Support Ted’s Work

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Ted Rall

TGIF! Drinks are on me!
posted by TheDon

It’s a big birthday week – USA and W back-to-back, and on Sunday it’s TBogg – three things I think about most days. So hoist a drink to a great country, founded on great principles, currently under heavy assault. Hoist one to the assaulter. And hoist one to one of my favorite writers on the internets. I would suggest drinking these:
Georgia Bulldog
Pour gin and pomegranate juice over ice in a double old-fashioned glass. Stir and enjoy. It’s really authentic if you use Bulldog Gin, but any good gin will do. It’s called a Georgia Bulldog because it’s red. As usual, stay out of the Prius afterwards.

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Ted Rall


Scooter Libby

Because this may not go online until tomorrow (due to the July 4th holiday).

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Ted Rall

Wanted: Flash Animator/Business Partner

I’m looking for a talented, ambitious and imaginative person with experience animating cartoons in Flash to develop and produce a once-per-week animated political cartoon. I provide scripts and artwork; you make them move and talk. Income split is 50-50; details will be discussed if a qualified individual steps forward. You must be patient since it will take some time to market and place animations, but I have a vision for the medium that differs significantly from other editorial cartoons doing animated work that I believe will sell.

Please send your resume, qualifications and any questions to: chet@rall.com. I will respond only to those who I believe may fit the bill; my apologies in advance to the rest.

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Ted Rall

TGIF! Drinks are on me!
posted by TheDon

It’s been that kind of a week. The internets truck at work had a flat tire, and my sinful, sinful home electronics were stricken by lightning. I seem to have missed a lot of news. Did you know that Dick Cheney is evil and powerful? Me either! And guess how long it will take Georgia to resegregate schools. Go on, guess. You’re waaaaaay too optimistic. Robert Gates is concerned that scores of our soldiers will die every month that… wait for it… (it’s not what you would hope for)… we have to wait for more heavily armored Humvees. The patriots in Iraq are making more deadly bombs than our current vehicles can handle, so let’s armour up! They’ll NEVER figure out how to kill our soldiers in the new vehicles! Really! I guess bringing them home isn’t a possibility.
So let’s have a frosty one. You know that feeling you get after the party when you look around and think, “What the hell am I going to do with all this Corona?”? I have a solution, and as you probably suspect, it involves adding liquor to it. I’m like a chocoholic, only with alcohol.
All of these drinks involve pouring a shot of something into a beer. Experiment all you want – it’s educational and fun! A beer with a shot of whiskey in it is called a boilermaker, and has long been the defining characteristic of hard-core sorrow and pain. I’ll see your boilermaker and raise you.
Troublemaker – make that a shot of tequila

Beerbon – use bourbon – a southern classic
Twizzler – just add sambuca
Nutcracker – frangelico
Beerberry – chambord
Pirate’s Gold – rum
Big Red – Cinnamon schnapps

the only limit is the size of your liquor cabinet. Go nuts!

Resegregation Nation: Next up, the Supreme Court Rules That Integrated Water Fountains Violate the Constitution

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Ted Rall

Resegregation Nation: Next up, the Supreme Court Rules That Integrated Water Fountains Violate the Constitution
Posted by Mikhaela Reid

All you closet Klansmen out there, you would-be Bull O’Connors and George Wallaces, listen up: it is officially time to party! Get out your balloons and confetti, and iron your best white robes, because the Bush Supreme Court has officially declared that racial integration and diversity DON’T MATTER AT ALL. The Bush court says that not only is segregation totally cool (as long as it’s the “natural” result of segregated housing areas), it’s actively RACIST to oppose segregation. Why? Because racial diversity is AGAINST the spirit of Brown vs. Board of Education.

Yes, that’s right–it’s against the spirit of the decision that made it possible for children of all colors to go to school together to encourage children of all colors to go to school together. The only way to avoid racism is to DENY it and ignore it and NOT DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT. That’s what being “colorblind” is all about!

As the NAACP’s Theodore Shaw put it on The Newshour With Jim Lehrer tonight, it doesn’t get much more Orwellian than this. This is Civil Rights Lite to the extreme. Hence the vigorous dissent:

[Souter] said the chief justice’s invocation of Brown vs. Board of Education was “a cruel irony” when the opinion in fact “rewrites the history of one of this court’s most important decisions” by ignoring the context in which it was issued and the Supreme Court’s subsequent understanding of it to permit voluntary programs of the sort that were now invalidated.

I was particularly horrified by the anti-integration argument that many parents “don’t want this” (“this”, presumably, being the horror of their children going to school with black kids). For example, here’s Roger Clegg, president of the deceptively named “Center for Equal Opportunity” (his group filed an amicus brief in the case) celebrating the anti-integration decision on the NewsHour:

I think that school boards are also going to be sensitive to the fact that most parents don’t like it when they are told that where they can send their children to school depends on what color they are.

And…

I think the question is whether anyone believes that a politically correct racial and ethnic mix, that kind of diversity, is worth the price of racial discrimination. And I think that most Americans would say that, no, it is not.

Sure, lots of Americans–bigoted and ignorant ones–protested school integration back in the day because they didn’t want it, either. That didn’t make them RIGHT. That was the whole POINT of Brown vs. Board! As the NAACP’s Shaw put it:

This [integration] is not about school districts telling people that they can’t go to school on the basis of their skin color. This is about school districts trying to continue to fulfill the promise of Brown and to avoid segregation. In no way is this comparable to the kind of regime of segregation and discrimination that existed under Jim Crow.

Exactly.

Finally, while we’re on the topic of Brown vs. Board of Education, this is particularly bad timing, because I just did a dystopian cartoon for Lambda Legal wondering “What would life be like without integrated schools?”:

Prepare to find out. And God Bless Our Colorblind America, where the playing field is level, everyone has an equal chance, and white kids can just learn about colored folks on their Tee-Vees!

Next up: The Supreme Court rules that allowing black people and white people to drink from the same water fountains is racist.

P.S. I would have called this cartoon “Separate But Equal: The Sequel”, but I already drew a cartoon with that title. Oh well.

P.P.S. Just so it’s clear–in the cartoon, the kids of color are locked up in a “Jim Crow Max Security Educational Facility” not because they’re troublemakers or deserve to be there, but because they live under racist segregation.

Cross-posted at Boiling Point Blog.

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Ted Rall

Shortwave Report for Central Asia, Part 4
Posted by Susan Stark (Parts 1, 2, and 3 are in the Archives)

CLANDESTINE AND PIRATE RADIO

Radio itself was invented by Guglielmo Marconi, or at least he gets the credit for it (in my opinion, Nicola Tesla, the Yugoslav inventor, is the one who invents the radio).

In the very early days of radio, radio functioned very much as the internet does today in communication. There wasn’t much regulation for this newfangled hobby. Anybody who had a functioning transmitter/receiver could and did use it. Two or more people could use the same frequency (let’s say, at 1290AM, for example), and hold a long distance conversation. Two violinists on two sides of the Atlantic could have a duet over the radio, and others tuning into the same frequency could listen in. The very first DJs appeared, playing recorded music, with no one dictating what music to play.

In the United States, all that changed with the formation of the FCC, or Federal Communications Commission. Similar “regulatory” bodies appeared in other countries. The excuse for these regulations were complaints that broadcasters were interfering with one another, but the best explanation is control. It is harder to propagandize against another country, for example, if people in both countries are in regular communication with each other. Also, during World War 1, the government brought up the excuse of “security” (you know, spies communicate).

Nevertheless, despite all the current regulation, unregulated, or “pirate radio”, still operates. It’s very difficult for AM and FM pirate stations to stay on the air, even when they eventually try to play by the rules and ask for a license. Sometimes pirate radio operates out of a house or apartment, or even out of an automobile (although that can be difficult without a power source). In a lot of cases pirate radio broadcasts from a boat or ship. This type of broadcasting is more common than people think: There are several pirate broadcasters operating in New York City, at any given time. The success of these transmissions vary according to the quality of the transmitter and the ability to keep the transmitter outside vs. inside. But a pirate can reach a good number of people here due to the population density of NYC neighborhoods. Shortwave is a better way to reach a good audience through unregulated radio, across huge distances.

Clandestine Broadcasting:

Clandestine radio is similar, yet different than pirate radio. A clandestine transmission usually transmits from one country to another, for the purpose of circumventing the ideology and political control of the target country. It can either be transmitted by another government (usually), or by dissidents from the target country living abroad (sometimes). Examples of this are Radio Marti, broadcast by the US government to Cuba, as well as a few private stations run out of Miami by Cuban exiles. North Korea is also a frequent target for clandestine broadcasts. When a country is experiencing civil war or internal conflict, there can be clandestine transmissions targeted *within* the country. Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kashmir are examples regions where internal clandestine radio operations are used.

In my opinion, virtually all shortwave transmissions are clandestine in nature, because they are able to bypass the imaginary lines that humans have created to separate one country and region from another. And if a country is repressive enough, then virtually *any* shortwave broadcast passing through that country is clandestine. During Taliban rule in Afghanistan (1996-2001), it is safe to say that all shortwave into the country was clandestine because it presented music and female voices on the air, both banned by the Taliban. The broadcaster “All India Radio” certainly doesn’t consider itself clandestine when it belts out Bollywood film tunes, but it was to a Taliban-era listener in Kabul at night, wearing headphones. And while the United States is not nearly as repressive as the Taliban, I and many others where fortunate to have a different point of view in early 2003 when most of the media in the US were pimping the Iraq Invasion. “Deutsche Welle” of Germany and “Radio Havana Cuba” of Cuba were among those presenting a refreshingly different viewpoint, but they aren’t listed or considered clandestine in nature.

Of course, Central Asia has been a recipient of clandestine broadcasts, most notably Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (as mentioned in Shortwave Report Part 3) from the United States. But what is weird about this is that Radio Liberty also appears to have *AM* and *FM* broadcasts in these countries as well. Are they broadcasting from satellite or within the country? I guess when you grease enough local palms, you get your access.

But other countries broadcast clandestinely in Central Asia. In 2002, the Voice of Tibet, a transmission from dissident Tibetans, was broadcast from Kazakhstan into Chinese-occupied Tibet.

JAMMING

Of course, as you can well imagine, the intended recipient countries of clandestine radio, or at least their governments, don’t appreciate these broadcasts. That’s where jamming comes in.

The recipient country of a clandestine broadcast, in order to keep their subjects in the dark, will jam the transmission. This mainly involves transmitting another broadcast on the exact same frequency, using different noises such as beeps or car engines. Of course you can’t hear the original through this mess.

The original broadcasters, however, can circumvent jamming by changing their frequency on a regular basis. Unfortunately, this forces those attempting to receive the broadcast into moving their radio tuner up and down the dial to find whatever heresy their government disapproves of.

That’s it for now.

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Ted Rall

TGIF! Summer drinks on me!
posted by TheDon
Summer’s here, ushered in by a heat wave, so here’s a light and refreshing drink.

Peach Water
pour Peach Vodka over some ice cubes in a double old-fashioned glass
pour peach flavored water in and stir lightly
vary proportions to taste and liver function
enjoy!

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Ted Rall

Another war crime
posted by TheDon
Corrected – note at bottom
First (as usual in the ongoing effort to win hearts and minds), the US military denies killing civilians in a bombing in Afghanistan, then admits to the slaughter of civilians, which has been an ongoing feature of the war on Afghanistan. First the ongoing feature:

An official close to the Uruzgan governor, who asked not to be identified because he was talking about preliminary estimates, said 70 to 75 civilians had been killed or wounded, while more than 100 Taliban and more than 35 police had been killed.
.
.
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Coalition troops had “surveillance on the compound all day and saw no indications there were children inside the building,” said Maj. Chris Belcher, a coalition spokesman. He accused the militants of not letting the children leave the compound that was targeted. “If we knew that there were children inside the building, there was no way that that air strike would have occurred,” said Sgt. 1st Class Dean Welch, another coalition spokesman.
According to Keith Olbermann last night, they now admit that they knew there were children there (and other civilians for a total of at least 30), but the terrorist they were after was such a high value target that it was worth killing them.
The reason they always deny killing civilians is that it is illegal to intentionally target them. The calculation has to be that the target is worth killing your own soldiers to capture/kill, not that he is worth killing children over. This is a war crime. Another war crime
The battle for hearts and minds has been well documented. Bombing weddings and soccer games doesn’t even warrant a headline anymore. “Shake and Bake” chemical warfare attacks never got any attention. At least not here. Torture. Kidnapping. Murder. Rape. The war crimes tribunal for the GWOT, in a just society at least, would last about 10 years at this point.
Just remember every time you read a headline bragging about how many “insurgents” or “Taliban” we kill – every time – they are leaving out civilian deaths that we just don’t give a shit about. And the first report is a lie. But you knew that.
Correction – the original post used a notation that I commonly use in email to indicate a “snipped” portion of the news story. Unfortunately, Blogger’s engine thought it was a meaningless html tag and eliminated it, giving the impression that the second part of the story was a continuation of the first. I was trying to give two types of information and failed. The first part of the story is about the ongoing slaughter of civilians, the second about the criminal murder of schoolchildren.
I regret the mistake, and have put in a vertical elipse, along with some clarifying verbiage.
Correction II – A kind reader pointed out the mistake above (I believe the word fool was used), and I *now* know that editing a post to correct it removes the comments. That was not my intent at all – lesson learned, apology extended. (hey! The comments are back. Must be a timing thing.)
The point of the reader was that the cowardly terrorists hid in a school, forcing us to kill the children. My point remains that when you want to kill someone who is hiding in a civilian population, you are required by law and by morals to risk as much of your own soldiers’ life as it takes to protect innocent human life. You can NOT drop bombs on civilian populations and then whine about the nasty tactics used by the guys in the black hats. If you aren’t willing to lose some of your soldiers to get a “high value” target, but you are willing to kill some of the brown children, you are a criminal and a coward.

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Ted Rall

More Dawgs!
posted by TheDon
Over the last two weeks, my rescue group has placed 15 more dogs in their forever homes, and had a tent at a local festival to raise awareness. This is Nellie, who was hit by a car and badly injured. Her two pups were delivered by C-Section and we have been giving her the medical care she needs. So far it’s approaching $2000, but we are doing very well raising money for her. She is a very, very sweet girl, and almost fully recovered.

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Ted Rall

Twice as Good
posted by TheDon
So there’s a new bio of Condi. I assume the title refers to how effective she would have to be before she would be considered acceptably competent. She’s gone from the NSA who didn’t give a damn about terrorism until after 9/11 to a SecOfState who has won’t talk to anyone but our allies. Heckuva a job, Condi!

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