US ‘virtual march’ over Iraq a huge success!

From the BBC:

“Thousands of anti-war activists have been bombarding the White House and senators with phone calls and e-mails in a virtual protest over the Iraq crisis.

 Backed by a number of celebrities, volunteers jammed switchboards in Washington DC in an effort to force US politicians to think again over the prospect of war in the Gulf.

Organisers online democracy group MoveOn say more than 250,000 people signed up to take part in the protest and that many more joined in during Wednesday.”

As of 4:30 PM Eastern Time, over 375,000 calls and faxes have been sent!

Let’s see. Figure 8 hours (8:30 AM - 4:30 PM). Hmmm, 60 seconds in a minute * 60 minutes in an hour * 8 hours = 28,000 seconds. Divide that into 375,000 calls and faxes and - that’s more than 13 per second!

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When the lies stop working

Ari laughed off the stage.

MR. FLEISCHER: This is a time — no, the President is not offering quid pro quos. This is a time for nations to do what they estimate is the right thing to do to promote the peace.

Q: — the French press is quoting actually two different diplomats from the United States State Department that — they’re highlighting that the United States is giving some sort of agreements or benefits to Colombia — and other non-members of the Security Council –

MR. FLEISCHER: I haven’t seen the story. And you already have the answer, about what this will be decided on. But think about the implications of what you’re saying. You’re saying that the leaders of other nations are buyable. And that is not an acceptable proposition.

(Laughter.)

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To google or not to google

“Google’s trademark counsel sending out dumb lawyer-letters over “to google”.

 Google’s trademark counsel has begun sending lawyer-letters to people who use “to google” as a verb, asking them to to take down or revise such references. I’ve googled many factoids about this in the past, being the good blogger that I am, and printed them out so I could xerox them for my friends. That’s all I have to say for now, since I have to run out and buy some kleenex and aspirin, and trademark lawyers can kiss my ass. Link Discuss (via Kottke) [Boing Boing Blog]“

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A truckdriving poet

Daniel Pino, a Sacramento poet and truck driver, has a website of thoughful writings about peace, unions, and what what’s happening in this country.

His writings include:

The collapse of Consolidated Freightways

“The full liquidation of Consolidated Freightways is nearly complete. It was absolutely brilliant. And on this Labor Day The International Brotherhood of Teamsters got caught sleeping on this one. Corporate America just walked over the grave of 15,500 unionized jobs, and the American media barely gave it a nod.”

Lower middle class working people

“Of all the hundreds of teamsters I know and have worked closely with, which is almost exclusively lowermiddle income unionized labor, I’m not sure any of them have an ounce of trust with respect to the political leaderships in America today. Some vote, many don’t even bother with it. Within their grammar the every day use of the word ‘politician’ has taken on a negative connotation of extremes.”

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Supremes finds prosecutors acted with ‘race bias’

An African-American man’s murder conviction has been thrown into doubt after the <U.S.> Supreme Court Tuesday found Texas prosecutors used “race bias” during jury selection.

Clarence Thomas was the sole dissenting vote. Go figure.

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Stark warning for U.S. military

“The head of Iraq’s largest opposition group warned the United States on Tuesday that its military presence in post-war Iraq would not be welcome, and that any attempt to install a Pentagon general in Baghdad could be met with a “religious war.” Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim told MSNBC.com in an interview that Muslim fury over a long-term American occupation of Iraq would destabilize the Middle East.”

No kidding…

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How the news will be censored in this war

“A new CNN system of “script approval” – the iniquitous instruction to reporters that they have to send all their copy to anonymous officials in Atlanta to ensure it is suitably sanitised – suggests that the Pentagon and the Department of State have nothing to worry about. Nor do the Israelis.”

Unbelievable. Unknown people, far from the actual news event, will censor, edit, and spin the news. A sad end to a once great news network. Can what they “report” about the coming war even be considered news?

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