:: Monday, March 31, 2003 ::

Excellent article outlining a European perspective on American ultra-right conservatism.
The capture of universities by the rich and the lack of education for the poor has meant that social mobility in the US has collapsed. American capitalism, in thrall to the stock market and quick bucks it offers, has
hollowed out its great corporations in the name of the hallowed conservative conception of share-holder value - the sole purpose of a company is to enrich its owners. Productivity and social mobility are now higher in Old Europe than in the US - despite a tidal wave of propaganda to the contrary. Ordinary Americans are beset by risks and lack of opportunity in a land of extraordinary inequality.
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www.iusedtobelieve.com - Things that you believed to be true when you were a small child. Courtesy of the netfreak alert.
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A few days back I made the claim that I was going to eat a Tastykake French Apple Pie every day until the 'Give-Me-Freedom-and-Give-Me-Fries-With-That' movement relented. That wasn't idle lipservice - I was really going to follow through. However, today I learned that the Wawa here in University City stopped carrying them. Hey- I went down swingin', France (unlike your boxer Morrade Hakkar this weekend against Bernard Hopkins)
"Hopkins landed every punch known to man, Hakkar spent enough time on the canvas to qualify as a rug impersonator"
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["I have seen the enemy... and he is us!"] With the war in full swing, there's only one side that can be 100% proven to be manufacturing and stockpiling chemical weapons, and that's the U.S.A. Check out this handy map to see how many thousands of tons of skin-devouring blistering agent, deadly nerve agent, totally unsporting chemical mines, and spray cartridges that your tax dollars are buying to stockpile in your state! Check out the most dangerous double-standard in the history of civilization. (I know it seems like a lot, after all - how many tens of thousands of tons of good ole made-in-the-U.S.A chemical and biological agent does it take to wipe out 'evil', right? Think before you mouth off: "moral clarity" don't come cheap, brother!) This doesn't even touch nuclear weapons, which are apparently also something only America is allowed to own.

Above quote by Walt Kelly's Pogo. Interestingly enough, it seemed to be more acceptable in McCarthy's 50's through Nixon's 70's for mainstream media to satirize and question bad or nonexistent public leadership.
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Donald Rumsfeld, an expert in putting people other than himself in harm's way, (NYTimes) unflinchingly defends his war plan, apparently citing its approval from numerous bobble-headed yes-men, fellow warmonger cheerleaders, and his own reflection in the mirror. What were your readers looking at, Don? The groovy cover, or the stack of purchase orders slated for the private advisors' defense contractor associations tucked under the title page?
"It has been approved by everyone who's had a look at it," he said before one television appearance. "It's been described as an excellent plan.

The Pentagon begs to differ on Rumsy's rosy picture of the mishandled oil-op.
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In 'Clearing the Air', Richard Perle (a.k.a. the 'Prince of Darkness') writes a defense of his position that sounds rather more like an advertisement for himself and his services.
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Great sites dedicated to 60's 'Supermariontronics' shows Captain Scarlet and the Thunderbirds (both 100% Flash navs.)
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More French madness. I can't say I'm head-over-heels about the French. I used to work for a French company, and they never kept their disdain for Americans a secret. I've heard everything from the typical arrogant insults to outright paranoid anti-American rants (e.g. the CIA is trying to steal the company's secrets). I just didn't understand it. I never had any problem with any of them. In fact, most of the people who didn't immediately distrust me because of my citizenship were really decent folks. In the U.S., this imbicilic jingoistic crusade that the mouthbreather isolationist/patriotic contingency has gotten themselves wrapped up in is really starting to reek of bona fide fascism, and frankly, its getting embarrassing. Now (and here's proof that I'm not making this up) French's mustard feels compelled to publicly dissociate themselves from their brand name Stop. Please. Just stop. Yer killin' me over here. Who are these people that think 'Freedom Fries' and 'Freedom Toast' are a clever bon mot? Where?! I want to see one. What other witty barbs do they have? In protest, I'm going to eat a Tastykake French Apple Pie every day until this idiocy stops.
(I wonder if anybody has started a letter-writing campaign to Franco-American Spagetti-O's. They're clearly Anti-American enemy sympathizers)
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Don't miss GMT+9's Avant Garde Czech photography links compilation today!
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DIY: How to build a microphone for $4.

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Rebuilding contracts awarded for Iraq. In a sickeningly brazen display of fat, backroom-dealing, corrupt hubris, Cheney's old cronies at Halliburton, Co. are early winners of the Republican destruction sweepstakes. Is somebody making this up? This can't be real. Where are the Democrats in all of this? At the buffet table?
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[More independent art under attack] This 'terrorist' branding bullshit has gotten out of hand. The band Godspeed You Black Emperor was detained and held for questioning as suspected terrorists. They're Canadian. Their music is instrumental. They have a cellist. How couldn't they be terrorists, you ask? Please support them for the disturbing treatment they've been submitted to as guests in the U.S. and pick up one of their fantastic records (I personally recommend 'Lift Your skinny fists..'). You can also check them out on tour, but their shows sell out extremely quickly. They also have a new song, "Albanian", available for download on their official website. Check these guys out before the regime declares their music illegal. Their sound is somehow perfect for our times.
"I just feel very lucky that we weren't Pakistani or Korean," Godspeed You! Black Emperor frontman Efrim Menuck told Pitchfork at the band's Chicago performance on Friday night. "They detained 1,000 people in California, no one knows what happened to them. We're just lucky we're nice white kids from Canada.
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This disturbing, neofascist event is sponsored by Clear Channel Communications, Inc.
In a modern-day bookburning, these corporate-sponsored rallies gather 'patriots' to smash Dixie Chicks CDs. Picking on an innocuous female pop-country trio for questioning the intentions of an unelected imbecile is now "Patriotic". I got that right, didn't I? Is that right?? How much do you want to bet that some fawning Republican yes-man somewhere has called these ladies 'terrorists' already. I guarantee it's happened.
The vice chairman of Clear Channel is Tom Hicks, whose name may be familiar to readers of this column. When Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, Mr. Hicks was chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Company, called Utimco, and Clear Channel's chairman, Lowry Mays, was on its board. Under Mr. Hicks, Utimco placed much of the university's endowment under the management of companies with strong Republican Party or Bush family ties. In 1998 Mr. Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers in a deal that made Mr. Bush a multimillionaire.
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Major Label Contract Critique courtesy of the Future of Music Coalition
We’ve all heard the stories criticizing major record label contracts. Anecdotally we understand that many of the deals signed by artists are bad, but what does “bad” mean and just how bad are these deals? This document quotes ACTUAL contract language from ACTUAL record label contracts, then translated into PLAIN ENGLISH and paired them with easy-to-understand critiques. We hope that even those who are completely unfamiliar with the music business can understand the implications that result from signing a standard major label deal.
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[Charlie, you're getting a Dell!] Computerized tuna.
Scientists are embedding computers in yellowfin tuna to study their behaviour as tuna populations worldwide decrease.
At a cost of $1,500 each, the computers in the tunas can record up to five years of information about a tuna's life.
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Congrats to Michael Moore for his clearly articulated speech that neatly sums up Bush's illegitmate fiasco in Iraq. His blunt appraisal only highlights the mass media's abject cowardice in their failure to accurately report what a majority of the world feels about the Bush administration's warmongering ideologies.
"We live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man who's sending us to war for fictitious reasons, whether it's the fiction of duct tape or the fiction of orange alerts," Moore said.
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[Coming invasion of the international carpetbagger force] Details of BushCo's oil war are emerging which indicate that the U.S. is going to run Iraq (NYTimes) after the war.
Even before American troops reach Baghdad, administration officials are assembling a team of civilian officials, largely retired American diplomats, to run Iraq as soon as the fighting is over.
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There's a neat kids toy called the Wild Planet Radio DJ, which lets kids run a radio station (AM 1610) with transmissions up to 30 feet. It's got a built-in tape player, mic, and cute 'On Air' light, and it runs around 20 bucks. Of course there's also a hack that tells older, soldering gun-slinging, schematic-reading kids how to mod it to broadcast independent radio up to a mile. For anyone living in prime broadcasting space, say midtown Manhattan, this would be a great countermeasure to the dastardly, ultraconservative ClearChannel company, who is apparently now sponsoring pro-death rallies in their major markets. It looks like unsanctioned 'pirate' radio is shaping up to be the only viable outlet for uncorrupted radio communication. Anyway, I hope that at least a few kids are plunking down thier $20 for the WPRDJ with an eye toward positive, conscientious 'hacking' rather than emulating the idiotic neofascist, right-wing garbage thats filling the airwaves thanks to monopolies like Clear Channel Communications, Inc.

Clear Channel is by far the largest owner of radio stations in the nation. The company owned only 43 in 1995, but when Congress removed many of the ownership limits in 1996, Clear Channel was quickly on the highway to radio dominance. The company owns and operates 1,233 radio stations (including six in Chicago) and claims 100 million listeners. Clear Channel generated about 20 percent of the radio industry's $16 billion in 2001 revenues.
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The can-struction of famous buildings. The world's finest examples of architecture modelled using beer and soda cans. Get it?! CAN-struction!?
Coke cans have been used for most of the model, red being therefore the dominant shade, even though the colour of some of the cans has slightly faded because of the long exposure to the sun and bad weather (can collectors know very well that problem...). Other colours too have been skilfully added for special details: silver (simply the cans' bottoms!) for the dome's rims and most details in relief, blue/green (Sprite cans, of course) for the doors and windows, and a mixture of colours (beer and different soft drink cans) for the column capitels, and the pavement in front of the church.
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Get Your War On #22
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Are you a protestor who lives in Oregon? Republicans from that state are calling you a terrorist.
(1) A person commits the crime of terrorism if the person knowingly plans, participates in or carries out any act that is intended, by at least one of its participants, to disrupt:
(a) The free and orderly assembly of the inhabitants of the State of Oregon;
(b) Commerce or the transportation systems of the State of Oregon; or
(c) The educational of governmental institutions of the State of Oregon or its inhabitants.
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The philosophical roots of Islamic terrorism. (NYTimes)
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When did the Small Faces release "All or Nothing" in England? Check out The 1960s British Rock and Popular Music for this and every other 60's britpop release you'd want to know about. (August 6, '66)
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Surfmobile models: Woodies n' Wagons from around the globe.
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Support the Dixie Chicks.
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Blind dating. New Yorkers seek soulmates in total darkness. Waiters wear night vision goggles.
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Protesters nationwide stop business as usual. Info is here for taking part of the massive rally to be held THIS SATURDAY, March 23, In NYC.

Join United for Peace & Justice NYC on Saturday, 3/22, for a massive, spirited, peaceful march against war with Iraq! Show the world that New York City wants peace -- we won't let the Bush Administration use the attacks of 9/11 to justify an unprovoked and indefensible war.

We are marching not only for peace but also for democracy. The Bush Administration scorns world public opinion while gutting civil rights and civil liberties at home. Here in New York City, we have had to wage a protracted fight to have our basic right to march recognized. We are heartened that the NYPD has finally granted us a march permit -- but the length and difficulty of the process reflect an ominous attempt to restrict dissent.
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BushCo's war on America is starting to get ugly. According to this, a red-alert means house arrest for everyone. Bush isn't just damaging to people who need to work for a living (almost 3 million have been canned since this imbecile took office). He doesn't just want your job, he wants your basic human rights.
"The reason being is, what we're saying is, 'Everybody sit down!' "If you are left standing, you are probably a terrorist. And if you are not law enforcement or emergency response; That's how we're going to catch you. "You're not going to have a seat to go to. "That is the basic premise of it."
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But I would also like to remind the member countries of the United Nations, and especially those who make up the Security Council, that the use of force represents the last recourse, after having exhausted every other peaceful solution, in keeping with the well-known principles of the UN Charter.

That is why, in the face of the tremendous consequences that an international military operation would have for the population of Iraq and for the balance of the Middle East region, already sorely tried, and for the extremisms that could stem from it, I say to all: There is still time to negotiate; there is still room for peace, it is never too late to come to an understanding and to continue discussions.

-- Pope John Paul II
Sunday, 16 March 2003
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A link to this great site came in my inbox today. Californiacoastline.org lets you visually browse the west coast from Oregon to Mexico via beautiful arial photographs of the coast.
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And the "No shit!" award goes to... Ari Fleischer! (This one is a close runner up)
``He's essentially blaming President Bush for the fact that we may be on the verge of war,'' Fleischer told reporters. (NYTimes)

Puppethead apparently never considered that a majority of the sentient beings on earth feel the same way.

Email Sen. Tom Daschle to congratulate him for his honest, blunt appraisal of the illegitimate Bush regime's horrifying warmongering tactics.
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Resignation speech of British ex Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.
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One step closer to photonic ink.
Previous prototype electronic inks have had just two modes, usually black and white. P-Ink can turn any tint of the rainbow. And although flexible screens already exist, these are patterned with pixels of red, blue and green light that mix to give an impression of other colours.
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Remember that Cheers where Cliff Clavin had a potato in the shape of Nixon's head? (it was one of those bad "Carla" episodes) Well, a woman now has an aubergine thats seeds spell Allah.
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Modelling mathematical surfaces with a link to the coolest Klein bottle you've ever seen.
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Is Iraq the opening salvo in a war to remake the world?
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Bush snubs press-corps traditions in briefings.
Bush's slaps at Thomas are consistent with the psy-ops his information wranglers conduct day-in and day-out on the White House press corps. Bush's news conferences have become increasingly scripted, with the president calling on reporters from a preset list and refusing the follow-up questions that might trick him into saying something substantive. Press Secretary Ari Fleischer has lobotomized the White House press corps in official briefings by jawing more and more and saying less and less. (The smarter reporters play hooky these days rather than endure Fleischer obfuscations.)
I wouldn't call that "smarter". I'd call that sheep-like denial over a situation that's gotten out of hand.
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As companies face tough choices during our prolonged economic recession, Matching 401K programs are getting eliminated (NYTimes). With an aging population and too little retirement saving occuring anyway, the effects of this may be drastic and far-reaching.
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College students getting 33 Months in a Federal Penetentiary for music file sharing? That's what John Carter (R, TX) wants.
Proponents of harsh measures such as these equate file sharing with terrorism (which, if this disturbing trend continues, will strip the word "terrorism" of all meaning whatsoever). They say that the organized crime rings that sponsor file sharing are extremely profitable and use terror to stop anyone who gets in their way. How exactly is file sharing profitable for the sponsors? I know that Enron's scams were quite profitable for their executive sponsors, to the tune of 45 Million dollar bonuses when the company was going under, but I don't remember any judge handing down a 33-month sentence to Ken Lay, or him being called a terrorist, for that matter.
"I think it'd be a good idea to go out and actually bust a couple of these college kids," Carter said. "If you want to see college kids duck and run, you let them read the papers and somebody's got a 33-month sentence in the federal penitentiary for downloading copyrighted materials."
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A sign of a true leader, or the pinnacle of political phoniness? George Bush won't speak without a guarantee of a standing ovation. What the hell?!
"I believe it would be a crucial speech for Mr Bush to make in light of the opposition here to war. But unless he only gets adulation and praise, then it will never happen."
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As I heard the news that the Supreme Court blocked the 300th execution since Texas brought back the death penalty in 1977, I thought of my home state, Delaware, where they still hang people. More pics in the gallows gallery.
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Hey! That's a nice surprise. In this day of divisive politics, here's something pretty much anybody with a pulse can get behind. Bush signed the National Do Not Call list into law today.
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At the House, Freedom Toast sounds more like a noun/adjective headline than a menu item.
"Ney, whose committee has authority over the House cafeterias, directed the change, after colleague Walter Jones, R-North Carolina, circulated a letter suggesting such a move."
Wait a sec... A Congressman has official oversight over the cafeterias? I take back all of that stuff I've said about wasted tax dollars.
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A Traditionally black college in rural Mississippi tackles racial diversity by hosting a "thriving pod of Russians" (NYTimes)
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Did Rumsfeld forget to take his medication or is there a sane, rational reason for him pissing off even the British?
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70's Scandinavian Pop Band Pics!
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[Backstage [Passes] [Galleries].
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Excellent conspiro-paranoic rants at TimeCube
Even better than that, they adopt the standard wacko web-design approach with gusto (Times font, centered w/huge margins, font colors change, font sizes get bigger as they scream home the important points (I just do this), and most importantly- links to other random sub-sites, said links tagged totally inappropriately
(e.g. "DIDNT I TELL YOU" or "AS WAS PREDICTED")). Does Dreamweaver have a plug-in template for this kind of thing? TimeCube may well be my favorite of these ever, just because it says "There is 'absolute proof' that You are personified pyramid." Don't you love it when people quote things like 'absolute proof'?! Hell yeah! I know you do! That's cuz you 'n I are pals, and I'd know that about you! I'll leave it to you to figure out if a personified pyramid is bad.

"We plan to entice the UCS or Union of Concerned Scientists to participate and cast the Time Cube, religion and academia into a cauldron of debate - so Truth will urface.
I offer UCS $10,000. to disprove Time Cube. UCS refusal to investigate, indicts them evil. There can be no time limit set on this event until the fight has ended and dust settled. Never has an event has been so important to future of children, nature and humanity. "
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Comp-U-Fry
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Pop Zhau, an artist who works in size.
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This stuff has to end soon: It's Friday, and we have rising sea levels, multi-million dollar political corruption, ever increasing jobless rates (NYTimes), and a 10 day threat to start a war that makes no sense. Bush is piling up the largest troop and ammunition buildup ever assembed in the history of mankind, and they're bickering over a few missles that Iraq would need to defend itself against this brutality. Entire Australian cities want to defect to France. I'd say these were sure signs of the end of the world if the Weekly World news didn't chime in with an exclusive on a Super Beer that Cures Cancer.
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I mentioned this 8th of March guy in the blog some time last fall, and lo and behold, the day is almost upon us. What's gonna happen? Biblical events or hoax? Tune in at 5 after midnight (EST, I think) and find out.
Am I frightened? Of course I am. But I'm ready. Ready as I'll ever be. No more government or faction cover ups. No more lies. No more hiding truths from the public. I'm going to blow the damned lid on it all. When I've posted the photos, it'll be a huge weight off my shoulders. Then the world can make of it what it wants. But be prepared. The implications of what might soon be about to happen, will change your perception of the future. It'll change your idea of life on the planet as you know it.
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Saddam translator is an SAG member who affected a fake accent.
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Republican Senator Bill Frist has a "Should we go to war?" poll on his website. Right now, the respondents are overwhelmingly pro-war.
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A guy was arrested for wearing a "Peace" T-shirt. We're the good guys in this soon-to-be war, right? Not only was he insulted by being asked to remove his clothing in public, but he was asked to do so by mall security. These redneck idiots actually had the poor guy taken away in cuffs.
"I was in the food court with my son when I was confronted by two security guards and ordered to either take off the T-shirt or leave the mall," said Downs.
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The tiniest electro-mechanical combination lock used for data security.
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The Thirty Year Itch - The U.S.'s current warmongering psychology in a historical context
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Michael Jackson put a voodoo curse on Spielberg. I wonder what constitutes bad luck for Spielberg? Tripping over piles of cash in his den that he didn't have room for anywhere else? Major champagne spill in the hot tub? There's no word on how the rest of us can get Jackson to send some bad voodoo our way. Spabooks? Is that like Spizz-ooks or something? Can't this man be stopped? I guarantee you that nose ain't prosthetic, though. Any second grade art class clay session could work up something better than that.
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Return to the Batcave!!!!
In the two-hour movie, West, 74, and Ward, 57, are forced to relive their past to find clues to recovering the Batmobile after it's stolen from a Hollywood charity event.
Hollywood? The batmobile out of Gotham?!! The hell you say!!
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HR Background Check data exchange standards have been approved. This means a greater loss of privacy for job seekers and more corporate snooping into irrelevant, personal matters. This is, of course, done in the name of National Security. I wonder what the RPM reading of Jefferson spinning in his grave is?
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Would you like to be assigned your very own threat assessment color? On the spot? Without your accusors disclosing how they arrived at their decision? Then Fly Delta!! Boycott Delta - In response to the airline's complicity in the federal attack on privacy by using CAPS II.
Starting later this month, Delta passengers will be asked a lot more than ‘window or aisle’, or whether you want that ‘special meal’. Delta wants to know more: a lot more. As a pilot test of a new Orwellian airline ‘security’ program, Delta will be running background checks on anyone who flies Delta from one of three as-yet undisclosed airports.
These assaults on your liberties include running credit checks and banking histories, because after all, terrorists are easily identified by their ATM withdrawal profiles.

This page also features the Carnival Booth Algorithm for how to defeat the CAPS I system.
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Ub Iwerks: Animator and Walt Disney's first business partner. [2] [3] [4] [5] (w/ link to first Mickey strip)
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