media watch
The City Club of Cleveland is giving Supreme Court Justice Scalia an award for supporting free speech. In the honor of our right to free speech, Justice Scalia has banned television and radio coverage of the event as a condition of his attendance. Here's a recent quote by him from another speech earlier this week: "The Constitution just sets minimums. Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires." Wow. Woooowwww.. And this man is a Supreme Court justice! No wonder our rights are fucked!

Radio giant Cleat Channel has been sponsoring pro-war rallies. This leds a former FCC commissioner to ask if Clear Channel is now manufacturing the news.

A British Labour Party MP talks about atrocities that Saddam Hussein is guilty of and accuses the UN Security Council of inaction, blaming France, Russia, and China. It's worth a read, even if the article is pitched as a justification for war. I'm sure that many of the gruesome crimes she has cited are things that Saddam is guilty of, but I still don't see a justification of the impending slaughter of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, a topic that the hawks do not like to talk about. The hawks seem to think that since you are not for Bush's war, then you must support Saddam, who is a ruthless and brutal dictator. Contrary to popular belief, us doves also do not like warmongers like Saddam, and many of us think that the man should be removed from power. But we do not think that war is the answer.

Bahrain, in an effort to avert war, has offered Saddam sanctuary. Not like it matters at this point, though.

Reading this AP article makes me wonder if war is going to start at 8:00PM EST tonight. It discusses the troops advancing towards the Iraqi border (reports have it that they have already crossed into the demilitarized zone between Kuwait and Iraq), and also says, "At sea, combat pilots and others on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt were ordered to snooze through the day so they could work through the night." This could only be done in preparation for a bombing raid tonight, the bombing raid that is supposed to drop 3000 bombs in the next two nights. Kuwait has already fired the first shots of the war. And the shrub has informed the leaders of Congress today of his intent to use military force.

News reports talking about the US bombing raid that will drop 3000 bombs into Baghdad have mention that the bombs to be dropped are more accurate than the ones from Gulf War I, which 40% of those were errant. We'll have to wait and see; personally, I'm not buying the miltary propaganda. More importantly, though, is how the military has said that this attack is meant to illicit "shock and awe", much like that of dropping a nuclear bomb on a city. You can't have it both ways. Either the bombs are accurate and a minimal amount of Iraqi citizens will be harmed/killed, or you have hell on earth (much like a nuclear attack) where a number of Iraqis are killed. Unfortunately, it looks like our military is about to choose the latter. God Bless my ass.

The latest issue of Newsweek has a feature story, "WHY AMERICA SCARES THE WORLD". I gave most of it a read last night, and it's pretty good. To summarize what I have read so far: the world is scared of Dubya. They do not trust him or the cabinet he has put together. They view him to be a very dangeous man who cares little about the world that surrounds America, and whose attempts at diplomacy are very transparent. They are scared of the fact that soon our defense budget, which stands at $322 billion this year, will grow to be larger than the defense budgets of all other countries COMBINED. The story attempts to shed light on interesting things like how Clinton was able to bomb Serbia and Bosnia without much of an outcry, but Bush, who stands in the unique position of being the 9/11 president, is not able to successfully rally the world around a war in Iraq.

Which means.. Damn, everyone besides hardline Republicans and Green Party members (like myself) liked Clinton. Especially White House interns.

French and German offices at the European Union have been wiretapped. Nobody knows who did this, but certainly some countries out there [cough]us[cough] had the motive.

Tony Blair went to Commons to plead his case for war and won the vote, but not without a revolt from members of his Labour Party. Meanwhile, Robin Cook resigns from his post in Blair's cabinet.

It looks like the Republicans have been defeated, for now, in their plan to drill for oil at the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.

Scholars question on the legality of a war with Iraq.

Yours truly got a letter (something I posted to the message forum) published in the Buzzflash mailbag, search for "Pick Saddam's New Vacation Spot". This is the first letter I wrote to Buzzflash so I'm not sure if it is difficult to get published to the mailbag or not.

This item isn't news related, but.. Take a look at this roller coaster from Cedar Point. First two words that came to my mind: "Holy shit!"