Nuts, I wanted to be the first…
Maciej Ceglowski of idlewords.com has created an inspired parody of the Department of Homeland Security Terrorist Preparedness Website (and I hope he doesn’t mind that I shamelessly stole his brilliant graphics).
Speaking of brilliant graphics, Mike Konopacki has created a marvelous flash animation at Solidarity.com updating the old Bert the Turtle civil defense films.
All I can say is … it’s about time!
Gephardt, Taking Aim at White House, Sharply Attacks Bush
DES MOINES, Feb. 19 — Representative Richard A. Gephardt began his second campaign for president in 16 years today with a fierce attack on President Bush’s economic and domestic polices and a pledge to push for health care coverage for all Americans.
He portrayed the White House as overridden with “special interest lobbyists,” and said that Mr. Bush’s policies had undermined the nation’s economic recovery, soiled the environment and neglected public schools. Attacking the centerpiece of Mr. Bush’s economic plan, Mr. Gephardt vowed to “scrap the vast majority of the Bush tax cuts for wealthier Americans and corporations.”
“President Bush has taken us right back to the broken policies of the past, the economics of debt and regret, unaffordable tax cuts for the few, zero new jobs, surging unemployment,” Mr. Gephardt told 400 supporters this morning at the elementary school he attended.
“I’ve got to hand it to him: Never has so much been done in so little time to help so few,” Mr. Gephardt said. “President Bush campaigned as a centrist, a coalition-builder and a compassionate conservative. But on issues after issue, the only thing he’s conserved is compassion itself.”
(NYT story; requires registration. Oh go on, you know you want to…)
If you’ve been watching the news (or, indeed, if you live in the Eastern Time Zone and you’ve looked out your window) you know the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. has been blanketed with several feet of snow. Here in Virginia, everything has just ground to a halt for a few days while we dig ourselves out. Most folks have simply stayed home.
MY JOKE OF THE WEEK: “I just wrapped myself in plastic sheets and duct tape and walked to work...”
I love this piece by Andy Borowitz from his satirical website The Borowitz Report:
Bush Blames Blizzard On Saddam
Evildoer Drops Two Feet of Snow on Northeast, White House SaysPresident Saddam Hussein of Iraq dropped between one and two feet of snow on the Northeastern United States today, closing airports and creating hazardous driving conditions, President George W. Bush revealed.
“To those in the world who say that Mr. Saddam Hussein poses no threat, I�d ask you to take a look outside your window,” President Bush said in a White House press briefing this afternoon. “It’s a freaking mess out there.”
Shortly after September 11 2001, I was honored to be part of an internet-wide effort to post pictures of reactions to the terrorist attacks from around the world. I received many messages thanking me for my efforts; more importantly, it helped me to feel connected to a global community of grief and compassion. (I just did a quick check and it appears that my page is one of the few still up).
It was with this experience in mind that I gathered and posted pictures of dissent from around the world after the F15 events. The contrast and irony are inescapable — after September 11, the world joined us in mourning; not quite a year and a half later, millions poured into the street to protest an American-led war. I feel confident saying that, with few exceptions, this is not a “pro-Iraq” movement; this is an anti-war, anti-Bush, and sadly, now, an anti-American protest. This ill-conceived “war on terrorism” may yet squander every opportunity we may have had for uniting the peaceful nations of the world. Who could ever have guessed that, after watching my own government feverishly heading to war, I would find myself admiring the French for their bravery and the Germans for their caution?
I am not the only one gathering these pictures. I have found at least one other page on the BBC World News site that is asking readers to submit their own pictures of global protest. I particularly like this one from the South Pole, Antartica. The caption reads “We organized a rally here at the US Amundsen-Scott Station, South Pole, Antarctica. We were only five rallying, probably the smallest protest in the world. Antarctica is the only continent where no wars ever happened and where all countries recognise that the only way to survive is collaboration.”
If you find other sites with similar pictures, please let me know. Drop me an email 
or post a comment below. Thanks.
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