Peter Griffin

In case you've been hiding under a rock, this is Peter Griffin.

For as much as I loathe and despise the official slant of Fox News, I love the animated shows on Fox... The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Futurama are all great shows.

Wal-Mart

I find it interesting to read random articles on Wikipedia. Besides google, I think Wikipedia is the best resource for information on the Internet.

If you don't know what it is, it's a user-edited encyclopedia, which enables the user to easily link to other articles or external sources. I've added a few articles and pictures to it myself.

You might think, "user edited? that's crazy!" ... but it works out quite well. There are users online all the time watching the "recent changes" page for anything illegal or not appropriate. Part of the reason I like it is because they allow a 'critisism' section in every article, should it be needed. Many times these sections are labeled as 'disputed', since pretty much anything negative is always disputed by someone.

Anyway... Here's a few snippets from Wal-Mart:

• Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world and the largest company in the world based on revenue.
• If Wal-Mart were its own economy, it would rank 33rd in the world, with a GDP between Ukraine and Colombia. It is the largest private employer in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
• In the mid-1990s, Wal-Mart had a "Buy American" campaign, but it was eventually cancelled. As of 2004, about 70% of the products sold in Wal-Mart stores have at least a component manufactured in China. It has been estimated that Wal-Mart alone makes 10% of the US imports from China and if taken separated from the US, it would be China's 8th largest trading partner, ahead of countries such as Germany and Russia. The growing deficit with China, heavily influenced by Wal-Mart imports, is estimated to have moved over a million American jobs to China.
• In Bangladesh, Greg Palast reported that in 1992 teenagers were working in "sweatshops" approximately 80 hours per week, at $0.14 per hour, for Wal-Mart contractor Beximco
• In 2004, amid local community resistance and protests, both from environmentalists and anti-globalists, Wal-Mart opened a new Superstore in Teotihuacan, Mexico, near ancient Pre-Columbian pyramids
• In 2000, the meat-cutting department of the Wal-Mart superstore in Jacksonville, Texas voted to unionize. Eleven days later, Wal-Mart eliminated its meat-cutting operations at all Wal-Mart stores and switched to buying pre-cut meats. Likewise, when the employees of a Wal-Mart in Jonquière, Quebec, Canada voted to unionize, Wal-Mart announced that it would close the store for "financial difficulties" even though the Jonquière superstore was more profitable than the neighboring Saguenay superstore which still remains open today.
• Some suppliers say Wal-Mart has demanded access to their financial statements in order to look for "excessive profit margins." This information can be used as leverage in pricing negotiations, leading to reduced profit margins for suppliers.
• Former suppliers have stated that Wal-Mart threatens to cease carrying a supplier's entire product line unless the prices of specific products are lowered. This is analogous, but not identical, to the illegal practice of product tying practiced by manufacturers and suppliers. As a purchaser rather than a seller, Wal-Mart is not bound by regulations in this regard, so the practice is not illegal in the United States.
• Sam Walton's family's holdings in Wal-Mart if combined would comprise the nation's largest fortune; at $100 billion combined they are significantly ahead of Bill Gates.

Anyway, keep reading...

Hot off the presses...

Rove leaked CIA Agent!

July 18 issue - It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. "Subject: Rove/P&C," (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation ..." Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, "please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]" and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.

...
For two years, a federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has been investigating the leak of Plame's identity as an undercover CIA agent. The leak was first reported by columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003. Novak apparently made some arrangement with the prosecutor, but Fitzgerald continued to press other reporters for their sources, possibly to show a pattern (to prove intent) or to make a perjury case. (It is illegal to knowingly identify an undercover CIA officer.) Rove's words on the Plame case have always been carefully chosen. "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name," Rove told CNN last year when asked if he had anything to do with the Plame leak. Rove has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. But last week, his lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that Rove did—and that Rove was the secret source who, at the request of both Cooper's lawyer and the prosecutor, gave Cooper permission to testify.

keep reading on MSNBC »

The revelation runs counter to the claim by Rove during his grand jury testimony, leaked to the Associated Press, that he learned of the covert status of Plame from two reporters, Cooper and Robert Novak.

- Wikinews

I think what makes this story most interesting is that it revolves around the administration's excuses for going to war on Iraq.

Not to mention, I dislike Karl Rove (and Dick Cheney) more than Bush Jr. After all, Karl Rove is responsible for a lot more of the deception and lies. For the most part, Bush just does what he's told. He's a talking head and the pretty face.

Advertising

Since I'm a web developer and college student currently living paycheck to paycheck, I've decided that I need to have some form of advertising on my blog.

The advertising won't be viewable to users of LiveJournal, since it is against the TOS (tell me if I'm wrong about this), but will show on blog.jackola.net as well as any other pages I have or will have on jackola.net

If you're interested, please contact me at jackola@gmail.com.

Thank you =)

Bush admin may be responsible for botching effort to thwart London bombing

ABC News just reported that the British authorities say they have evidence that the London attacks last week were an operation planned by Al Qaeda for the last two years. This was an operation the Brits thought they caught and stopped in time, but they were wrong. The piece of the puzzle ABC missed is that this is an operation the Bush administration helped botch last year.

keep reading on AmericaBLOG »

Besides the above, London is claiming that the bombing had nothing to do with Iraq (despite al qaeda saying otherwise) and that the attacks may or may not have been by al Qaeda at all (again, al Qaeda claims them).

Rupert Murdoch Buys MYSPACE!

Owner of Fox News buys MySpace...

The worst possible news for anyone that is a member of MySpace...

News Corp, The Conservative Bias Corporation™, purchased MySpace today for $580 million.

News Corp is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who was born in Australia in 1931. Murdoch and News Corp are best known for their ownership of Fox News and tabloids such as The New York Post (NYC's most liberal newspaper turned into NYC's most conservative tabloid), The Herald Sun in Melbourne, The Daily Telegraph in Sydney, and The Sun in London.

He moved to Britain in the 60's, which is where his media conglomerate started. In 1985 he became a naturalized citizen of the United States to satisfy the legal requirement that only United States citizens could own American television stations.

And about his bias.... from Wikipedia:

Murdoch is often accused of running partisan media coverage for political parties that promote policies and decisions which favour his commercial interests. For example, it is believed that Murdoch tried to suppress publication of the memoirs of Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, in an attempt to curry favour with China. Patten's book was critical of the Chinese government. Whatever the motives, the book was dropped from publication by Murdoch's HarperCollins publishing company. It was only because of Patten's political influence that the story came to light and the book was published by another firm. It is speculated that Murdoch wanted to please the Chinese government because it happened around the time he was attempting to get a foothold in the Chinese market with the launch of Star TV.

Murdoch's British media outlets generally support eurosceptic positions, and generally show contempt for Britain's European partners. Murdoch publications worldwide tend to adopt anti-French and pro-American positions. During the buildup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, all 175 Murdoch-owned newspapers worldwide editorialized in favour of the war.

You know why is terrible news?

MySpace is becoming most popular because of its social networking, but also because of its music feature. Bands are using MySpace to find an audience like they've never been able to before online. This has brought all the major record labels to MySpace as well, and MySpace links are showing up on numerous band websites... some even offering exclusives to MySpace users.

Will Rupert's extreme bias cross over into MySpace? Will users still be able to express themselves without being censored? At this time there's pretty much one rule: don't do anything illegal. Will it stay that way?

Will "fair and balanced" news suddenly show up on the site?

I don't know what to think of this.

(By the way, if you haven't seen Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, I highly recommend it)