Big Lies, Big Liars

Dick Cheney: Liar. BEEEEG LIAR, telling the BIG LIE!

Yes, that "BIG LIE."

The one Hitler so approved in Mein Kampf that it became the center-piece of Nazi informatics; perfected (until Cheney and the Busheviks) by no less an eminence than the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, but which actually was invented by Edouard Bernays (Freud's favorite nephew), the "father of Public Relations," (described by someone once as 'the art of the felicitous falsehood') who probably more than any other single individual was responsible for the entry of the US into "Woodrow Wilsons War," WW I.

The BIG LIE is one of the most--if not THE most--effective, single propaganda strategy ever devised. Of course, it needed the perfection of the mass-media to become REALLY effective. Without the means of spreading lies across all strata of a society, in many locales, simultaneously, political 'lies' must necessarily have been local and, therefore, subject to local remonstrance and rebuttal. That's easy to do, locally, where pretty much everyone lived in a fishbowl, and proven liars were often ostracized. So out-right, knee-knocking, bald-faced lies were not such common parts of previous politics as they have lately become. But since 1900, with the total domination of the information universe by mass communications (and related, evolutionary technologies), no propaganda device has been used more often, or to greater effect, than Bernays' BIG LIE.

Somehow, it seems that folks have managed to 'grow up' wholly immersed in mediated culture without having learned to recognize the patterns and practices of propaganda. Nobody wants to think they've been "propagandized," as if it were somehow evidence of some personal failing. But propaganda is the ONLY media strategy by which States (and other large, cultural institutions, like churches, corporations, etc) now communicate with their constituents, and so it is shameful that those constituents do NOT seem to know they are ALWAYS being propagandized.

Yes, you are ALWAYS being propagandized: If you think there is any objective difference between Fordf and Toyota, between "the Colonel" and "the King," between Coke and Pepsi, between Coors and Miller, between Macy's and Gimbells' (or between Dims and Pukes, of course), then you have been successfully propagandized. And probably you believe--or at least do not doubt--some iteration of the BIG LIE.

The Big Lie works (and how!) quite simply. It begins with the psychological realization that, in general, everyone either lies now, or has lied, or aniticipates the need to lie at some point, but that there is a (rational) inhibition against lying built into the social contracts by which we function as a society. People usually tell only little "white" lies, nervously, and are generally (again) uneasy telling large, egregious lies because the risks and consequences for being caught in such an act are regarded as serious.

The Big Lie exploits this situation. People, mainly being reluctant, minor-league liars, tend to regard public statements of 'respected' public persons as intrinsically truthful, on the basis of their own hesitations about lying in fora where they could be easily found out and condemned for it. So the Big Lie begins in that "presumption" of truth. The Big Lie is NEVER over trivial matters, either. Both the subject and the presentation, the rhetorical act, are BIG.

But the size of the misrepresentation of fact is only one part of the power of the Big Lie. The other--the equally, if not more, vital--component is repetition. The Big Lie must have continuous currency. Its power stems from ubiquity. It becomes the 'conventional wisdom,' it becomes 'common sense,' through unending repetition. It cannot languish, it cannot rest. Right up until the end of the Reich, ordinary Germans blamed the Jews for all their problems. So, of course this is where the SCUM (SoCalledUnbiasedMedia, the corpoRats) comes in.

The SCUM: In a Corporate State, corporate media are the State Media. Under the regime of the Big Lie, corporate media--conglomerated, consolidated and contained under the weight of the Boardrooms of the nation's largest corporations, which constitute the only important influence group on the affairs of State--are the instrument of ubiquity. Cheney's lies are huge. But unrepeated, unheralded, unremarked, they are beneath immaterial.

Cheney's job now is to promulgate the Big Lie, to give it a persona, and supply legs.

And because of who he and they both are, and to whom they both owe their fundamental, primary allegiances (Hint: Not you and me), the SCUM treat him as worthy of respect, and treat his words as essentially uncontrovertible, just for the reason of his having said them.

Our current media environment seems to have been invented JUST for the purpose of spreading the Big Lies, because to be effective, such lies have to be repeated and repeated, until they become common-place, and thereupon join the "common sense," conventional wisdom."

Cheney speaks the Big Lie, Fox (but also all the rest) repeat it.

Even if somebody tries to rebut it, the Lie, having got the street to itself first, always has the advantage, and the critics only serve to enhance its apparent 'truthiness.' At some point--pretty much, now--the Bushevik/Corporat lies have entered the lexicon as facts, and any attack on them merely enhances their status.

There is only one cure for Cheney and his tactics: offal.

Every and anytime he appears in public, for the purposes of spreading and repeating the Big Lies, he must be met by hordes of shouting, jeering, angry people, armed with decaying produce and animal excrement, who must then hurl it at him.

Accuracy isn't the point.

The hurling is.

Because the one thing the Biggest Lies cannot withstand is ridicule. The truthiest truisms collapse under the weight of enough spoiled eggs and rotten tomatoes, and the liars along with them.

Ron Reagan Slags Rush Limbaugh REAL GOOD!

Slimeball has been incystant these last weeks on launching personal, demeaning, insulting attacks on Nancy Pelosi, mocking her looks. Recently he said that Pelosi was shaking from "botox withdrawal," and back in January Limbaugh said he could keep the birth rate down by putting pictures of Pelosi in every hotel room.

The scurrilous attacks finally got to Ron Reagan, the only apparently even remotely human of the get of Ronnie "I Don't Recall" Raygun, and a syndicated columnist, too. He got right up in the grill of the fleshy fucknozzle--well, as close to the grill as the girth would permit--and publically made fun of Limbaugh's impotence. Aravosis credits Slog for the following:

"Limbaugh hasn't had a natural erection since the Nixon Administration; think he's compensating for something? Now, I wouldn't pick on him for any of this stuff, not his blubbiness, not his man-boobs, not his inability to have a natural erection—none of that stuff—to me, off limits until! until! Mr. Limbaugh, you turn that sort of gun on somebody else—once you start doing that, you're fair game, fat boy. Absolutely, you jiggly pile of mess. You're just fair game, and you're going to get it, too."

Hell, Rush hasn't SEEN his dick since he was 10. There's also plenty of material in Rush-bo's trips to the Dominican where he's alleged to favor dark, young, native beach-boys.

There is really only one way to defeat these sleazy mo-fos: they have to be humiliated, embarrassed, shamed. When they open their mouths, they should be silenced by hoots of derision. Any kind of obscenity, obloquy, insult that you can hurl at them, you must. You have to mock them, scoff at them, hurt their pride. It's really the only thing...

Posting Light & Slight Today; Bidness Beckons

The "Morin" Corps: Jim Morin Is A Gem!

Breaking!!! Flash!!!! Bulletin!

Glenn Beck Is A Lying Bucket of goD-Shit

All the proof you need, right here:

Barbara Walters is really FURIOUS that, by claiming to be a commentator, Blech is eschewing responsibility for the 'facts' that he uses in his commentary. BabwaWaWa's premier conceit is that she is a real, "professional journalist," (as opposed to, say, a highly placed, cosmetically enhanced, speech-impeded, infamously round-heeled celebrity gossip columnist, I suppose?) and Blech offended that conceit. She was almost (horsely) SHRILL!

Which does in no way diminish the fact that Beck is a steaming, reeking, runny pile of god-shit...a term I use so as not to unnecessarily defame the canines of the world who cannot help what or where they poop...mostly...Glenn Beck: Excretium Dei. Who knew?

I kept expecting him to lean in, kinda smarmy/confidentially and sort of stage whisper "Hey, Beyotches! Cut a man some fuckin' slack. It ain' nuthin but Bidness... We'all in da Bidness, right? Give a why-boy a break heah..."

Which, now that I think about it, was pretty much what he did do...Listen to him try to disarm (aka "Suck Up!") with politesse: First "Mrs. Walters" then later "Ms. Walters"...He was just THAT close to calling her "Mrs. Kissinger..." He thought it was the same old kabuki, but the women were pissed, really pissed. They finally saw him clearly, right down to his tighty, mormon Whiteys!

ADDENDUM: In Comments, Margot provided a link to Beck's demand for an apology from "The View." Link if you dare...

They're Going To Need A MUCH Bigger Rope!

KBR: The Case For A "Corporate Death Penalty"?

Alternet this morning brings this bit of glad tidings, though the prospect of actually terminating these corrupt, criminal enterprises is dim:

Bribes, kickbacks, concealing gang rapes, and engaging in human trafficking are among the crimes listed in a new class action lawsuit.

Not to mention the electrocution of no fewer than 5 USer troops in faultily-wired shower facilities in Iraq and elsewhere, where it is alleged that over SEVENTY THOUSAND (that's "7," followed by four zeroes: 70,000) buildings were equipped with faulty wiring systems.

The complaint identified some of Halliburton's and KBR's known "misdeeds" in Iraq, including providing troops with untreated, untested water from the Euphrates and delivering ice to troops in a truck that showed signs of its former use as storage for corpses. The complaint concluded, "The myriad crimes and wrongdoings discussed above simply could not have happened if Defendants were doing their jobs. As officers and directors of the Companies, the Defendants were required to ensure that the Companies' internal controls were in place, functioning properly, and sufficiently strong to prevent it from committing wrongful or illegal acts."

YNews reports today that

The U.S. Army paid "tens of millions of dollars in bonuses" to KBR despite the fact that the contractor's work put U.S. soldiers at risk, Reuters reported. The Houston-based company, which was part of Halliburton Co. until two years ago, was hired to install electrical work at facilities where U.S. soldiers operate in Iraq. An Army-approved inspector who viewed the company's work said 90 percent of the wiring was done incorrectly and an estimated 70,000 buildings were not up to code. At least three service members have been electrocuted while showering at U.S. facilities in Iraq. Others have been injured or killed in electrical incidents. KBR denies responsibility for the deaths.

As long as the Constitution is interpreted to grant corporations the same rights as are enjoyed by "natural" persons, and as long as "natural" people are still subjected to capital punishment in any venue or jurisdiction in the Country, then there should be provisions to "execute" corpoRat enterprises which kill people. End them. Terminate them with extreme prejudice (and the executives responsible). Then cut them up into little pieces.

In general, I am opposed to the death penalty. But the Rightard argument about the deterrent effects does have its charms, and should be tested. On the likes of Bernie Madoff and/or "(O)fficers and directors of the Companies, the Defendants (who) were required to ensure that the Companies' internal controls were in place, functioning properly, and sufficiently strong to prevent it from committing wrongful or illegal acts." String the fuckers up!

Just to see if there is a deterrent effect, of course...

Gutless

That would be ... wait for it ... LEADER of the DEMOCRATIC party in the United States' Senate.

Gutless, feckless, useless, spineless, worthless, ball-less: Harry Reid.

"QUESTION: If the United States -- if the United States thinks that these people should be held, why shouldn’t they be held in the United States? Why shouldn’t the U.S. take those risks, the attendant risk of holding them, since it’s the one that says they should be held?

REID: I think there’s a general feeling, as I’ve already said, that the American people, and certainly the Senate, overwhelmingly doesn’t want terrorists to be released in the United States. And I think we’re going to stick with that.

QUESTION: What about in imprisoned in the United States?

REID: If you’re...

(CROSSTALK)

REID: If people are -- if terrorists are released in the United States, part of what we don’t want is them be put in prisons in the United States. We don’t want them around the United States."

Perhaps he's hoping that a Cat. 6 hurricane will sweep them all into the sea?

Harry Reid is disgusting. As the questioner notes (inconveniently), the prisoners are OUR responsibility. WE captured, detained, and in many cases TORTURED them. It disgusts me that I have been associated, in any way, with anything with which Harry Reid is in any way connected, including breathing the same air. He pollutes it abominably by merely being here, worse by being a person of power and influence. We are all in the 'family of man,' but I may be forgiven, I hope, in wishing that our relations be as distant as possible...

Now HERE'S A Good Idea--Not!

I am a big fan of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting). They have a cool blog that delivers bite-sized, easily digested nuggets of frequently sardonic, snarky analysis of crap the CorpoRat Media tries to pull. Witness what they posted earlier today (with the nice Shakespearean allusion; I lurv smart media people.)

The First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Search Engines
05/19/2009 by Jim Naureckas

Corporate media's arguments against Google are getting stranger and stranger. While previously the Washington Post had accused the search engine of "vacuum[ing] up their content without paying a dime," now the Post has media lawyers Bruce Sanford and Bruce Brown (5/16/09) charging that search engines "crawl the Web and ingest everything in their path."

Can anything be done to stop these terrifying monsters? Yes, the two Bruces say--you could change the law to require search engines to "obtain copyright permissions in order to copy and index websites." Given that the point of this would be to force search engines to "negotiate with copyright holders over the value of their content"--that is, with millions of copyright holders located all over the world--this would likely eliminate all problems associated with search engines...by eliminating search engines. Then I'm sure we'd have a golden age of journalism once again. (Emphasis supplied)

There is, of course, one other thing they could do: Stop wasting bandwidth by ceasing to put their crapulent shit up on the web. Ya think?

(PS: Just from a glance at the wear on the letters on my keyboard, I'd have to say the letters "a," "e," "r," "t," "o," and "n" are the most often typed letters in the universe; the "s" key is worn, but only distantly as much as the former few...)

Arthur Silber Is Back

After another of his recurrent bouts with illness and poverty, one of the most literate, most acerbic critics of all things neo-liberal, Arthur Silber, is back on the trail of the psychopaths, sycophants, liars, perverts, thieves, and the other assorted criminals who comprise our political and journalistic classes.

Most recently he has expounded on the barbarity of the Obama military posture in Afghanistan, where the wanton destruction of both human and community life is the apparent price the Obamanauts are willing to pay not to be judged "soft" on terrorism.

Barack Obama is the perfect front man for the continuation of Empire -- for more murder, more slaughter, more brutality and, yes, more torture.

But now, there are very few people to oppose him. Thus, the Empire will continue on its bloody, murderous course, knowing full well that most of the opposition it might have encountered has voluntarily, and very often enthusiastically, joined the ranks of collaborators.

When you make excuses for evil of this kind, and when you attempt to "justify" or "explain" it, you make yourself evil. You are a knowing accomplice to slaughter and brutality. Those who decline to pass the necessary judgments about Obama will expend great effort to avoid this conclusion. But some of us see the truth, and we will be sure to remind such people of their own evil and complicity....

Related Essays:

A Choice of War Criminals

Killing Truth and Hope: The Fatal Illusion of Opposition

Obama and the Triumph of the American Myth

The Honor of Being Human: Why Do You Support?

The Mythology of the "Good Guy" American

The previous entry in Silber's (unfortunately often) sporadic blog focuses on the story revealing how Boy Scout "Explorer" troops are "training" in Southern California (and presumably elsewhere the threat is as palpable) to capture and control "illegal immigrants...terrorists...and drug-dealers."

'll add this post to my growing list of entries concerning the superlative, life-enhancing lessons taught to America's children by our compassionate, nurturing culture. Here are some earlier essays in the series:

Let The Victims Speak

Bullied, Terrorized and Targeted for Destruction: Our Children Have Learned Well

Careful the Things You Do: Wishes Come True, Not Free

When Awareness Is a Crime, and Other Lessons from Morton West

Silber is probably the most trenchant, most voluble, most unforgiving critic of the USer political betrayal of USer principles writing today. Check him out (though if you think I'm objectionable, you won't get two sentences into Silber's work...)

You KNEW This Was Just A Matter Of Time

This is the ticking time-bomb with which the Busheviks should have been concerned when they turned loose the torturers. Via Balkinization:

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

News Flash: Taliban Waterboards Captured U.S. Soldiers--Claims "Not Torture"

Brian Tamanaha

According to reports out of Kabul, the Taliban announced that they have waterboarded three U.S. soldiers taken prisoner. The Taliban commander asserted that waterboarding is not torture and does not violate the Geneva Convention or U.S. law. He assured everyone that a medical officer monitored all waterboarding sessions to insure that no permanent damage was done to the soldiers. In addition, he said they were careful to follow the directions on waterboarding in a SERE training manual they found posted on the internet.

In support of his assertion that waterboarding is not torture, the Taliban commander cited legal analysis produced by the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice. He pointed out that the authors of this legal analysis are a respected federal judge on the second highest court in America and a professor at a top American law school. The Taliban commander also referred to the careful legal analysis of a Distinguished Professor of Law who concluded that waterboarding is not torture because U.S. trainers did it to their own troops "hundreds and hundreds of times."

Ain't It Pee-KEWL-Year?

(Illustration by Mr. Fish.)

Is it just me? Could be. Been an out-lier my whole life. So tell me:

Does it strike anyone else as "peculiar" that the whole flocks of folks standing by to carve up and pick the carcasses (stet) of the Big Three, while ardently cheering the dissolution of the UAW--thereby throwing some several hundreds of thousands of auto workers and workers in associated trades, out of work--seem to harbor a great, abiding, sympathetic, but to me inexplicable, fondness for and devotion to the jobs of the parasites in the health insurance industry, such that they vitriolically oppose single payer health reform --or say they do-- because those parasites would lose their jobs?

When did the onus of unemployment become easier for the layed-off rivet-head or nail-banger than the obsoleted/redundant cubicle rat? When did 'retraining" become something only blue-collar workers did?

As a person who was formerly a journeyman, union, class-a carpenter (bridges, high-rises, architectural concrete), as well as a professor of curriculum theory (lit crit of "school-as-text"), it appears to me that folks most disdainful of physical work seem mostly to have done the least of it.

Endangered Species Day

One of these species is critically endangered. The dead one, the argali, or Marco Polo's Sheep. You may take the trophy sun-glasses at your leisure. To avoid spoiling your "head", aim just between the horns.

Seems to me they should be worth more than a stinking (weekend) day. Neither African-Americans nor American Jews are 'endangered,' but both get a full month. Via The Clade:

Endangered Species Day: Rosters
By Chris Clarke | Posted on May 15, 2009

Because it’s important to name names, to honor as best we can the species brought to the brink due to our actions, here are partial lists — courtesy the US Fish and Wildlife Service — of the plants and animals listed as endangered or threatened under the US Endangered Species Act. Note that these are incomplete lists: the IUCN’s Red List is of necessity more exhaustive, and not all endangered species are known. But it’s a sampling. Each species deserves protection.

The list of plants is here, and the list of animals here.

A note on terminology in the lists: Some species are listed despite being relatively abundant, because they are substantially similar to taxa that are endangered or threatened. This is done to forestall potential enforcement problems so that law enforcement need not carry advanced equipment in the field to distinguish among parts of similar species.

See the (cheapy) slide presentation, here.

Revolver

Superfund: 1,623 Sites

Nearly 100 companies and the federal government are linked to 40 percent of the total sites represented above. One out of two Americans live within 10 miles of a Superfund site.

Perhaps someone can explain to me the reason why a President, who has professed his desire to clean-up the environment and to try to restore some balance to USer energy use and development, would want to install in the remarkably sensitive position of Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division, in the DoJ, an attorney who's most recent experience includes--but who has in fact spent most of her professional life--trying to defeat or block "super-fund" and other environmental suits against the country's most egregious, polluting, corporate defendants. What's in it for us?

The person named for the post is Ignacia S. Moreno, regarded by many as the nation's top corporate environmental litigator. On Tuesday, Obama “announced his intent to nominate” Moreno to as the primary enforcer of the nation’s environmental laws. At present, Moreno represents the nation's top environmental criminal. This makes no sense to me.

This is Moreno's second trip through the revolving door INTO government. She previously served in the Clinton DoJ as counsel to the Division she is now being named to lead. Her appointment has stimulated questions about the Obama administration's commitment to the environment protection. As lead litigator for GE, Moreno led the effort to stall, postpone, and otherwise obstruct the multi-billion dollar, Court-ordered clean-up by GE of the pcb pollution in the Hudson River. Critics wonder (justifiably, imho) if she can be an aggressive prosecutor of industries she has so long defended agains the very department she'll be leading. I add my own skepticism to the small chorus: Just because the fox guarding the hen-house is female doesn't make her any less likely to feather her nest.

Some might argue, charitably, that Moreno's experience defending corporate miscreants makes her the ideal person to direct Governmental litigation against those same polluting corporations.

But I'm not in a charitable mood, and I don't think that position captures the true spirit of the Govt. Regulator/Regulated revolving door. Morena made her bones in Clinton's DoJ, but Clinton's been gone for 8 years. She is said to have served "with distinction." But in the interim, Moreno took that experience (you might--uncharitably, I admit--regard it as a "taking' of the regulator's 'proprietary knowledge') and sold it to the highest corporate bidder, to help them thwart the Government's legitimate claims against the criminal polluters.

I am sure she's very comfortably fixed, by now: partner in a law firm, executive at GE, etc. But perhaps she felt she needed to burnish her credentials for her bosses at GE and elsewhere. She'll be worth a LOT more to them again AFTER she's been in Govt again for long enough to become more expert at avoiding regulation.

I doubt she's going to bite too fiercely at the hands she expects again to be feeding her in a couple of years. Given her cozy relations with sleazy corporate behavior, she'll fit right in with Eric Holder, the guy who got Chiquita off for hiring and supplying paid killers to keep "order" in Columbian banana plantations.

No, no, I don't really trust anybody in Government or Industry not to betray people for profit.

Do you think I am wrong in this?

Burst at the Seems

Mainly on the strength of what must anymore be regarded as a species of 'historical inertia,' the USofA still holds on, tenuously, to some prominence as a beacon for and a bastion of human and humane rights.

That has been changing, for some decades. But the change is accelerating.

The efforts of Obama to shield the Intelligence Community from further embarrassment and obloquy--or even any accountability--that would inevitably ensue from revcealing further evidence of torture by American--military or, and probably more troublingly, civilian/mercenary--operatives 'interrogating' West Asian detainees is using up USer political capital around the globe at the rate of a breached, beached tanker spilling oil into a pristine sea.

This is the consequence of presidential, Congressional, and media equivocation about the practice of torture, and America's undeniable--and shameful--descent into it. The Ship-of-State ran full-speed onto a well=-charted reef called "Torture," and burst at the seems. (Stet, goddam it)

The greatest harm "America" does by equivocating on what constitutes "torture," and whether or not USers do it, is to enable and empower torturers with less public accountability than even the Busheviks to pursue their malign designs on the bodies of their own citizens--which is where the overwelmingly greatest fraction of torture is inflicted. By arguing about whether or not waterboarding is torture, and eliding the deaths in captivity, probably through the consequences of torture, of upwards of 100 detainees--many of whom were undoubtedly unlucky, innocent victims--the stalwart defender of justice and humanity that the USofA prides itself as being becomes an icon for another, entirely different kind of official conduct.

Let us not forget that the USofA has not actually possessed the moral authority it pretended to since 1974, and the resignation of Nixon. Internationally, no matter what they professed in public, nobody with greater cognitive discernment than an onion has believed a single word produced by the USer/globalist propaganda machine for 35 years or more ("Light at the end of the tunnel" ring a bell?). So this fall from grace has been well understood by our neighbors and adversaries, but less so by our own citizen/consumers.

And there's the rub. Too many Murkins still do not believe they've been expertly propagandized since birth to believe the "exceptionalist" myths by which they order their lives. I assure you, if you believe in the core of your being that there is a difference between Coors and Bus, between Ford and Chevy, between MickeyD and the King, between Coke and Pepsi, between Democrats and Republicans,

YOU HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFULLY, IRREMEDIABLY, AND IRREDEEMABLY PROPAGANDIZED, BEYOTCH!!!

Unfortunately, it's too late to change their minds...Yeah, that's you and me, covered in--DYING IN--the shit that leaked out...

Boosters

Up on CJR today is a long (7 pp) essay by Dan Starkman which (overly gently, imho) castigates the so-called 'business' or 'financial' press for either missing or ignoring the signs that the situation on their "beat" was dire and worsening.

Power Problem

The business press did everything but take on the institutions that brought down the financial system

These are grim times for the nation’s financial media. Not only must they witness the unraveling of their own business, they must at the same time fend off charges that they failed to cover adequately their central beat—finance—during the years prior to an implosion that is forcing millions of low-income strivers into undeserved poverty and the entire world into an economic winter. The quotes above give a fair summary of the institutional response of the mainstream business press to the charge that it slept on the job while lenders and Wall Street ran amok. And while the record will show this response is not entirely wrong, one can see how casual business-press readers might have a problem with the idea that final responsibility for failing to stop escalating dangers in the financial system has somehow shifted to them.

Dang, Margaret, we blew it again.

It is understandable that the business press would want to defend its record. But it is equally understandable, I hope, that some readers might want to see some support for these claims. You know the old journalism saying, “If your mother says she loves you,” etc.

For if the institutional response is correct, and all was done that could be done, then journalism has even bigger problems than Google and Craigslist. (Emphasis supplied. W.) In the best case, if this response is to be believed, the financial press faces the problem of irrelevance—all that newsprint and coated paper, those millions of words, the bar graphs, stipple portraits, glossy photos of white guys, the printing presses, delivery trucks, and Yale degrees, is worth about as much as a New Century share.

Lippmann (Walter. W), I think, would understand the problem. Without facts, the public is powerless. With them, well, it can lick Countrywide and Goldman Sachs put together. In his book, Liberty and the News, Lippmann wrote: “Everywhere today men are conscious that somehow they must deal with questions more intricate than any church or school had prepared them to understand. Increasingly, they know they cannot understand them if facts are not quickly and steadily available.” Without them, he says, there can be no liberty.

He was talking about a crude and corrupt press that manipulated public opinion around World War I. We’re dealing with a financial press that is neither of those things, but is nonetheless a battered and buffeted institution that in the last decade saw its fortunes and status plummet as the institutions it covered ruled the earth and bent the government. The press, I believe, began to suffer from a form of Stockholm Syndrome. Now, it is in the awkward position of telling its readers they were insufficiently attentive to what it wrote.

The financial press, according to Starkman, want's to blame its readers for being insufficiently attentive. But of course, absent facts, the reader is likely going to be unable to make reasoned judgments, about anything.

It's the cover story of the magazine this week/month, and will bear your close attention. I replied to/summarized it ("Shorter"):

Seems to me that most of the "business press" is/was so much in the "pocket"/thrall of the people and institutions they were supposed to "cover," and that mere stenography and/or "home-town boosterism" had/has become so common-place that the "press" didn't (want to) recognize there was a problem. The 'financial press' regarded itself very much as though they were cheerleaders for the business they were covering (and getting rich off of).

The TV 'journalists' especially, it seems to me, were as/more interested in getting the next hot stock tip from their inside sources than they were in seeing there were dead/rotting 'trees' in that forest they were supposed to be investigating for the benefit /information of their readers/viewers.

I was in the news biz once, and I remember when "covering" a beat meant reporting things that were inconvenient for the people one was covering. It'd be nice if that ethos were somehow to be recovered, but I am not optimistic .

This is especially unlikely since the people whom the 'ethical' financial journalist should be covering and criticizing are employed by the people whom they are alleged to be 'covering.' We then recall Upton Sinclair's distant admonition: "It is difficult for a man to see that which his job depends on his being blind to..."

Aside: "thePrez" is said to be considering as many as SIX...

...different candidates for Souter's seat.

Women, mostly, Latino/a, gay. Brave choices, maybe.

Good!

But don't start thinking ANYTHING's gonna change the least shittin' bit unless he gets five of the six on the Court at the same time.

Doing Well By Doing "Good": The Public Spirit of Jack Murtha Reaches Out To Arlen Specter

Political altruism, is what it is. First time in history. Really! As Ken Silverstein of Harper's Washington Babylon blog reported earlier this week:

I’ve posted several items over the past month on how Congressman John Murtha & friends have been supporting a controversial biodefense facility that would develop and manufacture “vaccines and other medical countermeasures.” When I first started looking into the project, I called all the key players — Murtha; the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), which donates heavily to the congressman; a lobby shop and private investment firm, both in which Murtha’s good friend Jim Ervin has a stake — but none of them provided much information.

Ervin failed to return phone calls, a lobbyist at his firm said the proposal was “in its infancy” and had little more to add, and the congressman’s office deferred questions to UPMC. The latter did reply to some questions, after several weeks, but was relatively tight-lipped. The spokesman there also said the program was only in its earliest stages, and said no decision had been made about where the facility would be built. I had been told by sources that it would be located in Murtha’s district.

But it turns out the facility is further along than any of these people cared to admit. And now another key player has been identified, new Democratic Senator Arlen Specter:

UPMC wants to build a $830 million vaccine manufacturing facility, of which about $580 million would come from the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Defense, which Specter said April 16 that he would help try to secure.

Not only is there a budget for the project, which was also denied by the people I spoke with, but there’s a proposed location as well. The story says the facility would be built in western Pennsylvania, a stretch of territory that includes(WAIT FOR IT...W Murtha’s district.

Well, it all for a good cause, and it keeps Murtha's political toadies and liskcpittles off the streets, so that's something, I guess...

There's A Black Man In The White House With The Blues

(Apologies to Lowell George/Little Feat)
You had to see this coming. Via FAIR's blog:

Rush Limbaugh Comes Right Out and Says It
05/13/2009 by Jim Naureckas

Political Animal's Steve Benen (5/12/09) notes a recent Rush Limbaugh broadcast (5/11/09) that makes the racist subtext of the right's critique of Barack Obama virtually explicit:

The [economic] deterioration reflects lower tax revenues and higher costs for bank failures, unemployment benefits and food stamps. But in the Oval Office of the White House none of this is a problem. This is the objective. The objective is unemployment. The objective is more food stamp benefits. The objective is more unemployment benefits. The objective is an expanding welfare state. And the objective is to take the nation's wealth and return to it to the nation's, quote, "rightful owners." Think reparations. Think forced reparations here if you want to understand what actually is going on.

So Limbaugh thinks Obama is intentionally creating unemployment in order to boost food stamps, unemployment and welfare as a form of "forced reparations"; he's wrecking the economy, in other words, in order to benefit black people. If Limbaugh is the voice of opposition to Obama, no wonder that opposition is so concentrated in the states of the old Confederacy.

Damned as much for a goat as for a ram! Obama's in the position I predicted early on last year: Whether or not he wants it, as an avatar for the aspirations and grievances of the 'minority' whose racial identity he shares, Obama would be seen and portrayed by his detractors--60 million of them voted against him--as being the 'tool' of the marginalized folks with whose interests his skin color and associated "morphological" characteristics associates him whether he likes it or not. On evidence, he seemingly does NOT like it; he ran AWAY from blackness and racialism, as much as out-right rejecting any but an anonymous, generic sympathy for the plight of blacks, or his ability/desire to asist them in Office.

So, if he's going to be attacked for assisting his 'racial' base, he might as well be shot for a goat as a sheep, and actually DO something for that part of his constituency.

He won't. He'll continue to be a tool of the Owners, serving their interests as loyally as any faithful old retainer, and if something good accrues to the people, well, shit happens...

But what the fuck, he should..,.

Pelosi: Torture Enabler, Minimum

In the wake of the release last week by the CIA of some ambiguous documents regarding the briefing of key members of Congress on the agency's "harsh interrogation techniques,' there is apparently some confusion about Speaker-of-the-House (and formerly minority leader) Nancy Pelosi's involvement with the Bushevik torture regime, such as what she knew and when she knew it.

Robert Scheer, the eminence luminairre of TruthDig, speaks to the issue in a column yesterday on his blog:

Nancy Pelosi is no Dick Cheney, nor a George W. Bush. She was neither the author of a systematic policy of torture nor has she been, like Cheney and most top Republicans in Congress, an enduring apologist for its practice. It is a nonsensical distraction to place her failure to speak out courageously as a critic of the Bush policies on the same level as those who engineered one of the most shameful debacles in U.S. history.

But what she, and anyone else who went along with this evil, as lackadaisically as she now claims, should be confronted with are the serious implications of their passive acquiescence. Why did she not speak up, or if it were a matter of a lack of reliable information, demand an accounting from the executive branch, as befits a leader of the loyal opposition in Congress?

If the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and later House Democratic leader, lacked the authority to publicly question a policy of torture, then how can we condemn, indeed imprison, ordinary soldiers who thought it their duty to follow orders?

Good questions, nest paw? If the bosses who ordered the crimes are immune, how can anyone, in any conscience, punish the enlisted folks, the grunts who were just following orders in a battle zone, for following orders from the consequences of which the Brass Hats--including Pelosi, Bush, Reid, Cheney, Frist, DeLay and others--were immune? If the grunts are in jail, why are their leaders not in the dock?

Of course, we should remember: Lt. Calley went to jail, Capt. Medina got riffed, and Colin Powel went to the War College after My Lai, so it's not all that surprising...

European Food Authorities Ban "Frankenseeds"

My good, old pal, Sheila Samples (yep, same family), former US Army PIO-turned-relentless lefty blogger, from Lawton/Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, offers a long, serious rumination, on World News Daily's Information Clearinghouse blog on the responses of many international agricultural authorities to the incessant, and often illegal, importunings of USer Chem/Ag giant Monsanto to spread its genetically modified food-stock seeds by compelling the purchase of such seeds by farmers the world over. Some good 'take-away':

This goes way beyond garnering profits for agriculture conglomerates such as Monsanto. It is about disrupting the natural order of life -- whether plant or animal. And, for those orchestrating this havoc, it is about control. As Henry Kissinger once said matter-of-factly, "If you control the oil you control the country; if you control food, you control the population." Kissinger has long been obsessed with two things -- depopulating the world and establishing a New World Order.

What better way to control the food than to ban seed saving -- what better weapon is there to use against starving populations than food? The answer is laid out in detail in F. William Engdahl's November 2007 critical book about genetic manipulation, "Seeds of Destruction." Engdahl is no conspiracy theorist. He is a leading researcher as well as an economist and an associate and regular contributor for the Centre for Research on Globalization.

In his extensive three-part review of "Seeds," investigative journalist Stephen Lendman reveals "... the diabolical story of how Washington and four Anglo-American agribusiness giants plan world domination by patenting life forms to gain worldwide control of our food supply and why that prospect is chilling."

Lendman reminds us that Kissinger has been both at the forefront and behind the scenes since the 1960s when, as Engdahl wrote, "the Rockefellers were at the power center of the US establishment (and) Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (was) their hand-picked protege." Kissinger was there as Nixon's Secretary of State in 1973 when the food crisis hit and, as Engdahl said, he decided US agricultural policy was "too important to be left in the hands of the Agricultural Department so he took control of it himself." Even back then, Kissinger's goal was to go global and seize control of the agricultural food market. Kissinger's "food diplomacy" was to use food to "reward friends and punish enemies."

Lendman writes, "Food is power. When used to cull the population, it's a weapon of mass destruction." He says "One way or another, the Rockefeller Foundation aims to reduce population through human reproduction by spreading GMO seeds." And the "world's number one" in patenting seeds is Monsanto. He explains...

Like it or not, they're advancing their agenda, and a 2004 Rockefeller Foundation report shows it. GM crop production achieved nine consecutive double digit year increases since 1996. More than eight million farmers in 17 countries now plant them, over 90% in developing nations. Far and away, the US is the world's leader "with aggressive Government promotion, absence of labeling, and the domination of US farm production." Here, "genetically engineered crops (have) essentially taken over the American food chain." In 2004, over 85% of soybeans were genetically modified, 45% of corn, and since animal feed is mainly from these crops "the entire meat production of the nation (and exports) has been fed on genetically modified animal feed." What animals eat, so do humans.

According to Engdahl, agribusiness giants, aided by the Rockefeller Foundation, the US government and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are progressing relentlessly toward the second pillar of Kissinger's end game -- controlling food to control (and expunge) populations of lesser nations. In December 2007, Engdahl sounded the alarm about yet another seed venture (adventure?), "Doomsday Seed Vault in the Arctic," a steel-reinforced concrete seed bank built deep inside a mountain on the remote Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. This "program" is funded by the Rockefellers, by such seed giants as Syngenta and Monsanto -- and by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who knows a bit about monopoly.

Here's Sheila's whole piece, which is long and thoughtful and well worth your attention.

Meanwhile, ignoring Lester Brown is becoming more and more difficult. In a piece echoing Brown's persistent warning that the incipient global food shortages could tank world civilization, Joseph Romm (Alternet/Climate Progress) reports:

We desperately need a new way of thinking, a new mind-set. The thinking that got us into this bind will not get us out. When Elizabeth Kolbert, a writer for the New Yorker, asked energy guru Amory Lovins about thinking outside the box, Lovins responded: "There is no box."

There is no box. That is the mind-set we need if civilization is to survive.

It's not news that Lester Brown is warning about our unsustainable approach to feeding the planet. But it is news that Scientific American has run a major article by him on how "The biggest threat to global stability is the potential for food crises in poor countries to cause government collapse."

Brown's "Key Concepts":

* Food scarcity and the resulting higher food prices are pushing poor countries into chaos.
* Such "failed states" can export disease, terrorism, illicit drugs, weapons and refugees.
* Water shortages, soil losses and rising temperatures from global warming are placing severe limits on food production.
* Without massive and rapid intervention to address these three environmental factors, the author argues, a series of government collapses could threaten the world order.

Not even Brown, however dire his forecasts, approves the plans for the mega-ag (Monsanto/ConAgra/ADM) plans for colonizing the world with frankenseed and frankenfood.

Buyer, Beware

THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU!

A big 'heads up' for those men who may be regular Home Depot or Lowes customers .

This one caught me by surprise!

Back in early March, I became a victim of a clever scam while out shopping. Simply going out to get supplies has turned out to be quite traumatic.

Don't be naive enough to think it couldn't happen to you or your friends.

Here's how the scam works:

Two seriously good-looking 20-21 year-old girls come over to your car as you are packing your purchases into the back of your SUV or Truck.

They both have battery powered car vacuums and start vacuuming the inside of your vehicle, cleaning the inside of your windshield with a rag and Windex, with their un-bra'd breasts almost falling out of their shirts.

It is impossible not to look, and look and look...

When you thank them and offer them a tip, they say, 'No' and instead ask you for a ride to McDonalds or the closest fast food restaurant.

You agree and they get into the back seat. As soon as they're inside, they start stripping. Then one of them climbs over into the front seat and starts crawling all over you, big boobs bumping in your face, hands reaching EVERYWHERE, while the other one steals your wallet.

I had my wallet stolen on March 4th , 9th, 10th, twice on the 15th, 17th, 20th, 24th and 29th. Also on April 2nd & 4th, twice on the 8th, 16th, 23rd, three times last Monday, and very likely again this upcoming weekend.

So tell your friends to be careful!!

P.S. Wal-Mart has wallets on sale for $1.99 each...

(DOTOF™: Laurell, the Vet in the Mountains...)

The Old Men's Left-Lib Blogging Society, Abq. Div. Will Please Come To Order!

The OML-LBS (Abq Div) conducted its first meeting last evening at O'Neill's Pub on Central Avenue. Present for the inaugural meeting were Russ, proprietor of the Private Buffoon blog, PM Prescott, proprietor of three distinctive blogs (Captain's Log, his Family&Friends blog, and a site at which may be found Pat's first novel, Optimus) and Y'r Ob'd't S'v't (whose bloggy enterprises are listed here in the right-hand margin). A couple of others were invited but were unfortunately otherwise occupied or too distant to make it in a timely fashion.

This was the first occasion any of us had met in meat-space, though we read and comment on one another's blogs pretty regularly. It was agreed that this would not be the LAST, and that we would endeavor to expand our membership, not limiting it to "Old men," but attempting to be as 'catholic' as possible within the parameters of Left-Lib blogging.

I drank 5 or 6 pints of a local brew, Marble Brewery's IPA, which is VERY hoppy, and has a sharp, grapefruity finish. Very tasty. The food's good, too, but pricey; I can afford to either eat or drink when out, and I mostly prefer the latter. Pints were $5/each.

Budreau accompanied me, in the car, and proved again that he is a wicked chick-magnet. He captured the attention of one particularly pretty young thing from clear across the parking lot as we were driving in. She had begun moving toward the car even before it had completely stopped, and presented herself at the window for an introduction (and presenting ME with a vision of swelling bosom, the likes of which I have not enjoyed for some several months.) He's a very handsome beast, almost 'pretty,' with his tawny coat, pink nose, and yellow, lion-like eyes: 70 pounds of watchful. Women LOVE him, and sometimes (but irregularly) even notice me.

O'Neill's is a venue of some antiquity as far as pubs in Albuquerque are concerned. In its current location, where it has been for several years, it occupies the space that was once a really notorious joint, back in the '70s, called Ned's. Ned's also has been around a long time and--despite its chequered reputation--still operates, but in its own new location. When it was Ned's, back then, I got my little brother (13 years my junior) drunk there one afternoon, after I had just gotten out of the USAF, when he was still a pre-teen. Later he fell when he staggered while running, and broke his arm...

Good Times...

Short and Sweet: SERE "Training" Is/Was "Torture."

Please. Can we just stipulate now: SERE training subjected USers to torture at the hands of OTHER USers. Not fake 'torture,' not simulated 'torture,' not 'faux 'torture.' REAL torture.

It was designed to harden USer troops who might be captured to the rigors the USer Top Brass had concluded--because it was in their own playbooks--our soldiers might encounter.

This seems to indicate that USer officials and authorities subjected USers to torture, unless I'm missing something.

So, unless it is the contention of the detainee-torturers that they were training the captives to endure and resist the very hardships they were subjected to, to claim exception based on the fact what was done to the detainees was no worse than what USer troops experienced at the hands of their own countrymen, is the absolute height of jesuitical sophistry.

The Big Buy-In: $161,111.11/Day

That's how much money the Credit Card industry invested in privately bribing the Congress, over the last 90 days, to go easy on them while publically pretending to make regulation more stringent. The total for the first quarter of reported lobbying expenses by the industry: $15.5 Million, total, inform members of the House and Senate Finance and Banking committees responsible for the Legislation's passage and to positively influence their votes.

In the end, though there are some cosmetic improvements for the card-holder, and one or another of the industry's most usurously outrageous practices have been somewhat reined in, when Congress--Pelosi, Hoyer, and Reid; mainly to spare their membership having to vote their political interests and evidently and openly betray their non-corporate constituencies--failed to include imposition of interest rate caps, their investment paid off.

This didn't go completely unnoticed, but it was mostly unremarked. However,(via makethemaccountable.com,) we may sample the commentary of the irrepressibly caustic Matt Taibbi, who engaged in some necessary clarification for the benefit of one hapless LA Times writer:

“Someone needs to stand up” for the credit card companies? Did I hear that right, Michael Hiltzik? [Los Angeles Times: “Credit card companies as evil villains? It's not that simple ”] Apparently it is not enough that the credit card companies have spent $15.5 million on lobbying fees in the first quarter of 2009 alone (this according to CREW, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington), while employees of credit card companies spent an additional $14.5 million last year, and credit PACs spent $8.6 million more ...

$Sum = 38.6 in the last 15 mos. Just over $2.5 MILLION per month. And more than $5 MILLION/month for the last three months. I'm gonna repeat that: And more than $5 MILLION/month for the last three months.

And that's just one industry. Not the biggest one, though impressively large. Think about Big Pharma, and Health Insurance, and the Whole Chambers of Commerce crowds. These Congress-fuckers are swimming in cash, and they're NEVER on any planet with a BLUE sky vote against the interests of those who keep the pool full and the liquor flowing.

(aside: You gotta wonder HOW they spend that kinda money, doncha? Makesya go all agog, considering, innit? How does one spend almost FORTY MILLION fucking DOLLARS to "influence" (buy) the votes of fewer than 50 law-makers, in toto in just over 15 months? What the fuck does one BUY, with almost FORTY MILLION fucking DOLLARS? )

I have tried on several occasions to describe why I think the closest approximation of an operable metaphor for the way our national financial arrangements are and have been conducted is a no-limit poker tournament. By the time you get "into the money;" that is, get to the Fed or BoA, and start getting a pay-out beyond your buy-in--it's not real money anymore, it's OTHER PEOPLE's money. Play money, in a 'game' where the Banksters hold the "big stack."

And there's only one winner. No ties. The winner is the one who holds ALL the chips.

If the people were in such a game, they'd be 'dead money,' there to be collected by the sharks, going in. But thep people aren't players at the table. No. The people are the stakes, the chips, the tokens to keep track of the betting.

Unlike the card game, where the chips have only nominal value, each of the poker chips on the table is actually the life, and hopes and chances of one citizen, reduced to a single, interchangeable icon. And they're frittered away like pocket-change.

A tip for the Dealer?

Yeah: Plastics!

They become too big to fail, we become too small to notice...

Battle-Cry Of USer/Xian "Warriors": Jesus Killed Mohammed

Almost unnoticed, the evangelistic/fudndamentalist/wackloon/dominionist Xian movement started colonizing the USer military 30 years ago. Now, in the Pentagon, a wackloon/Fundi-vangel 'church" ministry maintains a private office down the hall form the Joint Chiefs. The military chaplaincy is overwhelmingly populated with overt flying-Monkey IDiots, and the Service Academies, especially the USAFA in Colorado Springs--where Jewish cadets have been actively stigmatized--are the breeding grounds of whole cadres of christo-fascist "warriors for Jesus," whose service to the country is an excuse for spreading "the Word." Fighting soldiers are shunned within their units, penalized for their apostasy and denied promotions for expressing 'dis-belief,' or being perceived as lacking sufficient 'faith' for the additional responsibility.

The barrier between the Church and the State has been effectively reduced to rubble INSIDE the USer Military, where the most egregious offenders against the separation are high-ranking OFFICERS, colonels, generals, admirals. These officers overtly proselytize their own troops, 'recommending' that junior officers and men read particular religious texts, and appearing on media presentations aimed at proselytizing fundi-evangitard Xianist orthodoxy.

So the news that USer troops were engaged in proselytizing Xian beliefs in the Islamic world where they are also engaged in prosecuting an unpopular and probably racist war against people who are overwhelmingly Muslim came as no surprise. Also no surprise that nobody considered that apostate Muslims--those caught renouncing Islam--face de facto death sentences. Presumably, this wouldn't ose much of a deterrent to zealots who reckon the quickest ticket to THEIOR Lord's open arms is joyous martyrdom, in the style of their "savior."

The former prime minister of Afghanistan Ahmed Shah Ahmedzai has called for an investigation into allegations that US soldiers are trying to convert Afghans to Christianity, saying: “This is a complete deviation from what they are supposed to be doing.”

His comments come after a report on Al Jazeera showed footage of soldiers at Bagram air base discussing how to distribute Bibles translated into Pashto and Dari. The US military is denying it allows its soldiers to proselytize to Afghans. The military claims the Bibles shown in the video had been confiscated and destroyed and were “never distributed.” Admiral Mike Mullen told a Pentagon briefing Monday: “It certainly is, from the United States military’s perspective, not our position to ever push any specific kind of religion, period.”

The Pentagon has also sharply criticized Al Jazeera for releasing the year-old footage which was shot by filmmaker and former soldier Brian Hughes.

If any of this is news to you, or something you'd not heard much about, you need to listen to Amy Goodman's Democracy Now. Her guests are Jeff Sharlet, an author and fundie-watcher whose previous work exposed "The Family," the DC fundi-evangi-fucktard "prayer" group which organizes the Xian agenda among the Dim and Puke movers and shakers, and whose latest piece in HARPER'S, the title of which is also the hed for this piece, should be read by every person who wishes to preserve their liberty; and Mikey Weinstein, founder of and prime mover for Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

The fucktard colonization of the USer military is the most insidious, most virulent, most anti-democratic threat to the principles of the founding of the Country ever to emerge, in my estimation. When they become "soldiers of Jesus/God," they effectively cease to be the protectors of ALL Americans. Instead of protecting Americans, they start protecting Christian--"real"--Americans. The "them" in their "them & Us" becomes US. That's a bad situation, and a "failure" of leadership. But when the "leaders" are leading the Xianist insurrection, it's hard for the soldiers not to follow.

The ethicical machinations through which these people plunge to justify their rejection of secular democracy to advocating for a sectarian military state is appalling. Sharlet's article in HARPER'S isn't up on line yet. But no one who has not read it can truly appreciate the magnitude of the problem of 'soldiers for jesus' armed and trained by the USofA and set loose...

Here's the vid:

The whole idea of the "training" is to get around the anti-proselytizing regs. Somebody needs a Court's Martial...yeah, COLONEL, I'm talking to you...

Britain Bans Savage Weiner! A Victory for Civil Society

Here's good news for travelers.

Hatard/racist/cretin/bigot/weasel and self-loathing rightwing pundit Michael "Savage" Weiner has been banned from travelling to the UK.

NPR's "Talk of the Nation" reported their segment this way:

Conservative radio host Michael Savage's name has been placed on a list banning his entrance into the U.K. The list also includes a white supremacist and a member of Hamas.

Michael Savage, host of The Savage Nation, joins us with his story. We'll also hear from Michael Harrison, founder and editor of Talkers Magazine. The magazine recently awarded Michael Savage its "Freedom of Speech Award."

Listen here; the segment's about 18 minutes. Savage/Weiner loses it, predictably, and demonstrates quite handily why the Brits might not want him 'gracing' their shores. The comments are interesting, too.

Savage/Weiner is joined on the list by some pretty significant shitheels, including Fred and Shirley Phelps, a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, two Russian skinheads responsible for the deaths of 20 racially motivated murders and -- I'm sure this is just killing Weiner Savage -- several Muslim clerics accused of whipping up hate and fomenting terrorism within the Muslim community. Full list here.

Harrison--a predictable Rightard stooge, was the subject of a Boston Globe interview today by fellow 'Tard stooge Jeff Jacoby, on which I commented elsewhere.

Good Bad News? Bad Good News? Talk Radio Is Doomed!

CJR today spotights an interview by Boston Globe pundit and general worthless Rightard tool Jeff Jacoby with Talker magazine's Michael Harrison in which Harrison predicts that "talk radio" is dying. It has at most five years left of any relevancy, due to the incipient and expanding reconfiguration of the electronic 'comm-sphere' by personal electronics. (If there is one unabashedly 'good' thing about The Globe's current, dire financial straits, it is the Jacoby might be out of a job...)

Interestingly Harrison doesn't predict the disappearance of the Bloviating Brigade of hate- and fear-mongering morons whose feculent posturings now entirely overwhelm political discourse in the USofA. Indeed, he diminishes their appeal, claiming their share of the market is declining.

And he makes nice for his pasl in the industry:

Sean Hannity is one of the nicest people in the world. And Alan Colmes, his former partner, is one of the finest people I've ever known. One is considered an arch-conservative and one is liberal, but they're both really standup guys. I judge people by how they go out of their way to help their fellow broadcaster. Jim Bohannon, who's nationally syndicated by Westwood One, is wonderful. Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who is very controversial, is personally a really caring, deeply humane person - which is interesting, because her reputation is the opposite.

Which prompted this reply from me:

Yeah, they're just pussy-cats. The milk of human kindness flows through Mikey ("Savage") Weiner's veins in such quantities that it truly hurts HURTS him--really and truly--to be a farking asswipe every day on the radio. Dr. Laura never conceived an intemperate opinion, and Hannity's just kidding around when he advocates for "eliminating" liberals...

They Rightards always claim these guys are 'actors,' playing 'public roles, and that in private, away from the microphones, they're really wonderful people. I guess they're just such superior actors that their "characters" simply overwhelm their essential 'goodness.'

Jeff Jacoby is a rightard/wackloon tool, as a recent column, quoted on DU, attests without much difficulty:

"THERE IS a bumper sticker on the car ahead of me as I drive down Interstate 93. In white letters on a navy background, it proclaims: ''Single-Payer Health Care!'' That's it. There is no argument, no attempt at logic or emotion or humor -- just an impatient demand for the drastic transformation of one-seventh of the US economy. And note the exclamation point. That is to communicate earnestness, certitude, and indignation -- classic elements of the liberal approach to policymaking: When promoting radical change, passion and good intentions are what matter most. Real-world consequences count for far less."

Jacoby's one of the phalanx of pundits cheering the fall of the BigThree/UAW, too, who is a climate-change denier, and a big pro-war asshole.

He's a truly open-minded broker...

Yeah, right...

Dung Beetles: What NPR Does Well

Under piles of manure lies the beetle world of sex and violence. University of Montana professor Douglas Emlen is an expert on the dung beetle, and he's particularly interested in insect weaponry. Listen here after 3pm est, may 1.

I even left a laudatory comment, so I shouldn't be thought an incessant, insatiable, carping critic, in which I applauded the show for being interesting, informative, entertaining, and challenging, which kind of programming they used to do a lot more of.

My incessant carping? Like this. THis is the text of a recent message to the NPR Ommbuds-one:

Message #: 5607-8720891
Date Created: 5/1/2009 12:40 PM EDT
Subject: Identifying Commentators
Body: I noticed this morning that when ME introduced movie critic Kenneth Horan, the announcer mentioned that Horan also writes for the LA Times.

So why, when Juan Williams is introduced as an NPR "senior correspondent", do his introductions NOT mention the gallons of murky water he carries for the GOP on Fox News? Surely, there's no possibility to claim Fox is anything but the private-property propaganda arm of the GOP, is there?

Seriously. Why not note that Williams is a notorious hack for Rupert Murdoch's empire? Do you think it irrelevant? Incidental? How much, comparatively, does Williams earn from NPR versus from Fox?

And, yes, I am pretty sure most NPR listeners know of Williams' connection to Fox. But why hide it, disguise it, camouflage it? Aren't you proud of his other media contributions, too?

Obviously, this couldn't be answered honestly, as today's reply demonstrates:

Dear John,

Thank you for contacting NPR.

We regret if our programming has not met your expectations. We strive to offer the highest quality of news and information available. Listener feedback helps us to accomplish this goal.

We welcome both criticism and praise, and your thoughts will be taken into consideration.

Thank you for listening, and for your continued support of public broadcasting. For the latest news and information, visit NPR.org.

Sincerely,
Axxxxxx
NPR Services

Yup. Just another crank, that's me. I wish I could persuade one of the two local "public" radio stations to disaffiliate from NPR.

Why They Call It "Fly-Over" Country.

Cuz you wouldn't want to actually have be in or drive through it...

E.g. Missouri(DOTOF™: PZMyers/Pharyngula:

Missouri's legislators have just passed a vague law that says pharmacists don't have to fill prescriptions for things that they don't like, especially nothing that might look sorta like an abortifacient. This is a bad law that removes standards of professional conduct from licensed pharmacies, and further removes all liability from pharmacists who disregard the doctor's prescriptions for their patients. Well, some of their standards. Ema gets very, very snarky. And Ema has a plan.

One last thing. I have a question for Rep. Ed Emery, Rep. Cynthia Davis, and all the other Missouri politicians who passed HB 226. Since you've removed the professional duty and standard requirements for the sale of drugs, can I haz street stand for the glorious, Capitalist selling of Plan B in your state?

Silly Ema. Only lawyers and politicians and priests are allowed to determine what is best for women's bodies.

I hate flying since the onset of the TSA, but there seem to be fewer and fewer ways to navigate around the country without subjecting oneself to the increasingly dangerous, unpredictable, irrational whims of the fundie/fucktard/wackloon, flying monkeys and their mindless, fabulist, toxic shit.

One question: would pharmacists in Missouri enjoy the option of filling or rejecting prescriptions for anti-HIV or anti-hep drugs, users of which are frequently members of sectarian opprobrium?

Branding

John Pilger is not really all that impressed with the substance of "thePrez" (in the green suit, right) "First 100 Days." He correctly understands that that false deadline, and pretty much the whole Obama mistique, is the product of some really "mad" pr/propaganda (to the extent they are differentiable) skills:

It is more than 100 days since Barack Obama was elected (inaugurated) president of the United States. The “Obama brand” has been named “Advertising Age’s marketer of the year for 2008”, easily beating Apple computers. David Fenton of MoveOn.org describes Obama’s election campaign as “an institutionalised mass-level automated technological community organising that has never existed before and is a very, very powerful force”. Deploying the internet and a slogan plagiarised from the Latino union organiser César Chávez – “Sí, se puede!” or “Yes, we can” – the mass-level automated technological community marketed its brand to victory in a country (almost. W) desperate to be rid of George W Bush.
...
No one knew what the new brand actually stood for (my emphasis. W). So accomplished was the advertising (a record $75m was spent on television commercials alone) that many Americans actually believed Obama shared their opposition to Bush’s wars. In fact, he had repeatedly backed Bush’s warmongering and its congressional funding… In his first 100 days, Obama has excused torture, opposed habeas corpus and demanded more secret government. He has kept Bush’s gulag intact and at least 17,000 prisoners beyond the reach of justice.
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Perhaps the biggest lie – the equivalent of smoking is good for you – is Obama’s announcement that the US is leaving Iraq, the country it has reduced to a river of blood. According to unabashed US army planners, as many as 70,000 troops will remain “for the next 15 to 20 years”. On 25 April, his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, alluded to this.
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It is not surprising that the polls are showing that a growing number of Americans believe they have been suckered – especially as the nation’s economy has been entrusted to the same fraudsters who destroyed it. Lawrence Summers, Obama’s principal economic adviser, is throwing $3trn at the same banks that paid him more than $8m last year, including $135,000 for one speech. Change you can believe in.

Much of the American establishment loathed Bush and Cheney for exposing, and threatening, the onward march of America’s “grand design”, as Henry Kissinger, war criminal and now Obama adviser, calls it. In advertising terms, Bush was a “brand collapse” whereas Obama, with his toothpaste advertisement smile and righteous clichés, is a godsend. At a stroke, he has seen off serious domestic dissent to war, and he brings tears to the eyes, from Washington to Whitehall. He is the BBC’s man, and CNN’s man, and Murdoch’s man, and Wall Street’s man, and the CIA’s man. The Madmen did well.

That was always the sum and substance of my complaint about him. Pretty hard to argue with that assessment, if you're not intoxicated still by the potent potion of (be it howsoever spurious) hope and change.

Pilger notes something that pissed me off about the Obama campaign: their naked rip-off of the UFW chant, without even a nod in the general direction of the labor movement from which it sprung, or the hero who led it, Cesar Chavez. "iSi! Se pede!" was a war cry, not a plea for accommodation, which the Obamanistas made it. Another point: By historical standards, a 7-per-cent margin is not a symptom of electoral desperation. Almost 60 MILLION people apparently cast their ballots against the "thePrez".

And that way cool fotoshop of "thePREZ" was created by my pal, Forest Taber, Sears Point, ME.

Glimmers of Hope? GreenShoots? Yeah, Right...

Ryan Chittum, the economics maven at CJR, stumbled upon this report and reports today that, believe it or not the good news about the economy is mainly smioke and mirrors:

The Economy Is Much Worse Than the Numbers Say

By Ryan Chittum

Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture said a couple of days ago that the abysmal GDP numbers, down 6.1 percent in the first quarter, were artificially improved by the collapse of imports.

Today, he follows up with a note from an economist that explains this perverse accounting effect (emphasis mine):

“An explanation about why the decline in imports is helping GDP growth. As you know, imports are subtracted from GDP. Because imports are declining in absolute terms, you get a positive effect from a negative negative. Just to be clear as to what this chart is telling us: the drop in imports contributed 6.05 percentage points to the GDP growth rate.

In other words when you subtract a negative, you get a positive. Without that false effect, the GDP report would have been an astonishing negative 12.2 percent. That’s a capital D depression right there, folks. (my emphasis...W)

It’s yet another reminder to take economic reports with a grain of salt. You’ve very often got to look behind the numbers to figure out what’s really going on. (my emphasis...W)

That’s the case with the headline unemployment number. Those figures don’t include people who have given up looking for work or who are only able to find part-time work. Include them and the unemployment rate jumps by about two-thirds. (That'd be close to 15%, folks...W)

Let’s see if the big media outlets pick up on this GDP business.

I, for one, ain'ta gonna hold my breath.