Thursday, December 27, 2007

Ramayana Remixed

Cartoonist Nina Paley has a treat in store for us.

You might know her work from her daily comic strips, or possibly from cartoon anthologies like "What's This Thing Called Sex?". You might have even seen her critically-hailed early animation works.
Now she's taken on the Indian epic, Ramayana.

Watch the following clip for more background info, watch the clip below it ("The Battle Of Lanka") for a taste of what's hopefully to come. That's "hopefully" because no distributor has yet picked up this novel animation by this talented (and pleasantly bent) artist.





Thursday, December 13, 2007

Why There Is No Hope - Go ahead, insult my intelligence! I love it!





















The following paragraph was taken from an article in the Southern Poverty Law Center's magazine Intelligence Report. The article concerns an installment of The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News. The story under discussion is one on which Mr. O'Reilly asserted that gangs of homosexuals armed with pink pistols were terrorizing American cities and recruiting children into the gay and lesbian lifestyle. To back up his story, O'Reilly turned to Fox “news analyst” Rod Wheeler, who it seems once worked as a corporate security officer for McDonald's.

”...Wheeler told the Report that he spent seven years in professional law enforcement before going to work as a corporate security officer for McDonald's Corp., a job he has since left. ... Just this spring, he publicly warned that the Big Mac is vulnerable to bioterrorist attacks at "250 points" during production.”

Well heck, I'd have to say that the company itself is a bioterrorist threat, and a mighty successful one at that. Thanks to Mickey-D's and their competitors, obesity-related illnesses are at an all-time high, Americans' idea of what food is supposed to look and taste like has been thoroughly debauched, American retail and service-sector workers have only slightly more rights than a Soviet conscript-laborer and real wages are at their lowest level in 60 years. Try and top that, Osama Bin Laden!

Read the whole business here:

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?aid=274&site_area=1

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

One costly fiasco is not enough!

















"As former US military leaders, we strongly caution against the use of military force against Iran," -

-Lt Gen Robert Gard, a former military assistant to the US defense secretary

-Gen Joseph Hoar, a former commander-in-chief, US Central Command

-Vice Adm Jack Shanahan, a former director of the Center for Defense Information


In 2002, our Dear Leader (and our liberal media) started dishing dirt on Iraq. We were told that Saddam was behind the 9-11 terrorist attacks (even though our intelligence agencies could find no such connection). Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (even though the most diligent inspections uncovered little or nothing). Saddam Hussein was a murderer and a tyrant - which he was, but that didn't stop the United States from supporting him for many years because (1) he was at war with Iran, a country we were miffed at, and (2) after the Iran-Iraq war was over, he kept a lid on internal dissent and kept the oil flowing for American oil companies. When the deal went sour, the drumbeat began; “WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!!!!! MUSHROOM CLOUDS OVER WASHINGTON!!!!”

I do believe the world is better off without Saddam Hussein (or “So-Damn-Insane” as one friend referred to him). Fact is, if all we'd wanted to do was depose him, we could have dispatched an elite tactical squad to pluck him out of the presidential palace and have him on a plane to Guantanamo before most Iraqis even got the news. In other words, the big mess that's been made of Iraq in our names and with our money didn't have to be.

It's been a while since Mr. Bush's much-televised “Mission Accomplished” celebration. Would that it were true, that American friends and loved ones (to say nothing of Iraqi civilians) were no longer getting killed or maimed, that our tax dollars were going to other things (like putting New Orleans back in order), that our administration were functioning more like an administration and less like a slapstick comedy troupe.

Now the drums are beating again for war with Iran. George Dubya has played the Weapons of Mass Destruction card again (“Nucular devices”), even though American intelligence has found that Iran abandoned their nuclear weapons program four years ago. Bush, Cheney and the usual gang of scoundrels are all hot to get us into another costly no-win war, probably just to thumb their nose at Hilary.

Between our misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, our military is stretched pretty thin. If our half-witted power-tripper administration does decide to invade Iran, they're going to need fresh beef. Which of course means that high school and college kids all over the Land of the Free are going to be drafted.

If you do not care for the Bush-Cheney program, then you'd better speak up now. I understand that certain Senators have introduced bills forbidding invasion of Iran. A call to your senator would seem to be of vital importance right now. Find out how to contact your U.S. Senators by following this link:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Please do make a call, send a fax or send an e-mail now. Your life, the lives of your family members and the fate of your country may depend upon it.