Friday Stuff

(By the way, you guessed it; I also posted over here.)

Just remember everyone that, in Saxby Chambliss's Georgia, you're not allowed to stand around with a video camera filming a Repug rally of smears featuring Rudy 9iu11ani and generally minding your own business without being confronted by a cop and asked what you're doing ("You show me yours and I'll show you mine," huh? Real nice - and by the way, to do something about stuff like this, click here, and here's more)...



...and gee, as News Hounds points out, isn't it con-VEE-nient that the only politicians featured in this ultra-jazzed up ad for Fox Noise (full of explosions, yelling people and general turmoil and chaos) are DEMOCRATS??!! (they'll have to change it to blot out pretend liberal Alan Colmes and probably just insert another pic of Sean Inanity over it)...



...and as a tribute to screenwriter William Gibson who wrote "The Miracle Worker," here is the climactic scene from the 1962 film with Patty Duke as Helen Keller and Anne Bancroft as her teacher, Annie Sullivan (with Victor Jory and Inga Swenson as her parents and Andrew Prine as her brother)...



...also, I don't know what I can say or do about the tragedy in Mumbai, except to decry the cowardly, terrorist thugs who perpetrated such acts; aside from sending our best wishes and condolences for the families and friends of the victims, I thought embedding this might be a reminder of happier times that once were and hopefully will be again - this is "Tunak Tunak Tun" by Daler Mehndi (h/t Crooks and Liars).

Maybe A Time For Thanksgiving-Back?

(Or, short of that, trying to rein in the investor class a little more…)

Like many of you I’m sure, the issue of executive compensation has been much on my mind concerning the geniuses at the Big Three automakers who currently want Congress to approve a “bridge” loan (from TARP or elsewhere) to help them out while they do the retooling they should have done long ago to make more efficient vehicles (and I saw an ad yesterday on TV for the Cadillac Escalade and I thought, yep, it’s true; they really never will learn, will they?). The latest reminder came courtesy of this news story from Wednesday about a speech Alan Mulally of Ford gave at a meeting of the Seattle Rotary Club.

And lest anyone think that only Ford, GM and Chrysler are feeling the pinch, this story tells us the following…

"October was the worst month for U.S. auto sales in 25 years," said Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan and Renault. "Nothing is moving. The decline is not confined to the U.S. market; most of the mature auto markets, including Europe, Japan, are also down significantly, with slowdowns in the emerging markets as well."

If the Japanese carmakers are gloomy, who can just imagine how the contingent from Detroit feels. GM canceled its events but still has cars on display. It scratched plans to showcase a new Buick LaCross sedan and a new Cadillac model. Instead, it will lift the veil on those models in Detroit in January.

Chrysler has only a minimal presence at the show as well. Ford, on the other hand, is showing off a new Mustang model, as well as a restyled Fusion hybrid.

OK, so I’ll give Mulally a bit of a nod for that one.

But getting back to the issue of compensation, this story tells us that President-Elect Barack Obama has been pushing so-called “say on pay” legislation since last year, with his bill “languishing in the upper house”; somehow I’m sure that, regardless of whether or not the Dems get to 60 seats this election or not, Obama’s bill will be revisited.

As the story tells us…

(Obama’s bill) would make non-binding "advisory" shareholder votes on executive compensation packages mandatory at annual meetings.

…

"Say on pay is in and of itself but a baby step," said Charles Elson, a governance expert at the University of Delaware. "Ultimately the issue is replacing the directors who approve the bad pay."

This is where "say on pay" could get interesting because it is closely linked to another movement, known as "proxy access," which basically gives investors greater ability to nominate their own slates of directors - and perhaps include some kind of statute to reimburse shareholders' for the costs of nominating dissident directors if they are successful. (This would replace the current practice of investors withholding votes for directors, which is often more of an exercise in moral suasion than accountability.)

And this story tells us that…

French CEOs made 56% of what American CEOs did in 2005, according to the latest figures compiled by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. German and British CEOs made 55%, and Italians, 53%.

In the USA, the median compensation package (half were paid more and half less) rose to $8.4 million last year for CEOs of 410 companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index, the Associated Press reported earlier in June. That's a rise of $280,000, or 3.5%, in a year. The 10 best-paid made more than $500 million last year, AP found.

And this story, which proposes what I think is an interesting theory about executive compensation (even though I personally don’t agree with it; namely, that it should be totally market driven throughout the world and would lower itself on average over time on its own) tells us that Japanese executive compensation is generally lower because more of their executives are trained and promoted in-house. The story also tells us that the decline of unions in this country is tied to the rise of executive compensation (and I most definitely agree with that).

What to do? Well, tell your elected representatives to support “say on pay” legislation when it’s proposed in the next session of Congress (which, after all, merely calls for disclosure by executive boards in an attempt to indirectly pressure them to do right; we can’t literally tell the boards what level of executive compensation to approve, and unless we as taxpayers are bailing these people out, I don’t think we should).

And the next time someone screams about Obama supporting “Marxism” and/or “class warfare” on this issue, remind them that he won the election by almost twice as large of a popular vote as the person he’s replacing when Dubya last ran four years ago.

And if it helps, let the naysayers take a look at this map one more time for good measure.

Wednesday Stuff

As a special pre-Thanksgiving treat, here's Just Plain Folks Sarah giving her interview in front of the turkey slaughtering processor just one more time, for the benefit for the half-dozen-or-so people on this planet who haven't seen this yet (there's a version out there with commentary by K.O., but I think the captions here are funnier)...



...and speaking of turkeys (and K.O. again), here are more Bushco scandals, including an abundance of pardons to people involved with the S&L mess in the '80s - it seems like Dubya is always ready to help out southerners busted for stuff like running moonshine or passing bad checks or mail order fraud or stuff like that, to say nothing of drug abuse; not saying they automatically don't have merit, but it just makes me wonder - Judge Richard Sanders is my hero for the day for finally saying "enough" on Mukasey, who seems to be nothing but a cracker version of Abu G. as far as I'm concerned, and Karl Rove didn't care about politics versus policy; I mean, we heard it on Fox Noise, so it must be true, right?...



...and here's "Worst Persons" (something called wsradio.com is going to feature an hourly weekly radio show about Sarah Palin - I'm guessing there won't be discussion of how to prepare and cook a Thanksgiving turkey - even though it takes you to a program on John "You Kids Get Off My Lawn!" McCain; Glenn Beck, who just joined Fix News also of course, believes that any state that chose not to vote for Obama should be able to mount an insurrection against this country - uh, as Keith notes, that was already tried about 1860 or 1861 or so; and while Andrew Ross Sorkin, business writer for the New York Times, may be an unlikely choice for "Worst" here, it's deserved when you consider that he started this lie about GM workers making $73 an hour, and believe me when I tell you that that lie has spread EVERYWHERE - P.S., if the scandals video appears again, just refresh the page - or if that doesn't work, click on the More Video link in the upper right corner and select it from MSNBC's site; sorry they're so flaky about this stuff)...



...Ryan Adams And The Cardinals ("Cobwebs," on "The Late Show" - interesting image, and good advice from Dave at the very end; I'll take him up on it in about five minutes)....



...and here's more holiday fun.

A Pre-Holiday Right Wing “Laff Riot”

So what should appear in my “In” box over the last day or so but the latest from conservative icon Richard Viguerie about the latest doings with the conservative “grass roots” movement; do they still have one (outside of the South)? Color me shocked!

And in case you were wondering about their plan for rebuilding the “movement”…well, here are some “highlights”:

Citigroup funded ACORN, and now this huge financial services company is getting more tax dollars!

Auto industry bankrupt due to CAFÉ requirements!

Obama is only making the financial meltdown worse!

Obama’s “Clinton problem” (sorry – no exclamation point…just saying “Clinton” provides all the shock value needed here).

Ross Douthat agrees with George Weigel, but elsewhere it’s Kathleen Parker vs. James Dobson (I’ll take Parker, no more than four rounds) and Morton Kondracke vs. Rush Limbaugh (I’ll bet Mort barely answers the bell before Flush belly flops on him, flattening him through the canvas).

Gee, wasn’t William F. Buckley great?

(Supposedly, Pat Toomey is in here somewhere spouting off – oh God, please please please let Toomey run again in a Repug primary against Specter for 2010!!).

“The Congressman, The Donor and The Tax Break” (hey, how on earth did some legitimate news reporting from the New York Times – and first rate, at that – get in here??!!).

So in other words, what we will be seeing from Viguerie (who, by the way, thought Sarah Palin was a great choice as McCain’s veep nominee – and she’s campaigning in Georgia for Saxby Chambliss? YEE HAH!!) is more harping, complaining, and cacophony while the grownups try to put our country back together again.

But not to worry; Viguerie and his brethren will let us know when they actually figure out what they’re all about again.

Just don’t hold your breath while they do – it’s going to take awhile, people.

Update: And there's no letup on "the stupid" in sight, based on this (h/t Atrios).

Don't Harp on TARP If Detroit's In Distress

Bushco flak Tony Fratto told us the following from this press conference on Monday…

Q Why don't we help the automakers?

MR. FRATTO: We are helping the automakers -- or at least we have a plan to help the automakers. We had a bipartisan agreement on the floor of Congress -- well, actually, it never made it to the floor because the Democratic leadership decided not to bring it to the floor. But we had a bipartisan agreement that we believe would get bipartisan support. It was for $25 billion in the loan program that would have freed up that money in a way that would support the automakers in their efforts -- to help to support them as they become viable firms, because these are important parts of our manufacturing base. We want to see the automakers succeed.

There seems to be some misconception out there that we don't want to help the automakers. We do want to help the automakers. We had a bipartisan agreement to do just that, and we believe that's where those funds should come from. And by the way, the news overnight where -- this was a relatively unexpected effort by Treasury and the Fed. If you had said two weeks ago that they were going to have to take this action for Citibank, I think that would have seemed unlikely. This is a very dynamic situation we're dealing with, and the financial system is still fragile.

But that also speaks to the need to preserve the funds in the TARP for their intended purpose. We don't need to be taking funds out of the TARP program for other purposes -- and with respect to the automakers, especially when we have a $25 billion loan program that was specifically set up for their use.

Q Well, what's the hang-up? Is it because the money is coming out of the --

MR. FRATTO: That's a question for Congress, Helen. The money is there; we tried to work on both sides of the aisle to design it in a way that the automakers could access it and to help them move forward and be viable. So I would put that question to the Democratic leadership of the Congress.

Actually, the “hang-up,” as noted in this story, is what Fratto referred to above more than anything else…

…the new rescue plan appeared stalled on Capitol Hill, opposed by the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress who don't want to dip into the Treasury Department's $700 billion financial bailout program to come up with the $25 billion in loans (for the automakers).

"Our industry ... needs a bridge to span the financial chasm that has opened up before us," General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner told the Senate Banking Committee. He blamed the industry's predicament not on failures by management but on the deepening global financial crisis.

And Robert Nardelli, CEO of Chrysler LLC, told the panel the bailout would be "the least costly alternative" when compared with damage from bankruptcy.

Yes, I’ll note yet again that it’s very hard to feel sympathy for Wagoner, Nardelli and Alan Mulally of Ford, but as Dem Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow said to Rachel Maddow last Friday, I don’t see our financial wizards who were allowed to create this mess to begin with (with no government oversight, of course) getting the same treatment as the automakers, especially since all the Big Three are asking for is $25 million from TARP as a bridge so they can do the retooling that they should have done years ago (I got into some of this earlier from here).

And as far as this business of funding for the automakers being contingent on what amounts to a loan application, that doesn’t make any sense to me either given the immediate need (why do I get the feeling that this is just a sop to try and placate conservatives who wouldn’t bat an eye if the automakers sank altogether?). Yes, have the Big Three explain what they’re going to do with the “bridge” loan and the additional $25 billion for retooling (and by the way, the funding for the financial services companies should be paid out in installments on the condition that strict accounting is performed and reporting provided concerning the existing funds as well, or else they get “cut off at the knees”). But can we get them the money first so they don’t go under while we’re still arguing the matter?

The net effect of this “loan application” provision for the automakers, as far as I’m concerned, is to create what Senate Minority Leader Mitch “Mr. Elaine Chao” McConnell called here a "bizarre and confusing" spectacle (yep, it’s pretty sad when I find myself agreeing with the leader of the “Roadblock Republicans” and last year’s “Dregs Of The Year” winner – and by the way, look for the ’08 nominees to start “rolling out” in a couple of weeks – but there you are).

Returning to the press briefing by Tony Fratto for a minute, though, I’d like to note the following (stumbling onto what I thought was an interesting point)…

Q Tony, some are concerned, particularly on the Hill, that this Citigroup bailout is smacking of AIG all over again. Some are asking for Citigroup to pull their name -- opt out of naming for the New York Mets Stadium -- $400 million and you just gave them $25 billion. I mean, people are saying that smacks of it, particularly Congressman Elijah Cummings from Maryland, would say -- do you think they should opt out of the naming rights contract?

MR. FRATTO: That's -- I'll be honest, this is the first time I heard of that. I didn't know that they were involved in that. I would presume that if there's a contract then that's a legal question as to what they can do. But I'll leave that for Citibank for now, and Treasury, and the regular -- their regulators, because you're telling me something I'm not aware of.

Hey, if we’re going to hold up funding for the automakers, then the least we can do is name some stadiums after them (why do the banks, telecoms and insurance firms always have to have the fun?).

Update 11/27/08: I just noticed that the Detroit Lions play in a stadium with the Ford logo on the roof - my bad; serves me right for making a sports comment I guess.

Tuesday Stuff

Yep, if Coulter is in the news again, then that means it's time once more for this obligatory Henry Rollins video, complete with "f" bombs (and the best part about this, if true, is that she wouldn't even be able to talk back - seriously, even though she wishes all kinds of bad things on us, I hope she heals up so we can continue to ridicule her, again, assuming this story is legit)...



...Amy Goodman of Democracy Now discusses a lot of Dubya's "midnight rules" with Matthew Madia of OMB Watch (here); I got into some of this stuff here also (and, as this story states)...

President Bill Clinton used his last weeks and months in office to strengthen a host of environmental rules and lock up federal lands with wilderness and other protective designations. Bush is taking the same window of opportunity to open swaths of wilderness land for oil and gas drilling and to loosen safeguards for air, water and wildlife.

...and oh yeah, I saw this little item in the news but didn't quite know what to say about it (besides the fact that it's pretty pathetic), but fortunately, Cenk Uygur does here...



...The Decemberists ("Days Of Elaine," on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," and Max Weinberg's band "playing us out").

Cheesed Off Over Iraq And "Three Blind Mice"

(And the person agitated would be yours truly, of course; by the way, posting will be sporadic for the rest of the week, with nothing on Thursday.)

I didn’t want to let too much more time pass without noting that the venerable “old gray lady” really committed another affront to sane discourse last Sunday when it published a bunch of editorials under the theme of “so, what the hell do we do now in Iraq?” The problem, I should add, isn’t the topic, which is a good one; the problem is the people chosen to inflict their opinions on us (and, as is usually the case when talking about the mess in Mesopotamia, nary a dissenting voice was heard).

I chose three from the list of individuals who offered their commentary, the most notorious of the lot IMHO. So let’s begin with Fred Kagan, who tells us here…

Leaving aside the debate in America about what ties global Al Qaeda has to Al Qaeda in Iraq, Iraqis overwhelmingly think that they have indeed been fighting an arm of Osama bin Laden’s organization. Every major political grouping in Iraq rejects Al Qaeda and supports the fight against its ideology. Iraqis increasingly pride themselves on being the first Arab state to reject the terrorists.

For a state that has “rejected the terrorists,” CIA director Michael Hayden offers a more realistic – and grimmer – assessment here, including this (I usually have “a bone to pick” with Hayden also, but this sounds more like the reality)…

"Today, the flow of money, weapons, and foreign fighters into Iraq is greatly diminished, and al Qaeda senior leaders no longer point to it as the central battlefield," (Hayden) said. "In fact, bleed-out from Iraq—export or diversion of terrorists and their deadly capabilities—is as much a concern now as the ongoing threat of Al Qaeda in Iraq attacks inside the country itself."

Also, according to Kagan…

This summer, leading members of Anbar Awakening, a group of Sunni leaders who have joined forces with the United States and the Shiite-led Baghdad government, circulated a memo about how they could help Afghans develop their own “awakenings” to fight Al Qaeda on their territory.

I don’t know if Kagan is telling the truth here or not (he seems to be more prone to fudging and obfuscation than outright lies, as was the case here, where he prefers the term ethnic “consolidation” to “cleansing”), but I should note that I have seen no evidence anywhere else of a “memo” circulated from Iraqi Sunnis to their fellow tribesmen in Afghanistan.

I wonder if this memo is anything like the dreaded “Mujahedeen Data Form” I posted about awhile ago here (couldn’t find evidence of that either)?

Oh, and Kagan also tells us…

Overall violence and American casualties have dropped remarkably since the surge began last year.

…

The situation remains delicate, however, as Iraq moves into provincial elections in January and parliamentary elections at the end of 2009. Although Iraqi forces increasingly bear the burden of fighting (and, increasingly, peacekeeping), they will need continuing American support.

Excuse me if I get a little tired of hearing about how successful the “surge” has been; yes, there has been a decrease in casualties, but that’s due partly to the Sunni Awakening that Kagan acknowledges, and the ethnic cleansing that he ignores. And for anyone who thinks Iraq will see peace anytime soon, unfortunately – well, take a look at this and this and get back to me on the answer, OK (not trying to sound callous, just tired of hearing about more supposed excuses of why we should stay when the Iraqis plainly want us to get the hell out of their country at long last…can’t entirely blame them).

And with that in mind, here is the next Times editorialist, and that would be Ahmed Chalabi (I’ve listed the writers in descending order of infamy, by the way, though I’ll admit that it’s a close call – also, did it occur to the Times that a headline like “Thanks, But You Can Go Now” is incredibly insulting to those in this country who have suffered the most from this horrific escapade in Iraq?).

The convicted Jordanian embezzler tells us…

The Iraq war is over.

Somehow I think those 19 bombing victims in Baghdad and those individuals in Amman, Jordan I referred to previously would disagree with that.

And…

Iraq has the strongest constitution, the fairest elections and the most democratic government in the Islamic Middle East.

And if stories like this are any indication, it sounds like the sessions in Iraq’s parliament should be pay-per-view wrestling events.

Continuing...

Iraqi freedom is a debt to America we will never forget.

This is true despite President Bush’s manifest failure to honor his word. At one time, the liberation of Iraq was to be the centerpiece of a new regional order in the Middle East founded on a new American emphasis on democracy, human rights and free enterprise. Instead, Iraq has endured occupation, the authoritarian installation of a prime minister, the strong-armed removal of an elected leader, the indiscriminate arrest, torture and killing of Iraqi civilians without recourse to law, and an utterly corrupt reconstruction program that oversaw one of the biggest financial crimes in history, which has left average Iraqis with little water, power, health care, education or even food.

And as Maureen Dowd tells us here from ‘05 (in fine form – maybe she’ll return to writing like this since the election has ended; we’ll see), Chalabi knows all about “failure to honor his word” (the message above makes good points, but again, the problem is the messenger)…

The neocons' con man (Chalabi) had been paid millions by the U.S. to tell the Bushies what they wanted to hear on Iraqi W.M.D. A year ago, the State Department and factions in the Pentagon turned on him after he began bashing America and using Saddam's secret files to discredit his enemies.

Right after the invasion, the charlatan was escorted into Iraq by U.S. troops and cultivated an axis of Americans, Iraqis and Iranians. He got a fancy house with layers of armed guards and pulled-down shades, and began helping himself to Iraqi assets. The U.S. occupation sicced the Iraqi police on his headquarters only after an Iraqi judge ordered thugs in the Chalabi posse arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, torture and theft.

Newsweek revealed that the U.S. suspected Mr. Chalabi of leaking secret information about American war plans for Iraq to the Iranians before the invasion, and of perhaps leaking "highly classified" information to Iran that could "get people killed" if abused by the Iranians. Mr. Chalabi claimed the Iranians set him up.

In August of last year, while he was at a cabin in the Iranian mountains, the Iraqis ordered him arrested on counterfeiting charges, which were later dropped for lack of evidence.

Now, showing survival skills that make Tom DeLay look like a piker, the resourceful Thief of Baghdad has popped back up as one of the four deputy prime ministers and the interim cabinet minister controlling the one valuable commodity in that wasteland: the second-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia. He even has a DeLay-like talent for getting relatives on the payroll: a Chalabi nephew is the new finance minister.

And the Times thinks that Chalabi has any kind of credibility at all to make pronouncements about the state of Iraq and the war effort, given these revelations from one of the paper’s own reporters (they’ve learned nothing from the Judith Miller fiasco apparently).

But not to worry, though – I’ve saved the most odious of these three for last, and that would be one Donald H. Rumsfeld, who tells us here that…

As one who is occasionally — and incorrectly — portrayed as an opponent of the surge in Iraq, I believe that while the surge has been effective in Iraq, we must also recognize the conditions that made it successful. President Bush’s bold decision to deploy additional troops to support a broader counterinsurgency strategy of securing and protecting the Iraqi people was clearly the right decision. More important, though, it was the right decision at the right time.

Well, as Noah Shactman tells us here, Rummy did support some elements of the surge, but they were not his preference, according to some memos to subordinates; he actually favored a “draw-down of U.S. bases” and to “put reconstruction efforts to work in Iraq where they’re ‘behaving’” first (can't entirely disagree with that on the merits, but it does fly in the face of what he's now telling us, of course).

But double talk is not unusual for Rummy, of course, given the following (written in ’04, from here)…

Donald Rumsfeld has morphed, over the last two years, from a man of supreme confidence to arrogance, then to almost willful blindness. With the approval of the president, he sent American troops into a place whose nature and dangers he had apparently never bothered to examine.

We now know that no one with any power in the Defense Department had a clue about what the administration was getting the coalition forces into. Mr. Rumsfeld's blithe confidence that he could run his war on the cheap has also seriously harmed the Army and the National Guard.

And I believe it bears repeating that Rumsfeld aborted an al-Qaeda raid on Pakistan in ’05, as noted here; basically countermanded the President of the United States on how Dubya wanted to be briefed on Jay Garner, the interim head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, here (I don’t know if that speaks more to Rumsfeld’s arrogance or Dubya’s incompetence); pulled two key players from Garner’s team (Warrick and O’Sullivan) because they were critical of Chalabi here (and of course, Rummy got Doug Feith to do his dirty work for him); and stated that anyone who opposed Bush “lacks courage on terror” here.

And who of us can forget this evergreen Rummy moment here, going to war “with the army you have, not the army you want”?

Oh, and did I mention that Rummy (as noted here) was shopping around for a “large cash advance” on a book deal about the war (don’t know if he got it yet)?

I’m sure that, given such a stellar journalistic moment from the Times as what I’ve noted here, we can look forward to future “theme” columns on topics such as integrity in government service by Dick Cheney, U.N. conciliation strategies by John Bolton, disaster management by Mike Brown, and Oval Office scholarship by George W. Bush.

Update: And yep, only Dubya would be dumb enough to be "pleased" with a deal that would keep our troops in Iraq for three more years under "strict Iraqi oversight."

Update 11/26/08: More of the same from "Bubble Boy" here; the payoff, though, comes in the very last paragraph...

Mr. Bush’s upbeat assessment of the two wars made hardly any reference to the problems he will leave to President-elect Barack Obama.

54 days and counting, people...

Shed No Tears For "Freedom's Crock"

Based on this, it looks like Freedom’s Watch, a premier propaganda vehicle for the Republican Party, is effectively done (consider this a triumph for informed discourse – this was inevitable given the money problems of its “sugar daddy” noted here)…

Freedom’s Watch spokesman Ed Patru “confirmed that much of the staff was on its way out,” but refused to say if the group would continue in the future…

Let’s see, Ed Patru – that name rings a bell, but I can’t remember why.

Oh, wait, I remember now; he’s the guy who said that Patrick Murphy stated in 2004 that everything was just peachy in Iraq (here), supposedly refuting Murphy’s spot-on criticism, but when Brendan attempted to reach Patru about what Patrick supposedly said, Patru (as if by magic) was nowhere to be found.

And among the other numerous lowlights for these cretins, this tells us that FW linked Iraq to 9/11 (of course) and this notes that they also paid a certain Karl Rove six figures for “advice” (yep, if I were ever a donor to these people, hypothetically speaking of course, I’d sure have something to say about that). And just for good measure, this tells us that they ran an ad attacking veterans who opposed the Iraq war on Veterans Day (nothing too low for these nematodes).

However, as Think Progress notes, the group is going out with “one last blast” in Georgia on behalf of Saxby Chambliss, set to defend his U.S. Senate seat once more against Dem challenger Jim Martin in the Dec. 2nd runoff (and if that isn’t a good reason to help out Martin – and to do so, click here – then I don’t know what is).

Monday Stuff

K.O. is back, with "Worst Persons" (Mark Halperin is a liar and a shill, Billo keeps repeating this utter lie that the Minnesota Senate election results were certified, and Holy Joe is caught dead to rights)...



...The Black Keys ("Your Touch"; don't try this at home, kids).

A Job For Dubya In The Spirit Of The Season

I have to admit that I was inspired a bit by the following column from Gail Collins in the New York Times over the weekend in which she basically tells Dubya, in so many words, to quit (of course, if our elected representatives in Congress actually had a spine, they would have impeached Commander Codpiece and made the decision for him by now, but there you are).

Well, along comes the news today that, in addition to many other shortages in the world, it turns out that there is also a shortage of Santa Clauses in Germany.

Now, I’m not asking that we send Dubya to another continent for employment, though the idea does have its merits. I’m merely suggesting that we send some of our more-qualified Santas abroad, assuming they have language skills (voluntarily, of course, offering a nice payday; oh, but that’s just a joke, kids – Santa doesn’t really get paid…silly me) and Dubya would move from one short-term contract job (the presidency of the United States) to another (Kris Kringle).

Why, I can picture the results as being something like this (complete with quotes from here)…

Dubya/Santa: “Ho, ho, ho, little girl. Hope yer’ ass on up here.”

Girl: “Hi, Santa.”

D/S: “Now, let’s see here. What do you want for Christmas?”

Girl: “Um…I thought you knew already, Santa. Didn’t you get the letter I sent?”

D/S: "I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it...I'm sure something will pop into my head here…with all the pressure of trying to come up with answer, but it hadn't yet...I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't -- you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one."

Girl: “Daddy, something’s wrong with Santa. He’s acting like an idiot.”

__


D/S: “Ho, ho, ho and all like that. Whaddaya want?”

Boy: “I want Balls Of Fury for my Wii.”

D/S: “What the hell is that? Reminds me o’ the time I fell cycling in Scotland. Almost busted my nuts.”

Boy: “What are you talking about?”

D/S: “An’ why the hell is it always about what YOU want? How about what I want? If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.”

Boy: “MOM!!”

__


D/S: “(zzz…)”

Girl: (whispering to her brother) “I think Santa has nodded off.”

Boy: (whispering also) “Yeah, judging from that half-empty bottle of Jim Beam, I’d say you’re right. Smells a bit too. Check his pockets for change.”

Girl: (looks in pockets, and D/S wakes up)…

D/S: “Hey, what the hell are you up to, little Bar’?”

Girl: (stepping back in surprise) “Uh, what did you call me?”

D/S: “N-N-nevermind” (holding head, bending over slightly). “Ho ho an’ all – you know the rest.”

Girl: Santa – Santa, are you listening to me?

D/S: "I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn't here."

Boy: “What a moron.”

Girl: “Sshh! Santa, you act like you’re sick.”

D/S: “So what?”

Girl: “How do you explain this?

D/S: (sitting up in a hurry) “I’m Santa -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being Santa."

Boy: (rolls his eyes) “I’ll get security. I think Santa is flagged.”

Girl: “Santa, I think you’re too sick to hear my wishes for Christmas. Maybe you should withdraw.”

D/S: “"I will not withdraw, even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me."

Girl: Um…OK, Santa, whatever you say (as boy returns with security guard).

Guard: OK, Santa, come with me. I know where you can get three “hots” and a cot (taking D/S by the arm).

D/S: (stumbling away) “There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on --shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

On second thought, maybe Dubya should stay where he is for now. This would probably be just another job he would screw up, and he's done enough damage already.

(And by the way, it looks like Bollywood knows the profit-making potential of lampooning Dubya based on this.)

Smerky Sings The Corporate Media Blues

(By the way, I also posted over here.)

In yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer, Michael Smerconish told the tale of Martin Eisenstadt, "a senior fellow at the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy" who, as it turned out, was a fictitious creation from two filmmakers (Eisenstadt was “a self-described neoconservative who found his opinions in demand during the presidential campaign” – tee hee).

Smerconish then uses this episode to decry the “24-hour news cycle (in which) bloggers and even mainstream media work so quickly that they don't really have the chance to check,” according to one of the two perpetrators of the Eisenstadt fiction, with the net effect being that news organizations are suffering (the New York Times, for example, cut 100 newsroom jobs earlier this year, despite revenues of $209 million last year, as Smerky tells us).

(By the way, I haven’t “called Smerky’s number” for a little while now because he seems to be in the process of redefining himself ideologically a bit, at least for the moment. I will acknowledge that he’s a bit more astute of a media creature than, say, Bill Orally, Sean Inanity or Flush Limbore, mainly because he has to be in order to cater to his local radio audience. However, that doesn’t mean that he won’t “turn to the dark side” every now and then either.)

Yes, I can appreciate that it’s very difficult for news organizations to operate during a time when it’s tough to generate revenue in order to stay afloat (with that in mind, I thought this idea by Dan Abrams, former MSNBC host, was interesting). And as I’ve said in the past, I am one blogger who respects news professionals (the reputable ones, anyway) because I can appreciate the work that went into obtaining a degree in the field and building a career; I will never speak dismissively of the craft of journalism.

However, as I was wondering what to say about the points Smerky brings up, I happened to come across the following Daily Kos post which, I think, does a good job of illustrating exactly where our corporate media has gone wrong.

It begins with the matter of the proposed auto industry bailout and presents the conservative argument against it (which, really, are merely talking points waiting to be exploded). With what I think is great care, the blogger (DHinMI) critiques the talking points and explains how absurd they are (in particular, the claim that automakers earn $73 per hour in salary, when, in reality, the number is a lot closer to $28 per hour).

The post is very well sourced, it provides plenty of background, and it leads the reader to a plainly obvious conclusion; namely, that there is a critical need to assist the carmakers because of the huge consequences if this doesn’t occur (and yes, that means helping malefactors like Rick Waggoner of GM and Bob Nardelli of Chrysler, who appears to be adding to his rep as a mediocre CEO with as forgettable a performance here as the one he brought us when he ran Home Depot, generating big compensation even though the stock did not do well).

Also, this post contains news that would be of direct interest to what I would guess would be the majority of the people reading it. It tells people how the news of compensating the automakers directly affects their lives.

It’s not full of speculation, spin or other types of editorializing. It’s not something that reads as if it were a press release. Its tone is constructive and it’s written in a manner that lends itself to explanation and analysis.

Basically, this is what news is supposed to be.

Now it’s not my purpose here to discuss what I believe are unrealistic expectations from individuals or entities regarding return on investment in a news organization of one type or another. I am merely trying to point out that news is a product to a certain degree, and if that product isn’t going to fulfill the need of the consumer (i.e., to be informed and/or entertained if possible), that consumer will look elsewhere for something else that will.

And while that inevitably means more blog traffic for others (maybe even more radio traffic for Smerky and his brethren), it is also inevitable that this will affect the content of the product.

So, with that in mind, maybe instead of proclaiming that “I don’t do reporting” (I try to in my admittedly imperfect way), Smerky should “hand over the reins” of his column to someone else who does. And while that would hardly rectify the problem he notes here, it would definitely be a step in the right direction.

And the fact that the lies that sometimes result from "non-reporting" are propagated so easily doesn't help either (h/t Atrios).

Saturday Early PM Stuff

In response to a question about his role in the Imperial Sugar case, Georgia Repug Senator Saxby Chambliss decides to shove his hand into a camera lens - nice freaking guy (h/t annrose at The Daily Kos)...



...probably because he doesn't want to talk about what is discussed in this video.



Update: Seriously, how dumb would the people of Georgia be to re-elect this buffoon as opposed to a stand-up guy like Jim Martin (and Martin is being attacked by those human stains at Freedom's Watch, one of whom includes Ed Snider; just remember, Sixers and Flyers fans, when you give Ed money, it gets channeled to these life forms).

Update 11/24/08: More of the same from Chambliss...

Friday Stuff

Hey, it took the Vatican 400 years to admit that it was wrong on Nicholas Copernicus, but it took 42 years to forgive John Lennon for this (story here) - I guess that's progress; wonder how much those busted-up Beatles records would've been worth today?...



...and gosh, won't you give Victor The Victory Elephant a home (and block the "Obama Democrat Agenda" - or something??)...



...Stone Roses ("She Bangs The Drums"; I guess they kind of gave up at about 2:50, and I guess we'll also just have to wait on "Pure" by The Lightning Seeds - still a nice tune, though)...



...and to commemorate the 45th anniversary (God, that long ago) of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy tomorrow, here's "Abraham, Martin and John" by Dion DiMucci (I put this up on April 4th for Dr. King and on June 6th for his brother Robert - and I thought this was a good related story).

Little Ricky, "Hugo" Your Way And I'll Go Mine, OK?

I know yesterday was “Elephant Poop In The Room” Day at the Philadelphia Inquirer, but I just couldn’t face the prospect of dealing with another Santorum screed (this one on Hugo Chavez), so I punted on it until today.

However, I really should deal with this, so (from here)…

This buffoon (Chavez, in case you hadn’t guessed) has maneuvered to monopolize power in every branch and level of Venezuelan government. He has nationalized much of the economy, including the oil, power-generation, telephone and banking sectors, along with most of the media. His Cuban-trained state police bully the opposition.

Little Ricky goes on to point out that Chavez is replacing “legitimate popular elections” (interesting, given this item from about a year ago) and is “(using) his petro-dollars to help achieve what the impoverished (Fidel) Castro never could: Marxist regimes in Nicaragua and Ecuador, and working relationships with Argentina and Brazil.”

Somehow I don’t think the voters in those countries care whatever label Santorum attaches to them, be it Marxist or something else, when you consider the following from this article…

Latin America is emerging from a long period of failed economic reform policies, known as "neoliberalism" there, which resulted in the worst economic growth performance in more than 100 years. From 1980-2000, regional GDP (gross domestic product) per capita grew by just 9 percent, and another 4 percent for 2000-2005. By comparison, it grew by 82 percent in just the two decades from 1960-1980. As a result of the unprecedented growth failure of the last 25 years, voters have demanded change in a number of countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Uruguay.

Venezuela has loaned more than $3 billion to Argentina, and has loaned or committed hundreds of millions of dollars to Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and other countries. It also provides subsidized credit for oil to the countries of the Caribbean, through its PetroCaribe program, and provided many other forms of aid to neighboring countries. These resources are provided without policy conditions attached – unlike most other multilateral (IMF, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank) and bilateral aid. By providing these resources, Venezuela is helping other countries to bring their policies more in line with what voters have demanded, and greatly reducing the threat of economic crises in the process of doing so.

For example, before the Nicaraguan elections last November, US government officials made many threats to the voters of that country that if they elected Daniel Ortega, they would suffer greatly from cutoffs of loans, aid, and even the remittances that many Nicaraguans depend upon from their relatives in the United States. None of these threats have been carried out. This is partly because Washington knows it would be useless and counterproductive to do so, since Nicaragua would simply replace US-controlled funding sources with more borrowing from Venezuela. The same is true for Bolivia, which has vastly increased its hydrocarbon revenues, and is in a stronger bargaining position knowing that it has an international lender that will not try to interfere with its domestic political agenda. The new progressive president of Ecuador, who faces a number of important political battles to deliver on his promises of governmental reform, pro-poor and pro-development policies, is also strengthened by having Venezuela as a lender. When the Argentine government decided to say goodbye to the IMF in January of 2006 by paying off their remaining $9.9 billion in debt, Venezuela’s loan of $2.5 billion helped that government to avoid pushing its reserves down to dangerously low levels.

…

No other government in the region accepts the Bush Administration’s charge that Chávez is a threat to regional stability – not even President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia, which shares a 1300 mile conflict-ridden border with Venezuela. When Uribe met with members of the US Congress last year, he refused to criticize Chávez– reportedly even in private. The vast majority of Latin American governments also supported Venezuela’s bid for the UN Security Council last year, even after he called President Bush "the Devil" at the UN, and despite all the pressure that the United States – whose economy is 67 times the size of Venezuela’s – brought to bear on them.

Now I realize that the Weisbrot piece was written in April of ’07, and circumstances may have changed since then. I say this because Santorum notes that Chavez has met with Ahmadinejad of Iran, with the latter saying that he and Chavez are “brothers” (cue scary sounding incidental music and “Terra! Terra! Terra!” bold type all over the place).

The only place I have seen reporting about this is the Los Angeles Times by Chris Kraul and Sebastian Rotella, and though I have no reason to doubt the authenticity, I get a little suspicious when I hear about plots to abduct Jewish businessmen in South America and abduct them to Lebanon without actual proof (cited by Thomas A. Shannon of the State Department in this story).

Is Chavez using his petrodollars on behalf of people we don’t like? I’m sure he is, but I haven’t seen evidence that he’s doing so to cause an insurrection in this hemisphere.

As for our government, Weisbrot tells us…

What should the Bush Administration do about the non-threat from Venezuela? It could start by acknowledging that it was wrong to support the April 2002 coup that overthrew Chávez. The US Congress should have a real investigation of this involvement, as it did for the US-sponsored coup against the democratic government of Chile in 1973, which yielded volumes of information. The documents that we have so far on the Venezuelan coup from the State Department and the CIA show that the Bush Administration paid some of the leaders of the coup, had advance knowledge of it, and tried to help it succeed by lying about the events as they transpired. The administration also tacitly supported a devastating oil strike that tried to topple the government in 2002-2003, and funded opposition groups through the 2004 failed recall attempt and beyond. In fact, the US Agency for International Development, which is not supposed to be a clandestine organization, continues to pour millions of dollars into Venezuela, Bolivia, and other countries for activities and recipients that it will not divulge. This, too, needs to be made public.

Also, Little Ricky tells us (reiterating what I said earlier)…

Recently, the brotherhood of Iran and Venezuela announced a $4 billion joint venture in oil production. (We should) strike…at this alliance and the heart of Chavez's power.

You mean, “recently” as in October of 2007 (here)?

And oh yes, let’s put Venezuela on a “Terra! Watch list” or something and impose sanctions, making the economy crumble to the point where the people are destitute and rise up in rebellion (which won’t happen anyway, given that Chavez has enough dough to spread around the continent already), loving us even though we inflicted misery upon them (oh, and P.S. – this NEVER happens).

Another thing - let's not forget this act from the "boogeyman" Chavez that Buscho was unwilling to extend to our neediest citizens, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a truly embarrassing commentary on our political "leadership."

Also, Santorum said we should ratify the Columbia Free Trade Agreement as a response to Chavez in Venezuela….?????

Does Chavez pose a threat? Probably, partly due to our ham-handedness in South America. However, the way to respond to him is through diligent surveillance and intelligence-gathering, as well as working with international law enforcement against him when there is a case to be made. This is what adult leadership does, as opposed to Bushco’s typical bombast, half-truths and empty threats (helped in no small part by Santorum and his ideological playmates).

Update 11/25/08: Based on this New York Times editorial, it sounds like the people of Venezuela are rising up against Chavez just fine without our help - we'll see.

Bushco Parades Its Biggest Hangup Once Again

Call it “The Tit That Will Never Die – The Sequel” (here)…

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US government has asked the Supreme Court to reimpose a half-million-dollar fine slapped on CBS television for a 2004 broadcast of live images of pop star Janet Jackson's breast, court documents obtained by AFP show.

It is up to the Supreme Court to decide whether it will consider the request.

The story tells us that this utter joke of a case was wisely thrown out by a Philadelphia federal court in July; the ruling was that CBS could not be held responsible for Janet Jackson’s actions (and those of Justin Timberlake also, of course).

And for a news story having to do with what I would argue to be a more legitimate situation where porn is being produced to the point where the legal standard of obscenity set by the high court is used to bring an action against it, click here.

(How much do you want to bet that the court of “Hangin’ Judge J.R.” will decide to hear the Super Bowl thing anyway, just to make headlines?)

Trying To Make Sense Of Pence

Yahoo News tells us here today of the ascent of Indiana Repug Mike Pence to the #3 leadership position within his party among U.S. House representatives (Pence is a former talk radio host also - he took a shot at Boehner's position as #1, but he got rolled)….

``The American people know we can't tax and spend -- or bail our way out -- to a better economy,'' says Pence, who as House Republican Conference chairman is responsible for shaping and selling his party's agenda.

With Democrats ascendant in Washington, poised to control the White House and Congress, Republicans are taking a long look in the mirror.

Pence's rise to the leadership is ``an indication of the power of conservative Republicans in the House, and it's a sign of his stature as an eloquent spokesman for the conservative position,'' says John Pitney, a political-science professor at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California.

…

Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, says Pence's rise suggests Republicans may become more combative, and their party may view the ballot-box losses in November as a matter of not being ``ideologically pure.''

``I respect Mike Pence for the consistency of his views, but they are consistently to the right of the American people,'' Van Hollen says.

Yeah, Pence is a great guy all right: he alleged that Valerie Plame wasn’t “a covert operative” here, he said that public disaffection over the growth in government spending under the GOP-controlled Congress paved the way for the election losses in ’06 here (uh huh – forget about that pesky Iraq war and the Republican culture of corruption having anything to do with that), and – best of all – he said that that infamous visit by he and John McCain to the hastily-assembled-for-the-media Baghdad marketplace “was just like any visit to an Indiana marketplace in the summertime” (except, of course, that Pence and McCain were accompanied by 100 soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache attack helicopters) here (and I almost forgot about Pence and his "rock n' roll" quote over a spending impasse here).

And the Yahoo News story tells us of Pence’s ascent under the headline of “a return to the Reagan roots,” which is ironic given his opposition to embryonic stem-cell research here (advocated by Reagan's widow Nancy).

Thursday Stuff

OK, everybody in the world probably has seen this by now, but here's the "Alaska Disasta" herself giving her interview in front of turkeys being slaughtered (I thought the MSNBC captions were hilarious - h/t Atrios)...



Update 11/25/08: Bill in Portland Maine is a genius for this.

...and Rachel Maddow has all of the gory details (speaking of carnage) on how the U.S. Senate fluffed "Tubes" Stevens, and also an interview with Michigan Dem Senator Debbie Stabenow about the auto industry bailout that that "august body" couldn't get around to passing (oh, and nice move to "join the party," Harry Reid)...



...and just for the record, here is a big reason why our discourse on helping the automakers is teh stupid (how dumb do you have to be to take Inanity, Kristol Mess and The Mittster seriously anyway?)...



...Everlast ("What Its Like" - guess those Alaska turkeys know a thing or two about hard times too).

Thursday Mashup (11/20/08)

As noted here, a Russian court recently reversed itself and ruled that the proceedings in the trial of three four men accused in the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya should take place in secret because of jurors’ safety concerns; this was a blow to Politkovskaya’s “relatives, rights groups and journalism advocates” (the man accused of the actual shooting, Rustam Makhmudov, has fled the country, according to the story – a backgrounder is here).

Update 2/20/09: Ugh...

Update 6/28/09: It tells you something about how murky this case is that a retrial of the four acquitted in the first trial (here) is viewed negatively by Politkovskaya's family and friends (i.e., the acquittal of the four meant that the search could continue for the shooter and the person who actually ordered the hit, but with a retrial, the focus once more will be on the other four who were largely incidental to this crime anyway).

Midnight tonight is the deadline for Dubya to sneak his rule changes into the Federal Register, and in the process, screw us even more than he has already (no wonder his party has numbers like this; I’m surprised they’re not lower – h/t Atrios).

So what is Dubya up to here? Well, if you must know (from here)…

Among the many new regulations—or, rather, deregulations—the Administration has proposed are rules that would: make it harder for the government to limit workers’ exposure to toxins, eliminate environmental review from decisions affecting fisheries, and ease restrictions on companies that blow up mountains to get at the coal underneath them. Other midnight regulations in the works include rules to allow “factory farms” to ignore the Clean Water Act, rules making it tougher for employees to take family or medical leave, and rules that would effectively gut the Endangered Species Act.

And (from here)…

...end(ing) a ban on carrying loaded guns in national parks; a Labor Department plan to change the way regulators assess risk for jobs, especially those that expose workers to chemicals; and a proposal that could make it harder for women to get federally funded reproductive health care.

...more than 60 rules contain provisions making it impossible to sue in state courts for negligence on the part of manufacturers.

And (from here)…

On health care, the administration issued guidance (in August) that will make it more difficult for states to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program to cover children in middle-income families. The policy has no expiration date, but Congress could override it and allow states to apply for waivers to set more generous coverage standards.

The administration is also preparing new regulations likely to be published next year on airline security, mine-worker protections and automobile safety and fuel efficiency, White House aides said.

I could use saltier language than to merely say that George W. Bush is a contemptible little shit for doing this, but I’ll leave it at that for now (just about at 60 days left of this nonsense – sorry, but sometimes swear words are the only ones that work).

Update: Dana Perino does it again...

I’m sure we all know by now that the latest al Qaeda No. 2 surfaced in a video, calling President-Elect Barack Obama, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Secretary of State Colin Powell “house Negroes,” referring to blacks of a supposed higher stature in the old South who were nonetheless more servile than “field Negroes.”

There’s a lot that can be said about that, such as the fact that, were such a ridiculous statement not coming from a murderous coward of al Qaeda, it would actually be funny (this may be the ONLY time that you actually find me in agreement with that prickly guttersnipe Dana Perino on ANYTHING). How can someone who likely has only a passing acquaintance with personal hygiene and probably shares more intimacy with livestock than actual human beings pretend to cast judgment on anyone else?

But I’d just like to point out that Ayman al-Zawahri, the alleged human being who spoke derisively of the people I just mentioned, said that they were “the direct opposite of honorable black Americans like Malcolm X” (the person who originally spoke of “house Negroes” and “field Negroes”).

In addition to his numerous other faults, al-Zawahri apparently doesn’t understand (or doesn’t care to know about) the life that Malcolm X lived and the person he truly was (I suppose he only liked Malcolm X because he was once a revolutionary). Yes, there most definitely was a period of his life when he advocated violence, but as he grew older and his life circumstances changed, he grew to understand and embrace people of other faiths and ethnicities. I think that’s demonstrated in the following quotes (from here):

Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.

I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don't believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn't want brotherhood with me. I believe in treating people right, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn't know how to return the treatment.

In the past, yes, I have made sweeping indictments of all white people. I will never be guilty of that again — as I know now that some white people are truly sincere, that some truly are capable of being brotherly toward a black man.

They call me "a teacher, a fomenter of violence." I would say point blank, "That is a lie. I'm not for wanton violence, I'm for justice."

I think there are plenty of good people in America, but there are also plenty of bad people in America and the bad ones are the ones who seem to have all the power and be in these positions to block things that you and I need. Because this is the situation, you and I have to preserve the right to do what is necessary to bring an end to that situation, and it doesn't mean that I advocate violence, but at the same time I am not against using violence in self-defense. I don't even call it violence when it's self-defense, I call it intelligence.

I've had enough of someone else's propaganda. I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost, and as such I am for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.

Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.

This religion (Islam) recognizes all men as brothers. It accepts all human beings as equals before God, and as equal members in the Human Family of Mankind. I totally reject Elijah Muhammad's racist philosophy, which he has labeled 'Islam' only to fool and misuse gullible people as he fooled and misused me. But I blame only myself, and no one else for the fool that I was, and the harm that my evangelical foolishness on his behalf has done to others.

I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.

A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.

How can anyone be against love?

And finally…

"Since I learned the truth in Mecca, my dearest friends have come to include all kinds -- some Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, and even atheists! I have friends who are called capitalists, Socialists, and Communists! Some of my friends are moderates, conservatives, extremists -- some are even Uncle Toms! My friends today are black, brown, red, yellow, and white!"

I’m not going to waste another syllable criticizing a life form like al-Zawahri, but instead, I’ll merely provide a plug for the 1992 movie “Malcolm X” starring Denzel Washington here (a truly fine film).

How Dare You Try To Elevate Our Discourse!

(Just a note as long as I’m thinking about it; I may try to scale back on things on Fridays through the end of the year, just to let you know – lots of other stuff to catch up on, and it might be a good time now with the elections all but over except in Georgia.)

Time for another conservative battle over a nonexistent enemy, and that would be the Fairness Doctrine; as noted in this story, certain right-wing hammerhead radio hosts are all in uproar over the possibility of it returning under the incoming Obama Administration…

While some Democrats — notably House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — have supported the doctrine, the new Democrat-in-chief does not, at least for now.

“He considers this debate to be a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible,” a spokesman for Barack Obama’s campaign said before Election Day.

Conservatives aren’t necessarily worried that a return of the Fairness Doctrine would mean more liberal and Democratic viewpoints on broadcast television and radio.

Instead, they say, station owners would simply drop controversial programming — airing music and entertainment programs, much as they did until the doctrine’s demise.

“In the early 1980s (when the doctrine was in place) … talk shows were visiting with authors of new books,” said Mike Shanin, co-host of an afternoon talk show on KMBZ 980 AM radio in Kansas City. “This kind of regulation chills the discussion of controversial issues.”

In a speech earlier this year, President Bush — who has been on the receiving end of a few talk-radio tongue-lashings — made a similar point.

“We know who these advocates of so-called balance really have in their sights: Shows hosted by people like Rush Limbaugh or James Dobson,” Bush said. “By insisting on so-called balance, they want to silence those they don’t agree with.”

Wrong again, Dubya (and to prove it, here’s a link to a prior post telling us that a prominent Repug called for a return of the Fairness Doctrine as a response to the fact that common-sense immigration reform was defeated by the right-wing loudmouths; the person who did that was that noted “liberal” named Trent Lott – and just for the heck of it, I took a shot at figuring out the whole “liberal media” con here).

Anyone who thinks the return of the Fairness Doctrine would mean the end of right-wing radio is truly delusional (though I wish they were right about that). I don’t know what kind of advertising revenue is generated by Flush Limbore, Sean Inanity, Bill Orally and that crowd, but given their contracts, I’m sure it is substantial. And sadly, that won’t change until they and/or their audience start dying off.

Wednesday Stuff

Hey now! The Onion News Network goes international! Just don't tell your neighbor, or you'll be sent to a reindoctrination camp for questioning the Dear Leader (or something)...


Chinaâ??s Andy Rooney Has Some Funny Opinions About How Great The Chinese Government Is

...XTC ("The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead"; kind of got nostalgic for this song a bit when I was checking out Clinton and Bosnia again for the prior post - actually, I think this song explains a lot of what happened during his administration, though fortunately the "nailed to a chunk of wood" part was not realized, though if Scaife had had his way...).