Matt Drudge is such a douchebag. These are two current link titles on his site:

Sen. Durbin [D-IL] took the Senate floor yesterday and likened American servicemen to Nazis…
Refuses to apologize…

He fails to mention the most important part; Durbin is speaking very generically of Americans in Guantanamo Bay who are accused of torture and degredation. Here’s the transcript:

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [at Guantanamo Bay] — I almost hesitate to put them in the [Congressional] Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:
“On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.”
If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

Providing the correct context helps, Matt. Durbin should know that throwing out the term Nazi is only going to get him in trouble, but he wasn’t talking about our servicemen overseas on the streets of Fallujah. He was referring to American interrogators who have been exposed as torturers by the FBI.

Tomorrow, (Thursday, June 16, 2005) the House Appropriations Committee will decide whether to approve 25% cuts to NPR and PBS. The House is threatening to eliminate all public funding for NPR and PBS, starting with “Sesame Street,” “Reading Rainbow” and other commercial-free children’s shows. Sign the petition to Congress opposing these massive cuts to public broadcasting.

This looks like a great line-up. Will be worth the trip:
(Via Brooklyn Vegan)
The Newport Folk Fest in Newport, Rhode Island is happening August 6th & 7th, 2005.
Lineup:
Elvis Costello & The Imposters
Bright Eyes
M Ward
Del McCoury
Jim Lauderdale
Emmylou Harris
and JUST ADDED: The Pixies (accoustic)
click here for more

Group Sounds begin their residency Tuesday June 14th at Sin-e. If you haven’t heard them yet, be sure to check them out. They recently opened for The Kills and offer up fun, unpretentious pop that’s a welcome break from the derivative post-punk that’s monopolizing New York clubs these days.
MP3′s
Business before pleasure | Things fall apart
Live Dates:
June 14th, 21st, 28th @ Sin-e
August 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th, 31st @ Pianos

I may not agree with everything Jim Wallis has to say (he mumbles about being pro-life and “pro-family” under his breath) but this progressive evangelical Christian leader is more vocal in his dislike of Bush than most of us Godless sinners. Check out his book, “God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It,” an enlightening and important read that details what I believe to be the future of evangelicaldom. Wallis has jump-started a movement with young evangelicals that is spreading, see the recent Bush protest at Calvin College. We just got this in our inbox from his magazine, Sojourners:

Guantanamo and human rights: Practicing what we preach
Guantanamo Bay has become not only a symbol of the U.S. government’s hypocrisy and dishonesty – or “disassembling,” as President Bush might put it – around the war on terror. The prison camp has become one of the more egregious examples of the cost of unaccountable power.
Human rights groups have long documented the abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo, including desecration of the Quran. (The International Committee of the Red Cross issued credible reports in 2002 and 2003 on mistreatment of the Islamic holy book, which last week even the Pentagon admitted.)
The 540 prisoners at the facility have been held incommunicado, denied access to legal counsel, and, in fact, denied the most basic aspects of legal process. The Bush administration has given mutually contradictory rationalizations for its treatment of prisoners there, claiming on the one hand that those incarcerated are effectively prisoners of war and in other circumstances that they are terrorist criminals. Yet the administration has refused to honor either the Geneva Conventions for treatment of POWs or the rights granted the accused under U.S. criminal law.
Defenders of Guantanamo and the policies it represents are quick to point out that our treatment of prisoners is far better than that meted out by the U.S.’s terrorist enemies – or the “gulag” of the former Soviet Union, for that matter. Fair enough. But if the U.S. is to continue to claim a place as a world leader for human rights, our standards must be infinitely higher and conform to or surpass international norms. We must not be satisfied with merely being “better” than al Qaeda or Stalin.
Former President Jimmy Carter has joined human rights groups, led by Amnesty International and others, in calling for the closing of Guantanamo Bay. “The U.S. continues to suffer terrible embarrassment and a blow to our reputation…because of reports concerning abuses of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo,” Carter said, according to an A.P. report. President Bush refused to rule out the closing of the facility, saying the administration was “exploring all alternatives” for detaining the prisoners.
Guantanamo should be closed. But simply closing the facility – and either moving the detainees to another location or returning them to their country of origin – is not enough. If the United States is to regain any credibility as an advocate of human rights around the world, it must begin to practice what it preaches in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Guantanamo, and everywhere else. The erosion of respect for human rights by U.S. personnel didn’t begin at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay, and the responsibility for it goes all the way to the top.

On Friday:
It’s hot, muggy and rainy. A perfect night to see the new Miyazaki film Howl’s Moving Castle. If you’ve never seen Miyazaki film before, don’t miss seeing this on the big screen. He’s a genious. And you don’t even have to like anime. He’s that good. Click for tix.
On Saturday

Don’t miss the Sweet Action Magazine Party
at the Tainted lady Lounge:
318 Grand St @ Havemeyer (7pm)
10 bucks includes:
– A free copy of Sweet Action #3!
– A Sixpoint Sweet Action Beer!
– Dick Readings by Madame Micole ($5 a head)
– Lots of raffle prizes!
Plus the people who run and operate Sweet Action are super cool. The upcoming mag features backpaker Beans nude.
Then on Sunday at 6pm
see the film Half-Cocked (1995) – because we love the Make-Up
Ocularis at Galapagos Art Space (70 N 6th St, Wburg)
6 bucks

from flavorpill
Half-Cocked is best known for its soundtrack, featuring ’90s lo-fi band the Grifters and riot grrrl math rockers Ruby Falls. The film chronicles the naissance of Truckstop, a band born of Gen-X boredom and timeless rock star aspirations. After jacking a van laden with another band’s equipment, a group of friends bluff their way into playing a local club. Because the band has no material, and none of its members play instruments, their musical signature quickly becomes volume and distortion. Don’t miss this rare chance to see Ian Svenonious (Nation of Ulysses, the Make-Up, Weird War, et al) and Tara Jane O’Neil lead the cast down the glorious road of rock ‘n roll destitution.

You know you want it.
Thanks Daily Refill…. click here to get it.

Miighty Flashlight

This event is a couple of weeks away, but we’re excited about the line-up.
saturday, june 25th. 2-6pm
East River Music Project presents

- grizzly bear
- soft circle
- miighty flashlight
(download mp3: 1 | 2)
- pajo
(download mp3)

(East River Park Amphitheatre NYC just south of the Williamsburg Bridge on the Manhattan side)

Then at 7:30 as part of Prospect Park’s Celebrate Brooklyn:
NEW PORNOGRAPHERS / STARS / THE SADIES
click here for info.

click for full size
This is bad, even for Dubya. I suppose its tough for him to care about the environment, since the Rapture is on its way:

From NY Times
A White House official who once led the oil industry’s fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.
In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.
The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase “significant and fundamental” before the word “uncertainties,” tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.

Read the rest of this entry »

Disturbing story/verdict aside – this sounds like a terrifying precedent:

From AP
A 19-year-old East Texas man faces a life prison sentence for causing his teenage girlfriend to miscarry twins, even though she wanted to end the pregnancy.
Gerardo Flores was accused of causing the miscarriage by stepping on his girlfriend’s stomach. He was prosecuted under the state’s new fetal protection law.
Erica Basoria acknowledged asking Flores to help end her pregnancy. But the 17-year-old can’t be prosecuted because of her legal right to abortion.
The defense contended that Basoria punched herself while Flores was stepping on her, making it impossible to tell who killed the twins.
The jury reached a verdict after deliberating four hours. Because prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty in the case, Flores received the automatic life sentence.