Monday, June 28, 2004

Top O' The Week Brief FEATURED ARTICLES - Fahrenheit 9/11 is No. 1 at box office, Reuters - Professional Critics Nationwide Applaud Fahrenheit 9/11, PRNewswire - Report: CIA Halts Interrogation Tactics, Associated Press - Iraq's 'Sovereign' Government to Have Little Control Over Oil Money, The New Standard - Reality is unravelling for Bush, by Sidney Blumenthal, The Guardian QUOTE OF THE DAY "Katczinsky explains how wars should really be fought: I'll tell ya how it should all be done. Whenever there's a big war comin' on, you should rope off a big field (& sell tickets). Yeah, &, &, on the big day, you should take all the kings & their cabinets & their generals, put them in the center dressed in their underpants & let 'em fight it out with clubs. The best country wins." - - Erich Maria Remarque  (from "All Quiet on the Western Front") KNOW YOUR HISTORY - JUNE 1919 -- World War I ends. The Treaty of Versailles is signed ending the "War To End All Wars." http://www.filmsite.org/allq.html RHINO HERE: They called it "The War To End All Wars." Clever, but it didn't... end all wars that is.  Too bad, sez Rhino. But its 2 steps forward & 1 step back for the good guys at this time. As you may know, and can learn more about on today's Blog, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is booming at the box office and the critics are raving, the feds are shoveling damage control on their torture methods, the Valarie Plume investigation & Big Dick Cheney's foul mouthed temper. But don't think the shrub gang has forgotten what all their efforts have been about. They're busy leveraging all the war profits possible before the June 30 mock-changeover. Here's what you need to know for the Top O' The Week Brief."   Fahrenheit 9/11 is No. 1 at box office Michael Moore's controversial Bush-bashing film has strongest opening ever for a documentary. Reuters, June 27, 2004 Bush-bashing became the nation's favorite spectator sport over the weekend as Michael Moore's red-hot documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" earned more in its first three days of release across North America than his previous record-breaking movie did in its entire run... MORE: http://money.cnn.com/2004/06/27/news/box_office.reut/ Professional Critics Nationwide Applaud Fahrenheit 9/11 PRNewswire, June 25 , 2004 Rotten Tomatoes(SM), the most trusted source for gauging the critical reaction for movies, has officially declared Michael Moore's new documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 to be Certified Fresh, based on the overwhelmingly positive ratings of professional film critics nationwide. The high quality certification for a documentary is unprecedented. Fresh recognizes and celebrates the best reviewed entertainment products based on the opinions of nearly 700 professional film critics. Movies must receive the approval of at least 75% of the critics reviewing the film in order to be Certified Fresh. Since launching the accolade earlier this year, only seven wide release films have achieved the rating.  "This weekend Fahrenheit 9/11 becomes only the seventh wide release film to reach this pinnacle, and becomes the first wide-release documentary to be Certified Fresh by Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes congratulates Lion's Gate Entertainment and Michael Moore on this achievement," Patrick Lee, Rotten Tomatoes' CEO... AT: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040625/sff013_1.html Report: CIA Halts Interrogation Tactics Associated Press, June 27, 2004 The CIA has suspended use of some White House-approved aggressive interrogation tactics employed to extract information from reluctant al-Qaida prisoners, The Washington Post said. Citing unnamed intelligence officials, the newspaper reported in Sunday's editions that what the CIA calls "enhanced interrogation techniques" were put on hold pending a review by Justice Department and other lawyers. The techniques include such things as feigned drowning and refusal of pain medication for injuries. The paper quoted current and former CIA officers aware of the recent decision as saying the suspension reflects the agency's concern about being accused of unsanctioned and illegal activities, as it was in the 1970s. The decision applies to CIA facilities around the world, but not to military prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere, the Post said. A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the issue, it said... MORE: http://apnews.myway.com//article/20040627/D83FG4980.html Iraq's 'Sovereign' Government to Have Little Control Over Oil Money by Chris Shumway, The New Standard,  June 22, 2004 - A last minute spending spree by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and language in the UN Security Council resolution setting the conditions for Iraqi sovereignty appear likely to limit the interim government's ability to exercise meaningful control over the country's oil revenues. According to documents posted on its own web site, the CPA's little-known Program Review Board (PRB) has quietly committed billions of dollars in Iraq's oil revenues to new contracts that critics say will enrich US and British corporations while limiting the amount of revenue Iraq's new interim government will have at its disposal when it assumes authority from the CPA on June 30... Oil Money 6:57:35 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Reality is unravelling for Bush "SEND THIS ARTICLE TO A REPUBLICAN!" Reality is unravelling for Bush - Even negative attacks on Kerry no longer seem to be working by Sidney Blumenthal, The Guardian, June 24, 2004 At the Pentagon, on June 10, while business in Washington had officially halted as the body of Ronald Reagan lay in state, defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld convened an emergency meeting on the Abu Ghraib scandal, according to a reliable source privy to its proceedings. Rumsfeld began the extraordinary session by saying that certain documents needed to "get out" that would show that there was no policy approving of torture and that what had happened in Iraq and Afghanistan was aberrant. The Senate armed services committee had been conducting hearings whose corrosive impact needed to be countered. Rumsfeld complained about "serial requests" for information from Congress. Yet he was even more upset by subpoenas of defence officials issued by the special prosecutor in the case of Valerie Plame. The Pentagon, Rumsfeld said, was nearly "at a stop" because of them. Rumsfeld admitted he was startled by the uproar over Abu Ghraib: "There are so many international organisations." On June 22, the White House released documents on policy on torture, including a directive signed on February 7 2002 by Bush stating that he has "the authority under the constitution" to abrogate the Geneva conventions, that the Taliban and al-Qaida as non-signatories were not covered by them, and that consequently Bush "declines to exercise that authority at this time". Rumsfeld's damage control was simply one front in the expanding Bush administration war for credibility... MORE AT: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1245877,00.html "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:34:45 AM    comment

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