Friday, February 25, 2005

Be In The New Weezer Video

...Southern California Weezer fans! (or weezer fans who happen to be in SoCal right now) Read on, for we need 150 of you to be in the NEW WEEZER VIDEO for "Beverly Hills":
Heres the lowdown...
Director: Marcos Siega (of 'Hash Pipe' fame and many more)
Shoot Date: Monday, Feb. 28th, 2005
Call time: 3 groups needed: 50 at 7 am, 50 at 12 noon, 50 at 5 pm
Schedule: From your call time (be it 7, 12, or 5) till 10pm.
Location: Los Angeles see below!

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IMPORTANT: WHAT YOU NEED TO DO RIGHT NOW - FRIDAY 2/25 - If you
want to be a part of this video!
Send an email to weezerfeb05video@yahoo.com. Include in your email:
- your full name
- your contact phone numbers
- your email address
- your age (18+ ONLY!)
- whether you are male or female.
remember: In order to be considered for the video, Fans must be 18 or older and available from 7am to 10pm on Monday, Feb. 28th.
note that fans will not receive a call or email back unless chosen for the video.
After fans are chosen they will be called to set in groups at the various times.

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If you are chosen:
- All fans must bring with them valid photo ID which will be checked
upon arrival or they will be sent home.
- fans will be required to sign a talent release.
- No digital cameras, still cameras, video cameras or audio recorders
are allowed.
- Wardrobe: Summer look - bring 2-3 outfits to pick from.
- food will be provided!

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Blood On Negroponte

The blood on Negroponte's hands might have been washed off by the Republican spin machine, but we remember. The following is from FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting).

MEDIA ADVISORY:
Media Omissions on Negroponte's Record

February 22, 2005

George W. Bush's February 17 nomination of John Negroponte to the newly
created job of director of intelligence was the subject of a flurry of
media coverage. But one part of Negroponte's resume was given little
attention: his role in the brutal and illegal Contra war against the
Sandinista government of Nicaragua in the mid-1980s.

From 1981 to 1985, Negroponte was the U.S. ambassador to Honduras, a
country that was being used as a training and staging ground for the
CIA-created and -backed Contra armies, who relied on a terrorist strategy
of targeting civilians. Those years saw a massive increase in U.S.
military aid to Honduras, and Negroponte was a key player in organizing
training for the Contras and procuring weapons for the armies that the
United States was building in order to topple the socialist Nicaraguan
government (Extra!, 9-10/01).

Negroponte's ambassadorship was marked by another human rights scandal:
the Honduran army's Battalion 316, which operated as a death squad that
tortured, killed or disappeared "subversive" Hondurans-- and at least one
U.S. citizen, Catholic priest James Carney. Despite regular reporting of
such crimes in the Honduran press, the human rights reports of
Negroponte's embassy consistently failed to raise these issues. Critics
contend that this was no accident: If such crimes had been acknowledged,
U.S. aid to the country's military would have come under scrutiny, which
could have jeopardized the Contra operations.

Many reports included brief mentions of Negroponte's past. The New York
Times (2/18/05), for example, noted that "critics say" that Negroponte
"turned a blind eye to human rights abuses" in Honduras. But the Times
(like most mainstream reports) quoted no critics on the subject; to get a
sense of what Negroponte's critics actually said, you had to tune into
Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now (2/18/05), where Peter Kornbluh of the
National Security Archive said that Negroponte "essentially ran Honduras
as the Reagan administration changed it from a small Central American
country into a territorial battleship, if you will, to fight the Contra
war and overthrow the Sandinista government. He was really the head person
in charge of this whole operation, which became a massive paramilitary war
in the early 1980s."

Kornbluh added that declassified documents from those years show
Negroponte had "stepped out of being U.S. ambassador and kind of put on
the hat of a C.I.A. station chief in pushing for the Contras to get more
arms, in lobbying and meeting with very high Honduran officials to
facilitate U.S. support for the Contras and Honduran cooperation, even
after the U.S. Congress terminated official support
for the Contra war."

The night of Bush's announcement, network news broadcasts woefully
understated or misrepresented this history. On NBC Nightly News
(2/17/05), reporter Andrea Mitchell glossed over Negroponte's Honduran
record: "As Ronald Reagan's ambassador to Honduras, he was accused of
ignoring death squads and America's secret war against Nicaragua." While
Negroponte might be accused of ignoring Honduran death squads, no one
could credibly suggest he was ignoring "America's secret war against
Nicaragua." The documentary evidence, as Kornbluh explained, suggests
that he was intimately involved with running it. ABC's Good Morning
America Robin Roberts turned this reality on its head (2/18/05), noting
that Negroponte's "entire life has been a lesson in quiet and measured
diplomacy" and that "he generated controversy long after a stint in
Honduras when he denied he knew anything about the work of Contra rebel
death squads."

Some reporters simply soft-pedaled the history; as CNN reporter Kitty
Pilgrim put it (2/17/05), "During his four-year stint as U.S. ambassador
to Honduras, he had a difficult balancing act in the battle against
Communism in the neighboring Sandinista government in Nicaragua."
(Sandinista Nicaragua, of course, was not Communist, but a country with a
mixed economy and regular elections, one of which voted the Sandinistas
out of power in 1990.) Pilgrim's CNN colleague, Paula Zahn (2/17/05),
complained that "the critics are already out there sniping at him."

Fox News reporter Carl Cameron (2/17/05) noted that "the only partisan
criticism noted Negroponte's role as U.S. ambassador to Honduras in the
'80s, when he played a key role in the Reagan administration's covert
disruption of Communism in the Nicaragua." In this case, "covert
disruption" stands in as a euphemism for a bloody guerrilla war that took
the lives of thousands of civilians
. Cameron went on to note that the
"partisan" remarks "came from a member of the House, which has no vote on
his nomination."

NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly made similar observations (2/17/05), noting
that previous confirmation hearings generated "a lot of questions about
the role he played during the early '80s when he was the ambassador to
Honduras." Kelly seemed aware of this history, but thought it a settled
matter: "He has already dealt with those issues and obviously answered
them satisfactorily-- he was confirmed for that job at the United
Nations."

Some pundits were remarkably lenient in the standards by which Negroponte
should be judged. Fox News Channel commentator Charles Krauthammer
explained (2/17/05) that "he was the ambassador in Honduras during the
Contra war. So he clearly knows how to deal with clandestine operations.
That was a pretty clandestine one for several years. And he didn't end up
in jail, which is a pretty good attribute for him. A lot of others
practically did."

In general, right-wing pundits and commentators were much more likely than
mainstream news reporters to cite Negroponte's shady past-- as proof that
he is the right man for the job. On CNBC (2/17/05), Tony Blankley happily
summarized Negroponte's human rights record: "Negroponte is not just some
ambassador. He has a track record. Starting in Honduras in 1981, he was
the ambassador who oversaw the management when the Argentines turned over
the covert operations against the Nicaraguans. He took over that
responsibility. He managed it operationally. The CIA was very impressed
with the way he handled that."

After James Warren of the Chicago Tribune disagreed (calling the Contra
war an "at times slimy operation"), Blankley offered a blunt response--
"Well, we won"-- which host Lawrence Kudlow endorsed: "We did win. Thank
you, Tony. I was just going to say, you know, the forces of freedom
triumphed with a little bit of help from the right country."

Fox News Channel's Fred Barnes took the same line (2/19/05): "I would say
on Central America, I give John Negroponte credit, along with people like
Elliott Abrams and President Reagan, for creating democracy in all those
countries in Central America, in Nicaragua, in El Salvador and in
Honduras, where Marxists were going to take over, they fought them back."
By way of balance, Fox pundit and NPR correspondent Juan Williams noted
that while he didn't "have any love for Marxists," it was important to
note "what death squads do to people, and you understand that nuns were
involved, Fred, then you think-- wait a second-- excess is not to be
tolerated in the name of democracy." Barnes' response: "Well, now that we
have democracy, there are no death squads."
Alkaline Trio

There will be a FAN CLUB PRESALE for the following Alkaline Trio shows:

Apr 27-Grand Rapids, MI @ Intersection
Apr 28-Louisville, KY @ Jillians
Apr 29-Covington. KY @ Madison Theater
Apr 30-Lancaster, PA @ The Chameleon
May 3-Providence, RI @ Lupo's
May 4-Hartford, CT @ Webster Theatre
May 5-Rochester, NY @ Water Street Music Hall
May 6-Cleveland, OH @ House of Blues

The link to buy tickets is:
http://click.myreg.net/r/n_865822166/t_ejfE/u_alkalinetrio.frontgatetickets.com/

The Presale will run from February 24 @ 12 pm local time-March 9 @ 5 pm local time. The tickets available for this presale will be at a reduced
ticketing service charge (i.e. cheaper than ticketmaster).
Minutemen


THE SAN PEDRO FILM SOCIETY AND ROCKET FUEL
FILMS ANNOUNCE THE PREMIERE OF: WE JAM ECONO
- THE STORY OF THE MINUTEMEN

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 4, 2005
For more information, contact
Keith Schieron
press@theminutemen.com

The San Pedro Film Society in association with Rocket Fuel Films is proud to announce
the premiere of WE JAM ECONO - THE STORY OF THE MINUTEMEN at 8PM on Friday, February 25, 2005 at San Pedro's historic Warner Grand Theatre. Minutemen Mike Watt and George Hurley along with Director Tim Irwin and Producer Keith Schieron will sit for a
question and answer session with the audience after the screening. Michael Halloran from San Diego's FM94.9 will moderate the question and answer session.

WE JAM ECONO - THE STORY OF THE MINUTEMEN is a feature length documentary chronicling this ground breaking, early 80's punk rock band from their humble beginnings in the harbor town of San Pedro, CA to their untimely demise when lead singer and guitarist D. Boon was killed in a van accident in December of 1985.

Told by those who were there, WE JAM ECONO - THE STORY OF THE MINUTEMEN weaves together footage from over fifty newly shot interviews with archival interviews and live performances to capture the dynamic energy and do-it-yourself spirit of these punk rock pioneers. Newly shot interviews include Minutemen Mike Watt and George Hurley as well as Bill Morgan, Brendan Mullen, Brother Dale, Byron Coley, Carlos Guitarlos, Chris Morris, Colin Newman, Dave Markey, David Rees, Dez Cadena, Ed Crawford, Flea, Greg Ginn, Henry Rollins, Ian Mackaye, J Mascis, Jack Brewer, Jean Watt, Jello Biafra, Joe Baiza, Joe Carducci, John Doe, John Talley-jones, Keith Morris, Kevin Barrett, Kira Roessler, Kjehl Johansen, Kurt Schellenbach, Lisa Roeland, Martin Lyon, Michel C. Ford, Mike Martt, Milo Auckerman, Nannette Roeland, Nels Cline, Pat Hoed, Randy Johnson, Ray Farrell, Raymond Pettibon, Richard Bonney, Richard Derrick, Richard Hell, Richard Meltzer, Bobby Holtzman, Scott Becker, Thurston Moore, Tom Watson, Tony Platon and Vince Meghrouni.

The Warner Grand Theatre box office will open at 7PM. Advance tickets are available at http://www.theminutemen.com/latest.html - General Admission is $10. Students, San Pedro Film Society Members and Grand Vision Members can buy tickets the evening of the premiere at the box office for $8.

For more information including trailer, press
kit, and ticket information:

http://www.theminutemen.com
http://www.thesanpedrofilm.org
http://www.warnergrand.com
Mars Frozen Sea
New photos from the Elysium region of Mars has European scientists convinced that just below the surface lies vast frozen seas. The photos tell a story of global catastrophe about 5 million years ago that flooded the planet and then froze into place. Read about it here, BBC News.

Then take a moment and read this article here, on Zecharia Sitchin's homepage. You know him, don't you? He's the scholar of ancient Sumer that believes cylinder seals and inscriptions prove that earth was visited hundreds of thousands of years ago by a race of beings called the Annunaki. What's interesting about Sitchin's work is that he uses the Old Testament to support many of his claims, as the Nefilim were mentioned in Genesis (and they are the same as the Annunaki). Sitchin relates how Mars was once a watery planet and used as a waystation for the Annunaki until a cosmic collision killed Mars and turned it into a desolate planet.

Is any of what he says true? Do we really believe it? Our answer is, why not. It is certainly sexier to believe that ancient astronauts were here than to believe the usual boring history lessons.
Crows & Jays Have Highest IQs
We've known it for years, but a new report that ranks avian innovation has landed the Corvidae family member the highest honors along with the bossy jay. Read it here, from BBC News. We knew some crows who wanted to eat fallen walnuts but because the shell is too hard for them to open, they dropped walnuts behind the wheels of cars parked in driveways then waited patiently for the vehicle owners to go to work - and for breakfasttime for them!