corrente

Johnny Space and His Flying Rockets





playing: Dream of the West

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sneak around in the dark.

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Vanity Fair "Why Do People Love to Hate The New York Times?" (excerpts):

“When I think of the pre–Iraq war liberal animosity toward The New York Times, it almost seems quaint,” Goldberg says. “It almost seems sweet. You meet these young, left-wing blogger types today who actively hate The New York Times and the mainstream media the way freshman College Republican types used to hate The New York Times.”

Yes, just like when young Panty Doughload was prancing about Prague as a sweet young Republican thang; penning poessies in sidewalk cafes and waiting for mommy to lure him home to the maternal Manhattan nest with a spiffy job offer. It seems almost quaint now... don't it?

Carr describes the online detractors as “an embedded base of copy ninnies and fact freaks, all of whom are armed not only with the ability to feed back to you in real time but also the means to fact-check you against your own work and the work of the universe. So, these people are armed, dangerous, and very pissed off. I’m not sure about what.”

Right. Its not like the Times hired one of John McCain's campaign foreign policy advisors (Bill Kristol) to squat in the lap of the Times op-ed page while dressed up as a squeaky keen quick study of our national political stage. When, in actuallity, Silly Billy is nothing more than a conservatart - a liar for hire - embedded at the NYTimes for the purpose of scrutinizing his own PNAC tatooed pecker, performing pole dances for neoconservative messenger boys, and massaging Johnny "BBQ" McCain's shriveled stag-party nutsack of a campaign. Oh no, surely, no one could be "pissed off" about that. It's obviously just some sort of envy and resentment problem stirred up by "copy ninnies" and "fact freaks"... and, as we all know, facts are stupid things. Just ask Judy Miller.

Perhaps it comes back to envy and resentment. As much as the Times’s influence is dwindling, many smart alecks on the Web would kill to have a tiny fraction of the paper’s prestige and power, and they may think (erroneously, one suspects) that they could wield it better than the current occupants of Renzo Piano’s climber-friendly Eighth Avenue tower.

Renzo Piano!... OMG!, that is like sooo totally hip... to call it that, like... only... the totally coolest, who are so familiar with like the best of the best of the best, in the cruciform plan, and like are so pursued for comment by climber-friendly editorial associates who work for fruity magazines with florally enhanced perfume pleached pages... and such as!... will totally get it, OMG!, Like wait till everyone at Lily Pond Lane reads about this... OMG.

Carr puts it this way, borrowing from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The reflexive, baked-in desire to constantly take apart the Times is, I think, the hobgoblin of underemployed and understimulated minds.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that. “Would we have it any other way? Do we want people to read us with their eyes crossed and skim for the good parts?” he asks. “Nah.”

"Nah", of course not. We leave the understimulated cross-eyed skimming up to our Times editors. We wouldn't have it any other way. Just ask Judy Miller.

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The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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UPDATE: Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (CA), on Obama's VP shortlist?



Tom Tomorrow on the great New Yorker cover scare of 2008:

WTF?
So The New Yorker features a cover showing Obama as a Muslim and his wife as a militant radical, sharing a fist bump as a flag burns in the fireplace. The point is immediately obvious: these are the caricatures of the Obamas that the right has been trying to draw from the start of this election season. It’s not wacky, over-the-top, laugh-out-loud satire, but few New Yorker covers are. The intent is clear enough, and is obviously not to mock the Obamas.

Personally I’m not sure why the conversation about this goes any further than, “Oh yes, that was a mildly amusing reference to those crazy right wing emails everyone has heard about,” before moving on to other topics. But it’s appalling that a piece of artwork clearly mocking the delusions of the right is being excoriated as if it presents those delusions approvingly.

… part of what’s incredibly troubling about the reaction from the left (”your so-called art does not advance our cause, comrade!”) is that this is a pretty basic riff I could have — probably would have — incorporated into one of my own cartoons sooner or later, the old “pretending-crazy-right-wing-shit-is-true-in-order-to-show-how-fucked-up-it-is” gag being pretty integral to my work. [continued at link]

That pretty much sums it all up for me.


~!!!~!!!~!!!~!!!~

BREAKING: - Dana Rohrabacher maintains a "cordial, behind-the-scenes relationship" with Obama.

"[Rohrabacher] says the Obama's are devout traditionalists—not terrorists or revolutionaries. He believes an Obama takeover [of America] would be a positive development."

Look for Rohrabacher to get the VP nod and join the Obama post-partisan ticket following the nominating convention in August.

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Randy Scheunemann past - and present

Josh Marshall (Talking Points Memo):

Do Your Job: Stop Ignoring Scheunemann's Past

[...] it's time for some coverage of the guy who's McCain's brain on Iraq. Remember, McCain's pitch on Iraq is that he was a critic of Bush, not a supporter, on the poor decisions and lies that got us into the current mess. In the McCain paradigm, he starts fresh with the 'surge'. That's where he takes ownership, as it were, of Iraq.

But look who's advising him on Iraq, who's crafting Iraq policy. That would be Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy advisor. And he's the guy who today accused Barack Obama of wanting to lead America to defeat in Iraq for political gain.

Scheunemann was a core participant in the lobbying, plotting and organized campaigns of deception that led America to war in Iraq. He was a close collaborator with Ahmad Chalabi through the 1990s. He helped draft the Iraq Liberation Act, which created the new funding stream for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. At the start of the Bush administration he signed on as Don Rumsfeld's 'consultant' on Iraq at the Pentagon. And then when the administration started cranking up the machinery for the propaganda campaign in favor of war he went back on the outside to form and lead the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, to lead the press and lobbying campaign to make sure the war got started on schedule.

[...] Scheunemann worked closely with Chalabi for years in his efforts to get the US into war with Iraq. He was also a go-between between Chalabi and McCain. Now that he's taking such a high-profile role on the Iraq issue in the 2008, Scheunemann's history with Chalabi and the use of bogus intelligence to get the nation into war is unquestionably highly newsworthy.

[PAST]: Scheunemann was a board member and "project director" for PNAC (Project for the New American Century).

[PRESENT]: He is currently listed as a member of The Committe on the Present Danger ("third incarnation") .

Sen. Joe Lieberman is current CPD Honorary Co-Chairman. The reborn CPD (2004) is a who's who of the usual neo-conservative boosteroos and war mongers. From Frank Gaffney to Midge Decter to Newt Gingrich, Normon Podhoretz, Daniel Pipes, James Woolsey, Laurie Mylroie, Edwin Meese and on and on. All the crazies in one big dangerous nuthole.

Take a look: current CPD Members - because these are going to be the people running and influencing our foreign policy (again!) if John McCain is elected in November.

McBush/McCheney/McSame/McCain = Thats a train that must be derailed, and ...

"decommissioned and sent to the scrap heap"
(thanks to pansy in comments for that additional insight).

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run around on the grass

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HCSC = Hillary Clinton Suicide Cult

Hillary or Death! -- TBogg:

In an effort to explain why SusanUnPC at Hillary or Mass Cult Suicide doesn't understand the concept of snark, I present an UnPC and misogynistic joke from the sixties:

punchline here

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