Saturday, January 31, 2004
STRIKE A BLOW AGAINST THE MEDIA
...of course, if the fucking press were anything like honest and something in the remote vicinity of unbiased, maybe things would be different about now. Now I'm not advocating violence, but with press vampires like Novakula shoving people around up in New Hampshire for having an opinion contrary to their own, it may be time to shove back. We can't vote these hacks out of their jobs but we can throw eggs at them. We can find out where they live and send the TRUTH anti-cigarette people to do their weird commercials there. We can shove people like Novakula back. Just because he's on TV, it doesn't make him any less shovable. We can start spreading truly vicious lies about them on the net and, perhaps, get rappers to call out for the heads of these pundits in their songs. At the next debate, when some Brokaw type asks a stupid question, before the candidate is forced to respond, we can throw an egg at the Brokaw and say "Stupid Question, Brokaw! Ask one that matters!" Make them pay for what they're doing to us. Just calling them whores and writing angry letters and pointing out their fallacies just aint enough anymore. There has to be a real accountability in the media because right now they can say anything their coroporate masters tell them to and nobody does a damned thing about it. There has got to be a way to make them do the right thing. Shock therapy? Bodily harm? Several swift kicks to the head? Constant protests outside of their offices and homes?
I can have some angry feelings every once and awhile and my head might not be level enough to plan a good anti-press campaign properly. I know there are others out there who have the wherewithal to do this kind of thing. We need to step it up. The past is prologue, but now we need to ACT!!! Eggs are pretty cheap at Costco...let's toss a few.
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...of course, if the fucking press were anything like honest and something in the remote vicinity of unbiased, maybe things would be different about now. Now I'm not advocating violence, but with press vampires like Novakula shoving people around up in New Hampshire for having an opinion contrary to their own, it may be time to shove back. We can't vote these hacks out of their jobs but we can throw eggs at them. We can find out where they live and send the TRUTH anti-cigarette people to do their weird commercials there. We can shove people like Novakula back. Just because he's on TV, it doesn't make him any less shovable. We can start spreading truly vicious lies about them on the net and, perhaps, get rappers to call out for the heads of these pundits in their songs. At the next debate, when some Brokaw type asks a stupid question, before the candidate is forced to respond, we can throw an egg at the Brokaw and say "Stupid Question, Brokaw! Ask one that matters!" Make them pay for what they're doing to us. Just calling them whores and writing angry letters and pointing out their fallacies just aint enough anymore. There has to be a real accountability in the media because right now they can say anything their coroporate masters tell them to and nobody does a damned thing about it. There has got to be a way to make them do the right thing. Shock therapy? Bodily harm? Several swift kicks to the head? Constant protests outside of their offices and homes?
I can have some angry feelings every once and awhile and my head might not be level enough to plan a good anti-press campaign properly. I know there are others out there who have the wherewithal to do this kind of thing. We need to step it up. The past is prologue, but now we need to ACT!!! Eggs are pretty cheap at Costco...let's toss a few.
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JUST WHO IS ROY NEEL?
If you're at all curious as to who's running Dean's campaign now, why don't you go read what he has to say about himself? I'm still hoping the good Doctor can pull this thing off. Just keep remembering that many stranger things have happened in politics.
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If you're at all curious as to who's running Dean's campaign now, why don't you go read what he has to say about himself? I'm still hoping the good Doctor can pull this thing off. Just keep remembering that many stranger things have happened in politics.
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Friday, January 30, 2004
IS DEAN REALLY REELING
He might as well be Joe according to the tone of
this article. He has a "foundering presidential bid" and his campaign is "reeling" after a "dismal showing" in NH. Now I may be mistaken, but coming in third and then second in a large field of candidates who, with few exceptions, spent months attacking everything about the man along with a willing press who seemed determined to knock the Doc out of the race...finishing with 4 less delegates in NH just doesn't seem like that horrible an outcome. Why aren't Clark and Edwards stuck in the same virtual tar pit as Dean? Clark put a lot of eggs in to NH and finished with no delegates. Edwards parlayed his Iowa comeback into nada as well. Yet Dean's campaign is in a quagmire...
Do you think there's a bias against Dr. Dean?
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He might as well be Joe according to the tone of
this article. He has a "foundering presidential bid" and his campaign is "reeling" after a "dismal showing" in NH. Now I may be mistaken, but coming in third and then second in a large field of candidates who, with few exceptions, spent months attacking everything about the man along with a willing press who seemed determined to knock the Doc out of the race...finishing with 4 less delegates in NH just doesn't seem like that horrible an outcome. Why aren't Clark and Edwards stuck in the same virtual tar pit as Dean? Clark put a lot of eggs in to NH and finished with no delegates. Edwards parlayed his Iowa comeback into nada as well. Yet Dean's campaign is in a quagmire...
Do you think there's a bias against Dr. Dean?
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Thursday, January 29, 2004
GO BASH A PENGUIN
Via Rook's Rant
I smacked him a good 320.3.
UPDATE:I have a new long shot of 323.5!!! (I think I tied everyone)
How far can you make the penguin fly?
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Via Rook's Rant
I smacked him a good 320.3.
UPDATE:I have a new long shot of 323.5!!! (I think I tied everyone)
How far can you make the penguin fly?
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T'AINT FUNNY, McGEE
If you haven't been by Pen-Elayne on the Web, check out her latest dead-on post about the nature of comedy and how Dennis Miller lost his mojo.
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If you haven't been by Pen-Elayne on the Web, check out her latest dead-on post about the nature of comedy and how Dennis Miller lost his mojo.
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SO MUCH FOR HELPING THE POOR AND DOWNTRODDEN REALIZE THE DREAM OF DEMOCRACY
Since there's apparently no WMDs, we ostensibly went into Iraq to free the poor Iraqis from the iron grip of an evil dictator and allow them to chart their own course and create a government by the people and for the people, just like America, right?
Uh-uh. You see, our friends in Turkey don't like the Kurds. As a matter of fact, our genocidal friends in Turkey (talk to any Armenian) would probably like to make the Kurds just go away. What they really don't want is a separate Kurd nation on their border, even though the Kurds would rather not be held prisoner by the Iraqis. And you know what? Our great, freedom loving Bushco has sided with...you guessed it! The race killers! That's right. Freedom's just another word for no WMDs to be found and the Kurds haven't found no WMDs. Who cares that the group of people Saddamn tried to exterminate when he used the weapons against his own people are the very same that want a little taste of the right of self-determination? Who cares about these folks? Bushco don't care. Heck, the European Union don't care. Why don't any of these folks care? Because the Kurds don't really matter in the grand scheme of things, now do they? No one in America is losing sleep over the plight of the Kurds. You ask most Americans on the street what they think of the Kurd situation and they'll probably say they prefer the large curd cottage cheese to the small.
The Turks don't want the Kurds free. I'm sure the current Iraqi governing whatever doesn't want to lose the Kurdish controlled territory. Bushco has no vital interest on letting them have their own place. So, to make a long rant even longer, the Kurds are still up the creek.
I always like the fallback argument that the people of Iraq are now free thanks to our intervention. It's a terrible rhetorical position because it is constantly contradicted by reality. We don't really care to go around "freeing" people to enjoy Whoppers and Big Macs. Why? Because "people" do not matter. Never forget that. They don't matter in the good ol' USA and they don't matter anywhere else. If the "people" would all just shut up and watch TV, then Bushco could get on with the business of making the world safer for Bushco.
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Since there's apparently no WMDs, we ostensibly went into Iraq to free the poor Iraqis from the iron grip of an evil dictator and allow them to chart their own course and create a government by the people and for the people, just like America, right?
Uh-uh. You see, our friends in Turkey don't like the Kurds. As a matter of fact, our genocidal friends in Turkey (talk to any Armenian) would probably like to make the Kurds just go away. What they really don't want is a separate Kurd nation on their border, even though the Kurds would rather not be held prisoner by the Iraqis. And you know what? Our great, freedom loving Bushco has sided with...you guessed it! The race killers! That's right. Freedom's just another word for no WMDs to be found and the Kurds haven't found no WMDs. Who cares that the group of people Saddamn tried to exterminate when he used the weapons against his own people are the very same that want a little taste of the right of self-determination? Who cares about these folks? Bushco don't care. Heck, the European Union don't care. Why don't any of these folks care? Because the Kurds don't really matter in the grand scheme of things, now do they? No one in America is losing sleep over the plight of the Kurds. You ask most Americans on the street what they think of the Kurd situation and they'll probably say they prefer the large curd cottage cheese to the small.
The Turks don't want the Kurds free. I'm sure the current Iraqi governing whatever doesn't want to lose the Kurdish controlled territory. Bushco has no vital interest on letting them have their own place. So, to make a long rant even longer, the Kurds are still up the creek.
I always like the fallback argument that the people of Iraq are now free thanks to our intervention. It's a terrible rhetorical position because it is constantly contradicted by reality. We don't really care to go around "freeing" people to enjoy Whoppers and Big Macs. Why? Because "people" do not matter. Never forget that. They don't matter in the good ol' USA and they don't matter anywhere else. If the "people" would all just shut up and watch TV, then Bushco could get on with the business of making the world safer for Bushco.
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Tuesday, January 27, 2004
STRADIOTTO
All the best, my friend. I hope whatever you have to do works for you and that you come out of the darkness you're in sooner than later. There are things more important than liberal and conservative. Be well soon.
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All the best, my friend. I hope whatever you have to do works for you and that you come out of the darkness you're in sooner than later. There are things more important than liberal and conservative. Be well soon.
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Friday, January 23, 2004
Bush Lies Confirmed!
So the new cheif weapons inspector contradicts Bushco's account of the WMD situation in Iraq. And he does so vocally. Yet, this whole qwagmire will continue to be respun as a triumph for the removal of a bad man. Great! Now we must remove EVERY bad man or the argument is hypocritical. The world will be a safer place without Qaddafi. Get him! Kim Jung Il? Dead man! The guy in Myanmar? Dead man! Charles Taylor? Dead man! Niedermyer?!?! Dead man! Let's go get them all and that way all the oppressed countries can be rebuilt by Halliburton. But, wait? What do they have to offer us for removing their tyrants? What's in it for us? I could name some stuff, but if you're reading this, you probably know already.
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So the new cheif weapons inspector contradicts Bushco's account of the WMD situation in Iraq. And he does so vocally. Yet, this whole qwagmire will continue to be respun as a triumph for the removal of a bad man. Great! Now we must remove EVERY bad man or the argument is hypocritical. The world will be a safer place without Qaddafi. Get him! Kim Jung Il? Dead man! The guy in Myanmar? Dead man! Charles Taylor? Dead man! Niedermyer?!?! Dead man! Let's go get them all and that way all the oppressed countries can be rebuilt by Halliburton. But, wait? What do they have to offer us for removing their tyrants? What's in it for us? I could name some stuff, but if you're reading this, you probably know already.
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Tuesday, January 20, 2004
NAZIS
I keep trying to figure it out...were the Nazis on the left or the right? I always find it interesting that the right wing tries to revise history by tossing the Nazis back to the left simply because they had "socialist" in their party name. The sad thing is, by saying it enough, there are enough foxwatchers out there who buy into this and somehow believe that not only are liberals communist, but nazis as well.
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism
ACTION ALERT:
When Are Nazi Comparisons Deplorable?
For Fox News, only when Republicans are the target
The controversy over comparisons between George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler in two ads submitted to the anti-Bush ad contest run by the online activist group MoveOn.org says less about the state of left discourse than it does about the double standards at Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. News Corp's Fox News Channel started the controversy on January 4, airing Republican National Committee chair Ed Gillespie's complaint about the Bush/Hitler comparison. "That's the kind of tactics we're seeing on the left today in support of these Democratic presidential candidates," Gillespie charged, calling such tactics "despicable." The whole next day (1/5/04), this was a major story on Fox News Channel.
John Gibson asked, "What about the hating Bush movement, the MoveOn.org and George Soros sponsoring these ads that compare Bush to Hitler?"--before being corrected that the ads were not sponsored by MoveOn (or Soros, a funder of the group), and were taken down in response to complaints. Sean Hannity accused a guest: "You guys on the left are going so far over the cliff. You're making comparisons to the president and Adolf Hitler." Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway said on Hannity's show, "This is the hateful, vitriolic rhetoric that has become the Howard Dean Democratic Party." Bill O'Reilly cited the ads as evidence that "right now in America the Democratic party is being held captive by the far, far left." It should be noted that however hyperbolic, comparisons to Hitler and fascism are not unknown in the American political debate. Rush Limbaugh has routinely called women's rights advocates "femi-Nazis," and references to "Hitlery Clinton" are a staple of right-wing talk radio. Republican power-broker Grover Norquist on NPR (10/2/03) compared inheritance taxes to the Holocaust. Closer to home for Fox News, on the very same day that Gibson, Hannity and O'Reilly were talking about the Hitler/Bush comparison as evidence of the left's extremism, a column ran in the New York Post that described Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean as a follower of Josef Goebbels, referred to him as "Herr Howie," accused him of "looking for his Leni Riefenstahl," called his supporters "the Internet Gestapo" and compared them to "Hitler's brownshirts." The New York Post, like Fox News Channel, is part of News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch's conservative media empire. And this piece wasn't just put up on the Post's website as part of a contest--it was written by a right-wing commentator who frequently appears in the Post's pages, Ralph Peters, and selected for the op-ed page by the Post's own editors. So it's more than a little embarrassing that these blatant Nazi comparisons were being made in the Post while the paper's corporate sibling was denouncing such comparisons as a sign of derangement. So what did the Murdoch organization do? Fox appears to have completely ignored the Post's own Nazi analogies--there's no reference to the column whatsoever in the cable channel's transcripts. And the New York Post seems to have sent the column down the memory hole--clicking on a link that used to go to Peters' story gives you a "page not found" message, and the text isn't found in the Nexis media database. (Ironically, in light of this Orwellian disappearing act, the column also compared Dean to Big Brother.) In the interview that started the brouhaha, the RNC's Gillespie was asked if he would oppose similar attacks on Democrats. He replied: "If they stoop to the kind of despicable tactic like morphing a candidate into Adolf Hitler, yes, absolutely, I will tell you right here on the air. Have me back if any organization does that, I would repudiate it." The same organization that interviewed him did that, through another of its branches, the very next day. So far, Fox News hasn't had him back on to condemn the New York Post.
ACTION: Please ask the New York Post whether it stands by the column it published describing Howard Dean as a Nazi, or if it owes Dean an apology. And ask Fox News Channel why they didn't criticize that column, even though its hosts repeatedly condemned such analogies that same day--when they involved George W. Bush.
CONTACT:
Fox News Channel
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Phone: 1-888-369-4762
comments@foxnews.com
New York Post
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 100036
Phone: 1-212-930-8000
letters@nypost.com
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I keep trying to figure it out...were the Nazis on the left or the right? I always find it interesting that the right wing tries to revise history by tossing the Nazis back to the left simply because they had "socialist" in their party name. The sad thing is, by saying it enough, there are enough foxwatchers out there who buy into this and somehow believe that not only are liberals communist, but nazis as well.
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism
ACTION ALERT:
When Are Nazi Comparisons Deplorable?
For Fox News, only when Republicans are the target
The controversy over comparisons between George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler in two ads submitted to the anti-Bush ad contest run by the online activist group MoveOn.org says less about the state of left discourse than it does about the double standards at Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. News Corp's Fox News Channel started the controversy on January 4, airing Republican National Committee chair Ed Gillespie's complaint about the Bush/Hitler comparison. "That's the kind of tactics we're seeing on the left today in support of these Democratic presidential candidates," Gillespie charged, calling such tactics "despicable." The whole next day (1/5/04), this was a major story on Fox News Channel.
John Gibson asked, "What about the hating Bush movement, the MoveOn.org and George Soros sponsoring these ads that compare Bush to Hitler?"--before being corrected that the ads were not sponsored by MoveOn (or Soros, a funder of the group), and were taken down in response to complaints. Sean Hannity accused a guest: "You guys on the left are going so far over the cliff. You're making comparisons to the president and Adolf Hitler." Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway said on Hannity's show, "This is the hateful, vitriolic rhetoric that has become the Howard Dean Democratic Party." Bill O'Reilly cited the ads as evidence that "right now in America the Democratic party is being held captive by the far, far left." It should be noted that however hyperbolic, comparisons to Hitler and fascism are not unknown in the American political debate. Rush Limbaugh has routinely called women's rights advocates "femi-Nazis," and references to "Hitlery Clinton" are a staple of right-wing talk radio. Republican power-broker Grover Norquist on NPR (10/2/03) compared inheritance taxes to the Holocaust. Closer to home for Fox News, on the very same day that Gibson, Hannity and O'Reilly were talking about the Hitler/Bush comparison as evidence of the left's extremism, a column ran in the New York Post that described Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean as a follower of Josef Goebbels, referred to him as "Herr Howie," accused him of "looking for his Leni Riefenstahl," called his supporters "the Internet Gestapo" and compared them to "Hitler's brownshirts." The New York Post, like Fox News Channel, is part of News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch's conservative media empire. And this piece wasn't just put up on the Post's website as part of a contest--it was written by a right-wing commentator who frequently appears in the Post's pages, Ralph Peters, and selected for the op-ed page by the Post's own editors. So it's more than a little embarrassing that these blatant Nazi comparisons were being made in the Post while the paper's corporate sibling was denouncing such comparisons as a sign of derangement. So what did the Murdoch organization do? Fox appears to have completely ignored the Post's own Nazi analogies--there's no reference to the column whatsoever in the cable channel's transcripts. And the New York Post seems to have sent the column down the memory hole--clicking on a link that used to go to Peters' story gives you a "page not found" message, and the text isn't found in the Nexis media database. (Ironically, in light of this Orwellian disappearing act, the column also compared Dean to Big Brother.) In the interview that started the brouhaha, the RNC's Gillespie was asked if he would oppose similar attacks on Democrats. He replied: "If they stoop to the kind of despicable tactic like morphing a candidate into Adolf Hitler, yes, absolutely, I will tell you right here on the air. Have me back if any organization does that, I would repudiate it." The same organization that interviewed him did that, through another of its branches, the very next day. So far, Fox News hasn't had him back on to condemn the New York Post.
ACTION: Please ask the New York Post whether it stands by the column it published describing Howard Dean as a Nazi, or if it owes Dean an apology. And ask Fox News Channel why they didn't criticize that column, even though its hosts repeatedly condemned such analogies that same day--when they involved George W. Bush.
CONTACT:
Fox News Channel
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Phone: 1-888-369-4762
comments@foxnews.com
New York Post
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 100036
Phone: 1-212-930-8000
letters@nypost.com
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Sunday, January 18, 2004
LAKEBRIDGE
Alright, so I've finished the long awaited first chapter. Should you wish to read it, I've put it online. Commentary is more that welcome. But a word of warning, it is a very long chapter. I am really quite pleased with it, though. Now the hard part...chapter two!
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Alright, so I've finished the long awaited first chapter. Should you wish to read it, I've put it online. Commentary is more that welcome. But a word of warning, it is a very long chapter. I am really quite pleased with it, though. Now the hard part...chapter two!
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Friday, January 16, 2004
HANG IN THERE
I will return to blogging very shortly. I made a promise to my wife and myself that I wouldn't blog until I finished the first chapter of my novel. I am 43 pages into it and am nearing a conclusion(I will finish it this weekend! I swear!). I have also been forced to go to work (a lovely part time job setting appointments for men and women with hair loss to come in and discuss the possibility of hair trainsplant procedures). That and a very heavy school load may curtail my blog load, but I have many things to blog about. Check back next week for new and entertaining blogs. Also best wishes to all of my LC comrades who are under the weather. My good thoughts are with you to heal and be well.
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I will return to blogging very shortly. I made a promise to my wife and myself that I wouldn't blog until I finished the first chapter of my novel. I am 43 pages into it and am nearing a conclusion(I will finish it this weekend! I swear!). I have also been forced to go to work (a lovely part time job setting appointments for men and women with hair loss to come in and discuss the possibility of hair trainsplant procedures). That and a very heavy school load may curtail my blog load, but I have many things to blog about. Check back next week for new and entertaining blogs. Also best wishes to all of my LC comrades who are under the weather. My good thoughts are with you to heal and be well.
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