his Habitat for Humanity work, then you are a Miserable Failure as a Human Being, and at best have learned to dress yourself and not mess in the house!



• Then there's the classic Weapons of Mass Destruction — not found spoof. Worth a laugh over a year since it first hit the top of Google. And we still haven't found them! Bush lied! Nothing new about that, politicians frequently distort truth like Silly Putty. Bush's lie got us bogged down in an unnecessary war, costing hundreds of American lives, thousands of Iraqi lives, Billions of dollars, and our international good-will and credibility. When the Hague gets done with Slobodon Milosevich, perhaps they can begin a war crimes trial for George W. Bush.



• I'm not certain if this is a Google Bombing exploit, or just a page that illustrates how to write a website to rank high on Google's list. Search for Jew, and the top ranked page is (I won't give them the dignity of linking to them or naming them and thus consolidating their Google ranking) an anti-semetic conspiracy theory group.

# posted by Elderbear : 11:35
 
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You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!


How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

# posted by Elderbear : 02:35
 
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Don’t let word of that gun get around, though, because some leftist moonbat might decide it’s just the weapon for taking out Bushitler…who, if Elderbear is to be believed, made it to the White House only due to an eeeeevil Skull and Bones plot.

Oh, I see…you think that was stupid, do you? Well, if you think that was bad, you might want to hang on to that link—you’ll need it to cleanse your palate after you read this bit of cranial infection courtesy of Brian Noggle (who, along with this guy, needs to take the first step and admit he has a problem).

In case you didn’t pick up on it, that Skull and Bones post was an April Fool’s joke. A joke which, um, sucked.

The Left That Was demanded not the symbolic image of the “broken rifle”—so very much in vogue these days in pacifist boutiques—but the training and arming of the people for revolutionary ends, solely in the form of democratic militias. A resolution coauthored by Luxemburg and Lenin (a rare event) and adopted by the Second International in 1906 declared that it “sees in the democratic organization of the army, in the popular militia instead of the standing army, an essential guarantee for the prevention of aggressive wars, and for facilitating the removal of differences between nations.”

Homeland Security Notice: I didn't pen those words, nor did I endorse taking up arms against the government, nor did I endorse the revolutionary overthrow of the government. I merely cited Murray Bookchin—and this constitutes both “fair use” and “protected speech.”

# posted by Elderbear : 10:13
 
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A rabbi, a Unitarian Universalist minister, and a Wiccan priestess

# posted by Elderbear : 09:54
 
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One of the most remarkable aspects of the current downturn is that total wage and salary income (inflation adjusted) has not risen at all in the last three years. Moreover, the total wages and salaries generated by the private sector have actually fallen by 1.7%. Meanwhile, domestic profits grew by 57.5%. In other recent downturns total wages and profits grew in tandem, with total wage and salary income up by 3.7% over a comparable three-year period and domestic profits up by 12.6%.

# posted by Elderbear : 19:11
 
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America's largest corporations are less likely to face an Internal Revenue Service audit this year than at any time in the past decade.

Average taxpayers are not so fortunate.

Audits of individual tax returns have climbed 37 percent from 2000 to 2003, while audits of corporations have fallen 26 percent over the same four-year period. Corporations with assets of more than $10 million have seen a drop of nearly 23 percent.

# posted by Elderbear : 18:57
 
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Do you think its possible for a man to be free in present day America?

HST: Well, it depends on who it is. I'm doing pretty well. I don't know about you. I have a feeling it's going to be more of a struggle than its been for a while.

AB: Why's that?

HST: Look around you. The military state we're being sort of formed into--shit, I wrote about this last night, I forgot what I said. The military structure--did you read the book I just wrote?

AB: Yeah. Kingdom of Fear. I thought it was a very apt title.

HST: Yeah, more so than I realized when I came up with it.

AB: What do you think the think of how the Bush Administration is cracking down on civil rights?

HST: The Bush administration is a heap of Nazi shit. Bullshit. Yeah, you can put it that way. I don't know what your audience is ready for.

# posted by Elderbear : 19:37
 
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There are a lot of people out there who are inclined to laugh at this candidate. A few do so because they genuinely find him laughable, but most do it because they see him being laughed at in the news media. In this country we generally take our cues about whom we can safely laugh at from the mainstream press, and for the most part we laugh at the weak, the earnest, the sincere, the emotionally vulnerable. We laugh at people who are fat and ugly or who work as temps or at McDonald's because none of us want to admit that we're not the ripped six-pack guy on the cover of Men's Health, or a member of the Sharper Image target market. We're cowards, afraid of admitting to being who we are, and we laugh at people on the margins to avoid being identified as outsiders by the remorseless center.

It's the same with politics. Over and over again we have been told, in a million different ways, that a certain kind of idealism is actually childish weakness, and that the only pragmatic way of approaching life upholds force and commerce as the chief engines of social organization. That is why we laugh at people who use words like peace and community but praise as tough, responsible leaders anyone who's willing to drop the most mother-of-all bombs on defenseless foreign populations. We laugh at a person who uses the word peace for the same reason that we laugh at the person who works as a temp or at McDonald's: because we're afraid of being lumped together with him. We're afraid of being the proverbial punchline to the proverbial Dennis Miller joke about John Lennon and Joanie Baez and that goddamn Cat Stevens song, "Peace Train."

I will never forgive America for what Dennis Kucinich went through this year. Because he has had the audacity to call for an end to all wars, to announce plans for the creation of a Department of Peace, to question the very culture of viciousness and intolerance and crass commercialism that rules our public discourse, he has been labeled a lunatic by nearly every "responsible" press organ in this country and cruelly mocked to a degree that no civil society should allow an honorable man to endure.

# posted by Elderbear : 19:26
 
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Daniel Jorg, a student from Switzerland, has put together an excellent survey for bloggers and blog readers which should lead to some excellent research results.

Click on over RIGHT NOW!

# posted by Elderbear : 03:45
 
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This is where the famous hamburger empire truly started in 1940. Brothers Maurice and Richard McDonald (pre-Ray Kroc) opened a restaurant on this site. Though the place served ribs and pork sandwiches, within eight years it reopened as McDonald's Hamburger with the famous paper-wrapped burgers. Although the original is gone, there is a nice little museum on the site that's free to the public.

Contact Phone Number: 909-885-6324

# posted by Elderbear : 23:53
 
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Since former White House counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke charged March 24 that the Bush White House reacted slowly to warnings of a terrorist attack, his former colleagues have poked holes in his narration of the early months of 2001 and have found evidence that Clarke elevated his own importance in those events.

The most sweeping challenge to Clarke's account has come from two Bush allies, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Fred F. Fielding, a member of investigative panel. They have suggested that sworn testimony Clarke gave in 2002 to a joint congressional committee that probed intelligence failures was at odds with his sworn testimony last month. Frist said Clarke may have "lied under oath to the United States Congress."

But the broad outline of Clarke's criticism has been corroborated by a number of other former officials, congressional and commission investigators, and by Bush's admission in the 2003 Bob Woodward book "Bush at War" that he "didn't feel that sense of urgency" about Osama bin Laden before the attacks occurred.

In addition, a review of dozens of declassified citations from Clarke's 2002 testimony provides no evidence of contradiction, and White House officials familiar with the testimony agree that any differences are matters of emphasis, not fact. Indeed, the declassified 838-page report of the 2002 congressional inquiry includes many passages that appear to bolster the arguments Clarke has made.

# posted by Elderbear : 23:20
 
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I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them. (Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr., Speech during 1952 Presidential Campaign)

# posted by Elderbear : 23:08
 
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April 3, 2004 -- Six hundred American service men and women have died in the war in Iraq, many of them from the nation's smallest counties and towns. An ongoing study by sociologist Robert Cushing for the Austin American-Statesman newspaper examines the list of these victims and reveals an apparent statistical anomaly: soldiers and Marines from rural areas are dying at twice the rate of troops from cities and suburbs.

# posted by Elderbear : 22:04
 
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ATTENTION ALL MALE ARAB & MUSLIM IMMIGRANTS, STUDENTS & TOURISTS

If you have not yet reported for mandatory interrogation and cataloguing by the Immigration & Naturalization Service, you may now opt instead to plead your innocence by registering with the Department of Homeland Security over the Internet. Please fill out the form below in its entirety. You will be contacted for further questioning when necessary.

# posted by Elderbear : 09:58
 
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ANNAPOLIS, MD—George W. Bush and John Kerry were both members of the notorious Skull and Bones society. Each year the society held a lottery for future president of the United States. Most years nobody won. Both George W. Bush and John Kerry won this lottery during their membership in the society.

Yesterday, our monitors of communication with ex-president George H. W. Bush recorded a phone call from the White House, in which G. W. Bush complained that Kerry is seeking the presidency before he had completed the two terms that Bush had won in the lottery.

“It's not fair ... it's not his time yet, dad, ” the younger Bush whined, “Can't you do something about it? I'm due a second term!” Neither the senior Bush nor the White House was available for comment on this issue.

John Kerry spoke with our reporter, “It was a tradition, something nobody took seriously. What I take seriously is the condition that Mr. Bush has left America in. We've lost our surplus, made war based on his deceptions, and been subject to terrorist attack because his adminstration didn't take warnings seriously. Our civil rights have been eroded—Mr. Bush is trying to turn the clock back 50 years—and he's worked hard to make the rich richer at the expense of the middle class! If elected, I'll do much better for the American people.”

# posted by Elderbear : 11:16
 
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Republicans have sunk to a stunning new low. First there was Florida and the theft of the 2000 presidential election by the Supreme Court. Then there was the California recall.

Now – to show that Republicans will truly stop at next to nothing to win elections - there is Walden O'Dell, the CEO of Diebold Inc. Diebold is the company that wants to get the contract to provide voting machines in every state for the 2004 election and O'Dell is raising money exclusively for President Bush and the Republican National Committee (RNC). O'Dell, in a fundraising letter on August 14th, committed "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" according to the Associated Press. In the 2002 election cycle, O'Dell gave $5,965 to the RNC while Diebold gave the RNC $95,000.

This is outrageous!! Either Diebold should cease seeking the contracts for voting machines or Mr. Bush, the RNC and its affiliated committees should return the campaign cash they have received from Mr. O'Dell and his fundraising appeals and from Diebold.

# posted by Elderbear : 02:45
 
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Lesson Learned: Clear your cache (for those suffering under the oppression of Internet Explorer, the Tools menu, Internet sub-menu will let you set your cache size to something reasonable and also let you delete all those cached pop-ups before you install an anti-virus program).

# posted by Elderbear : 02:34
 
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Creeping Fascism Alert

BAGHDAD, IRAQ—A US military Apache helicopter circles over the shuttered offices of the Shi'ite newspaper - al-Hawza. A sign on the pad-locked gate indicates anyone who enters will be arrested. The paper's editors and reporters are in hiding—seeking to avoid arrest and indefinite detention.

Laborer Mohammed Mahdi is a supporter of the young Ayatollah Muqtadar al-Sadar, whose movement ran the newspaper. He was at the paper when the Americans came bearing a letter from US Administrator Paul Bremer.

"At 9:30 in the morning 15 hummers came with 6 Iraqi police cars," he remembers. "They surrounded the area and closed the newspaper just because the newspaper said Bremer caused the bombings in Iraq."

# posted by Elderbear : 02:22
 
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National Public Radio's decision to remove Bob Edwards as host of "Morning Edition" is part of a broader push by the network, at the urging of many of its local partners, to remain competitive in an increasingly demanding and crowded news marketplace, several public radio managers across the country say.

The announcement that Mr. Edwards would leave his anchor post, effective April 30, to take on a new assignment as a senior correspondent, and his statements that the move was not his idea, ignited widespread criticism. NPR, based in Washington, has received more than 17,000 calls and e-mail messages from angry listeners, its officials said. A Web site, savebobedwards.com, has generated close to 3,000 signatures.

# posted by Elderbear : 01:50
 
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Evolutionism propagandists often times try to sneak their false doctrine into popular culture via oblique references whose constant reiteration is designed to inculcate acceptance of their unacceptable message. As noted German Evolutionist Joseph Goebbels was fond of saying, if you repeat a lie often enough, people will start to believe it....

Some of the most popular vehicles for this subliminal propaganda are children's television shows, books, and toys. By getting their ideas into the minds of the young, they hope to be able to do the most damage to traditional values and belief. Shows like Pokemon, which features animals "evolving" into new forms, and popular movies like Jurassic Park and X-Men provide a continuous cultural fog of Evolutionism that is impossible for innocent children to escape from.

# posted by Elderbear : 20:57
 
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Now that the housekeeping work is taken care of, it's time to light the Bonfire...

All Stars Of Internet Suckage

• Aaron wants you to buy him firearms. Sorry, I gave at the office - the post office.


• Rick is having some legal problems, though from the sounds of it hygiene problems would be more of an issue... (Permalinks hosed - search page for "genital").


• I bet you didn't know Discount Blogger Michael Demmons is a huge Hanson fan (and I don't mean Beck!). Oh, the humanity...


• Evidently Kiril Kundurazieff is cycling around Southern California in a diaper. Now that's interesting...


• Andrew sums up the significant cultural impact of The Passion.
  
• Speaking of Mel's epic, Jim presents The Fashion of the Christ...


• Susie has abandoned rattling the tip jar and is now paid per Frank suckup. She's getting rich...


• Erica desperately needs to step away from the computer and experience the outdoors, really...


• Elderbear breaks the first rule of Fight Club...


• Alex learns the hard way that underwear should be worn while operating riding mowers.


• feste notes that genetically engineered cows cut the cheese, or something to that effect... who can tell?


• Everywhere Harvey looks he finds porn, even Toys 'R Us...


• Sean notes the second rule of Fight Club...


• Why is Eric so fascinated with reptilian sex? Who knows... I bet the guy with the panda blog was less than thrilled to be mentioned in the post...


• The Interested Participant bemoans the latest public health crisis facing children. The solution is obvious - more booger eating...


• My entry for the week is here, where I note that Noam Chomsky now has a blog. Now that comments are disabled the whole reason to visit is gone.

# posted by Elderbear : 20:33
 
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Soul is breathed into the web by men and women who create their own sites.

Nestled into the corners and other hidden places, the web holds her treasures. Soul of the Web celebrates and introduces all of us to these sites.

Places we might otherwise have missed. People we never would have met. Why not take a moment and look around? See what the web really has to offer.

And if you are so moved, participate in breathing Soul into the Web.

The web isn't just for reading, looking at pictures or shopping. It's for doing and being.

It's your web. Live it.

We do not become enlightened by imagining visions of light, but rather by making the darkness visible. (C. G. Jung)

# posted by Elderbear : 14:59
 
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I'm gonna be honest with you kids, because I think we've established that bond among ourselves in the short time we've been together. OK, here we go: I'm not sure what makes this post worthy of the fire. I've read it and re-read it. Maybe it's a Matrix kinda thing. "It is not the post that is lame. It is you that is lame." Nah, that couldn't be it. Either way, on to the fire it goes.

# posted by Elderbear : 10:45
 
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I recently joined my colleagues, U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) in introducing legislation to better protect the privacy of American computer users. Our bill would prohibit spyware, adware, and other invasive software from being secretly installed on Americans' computers.

Our SPYBLOCK (Software Principles Yielding Better Levels of Consumer Knowledge) Act would prohibit installing software on somebody else's computer without notice and consent, and requires reasonable "uninstall" procedures for all downloadable software. Spyware, adware and other hidden programs often secretly piggyback on downloaded Internet software without the user's knowledge, transmitting information about computer usage and generating pop-up advertisements. Frequently such software is designed to be virtually impossible to uninstall.

This legislation will give consumers control over the programs that are downloaded onto their computers. As more and more people use the Internet, privacy violations become a greater threat, and we want to give computer users the power to protect themselves from spyware and other hazardous software.

The bill also prohibits programs designed to trick users about who is responsible for content a user sees, such as causing a counterfeit replica of a company's Web site to appear whenever the consumer attempts to navigate toward a legitimate company's Web site. These types of programs have been used to fraudulently obtain personal financial information from users confused by dummy Web sites.

The bill would be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general. The FTC could impose penalties just as it does for unfair and deceptive practices, including cease-and-desist orders and civil fines. State attorneys general could bring suits seeking injunctions, plus damages or other relief.

People who use computers need to have a better sense that their private information and their computers are protected. Our bill aims to do just that. If you have any questions or comments about this or any other federal matter, I invite you to contact me at my website.

# posted by Elderbear : 12:41
 
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