News You Are Not Seeing or Hearing in the U.S. Media

Shuttle Flight Commander refused engineers' requests to point spy satellites at Columbia to determine damage:

BBC

Dittemore was probably worried about the "cost" of re-tasking a satellite. The cost in human life was even worse. They're the same as any other governmental agency, penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Opportunities such as this come so infrequently, I must carpe the diem and respond:

I AGREE WITH YOU PDIDDIE.

NASA is perhaps the most egregious example, I can personally do without the Tang and the velcro, if we just had the lives of the astronauts back.

T'anks, dad.

Now change that diaper.

Free speech alive and well in Hollywood:

Oscars blacklist stars in bid to prevent peace protest speeches

THE backlash against prominent stars opposing any attack on Iraq has impacted on this year's Oscars, with organisers drawing up a blacklist of people who will not be allowed a platform to air anti-war views.

Meryl Streep, Sean Penn, Vanessa Redgrave, George Clooney, Dustin Hoffman and Spike Lee are among those who will not be speaking, amid fears they could turn the ceremony into an anti-war rally.

In a move denounced by some as a return to McCarthyism, star presenters have been ordered to stick to scripts, while winners, who the producers have no control over, could find their acceptance speeches cut if they say anything much more than a brief thank you.

Officially, executives say that politics is a turn-off for the show's television audience. But in the wake of a public backlash against actors such as Martin Sheen, from the West Wing, who have voiced opposition to war, producers do not want to upset advertisers who have paid more than £50 million for adverts. In previous years, high-profile presenters have grabbed the spotlight to promote their political causes. Richard Gere urged China to end its occupation of Tibet and Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins appealed for HIV-positive Haitians to be allowed into the United States.

Sarandon and Robbins are also among those on this year's unofficial blacklist, along with Ed Norton and Dennis Hopper. The only anti-war campaigner on the presenters' list so far is Salma Hayek, the star of Frida and a best actress nominee.

scotsman.com

bizarre

An obscure Jewish sect in New York has been gripped in awe by what it believes to be a mystical visitation by a 20lb carp that was heard shouting in Hebrew, in what many Jews worldwide are hailing as a modern miracle.

Many of the 7,000-member Skver sect of Hasidim in New Square, 30 miles north of Manhattan, believe God has revealed himself in fish form.

According to two fish-cutters at the New Square Fish Market, the carp was about to be slaughtered and made into gefilte fish for Sabbath dinner when it suddenly began shouting apocalyptic warnings in Hebrew.

Many believe the carp was channelling the troubled soul of a revered community elder who recently died; others say it was God. The only witnesses to the mystical show were Zalmen Rosen, a 57-year-old Hasid with 11 children, and his co-worker, Luis Nivelo. They say that on 28 January at 4pm they were about to club the carp on the head when it began yelling.

Nivelo, a Gentile who does not understand Hebrew, was so shocked at the sight of a fish talking in any language that he fell over. He ran into the front of the store screaming: 'It's the Devil! The Devil is here!' Then the shop owner heard it shouting warnings and commands too.

'It said "Tzaruch shemirah" and "Hasof bah",' he told the New York Times, 'which essentially means that everyone needs to account for themselves because the end is near.'

The animated carp commanded Rosen to pray and study the Torah. Rosen tried to kill the fish but injured himself. It was finally butchered by Nivelo and sold.

The Observer

The whole story was in the "New York Times". Is this an example of what we don't see in the U. S. media?

Where is the imperative that we see such nonsense? Is it some sort of earth shaking news.

nelsonn, could you link, please? I just went and looked all over their site (New York Region) and must have missed it...

au, it's probably better off in News of the Weird, I'll admit; my personal opinion is that fish--dead ones especially--don't talk.

I'm pretty certain that if God DID happen to give specific instructions about something as He was channeling a carp, that only people of unsound minds would be able to comprehend; witness Elizabeth Smart's 'husband'.

Why do you suppose God never speaks to the sane?

PDiddie

nelsonn is right: Miracle? Dream? Prank? Fish Talks, Town Buzzes

Aha!

And on the Ides of March, too.

Kudos for them, nelsonn and Walter.

I must be ever more vigilant.

This is a link to some extremely graphic photos of war casualties, some civilian, as well as POWs (click at your own risk):

http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/gulfwar2/

Red Cross horrified by number of dead civilians:

Canadian Television on the Web

won't go to the site with pictures, the red cross statements are bad enough.....

steissd, Your Feb 20 post: "Joanne, I am not so much pessimistic as you are regarding results of the war and number of the U.S. Army casualties. Iraqis are fed up with Saddam not less than Mr. George W. Bush is, and their army will become AWOL in several hours after the beginning of the American military operation. If some of their top brass is adequately bribed, they will bring Saddam alive to the HQ of Gen. Thomas Franks." We're still waiting for them to "bring Saddam to Tommy Franks." c.i.