Wednesday, October 31, 2007

"Well, actually, he forgot Poland"

That was then; this is now:

Report: Poland May Pull Out of Iraq

What happened to separation of church and state?

err, separation of the news side of an operation and the business side? Like, so that the people who are handling the ad sales aren't influencing the people producing the news.

Well, they're shuffling the top at Newsweek, and the NYT reports:
The move will be accompanied by a reshuffling of several top positions, with Ann McDaniel, a veteran journalist and executive at Newsweek, emerging in a powerful new post, overseeing both the editorial and business sides of the magazine.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

on a lighter note

The Monday-morning quarterbacks are offering their takes on Dumbledore and one has noted:

Re-arrange the letters of "Albus Dumbledore" and you get "Male bods rule, bud!"

eyes on Tripoli this weekend

On Saturday, Darfur rebel groups, the Sudanese government, and about a million other people will meet in Tripoli for peace talks.

Expectations are not high.

That's partly because the rebel groups are fighting each other. I know, it used to so simple, there was the government and the rebels! (well, not exactly.) But while there were 3 [sort-of] primary rebel groups, there are now god-knows how many, and they are killing each other, and killing African Union peacekeepers, among other things.

Sudan will not necessarily see a need to concede much of anything when it faces no unified threat. And it is unclear how all of the different parties are possibly going to reach some kind of agreement.

The LATimes (Edmund Sanders and Maggie Farley) has been doing a good bit of coverage on rebel disunity. Today Sanders laid out where things stand in advance of the conference Saturday. Oy.

Cleverness

Check out Right-Wing Facebook.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Party on Fountain

Party on Fountain, the song.

Find it here.

Music video coming soon, apparently.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Mr. Drudge

Jim Rutenberg has a good piece in Sunday's (correction: Monday's) NYT about the influence of the Drudge Report. He recounts the 2004 election, for example:

".. Mr. Bush’s aides funneled embarrassing tidbits about Mr. Kerry in which mainstream news reporters had initially shown less interest. From time to time, those former aides said, an item’s appearance on Drudge would drive it into mainstream news coverage: A video clip of Mr. Kerry contradicting himself, or a photograph of him wearing a protective germ outfit."

I think the piece does not overstate just how much power Drudge has.

When Drudge puts something out, the traditional media often jump right into the story. Sometimes the story is true, sometimes it's not (remember how the Clinton staff destroyed the west wing and air force one? NOT!)

The left wing blogs and research sites like Media Matters and Think Progress do wonderful work, and have broken a lot of stories (TPM broke the firing of US attorneys, for example). But day to day, the traditional media latches on far, far more to Drudge.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

You should swear at work

It's good for morale. Or so a new study says.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Anti-war marches

I think the least-bad option is for American troops to leave Iraq, and quickly.

If you agree, think about heading to one of the anti-war marches around the country on October 27. It's mostly organized by UFPJ, though ANSWER seems to have taken up, or co-opted, or whatever, some of them. All of the info is at:

www.oct27.org

See you on Broadway, for NYers.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Oops

The Associated Press
Friday, October 12, 2007; 1:30 AM

BEIJING -- Some 4 million more people will be forced to relocate over the next 10-15 years because of a giant dam project in China that has stirred environmental concerns, state media reported Thursday.

(more)

[[for comparison, Connecituct had 3.4 million people in the last census]]

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

PPP 2007

Last weekend was Phoenix Phall Phunfest at Knoebel's. I have never been to a PPP so warm. It was delicious.

I knew what I wanted when I got there. A rollercoaster ride? no. I wanted the food I had seen last year, but neglected to get because I had just eaten a meal. So this year I was on a mission. And I found exactly what I was looking for:

chocolate-covered-pumpkin-cheesecake-on-a-stick.



As for the Phoenix, it was phlying.


(photo lifted from ACE)

After an evening of coastering, it was time to roast hot dogs and marshmallows at the bonfire.



And that, in a nutshell, was PPP.

Sign I saw in Seattle

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Oh how the times are changing

Apparently, the hot new thing, the NYT reports, is to have a helicopter on your yacht! Sweet. Really, the industry is changing a bunch, it seems. In fact:

"Today, a megayacht is indispensable," said Olivier Milliex, head of yacht finance at the Dutch bank ING. "It's not like 15 years ago, when a yacht was a luxury item."

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Roll Call - blame MoveOn

Here's the roll call for the Senate's vote the other week going after MoveOn for their ad in the NYT that questioned the truthfulness of Petraeus's testimony.

The presidential dems either voted no or didn't vote. But among the yeas: Feinstein, Klobuchar and Leahy.

Monday, October 01, 2007

Back

I'm back. From China. If you'd like to see my photos, send me an email. I hope to edit and caption them in the next few days.

Meanwhile, check out Seymour Hersh's piece this week with the latest on plans to attack Iran. woo.