The MooCow's New Blog
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
A Rotten Year Gets Worse... :=8(
:=8/
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2005 - going out with a stinky bang:
Tidal Waves Death Toll Rises to 44,000
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - Mourners in Sri Lanka used their bare hands to dig graves Tuesday while hungry islanders in Indonesia turned to looting in the aftermath of Asia's devastating tsunamis. Thousands more bodies were found in Indonesia, dramatically increasing the death toll across 11 nations to around 44,000.
Emergency workers who reached Aceh province at the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island found that 10,000 people had been killed in a single town, Meulaboh, said Purnomo Sidik, national disaster director at the Social Affairs Ministry.
Another 9,000 were confirmed dead so far in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, and surrounding towns, amid unconfirmed reports that other towns along Aceh's west coast had been demolished, he said.
In Sri Lanka, the toll also mounted significantly. Around 1,000 people were dead or missing and feared dead from a train that was flung off its tracks when the gigantic waves hit. Rescuers pulled 204 bodies from the train's eight carriages — reduced to twisted metal — and cremated or buried them Tuesday next to the railroad track that runs along the coastline.
More than 18,700 people died in Sri Lanka, more than 4,000 in India and more than 1,500 in Thailand, with numbers expected to rise. The Indonesian vice president's estimate that his country's coastlines held up to 25,000 victims brought the potential toll up to 50,000.
Oh, and it that weren't news enough, let's not forget this little tidbit, quite possibly buried in the back pages of moost newspapers, thanks to the killer tsunami:
Bin Laden, al-Zarqawi Gain From Alliance
WASHINGTON (Dec. 28) - An audiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden suggests the al-Qaida chief has accepted Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi's offer to unite the world's most famous terror group and the bloodiest insurgency inside Iraq, national security experts say.
Bin Laden could benefit from allying himself with an anti-American fighter who gets daily publicity. Al-Zarqawi may get more financial assistance and support from bin Laden's backers, the experts said.
But for bin Laden, the alliance comes at a price: He is now tied to a man directing bomb attacks against Iraq's majority Shiite Muslims as well as Americans.
In an audiotape broadcast Monday by Al-Jazeera satellite television, the man appearing to be bin Laden described al-Zarqawi as the "emir," or prince, of al-Qaida in Iraq and said Muslims there should "listen to him." He also called for a boycott of Iraqi elections planned for next month.
"Bin Laden gets the benefits of Zarqawi's notoriety," said Vince Cannistraro, former CIA counterterrorism chief. "He (al-Zarqawi) has got the pre-eminent insurgency in Iraq. He's the one who is the bloodiest, who carried out the most dramatic and public suicide bombings."
The difference between this and other bin Laden alliances, Cannistraro said, is that bin Laden - a Sunni Muslim - "has not been a vocal enemy against the Shiites. By adopting Zarqawi, he's taking that whole package, someone who is virulently anti-Shiite."
The CIA said Monday it had not yet identified the man on the tape as bin Laden.
Dr. Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corp., said al-Zarqawi also gets an advantage by association with his former rival.
"Zarqawi tried to milk his broader association with bin Laden and al-Qaida to win new sources of support and recruits and finances," Hoffman said.
Hoffman, whose company is known for its problem-solving research, agreed that both men benefit from the alliance.
In calling for a boycott of elections, bin Laden appears to also be speaking as a political leader, not just a terrorist going into battle.
The speaker on the tape said, "In the balance of Islam, this constitution is infidel and therefore everyone who participates in this election will be considered infidels. Beware of henchmen who speak in the name of Islamic parties and groups who urge people to participate in this blatant apostasy."
Roger Cressey, who was the deputy to former White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, said the boycott message indicates bin Laden has been trying to broaden his audience.
"He is trying to position himself as speaking to a global Islamic community in a way that further defines the fight against the West in his terms," Cressey said.
"If he can show he's more than just a rank-and-file terrorist, that will help his message."
Cressey said bin Laden is trying to reach "the part of the Muslim world that is sympathetic to the message, but is not willing to endorse him. These are fence sitters, people who have serious problems with the U.S. policy but have not become activists against us yet."
Peter Bergen, a fellow at the New American Foundation, a Washington think tank, says he doesn't believe bin Laden's call for a boycott will have much effect because most of the Sunnis against the election already were planning to shun the polls. "It's just one more reason to boycott it," he said.
Great, now the real fun begins: the US is getting dragged into the centuries-old conflict of Sunni vs Shiite. Will the fun never end??
:=8/
- posted by The MooCow @ 9:05 AM 0 comments
Sunday, December 26, 2004
Mmmmm, Jen Garner... GROOOWL... ;=8)
:=8D
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This is old news, but honestly, do ya need any moore reasons to lust after this women:
Garner Dives Into Pool To Save PupFriday September 24, 2004
I mean, really....
;=8)
- posted by The MooCow @ 7:47 PM 0 comments
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Mooore Biblical Fakery... :=8/
:=8D
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What?!? Lies, coming from the Middle East?!? Involving the Bible??!!?? Well, biblical times, anycow. Check it out:
Biblical King Solomon Treasure Turns Out to Be Fake
Fri Dec 24, 7:52 AM ET
Fri Dec 24, 7:52 AM ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A tiny ivory pomegranate once believed to be the only relic of King Solomon's biblical era Jewish Temple turns out not to be an artifact from the holy shrine, the Israel Museum said on Friday.
Israeli experts have determined the thumb-sized object is a lot older than believed, dating to the 13th or 14th Century BC, rather than to the 8th Century BC, which scholars say was around the time of Solomon.
Israeli archaeologists had authenticated the item in 1988, believing it had been smuggled out of Israel nine years earlier. The museum bought it for more than $500,000 from an unknown owner who was paid through a numbered Swiss bank account.
Researchers then thought the pomegranate was an ornamental top for a priest's scepter, based in part on an inscription which read: "Belonging to the Temple of the Lord (Yahweh), holy to the priests."
But in a statement on Friday, the museum said a new examination it conducted with the Israel Antiquities Authority found the inscription was a forgery. "The object itself dates to the Late Bronze Period but its inscription is not ancient."
The fake engraving is the latest of a series of scams uncovered recently in Israel involving archaeological finds.
Last year, an inscription on an ancient burial box that had led experts to believe it held the remains of Jesus' brother James, was found to be a forgery.
Well, some people will believe anything... :=8/
- posted by The MooCow @ 9:45 PM 0 comments
Friday, December 24, 2004
Heeheeheheeehehehhhheeeee..... ;=8)
:=8D
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A bit of Christmas humor on the day before Christmas:
On Christmas morning, a cop on horseback was sitting at a traffic light, and next to him was a kid on his shiny new bike.
The cop said to the kid, ''Nice bike you got there. Did Santa bring that to you?''
The kid said, ''Yeah.''
The cop said, ''Well next year, tell Santa to put a taillight on that bike.''
The cop then proceeded to issue the kid a $20 bicycle safety violation ticket.
The kid took the ticket.
Before he rode off he said, ''By the way, that's a nice horse you got there. Did Santa bring that to you?''
Humoring the kid, the cop said, ''Yeah, he sure did.''
The kid said, ''Well next year tell Santa to put the d*ck underneath the horse, instead of on top.''
;=8)
One Christmas, Little Johny sits at his desk writing a Christmas list to Jesus. He first writes, "Dear baby Jesus. I have been a good boy most of the year so I want a new..." He looks at it, then crumples it up into a ball and throws it away.
He gets out a new piece of paper and writes again, "Dear baby Jesus. I have been a good boy for the whole year so I want a new..." He again looks at it with disgust and throws it away.
He then gets an idea. He goes into his mother's room, takes a statue of the Virgin Mary, puts it into the closet and locks the door.
He takes another piece of paper and writes, "Dear baby Jesus. If you ever want to see your mother again..."
;=8)
Three men all die on Christmas Day, and arrive at the pearly gates. Peter greets them and tells them that they are all evil men who SHOULD go to hell - but because it's Christmas, he'll let them into heaven if they have something representing the holiday with them.
One of the guys has a Christmas ornament, and gets let in.
Another guy has pine needles on his shirt, and gets let in.
The third guy pulls out a pair of panties.
"How do those represent Christmas?" asks Peter.
"These are Carol's."
;=8)
Mmmmooooorry Christmas everyone, and a Happy Moo Year!!!
:=8D
- posted by The MooCow @ 9:51 AM 0 comments
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Heeheehehhehehhheheheheeeee....... ;=8)
:=8D
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Who is God?
A nine year old boy asks his mother, "Is God male or female?"After thinking for a moment, his mother responds, "Well God is both male and female."This confuses the boy, so he asks, "Is God black or white?""Well," she says, "God is both black and white."This really confuses the boy, so he asks, "Is God gay or straight?"Feeling a bit out of her depth, but wanting to be consistent, the mother answers, "Honey, God is both gay and straight."At this the boy's face lights up with understanding and he triumphantly asks...
"Is Michael Jackson God?"
;=8)
- posted by The MooCow @ 11:40 PM 0 comments
Look Out for Those Tongs!!! :=8O
:=8D
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Check out this curious story:
Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan police say the victim, a 25-year-old man, awoke Saturday morning with a metal object protruding from his body.
The victim, who police say was using cocaine at the time, told police he does not remember much of what happened.
He told doctors he was drinking and using cocaine at his mobile home Friday night when he saw two women outside his home and invited them in.
The victim's cousin took him to Memorial Health University Medical Center Saturday after he complained of pain. Doctors surgically removed an object identified as "one half of a pair of food tongs," and turned it over to police.
No information was available on the man's condition, according to a hospital spokesman.
The two women are wanted on aggravated sexual battery charges, but police say they aren't having much luck finding them.
"We have no descriptions of the women, being that (the victim) is not cooperating with the police," police spokesman Sgt. Mike Wilson said. "And there's little we can do to urge cooperation."
Hmmmm, it may be best to keep yer drugs and booze to yerself in yer double-wide, rather than sharing with a couple of women of doubtful character whom you saw standing around outside. Or, maybe he was just trying to yank something out & is ashamed to admit it to the ER people. Either way, this is a public use of a kitchen instrument that not even Julia Child or Martha would have dreamed of...
:=8/
- posted by The MooCow @ 10:47 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Safer in Iraq??? :=8/
:=8D
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Baby Bush still insists that "its safer in Iraq now than it was last year"; is he high on crack, or what:
19 GIs Killed in Explosion
Deadliest Single Attack on U.S. Troops Since Start of Iraq War
By MICHAEL McDONOUGH, AP
Deadliest Single Attack on U.S. Troops Since Start of Iraq War
By MICHAEL McDONOUGH, AP
BAGHDAD, Iraq (Dec. 21) -- An explosion tore through a soft-sided mess tent during lunch hour at a military base near the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, and officials said at least 20 people were killed - the deadliest attack on a U.S. base in Iraq since the start of the war.
A spokesman for U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad said 19 of the dead were American soldiers, which would make it the deadliest single strike against U.S. troops in this country. However, a military spokesman in Mosul said 14 U.S. troops died in the blast, which came just four days before Christmas.
A radical Sunni Muslim group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, claimed responsibility for the attack, which wounded about 60 people and left the tent floor littered with lunch trays and puddles of blood - the latest in a week of deadly strikes across Iraq that highlight the unwavering power of the insurgents in the run-up to the Jan. 30 national elections.
President Bush said the attack should not derail the elections and that he hoped relatives of those killed know that their loved ones died in ''a vital mission for peace.''
''I'm confident democracy will prevail in Iraq,'' he said.
Inside the tent, U.S. soldiers reacted quickly. With people screaming and thick smoke billowing, soldiers turned their lunch tables upside down, placed the wounded on them and gently carried them into the parking lot, said Jeremy Redmon, a reporter for the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch embedded with the troops in Mosul.
A U.S. military official said authorities believe the damage was caused by at least one large-caliber artillery round or rocket. Another official said it was possible the explosive had been planted.
Portland (Maine) Press Herald photographer Gregory Rec, who was sleeping about a quarter-mile from the mess hall when he was awakened by the loud explosion, said he rushed to the scene, where a soldier told him ''he heard a whoosh, he looked up and saw a fireball halfway between the ceiling and the floor.''
The blast at Forward Operating Base Marez came hours after British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a surprise visit to Baghdad and spoke of a ''battle between democracy and terror.''
White House spokesman Scott McClellan, responding to a question about how Iraqis will be able to safely get to some 9,000 polling places if U.S. troops can't secure their own bases, said there was ''security and peace'' in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces.
Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, was relatively peaceful in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime last year. But insurgent attacks in the largely Sunni area have increased dramatically in the past year - particularly since the U.S.-led military offensive in November to retake Fallujah from militants.
Like most mess halls at U.S. bases in Iraq, the meal area at Base Marez is covered with a tent. Insurgents have fired mortars at the mess hall more than 30 times this year, Redmon said.
Mortar attacks on U.S. bases, particularly on the huge white tents that serve as dining halls, have been frequent in Iraq for more than a year. Just last month, for example, a mortar attack on a Mosul base killed two troops with Task Force Olympia, the reinforced brigade responsible for security in much of northern Iraq. Halliburton Co., a Houston-based company whose subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root supplies food service and other support activities for U.S. troops in Mosul, said seven of its employees and subcontractors were killed in the blast. Their nationalities were not disclosed. The Ansar al-Sunnah Army claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on the Internet. It said the attack was a ''martyrdom operation'' targeting a mess hall.
Ansar al-Sunna is believed to be a fundamentalist group that wants to turn Iraq into an Islamic state like Afghanistan's former Taliban regime. The Sunni group claimed responsibility for beheading 12 Nepalese hostages and other recent attacks in Mosul.
"Security and peace"??? Sounds like McClellan needs to get his ass over in Iraq and have lunch under a tent sometime himself - and he's not the only one who needs a blast of reality. These insurgents are able to "shoot and scoot", which makes it virtually impossible to prevent rocket and/or mortar attacks like this. The US Army knew that the mess tent provides an easy, soft target for insurgents (which is why they are busy putting up a new steel and concrete mess hall nearby), but for some reason military officials did nothing to minimize possible casualties, such as staggering meal times, dispersing large, vulnerable groups of troops into smaller mess units, etc.
Folks, things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better, and the sooner the public accepts that, the sooner people are going to demand a better solution, and the sooner we can get the hell out of there.
:=8/
- posted by The MooCow @ 6:24 PM 0 comments
Monday, December 20, 2004
Yeeeeesh.... :=8P
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Every once in a blue mooon, a story comes around that chills even the MooCow's jaded blood. Check out this story:
Police Say Woman Strangled Expectant Mother Before Cutting Baby From Womb
By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, AP
Churchgoers in two communities grieved Sunday for the young woman and struggled to understand the horrific slaying.
''It's almost unbelievable that right under your nose something terrible can be happening,'' said Hamon, who lives in the small town of Skidmore in northwestern Missouri.
Authorities said Lisa Montgomery, of Melvern, Kan., confessed to strangling Stinnett, cutting out the fetus and taking the baby back to Kansas. She is accused of trying to pass the child off as her own to family and friends. The baby girl was later recovered unharmed.
The Rev. Harold Hamon refrained from directly discussing the death of his neighbor, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, whose baby was cut from her womb after she had been strangled.
Hamon married Bobbie Jo and Zeb Stinnett last year at his Skidmore Christian Church.
''They were kids in the neighborhood, nice young kids,'' Hamon said. ''She's just a real nice girl, real pretty, quiet and reserved.''
Stinnett's mother found her body in a pool of blood inside the couple's small white home on Thursday afternoon. Stinnett had been eight months pregnant with the couple's first child.
Police recovered Stinnett's baby a day later after tracking down Montgomery through e-mails she had sent Stinnett about buying a dog.
Montgomery, a mother of two, lied to family and friends about being pregnant with twins and suffering a miscarriage, investigators said. Detectives doubt whether she was pregnant at all.
She met her husband at a Topeka fast-food restaurant with Stinnett's baby, telling him she had gone into labor while shopping in the city, authorities said.
Montgomery's husband has not been charged.
Dewd! Sick!! :=8O
Need further proof that this world is going to hell in a feedbag?? :=8/
- posted by The MooCow @ 10:40 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
The Jesus Freaks Strike Again!!! Or, Try to... :=8/
:=8D
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Here we go again:
Stefan Lovgrenfor National Geographic NewsSeptember 20, 2004
THE FLORIDA EVERGLADES — -->
In April businessman and Christian activist Daniel McGivern announced with great fanfare a planned summer expedition to Mount Ararat in Turkey. The project, he said, would prove that the fabled Noah's ark was buried there.
Explorers have long searched for the ark on the Turkish mountain. At a news conference in Washington, D.C., McGivern presented satellite images, which he claimed show a human-made object—Noah's ark—nestled in the ice and snow some 15,000 feet (4,570 meters) up the mountain.
"We are not excavating it," McGivern told the audience. "We're going to photograph it and, God willing, you're all going to see it." If successful, he said, the discovery would be "the greatest event since the resurrection of Christ."
$900,000 expedition quickly hit a snag: The Turkish government refused to grant the explorers permission to climb the mountain. Soon, the mission itself was put on ice.
But how credible was the expedition in the first place?
McGivern may have been more interested in generating publicity than mounting a serious search, critics now suggest. By making an early announcement, he may have tried to persuade the Turkish government into granting him a permit. Few expeditions have actually obtained clearance to climb Mount Ararat, which is located in a military zone.
The choice of expedition leader—a Turkish academic named Ahmet Ali Arslan, who claims to have climbed Mount Ararat 50 times in 40 years—also raised a red flag with those familiar with previous expeditions.
(Neither McGivern nor Arslan responded to requests by National Geographic News for interviews for this story.)
Arslan was involved in a 1993 documentary, aired on CBS television, which claimed to have found the ark. Some of the evidence presented in that documentary turned out to be a hoax, raising concerns about Arslan's testimony.
Some archaeologists charge that Noah's-ark expeditions like McGivern's are nothing but wild-goose chases. Even if the ark existed, these scholars argue, it is unlikely that the wood from the boat would still be preserved today, thousands of years later. Moving ice is likely to have swept away any wooden structure, experts say.
"These expeditions are a waste of time, energy, and money—all of which could be put to much better use by supporting existing scholarly excavations around the world," said Eric Cline, a historian and archaeologist at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Ararat Anomaly
The story of Noah's ark is found in the Bible's Book of Genesis. It says God saw how corrupt the Earth had become and decided to "bring floodwaters … to destroy all life under the heavens."
God reportedly told Noah to preserve life on Earth by building an ark and filling it with two of every species on the planet. The rains unleashed by God are said to have lasted for 40 days and 40 nights. The Bible says that water came from under the Earth as well. When the waters receded, the ark landed in the region of Mount Ararat, according to the biblical account.
Reports of ark sightings have been common. Witnesses have described an old wooden structure sticking out of the snow and ice near the summit of Mount Ararat, which is located in Turkey near its border with Armenia and Iran.
Because of Soviet complaints that explorers were spying, the region was off limits until 1982. Since then, scores of climbers have scaled the mountain but failed to substantiate what the object is.
In 1997 the U.S. government released images taken by its Air Force in 1949 that were believed by some to show a structure covered by ice on Mount Ararat. These photographs had reportedly been kept in a government file labeled "Ararat Anomaly." However, experts deemed the images inconclusive.
While no scientific evidence of the ark's existence has emerged, the Turkish government has reportedly documented cases of expeditions bringing wood up to Mount Ararat and "finding" it the next year.
In the CBS documentary, The Incredible Discovery of Noah's Ark, a man named George Jammal displayed what he claimed to be an ancient piece of wood from inside the ark. Jammal, an Israeli actor living at the time in Long Beach, California, later said the wood was actually from some railroad tracks in Long Beach. He admitted he had never set foot in Turkey.
The documentary also dramatized a 1989 solo expedition by Ahmet Ali Arslan in which he claims to have come within 200 feet (60 yards) of the ark and photographed it. But experts have questioned the authenticity of the photos and Arslan's story.
"Ahmet is a big talker," said one well-known ark researcher, who asked that his name be withheld so as not to jeopardize his own chances of obtaining an expedition permit from the Turkish authorities. "In one conversation he will say that he has 3,000 photos, and in another conversation ten minutes later 5,000 photos."
No Proof
For years, attempts by McGivern to have satellite images taken of Mount Ararat failed. In the summer of 2003 he recruited DigitalGlobe, a commercial satellite-imagery firm, to try again. This time, a heat wave that hit Europe that year had partially melted the snowcap on top of the mountain.
McGivern claimed the new images showed a large structure, with vertical beams and one horizontal beam, buried on the mountain. He said he was 98 percent sure it was the ark.
Most experts, however, were skeptical. The object in the images could easily be a rock formation, they said, adding that some of the photos were nonscientific and fuzzy.
"It's very easy to get something that looks like it's man-made [in these images]. But once you get there, it turns out to be nothing," said Lorence Collins, a retired geology professor at California State University at Northridge and an expert on photo-geology. "It's simply hopeful thinking."
WorldNetDaily.com, a politically conservative Web site that often reports religious news, quoted McGivern: "The government of Turkey did not issue a research visa, which is sad, but it's their country. We haven't totally given up, but it's pretty obvious they're not going to give us one."
Melting Glaciers
If Noah's ark exists, could it be buried on Mount Ararat? That depends on whether the flood actually happened.
Some Christians were encouraged by a theory advanced by Walter Pitman and William Ryan, two geology professors at Columbia University in New York. The researchers suggested that a great deluge at the end of the last ice age, 8,400 years ago, caused the Aegean Sea to overflow into the Black Sea.
However, other geologists argue the Black Sea was already full by the time Noah is said to have sailed off on his ark. They say a much slower rise in the sea level occurred up to 12,000 years ago, as the glaciers melted.
"Evidence [instead] points conclusively to strong outflow from the Black Sea basin into the Mediterranean through the intervening Marmara Sea since about 11,000 years ago," said Richard Hiscott, a professor of earth sciences at Memorial University in St. John, Canada.
Most geologists seem to agree that it would probably be impossible for a ship to make landfall at an altitude of 15,000 feet (4,570 meters). (Some explorers claim the ark is buried elsewhere, noting the Bible talks about several mountains.)
Cline, the George Washington University historian and archaeologist, calls the Noah's ark expeditions "fringe archaeology."
"Speaking strictly for myself," he said, "I am happy to stay out of such an area of debatable research."
Hmmmm, bunk, Christianity, and Conservatives, all rolled up in one - is anyone surprised???
:=8/
- posted by The MooCow @ 10:25 PM 0 comments
Friday, December 10, 2004
Olsen Twins for Human Rights??? :=8/
:=8D
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Well, just when you thought you've seen everything...
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen really do care about the kiddies.
The high-powered teen titans have pledged to make sure their signature clothing line for Wal-Mart will not be produced in sweatshops.
The former child stars were targeted by the National Labor Committee and student activists from the twins' college, New York University, who sent an open letter Wednesday to the Olsens asking them to sign a petition to force Wal-Mart to guarantee female workers who make the clothing in factories in Bangladesh the "legal right to maternity leave with benefits."
The letter claimed the twins' company, DualStar Entertainment, refused hundreds of appeals over the last seven months to disclose the names of the Bangladesh factories where the Mary-Kate and Ashley brand is being manufactured so the NLC can ensure the women working there are aware of their legal rights.
"It is only through this simply and doable step that the women in these factories can be alerted that their legal maternity rights will now be respected, and that a system can be established to verify compliance," wrote Charles Kernaghan, the NLC's director.
Kernaghan cited statistics showing that exploited workers in certain factories work 14 hour days, seven days a week, while making a sweatshop wage of just 13 to 18 cents per hour without being able to take three months paid leave to care for their own children, a benefit that they are entitled to by law. Many of those female laborers are often fired or harassed until they quit should they attempt to do so.
NYU's student paper, Washington Square News, also called on the actresses to get involved in affording garment workers maternity leave, citing Wal-Mart's dubious track record as the world's largest retailer in using sweatshops and routinely intimidating and firing workers who tried to organize labor unions.
"It would be scandalous for Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who are held up as examples of successful, independent, young women, to deny this most basic right to the women producing their clothing line," stated the paper.
Looking to avoid becoming the next Kathie Lee Gifford, the Olsens decided to play ball.
Pagnotta said DualStar reps had been in talks with the NLC since Wednesday, and once Mary-Kate and Ashley took a look at the maternity-leave pledge and evaluated it, they readily signed.
The pledge reads: "On behalf of the DualStar Entertainment Group LLC, I Mary-Kate Olsen hereby sign this pledge that to the best of our abilities we will guarantee that any woman sewing our garments in Bangladesh will be afforded her legal maternity leave of at least three months with full pay." It was signed by Mary-Kate and dated Dec. 9.
By Thursday evening, the NLC released a statement reading in part, "The Olsen twins have done the right thing. Now it is up to Wal-Mart to either support Mary-Kate and Ashley’s commitment to women’s rights, or tragically to shut them down."
The Olsens aren't the first celebs to get schooled by labor activists. Last year, the NLC accused rap mogul Sean "P. Diddy" Combs's Sean John fashion line of using sweatshop labor in Honduras, claims which were later denied by government officials.
In the '90s, the group was also successful in holding Gifford responsible for labor abuses against Salvadoran workers who made the former talk show queen's signature Wal-Mart clothes under horrible conditions.
Hmmm, just when you thought the Olsen twins were a couple of empty-headed, spoiled brats, they go and do this. Just makes you think. If we cud only get them to stop selling their shitty teeny-bopper crap at Wal-Mart, that would be an accowplishment. Wal-Mart sucks, I hope they all burn down to the ground.
:=8P
- posted by The MooCow @ 11:32 PM 0 comments
Uh-Oh, Here We Go.... :=8/
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Jesus Christ Super Cocksucker??
:=8O
I guess believing what you want and speaking publically about it it out these days:
Call to prosecute over 'gay Jesus'
Friday, December 10, 2004 Posted: 5:26 AM EST (1026 GMT)
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- A group of Christian protesters in Scotland has called on police to prosecute a theater company for blasphemy because it is putting on a play about a gay Jesus.
"If there is a blasphemy like this, Christians have to stand up," said Stephen Green of Christian Voice who protested outside a theatre showing Terence McNally's controversial play "Corpus Christi" at St Andrews University.
"Jesus Christ is being portrayed here as a foul-mouthed, drunken, promiscuous homosexual and that is an insult to my faith," Green told BBC Radio.
But the play's director, Zsuzsi Lyndsay defended the production: "He is not portrayed as a drunken foulmouth. He doesn't say one bad word throughout the play."
Christian Voice was not placated. It has formally lodged a complaint with police, arguing that the American playwright's work was blasphemous. No decision has been taken yet.
Blasphemous?!?!?? Too bad! We Americans enjoy a right right to free speech; the Brits pretend to enjoy that right as well. Unless England has become a Theocracy as well, the Christian Voice hasn't got a leg to stand on. Why do you think the play was performed in Europe: put that on here and you'd get lynched by the Christian zealots. Personally, it make me happy to think of Jesus as a "drunken foulmouthed promiscuous homosexual". Anything to piss off the zealots here in Jesusland.
;=8)
- posted by The MooCow @ 11:26 AM 0 comments
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Free Press?? :=8/
Don't ferget u can always e-mail the MooCow with cowments at MooCowMoo@aol.com!!!
I tried, I really tried to keep politics out of the blog today, to celebrate the birth of my friend's new daughter, but my agents in the field cowtinue to send me juicy bits to rant over. The latest: journalists being forced to relinquish their protected rights to shield their sources of information. Yet an-udder Bush administration witch-hunt, I'm afraid. Not that I care two flops about what happens to a couple of journos, mind you, but since a "free press' is one of the building blocks of a democracy, it would be nice to keep what little we have left over here. Here is what's going on (thanks, John!):
Now, federal prosecutors are threatening every reporter's ability to protect sources who expose sensitive information. The most high-profile case went before a federal appeals court Wednesday in Washington, where two reporters are fighting to keep their promise — and to stay out of jail. The tangled tale that led to court started last year when someone in the Bush administration leaked the name of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, to several reporters, apparently to retaliate against Plame's husband, a former diplomat who had criticized the administration.
One of the journalists, syndicated columnist Robert Novak, put Plame's name in a column. It can be a federal crime for a government official to identify a CIA operative, so a special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, began investigating the leak.
For unknown reasons, Fitzgerald's search for the leaker appears focused not on Novak, but on Time magazine's Matt Cooper, who wrote about the matter days after Novak did, and The New York Times' Judith Miller, who never wrote about it. If Cooper and Miller continue to refuse to testify about their contacts, they face 18 months in prison.
It would be hard to find a tougher case to defend. Plame's identity, after all, was leaked not to expose government wrongdoing, but to punish a political enemy. Further, indiscriminate use of anonymous sources is far too common.
Trouble is, the privilege to keep a source's name confidential either exists or it doesn't. If one reporter is forced to give up a name, no reporter — and, more to the point, no whistle-blower or other source — is safe. That's why 25 reporters' groups and news organizations, including USA TODAY's parent company, Gannett, support the reporters' appeal.
Nor is this an isolated case. Six more reporters across the nation face similar demands from federal prosecutors or civil lawyers. They shouldn't have to expose sources. Any gain from catching the leakers is more than outweighed by the loss.
If the press's ability to serve as a watchdog on government and others in power is impaired, the public is left more vulnerable. Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia recognize that, and have passed laws that help reporters protect their sources. Courts in other states have granted similar protections. Those shields are much like the laws that protect confidences shared with lawyers and psychotherapists. But no broad protection exists in federal law, a void that leaves reporters in jeopardy.
The surest solution is a federal shield law. One was introduced in Congress last month by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. Short of that, prosecutors need to exhaust all other means before trying to turn reporters into snitches. And federal judges need to recognize that shielding sources allows the media to do its most critical job, exposing the truth.
If judges fail to do that in the case argued Wednesday, the real loser will be the public.
Oh, and of course, Novak is the right-wing columnist - can't have a special prosecutor investigating him, can we? The whole CIA operative leak fiasco is a cow pie that has stunk to high heaven since the previous presidential term, and it isn't going away anytime soon. Yet an-udder example of the Bush Administration and the radical right-wing zealots of this country who strike out against anyone who speaks out against them and their fascist ways. this cow, for one, refuses to be intimidated, and will cowtinue to blog away merrily, without divulging sources.
:=8P
- posted by The MooCow @ 11:28 PM 0 comments
Welcome Sadie Elizabeth!!!! :=8D
:=8D
Don't ferget u can always e-mail the MooCow with cowments at MooCowMoo@aol.com!!!
Well, the MooCow has been a busy bovine, what with the holidays and work, and has not had the proper time to rant and rave - but he has clear time on his busy chedual to make a big barn-full-o-cows welcome to Sadie Elizabeth Morgan, born to Gary and Janine Morgan this past week!!!
Guys, cowgradulations on the newest calf added to the Morgan herd!!!
;=8)
- posted by The MooCow @ 8:14 PM 0 comments
