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July 04, 2004
Why?
Where?
Who?
When?
What?
I once had a question at the top of this blog that asked: What if we had a war and everybody came? It was right before and left there after March 19, 2003. And it seemed particularly relevant when Israel was accused of bombing Sudan and Iran last year. Or was it planning to bomb?
But that situation is here again. That war today is the blogos(phere).
In recent weeks, I've been throwing shit around the blogs - at other people's comments; nothing particularly abusive (not like my nuclear spit at Jay Caruso from last September that I found quite by accident the other day where I called him every name in the book. He deserves most of it, of course, for playing dumb 99 percent of the time, and for doing exactly what he suggests others not do (He does so in the lingua franca of the blogs - snarky). Nevertheless, I cringed at myself.
I've tried to get people to look behind the easy. Nevertheless, I've also had my share of good-natured and bad-natured barbs. I think I'm more witty than most when it comes to words, because I make my living with them (and research and conversation and sifting through information garbed as opinion and opinion garbed as information).
Often the barbs and the insults are the only way to get people to respond and wake up. But since spite and invective is so prevelant in the blogos today, it's also increasingly a good reason to get ignored. It's an easy way to get ignored because it represents unreasonableness. If someone is willing to go that far and so deep into attack mode,you can't expect a reasonable conversation from them.
Now, this type of unreasonableness is easier to take than someone who just keeps on believing, despite evidence to the contrary - not innuendo, not opinions, but hard evidence.
Facts are so easy to ignore once you've got your blood boiling. An unhealthy number of people, I believe, tour the blogs just to get their blood boiling. A part of this equation is also that, once reasonable discussion takes place it can be then put aside - and is easily forgotten, and therefore goes unrewarded.
As an aside, this nature goes to the nature of all media. As I've said before, good journalism, useful journsalism is rarely remembered as journalism - it's remembered as history.
Dean, who does not have a Web site to my knowledge, engaged me in a good - not spirited but good - discussion on whether FDR had misled the country in similar ways to GWB. It didn't center around Bush, it centered around history and FDR.
It took me some little time to research - and, as it turns out I was wrong because I'd missed the Land-Lease Act of 1939. (That exchange was here)
Dean's mistake was in not letting me know that he had replied to my questions. He had to do it at Ricky's site, because, apparently, he was not physically or technically able to comment at my site. He did so and showed the error of my ways on one particular point.
But I didn't remember that discussion, until today and I wondered if he replied and spent some time looking.I didn't think he would, but he did.
That's worth celebrating and acknowledging.
People usually blog (verb), leaving out many pertinent facts. And when presented with those facts, tend to get defensive or completely ignore them.
They lose credibility when they do so - just like everything and everyone else in life.
Anyway, I'm going to find a way to marginalize those sources / blogs who just refuse to get it. I'm going to have to remember those issues in which they are inflexible on.
But many of these bloggers remain useful sources of information and discussion on other subjects. There are certain bloggers that come to mind who get stuck in neutral (IE won't ever get anywhere else) on CERTAIN issues and can't hear anything to dissuade them. But on many others they are valuable, they are flexible.
The phrase "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for everything," has been corrupted. It has come tomean, principle in the face of evidence, inflexibility in the face of open-mindedness and attack in the face of those who disagree, and who become enemies by that simple disagreement.
This is human nature and it is frustrating. This frustrates me. I realize that my part in this is small, though could be greater if I was a full time opinion creator. I'm not, I'm a journalist, who facilities the formation of opinions and knowledge.
Information eventually reaches a much wider audience than opinion, which is why I decry those saying all journalists should admit their biases. No, editors shoud do a better job removing them.
On this Independence Day weekend, all I can continue to celebrate is Freedom and Independence of Thought. And hope for it's shared survival.
So, change your links accordingly. I'm moving permanently to ThinkPeopleThink.com. It's not ready, but,it won't be until I move there. My life is too full otherwise and I will continue to prioritize it right out of the stratos(phere).
posted by or E-mail me at 04:44
July 02, 2004
Boo Frickin Hoo
Former GOP Candidate Jack Ryan Slams Focus on Sex Life
Bites you in the ass doesn't it boy? Thank your GOPcolleagues.
By the way, I suppose I'm not the first to notice that Jeri Ryan's role in Boston Public - a lawyer turned teacher - is not dissimilar to her real-life husband's, investment banker turned teacher story.
posted by or E-mail me at 22:44
Aye Sure Ain't No Cowboy
Wonder why peepol call me that? Could it be the hat and the studied Clint Eastwood squint?
No sirree.
And on this Reister To Vote page of GOPTeam leader.com, check out the tagline: As the 2002 election demonstrated, every vote counts!
Whew, seems a more topical reference (presidential year ???) would have been 2000. But that won't do.We can't have that reminder that Bush was elected by the Supreme Court, out there now can we?
No sirree.
posted by or E-mail me at 21:31
July 01, 2004
Best Fake Anchor on the Daily Show?
DailyKos opens up a thread.
Honestly,when Kerry gets elected its going to be the right-wingers favorite show. They attack anyone - and they'll get Kerry for everything.
Fortunatelyit won't be as criminal as BushCo.
posted by or E-mail me at 21:02
You Know, Because Shit Happens II
Turns out, just like initial false reports of Chemical Ali's death (he was "killed" twice and then turned up alive), the Al-Qaeda militant thought killed in Saudi Arabia? Not him.
Link - at the Washington Times, though it's an AP, not UPI story.
posted by or E-mail me at 16:55
You Know, Because Shit Happens I
Former head of GOP consulting group pleads guilty to jamming Democratic phone lines
By Associated Press, 7/1/2004 08:43
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) The former head of a Republican consulting group has pleaded guilty to jamming Democratic telephone lines in several New Hampshire cities during the 2002 general election.
Allen Raymond, former president of the Alexandria, Va.-based GOP Marketplace LLC, waived indictment and pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Concord on Wednesday. Judge Joseph A. DiClerico Jr. released Raymond on his own recognizance pending sentencing in November.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department, which prosecuted the case, said an investigation into the telephone jamming continues.
According to court papers, Raymond plotted with unidentified co-conspirators to jam Democratic Party telephone lines established so voters could call for rides to the polls in Manchester, Nashua, Rochester and Claremont. Manchester firefighters' union phone lines also were affected.
The jamming involved more than 800 calls and lasted for about 11?2 hours on Nov. 5, 2002, the day New Hampshire voters decided many state and federal races, including the U.S. Senate race between outgoing Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and then-Congressman John Sununu. Sununu, a Republican, won the race.
The complaint said Raymond paid a ''vendor co-conspirator'' $2,500 to make the actual calls.
State Democratic Chairwoman Kathy Sullivan had noted that some of the local races were close and that phone-jamming could have affected the outcome, but there was no way to know.
Democrats had pushed for an investigation for two years.
''There is, short of murder, not much that is more horrific in America than purposely trying to stop people from voting,'' said Raymond Buckley, vice chairman of the state Democratic Party. He said the jamming was obviously an organized effort, taking place across the state.
He expects to see more charges.
''Somebody hired them, somebody paid them to do this crime,'' Buckley said. ''I do not believe this investigation should stop until every single person who had knowledge of this and paid for this is prosecuted.''
In early 2003, state Republicans acknowledged they hired GOP Marketplace for telemarketing services in the 2002 election. But Republican Party Chairman Jayne Millerick has maintained the company was paid $15,600 for telemarketing services to encourage people to vote Republican, not to jam lines.
Chuck McGee, who was executive director of the state Republican Party at the time, resigned his post after news broke of the matter.
''The New Hampshire Republican State Committee was pleased to cooperate fully with the Department of Justice investigation,'' Millerick said in a statement released Wednesday. ''These allegations have been extremely troubling and we are happy that it appears they are coming to a just conclusion.''
posted by or E-mail me at 16:53
Forget Petersen, Saddam's On Trial
Forget Petersen, Kobe Bryant or Michael Jackson - really, who cares? Petersen is guilty, and his arrest and conviction effects exactly one family. Killing your good-looking pregnant wife is bad. We know that. It shouldn't have to be reinforced with 1,000s of hours of air time and 1,000s of gallons of ink.
Kobe is stupid, but innocent.
Jackson is a child, but innocent.
Bush is a child and ... dangerous.
Saddam is the important trial. It's already not like any other trial. It's a trial trying to have legal legitimacy. It's a trial on which legal legitimacy will be forced upon it.
There's no one around who has enough power to truly question it.
There's your sovereignty.
Saddam has not formally been acccused or indicted of anything. Talking about Saddam in the cold hard language of a trial is strange. He's an ugly-minded motherfucker who should just have a quick trial and be executed. But if you're going to bother to go through a trial there should be a legitimate court system in place.
And it's not there, yet. Close, but not there.
posted by or E-mail me at 10:20
June 28, 2004
June 27, 2004
Kerry SAves Lives. Bush?
Rather than looking like a stuck Guinea pig on Sept. 11 in a FLorida classroom, Bush coul dhave taken charge and
This is sometihng Kerry seems overqualifed to do. Surrounded by Republicans, who's the one who steps up and saves a man's life?: ------------------------------------------------------------------------
February 06, 2004
Former GOP Sen. Hecht owes life to Democratic candidate Kerry
By Kirsten Searer LAS VEGAS SUN
Former U.S. Sen. Chic Hecht of Nevada is a staunch Republican, but he thanks his lucky stars for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.
On July 12, 1988, Hecht was attending a weekly Republican luncheon when a piece of apple lodged firmly in his throat.
Hecht stumbled out of the room, thinking he might vomit but not wanting to do it in front of his colleagues. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., thumped his back, but Hecht quickly passed out in the hallway.
Just then, Kerry stepped off an elevator, rushed to Hecht's side and gave him the Heimlich maneuver -- four times.
The lifesaving incident made international news, and Dr. Henry Heimlich, who invented the maneuver in 1974, called Hecht to say that had Kerry intervened just 30 seconds later Hecht might have been in a vegetative state for life.
"This man gave me my life," the 75-year-old Hecht said Thursday.
Hecht said he was amazed that Kerry acted so quickly -- some people were assuming that he was having a heart attack.
"He knew exactly what to do," he said. "But a lot of people know what to do. They just don't size up the situation immediately."
The story has a twist of irony: Hecht was up for re-election that year, and Kerry, who was serving as the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, had pegged Hecht as one of the most vulnerable Republican seats.
Indeed, the Democratic nominee for Hecht's seat, then-Gov. Richard Bryan, beat Hecht, who served just one term in office.
"Only in America can this happen, where he's working against me to get me defeated and then saves my life," Hecht said.
Hecht, who prides himself on having one of the most conservative records on the books during his six years in the Senate, said he and his wife, Gail, see politics as "a secondary issue" when it comes to Kerry.
"We've had a wonderful life, and it would have all been down the tubes," said Hecht, who is about to celebrate his 45th wedding anniversary with his wife.
Every year the Hechts call Kerry's longtime personal secretary, who tracks down Kerry wherever he is.
Then they recount some of their experiences in the last year. Hecht and his wife thank Kerry for thinking so quickly in the Senate halls that day. And Kerry tells them that their phone call is one of his favorites of the year.
"He's so nice and appreciative," Hecht said.
This year Kerry was taking a day's vacation from campaigning, and he told them that he thought his campaign was finally gaining momentum.
Some of the Hechts hope so. Both of Hecht's daughters have attended Kerry events, and Gail Hecht hopes to travel to California the next time Kerry is there to voice her support, Hecht said.
Still, Hecht points out that he and Gail have given the maximum possible contribution to President Bush's campaign ($2,000 each). Hecht, a longtime businessman and banker, served as President George H.W. Bush's ambassador to the Bahamas.
Soon after the Iowa caucuses, a former Los Angeles county deputy sheriff and Republican Jim Rassmann stood with Kerry at an event to tell the story of when Kerry saved his life in the jungles of Vietnam.
Rassmann, a Green Beret, was ambushed along Bay Hap river, but Kerry, who also had been injured in the attack, grabbed Rassmann's arm and pulled him to safety, according to Kerry's website [ed note: you know for those who think Kerry did nothing in Vietam but forget this incident]
On Wednesday, Roll Call wrote a story about Hecht's incident. So far, Kerry hasn't asked Hecht to appear at a campaign event, but Hecht said he would if he were asked.
Hecht won't, however, say who he would vote for in November if Kerry wins the Democratic nomination.
"Only the Good Lord and myself will know how I'm going to vote," he said. Emphases mine.
posted by or E-mail me at 20:42
June 26, 2004
Donald D. Thompson, Not Even An OK Judge
What kind of balls - okay, tiny - does it take for you to sit in a court, whip out your penis and start stroking yourself?
What if you're the presiding judge in an Oklahoma County Court doing that?
What then if not satisfied with dry-humping your whizened wang, you whip out the baby oil?
What THEN if you've done that so many times, you're just not aroused anymore - and oh, BTW, you're an old (well, 57 isn't that old) stick, that you think it's a wise and noble decision to use a penis pump. Not just once but 15-20 times, in full view of your court clerk. Said pump is then heeard by other people in the court, including police witnesses for the cases before you.
Not the kind of wise, informed mind you want deciding your case, is he? Unless your in on a sexual deviency matter.
And yes it did occur to me too, why did the clerk need 15 or 20 views before she called in the police?
The last page of the document that got him booted out of office is a section called Prayer For Relief. I[m sure he did that a time or two.
HERE COMES THE JUDGE
Shorty Long (I swear)
Hear ye, hear ye
The court's in session
The court's in session, now
Here comes the judge
Here comes the judge
Here comes the judge
Here comes the judge
Here comes the judge
Stop eatin' that fudge
Cause here comes the judge
Don't nobody buzz
Cause here comes the judge
Judge Shorty is presidin' today
And he don't take no stuff from nobody
No kind of way
Hey boy, take off that hat
Where do you think you're at
I know where you gon' be
If you don't heed my plea
I'm here to tell you
Court's in session
Order in the court now
Court's in session
Can't nobody stroke now
Here comes the judge
Here comes the judge
Here comes the judge
Here comes the judge
Here come the judge,
Here comes the judge
Y'all here comes the judge
Order, order
What's the first case on the docket
Judge I got a boy here who can't dance
Can't dance? Ah
Ninety days, thirty days for boogaloo
Thirty days to learn how to shing-a-ling
And thirty more for the Afro twist
Can't dance, what is this
Court's in session everybody quiet now
Court's in session, here comes the judge
Here comes the judge
Is that the man?
No, your honor
Does he look like the man?
No, your Honor
Well, I'm sorry you got to go now
Ah ha you can't recognize the man
You got to stand guilty
Here comes the judge
Here comes the judge
Here comes the judge
Ah yes, here comes the judge
They caught him stompin' down the aisle
Yes here comes the judge
I'd rather be lost in the jungle of Brazil
Than to face the judge
This morning the way he feels
Here comes the judge
Here comes the judge boy
posted by or E-mail me at 20:36
Not Even Just Entertainment
I've heard the chant for so long that Rush is just Rush, he's bluster, he's fun he's a fun-loving guy, no need to take him seriously, hes just talking, he's ENTERTAINMENT.
I have argued that he - and his ilk - are much more than that. They are poison to the golden apple of reasoned discourse. Too many don't invest any time or resources into questioning what these guys say. Those who do are labeled liberal whackos.
Michelle "Idiot" Malkin paints a happy face on Republican right-wing activism, in response to PJ Rourke's column about talk radio: "I Agree With Me":
So O'Rourke opines that "the number and popularity of conservative talk shows have grown apace since the Reagan Administration. The effect, as best I can measure it, is nil." Perhaps he should ask the soldiers abroad who voted overwhelmingly to put Rush on their airwaves what the impact of his show is. Or maybe he should head to Sean Hannity's Freedom Concert on July 8, which raises millions of dollars for military families. Or maybe he should meet Hugh Hewitt. Or maybe O'Rourke should use some of his frequent flyer miles and do some traveling to major metropolitan U.S. cities, where conservative talk radio offers rare relief from liberal orthodoxy--and where talk show hosts have spearheaded effective activism. KSFO in San Francisco led the Gray Davis recall brigade. KVI in Seattle was instrumental in launching the successful fight against Hillarycare and in support of an initiative abolishing government racial preferences.
Note, clearly Malkin is not an idiot and I will now stop calling her that because I'm tired of it (after the second time). Let's just say, she's not very convincing in her arguments.
posted by or E-mail me at 14:51
June 25, 2004
OrwellCorp.US
Today is George Orwell's 101st birthday, 20 year's on from 1984.
The Web site - OrwellCorp.us - will be a collection of what he tried to warn us against. I'm in no way a socialst, but we are all afraid of too much intrusion in our lives. Some of us are not afraid enough.
OrwellCorp.us.
I'm a big brother fighting Big Brother.
posted by or E-mail me at 22:08
June 24, 2004
Pumping Fist - V-i-c-t-o-r-y
Court throws out FCC’s media deregulation package
By SETH SUTEL | AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday largely reversed a controversial deregulation package that the Federal Communications Commission passed last year, handing a victory to public interest groups that had opposed the sweeping changes to media ownership rules.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which is based in Philadelphia, also left in place an order blocking the FCC from putting the rules into effect.
The ruling was a setback to the FCC’s efforts to loosen rules governing media ownership. The deregulation package, which was announced in June 2003, triggered widespread debate in Washington and in the public over the concentration of media ownership by large corporations.
An array of group of public interest groups challenged the FCC’s ruling, saying the rule changes would further limit the diversity of voices on the airwaves and other forms of media.
In their 2-to-1 decision, the judges threw out FCC rules that would have allowed greater ownership of television and radio stations in the same market. However, the judges did say the FCC was within its rights to repeal a blanket prohibition on companies owning both a newspaper and a television station in the same city. [ed. I can think of at least two markets where this already takes place].
Frankly, in the big scheme of things this is more important than Bush's impending loss at the polls. This issue of media ownership, collapsing down to just a few owners, needs to be fought visciously, passionately and with due diligence to what such a limitation can do and has already done to the diversity of voices and reporting that exists today (though weekly newspapers often get overlooked, even many of them are now being "assimilated").
Pumping a fist and giving a finger with the other hand. Nice.
posted by or E-mail me at 16:57
'No One Steals From God,' He Thundered
Priest beats up would-be collection-box robber.
Don't mess with the Chicago mob, sorry clergy :)
posted by or E-mail me at 15:17
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