If you ever wondered how the rest of the world views our wingnuts when they speak on the global stage, you should turn on CNN right now and watch Gadhafi’s rambling and incoherent speech.
Archives for September 2009
Day six of the Kaplan Daily’s silence on the Norton story
As I said before, I think the Gale Norton investigation is pretty serious stuff:
The criminal investigation centers on the Interior Department’s 2006 decision to award three lucrative oil shale leases on federal land in Colorado to a Shell subsidiary. Over the years it would take to extract the oil, according to calculations from Shell and a Rand Corp. expert, the deal could net the company hundreds of billions of dollars.
The story was first reported on September 17 in the LAT and Chicago Tribune (there’s some form of joint operating agreement and they are owned by the same company). The NYT and WSJ did stories on it shortly thereafter.
It is now nearly a week later and the Washington Post has yet to mention aside from an item in one of Howie Kurtz’s blog piece, and a link to an AP piece. This may be why:
Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said he worries “that we are not well-enough informed about conservative issues. It’s particularly a problem in a town so dominated by Democrats and the Democratic point of view.”
To guard against it, he said, “I challenge our reporters and editors with great frequency to look at what is going on across the political spectrum . . . at the extremes, among the rabble-rousers, as well as among policymakers.” He said he pressed the National desk this week to provide more ACORN coverage.
I realize I’ve touched on this before, but it’s remarkable: the Post, in effect, pulled reporters off of a story involving criminal misconduct at the cabinet level involving hundreds of billions of dollars to put more reporters on a story about a gag video involving kids dressed up as pimps and hos. And now we know that the evil ACORN worker who played along with them later spoke to the police about the incident.
It’s Glenn Beck’s world, we’re just living in it.
Day six of the Kaplan Daily’s silence on the Norton storyPost + Comments (81)
Angling To Be the Next Turdblossom
From the NY Times write-up on Palin’s speechifying overseas:
A number of people who heard the speech in a packed hotel ballroom, which was closed to the media, said Mrs. Palin spoke from notes for 90 minutes and that she was articulate, well-prepared and even compelling.
***Accompanying Mrs. Palin to Hong Kong was Randy Scheunemann, the former foreign policy adviser to John McCain, who lost the 2008 election to President Obama.
Mrs. Palin did not take questions from the media after the speech, and there was a high degree of security and secrecy around the event. Only invited guests and a handful of employees from CLSA, the brokerage house that sponsored the event, were allowed inside the ballroom.
What is great about all this is that in a few years, she will present herself as new, and the village idiots like David Gregory will crow about how much she has grown and Chris Matthews will say that she has gained some gravitas and on and on. They’ll never look into the big money boys who started propping up Palin websites and making sure her book sales do well and the astroturf campaigns that start appearing in the letters to the editor at your local city rag. And then, as the wheels start to churn, the Palkin team will snub the media and attack them on the rare occasions that one of them does manage to get a question off.
And the whole time, they’ll pretend to not see the strings in the puppet show, even as it is winking right at them. You betcha.
*** Update ***
More here.
Some Good News
Prepare for much wailing from the very serious people like birther Andy McCarthy at the NRO:
The Justice Department is preparing to impose new limits on the government assertion of the state secrets privilege used to block lawsuits for national security reasons. The practice was a major flashpoint in the debate over the escalation of executive power and secrecy during the Bush administration.
The new policy, which could be announced as early as Wednesday, would require approval by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. if military or espionage agencies wanted to assert the privilege to withhold classified evidence sought in court or to ask a judge to dismiss a lawsuit at its onset.
This seems like a positive step.
BJ Dictionary Open Thread
Many of you have asked about the dictionary function to the right. The point of it is to allow newcomers some idea of what the older folks in the comments are referencing when they make statements about things like “hoot-smalley” or “IOKIFYAR.”
The problem, of course, is that you all can not edit the dictionary like a true mini-bjpedia, and only the blog overlords have that ability. So take this thread and write out definitions as you think they should be, and I will add the ones I think are best.
Also, I address the FAQ as often as possible, but I am seriously sick to death of “Were you really once a Republican?”
Yes. Yes, I was. Maybe one of you can work on that, but seriously, I just wish my archives would get corrupted for everything prior to Schiavo.
*** Update ***
Now this was just a cheap shot:
Tunch: Thought to compose up to 90% of the mass in the universe, but very rarely seen since the dog came along.
That simply is not true. There is simply no way Lily is overshadowing how much I love Tunch and how important he is to me. Look at this photographic evidence:
I’m totally going to lose this argument, aren’t I?
Tuesday Night Open Thread
I’m completely unimpressed with the television offerings tonight, and after multiple hours watching training videos, I think my eyes would pop out of my head if I tried to read, so we are spending the night working on “sit”:
Have I ever mentioned how much I love this dog (and before you ask, I still love Tunch to death)? And yes, I am fully aware that the blanket is hairy and needs to be shaken out and washed, but I have been really busy lately.
Have at it.
Approximately How Insane Does One Have to Be Before No Longer Getting an Invite to Hardball?
For some reason, Frank Gaffney is on Hardball offering his expertise about something. I’m not sure what, because I switched the damned tv off as soon as I heard his voice.
This Frank Gaffney, talking about secret “codes”:
Frank Gaffney is an insane crazy person. He has proven it on any number of occasions, but he quite clearly demonstrated that he is a lunatic in the above clip, right there on Hardball. So why, exactly, are Matthews and his producers inviting him back on the show to babble?