A Forum for Grinches and Ho-Ho-Hoes

[dtb]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Hopefully, in a few weeks we'll see stuff like this annotated with a translation, together with a discussion of historical antecedents.

I miss that. [sniff]

Well, as Atticus is my internet ex-boyfriend (don't tell him, but I've found myself a NEW internet boyfriend -- one who appreciates me, dammit!), I am familiar with his ways. However, don't get your hopes up too high for annotations and translations and shit (speaking of which, I should be able to fill the scatalogical-references shoes without too much difficulty).

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by dtb
Well, as Atticus is my internet ex-boyfriend (don't tell him, but I've found myself a NEW internet boyfriend -- one who appreciates me, dammit!), I am familiar with his ways. However, don't get your hopes up too high for annotations and translations and shit (speaking of which, I should be able to fill the scatalogical-references shoes without too much difficulty).

Who is your new bf?

[dtb]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
Who is your new bf?

Not telling!!!

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by dtb
Dear Hank,

You're missing a "shel" between "ner" and "Chanukah" in your sign-off.

You're welcome.

Sincerely,

dtb

I'm lost tribe...n' shit.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Gattigap
Hopefully, in a few weeks we'll see stuff like this annotated with a translation, together with a discussion of historical antecedents.

I miss that. [sniff]

Yep. I learned more stuff (much of it interesting and obscure) from AG than from any other two posters.

I must have missed the part where he parted from the Boards forever. What's the deal? They do have the Internet in Canada.

S_A_M

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by dtb
Well, as Atticus is my internet ex-boyfriend (don't tell him, but I've found myself a NEW internet boyfriend -- one who appreciates me, dammit!), I am familiar with his ways. However, don't get your hopes up too high for annotations and translations and shit (speaking of which, I should be able to fill the scatalogical-references shoes without too much difficulty).

Just make it all up, like he did. It's all in the delivery.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Careful, you're talking about the Brits. They're the only ones who like us, sort of.

Or are you still all wigged out over the Dutch [supposedly] killing off retards?

Depends what you mean by "like us." Guess it depends what Slave means by "enlightened," too. The baby-and-retard-murdering Dutch, I note, like a majority of the countries of Enlightened Europe, publicly supported the invasion of Iraq and in fact have troops there.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Just make it all up, like he did. It's all in the delivery.

Atticus lied? It was actually all google quotes, and once he got here, cannabilizing pre-war Peter thottam religious tracts from infirm.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
What's the deal? They do have the Internet in Canada.

That they do, though Atticus' bunkmate Messr. Williams tells me that in Grass Valley, CA, the local Ayurveda instructors pride themselves on depriving students of all contact with the external world, all the better to focus on their studies.

[SlaveNoMore]

Gattigap
Hopefully, in a few weeks we'll see stuff like this annotated with a translation, together with a discussion of historical antecedents.

I miss that. [sniff]

Unfortunately, we wont.

We just got the cease and desist from the ACLU.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Yep. I learned more stuff (much of it interesting and obscure) from AG than from any other two posters.

I must have missed the part where he parted from the Boards forever. What's the deal? They do have the Internet in Canada.

S_A_M

He still comes late at night, but more often to the FB.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Meanwhile, is Donald Rumsfeld going to be the only holdover member of the cabinet? Tommy Thompson, see ya.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

This post from TAPPED (internal links omitted) adds some fairly crucial context:

THE INVENTIONS OF THE TELEGRAPH. There's a story behind today's news about George Galloway, the Scottish MP and left-wing Labour backbencher who received close to 130,000 pounds as the result of a libel suit he brought against Britain’s Daily Telegraph.

In a nutshell, the background to the story is this: Galloway has long challenged the West’s hard-line approach to Iraq; before the war he was one of the left’s foremost critics of the sanctions regime against Iraq, which he opposed on humanitarian grounds. He’s also visited Iraq on a few occasions. In April 2003, Telegraph reporter David Blair claimed to have found documents in the rubble of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry which proved what the right-wing British commentariat had long suspected: that Galloway was on Saddam Hussein’s payroll. On April 22, the Telegraph ran with the story, as did the Christian Science Monitor three days later, citing a separate set of documents that made the same Galloway-Hussein connection. After the stories ran, Galloway threatened a libel suit. The Monitor put the documents through a rigorous series of forensic tests and decided that they were fake.

On June 22, 2003, the Monitor retracted their story and explained how they obtained the documents in a lengthy front-page spread. The Monitor's retraction is worth a read as it offers a fascinating insight into the cryptic, if lucrative, underground market of forgeries that were distrubuted to reporters as pro-war propaganda. (I'm inclined to see the hand of the once-powerful Iraqi National Congress in this particular peddling. As Knight-Ridder’s list of INC-planted stories indicated, lying and forgery was a key part of that group's media strategy before the war.)

For its part, the Telegraph never backed off its story and did not put the documents through the same rigorous testing as the Monitor. The Telegraph continues to stand by its reporting and its decision to run with the story.

At this point, I think it's useful to take a step back and review the Telegraph’s journalistic methods immediately following the fall of Baghdad, which seemed to depend a great deal on good luck and happenstance. At the time, they had at least two investigative reporters on the ground, Inigo Gilmore and David Blair, who seemed to be dispatched to different bombed-out government buildings. At the Foreign Ministry, Blair found the Galloway scoop amidst the rubble. A few days later across town, his collegue Gilmore happened across some incredible (literally) documents in the bombed headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's intelligence service. As Gilmore reported on April 27, 2003, these documents apparently provided definitive proof of a Hussein–al-Qaeda link formalized in a May 1998 meeting.

Months later, the Telegraph’s Con Coughlin reported on documents he obtained which seemed to prove that Mohammed Atta and Hussein were in league prior to September 11. The scoop ran in the paper last December under the headline, "TERRORIST BEHIND SEPTEMBER 11 STRIKE WAS TRAINED BY SADDAM," and William Safire cited it in his column the following day. Of course, this document was also deemed a fake, as Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball reported in Newsweek.

One might wonder why this right-wing rag of a paper is so incapable of admitting its own faults. Its own reporting on the Galloway libel decision is revealing:

• Telegraph Group Ltd had denied libel, claiming the articles were responsible journalism and that it was in the public interest for it to publish the contents of the documents.

In the public interest or to serve ideological ends? You decide.

[SlaveNoMore]

Volpe ends exotic-dancer program:
Blanket visas axed, club owners must now apply each time to import strippers

By MARINA JIMÉNEZ AND CAMPBELL CLARK

TORONTO and OTTAWA -- Ottawa cancelled an easy route into Canada for foreign-born strippers yesterday, effectively killing the controversial so-called exotic-dancer program.

But the move by Human Resources Minister Joe Volpe left the door open for strip club owners to apply on a case-by-case basis to bring in dancers from abroad, if they can convince the government there is a dearth of locals willing to do the job.

A political scandal has dogged Immigration Minister Judy Sgro ever since it came to light that she granted a temporary-resident permit to a Romanian stripper who came to Canada under the program.

Yesterday, Mr. Volpe said it is clear not all Canadians support the program, which last year granted permits to 661 foreign dancers -- 552 of them from Romania.

"I didn't feel in the slightest bit comfortable with the program and I didn't think there was any justification for it," he told reporters. "The category for exotic dancers is no longer there. I gave the department an indication I did not want to be a part of an administration that might have analyzed this particular work, even though it is a legitimate form of work."

Critics of the program have for years detailed cases of foreign strippers being exploited by their agents, made to turn over a percentage of their earnings and pressured to perform sex acts in the clubs. Many women also attempt to marry Canadians in a bid for citizenship.

NDP Leader Jack Layton said he was glad the government would no longer be "pimping for the sex industry."

"We should not have been doing that in the first place," he said.

But others saw the move as purely political, unrelated to a change in labour-market conditions and a sudden availability of Canadians to perform at strip clubs. Immigration lawyer Richard Kurland wants to launch a class-action suit against the government for restricting international mobility of labour.

"It's a morality move," Mr. Kurland said. "It is not justified for economic reasons but certainly fixes a political problem. I am going to consult my colleagues with a view to commencing a class action."

Tim Lambrinos, executive director of the Adult Entertainment Association, said the cancellation of the blanket visa for foreign strippers proves that society is prejudiced against strippers.

"They didn't break any laws. It's a legal profession and if there is a shortage, we need to recruit internationally," he said.

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada began issuing labour-market analyses on the industry in 1998, giving prior approval of a labour-market shortage for exotic dancers.

The onus will now shift to employers to prove to HRSDC that there is a labour shortage each time they wish to bring in a foreign stripper on a temporary work permit. They will have to show that they advertised in newspapers, but were unable to recruit locals.

"We are not allowed to advertise on the HRSDC website and some newspapers don't accept our ads either so it can be difficult to prove there is a labour-market shortage through traditional methods, though it's possible," Mr. Lambrinos said.

Mr. Volpe insisted yesterday that he was not making a moral judgment about the industry. "The rationale is that this minister didn't think that the government should do an analysis of those types of jobs, even though they're legitimate jobs." His aides said he began reviewing the program in May.

Mr. Kurland said that even if prospective employers fully comply, he fears their applications will still be rejected. "The political message is crystal clear: to shut down the flow of exotic dancers to Canada. I'm waiting to see whether the government will also move to regulate the domestic dancers."

Mr. Lambrinos said his association has worked with police to clean up the seedier aspects of the business, and has a brochure in five languages advising women of their workplace rights and reminding them that sex is prohibited in clubs.

"This will merely push the industry underground. Isn't it better to have it regulated? You can't outlaw it," he said.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Yesterday, Mr. Volpe said it is clear not all Canadians support the program, which last year granted permits to 661 foreign dancers -- 552 of them from Romania.

As a friend of mine once said, it's a wonder there's any pussy left in Eastern Europe.