I thought I might be the only person alarmed at Bob Woodward’s happy hints about his beloved “Company” getting back into the wholesale slaughter business, just because I’m old enough to remember when “an aerial campaign against [a] “neutral” [foreign nation] is a war crime and would have created a political firestorm in the US”. …
Open Thread: Beat-Down Pick-Me-Up
Tom Scocca at Slate brings his half-brick-in-a-sock to the Moustache of Understanding’s latest extrusion: The Silent Majority Wants a Dictatorship Run by Thomas Friedman __ How popular are those Tea Parties you’ve been hearing about? So popular that now Thomas Friedman wants one of his own… __ [W]hat America desires, by happy coincidence, is a …
Open Thread: Headline of the Day
Tom Scocca at Slate: “Politico: The President’s Next Chief of Staff Will Probably Be a Person With Political Connections“. And it took three reporters to break that brilliant scoop, too: “The function of the country’s chief executive, according to Politico, is not to administer the country as effectively as he can, according to the goals …
Open Thread: Title of the Day
From Tom Scocca at Slate: “Larry Summers Is Resigning to Spend More Time With His Money“. Damn fine post, as well. If Summers were being judged by his actual “financial acumen” (which seems to consist of an imperious willingness to lose other peoples’ money) as opposed to his monumental talent for giving rich powerful people …
Open Thread: Astroturfing with Chinese Characteristics
Tom Scocca at Slate poaches on Taibbi territory with a post smacking Tom Friedman’s latest idiocy: “How Will China Reckon with the Freewheeling Opinions of Its (Government-Employed) Netizens?”: Like the Great Firewall, this mass sock-puppetry campaign is an open secret with a catchy name: the paid apologists are called the “Wu Mao Dang,” or Fifty-Cent …
Open Thread: Astroturfing with Chinese CharacteristicsPost + Comments (74)
Open Thread: Memory & Forgetting
From Tom Scocca’s always-excellent blog at Slate, two adjacent posts on the weaknesses of old media and the strength of the new: Lying Propaganda-Ghoul Ari Fleischer Explains How Professional, Ethical Reporting Should Work The Atlantic has a sort of yakkity-yakkity thing up online about how Professional Journalists handle material being on or off the record. …
Open Thread: Saturday Night Pets
From commentor Bill D (wmd): Here’s a picture of RC (Rodent Control) Gizmo. He’s a year older now, still likes to sleep on the seat of my motorcycle, but alas the economy will take it away as soon as I find a buyer for the bike. *********** Let me state for the record that I’m …