Clipmarks | papananook's clips

John Cusack’s incredible new film, War, Inc

Thu, 15 May 2008 20:37:23 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they’re selling– their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

Clip Source: www.crooksandliars.com

[Video]

After being wowed by John Cusack’s incredible new film, War, Inc, John Amato and I persuaded John Cusack to come over to C&L for a live chat a little closer to the official release date. And today’s the day. This week the film will start rolling out in the Toronto area and then in New York City. So at 3pm (PT) John is bringing two of his co-writers with him, Mark Leyner and Jeremy Pikser, and they’ll be talking about the movie and answering questions for an hour or so. I spoke with John about it and he gave me some insights into why he made the movie. He also recited this inspiring piece by Arundhati Roy to me:

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness– and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.

Harpooned: Greenpeace exposes scandal at heart of whaling

Thu, 15 May 2008 15:51:31 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks:
While the scandal of stolen whalemeat is the most shocking, it's not the only revelation to come from this investigation. Further allegations from our informants that require investigation include:

* Throwing tons of whale meat overboard daily because they did not have processing capacity for the increased quotas
* Cancerous tumors being found and cut out of whales and the remaining meat processed for public sale
* Targeted hunts to ensure maximum catch, not random "sampling" as required by the research permits
* Harsh working conditions because of the increased workload from the increased quotas

Download the full report

Clip Source: www.greenpeace.org

Tokyo, Japan — Stake outs, testimony from informers, hidden cameras and tailing trucks full of stolen goods - it reads like a Hollywood movie, but it was an every day experience for Greenpeace activists in Japan, who have spent four months cracking open a major conspiracy of corruption at the heart of Japan's government-backed, sham scientific whaling operation.

Bureaucrats ignore theft from taxpayers

Our activists delivered the evidence, including the whale meat, to the Public Prosecutor's office in Tokyo, calling on it to make a full public inquiry into how deep the corruption runs with the whaling program. We're also calling for an end to the $4.7 million taxpayer subsidies for the program, and for the license of the company operating the whale hunt, Kyodo Senpaku, to be withdrawn.

[Video]

Consignment sheet detailing, in Japanese, the contents of a crewmembers' personal box offloaded from the whaling factory ship Nisshin Maru, containing 23.5 kilograms of stolen whale meat.

Polar bears threatened but not endangered--Big Oil stll gets leases in Arctic.

Thu, 15 May 2008 15:44:21 GMT

clipped by: papananook

Clip Source: www.greenpeace.org

Polar bear listing falls short of real protection

For the last three years, the Department of Interior has been dragging its feet when it comes to protecting the polar bear. Today, it finally listed the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. This might seem like a victory but there are enough holes in this listing to leave the polar bear unprotected against its biggest threat, global warming.

Stake outs, testimony from informers, hidden cameras and tailing trucks full of stolen goods - it reads like a Hollywood movie, but it was an every day experience for Greenpeace activists in Japan, who have spent four months cracking open a major conspiracy of corruption at the heart of Japan's government-backed, sham scientific whaling operation.

We caught an illegal tuna purse seiner (Queen Evelyn 168) in the Pacific Commons yesterday. This Philippines-flagged vessel was close to the transfer of tuna

Cluster Bomb Olympics With White House Backdrop (No, not the Onion)

Thu, 15 May 2008 14:14:48 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Why: To generate public awareness of cluster bombs just two days prior to the negotiation of a global cluster bomb ban treaty in Dublin, Ireland on May 19. More than half the world’s nations will attend, but the U.S. government has refused to participate.

Who: Organized by the US Campaign to Ban Landmines and co-sponsored by Amnesty International, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, CIVIC, Democracy in Action, Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers), Jewish Voice for Peace, Network of Spiritual Progressives, and Veterans for Peace.

The event is open to participation by all ages. Those in attendance can sign a petition urging the Pentagon to stop using cluster bombs, which cause unacceptable harm to civilians.

The U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines (USCBL) is a coalition of approximately 500 U.S.-based human rights, humanitarian, faith-based, children's, peace, disability, veterans', medical, development, academic, and environmental organizations dedicated to a

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

WASHINGTON, DC - May 14 - Middle school kids and adults from throughout the Washington, DC area will compete in the 1st Annual Cluster Bomb Olympics this Saturday at the White House Ellipse. Participants will take part in events including “cluster bomb hopscotch” and “bocce bomb” while learning about the threat cluster bombs pose to millions of children in countries around the world.

Photo opportunities – Adults, middle school aged children playing with the White House as a backdrop, a medal ceremony, and more. Interviews with people from Ethiopia, Laos, and Lebanon with first hand knowledge of the damage done by cluster bombs available for members of the media.

What: 1st (and hopefully last) Annual Cluster Bomb Olympics

Where: Northwest section of the White House Ellipse, near the corner of 17th and E, NW

When: Saturday, May 17, 11am-1pm

The Sacrificer: Bush Quit Golf Over Iraq War

Thu, 15 May 2008 14:05:12 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: When I saw this on the news (OLbermann's special comment was brilliant) I was flabbergasted...to think! Our Preznit had to give up golf 'cuz it wouldn't be proprewr! Such *solidarity* with the families of all the dead! **gag**

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush said in an interview out Tuesday that he quit playing golf in 2003 out of respect for the families of US soldiers killed in the conflict in Iraq, now in its sixth year.

“I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal,” he said in an interview for Yahoo! News and Politico magazine.

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them.”

“I remember when de Mello, who was at the UN, got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man’s life. And I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it’s just not worth it anymore to do,” said Bush.

School Military Recruiting Could Violate International Protocol

Thu, 15 May 2008 13:52:30 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: THIS HORRIBLE PRACTICE BY THE MILITARY HAS GOT TO STOP--OUR CHILDREN ARE NOT CANNON FODDER FOR STUPID OLD MEN'S WARS!!

the U.S. armed services “regularly target children under 17 for military recruitment, heavily recruiting on high school campuses, in school lunchrooms, and in classes.”
“The United States military’s procedures for recruiting students plainly violate internationally accepted standards and fail to protect youth from abusive and aggressive recruitment tactics,” said Jennifer Turner of the ACLU Human Rights Project.

The increased aggressiveness of military recruiters is due in major part, according to the report, to the increased pressure to meet enlistment quotas caused by ongoing U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to which nearly 200,000 soldiers and marines are currently deployed.

The pressure created by current military commitments has not only translated into enhanced recruitment efforts among children under 18. The armed forces have also lower

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

WASHINGTON - Pressed by the demands of the “global war on terrorism”, the United States is violating an international protocol that forbids the recruitment of children under the age of 18 for military service, according to a new report released Tuesday by a major civil rights group that charged that recruitment practices target children as young as 11 years old.

The 46-page report, “Soldiers of Misfortune“, which was prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for submission to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, also found that the U.S. military disproportionately targets poor and minority public school students.

Military recruiters, according to the report, use “exaggerated promises of financial rewards for enlistment, [which] undermines the voluntariness of their enlistment.” In some cases documented by the report, recruiters used coercion, deception, and even sexual abuse in order to gain recruits. Perpetrators of such practices are only very rarely punished

An eyes-wide-open prayer for peace

Thu, 15 May 2008 12:28:38 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: One really good song and video

Clip Source: www.brasschecktv.com

An eyes-wide-open
prayer for peace

[Video]

A song that capture the hypocrisy and injustice of the Iraq War

"Peace" appears on the album "Esther and the Protesters" by New Orleans-based singer-songwriter Esther Sparks. Esthersparks.com. You can contact the artist directly there.

If you are moved by its message, please pass it along. You can count on the fact that the Bush supporters who run Clear Channel will make sure it never appears on any of their radio stations.

Excerpt:

"Oh dear Lord,
Please don't just bless

America or us here in the West.

But dear Lord,
Please bless the earth,
and all her people
in life and death and birth."

Documentary about the role of psychoanalysis, marketing, and public relations in the united states

Thu, 15 May 2008 11:57:10 GMT

clipped by: papananook

Clip Source: www.archive.org

Documentary about the role of psychoanalysis, marketing, and public relations in the united states. From the same director as "the power of nightmares"

Reviewer: Soundhour - - December 9, 2006
Subject: Mandatory Viewing

I can't get across how important this film is.
Well researched, entertaining use of archive footage and the cold hard facts about why it's right to be cycnical about capitalism. The marketeers are fighting an anti-humanitarian dis-information war. This is a good place to start for people who want to build their defences.
Be warned, if you live in a bubble, prepare yourself for a wake up call.

Nader calls U. S. "corporate fascism"

Wed, 14 May 2008 17:15:18 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: "We used to be able to challenge corporate influence in Washington, but they have so much power now that we can't. The corporations are laughing at us. They're daring us to try to take away their power," said Nader.

The choice between a Democrat and a Republican is to Nader a "choice between horrible and terrible." He warned against voting for a candidate because they're not as bad as the other. "If you have a low expectation level of politicians, then they're going to oblige you," said Nader.

Nader warned against continued complacency. "What's wrong with us? Are we the biggest suckers? Are we super-suckers?" He exhorted his audience at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian-Universalists to find their "constructive anger."

He doesn't think it's too late to turn things around, but it will require, "people to break from corporate thinking." Nader called on Americans to reach out to each other, get active and organized, and to make demands for what they need and want.

Nader cal

Clip Source: www.opednews.com

OAKLAND - Independent candidate for President Ralph Nader described the current government and economic system of the United States as "corporate fascism" at a campaign event held in Berkeley on May 12.

"We're living in a country whose democracy is beyond the breaking point. The extent of corporate control has developed into corporate fascism," declared Nader.

"We don't have a capitalist economic system - it's corporate fascism. Every major tenet of capitalism is violated by corporate power," said Nader. Only small businesses still practice capitalism, according to Nader.

Corporate fascism not only rules U. S. politics and the economy, but also other aspects of life including the way people think, said Nader. "We grow up corporate with commercialized childhoods. We get a corporate education."

US Drought Monitor Mapping

Wed, 14 May 2008 16:47:22 GMT

clipped by: papananook

Clip Source: drought.unl.edu

Visit the NDMC Photo Gallery to see photos of drought conditions in California, Georgia, South Carolina, and other states. If you have photos showing drought conditions, please consider submitting them to the Photo Gallery.

NOTE: To view regional drought conditions, click on map below. State maps can be accessed from regional maps.

To compare current drought conditions with last week’s map, click here.

To view tabular statistics of this week's Drought Monitor, click here

To view tabular statistics for the Drought Monitor archive, click here

To view Drought Monitor Change Maps, click here.

12-week
animation

long-term drought
indicator blends

6-week
animation

NDMC's Drought
Impact Reporter

For more information on the above experimental drought blends, see http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/tools/edb/droughtblend-access-page.html#exp.

Ex-Officials: Bush Admin. Ignored Iraq Corruption

Wed, 14 May 2008 16:42:47 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: The U.S. embassy “effort against corruption - including its new centerpiece, the now-defunct Office of Accountability and Transparency - was little more than ‘window dressing,’” he added.

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees.

Arthur Brennan, who briefly served in Baghdad as head of the department’s Office of Accountability and Transparency last year, and James Mattil, who worked as the chief of staff, told Senate Democrats on Monday that their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored.

Brennan also alleges the State Department prevented a congressional aide visiting Baghdad from talking with staffers by insisting they were too busy. In reality, Brennan said, office members were watching movies at the embassy and on their computers. The staffers’ workload had been cut dramatically because of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s “evisceration” of Iraq’s top anti-corruption office, he said.

Myanmar police block aid workers; food piles up

Wed, 14 May 2008 16:23:22 GMT

clipped by: papananook

Clip Source: www.japantoday.com

Police barred foreign aid workers from reaching cyclone survivors in hard-hit areas Tuesday, while emergency food shipments backed up at the main airport for Myanmar’s biggest city.

Relief workers reported some storm survivors were being given spoiled or poor-quality food rather than nutrition-rich biscuits sent by international donors, adding to fears that the ruling military junta in the Southeast Asian country could be misappropriating assistance.

U.N. officials warned that the threat was escalating for the 2 million people facing disease and hunger in low-lying areas battered by the storm unless relief efforts increased dramatically.

Ten days after the tempest, reaching the worst-affected areas was getting more and more difficult.

Checkpoints manned by armed police were set up Tuesday on roads leading to the Irrawaddy River delta and all international aid workers and journalists were turned back by officers who took down their names and passport numbers. Drivers were interrogated.

Jon Stewart on Larry King

Wed, 14 May 2008 16:11:33 GMT

clipped by: papananook

Clip Source: cathy-edgett.livejournal.com

the presidency -

Our president didn't know that oil was approaching $4.00 a gallon because he doesn't know. This is what Jon Stewart has to say.

In Larry King's recent interview with Jon Stewart, Larry brought up the subject of the primaries and asked him if American is ready for a woman or a black president.

Jon looked at him quizzically and said, "This is such a non-question. Did anyone ask us in 2000 if Americans were ready for a moron?"

Wholphin Magazine presents some great short film.

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:57:57 GMT

clipped by: papananook

Clip Source: www.wholphindvd.com

Bees

Directed by WHOLPHIN
PLAY CLIP

American Outrage (Excerpt)

Directed by
Beth Gage & George Gage
PLAY CLIP

Directed by Amy Lippman
A Michael Chabon short story
Starring Paul Rudd and Zooey Deschanel
PLAY CLIP

CURRENT ISSUE
SUBSCRIBE
PURCHASE
WATCH STUFF

All issues of Wholphin, including Issue 1, which has never before been sold individually, are now in stock at the McSweeney's Store.

Strongest Man

Directed by Jeremy Bailey
4:31 minutes

Herculean Cinema.
PLAY FILM

Carmichael and Shane

Directed by Alex Weinress and Rob Carlton
6 minutes

The economics of parenting.
PLAY FILM

Concrete Tightrope

Directed by Toby Moore and Selena McKenzie
4:04 minutes

How to get some sidewalk cred.
PLAY FILM

This is Your Life

Directed by RAFAEL FUCHS
3:19 minutes

Great for cardio.
PLAY FILM

The Country

Directed by BRADY BALTEZORE
1:28 minutes

Triumphant mice.
PLAY FILM

An Internal Camaraderie

Directed by ELI MARIAS & AMOS NATKIN
5:36 minutes

Prepare to be amazed.
PLAY FILM

REJECTED SPOTS FOR THE ARMY'S CURRENT AD CAMPAIGN, "STRENGTH FOR NOW, STRENGTH FOR LATER." BY THE BR

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:50:14 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks:
2. "Vet"

(Open on a short-haired, twentysomething YOUNG WOMAN as she puts on a white lab coat in an X-ray room. A door opens and a VETERINARIAN appears holding a domesticated white rabbit, which the VET pets as it purrs gently. She throws the YOUNG WOMAN a stethoscope.)

VET: Now remember, people's animals are like members of their family. So it's important that we stress to them the gentle methods and safety precautions we employ while the pets are here in our supervision. Know what I mean?

(Cut to the same YOUNG WOMAN at Abu Ghraib, smashing a prisoner in the face with the butt of her rifle, hogtying naked prisoners, posing in front of a naked dogpile of blindfolded prisoners with a "thumbs up" as a cigarette dangles from her lower lip. Cut back to the VET's office, where the YOUNG WOMAN responds.)

YOUNG WOMAN: Yes, ma'am. (Accidentally laughs.)

VET: What's so funny?

YOUNG WOMAN: Nothing.

Yeah, Be all you can be.

Clip Source: www.mcsweeneys.net

1. "Mailer"

(Open on a YOUNG MAN, mid-20s, at his first day of work at a Jiffy Lube. A mustachioed, gum-snapping STORE MANAGER, mid-30s, removes his grease-stained glasses and shakes our young applicant's hand.)

MANAGER: Welcome aboard. Now, when you ring up the customers, be sure to get a home address so we can add them to the mass coupon mailer. It takes some tact, as people don't like to give out their personal info. Are you comfortable gathering information?

(Cut to a dingy interrogation room at the American base in Guantánamo. We see a montage of the YOUNG MAN screaming at a tied-up Iraqi prisoner, slapping him in the face, kicking him out of his chair, being calmed down by a fellow soldier, connecting electric clamps to the Iraqi's testicles, etc. Cut back to the YOUNG MAN as he responds without emotion to the MANAGER.)

YOUNG MAN: Yes, sir, I think I can handle that.