Deploring Your Way to the Bank

The News: Twentieth Century Fox launched a Christian home-video label on Tuesday, becoming the first major studio with a unit devoted to the church-going audience that turned "The Passion of the Christ" into a blockbuster.

The new FoxFaith banner will acquire Christian-themed films produced outside the studio and release them on DVD, with the help of a marketing network tied into 90,000 churches and 14 million households nationwide, said Steve Feldstein, a spokesman for 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Feldstein said the biggest impetus for creating FoxFaith was the stunning commercial success of Mel Gibson's 2004 crucifixion tale "The Passion of the Christ." The Aramaic-language film grossed $612 million worldwide, driven in large part by a marketing campaign that targeted evangelical Christians.

Fox, like much of Hollywood, passed up an opportunity to release "Passion" theatrically but ended up with U.S. home-video distribution rights, selling more than 15 million units of the film on DVD.

The Note: Steve Feldstein? Gee... so Weisenthall and the ADL protest the existence of Passion Plays and wail about blood libels while Murdock rakes in the cash peddling them. What a surprise people would think of Jews as avaricious hypocrites.

©Barfo, 2006
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Sadist & Cowards

Item: Mentally Ill Prisoner Tortured to Death in Michigan

Attorneys in Michigan are preparing to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the state’s Department of Corrections over the death of prisoner who suffered from a bipolar disorder. According to the Detroit Free Press, Timothy Joe Sounders died after spending most of his last four days with his arms and legs strapped to a steel bed in four-point restraints in a hot isolation cell. He was naked and soaked in his urine. He was 21 years old. Authorities haven't released an autopsy yet but one expert witness called it "death by torture." The Michigan Department of Corrections initially told his family that he had died in his sleep. Sounders is at least the third mentally ill prisoner to die under similar circumstances in Michigan in recent years. Also expected to be sued in the case is Correctional Medical Services, the private company that handles health services in Michigan’s prisons.

Item: Senate Moves to OK Detention of U.S. Citizens

The Bush administration has slipped in a major change to the Senate bill on interrogations that would allow U.S. citizens to be detained as enemy combatants. Initially the bill defined an enemy combatant as anyone who engaged in hostilities against the United States or its allies but the definition has been expanded to include anyone who has materially supported hostilities against the United States or its allies. The Washington Post reports that human rights experts expressed concern that the language in the new provision would be a precedent-setting congressional endorsement for the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens. Meanwhile on Monday, a group of activists from Code Pink stood up in protest over the bill during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The activists stood with their backs toward the Senators while wearing t-shirts that spelled out the phrase “No Torture.” The activists called on the Senators to remove a section of the bill that strips detainees of the right to habeas corpus.


©Barfo,2006
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U.S. Looses its Allure

The News: Le Monde had a story about a Keith Reinhard and his Business for Diplomatic Action ... a group of U.S. companies desperately trying to gussy up the Ah'murkan image so that they don’t revolt the global consumer even more. Turns out adolescents around the world aren’t buying American, don’t give a shit about the US and would rather visit Canada.

The Note: To bad consumers are so fickle. I’d love to see U.S. business digging for turnips like Scarlett O’Hara.

©Barfo, 2006
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The Subtleties of Non-Revisionism

The News: “The Justice Department alleged that Rinkel had used attack dogs to march emaciated inmates to slave-labor sites. More than 130,000 women from dozens of countries -- Jews, Gypsies and others -- were brought to Ravensbruck during its six years of existence. More than two-thirds of them died of malnourishment, in medical experiments and in a gas chamber, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.” (S.F. Chronicle.)

The Note: Oh? Well, that’s a change from “..130,000 Jews were gassed or died of other causes ....” “A” Gas Chamber? Yeah sure... the remodeled basement passing as such.

©Barfo, 2006
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The Price of Peace

The News: "We've warned people they may see soldiers shooting in their villages. I tell them this is the price of peace and freedom," said US commander Lieutenant Colonel Steven Gilbert. (Guardian)

The Note: Uh-huh.... Shooting is Peace, izzat it?

©Barfo, 2006
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Afghan Surprise

The News: The Guardian reports that Afghanistan has gone to hell in a handbasket. "Nobody saw this coming. It's pretty dire," admitted one official in Kabul.

The Note: What unbelievable, fucking morons. It really makes one wonder. The imbeciles had the experience of the Russians who had the experience of the British who had the experience of the Greeks. They even had the experience of Vietnam, but these security-cleared, hard-thinking thugocrats decided the analogy didn’t apply because, after all, Vietnam was a tropical jungle and Afghanistan wasn’t. So? The campaign was one against rocks?

©Barfo, 2006
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