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The Archive

Weblogs.Com
Friday, April 20, 2001

This weblog is once again taking a smoke break (until May).

I am convinced that this whole thing is a waste of my time, but I always crawl back to it like an alcoholic to a bottle of gin. It has become more of an obligation than an amusement.

It is a hard road to fight the great evils of our day: arrogance, indifference, ignorance, greed. I'm not sure that I'm doing any real good. I need a break so I can come back fresh and try harder.

(Yes, I take this all far too seriously. I am passion, baby!)

Now, I want you to get out there and expand your horizons. Dare to read some weblogs you've never read before. Give the two dozen or so popular weblogs that everyone talks about ad nauseum a rest for once. The problem with the web is that no one freely surfs anymore. Let's get random!

The Futurism Website
Friday, April 20, 2001

I love the action and the use of color.

I hate the underlying political philosophy and ties to Fascism.

Depression May Slow Wound Healing
Thursday, April 19, 2001

I guess this explains why it takes me ten days to heal a paper cut.

Bush brothers clash over oil
Thursday, April 19, 2001

US President George Bush has clashed with his younger brother Jeb, the Governor of Florida, over plans to allow oil and gas exploration in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

President Bush's Interior Secretary, Gale Norton, has rejected a plea from Jeb Bush to cancel a planned auction of oil and gas leases in the area.

It’s time to build conservation partnerships between the federal government and state governments, local communities and private landowners. In all these efforts, we see the future of conservation. What is the federal role? To provide the scientific and financial resources to help states, local communities and private landowners preserve land and wildlife.

George W. Bush - June 1, 2000

There are practical things we can do. But it starts with working in collaborative effort with states. People care a lot about their land.

George W. Bush - October 11, 2000

(Click on 'full quotes' link under header)

For those of you playing at home, please add another two points to Bush's broken promise and hypocrisy scores.

Tibetan pipeline row dents BP's new image

In a resolution filed by more than 120 BP-Amoco shareholders, representing nearly Ł3m of the company's shares, the Free Tibet Campaign is demanding that the company end its investment in PetroChina.

There is virtually no chance that the campaign's resolution will pass, not least because BP's board has changed the rules for AGM motions so that the Free Tibet resolution now requires 75% support.

BP is still recovering from a public relations disaster three years ago when the Guardian revealed that a private security firm it employed to protect a pipeline in Colombia had given lethal training to an army brigade which had been implicated in massacres of civilians.

Got to love those socially conscious energy coporations!

Smile for the Tomcat
Thursday, April 19, 2001

E-mail me at wangwei@china.af.mil

Wing Clipping 1

Wing Clipping 2

Plenty of bullshit sabre rattling and military boorishness to go around, courtesy of the U.S. and China. Play nice, children!

EPA plans to limit arsenic in water
Thursday, April 19, 2001

Bush administration flip-flops again on arsenic.

"Clearly, the Bush administration is trying to salvage and burnish its image with this announcement. They got hammered by widespread criticism when they suggested that the Clinton arsenic rule was too strict," said Erik D. Olson, senior attorney at Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington.

U.S. to Sign Treaty Curbing Toxic Chemicals

The United States already has banned or restricted the use of the chemicals covered under the treaty and most have not been produced or used here for years.

Bush upholds lead regulations

The regulation does not actually reduce lead emissions. It requires manufactures like electric plants and carmakers that use more than 100 pounds of lead or lead compounds annually to report emissions to the EPA. Previously, the only producers required to document lead emissions were firms that processed 25,000 pounds of lead or otherwise used 10,000 pounds or more per year.

Read all of these articles carefully.

I suspect this is nothing more than Earth Day political posturing on Bush's part, but we'll take any good news we can get these days, no matter how small.

Let's all do our part to keep up the political arm twisting.

By the way, Clinton/Gore weren't as green as you think.

"The Greatest Environmental President." Really?

The Real Clinton Environmental Legacy

Gore's Broken Promises Archive

That's for the anonymous reader who called me a 'Democratic stooge' in a recent e-mail. He don't know me very well, do he?

Damnation Alley
Thursday, April 19, 2001

One of my favorite B-movies of the post holocaust genre.

Check it out, it's fun!

Watch Jan-Michael Vincent evade giant scorpions on a dirt bike!

Marvel at George Peppard's awful faux Southern accent!

See Paul Winfield get eaten by flesh eating mutant cockroches!

Listen to the cacaphonous migrane inducing score!

Ride in the Landmaster, the baddest RV in the history of man!

Donnesbury - July 11, 1982
Tuesday, April 17, 2001

Replace 'Gorsuch' with 'Norton', 'EPA' with 'Department of the Interior' and 'Carter' with 'Clinton' and it's deja vu all over again!

Donnesbury - August 30, 1981

(Norton was a Watt protege, in case you didn't know)

. . . and a little houseplant shall lead them.

Trudeau seems to be skewering Bush this week.

That makes me happy!

(BTW, I'll give Whitman the benefit of the doubt for now)

(July 11 also happens to be my mom's birthday :) )

toasty
Tuesday, April 17, 2001

a web enabled weather forecasting toaster

When I first heard about this I figured it was another in a long line of April Fool's internet hoaxes, like last year's Spud Server.

Apparently, it isn't!

Mummy Not So Dearest
Tuesday, April 17, 2001

Fake Pakistani mummy is probable recent murder victim:

Authorities may never know the identity of the victim—believed to have been no more than 21 years old when she died—or of her enterprising murderer (or team of killers) who went to enormous trouble to duplicate mummification techniques and the ancient cuneiform writing. Saleem ul Haq, director of Karachi's archaeology department, is convinced the perpetrator of the fraud is "definitely someone who has links to archaeology."

Thanks, Arts Journal :)

UPN hits new low with 'Chains of Love'
Tuesday, April 17, 2001

'Reality TV' gets even more ludicrous!

Survivor outback more like a fantasy

American TV is contrived? Say it ain't so!

Who watches this crap? Oh yeah, everybody.

By now you must be saying to yourself, "OK, smartass, what are you watching these days?". Well, I'm glad you asked!

Animated

Sheep in the Big City, Courage the Cowardly Dog,
Fairly OddParents, Invader Zim, The Oblongs

(Note to Cartoon Network, please bring back Outlaw Star!)

Educational

Iron Chef, National Geographic Channel

Metal Mayhem

Robot Wars, Battlebots, Junkyard Wars

SciFi

Crusade reruns (Burn in Hell, TNT)

Medical Aspects of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ
Saturday, April 14, 2001

Modern Day Crucifixion in the Phillipines

As a result of the Department of Tourism's promotion and sponsorship of the "Lenten Rites", multinational soft drink corporations, notably Coca-Cola and Pepsi, have recently sanctioned, if not supported religious self-mortification in Kutud by erecting "Welcome" sponsorship banners at the village gates, and by setting up drinks stalls around "Calvary", site of the crucifixions. (Since Holy Week coincides with peak hot season in the Philippines, business is brisk and profitable.) Lately, Seven-Up and Pepsi slogans have adorned the stage where Pontius Pilate condemns Jesus Christ to death, signalling the start of the sinakulo. During the stations of the cross, Christ "falls" outside Kutud's chapel. Draped over the precinct railings in 1991 was a sponsorship banner advertising San Miguel beer and the pabasa. Nearby, a sari-sari store sold souvenir burillos (flagellants' whips) to tourists.

Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple

Yahoo photos:

Philippines, Philippines 2, Philippines 3, Philippines 4,

Philippines 5, Philippines 6, Philippines 7, Philippines 8

India

Ivory Coast

Mexico, Mexico 2, Mexico 3

Costa Rica

Panama

Honduras

Israel

Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico 2

Guatemala, Guatemala 2

Range of Vision
Saturday, April 14, 2001

Range of Vision, A Theory:

A) You can only positively effect those things that you understand. B) You can only understand those things that you've witnessed first-hand.

If I could reduce all of my passion and desire to a single concise dream, it would be to merely wander the earth. Ramble on!

Report: NAFTA Largely A Failure for Workers
Thursday, April 12, 2001

Over one million U.S. and Canadian manufacturing jobs have been eliminated by NAFTA. Remember that 'giant sucking sound' that Perot mentioned? You're living it. Thanks a lot, Bush and Clinton administrations!

Thanks, killyourtv.com :)

The Secret Free-Trade Agenda

And yet the free traders have the gall to promote NAFTA and FTAA as foreign aid to the disadvantaged, rather than exploitation of the indigent. Even worse, they tout the NAFTA "side agreements," allegedly designed to protect labour rights and the environment in Mexico. Not one such case before a NAFTA "tribunal" has resulted in real redress for Mexican working stiffs. (As well, remember the U.S. environmentalists suckered into supporting NAFTA in hope of cleaning up the Rio Grande. It's now filthier than ever.)

I am exorcising those evil political demons in my head. Please bear with me. I truly don't want to be 'one of those guys with saliva dribbling out of his mouth who wanders into a cafeteria with a shopping bag screaming about socialism' as Woody Allen so aptly put it. On the other hand I'm both dismayed and depressed about the raging apathy that seems to surround our present situation.

You don't seem to be paying much attention.

Can i confess something? I tell you this because as an artist, I think you'll understand. Sometimes when I'm driving, on the road at night, I see two headlights coming toward me, fast. I have this sudden impulse to turn the wheel quickly head on into the oncoming car. I can anticipate the explosion, the sound of shattering glass, the flames rising out of the flowing gasoline.

LCV: National Environmental Scorecard
Thursday, April 12, 2001

I recieved the following letter from my Congressman:

(Cass Ballenger - 10th District, NC - House of Representatives)

Dear Mr. Parker

Thank you for sharing with me your opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). As you may know, this 19-million acre portion of northeast Alaska includes a 1.5-million acre coastal plain, an area where any oil is likely to be found.

While the current high prices of crude oil and natural gas have renewed the ANWR debate for the first time in five years, its development has been debated for over forty years. It should be noted that former President Clinton in his final day considered and rejected the opinion of designating the coastal portion of ANWR as a national monument, a designation which would have afforded more protection to ANWR. Although President Bush has expressed interest in ANWR development, current federal law prohibits energy development unless Congress acts; Congress also could specify the pace and condition for any oil and gas development. Since the Energy Information Administration assumes seven to twelve years from approval to first production, you can see that proponents of opening this area for oil drilling faces many legislative and legal hurdles prior to its development.

Opening portions of the ANWR would provide countless jobs and economic opportunity to an area which has traditionally been lacking such opportuntites. Alaska's two term Democrat governor, Tony Knowles, strongly favors this option; in addition, native Alaskans in the area have expressed enthusiasm for it. I understand there are questions about the possible threat that oil production has to the pristine environment and the large herds of animals that reside on the coastal plain of the ANWR, but I believe exploration and production will have a minimal environmental impact on the region.

Again, thank you for your comments. If I may assist you with a federal matter in the future, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Cass Ballenger
Memeber of Congress

Unfortunately, Mr. Ballenger's voting record on the environment is abysmal, like all Congressional members of his party from North Carolina.

What amazes me is not Mr. Ballenger's party line response, but that I got a placatory letter just by signing this online petition. They are at least paying attention. I am greatly encouraged to do even more political arm twisting and I hope you will do the same. Keep those e-mails, faxes and letters flowing. Tell your elected officials that you aren't going to put up with President Bush's and Interior Secretary Norton's wanton attempts to destroy environmental legislation.

God, I love the internet!

The 100 Dumbest Moments in E-Business History
Thursday, April 12, 2001

Laugh at the profusion of arrogance and absurd excess, courtesy of the dot-commers. If you're an investor or employee who lost your shirt, too bad for you.

I hate to say I told you so, but I did.

Check your greed next time.

An easy score doesn't mean that you have actual intelligence.

Generation bankrupt
Thursday, April 12, 2001

You might think credit card companies would learn to stop enticing people like Bill. Since they've extended credit to all comers, including admitted addicts, shouldn't these firms be hurting from having to swallow the debt of broke cardholders? In fact, they aren't. Credit card companies are taking consumers to the bank. Profits are up nearly 50 percent from two years ago, according to analysts' figures. The industry hasn't upped the intensity of its marketing -- sending out 3.3 billion mailings in 2,000 -- for altruistic purposes, argues Plunkett of the Consumer Federation. The customers who continue to pay monthly minimum payments on huge debts more than make up for those who forfeit.

Nothing in the bankruptcy reform bill headed toward President Bush's desk addresses the industry's marketing bombardment. It essentially attempts to deal with the problem of overspending by creating harsher forms of punishment solely for the consumer. The idea is to keep people out of debt by letting them know that bankruptcy won't protect them from their own mistakes. Call it tough love for the credit-addicted.

Here is a rule I follow that has served me well:

Unless it is absolutely necessary for survival, if you can't afford to pay cash for it, than you can't afford it, period.

The credit industry has the biggest license to steal of any industry in this country. Don't fall into their traps.

Dioxin Report By EPA On Hold
Thursday, April 12, 2001

Industry groups, Republicans seek to hold up EPA dioxin report:

The politically active chemical, livestock and meatpacking industries contributed $1,171,000 to Bush's campaign last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Industry officials are lobbying the administration to postpone indefinitely release of the study until other agencies, such as the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, can conduct lengthy studies.

EPA: U.S. Chemical Pollution Up 5% in 1999

EPA said the amount of toxic releases in 1999, based on the newest data available in its annual toxic inventory report, jumped 5% from the year before to 7.8 billion pounds.

Studies Attribute Ocean Warming to Human Actions

"Our results indicate that the warming of the Earth's climate system during the 1955 to 1996 period is most likely due to the increase of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere observed over the past 100 years. We believe this is some of the strongest evidence to date that this warming is, in fact, of human-induced origin," Levitus said in an interview. Barnett added that the results provide a "95 percent confidence level" that human-produced greenhouse gases are behind the warming.

Staff Analysis Finds Uneven Support For Federal R&D
Wednesday, April 11, 2001

More specifics on Bush's gutting of renewable energy and earth science programs:

Renewable Energy Resources. The FY 2002 budget request for renewable energy resources is $237.5 million, a 36.4 percent decrease from the FY 2001 appropriation of $373.2 million. Cuts of nearly 50 percent are proposed in geothermal technology development, hydrogen research (both $13.9 million in FY2002 from $26.9 million in FY2001), and hydropower programs ($2.5 million in FY2002 down from $5.0 million in FY2001). These cuts, if enacted, will put many of these programs in imminent peril by reducing them below sustainable levels. This is particularly distressing at a time when R&D work on renewable technologies needs to be supported more than ever to help assist in any plan to overcome future energy shortfalls.

The Administration request for EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) is $679 million or 7.2 percent below the current estimate for FY 2001 and $4 million below the FY2000 actual amount. In inflation adjusted dollars, this provides ORD with less funding than it received in FY1981, before the Reagan cuts of the early 1980's. It is important to note that the Administration is not calling for any significant additional funding for research at the same time that it is decrying the lack of credible science on which to base decisions on regulation of carbon dioxide or arsenic. Indeed, the request reduces the amount of funding for climate change research at a time when a bipartisan group of House Science Committee members agrees that more research is needed.

(Bold annotations mine)

Bush budget boosts Mars, douses Pluto, Earth

The White House plan would remove $207 million from the overall budget of NASA's Earth Science program, which uses satellites to study the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment.

No comments or name calling are necessary.

I'll let Bush's actions speak for themselves.

The Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2000
Wednesday, April 11, 2001

ProjectCensored is always worth a read.

The world is going to shit. Where's the outrage?!?!

Bush Proposal Imperils Part Of Species Act
Wednesday, April 11, 2001

Bush, Norton to render Endangered Species Act meaningless:

Changes sought by the Bush administration, contained in the proposed budget for the Department of Interior, would eliminate all federal funding to enforce court orders stemming from citizen suits. Citizens could still sue, but their suits would be ineffective.

Bush’s former oil firm threatens sea turtles

National Zoo's Conservation and Research Center to be axed, courtesy of Bush's budget.

I swore no more political links for a while. I guess I was wrong. You can't expect me to keep silent while the Bush administration tries to destroy everything I hold dear.

Marines knew of Osprey problems
Wednesday, April 11, 2001

Looking the other way on design defects = dead Marines.

OK, enough politics for one evening.

Who Gets What of the President's First Federal Budget Pie
Tuesday, April 10, 2001

More on Bush's budget butchery:

The proposed budget for the Energy Department makes deep cuts in programs meant to get more work from a gallon of gas or a kilowatt-hour of electricity, and to make electricity from the wind or sun.

The budget also cuts money for cleaning up pollution from nuclear weapons production, but adds financing for restoring the nation's capability to make nuclear bombs.

A program spearheaded by Al Gore when he was vice president, the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, would receive $40 million less than the $141.4 million in federal funds it got last year, Mr. Abraham said. Under the current setup contributions similar to the government money come from Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler. The program's goal is to produce a mid- size sedan that goes three times as far on a gallon of gas, but Mr. Abraham said the research was "really not in focus with where the industry was going," because sedans were being replaced by sport utility vehicles and light trucks.

Other big increases would help support initiatives that have alarmed environmentalists: the stepped-up energy exploration the administration is proposing on federal lands, both onshore and offshore. Some $5 million would be set aside for studies intended to make preparations for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by 2004, a goal that is supported by the administration but faces an uphill battle in Congress. At the Bureau of Land Management and the Marine Minerals Management Service, spending related to oil, gas and coal exploration would increase by 19 percent and 12 percent, respectively.

The Bush budget would provide $156 billion over 10 years to pay for prescription drug benefits and restructuring Medicare. The amount is widely considered inadequate.

The administration has also changed the Clinton administration's much-debated Community Oriented Policing Services grant program, which promised to place 100,000 new officers on the streets. Justice Department officials said that the program would be trimmed to about $885 million from $1 billion, and that none of the money would be allotted for hiring new officers.

While federal dollars make up only 7 percent of the nation's education budget — most of the money comes from local property taxes — President Bush made improving schools a major priority of his campaign. But Mr. Bush's detractors said today that the president proposed only modest increases in education at a time of swelling enrollment and they criticized him for spending more money on tax cuts than on schools.

The Bush administration's proposed spending on science next year, with the exception of biomedical research, is generally characterized by either flat budgets or small increases that barely keep up with inflation.

(Registration required on NYT site, but you get the idea.)

Bush Budget Whacks Environment; Norton cackles with glee.

Many children can't get mental care
Tuesday, April 10, 2001

I suspect that this problem also applies to the U.S. as a whole. Mental illness, though rampant, has never been given the same priority as more directly physical maladies.

Hooded Catholic Child
Tuesday, April 10, 2001

Hooded Penitents

(No anti-religious commentary is intended. I like the photos.)

Burning Japanese Effigy

Storks and Cross

Nuclear Waste Train

Conjoined Twins (now separated)

Two things you're bound to see on Yahoo's most emailed photos page: large exposed breasts and cute animals.

I'm not sure what this says about us as a culture. . .

Dutch mercy killing law passed
Tuesday, April 10, 2001

The Netherlands become the first nation to legalise euthanasia, which I support wholeheartedly. I think how one chooses to die should be a personal and private choice that should not be infringed upon by government or any other authority.

Bush Budget Outlines Spending Cuts, Draws Fire
Tuesday, April 10, 2001

'Compassionate conservatism' will gut social programs for the poor and environmental protection. The irony is we're also careening back to the Reagan era of massive budget shortfalls and a crippling national debt.

Painful budget cuts

Not a Serious Budget

The Myth of the Four Percent Spending Increase

Bush Would Cut Environment Funding by $2.3 Billion

Bush Budget Cuts Solar, Renewable Energy Programs

A little arsenic water with that tainted beef?

Stop it, you're killing me!

Using Books as Evidence Against Their Readers
Sunday, April 8, 2001

When the police arrived with a search warrant at the Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver last spring, they wanted to know what books a particular customer had bought. The man was suspected of manufacturing illegal drugs, and two drug "cookbooks" had been found in his laboratory.

The thought police strike again.

Revised Hemp Bill Would Grant U of I Study

Will their idiot governor veto it again?

Cheney Defends Bush Environmental Policies
Sunday, April 8, 2001

The oilman cometh.

GOP Targets 45 Rules To Overturn

Don't ya just love the new corporatism?

I know I do!

Super laser advances fusion research
Saturday, April 7, 2001

Fusion power research crawls slowly forward.

Johnen Vasquez
Friday, April 6, 2001

He's twisted!

Sorry, I just have to keep pimping Invader Zim.

You WILL watch (Nickelodeon, Fri 9PM EST) or else Zim will rain DOOM on your FILTHY EARTHANOID HEADS!

Seriously, I haven't been so eagerly awaiting an new episode of a TV show in eons.

Thanks, Apathy :)

If you haven't seen the show, our intrepid hero Dib tries to stop Zim (disguised as a 'human worm baby' in Dib's class at 'skool') from conquering the earth. As you would expect, everyone thinks he's a paranoid nut (people say the same things about yours truly).

For example:

Kid: What's wrong with you? All you talk about is aliens and ghosts and seeing Bigfoot in your garage.

Dib: He was using the belt sander!

Now for your personal edification and enjoyment I present:

Seven Reasons Dib Is Cooler Than Fox Mulder

7. Dib wears cool geeky glasses.

6. Dib owns a pair of genuine 'alien link-ups' instead of cheesy metal handcuffs.

5. Dib doesn't work for 'The Man'.

4. Dib doesn't have to worry with a partner who gets stung by deadly alien honeybees.

3. Dib doesn't answer to bureaucratic pencil pushers like Assistant Director Skinner.

2. Dib doesn't whine constantly about aliens abducting his sister. In fact, Dib would most likely welcome such an event.

1. Dib wouldn't be caught dead in a Speedo.

"Dadaism" by Tristan Tzara
Friday, April 6, 2001

The beginnings of Dada were not the beginnings of an art, but of a disgust. Disgust with the magnificence of philosophers who for 3ooo years have been explaining everything to us (what for? ), disgust with the pretensions of these artists-God's-representatives-on-earth, disgust with passion and with real pathological wickedness where it was not worth the bother; disgust with a false form of domination and restriction *en masse*, that accentuates rather than appeases man's instinct of domination, disgust with all the catalogued categories, with the false prophets who are nothing but a front for the interests of money, pride, disease, disgust with the lieutenants of a mercantile art made to order according to a few infantile laws, disgust with the divorce of good and evil, the beautiful and the ugly (for why is it more estimable to be red rather than green, to the left rather than the right, to be large or small?). Disgust finally with the Jesuitical dialectic which can explain everything and fill people's minds with oblique and obtuse ideas without any physiological basis or ethnic roots, all this by means of blinding artifice and ignoble charlatans promises.

This feels strangely familiar.

Truly these are Dadaist times, even more so than when the movement began.

Life is the joke. Death is the punchline.

For a more comprehensive view, see DaDa Online.

Gays Killed My Show: Dr. Laura
Thursday, April 5, 2001

Hmmm. Maybe it's because you have naked pictures of yourself posted all over the internet and normal people don't take your self-righteous bullshit seriously.

Thanks, TVTattle :)

Halt cohabiting or no bail, judge tells defendants
Thursday, April 5, 2001

U.S. Magistrate Judge Carl Horn won't release a criminal defendant on bond knowing that he or she will break the law. And that includes North Carolina's law against unmarried couples cohabiting, placed on the books in 1805.

I used to think that North Carolina was relatively progressive as Southern states go. Guess not. I guess it's time to contemplate that move to Canada or Finland.

Dumb Laws - North Carolina

Also illegal in North Carolina: oral sex, non-missionary position sex and using elephants to plow cotton fields.

Giuliani Names His Panel to Monitor Art at Museums
Thursday, April 5, 2001

Declaring that the First Amendment is not absolute, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani appointed 15 men and 5 women yesterday to a panel that would recommend decency standards for art in the majority of New York City museums.

You will bow before the Arts Gestapo!

Don't worry about free expression, we know what's best for you!

Compare this:

Mr. Giuliani, who voiced outrage in February over a photograph at the Brooklyn Museum of Art of a nude woman in Christ's place at the Last Supper, has promised since then that he would appoint a panel to set what he has called "decency standards" for art in museums that receive any city money, which includes most museums in the five boroughs.

With this:

In 1928, during the Weimar Republic and before the rise of the Nazi party, certain events took place that set the standard for censorship of art in Nazi Germany. One such event was the charges against the artist George Grosz pertaining to several drawings of his that were published in an album titled Hintergrund (backdrop). Charged with blasphemy, the most "offensive" of his drawings was a portrayal of Christ wearing a gas mask and boots with the caption "Keep your mouth shut and do your duty." Grosz was at first found guilty but was then acquitted in 1932 during an appeal. An interesting side note: when the Nazi’s came to power in 1933, Goebbels requested a copy of the drawing by Grosz for a brochure on cultural Bolshevism.

(Sorry, registration required for New York Times site. I've pretty much summed it up for you anyway.)

In related news:

Bikini-clad Madonna sparks anger

Thanks, Arts Journal :)

Artist López speaks on Virgin controversy

Thanks, Dr. Menlo :)

Governor wants violent criminals out of art show

Thanks, Null Device :)

Irradiated Meat for Schools Proposed
Thursday, April 5, 2001

The Bush administration has proposed dropping testing for salmonella in ground beef for the school lunch program and allowing schools to serve beef that has been irradiated, a controversial procedure that kills salmonella and all other harmful bacteria.

Bush can't possibly sink any lower. Or can he?

This proposal has been brought to you by by the Republican Party, the 'ketchup is a vegetable' party.

Update: White House Backs Off Plan to Ease Meat Testing

Gee, what a relief!

I guess his new policy is 'poison wildlife, not children'.

Natural cannabis 'better than extracts'
Thursday, April 5, 2001

However, if natural cannabis were legal then drug companies wouldn't be able to make any more money selling dangerous and ineffective drugs like Marinol.

Cottage-Garden Poppies Fall Victim to the War on Drugs

Look out gardeners, the DEA is gunning for your asses!

Pretty flowers are soooooooo dangerous!

Turning sci-fi into fact
Thursday, April 5, 2001

A former NASA illustrator helped to make 2001: A Space Odyssey the most realistic sci-fi movie in history.

Amphibian mortality linked to global climate change
Thursday, April 5, 2001

Requiem for a dying biosphere:

Report: Draft Recommends U.S. Open Land to Drilling

Energy-Saving Rules Facing Bush Rollback

Climate Change Skeptics a Tiny Minority

The Cutting Edge
Wednesday, April 4, 2001

It's the attack of the Fundamentalist Christian New World Order Paranoids! Run! This is the kind of website that forces me to clear my browser cache because it makes me feel so unclean.

I thought alien paranoia was bad.

Includes such gems as:

Red Heifer Sure Sign of Antichrist!

Ultimate Control of People - Implantable Radar Chips!

United States Reorganized Into 10 Regions in 1972!

If Jesus returns, isn't he going to be pissed at these people for being, dare I say it, so unchristian?

(Brought to you by coolshaving.com: for all of your religious shaving needs)

High Court Limits Suspect's Right To Have Counsel
Tuesday, April 3, 2001

Hear that? It's the Supreme Court tossing more of your Constitutional rights into the trash.

Thanks, Unknown News :)

Apocolypse Cow
Tuesday, April 3, 2001

Mmmmmmmmmm. . . Barbeque!

Science for sale
Monday, April 2, 2001

Interview with the author of Trust Us, We're Experts!

The scam here is that these groups have names that sound like consumer or health organizations, but they're industry fronts. Their strategy has been extremely successful: the term "junk science" is now overwhelmingly used by the mainstream media just as industry intends it – to denigrate, attack, and smear environmental-health advocates, worker-safety advocates, community activists, and public interest scientists who are trying to warn the public and expose the dangers of a myriad of products and pollutants.

The Fascist Ideology of Star Trek
Monday, April 2, 2001

Too much of Star Trek has always reflected trendy leftist political sentiments. It was appropriate that John Lennon's "Imagine" should have been sung at the 30th Anniversary television special: Capitalism and religion get little more respect from Star Trek than they do from Lennon. Profit simply cannot be mentioned without a sneer. The champions of profit, the Ferengi, not only perceive no difference between honest business, piracy, and swindle, but their very name, the Hindi word for "European" (from Persian Farangi), seems to be a covert rebuke to European civilization. At the same time, one can find little in the way of acknowledgement of the role of religion in life that, whether in India or in Europe, would be essential.

Remember my children:

Freedom is Slavery!

Equality is Tyranny!

Sometimes I don't know if I should laugh or weep.

I'm willing to bet that if organized religion (where fascism learned how to goose-step) and rampant greed (the end result of laissez-faire capitalism) were eliminated from the world, we'd all be much more content with ourselves and enjoy more freedom to pursue our dreams.

I don't think that organized religion and capitalism are necessarily evil by nature. Ideas are merely that. Instead, it is our very human desire to control, corrupt and exploit those who are weaker than us that is our downfall.

Some say this is the natural order of things.

I won't accept that.

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