Archive for July, 2004

31JulFahrenheit 9/11, the experience

Fahrenheit 9/11 premiere in berlin - more then 2000 people showed up
Fahrenheit 9/11 premiere in Berlin. More then 2000 people including German politician J?rgen Trittin showed up to the open air showing.

As I was standing in front of the Turm Palast (Tower Palace) theatre in Frankfurt, watching the line for Fahrenheit 9/11 getting longer and longer, I noticed that even here, there were two people sitting in a corner next to the entrance of the theatre hall, registering US voters. All movies shown on German TV and in most theatres are dubbed in German, thus making places like the Turm Palast that don’t dub, very popular amongst the many Americans living here and those like myself who rather watch movies in their original language. To my surprise, they showed the movie in tower 1 (the largest movie hall they have in the multi theatre complex). Now, you have to understand that they usually show only the huge blockbuster money making movies in that hall and i’ve been to some of those in that very hall…..I had NEVER seen it THAT full. Fahrenheit 9/11 is more than a mere movie. It is an experience. People laughed, people sobbed, people applauded twice in the middle of the movie and finally at the end. One other thing I noticed that i’d never seen before was oh so diverse and vast age rage of my fellow movie goers, ranging from somewhere around 14 to 60. Before the movie started there were two young people sitting behind me talking about Half Life (a first-person shooter game) and the two elder people in front of me talking politics.

I understand now why some people say that this is a movie that all people should see no matter what their political views are. Not simply because this clear anti-corruption/anti-Bush documentary is excellently made and shows you things you never thought possible, but rather because if you don’t, you’re admitting defeat before the truth and a weakness in character.

Michael Moore by no means has hate for his country and anyone that claims otherwise has either not seen this movie or is unwilling to face the truth…or is just too “republican” to see it.

Many of the things Moore brings up in this movie were written about, in his book “Dude, Where’s My Country”, but sadly this is not exactly the ara of book readers and thus the movie was an excellent idea to convey his message in these times.

I’ll end this post with the last words from Fahrenheit 9/11 – a quote by one of the greatest thinkers and writers of the 20th century; George Orwell:

It’s not a matter of whether the war is not real, or if it is, Victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.

Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact.

-George Orwell in the book “1984″

31JulThe Madness of King George II

I’l be watching Fahrenheit 9/11 in about half an hour but before I head off to the theatre I had to post something i made earlier: /images/fools/bush/.

30JulSubway rider arrested for eating candy

I’ll repeat that: Subway rider arrested for eating candy. What? Yes, subway rider arrested for eating candy…..it was CANDY….in the SUBWAY!! They just had to arrest her…You see…she had a candy…and there was no saying what she could’ve done with it. It was an emergency and police took brave and patriotic action in arresting her in order to protect The Nation from threat like this biological weapon of mass yummyness.

Police states are so easy to make fun of…

payday barAllegedly ignoring officer leads to three-hour detention
Thursday, July 29, 2004 Posted: 3:13 PM EDT (1913 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A government scientist finishing a candy bar on her way into a subway station where eating is prohibited was arrested, handcuffed and detained for three hours by transit police.

Stephanie Willett said she was eating a PayDay bar on an escalator descending into a station July 16 when an officer warned her to finish it before entering the station. Both Willett and police agree that she nodded and put the last bit into her mouth before throwing the wrapper into a trash can.

Willett, a 45-year-old Environmental Protection Agency scientist, told radio station WTOP that the officer then followed her into the station, one of several in downtown Washington.

“Don’t you have some other crimes you have to take care of?” Willett said she told the officer.

Washington has been under heightened security because of the continuing threat of terrorism. And last week, police declared a citywide crime emergency over rising juvenile crime.

The transit police officer asked for Willett’s identification, but Willett kept walking. She said she was then frisked and handcuffed.

“If she had stopped eating, it would have been the end of it and if she had just stopped for the issuance of a citation, she never would have been locked up,” Transit Police Chief Polly Hanson said Thursday.

Metrorail has been criticized in the past for heavy-handed enforcement of the eating ban. In 2000, a police officer handcuffed a 12-year-old girl for eating a French fry on a subway platform.

In 2002, one of their officers ticketed a wheelchair-bound cerebral palsy patient for cursing when he was unable to find a working elevator to leave a station. Unflattering publicity eventually led the police to void the ticket.

Willett was the second person arrested this year for eating or drinking, Hanson said. In addition, police have issued 58 tickets and more than 300 written warnings.

The source.

29JulFinished preliminary work on the [code] tag

0xtc source codeFinished most of the [code] tag. Everytime I tested it by posting here, the site sent an email to me....I hope my email box won't be full when i get home...It's not perfect yet. It still needs some work so html and not only php segments are highlighted and it "cheats" a bit for now, but I got the basics to work and this time without any blood flowing and that's all that counts.