Category Archives: Censorship

USAF firing on British troops

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This is the real thing, people: this is the leaked video of a pair of American Airforce reserve fighter pilots killing British Lance Corporal Matty Hull near Basra in Iraq. There is a time lag on the audio here, so follow the subtitles (which were added by the investigators). The video dates from March 28th of 2003, and more details about the incident and investigation are here.

…the pilots, a lieutenant-colonel and major at the time of the incident, are flying warplanes again, attached to the 190th Air Fighter Squadron, based at Boise, Idaho…

The cockpit video reveals that the pilots clearly saw the orange panels on the top of the British armoured vehicles intended to identify them as friendly forces, but ultimately decided that they were rocket launchers. When one pilot suggested a return to base, the other said: “I think killing these damn rocket launchers, it would be great.”

Even after attacking the column, the transcript shows the pilots were still unsure whether they had attacked enemy or friendly troops.

“It doesn’t look friendly,” one pilot said. Minutes later, they were told of their mistake.

“We’re in jail dude,” one pilot said. “Goddam it. Fuck me dead,” the other cries.

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Too Much Coffee Man, an introduction

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TMCM, yo man! 

Reading engtech’s post on his favorite web comics reminded me of my old fave from the deepest, darkest Nineties, Too Much Coffee Man, which I find is now an opera that is packing them in like espresso in a portafilter! TMCM was one of my favorite comics, back when I had a 9-5 or actually it was with Starbucks so it was more like a 5:30am-6:30pm, but whatever, and could afford to buy dead trees.

I am reminded at this juncture of perhaps the most absurd of the various absurdities of working in a cubicle farm. I had a TMCM toque which I treasured for its hip coffeeness and relevance, and I thought it would look cute and edgy sitting on top of my filing cabinet, so that is where I put it.

And every morning it would be on my desk.

At first I thought the cleaners were moving it, although dusting the top of the cabinets every day seemed a bit extreme to me. But after awhile I realized it was happening even when the cleaners had not been in. So I began to test things.

I pinned it to my cube wall. Nothing. I put it on my chair. Nothing. I pinned it on the outside of my doorway: bingo, it was on my desk in the morning.

Turns out that the head of HR didn’t like to see anything poking up above the level of the top of the cubes, nor anything outside the cubes other than slate grey tweed: the only person who could violate this rule was the admittedly artistic and very powerful head of the training department. My boss was staying late every night just to move my toque.

There’s the title of my forthcoming business book, right there:
WHO MOVED MY TOQUE.

Back to TMCM. He would show up in some of the gimme papers in Portland cafes, but the trip to Oregon sort of offset the freebie-ness of the comics themselves, so I had to give it up and start spending fifteen minutes’ pay at the comic shop for the colour issues.

While the title character himself seems to have long since gone to that Great Compost Bucket in the Sky, the comic and the aesthetic and the dream live on.

Oh Solo Espresso!

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5 reasons why I blog

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Kid Blogger! The kid has promise. 

I got tagged for the 5 Reasons Why I Blog meme by Jeremy Jacobs, and answering it will be my entry in the engtech Blog Contest #1.

Do you remember when you were in elementary school and in English class once a week they would write five topics on the board and you would have to pick one of the topics and write a story about it? (oh, and also how they would give you lists of all kinds of different words you were supposed to learn {although I always wondered and worried, secretly, that if they knew I already knew those words they would penalize me in some way, so I played dumb. I would rule in a concentration camp!} and then use in a sentence? Well being literalminded-like, I used to use them all in one gargantumungous sentence, the Sentence That Wouldn’t Die!, the Energizer Bunny of sentences, and that used to piss my teachers off no end but they never did tighten up the wording of the assignment, so what’s with that, eh? I ask you) But quite a lot of the time I wouldn’t like any of the story subjects listed and even might have had a story or two that I wanted to write anyway and thought, like any good, lazy person, why should I write two including one I don’t want when I can write one that I do want instead? Indeed.

So, inevitably after every writing-the-titles-on-the-blackboard moment, the teacher would sit at his desk and brace himself for my approach.

“Do you mind if…” I’d always start, and usually it would go smoothly from there.

“What would happen if I said no?” asked Mr. Lindsay once, in a sudden and inexplicable fit of empowerment.

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press conference of the century

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Mooninite! Gee, I thought they were mostly Asian.Two Boston urban terror suspects, out on bail, give the press conference of the century, if not of the post-Biblical era. I think I’m in love!

Background from CNN:

CHARLESTOWN, Massachusetts (CNN) — Two men pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges they created panic by placing electronic light boards that caused a bomb scare Wednesday in Boston.

The boards depicted a cartoon character making an obscene gesture at passing motorists.

Assistant Attorney General John Grossman called the light boards “bomb-like” devices and said that if they had been explosive they could have damaged transportation infrastructure in the city.

Indeed, and if Ralph Lauren shirts had been explosive no doubt much of Harvard could have been destroyed. Something tells me that overripe cans of that damn chowder have caused more explosions in Boston than any Aqua Teen Hunger Force ad campaigns. Those easterners are so neurasthenic; ten cities had this ad campaign, and Boston was the only one to call out the SWAT teams on the poor, unsuspecting Lite Brite boards. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is the Bomb!

Now, to the press conference:

“I feel like you’re not taking this seriously. Now do we have ANY questions about hairstyles in the Seventies, because my patience is wearing thin.”

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Donnie Davies speaks!

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Donnie Davies

And he is speaking to YOU! from the comments on this very blog. And here is what Donnie Davies had to say:

Thanks so much for the support, everybody. I tell you what, mysterious electronic attacks, phone calls from untracable numbers that claim to be the U.S. Postal Service offering to deliver lost packages and an enormous amount of hate mail is enough to make any Minister shrink from God’s mission. But I tell you friends, we can’t let ourselves be intimidated by the influence of a few well placed psychopaths. Liberty is the foundation of this Nation Under God and the people have the right to chose their own messages and have the right to read them as well.

Some people might think this is some kind of organized conspiracy against the message of the Westboro Baptist Church. I didn’t realize when I wrote my song that it might compete with their message. I mean, I was utterly clueless to that. Now that the DJs keep asking me about it I had to think about it and I think people in America have a right to chose their own message. That’s not the same thing as censorship. No one has a right to utterly control what you see, what you hear and what you think. That’s fundamentally anti-American and you should fight it with a resolve that strikes to the very core of your being even if it risks everything you have, otherwise America risks losing everything it is and should be.

First MySpace deleted my account and now they have deleted the account of our band. First they censored me and now they’ve censored people I’m connected to. If you are a MySpace user, don’t allow this. Every one of you who believes in the Freedom of Expression, whether you like our song or not, needs to step up to bat.

This is the time. Now.

Once again, for good measure, here is the song, high-quality on the Evening Service website, and as my crappy to-spite-YouTube copy below.

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