Sunday Funnies:Mr. Deity and The Baptist

A bad hair day in heaven...



And, previously: Mr Deity...& the Promised Land

When In Doubt, Squat!

Here's a vid produced by a typically untelegenic print reporter for the LATimes to tout a story in the Times about the increasing numbers of homeowners rendered by economic circumsatances incapable of maintaining their mortgage payments who are nevertheless continuing top reside in thes properties even though they may not have made a mortgage payment in as much as a year. Via Calculated Risk:

CalcRisk continues:

Here is the story: Many borrowers in default stay put as lenders delay evictions

Throughout the country, people continue to default on their home loans -- but lenders have backed off on forced evictions, allowing many to remain in their homes, essentially rent-free.

Several factors are driving the trend, industry experts say, including government pressure on banks to modify loans and keep people in their homes.

And with a glut of inventory in places like Southern California's Inland Empire, Nevada and Arizona, lenders are loath to depress housing prices further by dumping more properties into a weak market.

Finally, allowing borrowers to stay in their homes helps protect the bank's investment as it negotiates with the homeowners, said Gary Kirshner, a spokesman for Chase bank, a major lender.

"If the person's in the property, there's less chance for vandalism, and they're probably maintaining the house," he said.

And from Jim the Realtor, here is what happens sometimes when the occupant moves out:

ASnd then there was the guy in Ohio who bulldozed his rather than let the bank steal it back from him and resell it for more than he owed...

Memo. Re: Tsunamis. Once they start, don't turn away

The Chilean quake this morning unleashed tsunamis across the Pacific Ocean. That issue is not in doubt. Large tsunamis have been experienced on Islands in the Pacific already, near New Zealand. New Zealand is closer to Chile than is Hawai'i, but some tv announcers in Hawai'i on CNN are treating the event, rhetorically, as if it were still not a certainty that the tsunami is coming.

Jeezus fucking christ...

Notice to CNN Reporters, Re: Tsunami: It is not a matter of "if." It is only a matter of "WHEN." It's coming. That it has not yet arrived does not have any relavance to the reality of the impending event. You are not going to be spared. Your listeners, your viewers are likely in for a hard time. Deal with it.

Strange how with respect to natural phenomena, the the lap-dog media persist in their corpoRat affiliation, as in "It's not "if" there is catastrophic global climate change occurring, it's "HOW MUCH" catastrophic change. Chuy...

There is NO DOUBT there will be a large tsunami rolling past and over some parts o f Hawai'i.

Oceanologists describe tsunamis as oceanic flash floods. I live in a country where we experience flash floods pretty regularly. They are amazing things. It is the most imagineable example of the inexorablilty of a force of nature. I am a surfer, and have known the power, the size, the scale of ocean. The mere idea of an oceanic flash-flood nearly makes my bowels spontaneously evacuate.

I have seen riparine flash-floods moving at 20 mph, bank to bank a quarter of a mile across, nine feet deep. It is exhilarating from the bluff safe above; but in it's path or in its grip, nothing could be more terrible. The water siezes EVERYTHING and mixes it into a swirling, tumbling, surging soup of treestumps and boulders 6 feet in diameter, and tons of river-rock, brush, and tangled strands of barb-wire fence a mile long. I've seen a Cadillac sedan --a '62 Cadillac sedan, one of the big, old, solid, heavy, all-steel variety-- captured by the river and swept away, spinning and tumbling...Mere flesh is unimaginably immaterial in that tumultuous muddle...

Naw. You don't want to be there, trust me on this.

Now magnify that to the scale of the sea!

Your blood should be now draining from your body, like the water off the beach, when the wave approaches...

First There Was An Option, Then There Was No Option, Then There Was

Psy-Ops & Agitprop In The HCR Debate

I have asserted frequently enough that the drama in Washington over the 'reform' measures being debated to change the face of Health Insurance is basically a staged show, designed to instruct the populace in the ways of Power. Below, I have sketched of the general outlines of the situation in terms of the application of a strategy of psy-ops in the context of internal agitprop.

It just comes down to numbers; we can all do the math:

When you're one percent of the population and you own or control more wealth than the lowest 95% of folks, it is worth your while to keep that 95% occupied with matters of life and death, so they don't have time or energy to think about the disparity between their wealth and yours. Or to get ideas about how to rectify such obscene imbalances. Or the relatively few, relatively crude means by which they might do so, if they were so inspired.

Far better that the proles should fear, and struggle, for their own survival, that they should fear the loss of their houses, their jobs, their savings, their toys. Depriving them of the assurance of the ability to pay to sustain their health is part of that oppression. This is called "worker discipline" in bland euphemisms of labor relations.

And that's what this whole health insurance reform charade has been about. What it really is is an elaborate, and clever and well thought-out psy-op: Into a population already edgy and afraid of homelessness, foreclosure, unemployment, destitution, desperation and ravaged hopes, you offer a tantalizing 'cookie': the Public Option. This is the plan, along with the veiled promise for relief from a constant, vexing human problem: paying for health care. Reform of the USer health-care system is desperately needed. People loose their whole accumulated wealth ttrying to fight debilitating and mortal diseases. The 'discourse in DC since Pres. Shamwow's election has offered the apparent promise of relief, especially from the grip of predatory insurance companies, the evils of which are a large part of the lore of corpoRat irresponsibility in USer economy.

Only it isn't, and never was and never will be.

Cuz they're playing Skinner tricks, a Pavlovian, 'behaviorist' game: First there is an option, then there in no option, then there is...Over the course of the last 18 months the chimera of real help to the desperate people has been offered, and then withdawn, and offered and, then again withdrawn, over and over; frustratingly, each episode seeming to come closer than the time before to that which everybody wants and needs but which shall, nevertheless, for reasons of commerce, be forever denied them: Universal, single-payer, non-profit, cradle-to-grave health and wellness assurance.

That we are NEVER gonna have. But the "public option" keeps the shade of the idea, its penumbra, in play. And the corpoRat lick-spittles in DC want it in there because it increases the psychic shock of every advance and retreat is magnified by the desirability of that which is offered and then denied.

The genius of the whole operation is that nothing ever actually has to happen to effect these public psychic breaks.? Just a few words in the lap-dog merdia (neologism-alert: Merdia!) suffice to spike or dash the hopes of the hopeful, which at some level is everyone.

The only possible conclusion is that they've played us like the rubes we are, and when they finally decide on the awful, reeking, feculent Senate bill, everybody will be so relieved that, when something becomes law and they hail it as an accomplishment of Rooseveltian scale and scope--the return of the Titanic to NY Harbor would occasion only slightly more wonderment and joy--the rubes will cheer and wave and praise the Owners for their generosity...

And nothing changes...

Students Required To "Perform," Not Necessarily to "Learn."

Jonathan Kozol said 50 years ago: People who complain that the American schools are 'failures' do not understand what schools are intended to do. The purpose of a system is what it does. You may read its intentions off its consequences...

Nine Great--But Futile--Ideas To Reform Congress

Via the blog Abolish Corporate Personhood Now:

In the chart here, on the left is Exxon’s Profits from the year 2008. On the right is the political spending for 2008, of every politician, campaign, political group, and PAC, winner and loser, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green, Independent or other. The numbers are in Billions.

Here are nine possible laws Congress could pass to limit Corporations from buying American Government. A few of them would actually be good for all politicians and groups.

1. Protecting America’s Sovereignty from Foreign Intervention Act

Law: Companies can not spend money on political matters if they are “Influenced by Foreign Citizens”

That will be defined as Foreign stock holders or Foreign debt holders or traded on foreign stock exchanges. Foreign employees in excess of 10% of total employees or foreign sales in excess of 10% total sales.

2. No Megaphones in my House Act

Law: Political Spending by Corporations may not be greater than the annual income of their median employee.

Your neighbor can’t boom their radio all night. You can’t stand in front of a Court House with a megaphone shouting profanities. Corporations shouldn’t be able to outspend every politician running for office.

3. Protect Stockholders Rights Act

Law: All stockholders must be presented with political material before money is spent advertising it, and then they must be given an opportunity to vote for or against said material. Foreign Stockholders are not allowed to vote. 66% of all votes must vote in favor.

Many large Corporations have tens of thousands of share holders. If the Corporation is going to spend profits on political speech, is important that the speech properly reflect the political opinion of the owners.

4. Clarify the Messenger Act

Law: The Corporations must file with the FEC how much money they’re spending and where. And the Corporate Logo of the highest Parent Corporation must be shown through out any commercials.

Citizens seeing these commercials should know exactly who’s paying for them. More importantly, Corporations shouldn’t be able to hide their participation through nice sounding Political Action Committee names or Corporations. The highest parent corporations logo would have to be used (in addition to any other logos they’d want to include).

5. Let us see your faces Act

Law: Corporate Commercials must contain the highest ranked officer in the Corporation saying their name and saying “I fully support the content of this message.”

We want to know where the money is coming from, but we also want to know who is talking to us. And later on, if we decide we didn’t like the message, we should know who not to buy from in the future.

6. Limit Government Contractors from deciding Act

Law: The Federal Government is barred from hiring any corporation that spends money on Lobbyists, electioneering or political advocacy.

If they insist on sticking their noses in our business, we stop doing business with them.

7. Limit Political Commercials to directing Traffic Act

Law: Political Commercials may not offer political advocacy or electioneering, and may only direct people towards their location of business at which point people can read/watch/hear whatever message is presented at their discretion.

Obscenity laws prevent 1-900 numbers from advertising with nude bodies, but they can advertise their phone numbers. Likewise, if Corporations want to get involved with political advocacy, they would have to create a website (or other place of business) and could only spend money advertising the location of place of business. This frankly, would be a great law for all political groups. Instead of having a hundred attack ads that have no value, limit all politicians to direction-ads trying to get people to go to their blogs or rallies or what-have you. It would reduce the volume of our politics and restore some civility, while still leaving everyone the freedom to say whatever they want in public.

8. Limit Corporations from discussing actions they can’t legally perform Act

Law: Corporations can only discuss political issues they can themselves take part in.

Corporations can’t gay-marry or have children, they shouldn’t be allowed to advocate for or against either. They can’t join the military, so they shouldn’t advocate for or against national spending. They can’t vote, so they shouldn’t be able to tell people who to vote for.

9. The Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act

Law: 500% Tax on all money spent on lobbying, electioneering, or political advocacy.

This is just to make it more painful for them. Hit them at the money. (Thank you Alan Grayson.)

Each and every one of these measures would be welcome, individually; together they'd totally reshape our political culture.

Which is why none of them has the least, slightest of a scintilla of a chance in hell of being enacted.

TDSWJS Fillets Glenn Beck and the CPAC Loonies

Ummmm! YUMMY Fried fillet of fool!~

Rage Within the Machine - Progressivism

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
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Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Or Try This One (which preceded the previous segment):
CPAC 2010 - Rage Within the Machine

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www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

A Very Astute Portrait of the "Great Mocha Hope"

Written by one Michael Brenner, at Huffpost the other day. Brenner (correctly and accurately, imho) observes in Pres ShamwObama the following (disturbing) characteristics:

"a strong narcissistic streak, an ingrained sense of superiority, a nimbleness - intellectual and political - enabled by the incredible lightness of his conviction about anything, an audacious ambition yet no gumption for a fight...

Behind these traits, there is something even more basic discernible. Obama is two people, one superimposed on the other. The visible, surface man is the epitome of an enlightened, Ivy League, socially responsible liberal. This is Obama the community organizer (albeit an exceptionally non-confrontational one), Obama the African American political activist who attends Jeremiah Wright's cosmopolitan church, Obama the orator who routinely hits the high 'Cs' of the call to conscience, Obama the optimist who appeals to, and for the better angels of our idealistic American selves. This is Obama the African-American who moved enough voters to be elected President of the United States. (Obama, the febreez-scented Shamwow, iow--W

To this portrait, we must juxtapose the other Barack Obama - the Barack Obama who has surfaced as he quickly shed his 'liberal' skin amidst the trappings of the White House. This other personality, I contend, is the underlying one - truer to the man's core nature. This is the Obama who twice in his young career sought out positions in big corporate law firms; this is the Obama who was raised by three Kansans who instilled in him conservative heartland values; this is the Obama who relishes wealth and what it can buy; this is the Obama who feels more at ease with his Wall Street buddies (Jaime Dimon, et al) playing golf than with anyone of the Move On American crowd; this is the Obama who chose as his trusted confidant that unscrupulous, liberals-be-damned fixer - Rahm Emanuel; this is the Obama who absorbed the spirit of Ronald Reagan's America he himself has said stands as the model of inspirational leadership."

This is the Obama who shat explicitly an purposely all over the heads of the very people who made his spectacular success even plausible, let alone possible--the dirty fucking hippies' excesses in the 60s and 70s--and who said so, publically, while lugubriously fellating the dead schlong of Reagan before the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune.

Any questions?

A Session With Betty Bowers, "Americas Best Christian"

TIP: When pestering invisible, allo-powerful entities for treats and beneficences, always conclude with "Amen." It's the clerical equivalent of "Abra-Cadabra!" and will open the doors of divine donation to your favorite personal cause.

The "L-Curve": Wealth Distribution In Murka

In numbers ANYONE can understand:

Or, to put it another way:

Michael Parenti has been saying this for decades:

A "Kinder, Gentler" Totalitarianism

You are here!

"To reduce a complex argument to its bare bones, since the Depression, the twin forces of managed democracy and Superpower have opened the way for something new under the sun: "inverted totalitarianism," a form every bit as totalistic as the classical version but one based on internalized co-optation, the appearance of freedom, political disengagement rather than mass mobilization, and relying more on "private media" than on public agencies to disseminate propaganda that reinforces the official version of events. It is inverted because it does not require the use of coercion, police power and a messianic ideology as in the Nazi, Fascist and Stalinist versions (although note that the United States has the highest percentage of its citizens in prison -- 751 per 100,000 people -- of any nation on Earth). According to Wolin, inverted totalitarianism has "emerged imperceptibly, unpremeditatedly, and in seeming unbroken continuity with the nation's political traditions."

The genius of our inverted totalitarian system "lies in wielding total power without appearing to, without establishing concentration camps, or enforcing ideological uniformity, or forcibly suppressing dissident elements so long as they remain ineffectual. A demotion in the status and stature of the 'sovereign people' to patient subjects is symptomatic of systemic change, from democracy as a method of 'popularizing' power to democracy as a brand name for a product marketable at home and marketable abroad. The new system, inverted totalitarianism, is one that professes the opposite of what, in fact, it is. The United States has become the showcase of how democracy can be managed without appearing to be suppressed."

Here's a (MUCH younger) Bill Moyers interview with Wolin from a good many years ago: Part 1

Part 2:

Chris Hedges on Commodity & Celebrity Culture

He's maybe even more of a cynic then I am. Th aggregator for this collection is here.

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:

Super-Majority? Young Turk Cenk Explains It All For You

The only way to overturn the rule of the CorpoRats is public financing.

The only way to get public financing is through Congress, the corpoRat owners of which will oppose it.

So, in case ya missed it, WE ARE TOTALLY FUCKED!

Another Plea for Public Political Financing

My pal Jim Terr presented this on our local Public Radio station, KUNM:

Public campaign financing is the simple idea that if politicians didn’t have to spend half their time chasing campaign contributions, and kissing up to big campaign contributors, they’d have more time and attention for serving the needs of the so-called average citizen, than those of rich individuals, corporations and other businesses.

I see no reason to think that this situation – and this simple solution – applies any less on a state level, here in New Mexico, than it does nationally. And neither does the UNwillingness of most politicians to change the system. Why should they? They evidently like the attention, the money, whatever, even if it messes up their day, and their work product – as delivered to me, the consumer, the EMPLOYER. Yes, you and I hired these folks, our representatives, supposedly, to serve our interests.

I recently asked a popular statewide candidate what he (or she) thought about promoting public campaign financing?

Well, it’s an important issue, this person said, maybe I’ll give it more thought after I’m in office and take care of some other priorities. Thinking “Yeah, fat chance,” I asked why not now? Wouldn’t it make a dramatic point, and big news, if you came out for public campaign financing, while the campaign is just getting underway?

Well, frankly, he or she said, I don’t think most people are that interested in it. Are YOU interested in it, I asked – that’s the point. Do you think most people would be interested if they knew that it would only take $6 from each voter to replace ALL the money spent in all elections nationwide, including the billion dollars spent on the last presidential campaign?

Is that true? This person asked. I didn’t know that. Well, if this person didn’t know that, how many other people know that, and how could people be expected to be interested, if they didn’t know how cheap it would be to get their democracy back?

And now that the Supreme Court has ruled that huge corporations have unlimited rights to buy elections, to roll over any candidate who opposes the corporate agenda in favor of a human agenda, the need is even more urgent.

There are some single corporations like Exxon who could put up the full one billion spent on the last presidential election without blinking, since their profits alone, last year, were over 40 billion. And now there is nothing to stop them – you heard right.

So ask your friendly New Mexico legislator, or your favorite candidate for governor or lieutenant governor, where they stand on public campaign financing – now, not next time around, but now. If we can’t do it in New Mexico, as Arizona has, how can we expect it to happen nationally? And if we CAN do it in New Mexico – and in other states – we can help make it happen nationally. Before it’s too late, forever.

Honestly, I do not believe public funding would pull the corpoRat financing teeth, unless along with it there were an absolute ban on ALL private contributions. And I doubt, under the regime of Opus Dei SCROTUS, it would survive Constitutional challenge.

But you cannot fault the logic...

Support The Robin Hood Tax

A coalition of British organizations calling itself the Robin Hood Tax campaign is proposing a new tax on banks to fund global anti-poverty and anti-climate change initiatives. The idea is to skim about 0.05% off of all speculative banking transactions, which proponents say would raise hundreds of billions of dollars each year and forge "a new deal between banks and society":

"It sounds complicated, but actually it isn't. A tiny tax on bankers has the power to raise hundreds of billions every year - giving a vital boost to the NHS, our schools, and the fight against child poverty - as well as tackling poverty and climate change around the world."

In an ad for the campaign, British actor Bill Nighy, who will star in the next installment of the Harry Potter films, plays a haughty banker who's forced to admit the tax would barely phase the finance industry.

Why "President Shamwow?"

I am sometimes asked why I refer to our Chief Executive in such a dismissive, unrespectful way. Here's my answer, a reply to a correspondent on FaceBook which, though it may be somewhat incomplete still, opretty well distills the meaning:

Why "President Shamwow?"

Everyone's seen the ubiquitous, obnoxious Shamwow ads. They absorb EVERYTHING (and in doing so, relieve the "spillers" from the responsibility of their stained, stinky fuck-ups).

Well, imho, that's Obama's job: to absorb all the shitty, dirty water left behind by the last 50 years of Oligarchic excess, while deflecting responsibility away from those truly responsibile. His race plays a big role here, because when Obama fucks up, it won't be a "WHITE" oligarch doing it, it will "that socialist fuukin negro."

I toyed with the moniker "Prez. Febreez H. Shamwow," to capture the whole dynamic, but figgered it might be misunderstood, not as generic sarcasm but as racial stereotyping. But it's apropos, too, since one main reason for his candidacy was to cover over the stench of endemic USer racism.

The Shamwow presidency has at least four distinct advantages for the white oligarchy:
1) it moves criticism off them and onto a willing and ready scapegoat (Obama's job is to become the most despised man in Murka);

2) it places the blame on those not able to reject it;

3)it definitely (dis)colors and probably disqualifies any future "novelty" candidacy, and

4) it opens the door for the next wave of fascisti who be "elected" by and for being Not Obama, just Shamwow was Not Bush...

Why, yes, I am a dreadful cynic. Why do you ask...

Max Keiser Delivers The News (Hint: It's uncomfortable)

Part 1:

Part 2:

Are you uncomfortable yet?

If not, what color is the sky where you live?

Gitcher Score Card, Here! Your MEDIA Score Card, Here!

Ya can't Tell Who Owns Who without a Score Card. Gitcher Score Card Here!

Who owns CNN? or MSNBC? ABC?
by systemfailure Wednesday, Apr. 09, 2003 at 1:43 AM

So ya think we have a "free press" eh? Check out who owns who, and who owns what you think.......

GENERAL ELECTRIC --(donated 1.1 million to GW Bush for his 2000 election campaign)

Television Holdings:
* NBC: includes 13 stations, 28% of US households.
* NBC Network News: The Today Show, Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, Meet the Press, Dateline NBC, NBC News at Sunrise.
* CNBC business television; MSNBC 24-hour cable and Internet news service (co-owned by NBC and Microsoft); Court TV (co-owned with Time Warner), Bravo (50%), A&E (25%), History Channel (25%).
The "MS" in MSNBC
means microsoft
The same Microsoft that donated 2.4 million to get GW bush elected.

Other Holdings:
* GE Consumer Electronics.
* GE Power Systems: produces turbines for nuclear reactors and power plants.
* GE Plastics: produces military hardware and nuclear power equipment.
* GE Transportation Systems: runs diesel and electric trains.

==================================================

WESTINGHOUSE / CBS INC.
Westinghouse Electric Company, part of the Nuclear Utilities Business Group of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL)
whos #1 on the Board of Directors? None other than:
Frank Carlucci (of the Carlyle Group)

Television Holdings:
* CBS: includes 14 stations and over 200 affiliates in the US.
* CBS Network News: 60 minutes, 48 hours, CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, CBS Morning News, Up to the Minute.
* Country Music Television, The Nashville Network, 2 regional sports networks.
* Group W Satellite Communications.
Other Holdings:
* Westinghouse Electric Company: provides services to the nuclear power industry.
* Westinghouse Government Environmental Services Company: disposes of nuclear and hazardous wastes. Also operates 4 government-owned nuclear power plants in the US.
* Energy Systems: provides nuclear power plant design and maintenance.

================================================================

VIACOM INTERNATIONAL INC.
Television Holdings:

* Paramount Television, Spelling Television, MTV, VH-1, Showtime, The Movie Channel, UPN (joint owner), Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Sundance Channel (joint owner), Flix.
* 20 major market US stations.
Media Holdings:
* Paramount Pictures, Paramount Home Video, Blockbuster Video, Famous Players Theatres, Paramount Parks.
* Simon & Schuster Publishing.

=============================================

DISNEY / ABC / CAP (donated 640 thousand to GW's 2000 campaign)
Television Holdings:

* ABC: includes 10 stations, 24% of US households.
* ABC Network News: Prime Time Live, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America.
* ESPN, Lifetime Television (50%), as well as minority holdings in A&E, History Channel and E!
* Disney Channel/Disney Television, Touchtone Television.
Media Holdings:
* Miramax, Touchtone Pictures.
* Magazines: Jane, Los Angeles Magazine, W, Discover.
* 3 music labels, 11 major local newspapers.
* Hyperion book publishers.
* Infoseek Internet search engine (43%).
Other Holdings:
* Sid R. Bass (major shares) crude oil and gas.
* All Disney Theme Parks, Walt Disney Cruise Lines.

======================================================

TIME-WARNER TBS - AOL (donated 1.6 million to GW's 2000 campaign)
America Online (AOL) acquired Time Warner–the largest merger in corporate history.
Television Holdings:

* CNN, HBO, Cinemax, TBS Superstation, Turner Network Television, Turner Classic Movies, Warner Brothers Television, Cartoon Network, Sega Channel, TNT, Comedy Central (50%), E! (49%), Court TV (50%).
* Largest owner of cable systems in the US with an estimated 13 million subscribers.
Media Holdings:
* HBO Independent Productions, Warner Home Video, New Line Cinema, Castle Rock, Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera.
* Music: Atlantic, Elektra, Rhino, Sire, Warner Bros. Records, EMI, WEA, Sub Pop (distribution) = the world’s largest music company.
* 33 magazines including Time, Sports Illustrated, People, In Style, Fortune, Book of the Month Club, Entertainment Weekly, Life, DC Comics (50%), and MAD Magazine.
Other Holdings:
* Sports: The Atlanta Braves, The Atlanta Hawks, World Championship Wrestling.

=======================================================

NEWS CORPORATION LTD. / FOX NETWORKS (Rupert Murdoch) (donations see bottom note)
Television Holdings:

* Fox Television: includes 22 stations, 50% of US households.
* Fox International: extensive worldwide cable and satellite networks include British Sky Broadcasting (40%); VOX, Germany (49.9%); Canal Fox, Latin America; FOXTEL, Australia (50%); STAR TV, Asia; IskyB, India; Bahasa Programming Ltd., Indonesia (50%); and News Broadcasting, Japan (80%).
* The Golf Channel (33%).
MEDIA HOLDINGS:
* Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Searchlight.
* 132 newspapers (113 in Australia alone) including the New York Post, the London Times and The Australian.
* 25 magazines including TV Guide and The Weekly Standard.
* HarperCollins books.
OTHER HOLDINGS:
* Sports: LA Dodgers, LA Kings, LA Lakers, National Rugby League.
* Ansett Australia airlines, Ansett New Zealand airlines.
* Rupert Murdoch: Board of Directors, Philip Morris (USA).

*(Phillip Morris donated 2.9 million to George W Bush in 2000)*

And don't forget the overlapping, interlocking corporate Boards of Directors. Think "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, wherein every member of every Board knows every OTHER member of every OTHER Board, knows to what clubs they belong, knows the names of their wives and kids, and probably their parents, too.

These are the people who own your consciousness. They're the 'agenda setters.' They don't tell you what to think. But they do provide the menu of choices of what to think about, and frame the terms in which you think about it, and evaluate your competence to participate on your willingness to accede to their rhetorical demands.

In the CorpoRat State, 'corporate media" are State Media, I heard somewhere...

Maddow Talks Climate Change With "Science Guy" Bill Nye

Suck it, you denialist climb it fux!

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Colbert administers a much-needed beating to the fux at Faux News:
We're Off to See the Blizzard

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George Carlin (RIP) Speaks Truth To, and About, Power

"They don't give a FUCK about you. They don't give a FUCK about you...It's called the American Dream, because you gotta be asleep to believe it..."