....LMB: "News-pourri"....

October 03, 2003

Israel plans more homes in West Bank settlements- "Israel issued plans Thursday for about 600 more homes in West Bank settlements despite the Mideast 'road map' peace plan, which calls for a freeze on new settlement construction." You ever get the sneaking suspicion that the Israeli government isn't really interested in a peace plan?

US and Turkey to hit PKK- someone please tell me I'm reading this wrong. The US is going to team up with Turkey to attack a Kurdish independence group in Turkey? When Kurds are the majority ethnicity in northern Iraq? Are we trying to turn the Kurds against the US troops in Iraq and start an Iraqi civil war?

Never Too Soon to Say Goodbye to Hi- "Hi" is the name of a new "lifestyle" magazine aimed at young Arab men and women, created by the US State Department as a way of making those Arabs like the US more. This article is an analysis of Hi. The main findings are the amazing way in which the magazine depoliticizes the explicitly political, and its universal condescending tone, as if its readers were all in junior high school. And my eyes bugged out when I saw that Hi had previously featured an article titled "Arab Music Invades the West." Given that the US has recently, non-metaphorically "invaded" two Arab nations in the past two years with potentially more to come, maybe that wasn't the most appropriate phrasing.

Lobbyists Set Sights On Money-Making Opportunities in Iraq- sigh. Let the true looting begin.

Study: Wrong impressions helped support Iraq war- according to some poll, 60% of Americans have held one of the three following errors about Iraq: 1) U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 2) There's clear evidence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein worked closely with the Sept. 11 terrorists. 3) People in foreign countries generally either backed the U.S.-led war or were evenly split between supporting and opposing it. And among those who held these beliefs, the greatest proportion said that their primary news source was Fox News. Go figure.

US Seen Dragging Feet on Iraqi Oil Money Watchdog- on May 22, the UN Security Council voted to create the International Advisory and Monitoring Board to "monitor U.S. spending of Iraq's oil revenues." Apparently the US has been stopping the IAMB from starting its duties. And will most likely continue to do so till the money's all been allocated.

Bush: Hussein 'A Danger to the World'- somehow in the mind of GWB, the lack of evidence that Saddam Hussein had dangerous weapons is proof that Saddam Hussein was a "danger to the world." When Bush talks about "faith-based initiatives," his faith is apparently Zen Buddhism.

Miller's Star Fades (Slightly) at 'NY Times'- Judith Miller is a star reporter at the NY Times, even though she kinda sucks. She broke a number of stories this year, largely based upon information she got via highly suspect source Ahmed Chalabi, that later turned out to be false. And yet, "she continues to prosper, the sources keep calling her back, she keeps getting published, and the editors like her because she 'delivers.'"

Limbaugh at center of controversy again- the greatest symbol of right-wing radio hot air, Rush Limbaugh, is in the middle of two scandals simultaneously. First, he made a racist remark on the air during a taping of ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown, basically alleging that black quarterbacks aren't as good as white ones, but get unjustified hype by the liberal media. Secondly, he is allegedly accused of abusing illegally obtained prescription drugs.

FTC/FCC Complaint Challenges Product Placement- interesting. Ralph Nader's Commercial Alert organization has filed a complaint with two federal government agencies about the quasi-advertising strategy of product placement in TV shows. Wonder how that will play out.

Posted by Jake at 11:12 AM | TrackBack (0)
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Regarding the Limbaugh issue, I had to laugh at ESPN mouthpieces: "Rush is only expressing his opinion. Everyone is entitled to his opinion." Fair enough. ESPN should hire a communist commentator. "Yes, Chris. That quarterback exploited the secondary like Disney exploits Third World Workers. Then ESPN fires the ill-fated commentator for bad mouthing the network's parent company. Says ESPN mouthpiece, "We see no reason why a sports show should get political. The nerve of expressing a political opinion."

Seriously though, who could not have seen this coming. Limbaugh hired by the right-wing elements of the Disney corp.?

Posted by: Eric at October 3, 2003 12:42 PM

Better yet, ESPN should hire someone from the Nation of Islam who complains that white running backs and receivers are getting too much attention from the racist media. Think of the uproar. Think of the ratings.

Posted by: Eric at October 3, 2003 12:44 PM
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Lying Media Bastards is both a radio show and website. The show airs Mondays 2-4pm PST on KillRadio.org, and couples excellent music with angry news commentary. And the website, well, you're looking at it.

Both projects focus on our media-marinated world, political lies, corporate tyranny, and the folks fighting the good fight against these monsters.

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Media News

November 16, 2004

Tales of Media Woe

Senate May Ram Copyright Bill- one of the most depressing stories of the day that didn't involve death or bombs. It's the music and movie industries' wet dream. It criminalizes peer-to-peer software makers, allows the government to file civil lawsuits on behalf of these media industries, and eliminates fair use. Fair use is the idea that I can use a snippet of a copyrighted work for educational, political, or satirical purposes, without getting permission from the copyright-holder first.

And most tellingly, the bill legalizes technology that would automatically skip over "obejctionable content" (i.e. sex and violence) in a DVD, but bans devices that would automatically skip over commericals. This is a blatant, blatant, blatant gift to the movie industry. Fuck the movie industry, fuck the music industry, fuck the Senate.

Music industry aims to send in radio cops- the recording industry says that you're not allowed to record songs off the radio, be it real radio or internet radio. And now they're working on preventing you from recording songs off internet radio through a mixture of law and technological repression (although I imagine their techno-fixes will get hacked pretty quickly).

The shocking truth about the FCC: Censorship by the tyranny of the few- blogger Jeff Jarvis discovers that the recent $1.2 million FCC fine against a sex scene in Fox's "Married By America" TV show was not levied because hundreds of people wrote the FCC and complained. It was not because 159 people wrote in and complained (which is the FCC's current rationale). No, thanks to Jarvis' FOIA request, we find that only 23 people (of the show's several million viewers) wrote in and complained. On top of that, he finds that 21 of those letters were just copy-and-paste email jobs that some people attached their names to. Jarvis then spins this a bit by saying that "only 3" people actually wrote letters to the FCC, which is misleading but technically true. So somewhere between 3 and 23 angry people can determine what you can't see on television. Good to know.

Reuters Union Considers Striking Over Layoffs- will a strike by such a major newswire service impact the rest of the world's media?

Pentagon Starts Work On War Internet- the US military is talking about the creation of a global, wireless, satellite-aided computer network for use in battle. I think I saw a movie about this once...

Conservative host returns to the air after week suspension for using racial slur- Houston radio talk show host (and somtime Rush Limbaugh substitute) Mark Belling referred to Mexican-Americans as "wetbacks" on his show. He was suspended for a couple of weeks, and then submitted a written apology for the racial slur to a local newspaper. But he seems to be using the slur and its surrounding controversy to boost his conservative cred with his listeners.

Stay Tuned for Nudes- Cleveland TV news anchor Sharon Reed aired a story about artist Spencer Tunick, who uses large numbers of naked volunteers in his installations and photographs. The news report will be unique in that it will not blur or black-out the usual naughty bits. The story will air late at night, when it's allegedly okay with the FCC if you broadcast "indecent" material. The author of this article doesn't seem to notice that Reed first claims that this report is a publicity stunt, but then claims it's a protest against FCC repression. I'd like to think it's the latter, but I'm not that much of a sucker.

Posted by Jake at 04:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Jake's first attempt at homemade Mongolican barbecue:

Failure.

What went right: correctly guessing several key seasonings- lemon, ginger, soy, garlic, chili.

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