zed

Can someone please put Mika out of her misery. Geez.

1,815 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Attaturk and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

Awe Brother Attaturk, my heart is breakin’…all these folks’ve been dyin’ and the kids losin’ their humanity and it jest doesn’t stop…I remember when I couldn’t remember home but I never thought I wouldn’t get back there.

Oh God…this hasta end!!

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION WE AREN’T GUNNA GET ;’EM HOME UNLESS WE FIGHT FOR ‘EM!!

There must be something about TV that kills brain cells. That is the only way to explain the media covering flag pins instead of REAL news. Or maybe the corporate media uses the Bush method of hiring only incompetent people. I vote for latter explanation.

Mika?

Sorry I haven’t been to bed yet…Mika Brezinski on MSNBC. She is just awful.

Clearly the most pressing issue of
the day is preserving a 15% capital gains tax rate
for working class men and women.

Like Charles Gibson.

Peace NOW damn it, not tomorrow, not next week ,not May- NOW DAMN IT , NOW !

Thanks Attaturk,
now the news reports at least 50 people dead.

Death is so forever.
I hate George Bush.

Netanyahu is rubbing his hands in glee over 9/11.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/975574.html

Like the napalm burned little girl in the iconic photo from Viet Nam the photo with this post should become the iconic photo from Iraq. For those unfamiliar with the incident this little girl’s parents were killed by US Forces in Tal Afar on inauguration day in 2005. She was sitting between her father, who was driving the car, and her mother. Her brother, in the back seat, was wounded. The blood you see on her belongs to her parents. I use this photo on handouts at peace rallies and vigils with a caption of “Next generation resistance fighter.”

John Trudell has this song on his new album. Give a listen and if it doesn’t make you cry…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUdftDH70TQ

This administration and the media that protects it is a horror show.

A freakin’ horror show.

January 2009 cannot come soon enough.

Amen, Norske, amen.

’The killing goes on …’

The most dreaded modifier to that phrase generally makes it worse:

“. . . killing at least . . . and reports are still coming in.”

Not that our national media will bother to mention it. Killing at least…what’s left of American Democracy.

it is gone, for now, possibly forever

we need a candidate that is strong enough to revive the treasure of this land, our constitution

we need a candidate that knows what to say, how to say it and what to do that will get things done

saying things like;

“we are going to lower taxes across america to the level they were before reagan raised them”

things like that and this;

“we are going to rebuild our military into the greatest, best equipped and most advance military in the world”

and this;

“we are going to reclaim the integrity that has been squandered these last two terms”

“we are going to actually protecy this country instead of using national security as a horn of plenty for war profiteers”

“we are going to reclaim the assets that have been taken from our infrastructure, we are going to get those assets from the place they went and we are going to rebuild America”

“we are going to STOP allowing corporations to export our workforce to countries that allow child laber, slave labor and allow these corporations to dump their crap in your kids air”

“we are going to regain the respect for this country and we are going to bring peace rather then war, stregth rather then weakness, honest work rather then struggling”

man, I wish I were on one of these candidates policy and speach making teams

oh, I heard a great idea from one of the guests on tom hartman about a week ago

since the supreme court has made believe political contributions constitute “speach” they guest said all we have to do is make certain contributions are anonymous, no candidate can know how much or from whom their war chest grew

this to me is a nice stop gap till we get a scotus who aren’t corporate tools

Coincidence?

This nation is really a sorry affair. After the Frontline presentation of what a disaster our “health care” system is, and this pathetic excuse for a policy issues debate on a major network by people who call themselves journalists (but we know they are capitalist’s tools) and the fact that our economy is melting down before our eyes, it hardly seems worthwhile to continue this experiment called USA under the present trajectory.

I know FDL and KOS and others have this underlying belief that this all can be turned around by some sensible politicians being elected. Don’t hold your breath. Our democracy is Kabuki meets the Wizard of Oz.

A recent series of polls were conducted asking the “people” about how they want their taxes spent. Over 60% want only about 15% spent on the military, but we consistently are spending 50% with all the related costs. The “people” want money spent on the environment, housing, education, health care and the MIC is sucking our blood and treasure like there’s no tomorrow. Who gives them all the cash and permission to kill? OUR CONGRESS DOES. AND HAS. AND WILL.

The good news is that nothing will save capitalism from self destructing now that it’s cyclical oscillation has passed the point of stability. Good bye Humpty Dumpty.

We really need to work for a REAL future and forget about the USA as we believed it was or even could be with the “right” folks in office.

That picture breaks my heart. The travesty visited on Iraq by us is unforgivable. A political solution even with undesirable terms is essential.

Lieberman is preening for the camera again on MSNBC knocking Obama as he smiles his fake smile. YUCK.

I agree with Mr Perris most of the time, but I would get off the best military in the world meme. We need to can the militarism and the “stick” approach to world affairs.

The military is sucking the resources of this nation, or this planet in a false narrative about what proviudes security.

What provides security is when people are happen, well fed, free to do as they wish, educated, respectful, considerate of other’s rights. Essentially we need to lift up people, and manage the population to match our resources. Then we can have a happy peaceful planet without the need for “security” and military and check points and police in riot gear.

Lieberman is a zionist capitalist militarist tool. When viewed from this perspective you can predict every move he makes and every position he will take.

There are at least two worlds in the United States that never meet. The world of the Gibson’s and the Stephanopoli where no one who doesn’t make at least a million dollars a year has any place, and the world where the rest of live, divided among the relative haves and a majority of have-nots. In Gibson world nobody has to worry about unemployment or high gas prices, because those things to happen to them, and if they don’t happen to them, they don’t happen at all. The same is true of things that happen in Iraq. Only the have-nots have to go there to fight, and their world isn’t the real one. I could go on, but the point is that the people who run our media, and I mean not so much the talking heads you see, but the ones behind the glass who are pumping talking points into their ear-pieces, live in a physical and mental world that is not ours. They have their own country, and we aren’t part of it. We just work there.

The U.S. military is acting against the wishes of most Americans. They have turned against America. They are the enemy within. They are dangerous in the hands of the tin pot dictator wasting good space in the Oval Office. The U.S. military-industrial complex should’ve been rolled back shortly after Eisenhower had identified this as a major problem with this so-called democracy.

the best military in the world

I’m pretty sure the British said something similar about their people prior to 1776. Look what a bunch of underarmed rebels did to them…

Wouldn’t hurt to get some…or any support from other Western democracies to help save our democracy.

I can’t even bring myself to read that. I was a big Netanyahu fan before 9/11 and then directly after he spread his ugly mug all over our TV screens and made the whole thing about Israel. As far as I’m concerned, his only acceptable response after 9/11 should have been “We are so very sorry for you, and since America has been such a wonderful ally and friend to us since our inception, please tell us what we can do to help you.” Instead he made it all about him.

MIC is sucking our blood and treasure like there’s no tomorrow.

This fact is the most ignored problem this country faces today.

Spending more on ‘defense’ than the rest of the world combined is not only lunacy, its the single biggest contributor to our record deficits.

Last night’s media fiasco (aka, The Debate) just about finished me. We have multiple catastrophes in bloom, and we’re focused on freakin’ flag pins? Why didn’t Hillary and Obama look at each other, asking out loud, “Have you had enough of this crap?” and leave the stage? Meanwhile, at least . . . oh, wait. No problem. It’s only Iraqis dying today.

True ‘National Security’, as Sander suggests has to do with the health and well-being of a nation’s peoples, including the ‘least’ amongst them, not with destructive capacity …

Do people really expect high priced celebrity pundits, whose paycheck is signed by corporate media honco’s and whose paycheck is dependent on their not understanding things they should understand, to moderate meaningful debates that actually inform the electorate? Gibson and Stephanopolus are members of the “inner circle” of the Courtesan Class, celebrities motivated by ego and the pathological desire to please their masters. If either Obama or Clinton are to be elected it will be up to the blogoshper to provide the necessary information to the American electorate. The corporate media is a lost cause until the media corporations are broken up and the “Fairness Doctrine” is reintroduced. Until then, expect more of the same from the media. The last thing the media wants to cover are the issues! So much easier to talk about “character”, who you would like to have a beer with. I wish both Clinton and Obama and any and all Democratic candidates would begin calling out these corporate celebrities on their hidden agenda and the shallowness of thought.

Morning. Have you guys checked out the comments about the debate at ABC?

Almost 12,000, and the ones I’ve read have been overwhelmingly negative about the moderators.

Netanyahu, Short Ride and the rest of the Zionist crowd won’t be satisfied until every person of Arab descent in the world is dead.

Good morning … Loo Hoo, the George and Chuck show made Pumpkinhead and Campbell Brown look like geniuses, which is no small feat.

It’s good that the audience was told to sit on their hands or they’d have been booing or tossing tomatoes throughout …

What a species, liable to blow ourselves to Kingdom-come in a fit of pique …

One sometimes wonders …

On the bright side, the planet can (and probably will) do just fine without us.

Ho Hum.

Headline in our mediocre metro newspaper says:

“Dirty laundry undermines candidates’ messages.”

On page 3, a story that begins: “At least 18 Palestinians, many of them civilians, including children . . .”

Greg Mitchell at Editor and Publisher notes another category of hidden deaths in Iraq:

Another Local Paper Uncovers Another U.S. Soldier Suicide in Iraq

By Greg Mitchell

Published: April 16, 2008 2:00 PM ET

NEW YORK In what has become a regular ritual, a local newspaper has reported the death of a U.S. soldier in Iraq — officially described by the military as a “noncombat” fatality — as, in fact, a suicide.

The rate of suicides among military personnel in Iraq, who are suffering from multiple tours of duty, has surged in the past two years. E&P has chronicled this phenomenon for much longer than that.

In the latest case, John Brewer of the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press reports on the death of Spc. Jacob J. Fairbanks, 22, who hailed from that city, last week while serving in Iraq, six months into his second tour of duty there with the Army.

The military says only that it is under investigation — and that’s where the reporting generally stops — but the family of Fairbanks, 22, said the Army told them their son died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. . .

There’s more at the link.

The corporate media is doing all that they can to insure another Republican administration. It’s the death of a thousand cuts for either Clinton or Obama.

Wendell Berry’s “Peace of Wild Things”

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Goin’ for a walk, pups.

Charlie Gibson is the pompous patrician that thinks a middle class income is $200,000+. As moderator at a New Hampshire debate, or was it Vermont, he suggested that professors at the University that hosted the event make $100,000+ and stood to lose if Bush’s tax cuts were rolled back. The audience booed.

Huh? What?

I’ve felt for a long time that one of the problems with electronic journalism, the biggest problem in fact, now is that the celebrity “journalists” are grossly overpaid while the young ones are there mostly for eye candy and their egos.

The result is a personal addiction to the perks of the job rather than an obligation to the responsibility and role of being a journalist.

When journalists made little money, $50 grand a year or whatever, they had little to lose by actually doing journalism by holding the powerful accountable, answerable, and in check. They’re no longer willing to risk losing their celebrity or huge salaries by taking such risks.

Hmmmmmm. Quoting from your cited article:

The Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv on Wednesday reported that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel.

“We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,” Ma’ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events “swung American public opinion in our favor.”

Netanyahu reportedly made the comments during a conference at Bar-Ilan University on the division of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians.

All of which reminded me of Hillary Clinton’s Little-Noticed Israel Problem, and this comment from the last thread: http://firedoglake.com/2008/04…..nt-1393949

Well said.

Thank you.

I’ll add that the powerful include their own corporate masters/owners.

The golden rule applies and ultimately, the advertisers have the gold. Kind of eliminates the incentive to go after anything that doesn’t fit in with their agenda, which unfortunately, rarely aligns with our own.

You’re too fast for me…

and to nonplussed @ 45

Does “Soylent Green” remind you of anything?

Lol. Sorry.

No-lifer! Fast typer! Procrastinator!

Heh-heh.

The soylent majority [h/t twolf]

The same ethic seems to hold for print media as for TV. There is an interesting video at BloggingHeadsTV of a debate between Glenn Greenwald and Meghan McArdle of The Atlantic about the role and obligations of journalists. Meghan sees journalists, individually or as a class, as having any special obligations other than to the corporate bottom line. She agrees that people shouldn’t lie, but journalists have no truth-telling obligation over and above anyone else.

Bingo, as Upton Sinclair said “you can’t expect someone to understand something when their paycheck is dependent on them not understanding.” The traditional media has abrogated their responsibility as honest representatives of the 4th Estate.

Just suggesting that the ‘grasp’ of far too many world ‘leaders’ rarely exceeds their own perceived ’self’ …um ‘interests’.

Also that our ‘tenure’ is not guaranteed …

Also that we have no ‘time’ for any more war or craven ’stupidity’ …

We, as you know, have some REAL BIG PROBLEMS.

I don’t belive killing anybody solves anything, ever. It is just a conceit the ‘most-evolved’ species on the planet seems to cherish …

Way off topic, but just want to mention a gem of an ad.

I’ve become addicted to a show on Discovery Channel called “Deadliest Catch”. Discovery Channel has one of the most beautiful self-promotion ads I’ve ever seen of people singing a song about how much they love the world and then singing a refrain of “Boom-dee-ya-da”, boom-dee-ya-da”. The darn thing makes me smile, even feel a little weepy with emotion.

Every once in a while, some adman comes up with an actual work of art. This is one of those times, I think. It is just a wonderful piece of production. Kudos to Discovery Channel on that one.

I almost drowned on a mug of coffee! (he gasped)

Hereafter I shall only refer to the man with the sweaty nose and glasses as ACE* “news”man Gibson. Since when is it the job of “news”men/debate moderators to do the work of the NRCC and hate radio instead of substance?

*ACE = arrogant, condescending, elitist

My contempt for the mickey mouse network, and yes, that is a pejorative, knows no bounds.

Jennings and Moyers must be so proud.

Prairie Today: The Morning After

Egads.

A real horror, to me, was the Plame fiasco. I am a fierce defender of the press’s right to protect sources, but when the press is used in the commission of not only a crime but an act of treason, I just cannot see how they can defend that on the grounds of protecting sources. They weren’t used to REVEAL criminal conduct, they were used to COMMIT it.

Big,huge diff.

“Does Soylent Green remind you of anything…?

A Cheney America?

Oh Attaturk! It’s just sickening, heart-rending, criminal.

If you were the Pope, would you sit at the same table with the little emperator and eat hot dogs?!

The main players in this administration must be tried and prosecuted for their heinous crimes.

Juno 41. Right on target darting the media enablers.

I haven’t been able to watch the telly lately, but finally tried yesterday.

OMG. It’s WORSE than everybody has been saying. They are truly complicit enabling these criminals to have their way.

Sorry so trite, folks. There are no words….

I considered signing up on a crab boat when I was in Seattle in my younger days. I was working on the waterfront and they were always looking for people. You could make a LOT of money or you make very little. Worse yet, you might not even come back at all.

I was ultimately dissuaded by older and wiser folk.

perfect, unfortunately.

Plenty of crabby folks right here.

Like the Catholic Church is a paragon of virtue.

I agree. If war were no longer in the equation, at best a hypothetical, just the increase in population with finite resources, think just food and water, we will literally eat ourselves out of existence. What we consider beneath our consideration, small mammals, reptiles, injects, will once again rule the earth. Then it will become the pre-Adam paradise described in Genesis.

In his wildest dreams.

Another, if you’ll excuse my harping on it so often:

The storming of Miami-Dade Board of Elections office in 2000 by DeeLaze’ henchmen, who were successful in stopping the vote recount by election officials. And No one in the press said anything. No one in Congress did anything. They/we just let it happen….

The man who is currently the president of the United States sued to STOP VOTE COUNTING.

Think about that. Sez it all.

Gee thanks! Right on cue. I was just waitin’ like a big ole spider for that other shoe to drop.

Hi Rave. I need your wise snarky voice today. Talk me down, bud. I got the sniffles again. DAMMMMMIT!

I can see the draw, but maybe for a couple hours a day!

and the supremes went along.

ya can’t top this.

i know i know….

If the country’s caretakers don’t care..we need to find a country that does care.

Spring has sprung.

Hey, something we can agree on! Love the Discovery Channel also. Mike Rowe a treasure.

I will only watch The News Hour and C-span now for info. Don’t even watch KO any longer.

That stuff is mind poison.

Got to admit I keep wondering how reporters like Sy Hersh, Dana Priest, Murray Waas, and even Lisa Myers and a few others continue to maintain their integrity while so many others got fat and lazy while they became much too accustomed to access and their own celebrity? Why has Bill Moyers become one of the best at giving speeches? Why do we have to reach all the way back to the Kennedy Administration and Ted Sorenson to find inspiration? And why has Bob Woodward, once a truly good investigative reporter, still sell books when all he really does now is transcribe whatever he’s told? Why is Russert’s reputation not in complete tatters across the board when he says things like he did at Scooters trial? The revelation that nothing a reporter is told goes on the record until/unless he is given specific permission to tell it should not be good for his career. I remember a time when public people knew that they had to watch their words with reporters, that if they said too much, they’d see it in print the next day and it might not sound as good the morning after.

No, no. We COULD agree that Clinton is overall the better candidate to be president and that Obama is passive-aggressive, but you stubbornly refuse to do so! Heh-heh.

(That was a snark, I guess you call them here, btw. Just a joke).

Christy has a new post up for everyone’s pleasure.

Beg pardon? I REFUSE to leave MY COUNTRY. By being here in this time and space, we owe the world our honest efforts to right the foundering ship of state before it destroys the world. No small task, i grant you that. But I’m not going ANYWHERE.

Why shouldn’t the fourth estate crumble along with every other institution in this country?

Maybe OT, I haven’t read all the comments yet. But this seems relevant. Do you know who supplies the third largest group of armed security forces after the U.S. and Britain?

Contractors (Blackwater et. al.)

Talk about under the Radar. (Actually, nobody talks about this)

Agreed, until yesterday. Even the News Hour has one toe in the loony bin now. Go ahead. Tell me they’re up to their chins. I’d agree. Just trying to give them a weak attempt at benefit of the doubt…..

I kept hoping that one or the other candidate might say: “This is bullshit! Let’s go get a brew,” and then walk off the stage together since, clearly, Stephie and Charlie were more interested in hearing what Stephie and Charlie had to say.

heh. That’s what our bluebirds tell me. They’re building like mad in the yard. Except the missus can’t make up her mind, since it’s a buyers’ market this year, so mr. blue chases back-&-forth, back-&-forth as she tries this house, then that…. e-gad woman!?!

thanks for the attempt Rave. just not gonna work too well today. prolly shouldn’t read too much, & definitely should leave the telly OFF.

it’ll be o.k. i know you guys are out there workin’. much appreciated. ;->

Narcissism is a plague in America right now.

I wish Clinton had said, in response to the question about whether she thinks Obama can win in November, “He’d damn well better if he’s the nominee!” I think she truly believes he cannot win, but whether each thinks the other CAN win is irrelevant and actually a very stupid question. The question is, do you WANT the other to win, and they should both say YES! CAN they win? Sure. they can also lose and McCain CAN win.

Really stupid question.

Our groundhogs are serioulsy in love!

Sounds as though he’s now taken to dancing with joy in public.

Sadly, I am not at all suprised.

I wonder if America still considers him a friend or if any mention will be made of this at all…

With everyone’s indulgence, I’m gonna bury a little mustard seed of a question here in EPUland, to see if anyone can get it to sprout.

1. We have been told, and told again by the powers-that-be, that powerful sonar testing that is suspected as causing the deaths of countless cetaceans in the oceans is absolutely necessary to protect our safety in this country from evildoers.

2. A certain Awl company (think goat cheese, only ending with “-on” instead of “-re”) keeps advertising (Nightly Report + ) how environmentally goody-2-shoes they are because they scout thoroughly and completely before ever putting the slightest little hole into the ocean floor.

Can anyone here tell me whether #1 and #2 inextricably linked?

Are we killing not only people, but the whales and dolphins in the sea, all of them – for oil?

Please. Some scientist out there. Address this question for me. I would be grateful. My only weapon is a suspicious nature, a singed heart, and a scrap of tinfoil.

Everytime that ad comes on, many of us mutter/scream in anger.

I am no scientist, but I am quite sure you are correct.

sorry.

You’re telling this to a supposedly sane person who once carried on a 1/2-hour-long “conversation” with a, ahem, “serious” ground hog, IN the critter’s language – at least that’s what he said. He hadn’t a clue, because I was standing only 15′ away from him, but holding a branch in front of my face. Nuts, but true.

thanks Rave. it’s o.k. yeah. sure. all we need to do is…, is….

i hate what they’re doing; yes, i hate them; shame on me….

btw
horse whisperer is incorrect, if you check with the guy the movie’s about.
“the man who listens to horses” is on the mark.

http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-…..038;sr=1-3

thanks Angie. I would rather be nuts than have it be true. It is heartening to know I’m not alone.

the epitome and exact caricature of “Smarmy”

for what it worth
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/200…..A_oEBX6GMA

Check out this translation of today’s Michael Gordon crapfest in the Times:

http://gorillasguides.com/2008…..-it-again/

BAGHDAD — A company of Iraqi soldiers abandoned their positions on Tuesday night in Sadr City, defying American soldiers who implored them to hold the line against Shiite militias. A company of GZG soldiers abandoned their positions on Tuesday night in Sadr City, defying American soldiers who implored them to hold the line against the Mahdi Army who are resisting the American attempts to shoot the shit out of the place.

The retreat left a crucial stretch of road on the front lines undefended for hours and led to a tense series of exchanges between American soldiers and about 50 Iraqi GZG troops who were fleeing saw no reason why they should risk their lives for the American barbarians currently failing despite many years to conquer the place.