Here's a provocative post by Byron Williams at Huffpo. For instance, Williams asks what if the "Democratic president's secretary of defense were Ted Kennedy and our military committed Abu Ghraib-like torture? At that point, would conservatives still be content with their "a few bad apples alibi"? Williams asks a good question: …
Would you like to know how things are going in Iraq? Check out the White House National Strategy for Victory in Iraq issued November 30, 2005.
Here’s the backdrop to this report. Smack in the middle of this report (under “OUR STRATEGY TRACKS AND MEASURES PROGRESS”) you can see that all-important connection between the 9/11 attacks and the U.S. occupation of Iraq:
“The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September the 11th, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi, and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like Bin Laden. For the sake of our nation’s security, this will not happen on my watch.”
— President George W. Bush
June 28, 2005
[emphasis added]. There’s only one problem with this guiding assumption, of course. It’s totally untrue. For example, the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported . . . that Osama bin Laden met with a top Iraqi official in 1994 but found “no credible evidence” of a link between Iraq and al-Qaida in attacks against the United States.
But back to the “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.” In the section called “Victory Will Take Time,” you can find this White House claim:
…Our strategy is working: Much has been accomplished in Iraq, including the removal of Saddam’s tyranny, negotiation of an interim constitution, restoration of full sovereignty, holding of free national elections, formation of an elected government, drafting of a permanent
Wal-mart is where America shops, right? Therefore, the magazines offered by Wal-Mart must be what America reads. On this assumption I traveled to a sprawling St. Louis Wal-Mart supercenter yesterday to photograph the magazine rack. There were many titles, indeed. You’ll see them in the photos embedded in this post. Because there are so many titles, there must also be quite a breadth of information, right? You’ll be the judge. I’m putting up this post with the hope that we can all put our heads together and do a bit of anthropology.
Now for the tour. Here are the magazines of Wal-Mart from left to right):
The first thing you might notice is that the literature is categorized a bit differently than it is in a public library. For instance, the Dewey Decimal System uses the following major categories:
000 Generalities
100 Philosophy & psychology
200 Religion
300 Social sciences
400 Language
500 Natural sciences & mathematics
600 Technology (Applied sciences)
700 The arts
800 Literature & rhetoric
900 Geography & history
It’s a bit different at Wal-Mart, where you’ll find these categories:
There doesn’t seem to be any overlap at all. Perhaps the Dewey system can be revamped to take advantage of this cutting edge Wal-Mart catergorization. I realize, now, that these Wal-Mart topic labels are not literal and exact. For instance, the fact that one section is called “Information” doesn’t mean that there is …
MSNBC has just reported that the FCC is working long hours to protect us from harmful language, i.e., language that “depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner.”
In its continuing crackdown on on-air profanity, the FCC has requested numerous tapes from broadcasters that might include vulgar remarks from unruly spectators, coaches and athletes at live sporting events, industry sources said.
Tapes requested by the commission include live broadcasts of football games and NASCAR races where the participants or the crowds let loose with an expletive. While commission officials refused to talk about its requests, one broadcast company executive said the commission had asked for 30 tapes of live sports and news programs.
As explained by MSNBC, the Commission is cracking down on variations of the words “f***” and “s***” even if the words are uttered accidentally.
I’m really glad that our government is keeping TV safe. This sort of detail work is likely quite expensive, but I’m sure they’ve thought this all though to make sure that there is nothing better to do with all of that money. There’s no telling what harm could happen if one is exposed to a dangerous word. I didn’t see Janet Jackson’s nipple, but had I seen it, I might have missed several days of work trying to recover.
Or so I thought. Because this is such an important matter, I decided to subject myself to an experiment.I turned off the phone, went to a quiet room …
According to the Associated press, Tobacco alone is predicted to kill a billion people this century, 10 times the toll it took in the 20th century, if current trends hold. This humongous number begs for a morbid illustration. If you lined up the dead bodies of one billion dead smokers end to…