More Classy Nudes (yoga gal) and Cartoon Hijinks at Red Light District

Item: I decided to update my porn section for I am a sad lonely man who hasn't had a legitimate date since...well, I literally can't remember. Or, to steal the Patton Oswalt joke "You know the difference between girls and porn? I can get porn..." And thank gawd for yoga girl. So that's what people see in yoga. I always thought it was dandified stretchin' but I was wrong. Between shots of yoga girl's contorted thighs are profane illustrations of cartoon characters doin' it. It features the scooby gang ("Zoinks" indeed and that look of quizzical befuddlement on Scooby's face...priceless), Jessica and Roger Rabbit, and, no, not you Tinkerbell...!? Not you...Have I mentioned lately that those toons are clearly parodies that have artistic merit and that I simply point these things out as a part of my "news gathering"...? Thought I should mention that..

My Cousin Leonce Gaiter Has Published His First Novel!

Item: The above novel was written by my cousin Leonce Gaiter. I didn't even know he had written it and published it. I discovered it when someone else linked to it--I think it was Steve Gilliard. Looks like its in a Walter Mosley vein. I wish he would send me a copy.
He also has a blog where he writes about New Orleans and his family's past, which also happens to be my past. Leonce also happens to be gay, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Here's an excerpt:

King of spades: My parents got out of New Orleans decades before Katrina, but for the same reasons that begat the tragedy. I lived there only briefly, but even as a child I knew that the attitude among the city’s poor, black population was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. My parents were 60s bourgeois strivers, and they insisted on three things: excellence to thwart the race hatred that threatened them, controlled rage to keep its memories fresh because more often than not, cultures die before they change, and finally arrogance in the knowledge that while the majority with all its power did its best to belittle us—they had failed. (More over at Pgh Words, Sounds and Pictures. And I'm adding Cousin Leonce to the blog links.)

Very Old Post About Last Week's Steelers Game and US Open

Item: And somebody break up the Steelers. Of course, that might be the worst defense they'll look at all year. I had no idea Willie Parker = College era Tony Dorsett. Man o man. Feelin' good about the Stillers. But its only one game.


And now: 100 words about the US Open. I'm glad that Kim won her first slam, but I think Mary Pierce got a raw deal. Her timeout in the seminfinals was within the rules. Federer really is that good. He's the first man to consistently track down and return 120 mph serves. He's also highly intelligent. Still, I wonder if that racquet of his is juiced...? With a carbon nanotube mesh and adjustable tensions...what if it really is the shoes? Federer could win a Grand Slam. The Sampras slam record is in jeopardy. I hope the men's tour can catch him...Need Marat back and a more versatile Andy Roddick to give him a game. The Europeans will give him a run on clay...

Cindy Sheehan Will Be Here This Weekend

Item: Cindy Sheehan coming to Pittsburgh this weekend.

From the Thomas Merton Center's Anti-War Committee:

UPDATE: CINDY SHEEHAN WILL MAKE A PITTSBURGH APPEARANCE ON SUNDAY"On Wednesday, August 30, 2005, the last day of the anti-war encampment started by Cindy Sheehan in Crawford, Texas, the Bring Them Home Now Tour launched three buses of military and Gold Star families, veterans of the Iraq War, and veterans of previous wars. These buses will travel different routes across the country, including a stop in Pittsburgh on September 11th-13th, before converging in Washington, DC for the United for Peace and Justice March on September 24th. Pittsburgh events include Camp Neil : A Picnic/Speak-Out followed by a Candlelight March on Sunday, Sept. 11, a Press Conference and a Public Gathering to discuss conscientious objection and counter-recruitment. Others tba. Download flyer."

More here

Interesting Perspective About Journalistic "Objectivity"

Item: This is an older Daily Kos item but I'd thought that I would repeat it.

"There's been some inspiring reporting coming out of the shattered towns of Louisiana and Mississippi -- reporters showing their humanity on their sleeves, reporters not afraid to ask the impertinent but possibly live-saving questions, reporters more than willing to call out politicians on live camera when they spin away from or flatly lie on known facts. It's been shocking to see, and a credit to them and their industry.But why is that the exception? Why does it take day after day of reporting on struggles for food, struggles for water, searches for loved ones, searches that ended badly, and a lake full of bodies to wear a reporter down to the point where their voice shakes, their hands tremble, and they call out the officials who are lying to them right there, on the air, and make sure the whole world knows the actual truth?Shouldn't that be the default position of any journalist actually doing their job? Shouldn't the search for the truth, and the outrage at the lie, be the very basis of actual reporting? Why should it take that momentary loss of control, that sudden spark of anger caused by unimaginable disaster, to get to that point of brilliance and duty?How have we come to this point, where neutrality of journalism meant neutrality to the truth itself, meant reporting fact and lie alongside each other, in equivalence, without emotion, without remorse? Where reporting that an official has flatly lied is not even considered, by the top reporters of the top news outlets in this country, unless you are one of those few reporters knee-deep in a swirling eddy that contains the disintegrated remnants of a hundred thousand families, and of ten thousand lives?"

Funky Dung Loves Battle Pope

Item: I'm not exactly certain, but I'm pretty sure this is Funky Dung's fave comic. Pretty sure. Speaking of Ales Rarus watch (because someone needs to watch the crazed theocrats who talk to God), let's give him credit for, at least once, denouncing a crazed Christian person. Then again, let's not give him credit for not denouncing how the Pope wants immunity for his alleged actions of protecting priests who commit child rape. And let me guess, if this ever so Un Christian president were to grant those pardons the Catholic Church would remain impartial in terms of its political choices. Of course, in the vein of that immortal Star Trek 5 line of why does God need a spaceship, why does a pope need to ask for criminal immunity? Doesn't he have a higher power that he communes with? Or is he just another corrupt right wing political hack? I'd say the latter...Afterall, you give me poor kids then I'll give you Christians, or radical Islamic fundamentalists, or Mormons, whatever. Same buncha crazy. I, myself, am praying that o mighty Odin will strike Eric down.

Adding Doug Ireland to permalinks

Item: I'm adding Doug Ireland to the permalinks. He has some good links about Roberts (Dems thrown in the towel, again. What opposition party?) and how we destroyed socialism in Iraq. I guess Iraqis will get the same kind of free market that New Orleans residents have gotten.

Robot Wisdom Writes! (And not just links..)

Item: World Class blogger Robot Wisdom, one of the best headline writers in the world by the way (here's a sample:" Mr FEMA had negative-infinity track-record (Boston via Ag)")has a new weblog where he does some writing. Well, I know he'll be well informed. I wrote him an email asking for a comments section.

More Good Old Fashioned Erotica at the Red Light District

Item: I've moved away from hurricane pron to my old fashioned porn. Features artistic nudes from Jeff Jones and a funny Frazetta illustration. Here's an aside: "Who knew Lenin had such a nice ass?"

Let Us Praise Kanye West.

Item: And let us praise Kanye West for saying the truth we were all thinking. Video here and I'm adding Crooks and Liars to the blogroll.

Item: Here's a mockup of Three Rivers Online magazine. It's sort of what you expect.

Item: Here's a mockup of Three Rivers Online magazine. It's sort of what you'd expect.

Shortish Friday Around the Internets

September 2

Couple of highlights: Calpundit nails it.

"Actions have consequences. No one could predict that a hurricane the size of Katrina would hit this year, but the slow federal response when it did happen was no accident. It was the result of four years of deliberate Republican policy and budget choices that favor ideology and partisan loyalty at the expense of operational competence. It's the Bush administration in a nutshell."

And before that quote he gives you a timeline of how competent people were turned out and no nothing cronies were put in. A nutshell. Indeed. Both Atrios and Calpundit have been must reading concerning the crisis.

Guest commentator Amy Sullivan also has an interesting post:

LEFT BEHIND....Don't miss Joan Walsh on Salon today, putting into words the frustration so many of us have struggled to articulate.

These are desperately poor people who've been deliberately left behind, in so many senses of the word — left behind by society, shut up in housing projects and hideous poverty, and now truly left behind by local and federal officials who failed to come up with an evacuation plan for people too poor and isolated to leave on their own....

....Why didn't we send a caravan of buses into the city's poorest neighborhoods on Saturday or Sunday, when the dimensions of the disaster were already predictable?....Sure, Houston's got electricity and running water, but tens of thousands of scared, angry people packed into an abandoned sports stadium — we couldn't come up with a better symbol of how little we care about the poor, how little we've thought about what to do with them, for them, if we tried.

We've heard the warning "this isn't about politics" over and over in the last few days. The hell it isn't. And I don't mean kicking Bush while he's down, just for the fun of it, although there are surely liberals eager to do that. For the rest of us, however, we're seeing the awful real world consequences of conservatism play out on our television screens. This is why we're liberals. We don't yell about poverty and racial disparities for kicks. An evacuation plan that consists of telling people to get out on their own is not an evacuation plan.

More later, after I've digested all of this...

Frell you Glenn Reynolds. Frell you.

"I hope people don't play politics at this time of a natural disaster the likes of which this country has never seen."

Oh, I'm touched. Utterly touched. After 9/11, the entire Republican Party went en masse to get Twin Towers ass tattoos. The Republican convention was a wholesale tribute to crass exploitation, the sets themselves designed to evoke the aftermath of the attack. Every domestic and international policy this administration -- no, this entire Republican government -- has produced has been heaved up before the public while waving the spectre of 9/11 as the catch-all vindication of every administration whim. Every tax cut, every civil rights issue, every budget cut, every budget expansion, no matter how tortured the logic must be, has some Republican senator standing on the Senate floor and proudly raping the corpses of that day as justification for their particular agenda item.

--Hunter, Daily Kos

Recently our good friend Mr. Reynolds--proud founding member of the League of Evil Bloggers and a man who won't proudly claim his GOP heritage yet repeats the party's talking point mantras over and over and over again--has told us to not to politicize this hurricane thing. Right. This from a man who can't help commenting on our Dear Leader's Glorious War of Liberation, or links approvingly to a guy who wants to turn dissent into treason, or smears every pop star who points out the incompetency, idiocy and outright evil of the Bush administration. He's so above the fray and all.

With this history in mind, let me state: Fuck you Glenn Reynolds. Fuck you. And your treasonous ilk. And visit the new same named blog here.

Here are a list of links that point to the Bush administration's incompetence. And, unfortunately, bad policy kills. We need to remember that Glenn and Michele and Pejman and the Powerline folks supported this evil incompetency. We must never forget. Never.

Bush bungles it again: Federal government wasn't ready for Katrina, disaster experts say
Category 4 Hurricane Determined to Strike U.S. -- Cont
Spin and Lies
"[No One] Anticipated the Breach of the Levees"
Even the corporate media gets it
Molly Ivins: 'Why New Orleans is in deep water'
Sidney Blumenthal: 'No one can say they didn't see it coming'
The Difference Between Democrats and Republicans (Bankruptcy relief)
Atrios on that unbelievable shoot the looters WH Press Conference
New Orleans as a casualty of the war in Iraq

One more thing: the kind of talk that we saw before the hurricane hit is the kind of talk we get about global warming, about mad cow disease, about the possibility that terrorist groups would have nothing to lose by unleashing wmds, about the futility of the Iraq war and etcetera onward to infinity. Worst president, ever.

Not Much To Say About the Hurricane

Item: I really don't have a lot to say about the hurricane. I guess my official story on weather and underclass crime stories can be found here. I just don't write about the weather because I don't think you can do anything about it. But I do think that in cases of stunning weather that takes thousands of lives--such as the tsunami even though I joked about it--that is newsworthy. It's also newsworthy if our government leaders could have done something to prevent the loss of life in New Orleans, as Chris Mooney argues here and "Prescience Sucks". Froth also supplies a full list of hurricane updates here.

No Taserin' Saturday but Breakin' News

Item: No taserin' at last Saturday's demonstration against military recruiting. But I see that there were donuts, the nemesis of overzealous police officers everywhere. Get news and photos here.

(pic of Hiroshima protest at CMU)

But there was some breaking news, I define "breaking" as the kinds of stories that corporate media either doesn't cover or cover enough to make a difference, about CMU's lucrative role in the War Machine. I found it over there at that fount of self-published useful information that is Indy Media.

There's a main story criticizing Caterpillar's role in investing in driverless drones. And there's also about 19 related stories that have been published in the last year or so. It looks like the "writers" include the people at No to War and our good friends the Pittsburgh Organizing Group, seen here shutting down a recruiting table at CMU. Good for them. I'm sure no one considers them a "terrist" organization.

Chuck Penn on the False Progressive Record of Casey Jr.

(New Andy Warhol series of Chuck's posters)

They're having a poll of Chuck Penn vs. Bob Casey over at the Daily Kos, which right now Chuck is winning, which is impossible since he lost the vote at MoveOn, which hasn't released its tallies, which has probably got Chuck interested in ballot integrity.

Update: Good catch from Comments From Left Field. It's a funny Daily Kos entry from Chuck Penn.

In contrast, other Casey supporters take him at his word when he publicly opposes a woman's right to choose. The 2004 Democratic Senate candidate, Joe Hoeffel, acknowledges Casey's core pro-life/anti-choice position. For months, in fact, Mr. Hoeffel has repeated this same statement about Bob Casey, Jr: "On all issues other than a woman's right to choose, Bob Casey is a progressive Democrat."

And for months I have kept my powder dry while our campaign documented Mr. Casey's truly conservative profile on critical issues such as stem cell research, the death penalty, the U.S. policy in Iraq, the assault weapons ban, separation of church and state, living wage legislation, universal health care, GLBT rights, preserving an independent judiciary (Terry Schiavo case), and drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. So, for Mr. Hoeffel to argue Mr. Casey is "progressive" on "all issues" other than choice is an extraordinary stretch. Such a stretch, in fact, that Mr. Hoeffel has mostly backed away from making such claims. In addition, Mr. Hoeffel should be credited for his honesty on Mr. Casey's opposition to a woman's right to choose and his determination to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Returning to Harrisburg and Lt. Gov. Knoll's "reverse spin" -- where she didn't challenge my claims to being the only progressive on all issues other than a woman's right to choose -- but literally heckled me ("No, that's not true, that's not true!") when I correctly said that I was the only candidate committed to upholding a woman's right to choose.

Read the whole thing as they say.

POG's Demands to the Police

Item: Here are more links about the protest. Here's the audio snippets from the press conference. Here's a transcript of an audio report that appeared on Free Speech TV. Here are POG's demands.

1. Drop all charges from A20 protest
2. City investigate police violence and misconduct
3. Suspend or fire Officer Samuel Muoio who used taser at protest
4. Moratorium on taser use in Pittsburgh

Well, if it means that they'll go back to lethal force and fatal choke holds I'll take my taserin' very much thank you sir. Just a thought. Froth, who to my comics obsessed mind resembles the cartoon character Tintin,

...offers a defense of police tactics. I must confess I didn't find it convincing. I think we have a police oversight review board for good reason. He also asked me if he could get his hands on unedited footage. It looks like POG will give you that if you ask them. Their numbers are here. But I agree with Pittsblog that there probably won't be anything incriminating in the unedited footage. Of course Froth, the city's lone liberal cop, would be hard pressed to criticize the armed people who he works with. I assume he's seen the ending of Serpico...

Chavez Wants to Help Poor Americans with Gas Prices? Sign me up...

Item: Evildoer Chavez offers poor Americans cheap fuel and Evildoer Castro offers poor Americans free health care and medical training...which is...awful? Could be.

Sirota on DLC: They're On the Other Side

Item: David Sirota on why the DLC needs to be driven from the Democratic Party. Short version: The DLC is on the other side.

Science vs. Norse Mythology

Item: Science vs. Norse Mythology

More on Election Fraud 2004

"Welcome to a world where statistical probability and normal arithmetic no longer apply!(36) The Democrats, rather than vigorously pursuing these patently obvious signs of election fraud in 2004, have nearly all decided that being gracious losers is better than being winners,(37) probably because – and this may be the most important reason for the Democrat’s relative silence - a full-scale uncovering of the fraud runs the risk of mobilizing and unleashing popular forces that the Democrats find just as threatening as the GOP does.

The delicious irony for the GOP is that the Help America Vote Act, precipitated by their theft of the Florida 2000 presidential vote, made GOP theft of elections as in the preceding examples easy and unverifiable except through recourse to indirect analysis such as pre-election polls and exit polls.(38) This is the political equivalent of having your cake and eating it too. Or, more precisely: stealing elections, running the country, and aggressively, arrogantly and falsely claiming that “the people” support it.

Flavor Flav of the rap group Public Enemy used to wear a big clock around his neck in order to remind us all that we’d better understand what time it is. Or, as Bob Dylan once said: “Let us not speak falsely now, the hour’s getting late.” To all of those who said before the 2004 elections that this was the most important election in our lifetimes; to all of those who plunged into that election hoping and believing that we could throw the villains out via the electoral booth; to all of those who held their noses and voted for Democrats thinking that at least they were slightly better than the theocratic fascists running this country now, this must be said: VOTING REALLY DOESN’T MATTER. If we weren’t convinced of that before these last elections, then now is the time to wake up to that fact. Even beyond the fraudulent elections of 2000 and 2004, public policies are not now, nor have they ever been, settled through elections. "

--From No Paper Trail Left Behind: The Theft of the 2004 Presidential Election,By Dennis Loo, Ph.D. Cal Poly Pomona

Item: A long time back I predicted this year's vote fraud story would make it to this year's list of Project Censored stories. And I was right. Check out this article. And here are the top ten things you need to believe in order to think that the 2004 election wasn't fraudulent. It's written by another one of those PH D wackos.

In order to believe that George Bush won the November 2, 2004 presidential election, you must also believe all of the following extremely improbable or outright impossible things.(1)

1) A big turnout and a highly energized and motivated electorate favored the GOP instead of the Democrats for the first time in history.(2)

2) Even though first-time voters, lapsed voters (those who didn’t vote in 2000), and undecideds went for John Kerry by big margins, and Bush lost people who voted for him in the cliffhanger 2000 election, Bush still received a 3.5 million vote surplus nationally.(3)

3) The fact that Bush far exceeded the 85% of registered Florida Republicans’ votes that he got in 2000, receiving in 2004 more than 100% of the registered Republican votes in 47 out of 67 Florida counties, 200% of registered Republicans in 15 counties, and over 300% of registered Republicans in 4 counties, merely shows Floridians’ enthusiasm for Bush. He managed to do this despite the fact that his share of the crossover votes by registered Democrats in Florida did not increase over 2000 and he lost ground among registered Independents, dropping 15 points.(4)

4) Florida’s reporting of more presidential votes (7.59 million) than actual number of people who voted (7.35 million), a surplus of 237,522 votes, does not indicate fraud.

5) The fact that Bush got more votes than registered voters, and the fact that by stark contrast participation rates in many Democratic strongholds in Ohio and Florida fell to as low as 8%, do not indicate a rigged election.(5)

6) Bush won re-election despite approval ratings below 50% - the first time in history this has happened. Truman has been cited as having also done this, but Truman’s polling numbers were trailing so much behind his challenger, Thomas Dewey, pollsters stopped surveying two months before the 1948 elections, thus missing the late surge of support for Truman. Unlike Truman, Bush’s support was clearly eroding on the eve of the election.(6)

7) Harris' last-minute polling indicating a Kerry victory was wrong (even though Harris was exactly on the mark in their 2000 election final poll).(7)

8) The “challenger rule” - an incumbent’s final results won’t be better than his final polling - was wrong;(8)

9) On election day the early-day voters picked up by early exit polls (showing Kerry with a wide lead) were heavily Democratic instead of the traditional pattern of early voters being mainly Republican.

10) The fact that Bush “won” Ohio by 51-48%, but this was not matched by the court-supervised hand count of the 147,400 absentee and provisional ballots in which Kerry received 54.46% of the vote doesn’t cast any suspicion upon the official tally.(9)

Protest Coverage and the Pittsburgh Corporate Media

A propaganda model focuses on this inequality of wealth and power and its multilevel effects on mass-media interests and choices. It traces the routes by which money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public. The essential ingredients of our propaganda model, or set of news "filters," fall under the following headings: (I) the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms; (2) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media; (3) the reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and "experts" funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of power; (4) "flak" as a means of disciplining the media; and (5) "anticommunism" as a national religion and control mechanism. These elements interact with and reinforce one another. The raw material of news must pass through successive filters, leaving only the cleansed residue fit to print. They fix the premises of discourse and interpretation, and the definition of what is newsworthy in the first place, and they explain the basis and operations of what amount to propaganda campaigns.

--from Chomsky's and Herman's Manufacturing Consent. (For five I would switch out "anticommunism" and replace it with "terrorism".)

Item: I have to admit I thought this was the most important story of the weekend. I don't think it made the front pages of any of the dailies. I guess this is what we mean when we complain about the corporate press. Quick propaganda model quiz: advertisers prefer a.) weather stories/underclass crime/nothing stories or b.) stories about courageous radicals who face down vicious barking dogs or taser fire. Hint: Check Sunday and Monday front pages of our two dailies to get an answer.

The Post-Gazette, our mealy-mouthed DLC-like "liberal" paper, had a short piece. Funky is right about one problem with the PG: where are the links? You could, for example, link to the Pittsburgh Organizing Group's original statement about the events, or even link to these two compelling videos of a young girl screaming as she's shot with a taser and this incredibly placid protester who sits while a barking dog is only a few feet away. I mean, they're even edited. That's professional.

As you might predict, the coverage at our daily right wing Scaife rag was worse as Bill Zlatos inserted the cop position right into his lead. It seems to be a matter of dispute that the protesters "disrupted traffic", Bill. More fair and balanced reporting I see. Let me guess Bill: You couldn't link to arguments made by POG (Because you couldn't find them?), or their video evidence, or mention their claim that the cops knocked over a guy in a wheelchair...? Second propaganda model quiz: Bill's story represents how many of the five aforestated Propaganda Model Factors? Hint: 1, 3 and 5 are the strongest contenders.

More as this develops. Looks like I'll be "breaking" all kinds of news because I can independently link and think. Beware my power...Green Lantern's light and so forth..

Letters: Rob Asks Why Do You Torture Poor Funky Upon the Cross?

Item: Rob, from Unspace, asks why I persecute poor Eric so in the comments section. Well, I think I've made the arguments clear from what I've written. I generally find his piety and his blind faith to be at odds with posts which I don't think are a true reflection of Christian principles. For example, while Rob makes an elegant case for sweeping the panhandlers off the streets in order to protect them, that's not what Funky wrote. Eric wrote this dismissive yuppie putdown of the meek amongst us. Now, I would expect that from the many yuppies who write blogs in this town, but Funky sets himself up as somebody who's pious, with the original 12 century (14th century?) 1st edition version of the Bible laying about his house. I guess I think that's hypocritical. And, frankly, I think he should be called on it. I mean, I suppose we're civil in a Magneto/Prof X kind of a way. He just sent me some cool Aeon Flux links for example...

But if you put your blog out in public then you should be a grownup and accept criticism. I can. That's why the comments are there....

By the way, it's not necessarily a hatred of fundamentalism that drives my hostility--even though I do believe that religion causes more harm than good--you might notice that I don't say mean things about Unspace because what you post actually seems to be consistent within a Christian worldview! I mean, I suppose I could say mean things about you if you would like but I agree with most of the things I read at Unspace and they seem, well, sensible.

So that's my position...that and my Master Satan whispers orders to me.

Google Might Rescue Broadband

Item: Last weekend I openly dreamed that Google would buy up a lot fiber, become a telco and create a free Broadband Wonderland of sorts. And, lo, it may come to pass...They have a year before the FCC's rules come into effect.

Last Weekend's Around the Internets

August 12

Massive Weekend Can't Be Beat Edition of Around the Internets

Item: Stunning Around the Internets Collection from Daily Wireless

Item: New Online Broadband Network Called Our Media. Bad News: Only downloads with Explorer. Yipe.

Item: Speaking of Broadband, the FCC is turning its back on must carry rules. Read here for why. Short version: must carry created the Internets, which is probably the reason the Bush administration hates it so. Just as that awful energy bill was a blatant giveaway to oil interests, this is a giveaway to the telecoms. There might be some competition in the future if the internet works over powerlines (being tried in Monroeville as we speak) or my fave: google buys up a lot of fiber and does wi max and does the smart thing and works for universal coverage because that's where the money is. It would create a boom, again, for the rest of us and not just a couple of telecom companies. I just feel like the Bush administration is allowing predatory industry to serial rape me--for a price. Right now it's the oil industry I'm being molested by. I guess my gas prices will go down to a manageable 2 bucks a gallon when the next election comes by...And, as someone who feels like the 11 year old Thai girl smuggled abroad, Bush will be giving the key to known convicted telecom rapists over the next year or so who will visit frequently...I hate this President. I've never known a presidency where everything the guy did went against the public's interest. Everything.

Item: Nice Listing of Artists and Their Works

Item: Long live David Sirota. I'm adding him to the permalinks on the left. His arguments against the DLC make per- fect sense. What have we won with the DLC? Zippo. He was also in Pittsburgh last week where he gave a speech to the US Steelworkers, which was based on this essay.

Item: Broadcast has a new album out and they'll be touring. Philly is the closest they'll get to Pittsburgh. Or you can check out their live cuts here, under videos.

More Hero Worship of David Sirota

Item: I made this argument over at 2 Political Junkies and I forgot to make it at my own site. So here's why I'm a big fan of David Sirota.

And that's when we get to the real problem with the DLC -- its policies are BOTH morally bankrupt, and politically disastrous. The rise of the DLC within the Democratic Party has coincided almost perfectly with the decline of the Democratic Party's power in American politics -- a decline that took Democrats from seemingly permanent majority status to permanent minority status. In this last election, just think of Democrats' troubles in Ohio as a perfect example of this. Here was a state ravaged by massive job loss due to corporate-written "free" trade deals -- yet Democrats were unable to capitalize on that issue and thus couldn't win the state because the DLC had long ago made sure the party helped pass the very trade policies (NAFTA, China PNTR) that sold out those jobs.

To counter, the DLC holds up Bill Clinton's 1992 win as proof that its policies win elections, but that is so dishonest it's laughable. First and foremost, almost everyone would agree Clinton ran a very un-DLC-like populist campaign for President in 1992, and won far more on the strength of his charisma/personality than any policy platform from a bunch of pencil-pushing geeks at the DLC in Washington, D.C. Secondly, since that 1992 victory -- with the exception of Clinton's 1996 victory over one of the weakest GOP challengers in modern history -- Democrats have been roundly destroyed in national election after national election.

Thus, we are brought back to the bottom line: with the DLC, Democrats get all of the bad policies, and none of the good electoral outcomes -- it is the worst of both worlds.

--David Sirota, in this essay

Sirota also has a new PLAN in the works. I've already contacted him about trying to help me start a 527. (Just an idea in my head...)

Online Methane Release Story vs. PG's Designer License Plates

Item: You know the world really might be ending soon. How would you like a world like Venus? I'm just asking. It all has to do with the Siberian methane thaw. I'm not sure what the numbers mean but I don't think they're good. Here's how the Worldchanging guy explains it:

For the moment, then, let's assume that the article is generally correct: the permafrost melt is getting faster, and the boggy ground beneath is releasing its pent-up methane. There are two important things to know about this situation: the amount of methane that would be released is projected to be in the multi-gigaton range -- one source says 70 billion tons, another says "several hundred" billion tons; and methane is 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. In essence, the release of (say) 100 billion tons of methane would be the functional heat-trapping equivalent of 2.1 trillion tons of CO2. To put that number into perspective, the total annual output of greenhouse gases from the US is about 7 billion tons of CO2 equivalent.

This is a big deal.

Yeah, that is a big deal. Thank God the PG was informing me about how different state license plates were made last Sunday. I guess that's what's important. (I'm permalinking Chomsky's "The Propaganda Model". Advertising tends to weaken content, which is why you get Fox News and their complete capitulation to the agenda of right wing multinationals (it's more profitable) or "nothing" journalism about eternally missing white women or...license plates. This is why Indy Media doesn't accept ad money and probably why the alt press isn't as progressive as it used to be...You know, Mark, there's this big story about the 2004 election being stolen and rigged voting machines if you're actually competing with your sister pub the Toledo Blade when it comes to quality...no?)

Damn You Ales Rarus Damn You

Before I go into a jealous rant about all the attention that Ales Rarus is getting (Damn you Ales Rarus and I mean that), let me repeat my dual cinematic mantra as to why people are drawn to the Internet. I will use Annie Hall and Goodfellas as my movie references. First, people are drawn to the Internet because we needed the eggs, and two, and I'm paraphrasing Paul Sorvino here, because they get things from the Internet that they can't get from anywhere else, such as, oh, Real Information that has nothing to do with missing white women and license plate design.

If you want to know why the Internet is superior to the older model of newspapers, just contrast the PG's story about the blogfest by Tim McNulty to the online insights here, here, here, here and here, not to mention my own comments about the story about to come. Who knows more about what happened at Blogfest: the person who read the paper or the person who read the Internet accounts from several people with a number of point of views? I think it's the latter, as messy and unedited and Catholic Jihadish that view may be.

And, of course, it's not just depth that makes the Internet better, it's often the content. You want to see the most insightful and honest account of Chuck Pennacchio's last visit to town take a look at Fester's Place (which I didn't agree with entirely--Chuck Penn doesn't have to have a detailed Iraq pull out plan just yet, really--but don't have time to write about it) or here's a quiz: who has done more public good lately, the somewhat Eurotrash male model behind Comments from Left Field or yer average corporate press reporter/columnist? Really now, be honest...

I believe Mr. McNulty referred to Ales Rarus as "interesting" and: "while never seeming to have a preordained position". Really? Is that what you call it? Does he mean interesting in the way that a Catholic version of a Mullah would be interesting? He consistently repeats what the Catholic Hierarchy says about everything. Oddly enough, the Ales Rarus position on contraception, stem cell research and the abortion issue would jibe pretty well with your basic radical Taliban cleric. Here's a theory I have: you know why Ales Rarus hasn't come to a conclusion about intelligent design? Because the Catholic Hierarchy hasn't told him what to think yet. So, far from Eric's opinions not being preordained, they are, in fact, preordained from High Above. Consistently. Where he's inconsistent is when he acts in a way that seems to contradict the Passion of The Christ, such as the snobby yuppie who hates panhandlers (just like Jeebus) or publishes a defense of Walmart, arguably one of the most Evil corporations on Earth. He wouldn't be my first choice for a standard bearer for Pittsburgh bloggers, because he's, well, a crazy fundamentalist, sorta. Tim didn't know this? Can Tim read? Jeez.

Now, the thing about it, I just happened to know the details about the Pittsburgh blog scene because I am involved in it despite being anti-social, but what about this guy's judgement on issues I'm not personally involved in? I just think he would get it wrong. Thus endeth my jealous rant.

The Create Your Own Blurb for Eric "Funky Dung" of Ales Rarus

Oh I can't resist: here's what I think Eric is saying:

"Heh indeedy. So, anyways, I was spitting on this homeless panhandler guy in Oakland just like Jesus would do..."

"Guffaw. So, anywho, after publishing a defense of Walmart, I'll be publishing another provocative debate piece praising Henry Ford's support and sympathy with the Nazis from my pal who's a MBA--that makes him smart, see--in order to stir debate in a way consistent with my Christian beliefs and whatnot..."

"Hoo Ha Hoo Ha. And I believe this is the exact expression I'll have when Roe is overturned and the first whores either die from botched abortions or from the new federally mandated Christian stonings..."

But you can contribute your own ideas.

Pay Raise Should Have Been Linked to Minimum Wage

Item: I see that my governor got booed at a sports event. I actually think that legislators should get pay raises occasionally. I have mixed feelings about Ed Rendell. I thank him for saving Pittsburgh public transit for another several years, but I'm not too thrilled with this insane push for Bob Casey Jr., who, as it now stands, isn't even as progressive as GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist when it comes to stem cell research. Incredible.

As for the pay raise, I think a smarter way to have gone about it would have been to tie their salaries to the state's minimum wage and then have automatic cost of living adjustments every year. And just to have fun with it, require a two thirds majority to overturn it. This is certainly something the Democrats should support and then they can watch the Republicans squirm, as opposed to penalizing those democrats who had the good sense to vote against the pay raise. I look at that and, frankly, I'm no longer curious as to why the Democrats are a minority party.