Greenpeace vs Bush

In a move unprecedented in US history, the retarded monkey boy‘s Justice Department has indicted an entire organisation — Greenpeace — for the peaceful protest activities of its members. For years, Greenpeace have been working to halt environmental destruction and human rights abuses by criminal enterprises in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. In April 2002, miles off the coast of Florida, two Greenpeace activists boarded a ship that was carrying wood illegally exported from the Brazilian Amazon. Their goal was to hang a banner that said President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging. But instead of intercepting the contraband and prosecuting the smugglers, the Government now has charged Greenpeace with crimes for boarding the ship

Permission to Pollute

The US Military wants to be excused from duty. That is, it’s duty to obey the environmental laws of the United States of America. Last year the Defence Department won exemptions from three major environmental laws — the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty. Now, the military wants to ignore the Clean Air Act and toxic waste laws. To its credit, Congress has already refused to allow these additional exemptions, but the Defence Department is preparing to join the battle once more

Nightmare Vision

David Cogswell has an interesting article at Online Journal following the dodgy policies of BushCo’s anything goes attitude to holding absolute power and ponders that they are not above assassinating political rivals when smear tactics and legal battles fail

Reinventing Journalism as Lobbying

James Glassman and TCS have given birth to something quite new in Washington: journo-lobbying. It’s an innovation driven primarily by the influence industry. Lobbying firms that once specialized in gaining person-to-person access to key decision-makers have branched out. The new game is to dominate the entire intellectual environment in which officials make policy decisions, which means funding everything from think tanks to issue ads to phony grassroots pressure groups

Anti-Bush Iraq Documentary Makes the Party Circuit

In the midst of a film industry crackdown on digital movie piracy, filmmaker Robert Greenwald is urging rampant, unauthorised copying of his documentary criticising the Bush administration’s reasons for invading Iraq The 56-minute film, Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War, concludes that President Bush and his team distorted intelligence data and misled the American public ahead of the March invasion that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein

Canada Approves P2P Downloads

The Canadian Copyright Board has ruled that Canadians can legally download peer-to-peer music files, although uploading them is still illegal. So long as music is being recorded purely for personal use, and not being sold, rented, or otherwise disseminated to other people, its use is legal. It does not matter whether the source of the recording is a pre-owned track, a borrowed CD, or a track downloaded from the Internet, the board said. The combination of the latter two rules means that recording a CD for a friend is illegal, but handing the CD to the same friend and letting them make a copy for their own use is legal

Government to Put ASIO Above Public Interest

The ALP and Government combined in the last hours of parliamentary sitting for the year to ram through legislation to put ASIO above the public interest by giving it secret police powers. The legislation will make it an offence to discuss ASIO’s questioning of people, whether they are innocent or not, for two years after the interrogation occurs

Opposition Leader Urgently Required

The Fairfax run MyCareer site ran an amusing ad yesterday looking for an Opposition Leader: ‘The successful applicant for this excellent short-term executive position must be thick skinned, opinionated and willing to be stabbed in the back. Prior experience in this type of role, including head-kicking and some leadership skills an advantage, though not mandatory. This bright and energetic role model will receive a generous package that includes travel at taxpayer’s expense with the unlikely possibility of promotion in the near future. For immediate start, prefer debater with knack for circular arguments. Previous applicants will be considered.’ Mark Latham won and has immediately followed the tried and true Labor approach of toadying up to Howard