I Gotta Ask Why ?

Badmash

Link: Badmash.

The true voice behind the man....Andy Dick is a a master.  Move over Carl Rove, this is the true Puppet Master.

~Kris

Man Sadly Tries to Evacuate

What is this world coming to when a man can't simply evacuate a CAT 4 Hurricane by getting on his surf board and heading to sea.

Were the Police mad because:

1. He didn't have his passport and he would need it drifting to Mexico?
2. He had enough room to help other's evacuate but didn't offer?
3. He looked like he would pull a muscle due to being out of shape?

Video of the daring evacuation.....

~Kris

Rights Blowing In the Wind

Link: LawGeek: No First Amendment right to tell TSA screeners they live in a bubble.

If Only Hollywood Could Write This Good a Story

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/09/fema_cozies_up_with_.html

Mark Frauenfelder: FEMA is including Pat Robertson's charity group Operation Blessing on its list of charities accepting donations for victims of Katrina.

Robertson, the TV evangelist who recently called for the assassination of the President of Venezuela, also runs a controversial diamond mining company in Zaire.

In 1997 "two pilots came forward with the story ... that Operation Blessing's tax-exempt cargo planes were used almost exclusively for Roberton's diamond-mining operation, not for humanitarian purposes." (Read MS magazine article from 2003)

From today's tv and movie news digest on the IMDb:

Fema Promotes Robertson Charity; Ignores Secular Ones

Televangelist Pat Robertson's controversial charity group Operation Blessing stands to gain millions of dollars after being prominently included on a list of organizations accepting donations for hurricane relief, according to an article posted on the website of The Nation magazine. In fact, only two non-faith-based organizations were included in the FEMA list, one of which is the American Red Cross, which has been at odds with the Department of Homeland Security after being barred from attending to New Orleans holdouts who have refused to evacuate. The Nation pointed out that Operation USA, a prominent secular disaster-relief group, was omitted from the FEMA list. It described Operation Blessing as "a front for [Robertson's] shadowy financial schemes" and cited, among other things, an exposé in the Virginia Pilot alleging that Operation Blessing's planes had been used to transport diamond-mining equipment for a Robertson-owned venture in Zaire."

Link (thanks, Daniel!)

Is It Time For a New Cultural Revolution?

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/07/yahoo_rats_out_chine.html

Cory Doctorow: This is vile -- Yahoo Hong Kong turned over information to the Chinese government that led to the convinction and ten-year prison-sentence of a dissident journalist:

Reporters Without Borders said Yahoo's Hong Kong arm helped

China

link Shi Tao's e-mail account and computer to a message containing the information.

The media watchdog accused Yahoo of becoming a "police informant" in order to further its business ambitions...

Shi Tao, 37, worked for the Contemporary Business News in

Hunan

province, before he was arrested and sentenced in April to 10 years in prison...

"We already knew that Yahoo! collaborates enthusiastically with the Chinese regime in questions of censorship, and now we know it is a Chinese police informant as well," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.

Link (Thanks, John!)

Scary!!!!