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Wijitmaker

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    Arab Tv: Jews Ate Christian's Blood

    in Hall of Intellectuals

    Posted

    http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=35712

    Arab TV: Jews ate

    Christian's blood

    Syrian-produced prime-time show airs anti-Semitic libel

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Posted: November 20, 2003

    1:00 a.m. Eastern

    © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

    In a reassertion of the age-old anti-Semitic blood libel, a Syrian-produced television program depicted Jews murdering a Christian boy to drain his blood for use in the special bread eaten at the Jewish Passover feast.

    Editor's note: View video here.

    http://lb.wnd.com/

    Warning: Graphic footage.

    The program, which aired Tuesday on Hezbollah TV, was an episode in a series called "The Diaspora," which purports to tell the story of the Zionist movement, said Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch.

    http://www.pmw.org.il/

    The series is based on a century-old hoax known as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," purported to be the minutes of an 1897 meeting of Jewish leaders plotting to take over the world.

    Among the assertions is that Zionist Jews rule the world with sophisticated plots, including causing the communist revolution in Russia and directing World War I. The Jews are described as greedy and bloodthirsty, interested only in power and world domination from the land of Israel, referred to in the program as "Palestine."

    The charge that Jews use human blood in baking arose in 1840, when the Damascus Jewish community was accused of murdering a priest and his assistant to obtain their blood for making Passover matzo, or unleavened bread.

    In September 2002, a columnist from the state-controlled Saudi newspaper Al-Jazirah claimed Jews use human blood in baked goods when preparing for holiday celebrations.

    http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=28990

    Earlier that year, a Saudi government-approved newspaper published a column asserting Jews use the blood of teenagers to make a special pastry associated with the March holiday of Purim.

    http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=26802

    Fcc Oks Bono's F-word Slip

    in Hall of Intellectuals

    Posted

    FCC OKs Bono's F-Word Slip

    WASHINGTON, Oct. 7,2003

    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/17/...ain573729.shtml

    (AP) When it comes to cursing, the government says, it's all in the delivery.

    That's the view of the Federal Communications Commission in its decision that U2 singer Bono's colorful language during the Golden Globe Awards didn't violate federal indecency rules.

    The FCC rejected complaints from the Parents Television Council and more than 200 people, most of them associated with the council, who accused dozens of television stations of violating restrictions on obscene broadcasts by airing portions of the awards program last January.

    The complaints objected to Bono's uttering the phrase "this is really, really, f------ brilliant."

    The FCC, using the F-word more often to explain its decision than Bono did on the air, said the word "may be crude and offensive, but, in the context presented here, did not describe sexual or excretory organs or activities." That distinction is a key test to measure whether a statement meets a federal standard for broadcast indecency.

    David Solomon, chief of the FCC's enforcement bureau, said in the ruling that Bono used the vulgarity as an adjective or to emphasize an exclamation and that "the use of specific words, including expletives or other 'four-letter words' does not render material obscene."

    The Parents Television Council, a Los Angeles-based watchdog group, said Tuesday it would appeal the decision and the FCC is "splitting hairs."

    "It's not shocking to us on the FCC decision because they're a toothless lion," said Lara Mahaney, director of corporate and entertainment affairs for the council. "They don't take indecency seriously and that's why you see it proliferating on the broadcast airwaves."

    The FCC rejected the complaints on Friday and announced the decision this week.

    "We have previously found that fleeting and isolated remarks of this nature do not warrant commission action," Solomon said.

    Additional:

    Link to the official press release by the FCC:

    http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/atta...A-03-3045A1.doc

    Excerpt:

    B.  Obscenity Analysis

    6. To be obscene, material must meet a three-prong test:  (1) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (2) the material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and (3) the material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. Applying that test, we find that the material broadcast during the “Golden Globe Awards” program was not obscene.  The use of specific words, including expletives or other “four letter words” does not render material obscene. Moreover, the complained-of material does not depict or describe sexual conduct and thus does not meet the obscenity standard under Miller v. California. Because the broadcast does not meet the obscenity standard under Miller, we deny the complaints alleging that the broadcast was obscene. 

  10. ETH Poll #3 - Next-Generation Consoles

    in Introductions & Off-Topic Discussion

    Posted

    lol Elf :P

    Sorry, but I'm in the mood to argue and this is one topic where I won't offend anyone politically or religiously :P

    GC, $99 with no hard drive, four controller ports, can't play DVD at all.

    I guess I have a different outlook because I'm what you would call an 'old' console player. I remember specifically the day we got our old 8bit nintendo. It was only $100 back then too. The only thing thats changed is the cost of the games. That has more to do with the game developers though than the makers of the consoles.

    I think the whole dvd deal is way over rated. Last Christmas my brothers and I bought a dvd player for $100 on a great sale that so many more features than xbox's dvd player its laughable. I view it like the 'onboard' equipment on computer motherboards. I'd rather have things seperate and good than together and bad :P

    GC has no online capabilties.

    Yeah, again... I'm a old gamer and I'm probably not grasping this for the future of console gamming. Not really a big feature for me because if I wanted to play online I would rather play an online computer game than console. They are designed much better for this IMHO.

    So basically, GC is cheaper, but then a GBA must be much better than a GC since it's cheaper.

    GBA is more expensive because its portable, and you can stick it in your pocket. And they also have a monopoly on the market.

    2.) Well, I personally hate the gamecube controllers so that can't be argued.

    I don't know one person who sat down with an xbox controler for the first time and says, "I love this controler." Xbox controlers are something that you get used to.

    I really don't care for the GC controlers either. IMHO the N64 controlers were the best. Xbox small controler isn't to bad.

    Here is what I'm looking for in a console:

    1) Good graphics.

    2) Reliable - no crashes.

    3) Minimal loading time as possible. *loved cartridge games*

    4) Easy to just plug in a game and sit down with my buds and play a game.

    5) Cheap

    6) Don't want to pay for a feature I won't use - or could do better using other electronics

    7) Good selection of game titles

    For me... thats Game Cube ;)

    Relations Sour Between Journalists And U.s. Troops

    in Hall of Intellectuals

    Posted

    By Slobodan Lekic

    ASSOCIATED PRESS

    3:35 p.m. November 12, 2003

    http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/i...iatroubles.html

    BAGHDAD, Iraq – With casualties mounting in Iraq, jumpy U.S. soldiers are becoming more aggressive in their treatment of journalists covering the conflict.

    Media people have been detained, news equipment has been confiscated and some journalists have suffered verbal and physical abuse while trying to report on events.

    Although the number of incidents involving soldiers and journalists is difficult to gauge, anecdotal evidence suggests it has risen sharply the past two months.

    The president of the Associated Press Managing Editors, an association of editors at AP's more than 1,700 newspapers in the United States and Canada, sent a protest leader to the Pentagon on Wednesday urging officials to "immediately take the steps to end such confrontations."

    "The effect has been to deprive the American public of crucial images from Iraq in newspapers, broadcast stations and online news operations," wrote Stuart Wilk, managing editor of The Dallas Morning News.

    In October, the Belgium-based International Federation of Journalists, which includes unions representing 500,000 journalists in more than 100 countries, complained of increased harassment of reporters, including beatings of some, since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.

    "Guidance has been passed to units throughout the coalition explicitly stating that reporters are not to be interfered with or cameras and films seized," said Maj. William Thurmond at the Coalition Press and Information Center.

    "Does that take place all the time? No." Thurmond said. "We are aware that individual soldiers have not followed those instructions."

    In Washington, representatives of 30 media organizations wrote to the Pentagon expressing their dismay about the harassment of journalists in Iraq. In a letter to Larry Di Rita, acting assistant secretary of defense, the Washington bureau chiefs pointed out that the Pentagon's own guidance to troops says "media products will not be confiscated or otherwise impounded."

    The military command says it's working to cut down on incidents by issuing credentials and badges to journalists. This system worked well with embedded reporters during the war, when confrontations were almost unheard of.

    But as coalition forces come under increasing pressure from guerrilla attacks – 37 American soldiers have died so far in November – signs of stress are evident.

    A number of journalists, particularly Iraqis and other Arabs working for foreign media organizations, say they are now routinely threatened at gunpoint if they try to film the aftermath of guerrilla attacks. Some have been arrested and held for short periods.

    Sami Awad, a Lebanese cameraman working as a freelancer for a German TV network, said that when his crew tried to check out a report Friday about hand grenades being thrown at a U.S. patrol in Baghdad, they encountered a roadblock at which soldiers told him to go ahead and film.

    But as the crew proceeded down the street, more soldiers appeared, threw them to the ground and pointed their weapons at their heads, Awad said.

    "They checked our identity badges and then let us go, saying they thought we were with Al-Jazeera," he said. "Each group of soldiers acts on its own, and most of them are very scared and inexperienced."

    Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based television network, has repeatedly been accused by U.S. officials of biased reporting, charges the station denies.

    Two weeks ago, coalition troops detained two Al-Jazeera staffers covering an explosion at a police station in western Baghdad on allegations they had prior knowledge of the car bombing. Al-Jazeera dismissed the charges as ridiculous, and the men were later freed.

    A TV news producer in Baghdad for a major U.S. television network said his crews had been threatened at least 10 times in recent weeks with confiscation of their equipment. He asked not to be quoted by name because of his company's policy against giving interviews to other media.

    Journalists have been shot at several times by U.S. troops, including an incident in August in which Reuters television cameraman Mazen Dana was killed while videotaping near a U.S.-run prison on the outskirts of Baghdad following a mortar attack.

    The military later said the troops had mistaken Dana's camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. An investigation concluded the soldiers "acted within the rules of engagement," although the U.S. Army has never publicly announced those rules, citing security reasons.

    In September, U.S. soldiers shot up the car of an Associated Press photographer in Khaldiyah after an American convoy was hit with a roadside bomb. The photographer, Karim Kadim, and his Iraqi driver jumped from the car and ran for cover when they saw a tank aim at them. They were shot at with a machine gun as they ran and the car was badly damaged. Neither man was hurt.

    In the same incident, a U.S. tank's .50-caliber machine gun fired at AP correspondent Tarek al-Issawi as he viewed the scene from a nearby rooftop. He also escaped injury.

    AP filed a protest and U.S. commanders promised to investigate, but no information on the results of the probe has been received.

    After a series of missile and rocket attacks in recent weeks on the so-called "Green Zone" in central Baghdad that houses the U.S.-led occupation administration, security precautions there have been tightened to unprecedented levels.

    As a result, journalists invited to cover news conferences at the press center are now required to arrive 90 minutes early to be frisked and have their equipment checked by sniffer dogs. But guards can announce without warning that the building is closed, blocking those still waiting in line outside from entering.

    "If you don't like the way the military works, I can't help you," Capt. William Pickett told a group of reporters left standing outside the gate after being invited to cover a briefing Monday with Australia's defense minister, Robert Hill.

  19. Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?

    in Introductions & Off-Topic Discussion

    Posted

    Fox Mulder:

    You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many chickens have to cross the road before you believe it?

    Moses:

    And God came down from the heavens, and he said unto the Chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the Chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

    Richard M. Nixon:

    The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did not cross the road.

    Jerry Seinfeld:

    Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, "What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place anyway?"

    Louis Farrakhan:

    The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken crossed the "black man" in order to trample him and keep him down.

    Freud:

    The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

    Bill Gates:

    I have just released the new Chicken Office 2000, which will not only cross roads, but it will lay eggs, file your important documents AND balance your checkbook. Unfortunately, when it divides 3 by 2 it gets 1.4999999999.

    Oliver Stone:

    The question is not "Why did the chicken cross the road?"But is rather "Who was crossing the road at the same time, whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?"

    Darwin:

    Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically dispositioned to cross roads.

    Martin Luther King, Jr.:

    I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

    Grandpa:

    In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken had crossed the road, and that was good enough for us.

    Machiavelli:

    The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was.

    Albert Einstein:

    Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

    Buddha:

    Asking this question denies your own chicken nature.

    Ralph Waldo Emerson:

    The chicken did not cross the road—it transcended it.

    Ernest Hemingway:

    To die. In the rain.

    Colonel Harlan Sanders:

    I missed one? :P

  21. Addiction 101

    in Introductions & Off-Topic Discussion

    Posted

    I have only known one guy who quit smoking cold turkey. He had headaches for a week, and he gained allot of weight. But, after a few weeks he was really happy with what he did and was quite proud of himself.

    Rich, I think it would help if you could find someone around you to hold you accountable. I don't know if those patches or gum work, but maybe that might be something to try?

    I don't think your week willed... your just human. Humans have a tendancy to give into their basest of base urges. Your not the only one who stuggles, we all do with some sort of addiction or another.

    But, yeah I'd try to find someone you could ask to keep you accountable as you try to kick the habbit.

    Foreign-born Populations Surges In U.s.

    in Hall of Intellectuals

    Posted

    Foreign-Born Populations Surges in U.S.

    By GENARO C. ARMAS

    Associated Press Writer

    November 6, 2003, 6:09 PM EST

    http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wi...world-headlines

    WASHINGTON -- The U.S. foreign-born population surged by 1 million in the year ending in March, according to a report released Thursday, evidence the sluggish economy and stepped-up government enforcement of immigration laws after the 2001 terror attacks did not lead to a long-term slowdown in the influx of immigrants.

    The 3 percent rise in the foreign-born population came after an increase of 2 percent, or 700,000, the previous year, according to the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies. During the explosive growth of the 1990s, the foreign-born population grew at a pace of about 1.3 million a year.

    "For prospective immigrants, being unemployed or having to rely on the government or relatives in this country for support is still often better than life in the home country," said the report's author, Steve Camarota, whose group favors tighter immigration restrictions.

    Camarota estimated that roughly half of the new arrivals the past year likely entered the country illegally, a rate similar to previous years.

    Nestor Rodriguez, co-director of the Center for Immigration Research at the University of Houston, said even a struggling U.S. economy is better than the economies of the countries many leave behind.

    "Unless it's like a huge depression, the business cycles of ups and downs we see doesn't seem to have a big impact," he said.

    The Center for Immigration Studies used Census Bureau data to calculate that the total foreign-born population in March was a record 33.5 million, roughly 12 percent of the U.S. population. Mexico was the country of origin for the most people, nearly 10 million.

    Camarota found that unemployment rates increased for foreign-born and native-born residents between 2000 and 2003. However, while the number of employed native-born residents decreased, the number of working foreign-born residents increased, a trend especially evident among less-educated workers.

    "Does that imply that they are displacing natives and the immigrants already here? There's that concern," he said.

    Eric Rodriguez, director of the Economic Mobility Project for the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group, said that reasoning doesn't account for variations by regions and sectors.

    In many cases lower-skilled immigrant workers are taking jobs that aren't desirable to others, he said. Immigrant workers have filled openings at farms, meatpacking and textile plants and in the service industry.

    Rodriguez pointed to the recent arrests of 250 illegal immigrants working at Wal-Mart stores as an example. Most of the illegal workers were employed by cleaning companies and not Wal-Mart itself.

    "Anyone associated with those jobs will tell you that not a lot of native-born folks want those jobs," he said.

    Camarota's report estimated that 2 million of the 4.5 million new immigrants since the spring of 2000 entered illegally, raising that population to at least 8.5 million. About one-third of the legal and illegal immigrants who entered since 2000 arrived from Mexico.

    The Census Bureau doesn't ask if a person is in the United States illegally. The last government estimate of the undocumented population, released in January, placed the number at 7 million in 2000, most of them Mexican.

    Mario Villarreal, spokesman for the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, said the border has become better protected in recent years because of increased visibility of law enforcement, cooperation with Mexico to warn would-be crossers, and the creation of the Homeland Security Department.

    But the government must further step up patrols and crack down on businesses that employ undocumented immigrants to stem the illegal flow, Camarota said.

    Angela Kelley, deputy director of the Washington-based National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant group, said the current immigration system needs fixing to legalize more taxpaying undocumented workers filling low-skilled jobs.

    Her group supports a more tightly regulated and enforceable system, but better legal channels and an expanded number of visas available for undocumented workers.

    The Census Bureau declined to comment on the report.

  25. New Website Theme - Brown

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    brownstyle.jpg

    Ug.. I fought this all afternoon. :wall: I think I have something that I'm halfway happy with. But, not totally sold on it (probably cause I'm color blind). After Jeru, mentioned it was green, I had to go back and change all my colors. Hopefully its better now. In case you didn't notice last time - that theme wasn't just tan, but had the 'persian' flare to it. However, this one is Celtic.

    Once again if you want to view it, you much register and then edit your profile by following this link:

    http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/profile.php?m...ode=editprofile

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