One Canuck's Radio Weblog

  Monday, 20 September 2004

.< 9:56:05 PM >
Iraq War Foes Focus on Alternative Agenda to Bush

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - On the eve of President Bush's address to the United Nations, domestic and foreign critics of his Iraq war policy focused on a radically different international agenda on Monday. [Reuters: World] 'Dozens of leaders from countries that mostly opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, including President Jacques Chirac of France, attended a conference at U.N. headquarters on how to combat the dark side of globalization by fighting poverty.

"How many more times will it be necessary to repeat that the most destructive weapon of mass destruction in the world today is poverty?" Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva asked the assembled leaders.'

< 9:50:19 PM >

< 9:49:49 PM >

To celebrate 30 years of helping local directors translate their ideas onto the big screen, the Atlantic Filmmakers Co-operative will screen a compilation of original short films by 10 of its most successful members Monday. FULL STORY [CBC Arts News]

< 9:37:13 PM >

eWEEK: Canada Sizes Up VOIP Regulation. CRTC chairman Charles Dalfen said in an April public notice that VOIP should be treated like any other local phone service, meaning that those incumbents in a position to bundle VOIP with broadband would have to file tariffs and wait for CRTC approval. New entrants, however, would be free of such regulation. [Tomalak's Realm]

< 9:27:45 PM >

The Republican National Committee (RNC)'s public relations firm, Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, sent a memo to conservative media outlets instructing them not to give airtime to Kitty Kelley, author of The Family: The Real Story Of the Bush Dynasty (Doubleday, September 14). And according toThe Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, White House communications director Dan Bartlett also discouraged news outlets from covering the book. [Media Matters for America]

< 9:25:03 PM >

Five new national polls give two very different pictures of the presidential race. Three polls show an extremely close race; two show sizable Bush leads. While some members of the media have pointed out potential methodological reasons for this disparity, one clear explanation has gone largely unreported: both polls that show President George W. Bush with a strong lead oversampled Republicans.

< 9:15:50 PM >

When the original Star Wars trilogy comes out on DVD tomorrow, many fans will notice image clarity unsurpassed by any previous home video release of the enormously popular movies. Such pristine images are the result of four years of work by Lowry Digital, the company that digitally cleaned up recent DVD releases of Snow White, Citizen Kane and the Indiana Jones trilogy. An article recently posted on the official Star Wars Web site describes how Lowry put 600 dual processor Power Mac G5 computers to work scrubbing every frame of the films, removing dirt, deterioration and other damage and ending up with transfers "nearly as good as the director and cinematographer were seeing when they shot the movie," according to company owner John Lowry. Read the article to learn more. [MacCentral]

< 9:01:22 PM >

[Andy Rooney] said his friend wants people to declare their political intentions so everyone knows how they're going to vote. So people who are going to vote for Kerry should drive with their headlights on during the day and (can you see it coming now) people who are going to vote for Bush should drive with their headlights off at night. ";->" [Scripting News]

< 8:27:17 PM >

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - More than 550 people are dead in Haiti from flooding and mudslides triggered by Tropical Storm Jeanne and aid workers said half of the northern coastal city of Gonaives was still underwater on Monday. [Reuters: World]

< 8:25:38 PM >

US presidential candidate John Kerry launches his most outspoken attack on President Bush over the Iraq war. [BBC News | World | UK Edition] 'Mr Kerry said the president's decision to go to war had distracted from a greater threat to the US - more terrorist attacks - and created a crisis which could lead to an unending war.

"Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and the battle against our greatest enemy, Osama Bin Laden and the terrorists," he said in his speech delivered at New York University.

"Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions and, if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight.

"Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. That was not a reason to go to war. We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."'

< 8:17:35 PM >

World dispatch: Iraq has taken a bitter toll on relations between Europe and the US, writes Ian Black. [Guardian Unlimited] 'The terrorism George Bush vowed to eradicate after the 9/11 attacks seems more virulent and widespread. Indeed, it has taken root where it did not exist before: in Iraq itself.

Jacques Chirac, the French president and leader of Europe's anti-war camp, made no bones about his views when he declared that the US-led invasion of Iraq and toppling of Saddam Hussein had opened up a "Pandora's box which none of us can shut".' [snip]
"Is the world today safer than before the overthrow of the appalling Saddam?" Patten asked in the European parliament last week. "Is global terrorism in retreat? Are we closer to building bridges between Islam and the west? Is the world's only super-power more widely respected? Have the citizens in our democracies been treated in a way that will encourage them to give governments the benefit of the doubt next time they are told that force needs to be used pre-emptively to deal with an imminent threat? I simply pose the questions. The answers are well known."'

< 12:02:38 AM >

Comment: Since 9/11, America has used its victimhood to demand a monopoly on the right to feel and to inflict pain, writes Gary Younge. [Guardian Unlimited] 'When 3,000 people died on September 11, Le Monde declared: "We are all Americans now." Around 12,000 civilians have died in Iraq since the beginning of the war, yet one waits in vain for anyone to declare that we have all become Iraqis, or Afghans, let alone Palestinians. This is not a competition. Sadly, there are enough victims to go around. Sadder still, if the US continues on its present path, there will be many more. Demanding a monopoly on the right to feel and to inflict pain simply inverts victimhood's regular contradiction - the Bush administration displays material strength and moral weakness.'