Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

Ladies and gentlemen, the Pentagon Players proudly present to you: “The Death of the American Media” or “Rupert Murdoch Laughs Last.”

Thursday morning in Baghdad multiple car bombs and rocket attacks killed at least 40 people, including many children and several US soldiers. The Bush administration, The Washington Post reports Thursday, worried that negative stories like these are dominating the news headlines during an election period, has decided to send out Iraq Americans to bring what the Defense Department calls “the good news” about the situation in Iraq to US military bases.

The Post also reports that the administration is moving to “curtail distribution” of reports that show the situation in Iraq growing worse. In particular, the US Agency of International Development said this week that it will “restrict distribution” of a report by its contractor, Kroll Security International, that showed the number of attacks by insurgents had been increasingly dramatically over the past few months. Attacks have risen to 70 a day, up from 40-50, since Iraqi Prime Minister Alawi took office in June.

Every administration talks about controlling the media. Few actually do it. And with good reason. The media exists to be our conduit to the truth. Putting aside their success or lack thereof for the moment, the instant the media begins to buckle to unfair pressure from the power structure, it has already lost. I recognize the burning desire for access, and with this administration only the outlets that positively dote on the President and his friends have been granted all-access passes. But what good does access do you if you have give up the right to report the truth? And given the fact that CBS previously held back the Abu Ghraib story for a full month at the Pentagon’s request – and then failed to do anything about the issue until the story finally broke – requests to postpone reporting on anything other than true, solid matters of national security have little credibility any more.

That said, is anybody else surprised that this story is also being reported by the Washington Post?

If you happen to have 99 cents burning a hole in your pocket, may I suggest that you check out the recently-released video for DBF’s Signal Break-Up Mix of BM Relocation Program’s “Superego Exchange.” It’s my first true music video for a remix I did for Creative Commons, and it’s now available through the good folks at LuLu.com, along with my children’s play The Mouser’s Tales and my definitely-not-for-children play, “Three Shots Fired Point Blank.” As always, enjoy.

Edit: Be warned that the video includes brief shots of underwear-clad models and may not be suitable for extremely-uptight workplaces.

You should really check out the Anvil & Sprocket. In addition to John’s recent review for Vampirella, you’ll find a brand spankin’ new review of classic anime series Tenchi Muyo! from yours truly.

I warned John not to watch Fox News. Now he’s gone and flipped his lid.

The new line of attack from the Bush-Cheney camp has entirely changed my mind. It just hadn’t occured to me how dangerous John Kerry really is, and how bad he would be for America. Especially in this dangerous time. Consider:

Kerry’s words “embolden the enemy.” My gosh, we can’t have that. Why, if Kerry were president he’d probably do something like taunt the enemy to “bring it on”. Also, The Decorated Soldier of Waffling might do something really stupid like order troops to attack Falluja against advice then order a pull-out before the job is done, thus giving the impression that American forces are easily provoked but just as easily turned aside.

Thudfactor is, as always, good readin’.

Over at MilitaryWeek, Lt. Col. Kwiatkowski has some interesting things to say about the Bush/Cheney theme of “Leadership Matters.”

Leadership is rarely seen in the senior officer who doesn’t know his core skill area, whether that is flying airplanes, killing the enemy in ground combat, whether engineering or accounting. Incompetence can, of course, be remedied by the ability and willingness to learn. Incompetence without an observable ability to learn was bad news. Any sign that the suspect officer had simply no clue that he might be in severely bad kimshee and hence might possibly need to learn something was even worse news.

Some smart person ought to have mentioned this to George W. Bush when they approved the “Leadership Matters” theme.

An absence of leadership qualities in our military leaders gives rise to terms like “Seagull” Colonels and Generals, a species known to swoop in, make a lot of noise, crap all over everything, and then fly away. But our seagulls had an advantage over Bush and Cheney. Regardless of the mistakes made and not remedied, regardless of the illogic, stupidity and sheer idiocy of our present unit’s existence under a seagull commander, at least we could be 100% sure they wouldn’t be around for long.

High level incompetence seems to be the natural sea-state of our militarized foreign policy, launching forth with the proud Guardsman George W. Bush at the helm and Dick “Other Priorities” Cheney as navigator.

The whole column is pretty good – as are the numerous links off of it. Check it out.

I’ve always said that Trekkies would make an interesting liberal special interest group to counterbalance, say, the NRA. Now I know.

The poll, conducted when the DVD release of the Star Trek fan documentary Trekkies 2 attracted Portland’s Klingon community to Tower Records on Southeast 102nd Avenue, may spell trouble for President George W. Bush.

The incumbent has staked his campaign on the war on terror. But those who speak the language of the Trek warrior race—known to disdain dishonor, or quvHa’ghach—seem alienated by Iraq and other issues.

According to the poll of eight local Klingons, a whopping 75 percent support the Democratic nominee.

Two Klingons polled—or 25 percent—said they planned to write in Satan.

Bush scored an abysmal zero percent in the poll.

“A good war is based on honor, not deception,” says K’tok (Earth name: Clyde Lewis), a 40-year-old Klingon from Lair Hill. “The first warrior, President Bush, deceived us all with this war.”

John Kerry’s a rocker. He rocks out. I’d challenge the Bush administration to produce similar credentials, but I still remember the horror that was Ashcroft’s “Let the Eagle Soar.”

Michael Moore provides some much-needed Carvilleism:

Dear Friends,

Enough of the handwringing! Enough of the doomsaying! Do I have to come there and personally calm you down? Stop with all the defeatism, OK? Bush IS a goner—IF we all just quit our whining and bellyaching and stop shaking like a bunch of nervous ninnies. Geez, this is embarrassing! The Republicans are laughing at us. Do you ever see them cry, “Oh, it’s all over! We are finished! Bush can’t win! Waaaaaa!”

Hell no. It’s never over for them until the last ballot is shredded. They are never finished—they just keeping moving forward like sharks that never sleep, always pushing, pulling, kicking, blocking, lying.

They are relentless and that is why we secretly admire them—they just simply never, ever give up. Only 30% of the country calls itself “Republican,” yet the Republicans own it all—the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court and the majority of the governorships. How do you think they’ve been able to pull that off considering they are a minority? It’s because they eat you and me and every other liberal for breakfast and then spend the rest of the day wreaking havoc on the planet.

Look at us—what a bunch of crybabies. Bush gets a bounce after his convention and you would have thought the Germans had run through Poland again. The Bushies are coming, the Bushies are coming! Yes, they caught Kerry asleep on the Swift Boat thing. Yes, they found the frequency in Dan Rather and ran with it. Suddenly it’s like, “THE END IS NEAR! THE SKY IS FALLING!”

“Are you crying? There’s no crying in politics! Not unless you make the other guy cry, first!”

I never really cared for “Rate me!” sites – and HotOrNot was probably one of the first wide-scale success stories in the genre. It just felt a bit… creepy. To say the least.

That said, Jim and James (the founders of HotOrNot) know how to get people’s interest. Check outVoteOrNot, where they’re applying a simple rule: people like to do things for money. Promise to vote (they don’t ask you to say who you’ll vote for – they just want you to promise to vote) and get entered to win $100,000. And if you get other people to follow you as a referral link and one of them wins, you win $100,000 as the person who referred them (and, yes, that link is my referral link – I am thoroughly shameless).

Now, there’s how you get out the 18-24 vote. Maybe other websites should consider offering alternate prizes – “Sign up to vote and get five other people to sign up as your referrals, and you can get a free iPod!”

Before you drop the 8+ bucks on Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, check out the latest at the Anvil & Sprocket.