The ridiculousness over video game content goes overseas:
Entertainment giant Sony has been branded irresponsible for using a cathedral from a city plagued by gun crime in a violent video game.
The Church of England says the company did not seek permission to use the Manchester Cathedral in the game, and is demanding an apology and a large donation to be used in its work with young people.
Church leaders have accused Sony of the “desecration” of the cathedral after the firm set the top-selling the new PlayStation 3 game, “Resistance: Fall of Man,” in the place of worship.
The game, which has sold more than one million copies, sees a virtual shoot-out between humans and gun-toting aliens with hundreds killed during a battle inside the cathedral.
What part of “game” and “aliens” do they not understand? I’ve seen footage of that game, anyone who would play that game and think it was endorsing mass murder needs to put down the pipe.
Oh yeah, one more thing…
Sony has been criticized for choosing Manchester — a city where gun violence is rife, and has left tens of youngsters dead. Every year a candlelit memorial services is held in the Manchester Cathedral in honor of people who have been killed by guns. (emphasis mine)
Those civilian disarmament laws not working the way you hoped, eh?
Two bits of non-news. Which is less surprising?
#1 from WaPost: “Immigration judges often picked based on GOP ties“:
The Bush administration increasingly emphasized partisan political ties over expertise in recent years in selecting the judges who decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, despite laws that preclude such considerations, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.
At least one-third of the immigration judges appointed by the Justice Department since 2004 have had Republican connections or have been administration insiders, and half lacked experience in immigration law, Justice Department, immigration court and other records show.
Two newly appointed immigration judges were failed candidates for the U.S. Tax Court nominated by President Bush; one fudged his taxes and the other was deemed unqualified to be a tax judge by the nation’s largest association of lawyers. Both were Republican loyalists.
Justice officials also gave immigration judgeships to a New Jersey election law specialist who represented GOP candidates, a former treasurer of the Louisiana Republican Party, a White House domestic policy adviser and a conservative crusader against pornography.
#2 from AP/Yahoo: “Lieberman: U.S. should weigh Iran attack”
Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Sunday the United States should consider a military strike against Iran because of Tehran’s involvement in Iraq.
“I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq,” Lieberman said. “And to me, that would include a strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers.”
Cronyism vs irrational belligerence. Yay!
I must add though, in Lieberman’s case he’s actually being more dumb than Bush is being corrupt for once. At least ALL of the appointments aren’t cronies (yet), whereas if we took Joe & the 7th Beach Boy’s advice, Iran would just say “fuck it, they think we’re behind it all anyway” & invade Iraq.
A hillbilly-ish white guy in a beat-up green pickup truck, blaring through his stereo the Three 6 Mafia song “Knock Tha Black Off Yo Ass”. Saw that on a stop in Iowa during my recent trip.
In the last GOP debate, one of Fox News’ borg drones implied that Ron Paul, for the apparent sin of opposing a pointless war, isn’t a “real” Republican. Last night, he took it where I would’ve:
Rep. Ron Paul of Texas said he objects to government subsidies for the oil industry and hammered the Bush administration over its motivation for war in Iraq.
“Why did we go to the Middle East?” he said. “Our foreign policy is designed to protect our oil interests. We succumbed to the temptation of going out and fighting war [to secure oil interests].” (emphasis mine)
In a way, what was meant to be an insult actually made sense if you take it further. No one can realize the true purpose of US foreign policy & still approve of the political status quo, so whether he realizes it or not, Ron Paul is helping people acknowledge the moral bankruptcy of politics itself. They’ll notice that anyone who says similar gets ostracized from both parties and branded as a kook, and eventually find themselves thinking “wow, seems to me like the entire system is the problem”.
Contrary to popular media portrayal, the ones protesting aren’t a hive mind. There’s many agendas, some reasonable (i.e.: opposition to the trade barriers placed on many poor countries), some not (the “more foreign aid!!” types come to mind…). But looking at the big picture, even if someone doesn’t really have much of an agenda, it still makes sense to be skeptical, simply because of what such an organization means. The existence of the G8 itself is a statement, and that statement is “well, the economies of the nations we claim to represent make up a lot of the global economy, so lets pat ourselves on the back and bend the whole thing to our will”.
A free market domestically doesn’t require national councils yammering about what goes where. As such, it should go without saying that a global free market doesn’t require an international one, especially one that assumes by default that the efforts of individuals despite their governments should determine which politicians get to throw their garbage on the rest of the world. When such a gathering exists, any anti-state type worth their salt should at least raise an eyebrow — it’s obviously not there to bake cookies, y’know…
