everythinggoodisgone.com

13.2.03

it is your duty as a citizen of the world to read this and be forewarned of the bloody ridiculousness of all of it...


the inmates are running the asylum.


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A list of the 528 cities worldwide involved in this weekend's The World Says No to War! demonstrations. If you live in any of these places and AREN'T making your voice heard, you're a dipshit. even though it won't make a lick of difference to the douche-nozzle in the oval office... because sometimes you have to make the effort, even when you know it's futile, for the principle of the thing.

i've never been to a political demonstration before. i've never felt like it mattered. but i KNOW it does, now, to me, even if it doesn't accomplish anything but letting me vocalise, amongst a community of like-minded individuals ranging from anarchists to mothers against bombs, that this war is insane, stupid, & generally isn't going to accomplish anything but pissing off a lot of people who, in the name of my own safety from future terrorist & other attacks, i'd rather leave alone.

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Embrace file-sharing, or die

A record executive and his son make a formal case for freely downloading music. The gist: 50 million Americans can't be wrong.

Salon Editor's note: John Snyder is president of Artist House Records, a board member of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), and a 32-time Grammy nominee. On Thursday night, he submitted the following paper to NARAS.

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found a new "independent" news source for the situation in iraq.... spearheaded by Jeremy Scahill, known best for his work with Democracy Now!, this is the most informative site i've found yet regarding all this nonsense. pretty unusual to find someone not only willing to speak against the mainstream media, but to do so intelligently & articulately....for example:

FOX NEWS: 'The Network America Trusts' (to pay 'Saddam')
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Under the government guidelines, journalists cough up a handsome sum of money to the government and individual officials. Here are the bare minimums for journalists operating in Baghdad:

--$100/ day fee per journalist, cameraperson, technical staff etc.

--$150/ day fee for permission to use a satellite telephone (which the journalists have to provide themselves)

--$50-100/ day for a mandatory government escort

--$50-100/ day for a car and driver (some networks have a fleet of vehicles)

--$75/ day for a room at the Al Rashid Hotel

That's already $500 and that doesn't include the thousands of dollars daily for each direct live satellite feed for TV networks. Nor does it include the bribes and 'tips' shelled out left and right. Nor does it include the money handed over at border crossings and the airport. The networks don't like to talk about how much they actually spend, but one veteran of the media scene here estimated the cost for a major TV network at about $100,000 a month. Others say that is a low estimate. Almost all of this cash (except a few 'tips' here and there) goes directly to the Iraqi government. Once you add up the bill for the TV networks alone, we're talking perhaps millions of dollars in revenue a month for the government.

There is a joke here that the major media outlets are now competing with oil smuggling as the number one money-maker for the Iraqi government.

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an op-ed from one of my favorite websites, kuro5hin: A Heartbreaking National Tragedy

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the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has narrowed their search for the re-development of ground zero to two final choices. The final design will be chosen by the end of the month. though i found the LMDC site to be unaccessible [perhaps as a function of todays' announcement], the new york times article has a link to their "interactive feature" which is pretty informative.




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