Monday, September 18, 2006

Bush Assassinated In 'Death Of a President'

Death of a President' directed by Gabriel Range, is a new film depicting President Bush's assasination and what follows after. The Toronto Festival jury has praised the film "for the audacity with which it distorts reality, to reveal a larger truth", and it was also given a prestegious award. Range said the film had recently signed a US distribution deal. The assasination scene was created by putting the President's face onto an actor with digital wizardry, shows him being gunned down just hours after driving past an anti-war demonstration while doing a talk in Chicago 2007.


The Republican Party in Texas has said 'Death of a President' is "shocking" and "disturbing" that a TV drama is to depict the assassination of US President Bush. A White House spokesman said of the programme: "We are not going to comment because it does not dignify a response." OF course the White House does see the significance of the film, just doesnt want people to know. Maybe they'll stop lying to us for a while? Or not.

CCTV now with loudspeakers

This is unbelievable - Britain’s first ‘talking’ CCTV cameras have arrived, well, CCTV cameras with loudspeakers next to them. The system allows control room operators who spot any illegal behavior to send out a verbal warning to the offender. Middlesbrough has fitted loudspeakers on seven of its 158 cameras in an experiment already being hailed as a success.

Middlesbrough has fitted loudspeakers on seven of its 158 cameras in an experiment already being hailed as a success.

Control room operators say phrases such as: 'Warning - you are being monitored by CCTV - Warning - you are in an alcohol-free zone, please refrain from drinking'; and Warning - your behaviour is being monitored by CCTV. It is being recorded and the police are attending.'

'It would appear that the offenders are the only ones who find the audio cameras intrusive. The vast majority of people welcome these cameras. 'Put it this way, we never have requests to remove them.' People are comfortable with this? Also, unbelievable. People submit to this like sheep and this is extremely unhealthy for people in this town to not be debating and questioning this.

“Orwell’s 1984 was a dire warning to ward off the totalitarianism of public monitoring authorities. This camera/speaker system is not ‘like’ Big Brother, it ‘is’ Big Brother incarnate,” says one American from Boston. A dire warning indeed. More via Ministry of Tech

U.S. holds AP photographer 5 mos, no charges

The U.S. military in Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer, Bilal Hussein, for five months, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or permitting a public hearing.

Military officials said Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen, was being held for "imperative reasons of security" under United Nations resolutions. AP executives said the news cooperative's review of Hussein's work did not find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents, and any evidence against him should be brought to the Iraqi criminal justice system.

"The vast majority of the 420 images show the aftermath or the results of the conflict — blown up houses, wounded people, dead people, street scenes."

He won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography last year. With this in mind, we see that he is photgraphing scenes in Iraq that are potentially bad for the Bush Administrations's image. From this we can conclude why he has been held for so long but never charged with a crime.