Fitz!

Duhhhh. Exposing my ignorance, and I’m not even a lurker – what’s the INR in the Fitz stories?
Heh, Jane, I figured out IIRC in only 6 months! Context, baby, context.

Oh great…and I was the guy who admitted I commented on not knowing much about Cohen….jeez! Yikes! Actually, I will take advantage of this good idea, in a few minutes. Carry on everyone…lord knows I’ve got a learning curve to conquer!
Ghostman

Thanks for the invite.

Is there any plan for a glossary or other type of link in the sidebar for the FDL to English impaired?

Fitz is a reference to Patrick Fitzgerald, the Special Prosecutor who has indicted “Scooter” Libby and who is about to indict Karl Rove.

It is a traditional first comment in each thread here at FDL (Firedoglake).

Lurkers—make sure you wear your helmets. Getting EPU’d is no joke.

It took me a long time to figure out what HTH means (hope this helps)! I suspect, though, it’s more than the shorthand that confuses people who are trying to follow the conversation. The regulars have running asides and inside jokes–they’re not necessary for following the main thread, but one can get lost in the subplots sometimes. I find them the best part of FDL some days.

Alright what is IIRC and EPUed
I get imho or imo and OT

Thanks,

Suzanne: love your idea

Colleen

mommybrain– Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR)

You resisted Google for a year and a half?

I still haven’t figured out IIRC. I assume it’s some sort of super secret intelligfence agency.

Seriously, though, if you are talking to the uninitiated general reader, should you really be using words like “de-lurk”?

Angie 9 – thanks, I never would have figured that one out. The initials, umm, would seem to have nothing to do with the name.

Great question mommybrain. It’s the State Department’s Intelligence Arm, which I assume interfaces with CIA, NSA, and the rest of the intelligence communities.
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=…..=firefox-a

IIRC = “If I Recall Correctly”

Anyone else finding the Fox poll (33%) difficult to believe? Not that the preznit is polling so low.. just that the lowest poll yet comes from Fox. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d throw a low poll out there just to build the preznit back up to 37% with weeks of ’steady gains’ over the next two months… I refuse to concede that Fox News is capable of any good whatsoever.

OK, my coming out question concerns Chalabi, Bolton, and Khan. What’s up with Chalabi these days? Is Bolton the State Dept. component of the Cabal? And was Plame doing undercover work related to the connections between Iran and the Pakistani nuclear scientist Khan?

How do you link to an upstream post?

Here’s a handy acronym finder for lots of common expressions:

http://www.acronymfinder.com/

We’ll know FDL’s totally made it into the popular culture when “EPU” gets a listing.

As someone (sorry, day’s been a blur) pointed out earlier, FDLisms are creeping into the blogger discourse is some pretty interesting places. Definitely a two-way street.

So let’s see your questions about the local shorthand whilst I try to repair my wireless network tonight.

thanks
You have not talked about Hadley in a while, but what is the difference between the NSA and the NSC

Actually, I think I’m pretty well up on the doings here. What I’d like to see (and pray I have not missed) is a well-reasoned commentary that dissects the right-wing mindset in all its blockheaded stubbornness. In the interests of knowing our enemy, and all that.

Glenn Greenwald did an OK job of it, but he’s not a qualified psych professional. I’m not asking for a Fristian diagnosis-by-television: just some visibility into what makes these people tick, because I just. don’t. get them.

I do have a question about suspicious polls… Rasmussen, to be precise.
I’m not saying I don’t believe their numbers; however, in recent weeks, the new numbers have not been posted prompted at noon EST. Sometimes they go up days late. In the past, I always found them timely.
I am suspicious that Rasmussen is cutting off the daily poll numbers at times that give Bush a peak reading.

Actually commented a few times on the old-school site, recently more lurky.

I’ll ask the stupid question – what’s this EPU?

Doesn’t sound good. Like wearing a ball gag in Karl Rove’s proximity on a bad day.

Colleen 8, thanks. CW is the one that got me. I think it means common (or conventional) wisdom but at first, I thought it meant country western. It made for some interesting interpretations initially.

“…in some interesting places…”

Yeah, mommybrain– it is a weird one– take two from the second word and one from the third and leave the bureau out completely.

EPU refers to Evil Parallel Universe, a commenter. With alarming frequency, if EPU comments, a new thread is coming very quickly. IOW (in other words) I commented something at the bottom of the previous thread.
Cozumel tried several times to get EPU into Wikepedia’s online dictionary, but it didn’t survive.

I just got EPU’d…..this is when you are busy posting on a thread while there are 22 other posts on a new thread and everyone took off and left you at the old one.

I dont know what IIRC is either. IOKIYAR took me a long time to figure out. It is ok if your a republican.

Where’s the name Firedoglake come from?

And a small suggestion on (I think it’s) Jane’s writing: I have seen “begs the question” used a couple of times recently in the sense of raising the question, well, in question. As far as I am aware, increasingly common usage notwithstanding, this is not strictly correct, begging the question is actually a rhetorical fault. The best alternative I could come up with was “begets the question”, too stilted to be very satisfactory. But some clever writer suggested “beggars the question” as the proper expression, which feels right to me.

Thanks for all the great content.

One of my pet acronym peeves is SCLM — the So Called Liberal Media, coined by Eric Alterman.

While Eric is one of my favorite liberal writers, we are far beyond the point where snarky inside jokes are appropriate, when referring to the Corporate Media — which has been bought and sold three times over by the right wing, and freely traded on the wing nut futures exchange.

My New Year’s wish of 2005 (front paged by Lambert at Corrente) was that we retire SCLM, and replace it with a more appropriate acronym — the LRWM, or Lying Right Wing Media.

I am an FDL groupie, in part because of Jane’s enthusiasm for turning the flamethrowers on the gross mendacity of the LRWM, that passes for journalisming in this country.

IIRC — If I recall correctly

I think people also use one that translates to “I am not an attorney” —

Ahhh. Like coming back to the cube before lunch to find everyone has already gone to lunch and you are left behind.

Love the site, I lurk all the time.

INR–Bureau of Intelligence and Research. There was an INR memo to the State Department that mentioned Valerie Plame and described Joe Wilson’s visit to Niger. *IIRC*, this was the memo that Colin Powell who was identified in reporting as a *SAO (”senior administration official”) saw being passed around on AF1 (airforce 1). Right afterwards Ari the Liar (Ari Fleischer) who was on board mentioned to reporters that they might like to look into who sent Joe Wilson on his boondogle to Niger. Also, phone calls were made from AF1 to reporters.

My question: What’s EPU’ed (or is it APU’ed)?

My personal favorite is t-rexing :)

Some questions:
1. snark: this means….a pithy comment? a clever put-down?
2. meme: I actually looked this up on dictionary.com, but the definitions didn’t make much sense. Is a meme…an old argument…or a discredited argument…or a stupid argument…or what?
3. screed: is this interchangeable with meme…or does screed mean something different, and if so, what?
4. snip: I sometimes see this in the written articles when the author quotes someone, and gives a partial quote….I get that. But sometimes a quote is used, but no “snip”. Personally, I think the “snip” doesn’t help me much….why is it used, and do I understand the usage?
5. EPU: ok, I DO get the thing about someone posting to a thread when a new thread appears….but, why? Why does everyone rush to the new thread? Is it….just the way it is? Maybe so.
That’s all for NOW…chuckle.
Ghostman

I know the firedoglake one (I’m so cool and with it).

Jane’s favorite activity – watching the Lakers with a fire and the dog at her feet.

John Casper, thanks for the link. Gulp, there sure are a lot of intelligence agencies, aren’t there? And none of them talk to each other?

TEchincal question – just above the comment box are some tags to use for textual interest. They are greyed out on my mac and I’ve never been able to use them properly, mainly because I can’t read them. Do PC users see them better? Anyone know of some tags for the mac?

Fox does decent polling- their numbers are usually in the middle range of ratings.

Rasmussen- on the other hand, is consistently five or six points above the mainstream in Clusterfuck JARs. His numbers are also VERY unstable- jumping up and down senselessly. He’s really not of much use. He uses an “automated” methodology- “computer calls”- which may help to screw things up.

I now understand what being EPUed means, because others have been so kind as to explain it completely in another thread.

I’m still scratching my head wondering, what is the definition of SNARK?

snip is used to just snip off one of the paragraphs in the article. Lets the reader know that there is more above and below the paragraph.

Not “I am not an attorney” – it’s “I am not a lawyer”: IANAL.

NSA = National Security Agency
NSC = National Security Council
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/

I’ve been a longtime lurker at firedoglake and some other sites. Good stuff, generally, Jane. My questions have less to do with Fitzgerald, in whom I have a lot of trust and confidence, than with the savvy of our Democratic leadership, who often seem to play things too close to the chest. I am pleased to see the memes of “worst president ever” and “dangerous incompetence” beginning to crack the mainstream press, but I hope there will be more than hand-wringing.

Frosted Flake #17
… link to upstream quote?

I know I know! Pick me, pick me!

scroll over the big cute number on the right hand top of comment, then right click and then click on “copy target.” Now the URL thingee is in the clipboard ready to paste.

http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..ment-72928

OT (off topic)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01379.html
The Generals’ Dangerous Whispers
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, April 21, 2006; Page A23

What is a hit and run in a comment?

Is it a hit and run if you drop off a comment, but don’t have time to stick around and watch the thread?

EPU – Oh, thanks. That’s been bugging me for a while now. I finally also figured out WATB (whiny assed titty baby).

My question is about Diebold machines. How do we get rid of them and be certain that they never darken the doorway of another polling place ever again? Is it possible to make them illegal? Or ban them, like smoking in public places?

We we take ourselves too seriously, we should remember that the term Plameologist was coined in a satirical setting (by Hunter on Kos).

Re instructions for linking to comments in #45
Aww sh*t, I messed it up, I meant right click and then click “copy shortcut” Not “copy target”. No, that does not compute or exist. Click on “copy shortcut”

http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..ment-72959

Well, how come Jane Hamsher isn’t a household name?

:)

i suggest the second entry in every comment thread should be
EPU == Evil Parallel Universe
(the last commenter in the previous thread)
as for other acronyms IANAL is less kinky than it sounds
and my favorite
C|N>K (coffee thru nose to keyboard) is too seldom seen

as for dense – I think it was somewhere around 2000 that I realized the context of the phrase “going postal”)

Who’s this “Plame” you guys keep talking about?

mommybrain, those are HTML commands, just for information. If you insert them into the text box, you can see all the cool things you can do in the preview box.

A “snark” is- I think- a snide remark- but I may be mistaken.

(Yes, I’m being sarcastic)

I love the IANAL or I am not a lawyer. Just makes me giggle when I see it/use it. mommybrain– everybody’s talking and listening, though what the big dudes are doing with the information leaves a lot to be worried about… imho. Negroponte is in charge and Hoekstra and Harman have some serious worries about him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04…..r=homepage

“memes” are to the brain what genes are to DNA. Just think of them as ideas that get passed around and breed, grow, evolve, etc. The term was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins.

There was another answer prior to the “sitting by the lake with her dog” which was discussed between us and Dubalhatch, (who is markfromireland’s son, now serving in Afghanistan) many months ago. It referred to an Irish weapon IIRC. Jane, you will have to comment on this as now I’m unsure which is the true explanation.

Bedlam is dreaming of rain is a line from a Bad Religion song called LA is burning.

love the site, and i’d love: 1) explanations and definitions of all the legal terminology/vocab (clear, simple ones–maybe hotlinked?) in the Plame case, and
2) some kind of list of WH and Administration and Departmental job titles–to figure out who’s important and who just sounds important, etc. Are all Directors powerful or just the ones that are connected in other ways (cronies, political appointments, etc?) and all that kind of stuff–who is appointed by the president and who is not and how that affects their credibility on everything, etc.

I think these would help all sites and all readers–i don’t know if it seems more complicated than it really is, or it really is that complicated–and the spin further complicates it all and turns people off, i think.

Thanks!

OK I am embarrassed to admit this but the twists and turns of Plamegate have lost me. I mean, I understand the basic story but this business about who spoke to whom and when and why it’s important, has totally lost me.

Does anyone have a link to some article that lays this out clearly?

YankInDC- huge question. That would take some googling. I’ve read about the connections, and there are probably many articles out there. But, were you asking specifically for Jane’s input? I’d be interested…

i think since we all can hotlink to more information, we shouldn’t ever forget to link to basic info that can help everyone “get it”. Already the Plame thing is like a bowl of spaghetti, at least in my eyes. Every day there’s a leak or new spin or new grand jury things, etc.

WHAT ON EARTH is the SSCI(?) and how does it pertain to the INR? Any time those two acronyms show up in a post, I know that I am in over my head.

Would someone like me to explain TRexing?

I’ve been a reader since the early day and just love Jane’s in-your-face common sense. Really, this is the true political universe. The other is a bit odd.

I have loved the addition of Red/Christy and now the new ones. You guys rock.

Someone asked the difference between NSA and NSC:

NSA -National security agency. An intelligence arm of the govt. Think CIA type covert spooks and such, signal intelligence etc. There are alot of agencies doing what we think of as “spying”, which most think is just the CIA. Naval intelligence exists, defense dept intelligence…quite a few of them.

NSC – National Security Council. Sort of like a committee or cabinet of advisors within the exec branch that serves the president on matters of nat security. Condi Rice was the head of this in the post of National Security Advisor prior to her moving to Sec State. Steven Hadley currently occupies the post.

Feel free to add or correct.

I am no lurker, but there are a couple of things I have wondered for a long time.

1) Where does the phrase, “I’m just saying” or “I’m just sayin’” come from? Is it unique to FDL? Does it come from Jane or Christy? I don’t hear it anywhere else.

2) Why do we call MSNBC Hack “journalist” Chris Matthews “Tweety”? Is it because he has a big round yellow head and wide-open eyes, as though he has just seen a Puddy Tat? Is it because of his high squeeky voice? All the above? None of the above? I use it because it just seems to fit…

When I was a little kid, my parents didn’t let me watch much TV, unlike most of my grade school classmates. Consequently I often felt out of the conversation, because people were always talking about TV shows I knew nothing about. Even as an adult, I hear certain phrases come into currency and wonder where they came from, only to discover they are catch phrases from some show I never watched. I used to feel kind of like that in FDL, but not so much now.

Ghostman # 36 –

1. snark: — biting, ironic humor?

2. meme: — a concept or idea that has become conventional wisdom; subject to change with changing perceptions and circumstance. I.e., Bush’s meme has changed from ’stong leader’ to ‘lying incompetent.’

3. screed: — a kind of ranty long statement.

4. snip: — a word that signals a cutout in copy/pasted text. I use three tight dots … to signal the same thing. (I use three spaced dots . . . as a narrative device.)

Here’s my question: where’s Christy?

snowy said “just some visibility into what makes these people tick, because I just. don’t. get them.”

I’m with you on this. A very close co-worker of mine is EXACTLY like this. I swear, I spend half my workday trying to figure out what time zone he’s on. He still insists, to this day, that Bush is the best thing since sliced bread, even though I know he knows that he’s not. I swear, it drives me right up the friggin wall to sit so close to a person that cannot adjust his brain to the reality of what a lost cause this administration is. Yet, he is very intelligent. My guess is that his personality is exactly like Bush’s–he cannot admit that he is wrong. No matter what. Tonite I visited the Red State blog and I could not believe how sweet the koolaid is mixed over there. All they talk about is how bad dems are. Do they even know that half their party is under indictment? No, they don’t. They are just like my colleague and just like their president.

But, I believe that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, votes are stolen in very large numbers, and owning the “traditional” news medium is what keeps them going. And I wonder when the men in this country will storm the palace…….

SSCI – Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

They have a jackass for a chairman

Ghostman, I think of a screed as an unpleasant or disagreeable post, such as “Michelle Malkin has an unbelievable screed about immigration up at her site.” The opposite of any FDL post is a screed.

Snark= Jane Hamsher on Jim Brady or anything by watertiger at Dependable Renegade. Sassy, snappy, sarcasm.

Dude, some trolls, anthony is the best example, imo, will just comment once and never return to respond to people who point out the inadeqacies of their comment.
immanentize called him a “drive-by,” IIRC.

It’s a part of the essence of tribalism to never admit that your tribe is wrong- even when they are carrying off the other guy’s women and children and peein in his corn.

IIRC there was a shaggy dog story about pottery or a firearme by way of the Irishman O’Glake

NSA used to be so secret it stood for No Such Agency

How do you say “Pachacutec?”

68, ck….got it, and thank you.

blue eyes @ 19-

The NSC is: “The National Security Council is the President’s principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and cabinet officials. “

The NSA (National Security Agency) used to be an “secret” agency within the Department of Defense. The NSA is by far larger than the CIA, INR or NRO. However, it is not clear to me whether the NSA still exists in its old structure completely within the DoD anymore.

One point of confusion is that Stephen Hadley is the National Security Council Adviser which sometimes is called the National Security Adviser (NSA).

One way to think about it is that the National Security Agency has copies of the National Security Council Adviser’s e-mail.

Ghostman, here’s what they mean IMHO…

Snark- smartassyness, sarcasm, etc…estions:
meme I think it’s more like a theme… screed: a rant,
snip: Usually used to get rid of non-necessary stuff in an article- but to show you know you’re quoting ‘out of context’, so to speak…IOW (in other words) if you’re quoting the 1st and 5th parapgraphs of an article it would be like this:
Para 1
(snip)
Para 5
That way people realize you took something out, and we don’t all have to read stuff that’s OT (off topic)
5. EPU: -Yep, I think it’s just the way it is, baby. Since posts are usually well-spaced, most of the regulars have had a chance to comment on a topic…so when a new post goes up, we’re all more likely to start commenting on that rather than continue to dissect an ‘old’ topic…

I have seen “begs the question†used a couple of times recently in the sense of raising the question, well, in question.
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/begs.html
===BEGS THE QUESTION
An argument that improperly assumes as true the very point the speaker is trying to argue for is said in formal logic to “beg the question.â€===

Dave: She’s at Disneyworld for the week with her hubby and little peanut.

rwcole: lol

pach-a-chu-tek?

Pak a Koo Tek

This is a great topic. It motivated me to finally figure out how to create a shorter alias for a longer link.

RBG’s Favorite Site

How’d I do?

Well yea sure Valley Girl (#62), I’m always eager to hear Jane’s input. She keeps a lid on over-speculation, however. Healthy trait.

Dave, Christy’s on vacation and Taylor has been subbing for her. Taylor has her own great blog, too, so she’s doing double time.

Steve #53 – Valerie Plame is the CIA Agent who was outted in the CIA LEAK CASE. She is the wife of Joe Wilson.

Ghostman #78 –

Some of the other comments about snark and meme are more accurate than mine.

Memes are ideas that enjoy viral cultural transmission — becoming memes when generally recognized.

wow– hi all the new folks! 40 minutes and 86 comments. great post and idea, Jane.

renato, I agree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame
is one resource, that also links to others.
I think part of FDL’s popularity is due to Jane and Christy’s ability to remind us when something big happens. The WH and the corporate media has thrown up such a smoke screen, it’s tough to keep it all straight.

Oh yeah, I was thinking “drive by” and saying hit and run. Thanks for the explanation.

Here is a question on site administration. If you get a comment that you are opposed to on a visceral level, but it isn’t flat out wrong or offensive, do you nuke the comment or let it stand in the interest of free speech?

Pah-cha-KOO-tehk

I know what trexing refers to but I’ve been afraid to ask what exactly it means, in case it lets out a secret that will clue in offensive commenters.
So…yes, I’d like to know but not unless it’s ok!

I have missed Christy this week – esp with the Traitorgate activity.
I *have* paid more attention to Jeralyn tho

94
Pack a Q-Tip?

NSA was a super secret agency for years. I think it was finally revealed as existing in the Nixon years. People called it “no such agency” – NSA – get it? I heard it was responsible for all the dirty stuff, like Pinochet. Think rendition, torture of prisoners and disappearing political dissenters.

We only dump abusive/offensive comments or repetitive comments by people visiting in an attempt to be disruptive, i. e., not engaged in good faith, community discussion.

Nope.

Paahtch-a- koo-tec.

I’m pretty sure, anyway.

Nice job RBG, I love that one, mastered it just a couple of months ago, thanks to my peeps here @ FDL.

ROTFLOLSTC
rolling on the floor, laughing out loud – scared the cat!

Trexing is the art of editing the fecal matter of an obnoxious poster into something that repulses even him or her.

“One way to think about it is that the National Security Agency has copies of the National Security Council Adviser’s e-mail.”
LMAO.

trexing means editing the comment of a troll in such a way that it mocks the troll

troll trexing

ceu says:
April 20th, 2006 at 8:44 pm

NSA was a super secret agency for years. I think it was finally revealed as existing in the Nixon years. People called it “no such agency†– NSA – get it? I heard it was responsible for all the dirty stuff, like Pinochet. Think rendition, torture of prisoners and disappearing political dissenters.

the NSA has morphed into the presidency.

I think IIRC took me about a year, if I recall correctly.

Check out the Urban Dictionary it’s a great resource for all the acronyms and helps to decode what the kewl kids are saying.

Mack- doubling for punaise tonight, are we???

Not bad. ;-)

Steve, per what hungrycoyote already said, Novak and company also appeared to have outed her as Valerie “Flame,” just to try and hide their complicity.

WOW! Al-Scooter-check out these acronyms at wikipedia. Huge list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission_Mailed

Pach, thanks! Good rule.

amberglow #60 2) some kind of list of WH and Administration and Departmental job titles–to figure out who’s important and who just sounds important, etc.

Dan Froomkin’s site has links to this kind of information:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..00744.html

===I’ve compiled some background information on the White House, available in the right margin, which includes a who’s who of top advisers; a map of where they sit; the latest complete White House staff list including salaries; and a list of major White House news correspondents with links to their work. I’ve also made it easy to find White House news, presidential approval polls and other related information from around the Web.===

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2….._0420.html

HARRIET ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK ACCORDING TO RAW STORY.

Clusterfuck said to be in tears.

posh-uh-CUE-tek

Ghostman 36 – on the new thread thing. I don’t know the history, but as a latecomer it seems to me that it really cuts the trolls. It takes too much focus and time for them to pay attention and follow the conversations that jump threads.

The NSA is hige, with an ‘off-the-books’ budget.
One thing I know they have focussed on in the last decade was technology , communications, internet, hacking etc.
Dave Aitel of immunitysec.com is a rather brilliant ex-employee. When asked about his tenure her replys that the first thing they tell you at the NSA is to never talk about the NSA.
But it would be a fair inference that they do offence, not defence.
It is comforting in one sense that there is some wing of the Federal Government which actually exercises technical competence (the CIA and FBI have had large infosec shortcomings over the years), but intimidating that this competence could be turned against our own citizens under incompetent direction.

Thank you, Jane — for coming up with the bestest Late Night FDL thread ever!!!

Seriously — this thread is great, because it is so light hearted and playful. The wing nut sewer dippin’ series was too depressing to read — what with these being the halcyon Wiemar cabaret days of the Bush ‘Murca end times.

just a couple of random things:

Pach, you need to pick from the 4 pronunciations and clarify (I’m pretty sure it’s not Mack’s)

rw, there’s a great Vespa cartoon in the newest issue of New Yorker, you should check it out for your new dealership.

To all of our De-Lurkers, it’s nice to meet you! If you are lurking again and have a question, please feel free to pipe right up and ask. It’s easy to get lost (now which way was I going?) and nobody bites except punaise(’s wit). If you ask when you see or read something, you’ll have an easier time. We don’t require participation, but will answer your question. If we don’t, just ask it again. There is a college student who posts here now and then and I thought that took guts!!

Anyone wanting to understand the NSA should read The Puzzle Palace by James Bamford. It is probably way out of date, though–my copy says copyright 1983. I don’t know if he has done anything lately–does anyone else know?

nice catch VG!

I just want to briefly report that the CA state group had our first conference call tonight, which was great and went well. It’s fun to talk to folks you’ve gotten to know here. It’s also heartening that we’ve got a goal, some great talking points, and a scheduler who’s setting up meetings with our Senators’ offices. Much thanks to Pachacutec for inspiring us all to move forward and put down Roots in our home communities, and to the blogmistresses for their endless leadership, guidance, and snark.

=========
Had enough?
=========

Thanks.;)

wesgpc #45~
I just thought I’d say that when you right click on the “big cute number” in my older windows98se, the menu says “copy shortcut”.

I want to say “thank you” for all the information I have gathered through #45 where I stopped to de-lurk for the moment.

thank you this opportunity to decrease the anxiety that comes from being new.

Survey USA just released jars for all senators- below are those with less than 50% approval- some interesting names:

Allen, George R Jr 49% 38% 11% Track VA Jr WUSA-TV WDBJ-TV
77 RI Coleman, Norm R Jr 49% 42% 7% Track MN Jr KSTP-TV WDIO-TV KSAX-TV KAAL-TV
77 SC Ensign, John R Jr 49% 36% 13% Track NV Jr KVBC-TV
77 SC Isakson, Johnny R Jr 49% 32% 17% Track GA Jr WXIA-TV WTLV-TV
81 SD Cantwell, Maria D Jr 48% 41% 7% Track WA Jr KING-TV KATU-TV
81 SD DeWine, Mike R Sr 48% 41% 7% Track OH Sr WKYC-TV WYTV-TV WCPO-TV
81 TN Nelson, Bill D Sr 48% 33% 15% Track FL Sr WFOR-TV WPTV-TV WFLA-TV WTLV-TV WKRG-TV
81 TN Sununu, John R Jr 48% 40% 8% Track NH Jr WBZ-TV
81 TX Talent, Jim R Jr 48% 43% 5% Track MO Jr KSDK-TV
86 TX Inhofe, James R Sr 47% 39% 8% Track OK Sr KFOR-TV
87 UT Sarbanes, Paul D Sr 46% 39% 7% Track MD Sr WMAR-TV WUSA-TV
87 UT Voinovich, George R Jr 46% 44% 2% Track OH Jr WKYC-TV WYTV-TV WCPO-TV
89 VT Dayton, Mark D Sr 45% 43% 2% Track MN Sr KSTP-TV WDIO-TV KSAX-TV KAAL-TV
89 VT Kyl, Jon R Jr 45% 42% 3% Track AZ Jr KPNX-TV
89 VA Stabenow, Debbie D Jr 45% 43% 2% Track MI Jr WDIV-TV WZZM-TV
92 VA Allard, Wayne R Sr 44% 43% 1% Track CO Sr KUSA-TV
93 WA Bunning, Jim R Jr 43% 44% -1% Track KY Jr WHAS-TV WCPO-TV
93 WA Lautenberg, Frank D Sr 43% 43% 0% Track NJ Sr WABC-TV WCAU-TV
93 WV Martinez, Mel R Jr 43% 43% 0% Track FL Jr WFOR-TV WPTV-TV WFLA-TV WTLV-TV WKRG-TV
96 WV Burr, Richard R Jr 42% 40% 2% Track NC Jr WTVD-TV WFMY-TV
97 WI Cornyn, John R Jr 41% 38% 3% Track TX Jr WOAI-TV KEYE-TV
98 WI Menendez, Robert D Jr 40% 37% 3% Track NJ Jr WABC-TV WCAU-TV
99 WY Burns, Conrad R Jr 39% 52% -13% Track MT Jr
99 WY Santorum, Rick R Jr 39% 53% -14% Track PA Jr WCAU-TV

19 & 79

Not to be confused with NSA (National Security Advisor) formerly Rice, now Hadley.

neurophius #120 —

James Bamford was the go-to talking head expert when the NSA illegal domestic spying scandal broke.

Mack @ 117 -

Bamford’s recent book “A Pretext for War” (Bamford wrote the original “definitive” book about the NSA) seems to imply that the NSA was really stumbling in the late 90’s early 2000s. Part of the issue is that they couldn’t keep up with the explosion of electronic communications.

Bamford’s 2001 opus, Body of Secrets:

http://www.randomhouse.com/fea…../home.html

Mary, thanks again for you links earlier today about the Iranian (from China and Russia) supersonic, carrier sinking, missle technology, for which Rumsfeld in his “modernizing” of the military forgot to provide for.
We’ve got to get the corporate media to start publishing articles about that. We already know Rummy doesn’t care about body armor for troops. They aren’t as expensive as aircraft carriers, but Rummy evidently doesn’t care about them either.

I think Laura and Harriet are college friends, would Bolten really pick a fight with the first lady? Doesn’t anyone remember what Nancy did to Don Regan?

This one I just made up:

DTSHASMTWHF

Decided to stay home and spend more time with his family.

Troll

Just about every thread has at least one question about the whereabouts of ReddHedd aka Christy Smith. Until she returns from her well-deserved vacation, why don’t we post a note at the top of each thread that Christy/ReddHedd is on vacation. Simple enough, no?

http://www.surveyusa.com/50Sta…..rState.htm

Link to senator survey.

Lieberman at 57%

wow.cute and good. thanks to all!

Raw Story article – think they want someone blood and guts in case of a Dem House or Sen, indictments, or lawsuite reverberations on NSA spying?

OK – what is RSS and would I ever use it?

zenn: I think I’ll pick the pronunciation posted by that guy with the weird nickname.

Evil Parallel Universe had a run about 6 months ago where he was always the last commenter on a thread. It happened Many Times in a Row and was Spooky. But EPU is not connected to the reason people move up to the new thread, and in fact you can, after a few minutes of having moved, go back and find people ignoring the “new thread” comment and chatting away. I think people move on because every post is so interesting and challenging that it’s fun to move into that new topic. Also, long ago there was a chat here about threads that are too long, and that was way before we ever had over 100 comments on a thread. Fitz ended all that, though.

I don’t really have a question; I am just registering my presence and my support.

JC – I’m thanking that KOS diarist – it was awfully good I thought. In the brand new supplemental – they cut things like night vision goggles etc. to provide more funds for a non-workable craft program and to spin out craft purchases to post 2008. *s*

RSS (feed)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(protocol)
It tells you when FDL has a new thread, so you don’t have to check.

“lurk off”

OK here’s one: Why does “progressive” talk radio seem as vacuous as “right-wing” talk radio ?

Is it the nature of the medium ?

“lurk on”

Why does Holden get a pony when Bush’s poll numbers go down? Who is Holden and why does he like ponies so much?

Mary @ 136 -

RSS is a web technology that allows you to quickly see the headlines of the articles at a web site without get the full page(s) of the website. Quick way to skim for interesting articles (well, if the titles seem interesting).

It looks like FDL supports RSS and by clicking on the orange icon in the URL area, if you are using Firefox, you will have the current article titles dynamically listed in your bookmarks.

Wow, I’m guessing that doesn’t make a lot of sense…

ccmask 131
c|n>k

P-
Smartypants!
z

My favorite Jane-ism is “wing-nut welfare”

So brilliant, if one uses it, one should cite it skippy-fashion.

First, let me thank everyone for the answers. It helps! Now, some more questions:
1. Stenno Sue: Ok, I get that she must write republican slanted articles for Wapo. But, is her name Sue ?Schmidt? There was a woman on Hardball the other day named Sue, and I remember sorta freaking, asking myself: “oh my god, is that STENNO SUE from FDL??” I had a fine chuckle.
Also, as to Stenno Sue…I haven’t read too many comments lately about her. Has she changed her ways, or writes on other subjects, or what?
2. Pool Boy: ok, this is Van de Hei (sp?) of Wapo. I get that he also is slanted….but how did he get the nickname “Pool Boy”?
3. How long has FDL been in existence?
Thanks, Ghostman

It’s much appreciated, null pointer, cod coolie.

well ok, I do have a question, sort of. I missed the today’s countdown; but according to atrios, Shuster today said that Rove is close to indictment. What are the chances of Fitzmas coming in May this year?

Oh, and why do we call Jim Vandehi “pool boy”?

all
Bamford is the definitive source, indeed
But how do you know how complete his knowledge is?
There are known unknowns…

BTW : “Clusterfuck” kills me. And yes; I’m here everyday.

John Casper #129 –

That would be the Russian Sunburn supersonic anti-ship missile, for those who were wondering. It flies low, then jumps up for a high angle of attack — the US Navy has no defense against it.

Badda Bing #132 –

Google “Jane Hamsher Killer Instinct” — it’s Jane’s book about producing Natural Born Killers. Some of the reviews and summaries shed light on your question . . .

143
an old story which ronnie reagna liked to tell was about the kid who when asked to shovel a large mound of dung took to the task with relish, resoning
with all this manure, ther must be a pony somewhere

null pointer, Rove’s attorney, Robert “gold bars” Luskin sure appears to think it. Shuster is the most reputable journalist, I have heard so far actually state that. Corporate media is basically staying away from the Rove indictment, much to my disappointment. The WH releases this week that Rove was being “demoted” suggests the WH is preparing for it too.

I’ve never posted here before, but I have posted a few times at other blogs. It feels weird to post a comment at a site I’ve never posted to before.

#137 – “I think I’ll pick the pronunciation posted by that guy with the weird nickname.” Umm… which guy with which weird nickname? Anyway, I always thought it was pronounced the way it is spelled. Pach-a-cu-tec.

I have no questions but am de-lurking in order to meet my monthly de-lurking quota and give thanks to all you fine, thoughtful, informed folks who educate and encourage me daily. Thanks to GSD, Mary, egregious, the Professor, looseheadprop, zennurse, Pachacutec (I can’t believe I just spelled that correctly without looking), JohnCasper, rwcole, ck, renato, al-Scooter… oh dear, so many of you make my day everyday but I’m leaving someone out… who could it be? Gee I hope this isn’t EPU’d :-)
Most grateful for Jane and Redd – I began paying attention to the Plame Thang when I read that Bush had lawyered up with Sharpe. Hmmm… hmmm… a RICO guy for the Pres? Now when is the last time that happened? I followed Redd over here from Kos. I now visit with the ladies of the lake with my morning coffee, a most satisfying combo.
Congrats on the Koufax – may your efforts continue to knock some sense into those who are willing to recieve. For the troglodytes, thugs and unprincipled fuckheads, may your efforts continue to anger, rankle and piss them off.
Good night to all at FDL

PAIR-A-SHOOT-EC!

More on the trexing history. IIRC. Way back when, there were only a few trools, but they were annoying. Aside: most regular FDLers have the discipline not to respond to trools, because this is a fruitless exercise. Anyway, TRex related that the way he stopped a repetitive trool on his own site was to keep editing his/her comments so that they came out as being really stoopid. And, Jane and RH did this for a while. Trexing posts. Some of the trexes were truly hilarious- the original post, with something added… But, as the number of commenters and readers shot through the stratosphere, this kind of individual attention to trools just wasn’t practical (I assume). So, now when people talk about trexing a comment, they are referencing the original meaning, but really are saying: may I draw your attention to a really obnoxious post, or to a series of spam like posts, AND please get rid of this.

Tim – don’t relurk, I like the way you think! I was startled during the 04 election when I was doing some get out the vote stuff with a group I didn’t know and they religiously quoted air america figures with the same idolatry as right wingers repeat Limbaugh … it was chilling. I limit my radio to either good hiphop or the BBC personally. Then again, I hear FDL voices in my head …

mary 136
i reference fdl by rss from my personalized google page
at a glance i have my gmail inbox, fdl and google news headlines (along with some tech blogs and other crap)
rss will be more and more prevelent as other technologies make it usefull with less effort (not that it’s exactly rocket science)
think of your cellphone alerting you when there’s a new post…

What is the meaning of FireDogLake?

This may be totally off the wall, but in one of the earliest threads some months back, someone posted an explanation of FireDogLake, I forget who, possibly rwcole. I am just repeating it for what it is worth. So far as I know neither Jane nor Christy has denied or confirmed the interpretation.

Apparently there was an Irish warrior named O’Glake. One of his specialties was to toughen up a wooden club (shelilagh?) with molten tar, therefore fired-o’glake, or firedoglake.

Again, just repeating what I read here.

This blog has good reputation capital and is excellent at what it does best and that is to follow the yellowcake road.
While we will soon all be singin’ Ding Dong the chimp is dead there is one lurking danger.
This the swampy MARSH off to the right where fever swamps of DLC Kool aid toil and bubble.

There’s no place like FDLake home with just Jane, Red and the Pachman if you ask me.

ck at 154, thanks very much. I was wondering if Rummy was going to try and put a destroyer in the way, but that’s not an option.
Do have any feel for the range on these missles? It sounds like it’s about half the distance of a carrier based fighter (I am just guessing) which really cuts down on time over the target.
BTW, I wish we would get all our assets the hell out of the Middle East. They really do want to sell us their oil.

What’s up with all the talk about kool-aid? Is it some sort of Jim Jones reference or what?

tim
you are not alone
but there is a place for vacuous progressives
(just not here)

zen @ 138

Excitement to see the new post! I often go forward just to check it out then go back to the old just to see what I may have missed. If there is a Plame post I go back and read the comments even if there are ten new threads to read. Unfortunately there are so many posts and comments these days I can’t read them all.

(Yes I agree with excitement and was waiting to get through the comments to say so.)

I started reading FDL by way of talkingpointsmemo.com. Josh is a great blogger/journalist but the snark here is unbeatable. The no holds barred nature of what Redd and Jane have done really inspire me and get me fired up!

I started following the Plame affair because it was just so egregious! I couldn’t believe it! So here I am today addicted to FDL!

snowwy,
This excellent post on FDL by guest poster Kevin R on 4/13 will get you up to speed on what makes these “blockheads ” tick.

Here is an excerpt from that post:
“Now that I’ve been out of my blogging gig for a while, my anger wheel has been jolted far to the left and when I reread that extraordinarily perceptive passage by Taibbi, I actually felt kind of sorry for the subjects. They’re scared is all. They’re scared of a lot of things because they need to be scared of a lot of things. They lack purpose without things relentlessly scaring the shit out of them. And in order to distract the media from the fact that they’re more juiced up on fear than love for their country, they constantly try to frame liberals—who in their minds still wear patchouli, listen to Jefferson Airplane and love the fuck out of Jane Fonda—of being the cowards because, um, we’re “anti-war” (what fucked up times we live in where being “anti-war” is a “bad thing”) and we aren’t 100% freaked out that gay people, Mexicans, Arabs and the Dixie Chicks are roaming free in our streets.”

Read the rest:
http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..tersphere/

Frosted Flake says:

April 20th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
How do you link to an upstream post?

Best way to do it is simply copy the comment that you are responding to. And enclose that original comment in either quotation marks (”…”) or italics. To make italics: “” at the beginning of the word or text and then “” at the end of the word or text. Do not include the + signs I used – I can’t show you the formula without using those + signs. Also works for bolding – subsitute “b” for “i” in my above example.

Just got EPU’d at “Christian Right Fight Heating Up”:
AARP is the acronym I love to hate, for their strong support for Medicare D; I tear up their mailings at the PO – I won’t have their crap in my house.

ccmask 111:

FDL’s certaily an ARE!

The First Use of “Blog” Discovered

Toronto native Accordian Guy has discovered the first use of the term “blog” in media, complete with pictures.
http://accordionguy.blogware.c…..94225.html

siun; it’s buggin’ me. Randi’s gettin’ shrill and the substance factor is starting to become the equal of the RushReilly’s.

It’s like the “noise machine” eats everything.

I mean it’s the least of our problems but it’s sad.

Ghostman- Steno Sue = stenographer Sue, meaning that she faithfully transcribes the WH/repug spin/ talking points.

As far as I know, “Clusterfuck” was coined by rwcole.
Also, I have never heard anyone ask who “Clusterfuck” is. Everyone understands immediately.

Al-scooter- Godwin’s Law

There’s a lot of ignorant stuff about the NSA.

The NSA does electronic intelligence: wiretapping, cryptography, codes. They both break codes and handle the electronic security for the rest of the government. They have more compute power in Fort Meade, Maryland, than any other organization in the world AFAIK (as far as I know), and they use it to crack codes, so scan millions of phone calls for specific spoken words, and the like.

The “No Such Agency” part was once true, though they gave it up when it became just too stupid: I used to do digital signal conferencing, and the very technical and sharp people whose badges said “Department of Defense” were NSA, and everyone knew it (the rest of the DoD employees would have a specific badge describing the specific department or laboratory they worked for).

But they don’t do human intelligence, for the most part; “dirty stuff” is done by other organizations. Sorry, but Halle Berry couldn’t have been an NSA agent: they hire PhD’s in mathematics, not kung fu babes who do black bag jobs. I’m not saying they don’t have any human agents; they somehow subverted the Swiss company Crypto AG, which sold cryptography equipment to a lot of unsavory characters, so that the NSA could listen to all of Libya’s “encrypted” communications.

Drinking the kool-aid does refer to the Jim Jones saga, but has taken on a life of its own. It refers to the act of buying into the spin or mythos of a particular point of view. It connotes a surrender to the community’s ethos, however stupid, mendacious, ridiculous, or dangerous. Like going to heaven if you drink the poisoned kool-aid.

Some other commenters may have a different angle on this phrase than mine, but this is my understanding.

Tim – I think what bothers me is that talk radio leads to a homogenizing of thought …Randi said xyz so now we all say xyz

then again, I come out of the all night consensus meetings school of politics which is much less efficient

19 blue eyes says:

April 20th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
thanks
You have not talked about Hadley in a while, but what is the difference between the NSA and the NSC

NSA is the “National Security Agency”, which is the super-secret government agency that does eavesdropping all over the world. And apparantly inside the USA as well, even though it is strictly prohibited by law from eavesdropping inside the USA. They electronically ’sweep up’ all international phone calls and then sort through the calls for valuable espionage information. They are much more secretive than the CIA, if you can imagine that.

NSC is the “National Security Council”, which is a government agency that coordinates all national and international security concerns of the US. One description of the NSC is that they ‘bang heads to get various goverment agencies and departments to get together and coordinate responses to various security concerns’. Before becoming Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice what the head of the NSC. We all know how good of a job she did at banging heads to prevent 9/11.

Mack-SSTS

I should have added that “drinking the kool-aid” has involved into a “meme.” That means that the phrase can be used as a token among people who understand it, and needs no explanation.

Troll

Clusterfuck is a Marine saying for a mission that is woefully screwed up.

Clint Eastwood, “Heartbreak Ridge”

For those who are looking for some help with html formatting, I finally figured out to shorten a link at:
http://www.ranchoweb.com/help/index.php

They also have a practice board that was really helpful.

Good evening. Great thread. I have 2 questions: first, what is “WRT” – Is it What republicans think?

The other question is how did the word ‘truthiness’ start? I have seen it in many places on the net, but I think it started here, just like that ’shot an old man in the face’ meme. ummm, wrong use of ‘meme’ there?

Kool aid refers to what the right all drink to have the same addled mindset. “Tweety (Chris Matthews) must have skipped his Kool Aid this morning because he’s nailing Bush tonight on Iraq”.

Mack # 152 –

Bamford has cultivated sources inside the NSA, and is well regarded within the agency. Of course, his access comes at the price of a certain amount of self censorship.

Jon Casper # 165 –

Sunburns come in low like cruise missiles, but then jump up for the final attack — at Mach 2.5 I believe. There is no defense against them. The Russians designed them to exploit a vulnerability of the US Navy.

clb72 #143 –

Holden [Caufield] was a guest poster at Atrios, who now blogs at (first-draft?). Holden’s obsession is following the Scotty McClellan gaggle, and he gets a pony because of some prediction he made about the bottom falling out of Bush’s support after he crossed the 40% approval threshold.

Ah! I’m a regular lurker but never could figure out what trexing was (I do always enjoy Thesaurus Rex’s comments). Thanks!

wrt = with respect to

Badda-Bing: Because Jane is a true patriot.

GrandmaJ, 187

WRT=With Reference To

I thought this blog was a Feingold love fest. What happened?

GrandmaJ– Hi and how are you??? wrt means with respect to.

22 Dude says:

April 20th, 2006 at 8:17 pm
Actually commented a few times on the old-school site, recently more lurky.

I’ll ask the stupid question – what’s this EPU?

Doesn’t sound good. Like wearing a ball gag in Karl Rove’s proximity on a bad day.

Dude – I just asked this question a couple of weeks ago and numerous people kindly explained it to me. In short, “EPU” are the initials of one particular frequent commenter here at FDL (I forgot what his name is). I guess he had been complaining in various posts that he had posted his comments but wasn’t getting any or many responses. Later he found out that the lack of responses were due to his being one of the last commenters on an old thread and when a new thread opened all the other commenters went to that new thread. Leaving EPU all by himself.

So getting EPU’d means you are one of the last commenters in an ‘old’ thread because everybody has moved on to the new thread.

23 Suzanne says:

April 20th, 2006 at 8:17 pm
Colleen 8, thanks. CW is the one that got me. I think it means common (or conventional) wisdom but at first, I thought it meant country western. It made for some interesting interpretations initially.

Yep – “CW” means “Conventional Wisdon”. You were right.

Oh, what’s the, what is it the ‘Mighty Wurlitzer’?

I think I get that it’s the ‘gop fog propaganda’ spin.

But what’s the ‘coinage’ of the term? First use, and who and when and how?

“What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s a hapennin’?”

cc 177:

Sieg heil, it’s not just for rallies!

Tim- I don’t listen to rightwing or leftwing radio. But, I did briefly hear Laura Flanders when Brad Friedman (bradblog.com) was doing broadcasts from Camp Crawford. It was truly painful to listen to her- really Rush-like in attempting to stir up the basic reptilian brain. I just had to turn it off, having already listened to many many hours of Brad’s great interviews there. For a short while, Brad had a Saturday evening program called “The Brad Show”, mostly 1 hr interviews. They were Great!!! Fair, articulate, knowledgeable interviews. They are archived at http://bradblog.com/BradShow/

WRT = with regards to

I think drinking the kool aid means brainwashed, but with the connotation of having become so willingly. In other words, the person (willingly) chose to drink the kool aid.

Am I correct?

Stede Bonnet- we (heart) Russ, absolutely, but we branch out like aspens all the time and we are deeply addicted to Plameology. Russ is great.

My lede line is Fitz, Firedoglake and Feingold, but I’m never fast enough to be first up there ^^^

Kool Aid refers to the Jonestown mass suicide –

‘Kool Aid Drinker’ refers to someone who has swallowed the BushCo BS, and is now a right wing ture believer.

I.e., a true believer in a group think big lie.

Corrente has the very helpful Lexicon of Liberal Invective
http://www.correntewire.com/glossary
IIRC, IOKIYAR began with them. It’s currently a little behind the times. Mathews as ‘Tweety’ began over at Eschaton sometime around 2002. I’m going to see if I can find the entry.

No one asked about this but I am offering it because it is often seen in blogs, and is one of my favorite. It is also I think military in origin.

FUBAR=Fucked Up Beyond All Repair

It neatly describes not only the Iraq mess but the entire Bush administration.

Stede Bonnet– Still is a Feingold love fest in my opinion! It would be nice if Congress would get back to work after another interminable break. But Russ has been busy– did you all see his new commercial? short and sweet and worth a look.

http://www.progressivepatriotsfund.com/

siun-

No NPR even? What can we do to bring you back to the fold?

I have my own theory about liberal talk radio:

http://incomprehensibledemoral…..ed-to.html

Troll

Grandma @ 187

truthiness: I think Steven Colbert of the Colbert Report takes credit for this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

OK – I’ve got a question. How do you do all those emoticons? Especially the laughing smiley face?

Didn’t “truthiness” start with Comedy Central’s Colbert Report?

re jane and her producing and so on:

i only know her by reputation (and by the fact that two of my close friends have worked in her office over the years). and the fact that i’ve known her former partner for years. jane was the one who had to clean up his messes, i think it is safe to say (google don murphy + quentin tarantino for a taste of what he is often like). anyway, i was a lowly executive at a company on the same lot as Jane and Don, and i came to be a great admirer of both of them–every story i would hear about jane was about her smarts/savvy and her excellence with story, and every other story about Don was about his absolute willingness to fling himself deep into the shit to get what he wanted. i kind of thought of both of them as rock stars in the tiny cosmology of studio and indie production. and then jane’s book came out and a few bridges seemed pretty charred and she hied off to do something else, and to me that is a bit sad. there are so few really good solid salt-of-the-earth types in our biz, and reading jane’s work over the past year and a half here has made me re-realize that she is one of them, that it wasn’t just that she seemed that way from a distance.

having said all of that, to be clear–this is a non-personal thing–i didn’t actually know her, just of her–and i’m not sure that jane isn’t still doing development and production.

Holden and Athenae (both now at first-draft) had a good natured bet going last summer in the comments section at Atrios that aWol’s poll numbers were going to hit 40% by the 4th of July. Holden said they would, Athenae said they wouldn’t. if Holden lost he had to wear a frilly princess dress and if Athenae lost she had to dress up like My Little Pony (IIRC)

lots of frilly princess dresses were found and links posted, but I don’t think we ever saw him dressed up in one, at least not that Athenae ever posted. in the process of taunting, Athenae wound up with another half dozen or so vowels in her name and even a few silent consonants

My thought about Kool-aid drinking is along the lines of “What’s the matter with Kansas” – where the cult member is so enamored with the leader that the member is willing to blindly follow the leader to the point of doing something against the member’s own best interests.

Like saying yes to tax cuts for the rich and yes to a shitty medicare bill and yes to nuking Iran.

Grandma J
all about truthiness:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

Why is ‘lede’ used for the ‘lead’ line in a story?

And, I think I saw a Mexican futbol club named ‘Pachacutec’. (Watch Univision alot; started w/last World Cup. They doing that again? Haven’t noticed any promos…ooops OT.) Anyone else?

The story so far is an old one – massive abuse and corruption of power. The way it looks like playing out soon is with the fall of the house of Bush. Now they will create a great song and dance about how they meant well and these were just mistakes made in all good faith.
But with everyday that passes – with every hour that passes this excuse slips slowly away. You get credit for showing remorse early in the real world and you arouse suspicion the more you try to evade and hide.
The people have a right to know what the president knew and when he knew it and so he must release his copy of the transcripts he made with Mr Fitzgerald. Then he must expedite the phase 2 hearings and get them all out there.
A sign of good faith here would be to demote Pat Roberts.
Pardon’s should be ruled out early – any self respecting journalist ( that isn’t part of the criminal cabal ) could be asking this incessantly and insistently.
There are a lot of good grass roots journo’s out there and grass roots dems out there. We should have their backs with the best info going.
With Jane on song and Red back soon refreshed and Pach raising hell we will win.
The suspense is terrible – I hope it lasts.

And another thing……..what ever happened to Robert Novak in this whole Plamegate thing? He fell by the wayside a LONG time ago. Is he cleared or is his thing in a ringer? What gives?

thanks Robert.

Valley Girl,
I’m hip. I was hoping there wouldn’t be a left-wing reptilian brain.

Speaking of NPR: I’m instant messaging w/ one of my sons who lives on Maui right now and he was saying how he’d just heard about a new Herb Alpert “remix” album on NPR.

He said he was happy to hear about this recording because if this was the news on NPR then we were all “safe” for the time being.

He kill me…

Troll

excellent question clueless. The most compelling speculation that I have read is that he flipped completely and told Fitz everything. He is a “witness,” not a “target,” and not a “subject.” He also is scared shitless of Fitz, as he should be. Just speculation, however, from people imo who know a lot.

lede is a media term, methinks, I just like it.

GrandmaJ, I saw your comment about being a Tomb Raider fan, You Go Girl!!!! That about made my day.

Clusterfuck is military jargon, meaning a pile of screwed up bullshit.

When I was a back out interior trim carpenter 15 years ago, a co -worker called my pile of tools and cords and hoses and assorted crap a ‘clusterfuck’.

The term is not new, but it has now been applied to preznit dimbulb, aka Commander Codpiece, because of the clusterfuck he created in Iraq.

” … or is his thing in a ringer?”

Ouch. That’s a painful mental picture…

Bada bing: I don’t know. I’m sure she has a lot more things on the fire besides this blog, which, is very hot.

TCI@IA -the chimp is at it again

aybab2u – All your base are belong to us

clueless 218:

Novakula was running his mouth a bit in his Sun-Times column just today. He claims that Fitz knows the ID of the original leaker but has taken no action because no crime was committed.

“WRT” means “with respect to” IIRC

“Truthiness” was coined by Stephen Colbert on his show “The Colbert Report”.

AARP is the acronym I love to hate,

Dave Barry once said that AARP is the sound you make right before you die.

I’m a military spouse(ret); the military can carry on entire conversations using nothing but acronyms.

I’d be scared shitless of Fitz too. The guy is super human.

A man’s got to know his limitations….

I was reading an article about Novak today..and I found it.

Novak: Feds know who outed CIA agent

April 20, 2006

http://www.suntimes.com/output…..vak20.html

clueless re: Robert Novack

I agree with the conventional wisdom that he is cooperating. Did you see him blow up on TV? Maybe he is afraid he will behave badly or maybe all the TV stations are afraid he will.

goodnite all–

Yeah, I mean, one of the things I like about this blog is how everyone is really behind Russ Feingold. Make my day and tell me he’s running for president. Go ahead.

Does he ever post here, either as a commenter or as a guest-writer? That would be cool.

Trex – nope, no NPR – or almost none. When I lived in NH, my radio was tuned to WBUR in MA so I could listen to their overnight BBC World broadcasts (NHNPR was atrocious)and I would listen to On the Media as well but gave up on NPR after the Voice of America folks took over. The shift from indepth, investigative reporting to “balanced” coverage did me in. I do miss Marketplace which I used to listen to on my 1 hour drive home over the mountains from VT but now it’s me with Cowboy Junkies, Mos Def or Robbie RObertson on my Ipod on the #2 bus and I come home in amuch better mood.

I do find the BBC essential listening – I recognize that they are not what they were but still, they ask hard questions and recognize that there is a world beyond DC or London – and I love their callins where you can hear an Iranian comment on Bush or someone from Africa discuss an issue. I used to work with a woman from Italy and we had agreed that we’d never date a guy who could not identify the Tamil Tigers – then again, we also used to chant the latin mass in our office for fun so I admit it’s a quirk.

Jane, you know what I’ve always wanted to know? How can a man who believes that the world was created 6000 years ago make his living in the fossil fuels game?

Isn’t that a little contradictory?

Wait, was it any question I could ask, or was there a topic?

ccmask, I read that article too, and it looks like b.s. to me. It also ends with a quote from some poli sci prof who says it’s possible but not probably that the Dems will take the House in 06. He believes there won’t be a huge seat swing, as he put it, I think. There are some huge seats I wish would swing–

Hey, leave Jamie Wolcott out of this! For an arrogant, pencil-necked fop he writes admirably. Sure, he and his brethern who populate the pseudo-intelligentia master race naturally sneer at us of the soiled underclass who actually work for a living and do not delve into the picayune bullshit that titters the salons and his attitude towards humanity reminds one of that green slimey stuff that grows on a dog’s canines, but that level of effete and studied insouciance is an invaluable warning for all parents to hold up to their kids as to what happens when you jerk off too much looking into a mirror.

On can only wonder why he accepts no comments on-site.

When did Jane start blogging? I found FDL through the Huffington Post back in Sept/Oct and have been a regular lurker since.

Also how do you all keep up with all the reading – does everyone here have a dominate speedreading gene?

Thinking this may get EPU’d.

Joe Bua:

Contradictory = Right Wing Republicans

If they were intelectually honest with themselves either they wouldn’t be republicans very long or their heads would explode. So I think they are after the payola, cash etc.

siun, you never cease to amaze me, chanting mass!

I’ve written about wbur and linked many times. They have received the AP award for news or whatever it is, and I love them, have been a member for years. I esp like On Point and of course Fresh air, but still wish they would do more political investigation. It’s mostly just straight reporting with occasional flashes of extra goodness, like reports on Sudan and on the SCOTUS.
Last night there was a great radio diary by a 19 year old Liberian girl with AIDS and it was just fascinating and wonderful. So you get what you get, but it’s still sooooo much more than what TV has to offer.

Just so folks know:

I am a Mac user.

You’d be amazed at the similarities between the Mac user camp and FDL community.

Starting w/hegemony of Windows and current political sitcheeayshun.

I’m just sayin’…

OK, “Tweety’ as Matthews predates Atrios use of the term, as he was using it w/o explination in the spring of 2002 when his blog was fresh and new. My best guess is that in the dawn of Left Blogostan, the term was invented by the late and lamented MediaWhoresOnline, back when it was them, Bartcop, and The Daily Howler to keep us online lefties informed. Alas, they have left the internets without an archive to remind of their greatness.

Hail, blithe Horse!

Blank Kludge 216:

“Lede” is a newspaper term. It means the opening sentence or paragraph of a news story. It originated in the days when stories were set in lead (the element) type; it was spelled differently to avoid confusing the two terms. I feel like I’m missing something, but I think that’s what my editing professor told me…of course in electronic journalism there’s no longer a need for it, but it has survived.

Why do we call MSNBC Hack “journalist†Chris Matthews “Tweety� Is it because he has a big round yellow head and wide-open eyes, as though he has just seen a Puddy Tat? Is it because of his high squeeky voice? All the above? None of the above? I use it because it just seems to fit…

Bingo!

I also saw one story — unverified, of course — that claimed that Matthews was originally given the nickname by members of his TV crew. Seems that Matthews allegedly tried using blond hair dye to cover his gray and ended up really looking like Tweety Pie.

Stenno Sue: Ok, I get that she must write republican slanted articles for Wapo. But, is her name Sue ?Schmidt? There was a woman on Hardball the other day named Sue, and I remember sorta freaking, asking myself: “oh my god, is that STENNO SUE from FDL??†I had a fine chuckle.
Also, as to Stenno Sue…I haven’t read too many comments lately about her. Has she changed her ways, or writes on other subjects, or what?

“Steno Sue” Schmidt of the WaPo received her well-deserved nickname back during Impeachment-o-rama days, when her job consisted mostly of taking dictation from the thoroughly dishonest Ken Starr and his goons. During the early Bush years, she was also notorious for an incident where she tried to get someone fired for sending her very critical but relatively civil comments from his work email account. Luckily, IIRC, the correspondent’s boss was understanding and Steno Sue ended up with some egg on the face, because the incident was reported with glee on what was then one of the most well-read (in Washington especially) proto-blogs, the late, lamented Media Whores Online.

Yikes!! The conversation here sucks!! Is this a result of Jane offering “rookie hour”?? Topics people…topics!!

How ’bout the DHS stifling whistleblowers??

…or the possible legal predicaments that Bush enablers are going to face??

…or what is going to come of Sibel Edmunds finally overcoming the gag order by this corrup administration??

…or what people are doing in their own towns to raise awareness that impeaching Bush is possible, if we can prevail in the midterms, and/or if he launches another war??

…or about the entire election fraud predicament that we are in, and that the GOP is planning to steal the 2006 elections to prevent them being held accountable for this GODDAM CHARADE OF A DEMOCARATIC GOVERNMENT THAT THEY HAVE FOISTED ON THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES!!

I walk to work and back each day, on the Hawthorne Bridge in Portland, OR, with my “IMPEACH BUSHCO” sign, and I gotta say…it is so cool that I have between 10 and 20 people honk and/or wave peace signs at me…and I feel like I might be inspiring, or shaming some people to start participating in this thing we call DEMOCRACY, to prevent its overthrow by FASCISM!!!

Peace,

Styve

I’ll take a few stabs on things about which I know a reasonable amount:

mommybrain @ #38, I’ll expand on previous comments:

The tags that appear in grey above the comments window are ‘HTML’ tags. HTML stands for “hypertext markup language.” Hypertext = ‘between texts’, or ‘connecting texts’ if you will. HTML doesn’t alter the content of a page — it is designed to FORMAT content: bolding, creating a link, italicizing…

HTML was Invented/created by Tim Berners Lee at CERN in Switzerland in the early 1990s to solve problems faced by physicists and others working on very large projects who needed to exchange info over a very basic computer network.

WWW, by the way, is a ‘meme’ — it entered the (English) language very rapidly with a speed only possible via social behavior; unlike genes and DNA, which require generations to produce shifts and alterations, a ‘meme’ can change rapidly and always signals key meanings.

Back to the tags:

—————–
The ‘a href’ tag is really the Mother of All HTML Tags, and arguably it is the fundamental, innovative element that enables the WWW.

Assume that I place the following between the ” ” marks in an href tag: http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..o-de-lurk/

Then I’m telling the web browser to go fetch a page, using a software communications technology called ‘http’ (hypertext transport protocol). (To vastly oversimlify, it’s like saying “use Spanish for this transaction.”) Because there are a number of different protocols, the prefix for any web address needs to specifiy the protocol used to retrieve that page. “http://” specifies that you want to use THIS protocol, called ‘hypertext transport protocol” to connect between your computer and the server that holds the desired web page.

Once it knows it is using the ‘http’ protocol, your web browser needs to locate the host server for a WEB DOMAIN called ‘firedoglake.com”.

In other words, this part of the web address tells the browser, “go find the computer in the universe that contains the domain “firedoglake.”

Once the browser/network locates the specific web server on the planet that houses the “firedoglake” domain, then it has to figure out where the requested file is located — kind of like walking into a room of file cabinets and having to figure out WHICH one holds the SPECIFIC document that you need.

If you think of computers as having many files, folders, or “directories” , then you will notice that this address instructs the browser to go fetch a page called “late-nite-fdl-an-invitation-to-de-lurk’ which is located inside the folder titled ‘4-20-06.

Unless the web address is enclosed within the ” ” marks, the computer won’t be able to read it. Always signal to the computer/browser/network that this is the ‘address’ by making sure the relevant link is “enclosed.”

The http:// signals to the computer network that it’s the “Hypertext Transport Protocol” that is to be used to fetch a file inside the directory “4-20-06″, which is located in the domain titled “firedoglake” (actually, we see it as ‘firedoglake’ but I’ll spare you a description of the computer’s view of it ;-)

The “a href” tag is a FUNCTIONAL. tag.

To underscore the significance, recall that footnotes have existed for centuries; however, it was not until Tim Berners Lee invented the “a href” (also called a “link”) tag AND THEN worked with others to develop the protocols to communicate among computers, that humans could ever link OUTSIDE a document **to other documents.** This fact is so sublimely simple that people tend to overlook its impications.

One reason that FDL is so great is quality of content; but this is enhanced by strategic links to other sources, particularly original documents. All because of the lowly “a href” tag.

Think of it as like the invention of writing, but to the 20th power ;-))
—————

html tags used to always require a beginning tag and an ending tag; if you highlight text and then add an tag, it will add formatting that “emphasizes” the selected text. In order to stop the formatting, use the same tag but put a / mark after the opening carot :

The means ‘italicize the selecteed text…

and so on…

For all things Web related (which includes HTML related) check out: http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/

w3c is the “World Wide Web Consortium” which is located all around the world but has operated out of MIT in Boston. It was founded by Berners Lee, who by all reports is a modest, humble man.

That’s enough for one comment, but hope you feel about as well informed on the topic as you need to be ;-)

there are many, many html tags, and if you ever want to view some on a web page, simply go the menu on your browser and start pulling down options — when you find one that says “source” click it. It will show you all the html markup on any given web page.

On Safari, this option is under “View” > View Source.

Over 240 comments in just two hours. That’s gotta be an FDL record.

TRex—great idea.

Stede-

From your fingertips to god’s eyes!

I would love to see Feingold blog here. Jane and Christy are pretty well-connected with Dem Senators having conference calls with bloggers here and there, la-te-dah, but not yet. Doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. They will be on a panel with Joe Wilson at Yearly Kos in June, so that will be fun.

Time for sleep, what a fun thread this was. Thanks to everyone on the east coast for staying up to play. And thanks to our delurkers, come out again!!!!

Will there be a downloadable PDF with the FAQs compiled from this thread? Or have I been EPUed again?

OK, Jane, here’s one – why have you and everyone else in the left hemisphere ignored the reports about the possibility of a 9/11 conspiracy – ie, the towers fell because of a controlled demolition, not the airplane strikes. Please don’t use the excuse that there are some nutcases involved – we all have crazy relatives in one closet or another.

Styve

What was that about Sibel Edmonds? Do you have news? Links?

Styve-

Think of this as happy hour. or zen meditation,
You might want to read some other posts before you criticise, m’kay.

Search “Roots Project” or “Racism” or “Plame”.

Grrrrrrrrrrr.

(overtired zennurse)

zennurse, I heard that diary by the girl with HIV. Heartbreaking, especially how she told her dad, and listening to her and her boyfriend.

Zenn dear — yeah, it beagan one day when she (a very dramatic italian) was upset about something and let loose with “dominus vobiscum”

having been a properly raised Irish RC girl in an earlier life, I could not resist “et cum spiritu tuo” in gregorian candence

our workmates used to run when the latin started!

and Blank Kludge – I had forgotten about the world cup broadcasts! thank you! I barely slept during the last … now I have to find a schedule so I can prepare.

OK, this question is for those of us who occasionally hold our noses and sneak into the huddle over at FR: Anyone know what they are talking about with their “Ping” and “Pong” references? I know these people are largely insane, but I don’t get it.

#236 dana,

No matter what the polls say, the dems will never win enough seats to take control of the House or the Senate, because the elections will be fixed. If you think the 2004, 2002, and 2000 elections were (somewhat) fixed, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. In the last 2 years, electronic voting machines have become much more widespread than they had been before. They are in every state, and in most counties. The software in those machines will guarantee Repub victories. The exit polls will again be discounted, and the msm will look the other way.

If only the people of this country would get a spine and rise up and take to the streets and oppose the use of secret software…

In my dreams…

neurophius 243

never knew that. i’ll be damned. i’ll keep that in mind…an intention mis/spelling. ha…whowoodathunkit?

However, I’m with another previous poster re: ‘begs the question’.

Original meaning was ‘avoid or obfuscate’ and has morphed into ‘RAISES this question for anwser’

I’m for the original.

De-lurking to say thanks to Jane, Redd and the rest of the team for all you do. I think Wolcott is jealous!

Styve #245 –

This is an R & R newbie invitational thread — there is plenty of opportunity for the red meat you crave.

Mark Centz #242 –

MediaWhoresOnline can be found at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine:

http://www.archive.org/

176 John Casper says:

April 20th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
As far as I know, “Clusterfuck†was coined by rwcole.
Also, I have never heard anyone ask who “Clusterfuck†is. Everyone understands immediately.

Nah – “clusterfuck” has been around longer than that. I first heard it during my government days when I worked with a guy from San Francisco back around 1988 – he used it a lot! Accurately, I might add, for what we were working on.

Blank Kludge 241:

You just said “I’m just sayin’”…where does that come from? I asked above but never got an answer. I’ve only seen it here…I’m just sayin’

OK then. The Media Horse it was.

http://www.urbandictionary.com…..erm=Tweety
Nickname for Chris Matthews, host of ‘Hardball.’ His staff nicknamed him Tweety Bird because of the shade of yellow he dyes his hair. First divulged at mediawhoresonline.com

Tweety Matthews was making no damn sense again tonight.

General note to the lurkers (and delurkers), from what I did, and what I’ve observed.

Posting for the first several times can be intimidating. I sure felt intimidated at first, myself. Best and easiest tactic/ way in, imo- post informative links with extras that add to the discussion, and keep doing that. Or, at the very least, say something nice. For better or worse, many regulars here have long memories. So, for example, if “you” start out your FDL “career”, as someone once did, by bashing rwcole for his online reports of the mighty (?) ducks game one single day (not being aware of all of his previous posts), you’re in negative numbers before you’ve begun. Jeez, I still remember the guy who started posting by giving Jane and Redd advice as to do a better job of running the blog. Including stuff like “that poster ought to be shot”. Yeah. I remember that, bec. it was me he was referring to. Anyway, I found that after I’d put in my “time” adding to the discussion with serious links, I could also follow the silly OT discussions and references to the past, and indulge at that level. HTH.

Thanks for the info on WRT and truthiness. “With respect to” makes alot more sense than “What republicans think” They don’t think — that is the problem. They just follow the leader.

Zennurse, I was hoping everyone had missed that coment about my Tomb Raider obsession. I had picked up some old games that I spent way too much time on. My “kids” got many good laughs at my expense on that. That and listening to the Kingston Trio via my ancient 45’s on my old record player. “Where have all the flowers gone…” Gone to soldiers graves who died so that King George could have his kingdom. A shameful act by a cowardly man.

Re: Robert Novak

Just read that article linked above.

Rethug Shill. No surprise. “move on nothing to see here…no crime committed here”

Only time will tell. My money is on Christy’s interpretation.

I realize this is not the type of question being answered here tonight, but, just out of curiosity, does anyone know anything about the wingnut blogger Ace Of Spades? Specifically, how old is he? Judging by his posts on video-gaming, he’s young – young enough to sign up for some joy-stickless action in Iraq.

I’m probably missing something obvious, but there appears to be no bio on him at pajamasmedia or any of the incarnations of his present website. I’ve read some of his pre-blogger comments at ‘The Perfect World’ and ‘The Mote’, but found nothing to reveal his age.

spine #255–I talked to an IT guy the other day with some experience with voting machines, and he says it will take about 10 years to get rid of those machines, and that’s if there’s determination to do it. So I’m praying for a landslide.

VG – I think that’s good advice for posting but I’d add that everyone is welcome and every voice is needed. Happily, we don’t have any of those silly things like rating and egopoints here and folks generally appreciate others who post in a genuine spirit. You don’t need a certain iq level or expertise – just curiosity and concern over the state of our world. And that’s why I love FDL – it’s a very human place.

Blank sez:

I am a Mac user.

Me too! Once I clicked the “Site Meter” (at the bottom of each page) and poked around a bit. Under “Visitor Tracking” there is a graph showing who is using what OS. I’ve been keeping track ever since – and Mac OSX is always over 20% of FDL’s viewing public. Much higher than the Apple’s 3-5% share of the Industry. So, Great Minds Must Think Alike.

jane don’t live in portland, she live on the coast. if you wonder why, just try living in l.a. for a few years………. lot’s of former cali-people now living in oregon (some in portland but elsewhere too.

the mighty wurlitzer: they just put in another nickel and play the same ole song ……….

vanderhei the pool boy………he jus’ clean up the pool no matter how many nasty thing floatin’ aroun innit…………..

198 Blank Kludge says:

April 20th, 2006 at 9:33 pm
Oh, what’s the, what is it the ‘Mighty Wurlitzer’?

I think this term originated at a large meeting – political convention, or whatever. The crowd got too boisterous – out of control – and the meeting hall or stadium had a large Wurlitzer organ. So someone decided to drown out the boisterousness (is that a word?) by playing the Wurlizter SO LOUD THAT NOBODY COULD HEAR OR TALK. And all of the dissension quieted down. So playing the “Mighty Wurlitzer” means to shout down or drown out your opponent, thereby ending – or winning – the argument at hand.

201 spine says:

April 20th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
I think drinking the kool aid means brainwashed, but with the connotation of having become so willingly. In other words, the person (willingly) chose to drink the kool aid.

Am I correct?

Yes. When you drink the koolaid you blindly accept, adhere to and promulgate whatever bullshit has been fed to you.

fwiw — (for what it’s worth) — Kroger cocktail weenies are on sale for $2.50 a pound; they’re not bad!

Mac here too and Blank – you’re very right about the similarities. The mix of snark, smarts and punaise is very reminiscent of late night Expo parties in the good ole days.

neuphorius 260

‘I’m just sayin”…

Beats me. Wish I knew. I see it all over Webiverse.
Kinda like ‘Not So Much’…which FDLers seem to think is J.Stewart Comedy Central.

dana #266,
by landslide do you mean the dems winning by a landslide or the repubs winning by a landslide? I think if the dems win, they will continue to be their apathetic selves and say, basically, “we won, therefore, the system ain’t broke, why fix it?” If the repubs win by a landslide that isn’t supported by the polls, then maybe the sheeple of this country will finally become outraged enough take to the streets and do something – like destroy the vote (mis)counting machines and demand a new election.

“lede” is, as neurophius points out, the old term used by printers, spelled that way because “lead” is just too bloody confusing. While we’re at it, when you’re setting text, and you change the leading from 14 point to 16 point or whatever, it’s pronounced “ledding,” not “leeding.” Unfortunately, once you learn this, it’s hard not to judge people when they screw it up. And don’t even get me started on font vs. typeface.

205 orangejumpsuit says:

April 20th, 2006 at 9:38 pm
No one asked about this but I am offering it because it is often seen in blogs, and is one of my favorite. It is also I think military in origin.

FUBAR=Fucked Up Beyond All Repair

I was always told it meant “Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition“. Basically the same thing.

delurking
john casper:

sunburn’s primary limitation is its relatively short range. about 60 km or so, similar to a standard Harpoon anti-ship missile. a Harpoon’s velocity is subsonic, roughly 500 kph. as a sub based antiship weapon it is formidable, assuming you can get close enough to get individual ship targeting data. because it’s so fast precise targeting is essential.

Actually, I never complained about not getting comments. But, given my ego, I am a universe after all, though my ego is not as bad these days as during my inflationary period, I at least wanted the gang to read my longer posts; which I actually put some thought into – even the rants. You all are better for my doing so. :)

i’m just sayin’………….

lends a feigned, child-like innocence at the end of an often devastating post (something at which, as we all know, jane and redd hedd excel ). [ i wish christy would go back to that moniker now that we know her real name. it lent a wonderful mysterious-ness to her persona, almost like “V”]

i’m not exactly a lurker. i post sometimes, but i guess i lurk too, as for days i may not post unless the mood strikes me. strike! mood!

Blank Kludge 256

Your understanding of begging the question is close to mine. The best way I have heard it explained is that someone’s answer is nonresponsive, hence it devalues, or makes a begger of, or “begs” the question. I see it misused all the time to mean “Calls for” or “invites” the question. Paula Zahn on CNN does that all the time, one of many reasons I don’t watch her show (any more).

Pass the lettuce.

Plus – We will be victorious in the battle to get EPU’d Wikipedia-safe. Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? No! So don’t give up yet, CC, Coz, etc.

clueless, That’s what I understand FUBAR to mean, but the sense is the same, whether “repair” or “recognition” is the last word. spineless, I meant I’m praying for a Dem landslide because praying for the Diebold machines to go by 06 or 08 is a prayer likely to be unanswered. It’s the close elections that make it easier to doubt the machines are the problem.

My dumb question isn’t a newbie question.

What the hell happened to Captain Scott Speicher?

I thought we were going to Iraq to rescue him from Saddam Hussein. So… where is he?

Before you leap in with your flip comments about how this is just more cynical manipulation by Bush… Yeah, I got that part years ago.

But why does this get no discussion? Four years ago, everybody was ready to replay Rambo II over Scott Speicher. But then, even more swiftly than the
WMD’s vanished, the missing imaginary POW just vanished from everybody’s collective radar, as if the whole thing had been such an obvious lie that it deserved no discussion.

The best that I can determine, using common sense, is this: Scott Speicher died 12 years ago, in Gulf War I. He was spontaneously resurrected by the Bush administration in 2002 to provide one more excuse for demonizing Saddam Hussein. His family was notified that he was no longer categorized as Dead, nor as MIA, but now he was a POW. And after Mission Accomplished, the pretense was no longer necessary, so screw the family members and everybody else that fell for it.

From 12 years dead, to MIA, to POW, to Un-person in such a short period of time. I guess it’s easy for such a thing to get buried in all of the scandals over Plame and mobile labs and aluminum tubes and what not. But this still shocks me even more, on a personal level, than all that.

Back in 2003, I sent emails to several of my favorite columnists, asking them to write something about it. Never got a response. I guess it was too touchy for them. Might upset family members that still held out hope. Which makes it all the sicker.

Has enough time passed? Can we raise hell over this, yet?

I would listen to On the Media as well but gave up on NPR after the Voice of America folks took over. The shift from indepth, investigative reporting to “balanced†coverage did me in.

Well, siun, you should write them and tell them that. There was a lot of pressure from CPB under Tomlinson, but there are factions within the structure, from what I am given to understand.

I do think that there have been some outstanding moments over the last couple of years. Particularly JudyJudy’s interview with Renee Montaigne from November:

http://www.npr.org/templates/s…..Id=5008692

This was one of Judy’s first forays back out into the spotlight and I think she thought she’d get a free pass, i.e., some nice, cushy, air-conditioned interview with a complimentary pedicure and a glass of champagne. Instead R. Montaigne held her feet right up to the fire.

Worth a listen.

222 John Casper says:

April 20th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
excellent question clueless. The most compelling speculation that I have read is that he flipped completely and told Fitz everything. He is a “witness,†not a “target,†and not a “subject.†He also is scared shitless of Fitz, as he should be. Just speculation, however, from people imo who know a lot.

Yeah, I’ve also read that he flipped a long time ago. But I also figured he’d be found floating down the Chicago River if he did indeed flip. But he still seems to strut aroun DC without a care in the world and in good graces with the White House. That doesn’t seem to jive with someone who has sold out the White House at the first turn. Thus my suspicion.

Suin- agreed. Genuine viewpoints welcome, great strength. I was coming from the perspective of someone who was reading intitally for information and education- I really didn’t have a lot of well thought out comments to contribute, so the idea of posting was intimidating. But, as you say, for those who do can post coherent opinion comments from the get go, genuine spirit of intent does shine through. Didn’t mean to limit the inspired comments with my advice.

clueless #270 –

The Mighty Wurlitzer specifically refers to the propaganda machinery created by the CIA in the 1950’s — they would push a story to a source, and soon the entire media would pick it up and it would drowned out everything else.

The original Mighty Wurlitzers were movie palace organs; today, the term is used to describe the way right wing talking points take over the media, just like the original CIA Mighty Wurlitzer.

273 siun says:
“The mix of snark, smarts and punaise”
What does punaise mean? Is it a word or the name of a commenter? I thought I remembered a commenter nicknamed punaise.

274 Blank Kludge and neuphorius -
I’m just sayin’ – I’ve heard and used that saying for years, long before seeing it on the internet. Also, I seem to remember Bart Simpson saying it on the Simpsons. It’s a way of taking the edge off of something you’re saying where you’re pointing out the obvious, and/or it can be a way of adding emphasis to what you’re saying.

I’m just sayin’…

Clueless – If he flipped I will bet he is not “just” a witness. Actually, Rover is not one of Fitz’ witnesses for the Libby trial, which really points to him being a target or subject (which I think are pretty synomous anyway). Only the little fish get to be “only” witnesses. No reason to think any different here.

3 things.

When we went and talked to Sen. Murray’s representative 2 days ago, I could describe co-mod ReddHedd as a former Asst. Us Atty (AUSA) but is Jane also a lawyer who found her way to screenwriting and producing? Just want to be accurate when we go to Sen Cantwell’s office (who has much to account for btw).

Over at the blog site, Making Light, which is run by two editors at Tor in NYC (Teresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden), Teresa came up with the idea of ‘disemvowelling’ trolls. It is a hoot. I don’t know if they have a program they run on the trolls’ postings, but it makes a most effective statement.

And, I would second a small dictionary of terms to be posted at one side or the other. That way, newbies can get into the swing of things much more quickly.

fwiw — (for what it’s worth) — Kroger cocktail weenies are on sale for $2.50 a pound; they’re not bad!

OMG!!!!

We HAVE to ship crates of them to Vandehei, Howell, and Brady!!

It could be the next rubber stamp.

268

269

270

thanks folks.

BTW shortly after arriving here back in mid-Dec 05, I googled the ‘bedlam/rain’ hoping to find a connection to how FDL was named…but just found the song/lyrics.

It IS comforting to know that there’s an alternative parsing into a ‘Irish weapon’ reference having Irish roots of a kind.

Which reminds me: markfromireland’s post are incredible. I did not know his son was in Afghanistan.

and a shout out to egregious…gladness and hugs.

oh, somebody PLZ find a photo of the that ‘wall of hands’ the new WHCOS has. THAT is creepy.

sandman calls on East Coast…

O/T

Please check out John Dean’s new column:

If Past Is Prologue, George Bush Is Becoming An Increasingly Dangerous President

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dea…n/ 20060421.html

John C and Trygth – I’m starting to get it (RSs) Thanks I am so low tech.

So, EPU, you admit to doing rants. But do you do screeds?

Hope I’m not EPU’d, if you will excuse the expression…

#198 —

“Mighty Wurlitzer.”

To the best of my knowledge (TTBOMK), this was first coined by CIA guys.

http://www.namebase.org/news17.html

*

#98 wrote: “NSA was a super secret agency for years. I think it was finally revealed as existing in the Nixon years. People called it “no such agency†– NSA – get it? I heard it was responsible for all the dirty stuff, like Pinochet.”
–

I believe that is incorrect (IBTII). David Atlee Phillips & Thomas Clines (CIA) and Hal Hendrix (ITT) quarterbacked Henry Kissinger’s game plan for the overthrow of Allende.

http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/names_p.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet…..linesT.htm

http://www.realhistoryarchives…..bishop.htm

http://tinyurl.com/ohoxy

Oh, what’s the, what is it the ‘Mighty Wurlitzer’?

I think I get that it’s the ‘gop fog propaganda’ spin.

But what’s the ‘coinage’ of the term? First use, and who and when and how

IIRC, I first became aware of the term “Mighty Wurlitzer” thru Robert Parry of Consortium News. It originally referred to CIA propaganda operations, especially in Latin America. When it became necessary to, say, overthrow a democratically elected leader and replace him with a military junta, the Agency would get its friends in the country’s elite, who also owned the local media, to unleash a nonstop propaganda barrage on the local population, with the goal of brainwashing the populace into believing that the destruction of democracy was necessary.

Starting in the late 1970s, similar propaganda barrages became common in the USA, though we usually refer to them as media feeding frenzies. President Carter was the first target (“Day number 452 of the Iran hostage crisisâ€), and later targets included the adulterous Gary Hart and that flag-hating commie Michael Dukakis. The US Mighty Wurlitzer went into overdrive during the Clinton years, when it created phony “scandal†after phony “scandal†after unbelievably phony “scandal†until it finally found a real Clinton scandal: He lied about cheating on his wife. Despite the fact that Clinton lied about something that was none of our damn business, the Mighty Wurlitzer played louder and more frantically, trying to brainwash the population into believing that he had to resign. Fortunately, the campaign failed…but the obnoxious music played on.

Soon we had the War on Gore during Election 2000, where, using misrepresentations, distortions and outright lies, the Mighty Wurlitzer screamed that Al was thoroughly and utterly dishonest. Meanwhile, the big organ was silent about the big fat bald-faced lies coming out of the mouth of the Shrub…while it also played a soothing tune that brainwashed many into believing that this ignorant, arrogant son of privilege was just a regular guy you might wanna have a beer with…

The rest you probably know already. The Mighty Wurlitzer is still with us, and if American democracy is to be saved, we have to dismantle that damn annoying but powerful instrument.

Sorry bad link:

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20060421.html

Why does it hurt when I urinate?

moe99 # 292 –

AFAIK — (As Far As I Know) — Jane is not a lawyer, but is a Hollywood producer and published author; Christy worked as both a prosecutor and defense attorney — but not as a Federal prosecutor.

Just rants. No screeds. I see rants as sorta “gonzo” postings. I view Screeds as being negative, ad hominim, attacks. Not saying those are proper defs, but they are mine.

oh, one last one (last call, tarbender?)

I’ll always have a soft spot for the word ’screed’, and for such writing.

I first met that word in the pages of ‘The Great Shark Hunt’– a compilation of material from the great Hunter S. Thompson. Had to look it up.

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

If Homeland comes knockin’ on your door, find yourself a 300 pound Samoan lawyer.

clueless, 287, excellent point to which I’ll just add some further speculation. Fitz never leaked the grand jury testimony. WH doesn’t know anything for sure.
By all accounts, Rove and Novak are still linked at the hip. Sadly, a lot of Republicans still read and respect Novak.
Also once Novak’s testimony is in the Grand Jury, whacking him doesn’t do any good. In a sense imo the WH’s delay, delay, delay did them in.

289 ck says:

April 20th, 2006 at 10:37 pm
clueless #270 –

The Mighty Wurlitzer specifically refers to the propaganda machinery created by the CIA in the 1950’s — they would push a story to a source, and soon the entire media would pick it up and it would drowned out everything else.

The original Mighty Wurlitzers were movie palace organs; today, the term is used to describe the way right wing talking points take over the media, just like the original CIA Mighty Wurlitzer.

So are you saying my understanding of the term was incorrect? If so, I stand corrected. And thanks for the correction.

(Altho I must admit – I kinda like the story (in an entertaining way) that I passed on in #270. Sounds like something an oldtime politician would do! Like Richard J. Daley (the dad), for example.)

My bad clueless at 259. I wish I were young enough to claim ignorance. I was not clear and should have stated that I never heard the well-known term, “Clusterfuck,” applied to Bush before rw.

EPU, your Universal Eminence, Sir…

It is interesting that you use the word “gonzo” in the same post as “screeds.” IIRC, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, the Godfather of Gonzo Journalism, used to refer to some of his works as screeds…I think that is where I first heard the term.

OT, I was wondering, in addition to being a Universe, are you also a lawyer? You seem to know the teritory. I’m just sayin’….

The Dean column jon links to above (#299) ends with speculation about the “october surprise,” which always frightens me because I expect it to be some kind of terror that will rally the kool-aid drinkers around the president again. In the last election, I thought they’d pull OBL out of a closet, tweak his nose on t.v. and say “gotcha!” But Diebold accomplished that effect.

281 dana

“spineless, I meant I’m praying for a Dem landslide because praying for the Diebold machines to go by 06 or 08 is a prayer likely to be unanswered. It’s the close elections that make it easier to doubt the machines are the problem.”

I know what what you mean about the close elections.

I still worry that the repubs will win, with a relatively simple line of code that would start subtracting votes from the dem candidate once a certain threshold is reached and give those votes to the repub candidate. In that case, a landslide for the dem won’t matter – the repub would still win. Now, if the repub wins by a landslide when the dem was expected to win, hopefully people will get really pi**ed off.

btw, it’s spine, not spineless. Huge difference. Geez. I guess it’s time for a tantrum… Deep breath, beginning to formulate an angry, outraged invective…

oh, never mind.

ciao.

I have always sort of thought a screed was a particularly long-winded piece of sriting, usually in the form of a missive or manifesto.

Here, I’ll check Mirriam Webster Online:

One entry found for screed.
Main Entry: screed
Pronunciation: ’skrEd
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English screde fragment, alteration of Old English scrEade — more at SHRED
1 a : a lengthy discourse b : an informal piece of writing
2 : a strip (as of plaster of the thickness planned for the coat) laid on as a guide
3 : a leveling device drawn over freshly poured concrete

I find it particularly useful when referring to any piece of writing by Michelle Malkin in light of its onomatopoetic qualities and its similarities to the words “screech” and “scream”.

“Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”
LMAO
thanks EPU, God Bless John Belushi.

spine, I’m so sorry! It was a complete accident, truly. Thanks for not issuing an invective in my direction–that took spine.

Wow. 311 comments, and still going strong. What a post, Jane.

It is interesting that you use the word “gonzo†in the same post as “screeds.†IIRC, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, the Godfather of Gonzo Journalism, used to refer to some of his works as screeds…I think that is where I first heard the term.

Actually, Malcolm Lowry, in Under the Volcano “created” the “gonzo” style of writing. Great book, top 100 works of English literature good.

I am a big Thompson fan, up to Curse of Lono, which was just bad self parody,

Did Thompson describe his outbursts as screeds, or his antagonists’, say Nixon’s, outbursts as screeds?

I am behind in the slang also. Maybe you could do a dictionary (small) or do a link to the definition (example IIRC) for a week or so. Anyway, y’all make my day everyday. Keep up the good work! Thanks

sorry, meant 284 dana, not 281 dana

Spine – sorry for muddying the unmuddying thread – Punaise is a commentor known for bilingual abilities and puns.

Trex – sorry hon but NPR is just not for me – gets me too irritated these days with the slanting practiced (the caving to pressure on the coverage of palestinian issues was sorta a last straw)

VG – I did not in any way mean to disagree but to expand – I think we feel too often as if there are these expert voices that are more important or more legitimate than our own and yet so often our own heartfelt thoughts and opinions are much closer to the truth. Like we look at Iraq and say “we should leave” but then get waylaid by all these “expert analysts” who distance us from the human reality. I trust the human so much more. And I really liked your recommendations for getting your feet wet for anyone who’d like to ease their way in.

Blank – markfromireland’s son Dubhaltach is in Afghanistan as a bomb disposal officer. He, Mark and Du’s fiance Erdla jointly blog at Gorilla’s Guides while Mark uses his mfi blog for lengthier posts. Mark has served as a UN Peacekeeper in the Middle East.

In fact, accc. to the latest post on MFI, a family of friends of Mark were killed in Baghdad just recently – his latest post is heartbreaking as is the news.

EPU

I think a screed is a longform rant.

Merriam-Webster online does not confirm this, (I was gonna link). However, I used to have an old Funk and Wagnall’s (paper) that I looked it up in years ago. That is what I base my opinion on.

Here’s M-W/O definition of ’screed’:
“1 a : a lengthy discourse b : an informal piece of writing”

clueless, more speculation on Novak’s flipping. When everything finally comes out, I think Comey’s forcing Ashcroft’s recusal @January 2004 may have been the big turning point. I think a lot of WH people, not just Novak, Libby and all the rest, were telling the FBI investigators the truth more or less, pre-Fitz. They just figured Ashcroft was their firewall, they were following orders. When Fitz took over, he looked at all the old testimony in a completely different light. WAG Alert (wild-ass-guess).

John Casper says:

April 20th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
clueless, 287, excellent point to which I’ll just add some further speculation. Fitz never leaked the grand jury testimony. WH doesn’t know anything for sure.
By all accounts, Rove and Novak are still linked at the hip. Sadly, a lot of Republicans still read and respect Novak.
Also once Novak’s testimony is in the Grand Jury, whacking him doesn’t do any good. In a sense imo the WH’s delay, delay, delay did them in.

Perhaps Novak was trying to smoke out Fitz with his latest article saying Fitz has nuthin. Trying to get Fitz to respond by saying – Yeah, un-huh I got sumthin, so-and-so is going DOWN. Fuckin idiot. No way would Fitz fall for such a simpleton ploy. Just makes Novak look stupid.

Anyone else experiencing this frustration? By the time I write a post, then post it, then catch up on reading the posts that have gone up while I was writing my post, then write another post, I feel like I’m constantly losing ground and falling behind. Maybe I’m just really slow. Kind of feels like slogging through mud while trying to keep up with people who are ice skating.

# 300
Mark Spittle says:

Why does it hurt when I urinate?

My guess is you contracted a virus at Madame Mangalang’s place.

Stede 233: I discovered FDL an Feingold at similar points in time. There is Feingold love, but ther is also Gore love, and Dean love, and . . .

My political soul (at least for now and I’m not that fickle), belongs to Feingold. I SOOOO hope he runs, if only to shake things up an hold feet to the fire. I’d be ecstatic if more came from it.

319 John Casper says:

April 20th, 2006 at 11:12 pm
When everything finally comes out, I think Comey’s forcing Ashcroft’s recusal @January 2004 may have been the big turning point.

John – Oh, absolutely THE big turning point. If Fitz is the hero here, then Comey is absolutely hero #2. Without Comey, there’s no Fitz. And without Fitz….. I was extremely disappointed to see Comey leave the Justice Dept.

Yes, I have a law degree, and although I don’t really practice now, but I have(and still do) helped out my Dad, who was at one time a high-ranking prosecutor and is now a very prominent crim. defense attorney in NYC, on big cases.

I’ve had crim law drilled into me from when I was a singularity.

You shouldn’t be surprised, the EPU is a litigious place, and as the Universe I get sued alot. The degree saves on lawyers bills.

AFAIKthe mighty WurlitzerisFUBAR WRTtheNSA,NSC,SSCI.IIRCimaybe OTbutIANAL.

Just got back from Vegas. Caught a…

Great Show

EPU

You may be right about Hunter using the term screed, pejoratively, to apply to others’ rants, not his own. I thought I remembered that he used it to describe some of the thrown-together articles he filed over the mojo wire during the 1972 campaign. Maybe not. Don’t have the book handy, can’t be sure.

Wow I had to go out to a blogger get-together so I figured I’d start a conversation that was a self-generator since I couldn’t be here for a bit. I guess TRex had another great suggestion.

Saw Markos, Arianna, Amato & Howie Klein, also met Jerome and Markos’s wife, David Brock & Robert Greenwald.

Markos’s wife is a total hotie.

Hope everybody is getting their questions answered, sure looks like it.

Momentarily to say good night to all you wonderful folk.

Clusterfuck to me has always implied that everything is screwing everything else up. Taken as a person(?) sounds like someone who screws everything they touch, in a non-sexual, abstinence based way of course.

Long and wonderful thread.

Namaste

Just got back from Vegas. Caught a…

Great Show…

Mary, I just had a good talk with (the receptionist) at Feingold’s Milwaukee office today. The guy knew Froomkin and Kos, but did not know about FDL. I encouraged him to tell Russ’s COS about the Kos Panel, because Froomkin will be there. IMO it would be smart of Russ to make an appearance. IIRC, emptywheel has feelings similar to yours about Russ.

Markos’s wife’s name is David Brock & Robert Greenwald. Weird. Get my editor.

EPU – I want to repeat my “you must read Iain M Banks” suggestion from a while back – hell,I’ll send my copies to you! try Use of Weapons or any of the “Culture” books!

Dumbo – interesting question re: Scott Speicher – I just saw some mention of him the other day and was startled that his case had completely vanished from W’s rhetoric.

And Spine – I’m always behind here – even on days like today when I skip work! I confess to skipping some batches of comments when I am way behind … but even then!

and time to say g’night & sweet dreams to all
(not only am I always behind, but since discovering FDL I’m always sleep deprived!)

Thanks to all on “Mighty Wurlitzer”
(I’m old enough to know what REAL Wurlitzer is/was)
CIA/SA roots. Who knew?

I’m gonna hafta reread HST ‘Great Shark Hunt’ now to find his use of ’screed’…but I know it’s in there (scan of TOC doesn’t reveal in use titles)

and Mac users unite: let’s get Sitemeter stats above C’fuck’s JAR!

11:30 pm Pacific (and I’m Eastern)…

L8R FDLers

333 Evil Parallel Universe says:

April 20th, 2006 at 11:27 pm
Markos’s wife’s name is David Brock & Robert Greenwald. Weird. Get my editor.

Having that long name must really suck when she’s paying bills and signing all those checks!

Welcome back, Jane. Everyone would like to know why you moved to Oregon. Or why you are no longer producing. Or if you are no longer producing. Or if you are a lawyer. Or whatever.

it didn’t take my HTML delurking code; /lurk with @ either end.

Has there ever been any speculation on whether (and to what degree) Cheney’s Energy Panel they discussed Iran, Iraq, and what he planned to do about it all.

I’d just like to say good night to everyone here, especially to spine!

Mary — This is a very good introduction to RSS:
http://waldo.jaquith.org/blog/2006/01/rss-intro/

Short answer — it lets you have a program that tells you when there are updates to blogs (instead of obsessively refreshing web pages ;-), and lets you read them all in one place (instead of having to go around to a bunch of different websites.) This is called a “feed” because it feeds information to you, instead of you going out and getting it.

If you only read one or two blogs, it probably won’t make enough difference to be worth the bother. If you read more, it’s pretty nice.

Bonus: There are RSS feeds for things other than blogs, too; various news sources have them, but I haven’t explored that, so I can’t tell you much about that.

Art 339 I think it is widely believed that that is exactly what the energy panel talked about–like taking a map of the middle east and dividing it up into territories for each of the major oil companies? I don’t have a source on this, maybe someone else does.

delurking to ask about *g*

is anybody still out there tonight?

siun

read your post on mfi. (319)

thanks.

Well, what an interesting lot of posts.

In the interest of education I have looked up in my handy dictionary devoted to the F word (and called handily enough The F-Word) the derivation of the word clusterfuck.

According to my book it first appeared in 1966 and referred to orgies.

Its military use is first noted in 1969:
“in B. E. Holley Vietnam 143: These are the screwups that the American public rarely hears about. They happen often enough over here that we have a term for them — “cluster-fuck”!

Its use to mean a bungler or idiot is not until 1987 Bunch & Cole Reckoning 284 [refers to Vietnam War]: He’s a clusterfuck.

FUBAR is an older term. Its first cite is in “1944 Yank (Jan. 7) 8: The FUBAR Squadron…FUBAR? It means “Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition”.”

(Obviously cleaned up for print.)

And wrt “drinking the koolaid” I found and interesting abstract of a document (costs $12 so I couldn’t read the whole thing):

Drinking the Kool-Aid: The Cultural Transformation of a Tragedy

by Rebecca Moore​‌

The expression “drinking the Kool-Aid” has entered the American idiom with little reference to its origins in the Jonestown tragedy of 18 November 1978. Instead, people are using Jonestown— the event—and Kool-Aid—the phrase—to signify a number of contradictory meanings and values. This is because those who died in Jonestown were ritually excluded from cultural consideration. The more traumatic the original incident, the more likely memory of that event will be forgotten or repressed. The author identifies the ways Kool-Aid and Jonestown are used in the news and on the Internet, and catalogues four main groups of uses: cult disasters, including 9/11; political uses; entertainment; and business uses. The categories of cult disasters and politics use Jonestown references negatively,thereby indicating a tenuous connection with the origins of the concepts. The entertainment and business worlds, however, use the references both negatively and positively,thus revealing dissociation and amnesia about the reality of Jonestown.

Which puts an interesting spin on all the various interpretations of the term.

Bonne nuit!

WHOA! What a good question Jane has asked. This is the only fdl thread I’ve ever bookmarked. I stopped at about #25, then went to #300 and worked my way to the end.

I suppose I missed somebody suggesting an FAQ sidebar.

Hi Jane, see how nice we played while you were away? Just wind it up and let it go, some nights….

Dammit. Even when I want to de-lurk I’m way late. ;) I blame Hawai’i time zones.

njp 345

I asked the other day about *g* and someone said it means “grin”

I’m still learning.

About to call it a night.

neurophius

You can bet that’s the deal. Didn’t Sup. Ct. let him keep that ‘classified’?

and nj/prog: ‘*g*’ is ‘grin’
sometimes *G* is ‘BIG grin’

I still produce, I’m not a lawyer and my dogs love to run on the beach. And I split my time between LA & Oregon.

Bionic,

You’re suppossed to have gone to bed, but I got out of the Army in 1967 and distinctly remember hearing the term “clusterfuck” before I got out. I can’t remember what it was referring to, but probably had to do with the guy we had been detailed to at Ft. Lewis to move desks and beds and filing cabinets and typewiters from one empty building to another, and then back again. We got in a jam moving stuff into a place where another detail was moving almost exactly the same kinds of stuff out of, and somebody yelled “Clusterfuck,” somebody else yelled “Fuckin’ A!,” another chimed “Lyndon Johnson suck my dick,” and so on……..

Oh and I saw the Al Gore movie tonight. It was interesting. I think we can safely assume Gore is running in 2008.

For a ton of acronyms, try the Urban Dictionary.

*g* = grins!

I use it when I re-read my comment and realize my intended humour might be taken otherwise.

355: and are you glad about that, Jane?

euuuuw, Nader’s just come on Colbert….

bionic 347

koolaid in that citatin is a LOT like ‘grassy knoll’ and ‘conspiracy theory’

Interesting.

“Everything is deeply intertwingled.”

njprogressive 345

*g* is a shortform for “grin”. I like it because it also looks like a clown smiling.
It’s late. Squint your eyes. See what I mean? On some sites it will also look like this:g, because the asterisks can make things bold.

But not here.

Now I must go to bed!

Jane,

This time I PROMISE TO VOTE FOR AL GORE, cross my Green heart! And I’ll hold my friends to it.

OTOH (has that been covered tonight?), who should a rational running mate be?

Everybody remember the WaPo article about the biolabs not being bio labs? Well, it is mentioned in James Risen’s book.

Blank Kludge 352

Yes, I believe the SCOTUS did just that. IIRC, Scalia voted to keep it classified, even though Deadeye Cheney, head of the task force, was also Scalia’s duck-hunting partner…(probably didn’t know what danger he was in–is duck shot heavier than quail shot?)IIRC, the plaintiff in the case, whoever was seeking the information, formally requested that Scalia recuse himself, but Antonin refused…I don’t know whether that would qualify as a clusterfuck…BTW I think it was a question of executive privilege, not classification.

BCian_ya – welcome to unlurk mode! (and yeah, all those nice / things get lost here)

Blank – de rien – mfi has taught me so much and his writing reminds me daily of the reality of what we fight and fight for – if you have not read his poset titled “why I fight”, look for it.

NJ Progressive – *g* or (as I learned it) was common useage back in the day – bbs’s and computserve discussion groups, usenet pre web, etc (command line days) – most smiley’s were considered amusing but not very hip so in quick electronic converation stood for grin and hopefully conveyed that you were kidding – also used was for smile and for go ahead – used during online chatiing on IRC and similar early chat systems – they prob. originated in even earlier comms systems but I don’t go back that far.

Mack & Redshift thanks for the RSS updates!

JohnC – that sounds like a fun conversation (unlike my call to Bunning’s office on the censor resolution) I would love to hear more from Feingold. I saw an article today that his PAC got a nice bump with the censor resolution. I would love to see someone like him have more sway in the party.

From Pulliter Prize winner James Risen’s State of War, Chapter 5 “Skeptics and Zealots,” page 119:

As late as May 2003, as doubt began to surface that there might not be any WMD in Iraq, the CIA was still trying to smother those doubts by issuing a paper stating that two trailers discovered in Iraq cinched the case that Iraq had mobile biological laboratories. In fact, analysts later acknowledged that the trailers they had discovered were used to pump hydrogen into weather balloons; the weather ballons were to be used by the Iraqis to help gauge wind conditions for its conventional military.

E*ward Teller 361

“who should a rational running mate be?”

Feingold!!!

BTW the time delay on the typing in the comments box really sucks.

Edw*rd Teller

I was quoting from my book. The word itself was already out there in 1966. The dictionary notes its first written cite. So I am not arguing with you, just noting the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure)for dictionary makers.

I expect with the Internets words will move more swiftly into the dictionaries. How long after all will it be before EPU’d crosses over into common use and becomes a term for being left behind? As someone wrote earlier, like coming back to your cubicle before lunch and finding that everyone has gone for lunch and left you behind.

Neurophius,
I don’t have a time delay but I use Firefox. I think it is on Microsoft IE that it delays. I was in the computer lab on IE and it lagged then. I thought it was the computer, but it may be the web browser.

I apologize for seeming like I am harshing on “lurkers”, because that is not what I intended!! I am saying that people should jump in to the myriad topics that need discussion/analysis, rather than focus on what a previous poster said, or on some extranneous train of thought that sorta derails a conversation.

Re- Sibel Edmunds…there is a whistleblowers site, for which I don’t have a url handy, but once she breaks free from the bonds of BushCo’s intentional suppression of what she has to say…watch out!! I imagine that she has dirt on the BushCo complicity in 9-11, and much more.

Go Fitz!!

Styve

Jane – I’m interested in our take on Gore – I saw him give “the presentation” at the CERES conference 2 weeks ago – with Skoll introducing him and I thought he might want to stay out of pols and stick to his global warming work – esp with the Generation Fund drawing so much attention – does the film lean more political?

CERES is a receptive audience for him but at least 1/3 of the 500 there were quite mainstream corporate and investment leaders and the standing ovation did not stop – a good sign for support for a candidacy. A lot of corporate folks are really upset about the ignoring of climate change and would prob. support him simply for that.

And Edw*rd, it’s late. I mean the book that belongs to me, not one that I have written. *g*

Matt O.

I’m on a local cable company that uses Internet Explorer. Maybe you’re right. A real PITA.

I still don’t know what IIRC means, really.

I accidently hit SOMETHING while in Yahoo Groups downing some pix, and now the text is huge in the tool bar. I have looked up Accessibilty on AOL and Explorer and still can’t figure out how to get the normal default font size and font back again and the tool bar text is huge and irritating and is taking much longer to type this and have the text appear in FDL message text box. Help! what happened to make this automatically change?

Rose Elvern 375

If I recall correctly

I wish I could help you…

oops – anything I post between (left arrow) and (right arrw) vanishes – in my earlier I was saying *g* and *s* – sorry bout that!

g’nite! great idea Trex! and welcome all the previously lurking – stick around and keep talking – you made this a great thread!

OT – I don’t know if anybody saw the book excerpt I posted at #366, but it strikes me as odd that we just recently heard about the WMD biolabs not actually being biolabs from the WaPo but it was in James Risen’s book this whole time since January 3, 2006 (Amazon). AlterNet failed to pick up on it in their chapter by chapter review.

I guess what sold the story was the specificity that it was deemed not to be what people thought it was two days before Bush said “we found them.”

“..she [Dr. Vickie] always enjoys reading it but half the time she doesn’t know what we’re talking about”.

Shame on you.

Vickie is (apparently) slower than most.

But she has feelings, too.

Sure, Vicki is quite likely .. well, Vicki is obviously “challenged”. But to quote Terry Bradshaw, “There’s an idiot inside us all somewhere”.

And to ever refer to a specially challenged person as “doctor” is beneath even you, Hamsher.

To the credit of FDL, most idiots with half a brain can understand your writings- I’m a regular reader, for example. And I can drive a forklift, and explain an ERA average to the uninitiated (admittedly, quarterback ratings have long eluded me).

So apologize to your friend. Explain to her that FDL is not rocket science, and the half she does understand is all it really takes. That she needs only add a little know-it-allism to her repertoire, and she’s as good as home.

This thread is so cool I’ve gone beyond LOL to FOTFUTHMU (falling on the floor, unable to hold myself up). And I just got home from work (in Alaska) and haven’t cracked open a 2nd beer yet.

I don’t know what *g* means. I thought it was an inversion of G*D. Please don’t tell me – I want to figure it out for myself.

Bionic, I wasn’t dissing you at all on the “clusterfuck” thing. You’re right, nobody wrote anything down.

I liked your remark “I expect with the Internets words will move more swiftly into the dictionaries. How long after all will it be before EPU’d crosses over into common use and becomes a term for being left behind?”

In that short statement, we get two glimpses into the catapult W has thrust upon us, the acceptance of his idiocy as currency, ie. “internets,”and the “left behind”thing.

Ok, this will be EPU’d and eiderdowned (everyone has gone to sleep), but I’m sitting with my family at a hotel near Vandenberg Airforce Base, waiting for a bus to take us to the launch site for the CloudSat/Callipso launch. My son is sleepy but tres excited, as am I. Cool thing to see a rocket launch in person. I hope I can catch up with the comments before dawn.

good night and good luck.

tempted to hang around ’til #400!

OK Sonoma, I’d love to hear a definition of ERA in 50 words or fewer.

It’s distressing that SNAFU has apparently fallen out of favor. A very good WW2 acronym it was, meaning “situation normal, all fouled up” (cleaned up for publication). But I rarely see it in use. FUBAR is in heavy use, but its full meaning is distressing. “Beyond all repair?” I hope not, for the sake of the country and the Democratic President I hope gets elected in 2008.

E*ward Teller 381, you are much more discerning than I am. It must be much earlier in Alaska than it is in Kansas. I must go to sleep. But does the use of “swiftly” suggest the swiftboating of the English language by Clusterfuck? I guess I will never know.

we always used to call tribal f**k**g at the hippie commune clusterfucks, like when everyone took acid, smoked a giant hooner then fell in a giant pile and did it all at once…yeah, those were the dayze…so, for the vespa dealer: how big do you have to be to operate one and how much do they weigh? or has everyone gone to bed?

There must be lights burning brighter somewhere. Got to be birds flying higher in a sky more blue. If I can dream of a better land, where all my brothers walk hand in hand, tell me why, oh why, oh why can’t my dream come true?

Oh, great…..this is what it feels like to be back at work and missing the party.
What did I miss and where do I get that Lakeside Neuron Implant? *g*.
Jane, Redd, Bobby G., Valley Girl, Pach, Prof., Edw*rd Teller, Neurophius, Suin, Zennurse, Norske, Punaise, Mary, John Casper, Taylor Marsh, GrandmaJ, Trygyth, Angie, RW Cole, Mommybrain, Prof. Foland, MarkfromIreland, Marklord, RedDan, Looseheadprop, Egregious and everyone, thank you.

On getting EPU’d…

If one reads all the comments 100 or 200 in and then spends a bit of time crafting an inspired, informed response — only to have a new thread take your audience — it’s dis-concerting in a singular way.

I still feel the sting of coming in late on that punk rock thread right before Wal-Mart blew up…

neurophius,

No doubt there is at least one doctoral candidate out there working on her or his paper on how much damage the acceptance of George Bush’s “isms” have actually done to human communication. *g* help us (?)

Ed*ard Teller 391:

Why don’t we just ask The Decider? After all, the truth is whatever he wants it to be…WMD? Saddam’s got ‘em! Katrina recovery? Heckuva job! Nuke Iran? It’ll be “Mission Accomplished” before you know it!

Some salients point from E.J. Dionne in Friday’s WaPo:

The administration’s one and only domestic priority in 2006 is hanging on to control of Congress.

snip

Thus Rove’s new electoral focus is an urgent administration priority. And given the unfavorable political terrain for the president, Rove’s recipe this year, as in 2004, is likely to include a heavy dollop of attacks on the Democrats. Hold on for the new Swift Boaters, coming soon to your swing state. It’s not the politics dreams are made of, but it often works.

Buckle up folks, it’s going to be a rough ride for the next six months…unless Fitz indicts the SOB.

I’ll shoot for #400 and then go to bed.

I’m getting as deaf as a post. My wife has pointed out, looking at the graphs the audiologist gave us, that my hearing loss is mostly in the range of the female voice. She’s concerned that this leads to my misunderstanding of the things she asks of me or tells me. She’s right.

But, after thinking about it for a couple of seconds, I responded “My love, that’s not hearing loss, that’s evolution at work.”

I thought I was with it, but discovered tonight that I didn’t know what IIRC means. That falls in the category of things you don’t know that you don’t know. Now I know IIRC. Wow! Cool! I discovered FDL (now what is that?) a while back via Digby, and I’ve been a regular reader ever since and love it. Bless Jane.
The name Firedoglake makes more sense to me now too, and I really like it.

All due respect to EJ, but tell us something we don’t know, guy. What else have they got to run on but how awful the Dems are? SocSec, dead. Iraq, horrible. HSAs, dead on arrival. Immigration — well, there they might try to demonize the Dems, but they’ve got a constituency that wants cheap labor, so they’ve got problems.

Hard to imagine what else they could do but unleash the slime machine again.

#400

just missed it… II(read)C

400-1

400?

400

Well done Mommybrain.

mommybrain wins! mommybrain wins!

50th anniversary of “Howl”

FDL rocks

Thanks j & r & p & t & all my friends!

Launch in 2 hours Byebye

Are you planning on having this lurker evening again? As a regular thing?

Is 400 The New Fitz?

all OUR friends. sorry…..

I’m sure everyone’s gone to bed by now, but I just wanted to say hello to all the regulars. I’ve been too busy to do much more than read the posts lately. Besides, all that worrying was getting to my health. As my son so succinctly put it as I began some rant:
Dad, remember: Porn good, politics bad.

I.e., Spend some time away from the conversation.

Hope I get a chance to get back into things soon.

Good night sweet humans and may flights of Fitz wake us in the morning.

“I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…”

The words live on.

RBG says:
April 21st, 2006 at 12:29 am
“OK Sonoma, I’d love to hear a definition of ERA in 50 words or fewer”.

The runs scored by an opposing team (divided by 9) against the pitcher responsible for those particular runners having reached base. Minus unearned runs, i.e., those runners who reached base and scored as a result of errors made by the defensive team” [43 words].

Well, that’s my best shot, RBG. I did not google for an answer. Remember, I only claimed I could explain to the unitiated. But, like spouting off online, if I laid that on someone who was meek and clueless, I’d appear quite erudite. Thus my larger point.

Go Giants!

wow — TRex had a truly amazing idea! all that de-lurking got us over 400! Who-da-thunkit?

g’nite all…

All that de-lurking, plus Jane playing hookey…

Today the ERA, tomorrow the in-field fly rule?

Stopped by real late, and am amazed!

Sonoma…very nicely done. It sounds erudite even for someone like me who can’t claim to be among the uniniated. Go M’s and good night all.

Novak’s most telling comment in that article re speculation about his actions:

…”I’m not going to tell you because it’s none of your damn business,” he said….

That’s an interesting interpretation of journalism.

OK, enough playing around in the middle of the night.

I think this place needs two or three things:

1. De-lurking? Fuggetaboutit. happens. I lurked at a Dmitri Shostakovich site (alt.dsch.fan) ten years ago for a year, then jumped in. And I know more about the guy than everyone but about 40 people on the planet. Let people choose when to come in.

2. Structure: an FAQ sidebar to help people past the EPU and *g* stuff. With less work than Pach puts in here every seven days, a good definition set could be laid out.

3. Less vertical integration!!!!!

The biggest problem with fdl compared to other sites this important, is that whenever a new thread starts, the vast majority of posters abandon the thought and everything which could have been developed from it.

418? posted @ 4:14am

Whose quote is that “best minds of my gen..”?

rings a bell

Maybe light dawns on Marbelhead (IRL) “in real life”

RSN (RealSoonNow) ususally ‘vaporware’

Dana,

RE: 310

The November Elections are high stakes. For both sides. The most important, if not final, firewall is keeping Republicans in control of Congress and subpoena power. Nothing else matters to Bushco. It’s all or nothing.

Given the high stakes for Bushco, I fear that the Democrats will not be prepared for what will most assuredly be unleashed upon them.

Let’s hope that Fitz can take Karl the Wizard out of the picture before he can conjure up another win for Bushco and the Republicans.

I’ve come to this site at least twice a day for months now and the content is usually exceptional. The principals and many commenters do incredibly fine and important work, and do it with real passion and style.

But the comments are indeed particularly daunting. Of course there are those comments on the minutiae surrounding the topic itself from those deeply versed in the subject, which are often quite insightful and presented with razor-sharp wit, and these are pure gems to be savoured and admired.

But what is really intimidating is not so much the jargon or the abbreviations, you get the hang of it quickly and can google the rest, but that the comments threads are essentially a chatroom. OT is often the rule, not the exception, and posts that directly address the topic often look like missives from Pluto.

You need only scoll down this comments thread, set up exactly for the purpose of demystifying fdl for newbies, and see how it too has become an insider’s gaggle.

To take some of that burden off the comments and get them closer to their stated use, wouldn’t it be better to post several open threads throughout the day where the fdl community can gather to shoot the breeze?

Just sayin’..

And that said, I half expect to be cast to 9th circle of fdl hell, as this will doubtless be seen as a newbie’s tactless affront, exhibiting total obliviousness to a cherished culture. Having just outed myself, I’ll now slink back to lurking, but the suggestion is offered not wrapped in snark but in the belief it will make fdl and even better blog, if possible. It would celebrate and strengthen the community while simultaneously sharpening the content of the comments.

FDL and its influence are growing, and with that comes an influx of interested parties–that’s after all the point of the exercise. I just think this would help you grow while retaining your special flavor.

I don’t think of that comment as a “tactless affront.”

I wouldn’t “cast [you] to the 9th circle of hell.”

from a lurker,

About 8 months ago I wrote a post similar to yours here. My first entry. Jane welcomed me, and encouraged me to present my viewpoints again. You’re right about both the quality of the posts here and the chattiness which develops as a theme streams on down.

I’ve never been jumped on her for saying what you just said.

Freudian – I hope not. Jumped on here!

I have found the FDL comments to be pretty laid back and also give props for a “job well done.”

Matt & Ed*ard

thanks for your encouraging comments; the defensive ending to my post is I guess an example of the intimidation a newbie feels posting here.

There’s a very real fdl spirit, you admire it but you’re also afraid it will be turned against you. And part of that spirit is the tight-knit community; seen from the outside it is daunting, and so you hesitate to raise what would be construed as criticism of it, and steel yourself for the worst. The lion’s den and all that.

from a lurker,

Just don’t make nice about Ralph Nader here. He’s the anti-Christ.

He’s also pretty much gone now, but kool-aid type dems tend to go Jim Jonesish when they see his name in print.

Can’t sleep, so stopping by and – holy Fitz!

Whose quote is that “best minds of my gen..�

I know, I know! From Howl by Allen Ginsberg. (Best reading of this line is by Pia Zadora as the crazy beat chick in John Waters’ Hairspray!)

Q: hey, why isn’t Sharkbabe commenting much lately?

A: she quit drinking wine (too many calories) and realized she doesn’t really know a damn thing about anything!

also, for other potential de-lurkers,

Don’t mention how Waco and OK City went down, as the blue kool-aid set here – a sometimes vocal minority – can’t face up to the larger systemic problem we’re faced with of a Federal system entering its end times, similarly, but also quite differently to the end times the Soviet system went through in the ’80s.

The Soviet apparatchik structure’s perks were held internally to adherence to the “party line.” The American apparatchik structure’s perks are held externally to modifying the party’s line (whichever koolaid drinking party is currently in power) to the rapidly changing conditions under which the preponderence of shareholders in mobile wealth think their future interests tend to be going. This is a unique situation, and the rapidity that is being developed in this financial area is misunderstood by any accounts being made public.

Peak oil is just the tip of the rapidly warming iceberg.

fdl is as good a place as any for the TRUTH to actually come out. Maybe even the best. It certainly has one of the best feedback systems humans have yet jury-rigged (no pun intended – I’m a sailor).

Hah – looks like I’ve nailed the coveted dead last position!

Le Fitz!

Sharkbabe not so fast.

ET: Whatever happened to Nadir anyway? Just the thought of him makes you shudder. Woodward’s doppleganger in a way.

Le Fitz, La Sharkbabe!

Here’s a ? for ya sb.

I’ve taken over a jazz history class. Next week is 1980 to now. Fifteen minutes of music in four-minute clips. What explains the change from Herbie Hancock to now ?

from a lurker,

Both commondreams and countepunch carry his missives. Politically, I think even Ralph knows he’s become toxic as a candidate. But, he has a lot to say on many issues.

“I know the firedoglake one (I’m so cool and with it).

Jane’s favorite activity – watching the Lakers with a fire and the dog at her feet.”

Over a year I’ve been wondering about that…

Speaking as a Brit, many politically minded friends are convinced that I have some sort of internal mole on American politics, frequently telling them about things weeks in advance of their arrival.

Guess where I get my info from :)

Everyday I come back in hoping to see the champagne bottle image heading the “Cheney/Bush indicted by Fitz” headline. Yeah, I know it isn’t going to happen, but you can only hope, can’t you.

I’m not sure if you’ve posted anything about the question I want to ask, but, as a resident of China, I have only been able to read FDL sporadically through other sites. Now ,after leaving blogspot, you are an open book to me.
So lets get to the point. I saw a clip of Hannity the other day (I can’t remember where) and he was making the claim, that has been made by a few others, that ,no matter how things seem now, in 100 years dubya will be hailed as a great president and savior.

Can these pricks see the future? These arseholes know that the timeframe that they are giving gives them time to keep being arseholes and die before their predictions are proved wrong.
My question is “Why has nobody punched out the lights of this guy (and his cronies)?”

Think about it. The best way to shut up a braggart and a bully is to bloody his nose. A rightie wouldn’t be afraid to do it, so why are we lefties afraid? You don’t win by being nice.
Many people who read this post will say “this guy is a thug”. They are right, I am a thug, but I am also a liberal leftie, I give a damn about all people, but that doesn’t mean I must give those of the “all people” who are pricks big hugs&kisses.

Why does your comments site change my paragraph spacings?

twistewd colour,

Are you real? NK issues from China? Are we being disinformed re your ability to gain access to the wider WWW?
If you’re really there, can we do things to help you stay here?

I know someone has probably asked this already, but:

Where the HELL is “Me”?!?

twisted colours,

Maybe this is fortunate, but I’m not sure you are real or can stay here very long. In 1972, I was the first American to carry a live radio interview with an official of your governent on American radio. I had to have the questions relayed through a Canadian station to stay remotely legal.

Welcome to Firedoglake. Do you want to say anything more than what you’ve already told us? I’d like to meet you when my sister takes me to China this summer.

I’ve been a daily lurker since FDL was born, actually I check it entirely too often. I’m delurking to say thank for finally letting me know what EPU’d means.

Jane, Christy and all, thank you for giving me the amunition to refute all the bullshit that spews from the “security moms” I know and who still think they’d be better off with Dear Leader. There are still far too many of these nitwits and lately most just avoid talking politics with me since they come unarmed & I don’t :) Thanks, you all do a fabulous job

I would like to know what’s going to be done to insure voter rights, enough voting locations in democratic locations, no electronic voting, paper trail on every vote, and unbiased exit polls

without those things nothing we do here or our other blogs means anything at all

we MUST do something tonsure the elections are not stolen

Help!

I’d been reading and posting in this thread from the start, when suddenly the page went blank. The main fdl page is there, as well as the other fdl comments pages. So, I can see this topic on the main page, but when I click on the comments for this page, I just get a blank page.

I use firefox. I rebooted the computer. I uninstalled and reinstalled firefox, and it didn’t help. I can see everything else on the web except this particular page. I installed a java update. Still can’t see this page.

I had just finished typing a post when it happened.

I am currently on a different computer. So, it’s a problem on a particular machine.

Anybody have any ideas?

Ed*ard Teller,

Yes I do have troubles accessing parts of the www, which is why I made the comment about the old FDL blogspot. Blogspot (even BBC news)is blocked in China (I can’t access my own blog). But I do have ways to get into “untouchable things”(say no more). Let it be understood, every key I hit is being monitored by the Uni I work for.

Please understand, I said that I am a Chinese resident, I am not a Chinese citizen. I am an Aussie, this may help you understand my “punch in the nose” theory.

How does this apply to my last post? The same theory can work here, but you must do it politely.

Teller, if you do come to the Middle Kingdom I’d like to meet you.

Twisted_Colour says: April 21st, 2006 at 4:22 am

You might want to look into the Tor anonymity network:

http://tor.eff.org/

#420. . it’s Allen Ginsberg’s first line from “Howl.”
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starvin
hysterical naked,/dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,/angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the/starry dynamo in the machinery of night…

I’m a daily lurker too! I swear, I come straight here for my news and have been since Libby’s indictment. Someone said that Rove’s indictment was coming on 4/28. Where does that date come from, and is it reliable?

thanks for the razor writing and sweet community ~

sigh … 46 Valley Girl:

April 20th, 2006 at 8:26 pm
OT (off topic)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…../20/AR2006 042001379.html
The Generals’ Dangerous Whispers
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, April 21, 2006

“consider the source” seems v. appropriate here. Krauthammer is a cranky, angry, biased, bent right-wing drone. Chuck Krauthammer in this Generals’ Whispers attempt at journalism even went off on those filthy hippies from the 1960s. He’s only 40 years out of date. WOT — either waaay off topic. OR Waste of Time.

Thanks Taylor, but my home comp. goes through the school network. I’m just lukshizy that they don’t undeshiz most that I writizt. DIG!

This post will probably be EPU’d.

perhaps fdl wants this post to get to 500 (a symbolic thang) before epu-ing. …

Mighty Wurlitzer = slang for the right wing propaganda industry, including television., radio and print media.

looking for some mornin protest song entertainment?

if you go to neil young’ website, you can read some lyrics from the new protest album he’s put together. .. I believe the title track will be subtly titled “Impeach the President.” I now forgive Neil for his short-lived support the Patriot Act.
And the dixie chicks album featuring the toby keith/snarkymcflightsuit “fuck off” song “Not Read to Make Nice” plays straight up when you go to their site. “I’m not ready to make nice/I’m not ready to back down/I’m still mad as hell and I’m not ready to go round and round and round. . .”

FWIW, my fancy whizbang PC gave up the ghost which has discombobulated me bigtime. I am making do with an ancient 1998 laptop . . .
This has been a fascinating thread – I’m reading it at 8am ET

The Veep that shot an old man in the face will be in Indpls for a fundraiser at 11am – I’ll be attending the protest demonstration wearing bright yellow clothes so I won’t be mistaken for a Quayle or sumtin…

Good morning everyone. I asked a question a few days ago. No answer. Don’t we have a FDL “store” to go shopping in? I would like a t shirt or a BBQ apron myself.

Meme is a fascinating concept that’s much larger than what it gets reduced to: usually either a synonym for catchphrase, or (on livejournal) a list of questions that ljers answer and “tag” other ljers to answer as well.

Read this wikipedia entry

As for the word snark, it’s closest synonym is probably sarcasm, but I tend to think of it as sarcasm with attitude (there’s a more cutting edge of mockery involved).

Just as a side-note, the word is feaured in Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark.” Supposedly the word “snark”, although also British in origin, is unrelated and is supposedly slang that originally meant “to nag or find fault with.” It dates back to at least 1906.

I second # 422 (from a lurker)concerns and sentiments…especially this part here!

You need only scoll down this comments thread, set up exactly for the purpose of demystifying fdl for newbies, and see how it too has become an insider’s gaggle.

To take some of that burden off the comments and get them closer to their stated use, wouldn’t it be better to post several open threads throughout the day where the fdl community can gather to shoot the breeze?

Just sayin’..

And that said, I half expect to be cast to 9th circle of fdl hell, as this will doubtless be seen as a newbie’s tactless affront, exhibiting total obliviousness to a cherished culture. Having just outed myself, I’ll now slink back to lurking, but the suggestion is offered not wrapped in snark but in the belief it will make fdl and even better blog, if possible. It would celebrate and strengthen the community while simultaneously sharpening the content of the comments.

FDL and its influence are growing, and with that comes an influx of interested parties–that’s after all the point of the exercise. I just think this would help you grow while retaining your special flavor.

Spot on comment..I would hate to see these typical informative and insightful comments threads deteriorate into the type of threads at another site I used to visit frequently. (notice the past tense)

Good Morning Everyone,

We experienced some Wrath of God like storms last night (that’s saying something for Central Tex.!) so did not get see this post until this morning, 453 comments – YOWZAH!

gonna get another cup of coffee and run through this thread – Welcome to the de-lurked!
See y’all on the flip

firedoglake=Fire all the Repug dogs and throw them in the lake.

neurophius, the poop on Bamford, me thinks:
YOU SAID:
Anyone wanting to understand the NSA should read The Puzzle Palace by James Bamford. It is probably way out of date, though–my copy says copyright 1983. I don’t know if he has done anything lately–does anyone else know?

MOI: Bamford is still the “bible” on super spooks. Lately, I think he is being “channeled” by fiction author Dan Brown; as I believe an anonymous re-routed email from Bamford is what started Brown to writing “Digital Fortress” in the early 90s … about jabba the hut NSA spooks.

Brown will never release his sources. (Sooo not-Judy Kneepads Miller).

Alas, Digital Fortress is terribly written. Try “Deception Point” for fiction stuff on bad use of taxpayer money by NSA, NASA, unethical
scientists and a prehistoric Rove type.

Oh … Dan Brown is also author of The DaVinci Code, which now has secret society Opus Dei and the Roman Catholics throwing spitballs. Hey, once you take on super spooks at NSA, the Vatican is piece ‘o pie.

Buen dia a todos,

456 comments-Fantabulous! My favorite FDLisms are the nicknames given to the various political actors today (Clusterfuck, Judy Kneepads, Fitz!, etc.)

BTW, does Joe Wilson have an FDL nickname? “Studmuffin” might fit. ;-)

Okay, off to work we go…

ok here’s a stupid newbie question:
When I refresh the comments, safari bumps me up to the very top of the comments so I have to scroll all the way down to get to the newest stuff. what insanely easy trick am i missing?
kisses!

Jane;

One thing you might consider is to have a link at the bottom of each issue that has legs – Eg; Fitzgeral/Libby/Cheney and his organ monkey, W -titled “Background time-line” and bring a nacent reader up to snuff with just bullet points of what happened.

I think you are one of the best writers on the net, and I’m almost older than dirt, and read a lot! However, when one is a good writer, it just flows out of you, and anything less – like bullet points – seem to lack the quality that you feel inside and want to pour forth. It is very difficult, and then you feel like you are writing for “McPaper” which insults your integrity.

Perhaps ask someone else to do a “background” link, as an aide those who may have caught interest today, but maybe haven’t been paying attention to that issue for a year or so.

I think this is firedoglake store–Cafe Press

http://www.cafepress.com/firedoglake.38851404

Fun thread!

I would like to put in a plug for not giving up on NPR – yet. As someone who has been listening to it pretty consistently since the 70’s, U would agree with those who have noted that it is not what it once was, when perhaps it flew under the radar a bit more than it does now.

But there are still some GREAT reporters working for NPR. & whoever heard that interview with JudyJudyJudy with Rene Montaigne, I heard it too and it is a classic (I was an FDL lurker in those days and had a sense Rene did her homework here). The other day, they also did a fantastic tongue in cheek send up of the Chimps “I am the decider” performenance. My sense is that they need support from the audience — that is, that they would actually welcome complaints that would make it possible to do their job as they would really love to.

As a person who has never had cable, and relies on radio (basically NPR) to stay up on headlines and whatnot – I would encourage it. Why give the MSN (main stream media) the attention, the money, the crediblity.

I know there are other decent indie radio stations that pick up on PRI and other feeds. But here in New York it is only NPR (Our local Pacifica station WBAI is hopeless, gave up even trying ‘cept for Amy Goodman years ago).

Speaking of Amy Goodman, I heard from a friend she has a news show on Cable now – does anyone know anything about that and if so, why is she hardly mentioned? I wouldn’t know since I don’t have cable.

Sorry for the ramble – will probably get EPU’d anyway, but I do think there it is as important to keep NPR in our sights as it is the WaPo and the NY Times.

Jane and Christy and all the others who fill in here are Stellar Human Beings!

Actually, this is the link for the OFFICIAL FIREDOGLAKE STORE:

http://www.cafepress.com/firedoglake

emal #457 (and lurker #422)

Open threads not a bad idea, but #422 has got the lingo down: “newbie,” “open threads,” “just sayin’,” “snark.” That’s fluency.

There is no ninth circle here. That’s over at Little Green Footballs. We don’t want you to go there.

DaVinci Codex

just finished re-reading all the Brown books you listed – I think ‘Angels and Demons’ is the best of the lot – the least convoluted if you will, but yeah, enjoyable reads all, plus it’s fun to look up the stuff – speaking of which, keep forgetting to Wiki NRO

I guess the race is on to see who can be the 500th post on this thread…….

Re “Mighty Wurlitzer:”

One explanation that I have not heard mentioned is the old silent movie connection. Moving pictures in the “Perils of Pauline” era required drama! Music to accompany the images and captioning screens. Many of the grand moving picture theaters of the 1920s — the fabulous Art Deco Paramount theaters, some of which still exist — installed huge pipe organs made by the Wurlitzer company and hired actual human players to add the soundtracks during each showing of the movie.

cf Theatre Organ (which, if you think about it, also fairly describes the media outlets that faithfully parrot the provided talking points from the party in power)

“A theater organ like the Mighty Wurlitzer is meant to sound like an orchestra. It’s made to sound like each instrument: piccolos, tubas, strings, drums, cymbals, traps. Basically, it’s like a one-man orchestra.”

Source

ccmask–THANKS
Now, if we can just get Jane to update the cafepress store with a ” I’m a Jane Hamsher of the Left” tshirt….

I am delurking to say how much I enjoy lurking at FDL, and also how useful this thread has been. Since I see that it has been a while since any comments were made, I will probably have my first comment ever EPU’d :). Thanks for the invitations to delurk, by the way–I have been feeling quite shy about commenting.

Not a question, but a gripe: Ever since FDL moved to its new server/website/format, I enjoy it less. All articles are continued on the fold, which drives me crazy. And I’m not fond of Taylor Marsh. FDL was #2 on my blog list (after Kos), and I voted for it on the Koufaxes, but in the past month it has slipped a few notches. Still like Christy and Jane, and hoping it’s just my imagination.

Just to let you all know…EJ Dionne has an excellent op-ed in the WaPo this morning regarding Rove’s “diminished” role in the White House:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..tml?sub=AR

Basically, Dionne asserts that the Rove move is all about the midterm elections.

DeanB: Pretty painless, huh? Congrats on your delurk.

how about jane’s marital status? :/blush:

:^)

Troll

Thanks mc #474 for the Dionne link. Basically my take as well.

The question is, can they do nationally what they did in a few counties in FLA and OH? If so, we’re fucked. Changing the subject to God/gays/guns won’t help them this time, and chimpy’s a big ol’ albatross around their necks.

In my mind, they’ve got two options: more war, and election fraud.

Yesterday’s meeting with President Hu of China was a total disaster. First Bush accidentally tore the sleeve of Hu’s jacket while trying to savie him from going down the wrong set of stairs. Then a WH announcer gave the name of the Taiwanese national anthem instead of the People’s Republic’s. THEN the Fulan Gong supporter was carted off by the Secret Service. And she had gotten in on press credentials with a Fulan Gong newspaper. WHAT THE HELL IS CONDI DOING OVER AT STATE?

This gang is THE WORST!

pretty funny for the WSJ:

WSJ editor Daniel Henninger psychoanalyzes the blogosphere: “I don’t think the blogosphere is breeding cannibals. But it looks to me as if the world of blogs may be filling up with people who for the previous 200 millennia of human existence kept their weird thoughts more or less to themselves.â€

Bush tore Hu’s jacket. That cheap made in china crap.

desert dawg,

Christy is taking a well earned and likely well need vacation (I hope for her sake she doesn’t have computer access). Which is why you haven’t seen her lately.

As for Taylor – I happen to like her perspective and her writing. Its nice to have a morning shifter here on the East Coast. If I were Jane, I couldn’t get up that early :-)

cathy, #481, rotflstc

Tommy at 478:

What EJ leaves out, however, (and this is the major wild card) is what happens if Rove gets served. Various media reports speculated that the Rove move was in response to his legal jeopardy in Traitorgate. If Rove gets indicted (which many think he will), what does that mean for the Repubs mid-term election stratergery.

George Fwill’s op-ed in last Sunday’s Post seemed to be ceding the mid-terms to the Democrats. Methinks the conservative, libertarian wing of the GOP is hoping the neocon disaster will be swept out the door soon.

Okay now, really, off to work.

Hi Jane and evbdy,

I always thought IIRC meant “Ignoble Irrational Rethuglican Commitee” I think I’ll continue t
o visualise this when I continue to see IIRC!

You guys are the best!

Dana Milbank has a fun piece in today’s WaPo that illustrates perfectly the incompetence of the Bush administration. LOL It is a real hoot. I see that he will also be handling the WaPo chat today. Should be a fun chat. LOL

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01946.html

I used to be a hippie musician back in the ’70’s. Now, I have dairy goats. I am not too smart, just average, mostly self-educated for what that’s worth. As an old dog learning a “new trick” via the blogosphere, I read FDL and many other blogs daily. I killed my TV years ago and I get more detailed and accurate news from the internet. So, I never miss it.

I like the way that images and metaphors from popular culture weave in and out of some of the postings. The acronyms and slang are fun most of the time and I like the interactive element. So, you may have a lot of lurkers out of your usual demographic norm. I don’t know if I will “delurk” again. But, thanks for the invitation. Keep up the good work.

ITYGAG!

mc,

We can only pray that Rove gets frogmarched. The GOP will implode.

Please, sweet Jeebus, make it so!

mc @ (yowzah!) 484 -

Rove’s indictment will be used with the traditional talking points to solidify, ironically, the traditional anti-Clinton base.