The New Blue Gold- interview with makers of "Thirst", a new documentary about corporate attempts to privatize the world's water supply.
The end of violence?- possible good news about the ongoing and ignored genocide in western Sudan. The Sudanese government has finally agreed to crack down on the militias doing the killing. Sadly, this sentence sums up where we stand: "It remains to be seen whether the Sudanese government can effectively curb the killing, or even whether it is sincere."
1 million black votes didn't count in the 2000 presidential election- according to Greg Palast, 1.9 million ballots were not counted in the 2000 election, and over half of those 1.9 million were ballots cast by African-Americans. He describes a system in which many ballots are "spoiled", when voters make extra marks on the voting paper; in predominantly white counties, voters are often given a chance to redo their messed up ballots, while in predominantly black counties, they aren't.
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I should mention that in the SF Chronicle, where I found the article, printed this article on page E-3 of the Sunday edition. I have only seen the online version, but that seems to fit the definition of "burying a story".
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Left Behind- for some reason, American Christianity largely allies itself with the right wing. But this article argues that there might be a shift, that the National Association of Evangelicals, a religious organization representing tens of millions, wants to take a step back and analyze their political decisions instead of automatically throwing in with the Republicans.
A Marketer's Dream: Your Cell Phone- advertisers will soon ruin your life by sending spam text messages to your cell phone.
Microsoft Research DRM talk- transcribed talk with humor and plain English, explaining to Microsoft why the company's copyright protection efforts are not only doomed to failure, but is a terrible idea in and of itself.
I already canceled my text messaging, I was getting spammed every hour or so.
I called my carrier and said "What are you doing about this?" and they said "Everything we can!" and I said "Such as?" and then they said, in a quiet voice, "Nuthin'" so I cancelled text messaging. Then they offered it to me for free and I pointed out that the only thing slightly less annoying then paying to be advertised at is to be advertised at for free.
Posted by: salvage at June 24, 2004 05:56 AMLying 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. All brought to you by Jake Sexton, The Most Beloved Man in America ®. contact: jake+at+lyingmediabastards.com |
Media News |
November 16, 2004Tales of Media WoeSenate 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. More Media News |
Quotes |
"8:45? And here I am yapping away like it's 8:35!" |
Snapshots |
Mission: MongoliaJake's first attempt at homemade Mongolican barbecue: Failure. What went right: correctly guessing several key seasonings- lemon, ginger, soy, garlic, chili. What went wrong: still missing some ingredients, and possibly had one wrong, rice vinegar. Way too much lemon and chili. Result: not entirely edible. Plan for future: try to get people at Great Khan's restaurant to tell me what's in the damn sauce. |