Oh, David, David, David. Look, times are tough with all the war debt and the financial collapse and whathaveyou. So we’ve decided to send you to a nice farm in the country. Just for a while. You’ll like it. Plenty of air. Lots of space to run around…now help me find my car keys and my gun.

…Our late Post publisher Katharine Graham once chided some of us, “Just because you are getting attacked from both the left and right doesn’t mean you’re doing a good job.” She was right, but it’s still a useful index.

Excuse me, but what the hell does that even mean? If she was right, maybe it’s not fucking useful at all.

True story, and one that tells the whole sad tale: On the day when 11 million people worldwide marched in protest of the impending invasion of Iraq, a global protest unprecedented in human history, CNN ran 12 seconds of coverage on the largest US protest in New York. 12 seconds.

What were they covering instead? Their big story of the day was “what journalists are doing to get in shape for covering the war.”

I wish I was making this up, but sadly, no!

A good part of the problem, IMHO, is that today’s media thinks that such self-serving wankery constitutes “news”.

Our late Post publisher Katharine Graham once chided some of us, “Just because you are getting attacked from both the left and right doesn’t mean you’re doing a good job.” She was right, but it’s still a useful index.

I’d say something here, but the absurdity of the Village just can’t be improved upon.

Yo, Ignatz! That hair shirt looks suspiciously like a thnly disguised pima cotton Hugo Boss.

Katharine Graham was right, but it’s still a useful index.

Slightly-longer shorter Ignaramus:

“Even though Katharine Graham was 100% right, and I 100% wrong, I will keep doing thing in my 100% wrong way just because.”

Our media deserves the slow, painful death it is now experiencing.

I just wish the likes of Ignaramus could feel the slow, painful death of a stray bomb landing in an Iraqi market somewhere as punishment for his cheerleading of an unnecessary war — especially since he’s learned nothing and, apparently, has no regrets.

“most editors were focused on figuring out how best to report it.”

And firing people who wanted to do actual reporting. Ain’t forgotten that.

Indeed, I think one reason for the news media’s inadequate examination of the rationale for war in late 2002 and 2003 was that we knew President George W. Bush had already made his decision — the Army was lined up in the desert, after all — and most editors were focused on figuring out how best to report it.

Your solution here was Dood! Look at the awesome war toyz!. “Best”? Eh, no.

Our media deserves the slow, painful death it is now experiencing.

And once it dies, where are you going to get the facts on which you base your expert commentary?

I’ll give P.J. O’Rourke this much: he wrote in Rolling Stone, as he was flying into Iraq and looking down on the war machines lined up as far as the eye could see, that it sure was a lot more expensive to STEAL oil than it was to BUY it.

The more I think about it the more the slimeballyness of Iggy and his ilk stands out. Really, what should have been a mea culpa and request for forgiveness comes out as a self-centered sociopathic rationalization. Yeah, we all knew the war was gonna happen and not one of us ever said so and in fact we kept saying the exact opposite but there were _reasons_, completely out of our control. Oops.

Embedding arose because American journalists requested it.

Only as opposed to being lied to and manipulated by the Pentagon, which is rather like stomping on someone’s foot because they requested you to stop poking them in the eye.

And once it dies, where are you going to get the facts on which you base your expert commentary?

The same place we get it now – Jon Stewart.

Oh please. Facts haven’t been part of the picture in years.

The same place we get it now – Jon Stewart.

Damn right.

And congrats on the new gig, Jen.

On the day when 11 million people worldwide marched in protest of the impending invasion of Iraq, a global protest unprecedented in human history, CNN ran 12 seconds of coverage on the largest US protest in New York.

Why, that’s over 1 second per million! yay!

Of course, my point ignores the fact that the rest of the world doesn’t exist for CNN unless something’s blowing up, so it’s actually a pretty good per-million number. Wheee?

Embedding arose because American journalists requested it.

WHAAAA??????????????????????????

Ignatius is older than me, and presumably has been a…ok, hasn’t been a journalist but pretended to be one, for much of that time.

Then he’d recall that journalists routinely went to the front lines in Nam and even Korea, either in junkets with the press corps but also as freelancers trying to dig up a story.

Have our free press sunk so low that “embedding” is considered a shining city on a hilltop, something to be achieved after great peril and danger?

Oh my fucking god…

Have our free press sunk so low that “embedding” is considered a shining city on a hilltop, something to be achieved after great peril and danger?

But it makes fellating the generals so much easier!

“Even though Katharine Graham was 100% right, and I 100% wrong, I will keep doing thing in my 100% wrong way just because.”

I hate to be pedantic and shit…OK, actually I enjioy it but…Graham’s statement implies the word “always”

Re-read it this way: “Our late Post publisher Katharine Graham once chided some of us, “Just because you are [always] getting attacked from both the left and right doesn’t mean you’re [always] doing a good job.”

Clearly, the implication is, soemtimes you’re getting attacked from both sides because you’re doing a good job of telling the facts and letting both sides hammer out the truth, but sometimes you’re just doing a shitty job of telling the story.

With that analysis, even if she’s right, there’s a useful tool to be had. If you’re pissing off both sides, SO LONG AS you’re doing your job properly, you’re probably onto the truth of the story.

LittlePig – Thanks! I think we’re going to pretty much shut out everyone else come next fall – the problem is, surviving until then. Know of any well-paying, part-time jobs for the next 3 or 4 months?

“With that analysis, even if she’s right, there’s a useful tool to be had. If you’re pissing off both sides, SO LONG AS you’re doing your job properly, you’re probably onto the truth of the story.”

Right, but 1) that’s kind of a no-duh statement, and 2) it doesn’t excuse Ignatius for saying it’s “a useful index.” He’s still saying that there’s something to be inferred from the fact that you’re getting slammed from both sides.

Then he’d recall that journalists routinely went to the front lines in Nam and even Korea, either in junkets with the press corps but also as freelancers trying to dig up a story.

But they really really hated that. Embedding let them keep some tabs on the story in ways that having freelancer prevented. AND it made the reporters dependent on the military and generally more sympathetic.

And remember that we killed over a hundred journalists in the war, most of them foreign and outside of our control. Hell, we even fired on a hotel filled with them.

On the other hand, embedding gave us Generation Kill, so it was kind of a wash…

Only as opposed to being lied to and manipulated by the Pentagon, which is rather like stomping on someone’s foot because they requested you to stop poking them in the eye.

Will be fair to the noosmedia on one particular point… Iraq was virtually impossible for Western journos, especially Murkans, to get into. (One who did go there, Asne Seierstad, wrote a rather good book about it.)

So there was a journalistic case to try to get embed status, just to get into Iraq, but the extent to which journalistic principles were traded in to get the embed opportunities was what was feeble and corrupt. To me the analogy is a guy complains to his uncle that he can’t get laid, and the uncle says, “kiddo, let me help. Here, drop your pants and enjoy this ass-rape.”

And then the guy goes to his friends to tell them how his uncle is the most compassionate and awesome uncle evah.

He’s still saying that there’s something to be inferred from the fact that you’re getting slammed from both sides.

Isn’t there?

Let’s say I write an article about the oil spill in the Gulf, accurately assessing the responsibility this way:

Dick Cheney screwed up by authorized the drilling

Barack Obama screwed up by having Ken Salazar oversee the Interior Department.

Both of those are valid arguments based on the facts of the story. Both of those would piss someone off.

That doesnt change the fact that the article is truthful, accurate and factual. In other words, good reporting.

I stopped reading after this moronicy:

Too often, news consumers don’t want to be challenged. They want to be informed, yes, but also bolstered in their views.

Yes, inform us… with the facts. Views are created though the facts. Unless you present said facts, how can we have a legitimate view?!

Embedding let them keep some tabs on the story in ways that having freelancer prevented

I agree. But the Ignatius ploy of making embedding seem like some golden bail of journalism when all it was was accepting a frikkin’ handout, makes me ill.

Unless you present said facts, how can we have a legitimate view?!

We’ll spoon feed it to you, never fear

We’ll spoon feed it to you, never fear

Hooraaay for making my mind up for me!! YAYYY!!!

You know, right about now, even the hacks at the Washington Post and the NYT look better to me than the wingnut spam that threatens to become the go-to source for news among the Teapity Patriots.

I’ll take Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather and a player to be named later over the entire crew at Fox.

Stopped reading after “news consumers.” There’s your problem right there

Facts haven’t been part of the picture in years.

It’s a scary world out there unless you don’t look at it.

I imagine this will be regurgitated when Iran looks at us the wrong way.

Stopped reading after “news consumers.” There’s your problem right there

Don’t you have enough problems reviving Cheney‘s legacy?

And once it dies, where are you going to get the facts on which you base your expert commentary?

I’d rather have no journalism at all than the golden mean fallacy masquerading as objective analysis; at least with no journalism, the public might not be under the misapprehension that they’re informed.

Bullshit. This was a Pentagon reaction to the couple of incidents of negative coverage received during the 1st Gulf War — including the right wing / media jihad against, say, Peter Arnett for accurately reporting that the U.S. blew the shit out of a bomb shelter for Iraqi civilians.

I don’t even have snark for this bullshit. I sense ZERO remorse from this fuck about the 4,400 dead from this piece of shit war. They weren’t just in the tank for Bush and the rest of the warmongering psychos, they WERE warmongering psychos.

The bullshit excuse that Bush had made up his mind and they were just preparing to cover it is an outright fucking lie.

Fuck you Iggy. Don’t you dare ever call yourself a journalist. You’re fucking paid hack with blood all over your hands. Do NOT think that blood washes off with this little phony bit of introspective obfuscation.

Fuck you.

And I don’t mind thinking of myself as a news consumer if that gives me the responsibility of demanding that the news producers start making a decent product and stop making a million excuses for why they turn out utter, defective shit.

And here’s the part that worries me most (and not just because it threatens my paycheck): Many consumers of news seem to trust the new ideologically embedded media over the traditional independent media. They think The Washington Post has an agenda; they think the mainstream media as a whole are tainted and biased.

Strange. It’s almost as if someone has been working for years to discredit the media for some strategic advantage. If anyone was doing it though, it must have been both sides of the political spectrum. They are exactly equivalent, after all. And good thing, because such a campaign coming from only one side might have influenced the media to balance coverage in favor of the critical side in order to avoid criticism in the name of finding the “center”.

Peter Arnett for accurately reporting that the U.S. blew the shit out of a bomb shelter for Iraqi civilians. who was accused of “unpatriotic journalism” by members of Congress

*tear*

AnonHancock,

Are you suggesting someone might have had a partisan agenda in discrediting the news, lowering the bar, so to speak, so that any outlet, let’s call it COYOTE News, could be free to report rumour and speculation and opinion as “news” without actually doing any real reportage?

Or are you suggesting that some sort of “cabal” of media organizations might have decided to turn information into some sort of profit center and suddenly realized that the more intelligent the news they provided, the less money they could make on it?

I also love the notion that the billion dollar media which whored itself out for every single war any administration ever wanted to wage considers itself “independent” versus the “ideological” media, much of which refuses to directly inject warhawk propaganda into their own neck arteries.

A reminder: the entire mainstream media blew off the My Lai story until the “ideological” alternative paper the Dispatch News service.

“Independent” my ass.

Btw, Iggy, HERE is a useful index;

Politicians lie all the time. Your job as a journalist is to report that, and do a little research and present the facts that either confirm or debunk political statements. It’s rarely as simple as right or wrong, and you insult the intelligence of non-Fox consumers when you try to reduce it to a bumper-sticker sized statement of what you consider to be fact.

If more that about 5 of you assholes had been doing much of anything prior to Iraq, like say reminding people that Clinton decimated their SCUD arsenal, their air force, and every facility that even had the remote appearance of possibly being a manufacturing site for NBC weapons, and that Joe Wilson was right, you, facts and stuff, that war probably wouldn’t have happened.

If more that about 5 of you assholes had been doing much of anything prior to Iraq, like say reminding people that Clinton decimated their SCUD arsenal, their air force, and every facility that even had the remote appearance of possibly being a manufacturing site for NBC weapons, and that Joe Wilson was right, you, facts and stuff, that war probably wouldn’t have happened.

Just before the 1st Gulf War, during the giant propaganda campaign to start the war, the New York Times had on the front page a military-provided speculation that Saddam Hussein might have huge, fighter filled airbases ready to kill our planes from caverns under the desert sand.

It’s almost like the Pentagon’s media manipulation offices were by this time bored and wondering, “Fuck, what can’t we get them to print? How about a story right out of the Thunderbirds puppet kids show?”

I sense ZERO remorse from this fuck about the 4,400 hundreds of thousands dead from this piece of shit war

fiqzt.

And agree 100% on the sentiment behind this post, really can’t find the heart for snark here either.

How about a story right out of the Thunderbirds puppet kids show?”

F.A.B.

“Fuck, what can’t we get them to print? How about a story right out of the Thunderbirds puppet kids show?”

Little known fact: Air Wolf was a documentary based on the historical efforts of one man and one sweet chopper to thwart all evil in the world — on the US taxpayers dime.

And Guantanamo Bay looks suspiciously like The Village from The Prisoner (60s edition)

Little known fact: Air Wolf was a documentary based on the historical efforts of one man and one sweet chopper to thwart all evil in the world — on the US taxpayers dime.

We need to get the TeaTards to demand the government release the information it has on the whereabouts of Sinjin.

And Guantanamo Bay looks suspiciously like The Village from The Prisoner (60s edition)

Not entirely.

I sense ZERO remorse from this fuck about the 4,400 hundreds of thousands dead from this piece of shit war

I was about to make that correction as well but only 4,400 of those deaders were actually people, or so it would be in Iggie’s eyes.

Also FYWP

Ashleigh Banfield looked like the next Walter Cronkite – until she threw away the script & started telling it like it is. When the word got out, the Invisible Pimp Hand came down. Hard. Anyone else having similar qualms about the flavor of corporate taint got the message loud & clear.

The crux of the biscuit is, Teh Media aren’t selling widgets to peasants – they’re selling peasants to widget-makers.

Left-wing POV = epic buzzkill. Documenting just how badly almost everyone is being cornholed by a bunch of sociopathic elite bastards? Telling folks that they’re on a rocket-sled to a corporatist dystopia? Suggesting that things might improve a lot sooner if some very-well-groomed heads were to start rolling? Doesn’t exactly engender that warm soft fuzzy “Buying Mood” that sponsors demand.

Right-wing POV = sponsor jackpot. We’re #1! It’s Morning In America! Seize The Day! The Status Quo Rocks! America, FUCK YEAH! Shopping Is Patriotic!

The Overton Window? More like The Exxon Ramp, actually.

I also love the notion that the billion dollar media which whored itself out for every single war any administration ever wanted to wage considers itself “independent” versus the “ideological” media, much of which refuses to directly inject warhawk propaganda into their own neck arteries.

Right? Are you fucking kidding me? I’m not sure what media he’s referring to as “independent,” but it’s not his fucking newspaper.

Not entirely.

You missed La Cage night on Ward 6.

Cheney Folk Hero nails it with:

Stopped reading after “news consumers.” There’s your problem right there

How about this, WaPo: help us tell the lies and propaganda apart from the well-reported news. Run stories about, e.g, Iraq, but accompany them with stories about how, say, Fox News runs lies. Prove your value by refuting the polluters of the system.

Or is that not sporting? Is it not “professional”? Is it preferable to let a continuous source of untruth corrupt your very profession?

Use your resources to defend your turf. Otherwise, everyone (i.e., you) ends up competing for “consumers.” And everyone knows that customer is always right.

It’s all coming to an end, folks.

only 4,400 of those deaders were actually people, or so it would be in Iggie’s eyes

I might even be a stretch to imagine Iggie seeing them as people. Sorry to say, but people with permanent war boners never deserve the benefit of the doubt.

and suddenly realized that the more intelligent the news they provided, the less money they could make on it?

That is exactly it. Journalism is an expensive proposition that must be done in order to keep the people informed, as Jefferson pointed out from the get-go. It’s going to be a money sink, or break even at best.

Needless to say, there are very damn few journalists around anymore. Once CBSNews went infotainment, Edward R. Morrow’s legacy got kicked to the curb, and they were among the most committed. Now mainstream media is a collection of snake oil salesmen, with a few exceptions.

Ted Turner made the hole, and Katie Couric filled that sucker in. Suck on that, America.

Other types of consumers get federal regulations and Consumers Union on their side.

Us news consumers, however, are free to consume our melamine-enriched ‘news’ every day! FREEEEDUMB!

Someone mention Thunderbirds?

*squeal*

The Overton Window? More like The Exxon Ramp, actually.

I’m stealing this. Oh yes I am.

What’s everyone so upset about? Perpetual war is as American as apple pie.

I sense ZERO remorse from this fuck about the 4,400 hundreds of thousands dead from this piece of shit war

I was about to make that correction as well but only 4,400 of those deaders were actually people, or so it would be in Iggie’s eyes.

You’re absolutely right, PeeJ–my bad. It nauseates me to think that nobody will ever know how many people have actually died there. Even more sickening is the fact that the conditions in which the refugees are living almost makes them envy the dead. Yet here we still are–listening to fucking politician generals on the teevee talking about Iran being behind nearly all of the attacks on our forces, setting up a scenario where we’re forced to fight to save Iraq from Iran.

I said at the beginning of this invasion that we were seeing the opening stages of WWIII. I hope I was wrong, but things just don’t look good right now. And look who is pushing the narrative along unchallenged–all of these conscientious journalists. Oops, we fucked up with Iraq. So let’s try the same thing with Iran and see how that works out for us.

It’s almost like the Pentagon’s media manipulation offices were by this time bored and wondering, “Fuck, what can’t we get them to print? How about a story right out of the Thunderbirds puppet kids show?”

That’s when they came up with the Remote-Controlled Model Airplanes of Death by Anthrax™, which settled that question once and for all.

Which, BTW, remains my go-to “shut the fuck up dumbass” point to anyone who tries to argue that “EVERYONE thought Saddam had WMDs.” No, dumbfuck, EVERYONE DIDN’T think that Saddam had WMDs, because when the non-retarded among us saw them trotting out plots from Austin Powers as part of their “case for war”, we called bullshit on the whole enterprise.

I’d rather have no journalism at all than the golden mean fallacy masquerading as objective analysis

Nah, I have to disagree. Useful journalism is out there, and tidbits of usefulness still slip out in the infotainment business that can still be strung together by people who are paying attention.

People let themselves be manipulated by the news business for a bunch of reasons, but mainly because it is designed to make people feel better about themselves. A total lack of news isn’t going to make people smarter or more informed, it just makes them even more ignorant. Even fox viewers have some idea of what the world is like beyond their horizon; twisted to be sure, but still probably less twisted than what fox viewers would have come up with on their own. They still have a better foundation for real information if they are interested in it.

Its a demand-side problem… bad, right-wing journalism exists because there is a market for bad right wing journalism. These viewers existed for a long time before Fox came around … hell, this is a country that re-elected Reagan AND Nixon. Controlling the bullshit from right wight wing journalism is important, but you can reach a lot of people with facts; anyone who has tried arguing with a creationist knows this.

Some can be though, and we need more powerful ways of reaching them. The methodology of fox doesn’t work on left wingers very well.

Not just jim’s Exxon Ramp, which deserves an instant trademark… that’s a whole post of WIN.

Needless to say, there are very damn few journalists around anymore.

And most of them are freelancers or work at non-mainstream publications.

Someone may have pointed this out and I missed it, but the one thing that’s good about consuming “ideological media” is that as long as you know it’s “ideological,” you can make decent judgments about what kind of conclusions you should draw. It’s when an outlet is, for all intents and purposes, “ideological,” but professes not to be that you have a problem.

Too often, mainstream journalism doesn’t see or report what’s on the wings, right and left.

If only this statement were true: we would never have heard of teabaggers, death panels, vault-copy long form double secret birth certificates, big pimpin’ up in ACORN, CRU and their stolen email, Obama bowing, and any number of other wingnut nontroversies.

True story, and one that tells the whole sad tale: On the day when 11 million people worldwide marched in protest of the impending invasion of Iraq, a global protest unprecedented in human history, CNN ran 12 seconds of coverage on the largest US protest in New York. 12 seconds.

Well, Jennifer, I owe you a beer. Why, you ask? Because your comment intrigued me so I googled Iraq war protests and found a wiki page that pretty much corroborated your account but did not mention at all a demonstration of, oh, about 50,000 that I participated in in Boston on the eve of the war. This is significant because, having taken part in that protest, I punted on going to NYC or DC later. It’s clear, though, that wikipedia doesn’t think 50,000 in Boston warrants the slightest mention. I felt impotent at the time and maybe that’s because the world doesn’t give a crap if Bostonians are in the streets again, hell, we’re in the streets at the drop of a hat. We mass for sports victories, to yell at politicians we hate, to walk on a bridge, because somebody said there would be free Hoodsie cups, you know, any excuse. Or maybe they don’t care about Boston, period. The days of “the shot that rang ’round the world” are over. (cry)

I, and so many like me, SHOULD have gotten off our asses and taken the bus down to DC because evidently that’s the only way to get any attention. Wimpy teafarter protests in DC with 3000 people get more press than 50,000 in Boston. (Okay, being plutocrats helps too.)

I was fooled. Boston activists have a good ground game … in Boston. Not-invented-here strikes back. Damn.

Which, BTW, remains my go-to “shut the fuck up dumbass” point to anyone who tries to argue that “EVERYONE thought Saddam had WMDs.” No, dumbfuck, EVERYONE DIDN’T think that Saddam had WMDs, because when the non-retarded among us saw them trotting out plots from Austin Powers as part of their “case for war”, we called bullshit on the whole enterprise.

NOBODY thought he had weapons. The IAEA, the UN, France (where the fuck do these morons think the embarassment of “Freedom Fries” came from?). Shorter Hans Blix: “Everyone chill the fuck out, I got this”. Germany knew better. All of “Old Europe”, as Rummy the fuckfaced weasel liked to say, knew better. So the response? Send a respected general with what we thought to be credibility with the world to the UN with pictures of choo choo trains and scare the shit out of ’em.

And throughout all of this, the media goes number 3 on the face of America with unchallenged allegations from the administration, scenarios of mass death from dirty bombs and anthrax and poisoned wells (throwback to the old Jew hating dogma)… Today, we still have the priveledge of hearing subhuman neocons make their case for killing everyone on every news channel, in every newspaper. There’s no end or improvement in sight. In fact, I’m pretty sure it will only get worse.

People let themselves be manipulated by the news business for a bunch of reasons, but mainly because it is designed to make people feel better about themselves.

I thought that was what religion was for?
The news manipulates people more than people get manipulated by the news. Those who get manipulated are the simpleminded ones that need someone to tell them a) They are the bestest (American Exceptionalism) b) Everything’s going to be OK but, c) Be very afraid

Jesus Christ.

If only this statement were true: we would never have heard of teabaggers, death panels, vault-copy long form double secret birth certificates, big pimpin’ up in ACORN, CRU and their stolen email, Obama bowing, and any number of other wingnut nontroversies.

And Jeremiah fuckin Wright. Jesus. Another loudmouthed religious zealot says something stupid, and suddenly Obama (the muslim…wtf?) was the one who said “doG damn America!”? Srsly. It really is like watching a monkey fuck a football.

TruculentandUnreliable said,

May 6, 2010 at 18:34

Jesus Christ.

Yes, daughter?

but the one thing that’s good about consuming “ideological media” is that as long as you know it’s “ideological,” you can make decent judgments

Sadly, T&U, I think the people who watch that ideological media only care about that ideology and need it reinforced in a time when it is being eroded. I’d like to think that conservatives are simply louder than liberals and conservatives realize that a liberal society is what most people want – except them. With news orgs like Fox simply saying “We’re with you! And so is this product, buy it!” They latch onto it like a barnacle. (from someone’s personal battle group?)

I mean, we are seeing things crumbling around our ears, and all these fucking assholes can do is yammer about “balance” and, at best, wring their hands and say, “Nobody knew!” when it’s obvious that they not only didn’t do their jobs, but actively assisted in spreading ignorance, war, and death.

In unrelated but really unpredicted and quite positive news, the Colombian presidential elections are coming up, the Supreme Court barred the current paramilitary-infested regime of Alvaro Uribe from running again, and the all-but-coronated VP of Uribe Juan Manual Santos is now running far behind in the polls to pacifist (somewhat), Green Party candidate, former popular Bogota mayor, and kickass beard-with-no-mustache possessor Antanas Mockus.

Famous initiatives included hiring 420 mimes to make fun of traffic violators, because he believed Colombians were more afraid of being ridiculed than fined

Of course, because of this, the death threats have already come out, and the right wing government promises to protect them.

Let’s see Fred Hiatt and the liar Jackson Diehl shit their pants that the Colombian people voted their favorite right wing, illegally spying, narco-paramilitary buddy Uribe and his allies out of office.

Which, BTW, remains my go-to “shut the fuck up dumbass” point to anyone who tries to argue that “EVERYONE thought Saddam had WMDs.

Jennifer you very silly girl. Sure, it _used to be untrue_ but now that it’s been repeated, without question, for so long by so many, it is now TRUE. More than true, it is now a fact. Doncha see?

Teapity Patriots.

WIN.

I’m stealing this.

You can’t steal it, because it doesn’t belong to me – I just made it up. It belongs to the Interwebz now.

Actually, I originally typed “K-Tel Ramp,” but on second thought, I really didn’t see humanity’s (actually quite astonishing if you think about it) level of social progress under dire threat from Ron Popeil’s Pocket-Fisherman™ as much of a trope.

Yes, daughter?

Just checking to see if you were there…

Sadly, T&U, I think the people who watch that ideological media only care about that ideology and need it reinforced in a time when it is being eroded.

You’re absolutely right about this, but I was thinking more along the lines of, oh, say, the Washington Post, which *is* ideological in its pro-status quo, pro-business, pro-war stance. Accepting and enforcing the current paradigm is ideological, period. It’s just that we’re so lost we can’t even see that.

Which, BTW, remains my go-to “shut the fuck up dumbass” point to anyone who tries to argue that “EVERYONE thought Saddam had WMDs.

How many times must we repeat “EVERYONE THOUGHT SADDAM HAD WMD’S” very, very loudly before you will agree?

Also, ALL PRAISE BE TO THE SURGE, which of course fixed all problems in Iraq, it was a new strategy, etc.

Which, BTW, remains my go-to “shut the fuck up dumbass” point to anyone who tries to argue that “EVERYONE thought Saddam had WMDs.” No, dumbfuck, EVERYONE DIDN’T think that Saddam had WMDs

This is like the Goldman Sucks/CNBC/Treasury whores excuse that “no-one could have foreseen” the credit crunch, when in fact the housing bubble was openly discussed in the MSM during the entire 2000’s but with increasing urgency from 2005 on, when Greedspan was completely aware of how to create and pop bubbles as proven by his previous performance as Treasury Secretary, when many major RE investors were trying to unload office buildings for as much as possible before the party ended, when GS and others were making enormous bets on exactly when the bubble was going to collapse, when the Fed was explicitly created to smooth out asset value gyrations, specifically in housing, and succeeded at this for fifty years, only to throw that out the window to please GWB, when Bush’s admin deliberately squashed states’ attorneys drive to curb mortgage fraud in 2005 … no, no, no, everyone knew EXACTLY what they were doing. Just ask the thousands of people fired from the financial sector in the 2000’s (before the crunch) who lost their jobs because they opposed the sector-wide suicide run.

They always trot out “NOBODY COULD HAVE KNOWN” when they want to cover their own culpability and stupidity and lies.

Nah, I have to disagree. Useful journalism is out there, and tidbits of usefulness still slip out in the infotainment business that can still be strung together by people who are paying attention.

I agree that it’s out there, it just shouldn’t be so fucking hard to find it. I feel like I have to fact check the people who are supposed to be doing the fact checking. It is to the point where I expect every piece of journalism to be 1) a vapid puff piece that essentially says nothing of value, 2) a vapid puff piece designed to promote some asshole’s lie somewhere, 3) a vapid puff piece that is designed to scare the shit out of me. Would it not be nice to relax and read something and actually have enough substance there to apply reason and logic to an issue? Instead, it seems to me that someone is always trying to validate something, or vindicate a lousy president and his evil sidekick…

Jennifer you very silly girl. Sure, it _used to be untrue_ but now that it’s been repeated, without question, for so long by so many, it is now TRUE. More than true, it is now a fact. Doncha see?

Sort of like, “Nobody could have foreseen the financial crisis!”?

They always trot out “NOBODY COULD HAVE KNOWN” when they want to cover their own culpability and stupidity and lies.

Also, too.

Also, ALL PRAISE BE TO THE SURGE

Why just surge when you can SURGE INFLUENCE?

The question U.S. officials should ask themselves is: After expending so much blood and treasure, is it really noble to abandon influence, or should we recalibrate policy to surge influence? The hostility of the Obama administration to power and influence is sadly a tragedy upon which historians will comment.

Sorry, should be “can’t reach a lot of people with facts”

Which, BTW, remains my go-to “shut the fuck up dumbass” point to anyone who tries to argue that “EVERYONE thought Saddam had WMDs.” No, dumbfuck, EVERYONE DIDN’T think that Saddam had WMDs

I stayed home from work to watch Powells UN presentation. When it was over, I thought “Wow, they (Bush Admin) really have nothing. That may be the end of it.”

I kept expecting someone to show up on the news channels to disect the presentation and point out all the bullshit. I thought maybe they’d let Scott Ridder do it.

So disappointed.

The hostility of the Obama administration to power and influence is sadly a tragedy upon which historians will comment.

Someday these neocon ghouls will be recognized for the apocalyptic murderers they really are. Their power and influence in the government is sadly a tragedy upon which historians will comment.

The question U.S. officials should ask themselves is: After expending so much blood and treasure, is it really noble to abandon influence, or should we recalibrate policy to surge influence? The hostility of the Obama administration to power and influence is sadly a tragedy upon which historians will comment.

Maybe I’m dumb, but I don’t even understand what the fuck he’s saying, here. It seems like he’s basically supporting the idea that we should be in Iraq for, like, ever, but doesn’t have the balls to come out and say it…

Why just surge when you can SURGE INFLUENCE?

It’s not a real solution unless you’re blowing shit up. Duh.

I stayed home from work to watch Powells UN presentation. When it was over, I thought “Wow, they (Bush Admin) really have nothing. That may be the end of it.”

Wait — you weren’t convinced by Mr. My Lai Cover-Up waving around his little jar of All Natural Sea Salt?

I stayed home from work to watch Powells UN presentation. When it was over, I thought “Wow, they (Bush Admin) really have nothing. That may be the end of it.”</i

You were much more optimistic than I was. I knew it was pretty much decided as soon as those assholes starting floating it. It was like trying to stop a freight train. The thing that really bugged me was that people I otherwise had a lot of respect for, who I thought were smart, were supporting these lies. I still don't understand it.

Whoops.

Someday these neocon ghouls will be recognized for the apocalyptic murderers they really are. Their power and influence in the government is sadly a tragedy upon which historians will comment.

Considering much of the Bush Jr. government’s foreign policy team was former Reagan / Bush Sr. Latin America death-squadders / Iran-Contra dirtbags, I kind of doubt it.

E.g., Otto Reich or Elliot Abrams.

Jennifer you very silly girl. Sure, it _used to be untrue_ but now that it’s been repeated, without question, for so long by so many, it is now TRUE. More than true, it is now a fact. Doncha see?

Besides, silly girl, if you only knew half of the very Serious and Scary things that John Bolton knows, you would push the button this very minute. You don’t know how lucky you are that people like the neocons are looking out for your best interest.

Whoops.

Please hold your whoops until the end of the performance.

Considering much of the Bush Jr. government’s foreign policy team was former Reagan / Bush Sr. Latin America death-squadders / Iran-Contra dirtbags, I kind of doubt it.

Well, yeah–that’s true. I just hope that this period is told how it should be, the Second Age of Imperialism. Something like what America did with the resources and anger leftover from the Cold War that sadly didn’t end in the complete destruction of the human race.

What’s even more galling?

The media, after their culpability in selling war, has since pretended that the Bush administration was the victim of “faulty intelligence” when the obvious fact that they pulled whatever they could think of out of their asses to concoct a cassus belli is staring them right in the face, and in fact could have easily been settled with one very simple, very elemental question:

“So Mr. President, what was the final straw, the tipping point, the one piece of information that made you determine that going to war was the only option?”

See, because for most wars (pre-1960) that was an easy question to answer – so easy, in fact, that it would never have needed to be asked. Ft. Sumter, the Lusitania et al, Pearl Harbor, the 44th parallel (or whatever parallel it was), etc.

Just one simple question – how would he have answered it? With debunked “aluminum tubes”? Cribbed British masters’ theses? Balsa wood planes of death? Claims of “yellowcake” already known to have been forged?

They didn’t ask it, because the answer would have revealed their culpability in selling the steaming pile of bullshit that constituted the “case for war”. A case so fucking weak that your average county circuit court judge would not only dismiss it with predjudice, but would also sanction your local prosecuting attorney for bringing it up and wasting the court’s time.

if you only knew half of the very Serious and Scary things that John Bolton knows, you would push the button this very minute

In celebration of that point, I’m throwing a tape dispenser at someone I’m meeting with, if not slamming his/her head in a door.

Remember, this is the country which was once told by our President, who is at least supposed to be a grown man, that if we didn’t overthrow the Nicaraguan government, they posed a grave threat to our nation — and were a mere two days’ drive from Harlingen, Texas (I guess presuming they made it through Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico unnoticed).

John Bolton’s mustache is a Serious and Scary thing.

throwing a tape dispenser at someone I’m meeting with,

Wow, file that one under “Didn’t see that coming!”

Someone mention Thunderbirds?

Be jealous, Pere.

The hostility of the Obama administration to power and influence is sadly a tragedy upon which historians will comment.

But … but … I thought Obama was a power-hungry socialistic-marxist who would use the Census to enslave all conservatives?

Or is that last month’s talking point?

actor–
I wanted to disagree with your comment, but am having a hard time doing so. So I defer. 🙂

John Bolton’s mustache is a Serious and Scary thing

And a perfect face for America during the Bush years. It’s in no way painfully embarassing to know that this guy represented us at the UN.

Remember, this is the country which was once told by our President, who is at least supposed to be a grown man, that if we didn’t overthrow the Nicaraguan government, they posed a grave threat to our nation — and were a mere two days’ drive from Harlingen, Texas (I guess presuming they made it through Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico unnoticed).

Oh, and he was wrong about that? The brown hordes HAVE invaded, my friend – they just did it without tanks and guns. Just ask Arizona.

The hostility of the Obama administration to power and influence is sadly a tragedy upon which historians will comment.

“Man, that whole Obama thing – what a tragedy! Guy completely sucked all the fun & excitement out of modern American history. That brain-damaged bozo right before him was a total fucking gold-mine of drama. Don’t you just HATE it when a superpower gets a leader that can speak in complete sentences & retain an idea for longer than ten minutes? Let alone one that actually knows the difference between shit & Shinola? Booooooooooring.”

The methodology of fox doesn’t work on left wingers very well.

The cult of personality. It’s true. We don’t worship.

Even someone like Keith Olbermann gets a significant percentage of lefties gnashing teeth. You rarely hear that kind of dissent over Beck or Limbaugh. (I make exceptions for people like Charles Johnson or K-Parker who inflamed everyone by choosing the wrong conventional wisdoms to buck) There is no liberal icon that has the kind of devotion that Limbaugh has, not because Limbaugh is some demi-god, but because the right wing are fucking nutcases.

We ain’t.

“Man, that whole Obama thing – what a tragedy! Guy completely sucked all the fun & excitement out of modern American history.

All is not lost. He didn’t suck all of the fun out of it, he just slowed it down a little–oh and stopped flexing our collective dick at everyone. He can still stand in front of the Nobel committee and make a case for war–in complete sentences and proper English, no less.

The brown hordes HAVE invaded

Rassin’ frassin’ roughage.

I wanted to disagree with your comment, but am having a hard time doing so. So I defer.

Maybe because I’m right?

Which must automatically mean I’m always 100% right.

I can live with that 🙂

Clip ‘n’ save for cut-and-paste:

is sadly a tragedy upon which historians will comment.

John Bolton’s mustache is a Serious and Scary thing

And a perfect face for America during the Bush years. It’s in no way painfully embarassing to know that this guy represented us at the UN.

God, we are such fucking buffoons. How does the rest of the planet put up with us?

Please hold your whoops until the end of the performance.

It makes a better money shot.

Let’s see Fred Hiatt and the liar Jackson Diehl shit their pants that the Colombian people voted their favorite right wing, illegally spying, narco-paramilitary buddy Uribe and his allies out of office.

As I suspect you know, such an outcome would be proof that Chavez and/or Castro interfered in the Columbian election and require an immediate end to all aid, civilian or military, to Columbia.

There would then follow some sort of coup, which the media would respond to with a great sigh of “Democracy Restored to Columbia” as the US fell over itself to be the first to recognize the new junta.

This being a Democratic presidency, the coup probably won’t be directly instigated by the CIA.

Wuzza-wuzzup, downer debby loony libs? Looks like the IgMeister’s column has you commie chumps all super sad! Why is that? Unable to grasp glorious victory in Iraq? Or is that you can smell your impending doom coming a million miles away, when ConservoVictory ’10 marches on Washington and replaces Pelosi’s Crappy Congress with a rightful conservative one, while the Obummer shakes and quakes in his boots over what’s gonna happen in 2012! Super Sarah, the Power Palin, ring a bell?

Badoodle-boo-yeah, it should! You just got served that SPREAD, libs. Urban out.

OT but fascinating response to S,N!’s girlfriend, Megan McFuckyoujackIgotmineardle: http://www.archive.org/details/DespiteTheDownturnAnAnswerAlbum

Wait — you weren’t convinced by Mr. My Lai Cover-Up waving around his little jar of All Natural Sea Salt his dessicated spurtings?

Fixxed for fapping

Fixxed for fapping

FiXXXed for fapping, no?

God, we are such fucking buffoons. How does the rest of the planet put up with us?

By offering buffoons of their own?

FiXXXed for fapping, no?

Colin Powell? You have an inflated sense of his manliness.

God, we are such fucking buffoons. How does the rest of the planet put up with us?

The largest military by far on the planet, biggest economy in world history, the ability to buy and sell many large nations for cash…

God, we are such fucking buffoons. How does the rest of the planet put up with us?

It certainly helped our credibility. I think the best one was Colin Powel’s Ryan Leaf style bitchout at a reporter. “You guys quit it, I’m serious! whaaaaa!” Supreme Jackass.

By offering buffoons of their own?

Yeah, but our buffoons have nuclear weapons!

Fixxed for fapping

It is LUNCHTIME here.

The largest military by far on the planet, biggest economy in world history, the ability to buy and sell many large nations for cash…

Might makes right, bitchez…

It is LUNCHTIME here.

Whatcha eating?

My ongoing deficit of nookie is sadly a tragedy upon which historians will comment.

Also note that if you go the wrong way (up) on the Exxon Ramp, you run the risk of eventually Jumping The Shark* … & that would be worse than a tragedy, it would be a crime against the free market worse than the Holocaust & Creed put together – & it’d make The Baby Ronald McDonald cry.

——————–
* In fact, more like Faking Out The Shark, which patiently waits at the bottom of said Ramp for an easy meal.

Let’s say I write an article about the oil spill in the Gulf, accurately assessing the responsibility this way:

Dick Cheney screwed up by authorized the drilling

Barack Obama screwed up by having Ken Salazar oversee the Interior Department.

Both of those are valid arguments based on the facts of the story. Both of those would piss someone off.

That doesnt change the fact that the article is truthful, accurate and factual. In other words, good reporting.

Yeah, but still, you’re arguing that it’s NOT IMPOSSIBLE that a story that pisses off both sides is good reporting. Ignatius isn’t saying that. He’s saying that the idea that pissing off both sides NECESSARILY MEANS good reporting is still “valuable,” despite supposedly admitting that Katherine Graham was right in saying that that was bull.

Whatcha eating?

OATMEAL.

I am home sick again and I am too lazy to cook anything. Except bacon.

Yeah, but still, you’re arguing that it’s NOT IMPOSSIBLE that a story that pisses off both sides is good reporting.

I think that’s what I’m saying, yes.

I’m saying that Graham’s statement allows for both possibilities across a period of time: good reporting that pisses people off because it challenges their beliefs and frigthens them into wondering if their world view is valid OR just getting the story wrong and pissing people off because you’ve insulted their intellect.

He’s saying that the idea that pissing off both sides NECESSARILY MEANS good reporting is still “valuable,” despite supposedly admitting that Katherine Graham was right in saying that that was bull.

What I think he’s saying is: Graham has a point, that some stories are crappy enough to insult people, but that point may not apply (in Ignatius’ mind) in this case.

In any case, his wording is clumsy. Which leads me to believe he’s deluding himself if he thinks he’s not insulting people.

John Bolton’s mustache is a Serious and Scary thing

Captain Kangaragnarok

I am home sick again and I am too lazy to cook anything. Except bacon.

Look, I warned you I was on antibiotics…

If the billion dollar media would just carry out its professed duties toward journalism, it wouldn’t be important if it ‘slanted’ one way or the other when characterized.

The long battle of the right and the corporate upper class has been against journalism.

There is no evidence, there is no truth, there is no verification, there’s just PR.

John Bolton’s mustache is a Serious and Scary thing

You know ELSE has a scary moustache ? And no, it’s not Tom Friedman.

You know ELSE has a scary moustache ?

John Stossel?

No shit, PeeJ.

When I saw dude’s picture, I was all like, “wait a minute…he’s got THAT mustache and he claims he can ‘reform’ gays?” The gaydar was going off like a civil defense siren.

Look, I warned you I was on antibiotics…,,

I have no idea what you’re talking about.

If the billion dollar media would just carry out its professed duties toward journalism, it wouldn’t be important if it ’slanted’ one way or the other when characterized.

Exactly. That’s what I was trying to get at when I said that they’re ideological in the sense that they’re pro-status quo. It’s just that’s not seen as ideological because it surrounds us like the air we breathe.

You know ELSE has a scary moustache ?

John Stossel?

Ned Flan-didly-anders.

I found this quote from I F Stone from 1963. Read it. See if it’s not as applicable today as it was fifty years ago:

The fault I find with most American newspapers is not the absence of dissent. It is the absence of news. With a dozen or so honorable exceptions, most American newspapers carry very little news.Their main concern is advertising. The main interest of our society is merchandising. All the so-called communications industries are primarily concerned not with communications, but with selling. This is obvious on television and radio but it is only a little less obvious in the newspapers. Most owners of newspapers are businessmen, not newspapermen. The news is something which fills the spaces left over by the advertisers. The average publisher is not only hostile to dissenting opinion, he is suspicious of any opinion likely to antagonize any reader or consumer. The late Colonel McCormick, in his Chicago Tribune, ran a paper about as different as possible from mine in outlook. But I admired him. He stood for something, he was a newspaperman, he gave the Tribune personality and character. Most U.S. papers stand for nothing. They carry prefabricated news, prefabricated opinion, and prefabricated cartoons. There are only a handful of American papers worth reading —The New York Times, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Washington Post, The Washington Star, The Baltimore Sun, The Christian Science Monitor—these are news papers in the real sense of the term. But even here opinion is often timid; the cold war and the arms race are little questioned though these papers do speak up from time to time on civil liberty. There are only a few maverick daily papers left like the York (Pennsylvania) Gazette and Daily and the Madison (Wisconsin) Capital Times. All this makes it easy for a one-man four-page Washington paper to find news the others ignore, and of course opinion they would rarely express.

center

imaginary

this is really just lazy thinking

Sure, it _used to be untrue_ but now that it’s been repeated, without question, for so long by so many, it is now TRUE. More than true, it is now a fact. Doncha see?

What I like to call the “Hunting Of The Snark Principle” – “what I tell you three times is true”

When I saw dude’s picture, I was all like, “wait a minute…he’s got THAT mustache and he claims he can ‘reform’ gays?” The gaydar was going off like a civil defense siren.

You’d think if he has the strength to carry that pornstache around he could carry his own suitcases…

Hope you feel better soon and can lunch on something more enticing than oatmeal. Not that there’s anything wrong with oatmeal…

Sure, it _used to be untrue_ but now that it’s been repeated, without question, for so long by so many, it is now TRUE. More than true, it is now a fact. Doncha see?

LOL grg found em undr tht tabel!

The radical Centrism of Dunces:

Fixt, since we talkin bout major league st00pit.

“The news is something which fills the spaces left over by the advertisers.”

I’m not sure truer words were ever written.

For years they focused on making advertisers happy while ignoring their news function—which they could do with impunity since people had very, very few options.

When the Internet came along, however, people decided to dump the shitty product on offer and go elsewhere. But that’s not what is killing them.

Instead of reacting correctly to the Internet—e.g., seeing the potential of online classifieds, focusing on serving their local community better, and, thus, creating a better product—they saw it as a threat and fought it every step of the way.

Their eventual solution was to gut the resources dedicated to what little news reporting they still did, and go instead to opinions and what I call “off the shelf” stories (those produced by other orgs and reprinted). Problem is, people can get the exact same stuff in a number of places, often for free.

That’s what is killing them. And, quite frankly, they deserve it for being so fucking stupid, arrogant, and most of the time, useless.

Of course, we should also note that crappy, lie-filled media isn’t exactly new — from the 18th century pamphleteers, to Hearst in the 19th and 20th, to Murdoch today, the media in America has always been filled with shitty reporting designed to increase profits instead of inform readers.

One would think that would have changed by now.

They think The Washington Post has an agenda

The Washington Post could not possibly have an agenda.

Hope you feel better soon and can lunch on something more enticing than oatmeal.

Thanks! It’s actually not so bad with lots of cinnamon and honey.

I’m not sure truer words were ever written.

Izzy Stone was one of the great leftist journalists in this nation’s history.

It’s funny how the left has really good journalists, but the right does not. Izzy Stone, George Seldes, Howard Zinn, Victor Navasky, Katrina van den Heuvel, Robert Greenwald, Danny Schecter, among a whole host of others…but the right has…?

*crickets chirping*

I’m sure they must have SOMEone, I just can’t think of anyone at the moment.

After doing everything they could do to destroy Gore and put Bush in the White House, they just kept being the lying shitweasels they had become.

The Washington Post could not possibly have an agenda.

They simply want to fill your head with fear and loathing along with wanting you to pass through their pay wall.

but the right has…?

I’m sure they must have SOMEone, I just can’t think of anyone at the moment.

Brit Hume!

I’m sure they must have SOMEone, I just can’t think of anyone at the moment.

OK, two came to mind: Caitlin Flangan and Nick Gillespie.

The reason you haven’t heard of them is they rarely write something so stupid that it hits S,N!’s radar. Not that I agree with them, but they can usually back up their spewings with facts, not opinion masquerading as truth in a garter belt and Hush Puppies.

Brit Hume!

I said “journalist” not “shower toy for cellblock C at Allenwood Federal Penitentiary”.

OK, two came to mind: Caitlin Flangan and Nick Gillespie.

Wait, are we talking about *good* journalists? Because I would have to respectfully disagree.

I said “journalist” not “shower toy for cellblock C at Allenwood Federal Penitentiary”.

Woops my bust*.

*VhumeintheshowerR

But srsly. This is a great book.

God, how the mainstream corporate media and their members (in every sense of the word members) just don’t want to realize that they cemented their financial defeat at the hands of the Internet’s free press, with their utterly unreliable and shitty coverage of the run-up to Iraq.

@Mysticdog:

Nah, I have to disagree. Useful journalism is out there, and tidbits of usefulness still slip out in the infotainment business that can still be strung together by people who are paying attention.

I’d agree with that; there are still people out there doing solid investigative reporting–the trick is finding them. But that wasn’t really the point of my complaint. What bugs me is shit like this bit from Iggy:

Too often, news consumers don’t want to be challenged. They want to be informed, yes, but also bolstered in their views. And here’s the part that worries me most (and not just because it threatens my paycheck): Many consumers of news seem to trust the new ideologically embedded media over the traditional independent media. They think The Washington Post has an agenda; they think the mainstream media as a whole are tainted and biased.

To be scrupulously fair, he’s got something resembling a point with that last bit; wingnuts have been screaming “ZOMG LIBRUL BIAS!!!” forever, and unfortunately the lie has stuck. The problem, as Iggy himself acknowledges in the next graf, is that entirely too many journalists have adopted this reflexive “centrist” position as a result, and it skews their reporting just as badly as being unbashedly right or left leaning would. Sometimes one side is clearly right and the other just as clearly full of shit; in those cases, the “he-said-she-said” narrative only perpetuates the appearance of a controversy where there isn’t one. Worse, it gives cover to wingnuts who peddle their ideological snake oil under the “objective centrist” or “libertarian” labels. If Iggy wants to win back readers, figuring out where the truth really lies rather than bowing reflexively to Almighty Centrism might be a good place to start.

Some awesome Gavin tearing Nick Gillespie’s shit up.

Wait, are we talking about *good* journalists?

No, we’re talking good right wing journalists. I know, the bar’s very low.

Sometimes one side is clearly right and the other just as clearly full of shit;

Bingo, Buddy. But, unfortunately, there seems to be this wistful hope by those on the right to just be in power forever; without changing with the times. While we all have a left leaning bias, it’s mainly because most people are — until they’re pockets get picked. It is the Right that has managed to somehow convince people that giving up money to their gov’t is good for them (while it most certainly is not) and giving money to the left is somehow an affront on God, country and (insert other “holy” thing here).

Meanwhile, history is lost on everyone. As actor’s blog illustrates — and it hurts to whore for him — the Left has done more Good for this country than the Right. It’s obvious. And it all won’t change until the Left uses the same evil tactics the Right does, but for Good.

Some awesome Gavin tearing Nick Gillespie’s shit up.

Yea, he’s an idiot in terms of his conclusions, but he does his homework and I note most of Gavin’s post deals with Bobo Wens and the bit that deals with Gillespie talks about the conclusions he’s reached, which I’m not endorsing.

It’s almost like the Pentagon’s media manipulation offices were by this time bored and wondering, “Fuck, what can’t we get them to print?

My personal favorite was that Saddam had huge, person-sized paper shredders that he fed people into, alive. What is this, a Justice League episode? Come on.

The problem, as Iggy himself acknowledges in the next graf, is that entirely too many journalists have adopted this reflexive “centrist” position as a result, and it skews their reporting just as badly as being unbashedly right or left leaning would.

This.

Reporting shouldn’t be about whether you reported from the left, the right or the center.

It should be about whether you reported from the FACTS. Period.

People have biases, and to ask them to try to “play fair” is ludicrous. But if that same person tells me what they learned, what facts I need to know, I don’t care.

As actor’s blog illustrates — and it hurts to whore for him

Is the dispenser out of lube again?

Is the dispenser out of lube again?

Don’t play dumb with me. I saw you emptying it this morning.

No, we’re talking good right wing journalists. I know, the bar’s very low.

Okay, I can sort of see Gillespie, but Flanagan just wrote a steaming pile of shit not long ago in which she concluded that poor people have access to good food by visiting one grocery store that she determined to be in the ‘hood.

Oh, and when I say “not long ago,” I mean 4 months ago. Where the fuck has this year gone???

…Our late Post publisher Katharine Graham once chided some of us, “Just because you are getting attacked from both the left and right doesn’t mean you’re doing a good job.” She was right, but it’s still a useful index.

BULLSHIT. BULLLLSHIT.

What’s more dominant? Left or right in this country? And let’s make sure we include “corporate” in the right column. Corporate as captured in the over-arching Merkin ideal of “The Bidness of Merka is Bidness.”

Our culture, its messages, media, politicians and overarching cultural mindest is based on money, having more of it, and buying more crap. Period.* The idea that there is some meaningful “left” that counter-balances this dominant paradigm (sue me, I said it) is a joke. An unfunny one at that.

Journalism should (and must, if it ever to have any relevance) take this fact into account and not seek one-to-one ratios of right/left critique but instead step outside faux balancing act and address issues with the knowledge that real facts and the truth (such as it can be defined and captured) is going to run counter to the narrative provided by the dominant paradigm (sue me, again, go ahead)-reinforcing noise machine.

*Present company excepted–you know who you are. Smoke ’em if you got ’em (VPR–if you want it to be).

/rant from former reporter

To be scrupulously fair, he’s got something resembling a point with that last bit; wingnuts have been screaming “ZOMG LIBRUL BIAS!!!” forever, and unfortunately the lie has stuck.

It’s true that the media has been labeled as liberal. It’s also true that they cower in fear of the “can’t lose” argument “Well, this is just liberal bias.” The point is that whether the media has a liberal bias or not, responding to it by sucking teabagger PENIS was unequivocally the wrong answer. The lie has stuck because the fucking idiot MSM validated it. When you cave in to pressure to become right wing so that you don’t give the impression that you’re liberal, you end up abandoning principle to buy off an audience who can’t even comprehend the shit you write/say. It’s difficult to walk back when you’ve painted yourself into a corner.

My personal favorite was that Saddam had huge, person-sized paper shredders that he fed people into, alive.

I have one of those in my backyard.

As actor’s blog illustrates — and it hurts to whore for him

I know what you’re alluding to: that quote from The West Wing.

Funny thing. Everytime some knucklehead challenges me on that quote, they always point out that Republicans passed welfare or some such.

The quote specifies “liberals” so I point that out to them, and remind them that liberals are no longer welcome in their party.

Lowell Weicker, Jacob Javits, Nelson Rockefeller, all must be spinning in their graves (nevermind Teddy Roosevelt and Abe Lincoln!) at what has become the GOP.

My personal favorite was that Saddam had huge, person-sized paper shredders that he fed people into, alive. What is this, a Justice League episode? Come on.

WHAT??? I don’t remember that. That’s hilare.

Oh, also, I would say that I think it’s inherently more difficult to be a “good” right-wing journalist because right-wingers are fucking shills for the establishment. That normally doesn’t make for good journalism.

Oh, and when I say “not long ago,” I mean 4 months ago‘

Three bad articles a year?

Hell, the entire crew at NRO couldn’t write three GOOD articles in a year!

My personal favorite was that Saddam had huge, person-sized paper shredders that he fed people into, alive. What is this, a Justice League episode? Come on.

I did a big takedown on that whole thing on my blog, but I can’t be arsed to link to it directly right now.

Short story – it was something some Welsh legislator got up her nose and just snowballed from there.

Likely there are STILL people who believe it; that’s how fucked up our lovely country has become.

Don’t play dumb with me. I saw you emptying it this morning.

I ran out of hair gel!

I think it was along about Feb. 2006, if anyone cares to look.

that quote from The West Wing.

Yes, that is what I am alluding to. And, before I even knew you existed I would throw the same things at my mainly-conservative family. To which they’d respond: Yeah, but you don’t care about National Security. But then I talk about encroaching Police States and they roll their eyes. That’s when I’d get really drunk and try and fight my cousin. The holidays are fun.

Three bad articles a year?

Could be more. I don’t know…I don’t regularly read her. I’m not sure I’m willing to set the bar that low, even for right-wingers.

Short story – it was something some Welsh legislator got up her nose and just snowballed from there.

Wales?

Of course. It had to be.

Too often, news consumers don’t want to be challenged. They want to be informed, yes, but also bolstered in their views.

Fixed.

I ran out of hair gel!

You were not applying it to your head…err.

My personal favorite was that Saddam had huge, person-sized paper shredders that he fed people into, alive. What is this, a Justice League episode? Come on.

WHAT??? I don’t remember that. That’s hilare.

Oh, also, I would say that I think it’s inherently more difficult to be a “good” right-wing journalist because right-wingers are fucking shills for the establishment. That normally doesn’t make for good journalism.

That was a good one, but the vortex of teh st00pit was all of the hand-wringing about Saddam having used chemical weapons in the past. That was true, but who in the FUCK gave him those fucking things? Why did we do it? Where were we looking when he used them?

The story always seemed to end at Saddam used chemical weapons! He’s trying to use them on us! That little background story is relevant–even if the “we’re the bestest evar” crowd doesn’t like it.

The holidays are fun.

You know, I haven’t experienced a drunken family political fight since childhood…I feel like I’m missing out on an American pastime.

If not for anything, you have to admit, the right sure can denydenydeny better than anyone else.

Found it!

I would not pretend that traditional journalists are free of implicit, unexamined biases. In the name of non-ideological reporting, we tend to converge toward the center bend over backwards trying to please the right, forgetting that bipartisanship, in itself, is an ideological statement. Too often, mainstream journalism doesn’t see or report what’s on the wings actually going on, right and left unless the facts have been vetted and approved by the right, which happens rarely enough.

Fixed.

You know, I haven’t experienced a drunken family political fight since childhood

It’s so pointless because my entire family is conservative, Republican AND military. While I Support Our Troops, I don’t think they belong where they currently deployed. I am always cool, calm and collect until they fly off the handle with personal attacks about my “lack of anything accomplished”. Whatever “accomplished” means — I haven’t bothered to look it up.

To put it more succinctly: if my choices were restricted to “Die faster, old media” or “BoBo smashing a human face with his column–forever,” I’d rather just burn the motherfucker down and see if something better emerges from the internets.

Likely there are STILL people who believe it; that’s how fucked up our lovely country has become.

There are STILL people who think Saddam was in on 9/11. I heard this once, discussing Iraq: “but they flew planes into our buildings!” I gave up at that point, realizing I would get farther trying to explain it to my black labrador than this stupid fucking bitch.

It really is scary how many people refuse to face the amount of death and destruction that has gone on since 2003 in Iraq. As long as we have our SUV’s and plasma TV’s so we don’t miss any fucking reality TV, we don’t worry too much about a war.

[Rekers] wrote: “If you talk with my travel assistant… you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.”

I don’t think “Take. Eat. This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” was an invitation to suck dick.

sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.”

Fail. Mutually exclusive. Busted lying. Can’t do both.

Whatever “accomplished” means — I haven’t bothered to look it up.

Heh. I have a feeling it wouldn’t matter as long as you’re a lazy hippie.

This reminds me of the time my dad told my youngest brother that it was up to him to succeed because my other brother (who’s an Aspie!) and I had let him down. I was 23 years old at the time, and the worst thing I’d done was getting an English degree. Oh, family. Why do you suck?

All, but the “scientific” seed has now been planted, no? Next it will be an admission of being a bottom, but only in the name of research. Just had to be sure that buttsecks is really as disgusting as I say it is. The results were inconclusive.

actor, if you get a chance, watch Colbert’s take on it.

“Technically, I believe he was looking for someone to hoist his sack.” -Stephen T Colbert

“If you talk with my travel assistant… you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail.”

Oh, shit. That’s the funniest shit I’ve read in quite a while.

Funny thing. Everytime some knucklehead challenges me on that quote, they always point out that Republicans passed welfare or some such.

The quote specifies “liberals” so I point that out to them, and remind them that liberals are no longer welcome in their party.

It’s like the “we can’t be racists, we freed the slaves!” crap they always pull out. What has the GOP done for them since the adoption of the southern strategy?

It’s so pointless because my entire family is conservative, Republican AND military. While I Support Our Troops, I don’t think they belong where they currently deployed. I am always cool, calm and collect until they fly off the handle with personal attacks about my “lack of anything accomplished”. Whatever “accomplished” means — I haven’t bothered to look it up.

Ditto (and much of my extended family’s military/veteran also). I have no problem with the “Support Our Troops” logic, until it’s extended to

1) “Support Our Troops And Every War They’ve Ever Fought, Because None Of Those Fucking Politicians We Hate Would Ever, Ever, Ever, Ever, Ever Send Them To Fight A War That Shouldn’t Be Fought,”

or 2) “Support Our Troops Because No One Else Deserves It.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein's_alleged_shredder

“In the runup to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, press stories appeared in the United Kingdom and United States of a plastic shredder into which Saddam and Qusay Hussein fed opponents of their Baathist rule. These stories attracted worldwide attention and boosted support for military action, in stories with titles such as “See men shredded, then say you don’t back war”. A year later, it was determined there was no evidence to support the existence of such a machine.”

I’m very lucky to be in a mostly liberal family. Our discussions go something like the discussions on that one website…um….sickly not?

I have a feeling it wouldn’t matter as long as you’re a lazy hippie.

Exactly. Meanwhile, I feel like I’m the smartest one in the room but, because I have the smallest income it doesn’t matter. Oh, hi America, how are you?

Next it will be an admission of being a bottom, but only in the name of research. Just had to be sure that buttsecks is really as disgusting as I say it is. The results were inconclusive.

World-O-Crap (link over ——————> there) has a post up this week about an “ex-gay activist” trying very very hard to get a date with Ricky Martin to try to set him straight.

I swear, you can hear the show tunes he was listening to as he typed.

There are STILL people who think Saddam was in on 9/11. I heard this once, discussing Iraq: “but they flew planes into our buildings!” I gave up at that point, realizing I would get farther trying to explain it to my black labrador than this stupid fucking bitch.

It really is scary how many people refuse to face the amount of death and destruction that has gone on since 2003 in Iraq. As long as we have our SUV’s and plasma TV’s so we don’t miss any fucking reality TV, we don’t worry too much about a war.

I had a conversation like this with a college friend of mine recently in which she said that after all, Saddam DID have WMDs. What do you mean, no he didn’t? Well then, he must have moved them to Syria, Chris! And it’s not fair of you to think otherwise!

In and of itself, that statement would be stupid enough; but what’s really scary is that said friend graduated after majoring in international relations and security studies, and has been looking for a job as an analyst in the intelligence community since getting out. Well, forgive me for being mean… but if you have an undergrad degree in national defense studies and you’re still fucking stupid enough to think Saddam had WMDs, you have no business working for the CIA. They have enough problems of their own without having to put up with delusional analysts.

http://pereubu.blogspot.com/2006/05/plot-thickens.html

I am cursed with a compulsion to look things up, obviously.

I have no problem with the “Support Our Troops” logic, until it’s extended to

Even then I support the troops.

Just not the fucking assholes who deploy them.

delusional analysts

I think you mean “Upper Management.”

Redundantly also, too.

Well then, he must have moved them to Syria, Chris! And it’s not fair of you to think otherwise!

This is a fantastic argument. It reminds of me of getting shot when I was 5–BUT NOT REALLY! I got shields x infinity. Suck on that libz! Woohoo!

Yes, the elusive mobile weapons. Maybe then went to Syria on Colin Powell’s choo choo trains. Or maaaaayyyyyyybe Iran stole them. Yeah, that’s it. Shorter CIA: This is way easier when you don’t have to actually look to see what’s going on! Time for a drink!

Has sh!t gotten so insane that Ahmandinejad sounds logical? Or am I a ‘tard?

Meanwhile, I feel like I’m the smartest one in the room but, because I have the smallest income it doesn’t matter. Oh, hi America, how are you?

I’m lucky that the family I keep contact with aren’t like that at all. It would be kind of ridiculous if they were, since nobody’s really that well-off. My husband’s family, OTOH…

As far as the original post goes;

Like most of what’s fucked up about our national security policy, it goes back to Vietnam. That was the first time reporters had brought the graphic reality of war into everyone’s living room, which many militarists feel helped turn the public against the war. So ever since, SOP has been to keep the media from ever reporting anything other than “Go USA!” Demonization of the “mainstream media” plays a huge role in that and is in large part why outlets like Fox News or the right-wing blogosphere exist in the first place.

During the Gulf War, liberal media giant CNN covered smart bomb hits as viewed from the airplanes that had fired them, and it became an overnight sensation and the image of modern war. What CNN never reported was that those humane, discriminating smart bombs constituted only 3% of the bombs dropped on Iraq, everything else being good old-fashioned Vietnam era materials. CNN never recorded the humanitarian disasters caused by the carpet-bombings, either. But what else would you expect from an unpatriotic station whose only agenda is to make the troops look bad?

They have enough problems of their own without having to put up with delusional analysts.

I suspect that they keep a few of those around just in case. It can be difficult to find an investigator/analyist who will try to prove an accusation with no basis in fact, instead of let the facts guide the conclusion.

Yes, the elusive mobile weapons. Maybe then went to Syria on Colin Powell’s choo choo trains.

My recollection of this story was that it originated with Mossad.

Gee…the Israelis wouldn’t have a vested interest in the US pouring arms and money into a war just over their horizon, would they?

Hey, what was the name of that NBC reporter that died while embedded? He developed a deep leg thrombosis, I think, from sitting on his ass in a Hummer for so damned long he lost feeling in his knees.

Even then I support the troops.

Just not the fucking assholes who deploy them.

Well, yes.

Yes, the elusive mobile weapons. Maybe then went to Syria on Colin Powell’s choo choo trains. Or maaaaayyyyyyybe Iran stole them. Yeah, that’s it. Shorter CIA: This is way easier when you don’t have to actually look to see what’s going on! Time for a drink!

My only question is, if he had doomsday weapons and they really did go to war, then why the hell didn’t we follow them into Syria? Those are existential threats, aren’t they.

But what else would you expect from an unpatriotic station whose only agenda is to make the troops look bad?

There is where the right wing is genius. They turn their crappy war strategy into “you hate the troops” or “why don’t you love our country?”. Meanwhile, every normal persons thinks “I love our troops and our country. I just hate that we have morons in charge of both.”

Or am I a ‘tard?

YOU STOP MAKING FUN OF TRIG!

But really, he sounds about as logical as he usually sounds–there always seem to be nuggets of truth in his batshit insanity.

“I’m quite surprised, to see that you adjust your daily lives based on the news that is being broadcast.”

Ouch.

Hey, what was the name of that NBC reporter that died while embedded

David Bloom?

That’s the one! Bloom. Thanks.

I luuuuuuuuuv the troops so much I support a President 100% who will send them overseas to have their legs blown off for reasons I’m not entirely sure of and when they come back I will support the troops even more by complaining about my taxes that are used to provide their medical treatment and other benefits. Yay troops!

My recollection of this story was that it originated with Mossad.

Possibly. I’m more inclined to think that the administration attributed it to Mossad in order to build support–but shit, you can’t believe anything that was going around back then. You cannot tell me that Colin Powell believed that those pictures of trains represented mobile weaponry laboratories. He knew better, Mossad knew better, the whole fucking world knew better. Everyone except the chickenshit, cuntly little cowards here who like war, but hate terrorism.

But really, he sounds about as logical as he usually sounds–there always seem to be nuggets of truth in his batshit insanity.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about the bin Laden-in-DC talk, but a lot of the things he says about us going into Afghanistan to find bin Laden was “…like for a judge to arrest someone and then go after the evidence.”

Eeesh…

You cannot tell me that Colin Powell believed that those pictures of trains represented mobile weaponry laboratories. He knew better,

The one good thing I can think of that came out of that is that Colin Powell fucking destroyed any career he might have had after that. When you lie down with dogs…

Has sh!t gotten so insane that Ahmandinejad sounds logical? Or am I a ‘tard?

Well, considering that he was talking to George Snuffleupagus he pretty much had to sound more rational, didn’t he?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about the bin Laden-in-DC talk, but a lot of the things he says about us going into Afghanistan to find bin Laden was “…like for a judge to arrest someone and then go after the evidence.”

Yup. And his questioning of why we haven’t caught him yet and if Steph is even sure that they don’t know where he is…

Well, considering that he was talking to George Snuffleupagus he pretty much had to sound more rational, didn’t he?

hahaha That’s what the problem was!

There is where the right wing is genius. They turn their crappy war strategy into “you hate the troops” or “why don’t you love our country?”. Meanwhile, every normal persons thinks “I love our troops and our country. I just hate that we have morons in charge of both.”

There’s no genius in that. The problem is that all liberals have to respond with is “nuh uh. we love our country and stuff too”, instead of saying something like “sending our soldiers–fathers, mothers, sons, daughters–into combat unless it is doubtlessly necessary IS MURDER. Or treason–feel free to expand on that as you all feel fit.

The one good thing I can think of that came out of that is that Colin Powell fucking destroyed any career he might have had after that. When you lie down with dogs…

LOL–the alpha dog mounts up!

There’s no genius in that.

I know, I was being snarktastic…

But, it’s just so blatantly stupid of the media and the country to blindly follow these people over the edge. We can’t catch one guy (bin Laden), we had two endless, victor-less wars, we have drones’ video feeds that are easily hacked, we trust people who end up blowing themselves up next to us.. what, pray tell, is there to trust in terms of Safety?

There’s no genius in that. The problem is that all liberals have to respond with is “nuh uh. we love our country and stuff too”, instead of saying something like “sending our soldiers–fathers, mothers, sons, daughters–into combat unless it is doubtlessly necessary IS MURDER. Or treason–feel free to expand on that as you all feel fit.

No, liberals (not the politicians, but other liberals) have argued that too, and then the conservatives just repeat their initial position, but louder and angrier.

Hey, I’m sorry to temporarily thread-jack here…but I’m having a shitty-ass problem…and I desperately need some help. I hired someone to design a website for me. Well, she designed it, then asked her friend to code the design. Well, it’s been over a month now and my website is still sitting empty. I just asked the coder what’s up and he seems in no rush to finish. Well, I fucking AM. Does anyone here do coding? There’s money in it…obviously. *sigh*

Again, sorry to interrupt. Normally I wouldn’t go all drama queen on this board, but I’m feeling sort of desperate here.

Sorry, vacuumslayer, I’m a novice at best.

Has sh!t gotten so insane that Ahmandinejad sounds logical? Or am I a ‘tard?

Well duh, yes.

I am currently planning a expedition to the Pacific Northwest to bring back definitative proof of the existence of Sasquatch. This has been a project that has long been in the planning stages, costing thousands of dollars and many hours of research. There has never, I repeat never been an extended expedition to the Pacific Northwest region with the sole purpose of producing irrefutiable evidence of the existence of the species of giant man-like ape known as the Sasquatch. I will be leading a six man team on a month long expedition in the Northern Cascade mountians of Washington State.

We will be briniging with us many thousands of dollars worth of equiptment dedicated to the pursuit and possible capture of this elusive animal. Many self proclaimed “skeptics” and uneducated lay people assume that a large nomadic animal such as the Sasquatch would not be able to remain “hidden” to science in our modern high tech age in which our contintent has been thoughly “charted” and “explored”. Many people assume that just because there are maps covering the entire continent that every region has been explored and surveyed throughly. What these same people often fail to realize are the ways in which these maps are made. Before the invention of aircraft, wilderness regions regions were typically mapped by exploring rivers and coastlines, noting mountain peaks and other landmarks visable from shore, and filing in the rest by guesswork or by word of mouth from hardy individuals who traveled off the beaten track and lived to tell (or sometimes fabricate) the tale. It was a haphazard method at best, fraught with pitfalls. In 1961 author Ivan Sanderson discovered that Northern California had last been “surveyed” in 1859, while around the same time, a mountain range in South America was found to be misplaced by some 200 miles on standard maps! Modern maps are enhanced by ariel and sattelite photography, but for all their marvelous applications in espionage, those high-tech methods reveal nothing of wildlife beneath the treetops, be it in Africa, Southeast Asia or the Pacific Northwest.

So what is the present state of exploration in “civilized” North America? Canada, sprawling over 3.9 million square miles, is the second largest country on Earth. Its average population density of eight persons per square mile qualifies the whole nation as wilderness, but even that distinction is deceptive, since 46% of Canada’s people reside in nine large cities, all but one of them within 100 miles of the U.S. border. When we subtract the Urban population from Canada’s total, the country’s population density drops to 4.7 persons per square mile. Ninety percent of British Colombia is virtually uninhabited, and the northern provinces are wilder still: The Yukon Territory boasts 16 persons per 100 square miles; The Northwest Territories has only seven persons per 100 square miles; and Nunavut has only three per 100 square miles.

The United States, with an average of 80 persons per square mile, is more densely populated than Canada, but once again large urban populations skew the figures. Nationwide, huge tracts of wilderness, mountain ranges, deserts, forests, swamps and “bottomlands,” state and national parks remain largely uninhabited and unexplored. In July 2002, a New York Times report pinpointed “America’s wildest valley” along the North Fork of Montana’s Flathead River, abutting Glacier National Park and the Canadian border. (Statewide, rural Montana’s population density is only 3.9 persons per square mile.) Other wilderness areas rival that site for remoteness, and a study of large scale maps quickly reveals a correlation between U.S. cryptid sightings and the nation’s underpopulated regions.

In short , there are countless places for cryptids to hide on Earth, particularly since most “mainstream” scientists refuse to look for them at all. So as you have seen, it is more than possible for a large bipedal ape inhabiting the more remote regions of North America to remain “hidden” from “mainstream” science. It is my hope that this expedition is fruitful. My team is currently divided between the “kill” and “no kill” camps. While each side of the debate on whether it is justified to kill a speciman of Sasquatch in order to prove its existence has its pros and cons, I myself remain on the fence about the issue. Our expedition will have two high-powered rifles in our possession, but as the Expedition Leader, the final decision on whether or not to kill a specimen of Sasquatch in order to prove its existence will be mine.

Well, that’s great. But that’s not gonna get my site coded.

It didn’t take long. But that’s just “Lucien” opening up. Who knows when Rekers will respond. Good thing I stocked up on popcorn.

<i.we knew President George W. Bush had already made his decision […] and most editors were focused on figuring out how best to report it.

You would think that when a President Obama has already made his decision to reform health care, most editors would focus on figuring how best to report it.

I am currently planning a expedition to the Pacific Northwest to bring back definitative proof of the existence of Sasquatch.

Why go thru all that effort?

Just visit this address:

National Review
215 Lexington Ave, Fl 11
New York, NY 10016-6023

Ask the receptionist for “Jonah Goldberg”

Or “Katherine Lopez” if you’re interested in securing a pair for mating.

VS, try mikey out. He’s looking for work.

http://yougotttaconsiderthesource.blogspot.com/

Thanks, Sub. I’m heading over there now.

Also, thanks for da response, Esteev.

Welcome back Josh.

My team is currently divided between the “kill” and “no kill” camps.

You just kill half of them.

The escort, dubbed “Lucien” by the Miami New Times, told the paper that Rekers paid him to provide daily massages, in the nude. The massages included Rekers’ favorite move, Lucien said, which he dubbed “the long stroke.”

OMG! Rekers is The Fool?

Alas, Ms. Hooverdeath, my coding skills don’t know nuffin ’bout no interducts. Can I interest you in a real time operating system?

The escort, dubbed “Lucien” by the Miami New Times, told the paper that Rekers paid him to provide daily massages, in the nude. The massages included Rekers’ favorite move, Lucien said, which he dubbed “the long stroke.”

OMG! Rekers is…no, it’s unpossible! Quick! Someone find a Ramones record and play it for him!

Thank you Substance. I’m glad to be here. I have been spending many long hours on research. Particulary for this expedition which has been almost two years in the planning stage.

“Can I interest you in a real time operating system?”

Yes. Especially since my Mac seems so fucking laggy sometimes.

“In the runup to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, press stories appeared in the United Kingdom and United States of a plastic shredder into which Saddam and Qusay Hussein fed opponents of their Baathist rule. These stories attracted worldwide attention and boosted support for military action, in stories with titles such as “See men shredded, then say you don’t back war”. A year later, it was determined there was no evidence to support the existence of such a machine.”

And yet I was still pulling the wings off this bullshit in 2006.

And yet I was still pulling the wings off this bullshit in 2006.

You’re just a little…slow, is all 😉

No mention of Teh Buttocks. I call “Fake Josh”. He may be a cryptid in disguise.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH REAL JOSH?!!

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH REAL JOSH?!!

Hey, now! “This” “Josh” “at least” “knows” “how to use” “commas”.

I am currently planning a expedition to the Pacific Northwest

Yay! Bring back some good weed, willya? It’s kinda dry around here…

While cryptozoology may seem like an exciting carreer filled with mystery and adventure. And believe me it is, I love what I do. It must be remembered that 70% of all cryptozoology is done in the library reading books and old manuscripts and newspaper accounts of sightings.

Research occupies the majority of a cryptozoologists time, and can be fun in and of itself. But the real excitement of course lies in the other 30% of cryptozoology, the actual field work, which can be as diverse as an expedtion to the Pacific Northwest in search of Sasquatch, Hiking through the Congo jungle with pygmy guides hunting for relict dinosaurs such as Mokele Membe, Or on a sailboat in the North Atlantic hoping to sneak up on an unsuspecting sea serpent.

The adventure is the lure of our profession.

Christ, it looks like it’s still going!

I believe I saw a cite for it from last year. And, of course, I’m sure it’s ossified into trooth over at FreiRepublik.

*SIGH*

nice to see that there’s others out there debunking it now, though I wish they had been paying attention back in 2006.

See, Esteev, when you family gives you shit, point out that at least you are not a cryptozoologist. (I assume). Surely that will help?

Also, these cookies taste like Froot Loops. Gross.

Or on a sailboat in the North Atlantic hoping to sneak up on an unsuspecting sea serpent.

Again, why bother going to so much trouble?

All you need to do is wait until Memorial Day weekend, walk onto any beach on the Jersey Shore and you’ll find all the aquatic reptiles you could possibly want. Some even have breasts and big hair!

You would think that when a President Obama has already made his decision to reform health care, most editors would focus on figuring how best to report it.

My god man, healthcare reform will destroy this country.

That war has only cost ~4500 US military lives, something north of 200,000 Iraqi lives; it’s chewed through our projected budget surpluses, and hollowed out the Army from multiple deployments.

Have some perspective.

The problem, as Iggy himself acknowledges in the next graf, is that entirely too many journalists have adopted this reflexive “centrist” position as a result, and it skews their reporting just as badly as being unbashedly right or left leaning would.

My biggest problem is that too much of the “centrist” viewpoint isn’t even a little centrist. It is right wing, just usually couched in terms that are less offensive than “microchip brown people”. And while the “centrists” will pound on anything that moves even a little left of them, they are more than sympathetic to positions going to the right.

I don’t often see any actual policy support from centrists for leftists policies, just a willingness to sometimes say that leftists aren’t as evil as the right makes them out to be.

Say,Josh – you planning to be in the Portland area? I could show you my bone collection.

Surely that will help?

I’m afraid not. Unless I can sell if for a buttload* of cash

*veiled Rekers ref

I could show you my bone collection.

That sounds suspiciously similar to actor’s “etchings.”

Josh promised me he’d find out what he could about the Montauk Monster a couple of years ago and he hasn’t gotten back to me so I don’t have much faith that he’ll find Sasquatch. How are you going to search the Pacific Northwest for Sasquatch if you can’t manage the relatively tiny beaches of Montauk? Still, if Mikey is free I think Josh should invite him along to live blog the search and mediate the “kill Saquatch or don’t kill Saquatch” debate. If the moment arises that someone has a clear shot at Saquatch and a decision is necessary, Mikey will know what to do.

I prefer to do my cryptozoology research with Ouija board sessions over the Shroud of Turin. And with “Illuminati” cards.

That sounds suspiciously similar to actor’s “etchings.”

*whistling softly to self*

“I’m afraid not. Unless I can sell if for a buttload* of cash

*veiled Rekers ref”

Trust me, you don’t want paper cuts there.

“That sounds suspiciously similar to actor’s “etchings.””

You mean his treasured scribbled porn collection?

I prefer to do my cryptozoology research with Ouija board sessions over the Shroud of Turin. And with “Illuminati” cards.

Again, why go thru all that trouble?

A drop of mescaline in your onion soup and you’re good to go!

You mean his treasured scribbled porn collection?

Hang on…. “scribbled”?

Though I am not firmly in either the “kill” or “no kill camp” of the cryptid hunting debate, it is highly unlike that Sasquatch (the name is plural in case anyone was wondering) are the gentle forest guardians as depicted in film. Like any large animal, they are potentially dangerous, and many reports describle them as omnivores, meaning in addition to eating plants and berries, they have been observed actively hunting game such as deer and elk.

The high-powered rifles in our teams possession are mainly precautionary, as any large animal has the potential to be dangerous, particularly a large predatory animal. I am currently weighing the pros and cons of both the “kill” and “no kill” position before I make any final decsion as to the killing of a specimen.

Also, could we get that guy in here who posts the long screeds about Nostradamus disproving evolution?

“Hang on…. “scribbled”?”

Awww, don’t get me wrong. Your dirty drawings have a sort of rustic charm to them.

I’m afraid not. Unless I can sell if for a buttload* of cash

Yeah, I don’t know where you’d find a buyer for “AT LEAST I’M NOT A CRYPTOZOOLOGIST.” Sorry.

Seriously. Did they taste-test these things before they put them on the shelf?

they have been observed actively hunting game such as deer and elk.

So they’re rednecks?

I shot two bucks in one game of craps. Does that make me a bigfoot?

“Also, could we get that guy in here who posts the long screeds about Nostradamus disproving evolution?”

Because then it would be a real party?

“That sounds suspiciously similar to actor’s “etchings.””

You mean his treasured scribbled porn collection?

Shhhhhh…you’ll hurt his feelings!

You won’t need the high-powered rifles for noble Sasquatch, but for rampaging draculas.

Awww, don’t get me wrong. Your dirty drawings have a sort of rustic charm to them.

OK, cuz I’ve studied the masters: Picasso, Van Gogh, Groening, the four year old down the street who dabbles in poo.

Shhhhhh…you’ll hurt his feelings!

My artistry is wasted on this generation, but don’t worry, I’ll be having the last laugh after I’m dead and buried and my artwork is discovered!

“Shhhhhh…you’ll hurt his feelings!”

Awww, shit. actor knew I was a fan when I hung one of this pieces over my mantle. And when people see it and run away screaming and in tears I tell them they just don’t understand “art.”

“the four year old down the street who dabbles in poo.”

Glen Beck lives on your street?

I’ll be having the last laugh after I’m dead and buried and my artwork is discovered!

You keep telling yourself that, dear.

Glen Beck lives on your street?

*glancing left and right*

Who said that????

You keep telling yourself that, dear.

Don’t make me come back and haunt you.

I wonder what sasquatch would taste like? Surely nothing like

hazelnut-finished pork, with the goal of developing a truly Northwest prosciutto. Based in Portland, Oregon Tails & Trotters markets its exclusive heritage-breed hazelnut-fed pork and charcuterie (cured-meat products) to restaurants and retail outlets

And, from 3:00 to 8:00 this evening, at the Buckman farmer’s market in SouthEast.

I wonder what sasquatch would taste like? Surely nothing like

Peej, why do you hurt me so?

And yes, I have research the so called “montauk monster,” and it turned out to be merely a domestic bulldog that had decayed, thereby giving the apperance of an unknown monster.

I hung one of this pieces over my mantle
Are you sure that was really actor212, and not a zombie?

So they’re rednecks?

None have been seen at NASCAR tracks, however, so it’s not totally sure.

I’m sure I helped one at Wal-Mart, though.

Are you sure that was really actor212, and not a zombie?

The decaying flesh was a tell. A zombie would never waste food.

None have been seen at NASCAR tracks, however, so it’s not totally sure.

Sure about that, Pere?

Mr. St Lawrence:

Have you ever caught a dracula? Is it true they are sparkly and pretty and can go out in the sunlight? I need a date for prom/bodyguard to save me from bullies.

Thanks for your service to baseline humankind.

”
Are you sure that was really actor212, and not a zombie?”

Yeah, because it was way creepier than any zombie part. actor’s got some ISSUES.

Don’t make me come back and haunt you.

Oh, god. You would be the most lecherous ghost EVER, wouldn’t you?

But, Peej, I have the last laugh, as there is 2 pounds of prosciutto and 5 pounds of bacon in my house at this very moment!

Not hazelnut finished, though. 🙁

I know we’re busy discussing actor’s “art” and Sasquatch, but Chris had a great point above:

[The media’s coverage of Vietnam was so graphic and honest] many militarists feel [the media coverage] helped turn the public against the war.

I can’t count how many times some fucktard has tried telling me that “the reason we’re losing in Iraq is because of the media — just like Vietnam!!!one!!1”

Sadly, no!

The claim the media has an effect on public opinion about a war has been debunked … by a member of the U.S. Army. Short version:

It’s the policy, stupid, not the coverage of the policy.

It’s a great read if anyone is into the military and the media’s coverage of war.

The claim the media has an effect on public opinion about a war has been debunked … by a member of the U.S. Army.

And nobody spit on a returning Vietnam soldier.

And he di’nt steal no bike, neither!

You would be the most lecherous ghost EVER, wouldn’t you?

Your underwear drawer would need an exorcism.

Your underwear drawer would need an exorcism.

Which would be different from now, how?

77south unable to resist a cheap shot since 1973

Which would be different from now, how?

You mistake lice for ghosts, sir.

You mistake lice for ghosts, sir.

HEY!!!!!!

It was just the once, and I’m pretty sure I got them from you.

It was just the once, and I’m pretty sure I got them from you.

How do you think I knew about them?

Embedding arose because American journalists requested it.

Even this late in the thread, this still seems an odd way to defend journalists against the accusation that they allowed themselves to become war-porn producers and propagandists for atrocity — i.e. by saying that they asked to become war-porn producers and propagandists.

i.e. by saying that they asked to become war-porn producers and propagandists.

Sigh…

We all have our crosses to bear. No choice, nothing we could do. Of course embedding wouldn’t have been possible if you fuckheads had done your jobs before the war, but that would have interfered with your request to be embedded, right? Yeah. Thanks for your service to our nation. Thank you for promoting the idea of “surgical” bombing. Thanks for showing a city being reduced to ashes, and somehow managing to make it look like nobody died. Thanks for giving all these assholes, white house to company commanders, a platform from which to take a shit on the Constitution and sell the idea that war is peace to the stupid voters here.

The thing about Hussein is, even if he didn’t have a people shredder, he was still a murderous thug. I have no trouble believing he had torture chambers where horrible things were done to basically innocent people. That’s the way murderous thugs roll.

If we lived on a civilized planet, where the UN had genuine police power, and there was such a thing as international law, I would have had no trouble with an international force taking that fucker out. However, that is not what happened in 2003 and attempts by the US to make it sound like that’s what happened in 2003 are just transparent attempts to wrap naked aggression in pretty ribbons.

vacuumslayer, I have students (recent graduates, actually) who I am sure can help you out, if you are still looking. lurkingcanadian at gmail if you want me to put you in touch with them.

That war has only cost ~4500 US military lives, something north of 200,000 Iraqi lives; it’s chewed through our projected budget surpluses, and hollowed out the Army from multiple deployments.

Last time I checked, the count was upwards of a million Iraqi lives.

Were most of them taken by American forces? No. But most of them were taken in the complete chaos that followed the invasion, when the CPA sent the entire Iraqi army home and refused to do anything to fill the vacuum (it wasn’t until the vaunted “surge” of 2007 that “protecting civilians” became part of the military’s mission, and that entire change in strategy only happened because of the kick in the ass the 2006 midterms gave the fuckwad in chief).

So yes, the U.S. is very much responsible for those million deaths, the same way a cop would be culpable if he simply sat across the street with his thumb up his ass and watched a citizen get beaten to death.

Thank you for promoting the idea of “surgical” bombing.

You can’t do surgery with bombs. (Quote comes from Tom Clancy, of all people, in one of his 1980s novels – he all but forgot it in his later ones).

Also, thanks to Mark D for the link.

The thing about Hussein is, even if he didn’t have a people shredder, he was still a murderous thug. I have no trouble believing he had torture chambers where horrible things were done to basically innocent people. That’s the way murderous thugs roll.

If we lived on a civilized planet, where the UN had genuine police power, and there was such a thing as international law, I would have had no trouble with an international force taking that fucker out. However, that is not what happened in 2003 and attempts by the US to make it sound like that’s what happened in 2003 are just transparent attempts to wrap naked aggression in pretty ribbons.

This one deserved a separate post, because it’s central to why Republicans playing the human rights card are full of more shit than a Christmas turkey.

Saddam feeding people through a paper shredder is run of the mill for people like him, and far from being his worse work. His atrocities peaked at three points; one, the Iran war (1980-1988), during which he became the first person to use poison gas since World War One. Two, the Halabja gas attacks, when he turned these same weapons on his own Kurdish people (1989). Three, the pogrom after the Gulf War that raped the shit out of the entire Shi’a population in southern Iraq (1992).

During the Iran war, what did we do to stop him? Nothing. Mostly, we supported him – not comfortably it’s true (a leading U.S. official at the time said “Why can’t they both lose?”), but in the end, we thought he was better than the Iranians.

During the Halabja gas attacks, what did we do? Again, nothing. Worse than nothing; the State Department actually tried to blame the attack on the Iranians, despite all evidence to the contrary.

During the post-Gulf War pogrom, what did we do? Much, much worse than nothing; the White House actively encouraged the southern Shi’a to rebel against Saddam, then refused to support them once the shooting started (and to think Kennedy gets all this shit for the Bay of Pigs…)

All three of these things happened under Republican governments (Reagan for the war, Bush I for Halabja and southern Iraq). What’s more, all the architects of the current Iraq war are people who served under these administrations and had a hand in shaping and implementing those policies (Cheney and Rumsfeld especially). So, the idea that these people have ever, for even a second, thought about the welfare of the Iraqi people or Saddam’s human rights record when making policy is beyond ludicrous.

Nice analysis, Chris.