In other political news:

Under intense pressure from political advocacy groups, Congress today agreed that green beans are healthy and that the moon is not made out of cheese.

fucking republicans and their green bean propoganda.
that shit would have never passed under Clinton.

And green beans lead a fairly sedentary lifestyle, so I seriously doubt they're that healthy.

Thank fuck. I don't expect much from my government, but not actively arguing against a ban on torture (you know, consistent with every precept of decency and several international agreements) seems like a nice, basic, thing they ought to be able to get right, even if it takes a week or two.

"Quaint."

[rant]Today I momentarily turned my attention to the American news MSNBC television program and it was so irrelevent and full of fluff that I'm convinced that it was made for retarded people.

Since when is "entertainment news" a replacement for world national news? This shit has proliferated and multiplied since Bush has been in office I just know it.

[/end rant]

so I didn't really catch much of this on the news, but I gather this new-found respect for humanity only extends to acts committed by Americans and/or on American soil?

From what I heard it sounded like there was a gaping loophole condoning the handing over of suspects to other countries.

Someone please burst my cynicism on this

If you think cable news channels are bad, you should see the local TV news stations around here. Every other story deals with people stealing puppies from pet stores or ghost stories from random people around town. I'm totally convinced that TV news is designed to keep people stupid and ignorant.



I was listening to NPR the other day and they reported that the agreement still allows torture under certain circumstances due to a carefully crafted loophole.

This kind of stuff has been my pet peeve lately, it really bothers me. Occasionally I'll turn on BBC radio here and it's such a breath of fresh air. Real news that's going on in the world.

The Australian commercial station news bulletins are terrible as well

I guess you all heard about the riots at Cronulla beach last weekend? The size and intensity of that was in no small part fuelled by the hyperbolic and saturation coverage given to a small initial incident, and then lack of judicious reporting of blatantly racist text messages doing the rounds urging "Aussies" to gp dpwn and "protect" their beach.

Fortunately, we have 2 government-owned tv stations that have excellent news and current affairs programs, but no one watches them

the commercial stations here are essentially televised tabliods, with the biased and indignant reporting that employs

my rant for the day

Actually, it's designed to sell advertising time, & nobody's gonna advertise on a show that nobody watches cuz it's got all that icky real news on it.

http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/georgie.htm

(my apologies if this link has already been posted)

Wow. That is something witty enough to have been a line in "Real Genius".

(translation: "Wow. That was really f-ing funny")