Rex Kickass

A series of explosions rock Madrid, on the heels of ETA bomb threats.

You know why France grew trees on the side of the roads? To give advancing German soldiers shade the next time around.

And its wrong. CubKilla: So nice to see you decided to boycott an ally when they were one of our strongest supporters in the war on terror. In Afghanistan, when they were sending troops over alongside our boys, when they were an active player in the war on terror - including working towards an invasion of Iraq. They were never fully against the idea, in fact - I believe at one point, Chirac asked Bush to give the weapons inspectors 90 more days to build a more solid case and then we'll jump right behind you. There was no room for compromise on our side. If you think Anti-Americanism is so rampant in France, go there and see for yourself. It's funny, cause I was there in the summer of 2003, right in the middle of the Freedom Fries epidemic and the French wine boycott and all that fun stuff. I never saw any blatant acts against American people. What I saw were people concerned that the US government was overstepping its bounds. At the same time, I saw France actually moving to embrace Lance Armstrong - for tour win number 5. I saw people concerned with the spreading influence of American popular culture and it overshadowing France's own culture - but still embracing both. This being said, I don't even really like France all that much. It's kinda dirty, people are a little less patient than I like and it was very difficult to travel within my 25 dollar a day budget.

Yes. But there seems to be a disconnect here. Why is a 30 minute show with a five second disclaimer tag at the beginning acceptable and a 30 second spot isn't?

FOX network, not FOX News. Also ABC Family, which is required to run 700 Club through the part ownership deal with Robertson's CBN is also airing the spots. If it's acceptable for the Net half owned by a wingnut, why isn't it acceptable for the mainstream net that shares part of a name and corporate parentage?

But you would also reject paid religious programming on similar grounds, right? If you don't, how do you draw the line?

Problem is, the state may not be legally allowed to honor that clause of its contract because of the passed amendment. What may very well happen is that this will go to the courts - as a test case to the constitutionality federally of the state amendment. Assuming that a lower court would issue an injunction preventing the clause being pulled from that contract, this may be a good thing for the state as a whole. It would be a good test to see if that amendment holds water against the federal constitution which supercedes language in state constitutions.

There are ads promoting the Book of Mormon all the time. The ABC affiliate in Lansing, Michigan runs Jack Van Impe Presents, a paid program endorsing very conservative Christian views on Sunday afternoon/evenings. The networks may not run that, but their affiliates do - even on Network owned affils. Then there are the "public service" messages by the Mormons that are running. And another commercial from the same ad campaign that has been accepted. Doesn't NBC own PAX38 in Chicago? The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. The networks don't have to run the ad - but it certainly has nothing to do with FCC standards. It has everything to do with revealing the actual intent of the heads of network programming politically.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBCGA2G82E.html

No no... Happy Cola and Rainbow Frogs! From Haribo! Seriously though, Pull and Peel twizzlers. If they had an IV drip of that.... *droooool*

From the Des Moines Register...

I was wondering how long a metal music thread would go before someone mentions Meshuggah.

I seem to remember a ton of ads for Dianetics when I was a kid. Dunno if I saw it on network TV, i was too busy playing with my lego.

I've been oblivious to the goings on about this trial, mostly on my high horse about making murder trials media circuses. I will say this though. I believe in creating a culture of life, and that means that all human lives - even guilty ones - aren't taken unless absolutely necessary.

Steff: What channel did you hear this on?

CBS actually blamed it on the gays. Saying it was directly related to the Federal Marriage Amendment proposal. Since this insinuates a gay couple, that means promotion of gay marriage. So they said it was politically incendiary or some such garbage. Which makes me wonder if NBC is going to cancel Will and Grace so they won't be fined by the FEC?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/12/...dban/index.html

The UN seems chiefly engineered to be a safety valve, where most major threats of war can be talked out of gas rather than actually fought. And it has worked in many circumstances of major combat action. It played a role in helping maintain the bipolarity of the US/USSR cold war II and helped to maintain an MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) regime between the two. The main problem with the UN structurally, the way I see it, is as the world changed to a multipolar world, with a couple regional hegemons, (China, USA, Russia, EU) the UN needs to change with it. The question is how to do so in a way that is going to be acceptable to the people currently holding the strings of power in the UN.

Yeah, I remember Marc Rich, a not so nice guy who never should have been pardoned. I also remember ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil, both of which have been targeted by the same investigation. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6621523/ But NBC News is now reporting that the US has mishandled up to 8.8 Billion dollars in Iraqi Oil Revenues since May of last year. Do I think heads need to roll in the UN over the oil-for-food program? Absolutely. But we oughta look into cleaning out our own house too.

DJs are expensive, because there's a lot of start up costs. I DJ'ed a high school reunion for a friend and charged 200 dollars for four hours. They also paid for the PA/gear rental of 100 dollars for the evening. A good DJ will spend at least four hours planning out the music for the event, at least an hour for set up and an hour for take down and travel. That's at least ten hours of work for a four hour set. Unless you're stealing music, there's music purchase cost too. So the DJ, if he isn't contracting through a company, if he's good is making a lot less than you might think.

One thing to be thankful if this turns ugly. Ukraine did decommission and dispose of its nuclear arsenal in the 1990s.

Actually, the hospital in question did set up a strict protocol and notified the government of its actions. I don't know where I stand on this. Personally, I don't believe in forced euthanasia, but I'm not sure I believe in permanent life support for terminal patients who'll never be able to live without it. This is definitely disturbing, but I'm not a doctor - and I don't know enough about the specifics to make any judgment. It just raises the ethical question that's sort of the mirror to euthanasia. At what point does it become unethical to let someone die naturally?

But sharing Medical information with interrogators truly is a horror. Take it for what it's worth, but that was a common interrogation technique of the Third Reich. I just seem to be seeing mounting evidence that we're willing to exempt ourselves from our moral code to protect our moral code. And that frankly scares the living s*** out of me.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nati...77_gitmo01.html From the article: If the Geneva Conventions don't apply to our enemies now, how can we expect them to apply to us later?

The point is, what freedom? We gave them freedom of the press but closed down newspapers we thought were too incendiary before the CPA gave up power. We've installed an interim government headed by an Iraqi that most people refer to as a "thug." Iraq is under Martial Law until ten days before their scheduled election.