Outis

Critiques of the mainstream and/or corporate media tend to overlook the fact that the violent and anti-democratic force already in power shares the same disregard for well-heeled (able) press outlets.

The Ottawa Citizen: Hezbollah was using UN post as ’shield’

Just last week, Maj. Hess-von Kruedener wrote an e-mail about his experiences after nine months in the area, words Maj.-Gen. MacKenzie said are an obvious allusion to Hezbollah tactics.

“What I can tell you is this,” he wrote in an e-mail to CTV dated July 18. “We have on a daily basis had numerous occasions where our position has come under direct or indirect fire from both (Israeli) artillery and aerial bombing.

“The closest artillery has landed within 2 meters (sic) of our position and the closest 1000 lb aerial bomb has landed 100 meters (sic) from our patrol base. This has not been deliberate targeting, but rather due to tactical necessity.”

Those words, particularly the last sentence, are not-so-veiled language indicating Israeli strikes were aimed at Hezbollah targets near the post, said Maj.-Gen. MacKenzie.

via TalkingPointsMemo.com

Bodies were piled up in the mortuary’s freezers, some on top of one another, she said.

“It’s never been like this in my years here. This is really tragic,” said [redacted].

Many of the dead were elderly who often were too afraid to leave their windows open, she said.

Could be Baghdad, no?

BBC News: Deaths mount amid California heat.

Related: Coping with the heat by Michael O’Hare.

I notice many people going about heat wave management the wrong way, so here’s what you need to know. First, what you can do quickly, and without air conditioning, which is a lot if you’re smart…

The rest is great.

BBC News: China activist ‘beat himself up’

Chinese investigators say activist Fu Xiancai, who was paralysed after a severe beating, inflicted the blows himself, according to a rights body.

Galavision, a Mexican network, available in the U.S., has some kick-ass news coverage of labor issues in the U.S. which, in a way, send precisely the kind of signals needed to regulate the North American black market in labor.

The Weather Channel has an ecological update. I’m not sure if it’s daily but today they were covering n^th angle of global warming and pollution in the Gulf of Mexico. Did I mention this was the Weather Channel?

FX’s “30 Days” program, which is fronted by the director of “Supersize Me,” did an excellent show wherein they paired a (Cuban-American) member of the Minutemen with an illegal immigrant family. It’s one of the best treatments of this complex issue I’ve ever seen. Whoever “cast” this documentary-in-disguise should win a few Emmies and a development deal.