CNN - The Most Busted Name in News

I have to post this link from the Huffington Post. This is one of the most insightful and honest posts I have seen about the MSM, CNN in particular, by someone who, until recently worked for them. Chez Pazienza is a blogger for Huffington Post, and was a producer for American Morning on CNN. He was fired for blogging. That is to his and our good fortune because now he is saying what should be said about them and he knows from the inside. In his words:

CNN fired me, and did it without even a thought to the power that I might wield as an average person with a brain, a computer, and an audience. The mainstream media doesn't believe that new media can embarrass them, hurt them or generally hold them accountable in any way, and they've never been more wrong.

I'm suddenly in a position to do all three, and I know now that this is what I've been working toward the last few years of my career.

This part sounds more sour grapes than it actually is, you have to read the post to see. CNN is the cable news network I love to hate. I hate them all, but I have CNN on most of the day, backgrounding while I'm doing other things. They are a prime example of what is wrong with the MSM and what is wrong with television news.

But what really cracks me up is their recent clumsy attempts to adopt new media. As if it were something they invented. Now they are all bloggers. Wolf Blitzer, Jack Cafferty and Anderson Cooper, who live blogs during the commercial breaks. Give me a break. They are starting to figure out that the world is changing and that occasional blog reports from their Internet reporters and email from their audience isn't enough to compete for the attention of young people who are more comfortable with new media than traditional cable news.

Rather than promoting their blogs with every spare moment they have and telling us how trusted they are and how they are the best team of reporters, blah, blah, blah; they could start giving us real news. Stop sensationalizing everything. Stop giving us the Britney Spears and the Paris Hilton news, or from today's headlines it's Lindsay Lohan in a nude photo shoot tribute to Marilyn Monroe. If they did real news, they would never need to tell us how trusted they are, or that they are the best. It wouldn't be necessary. Now thanks the Chez Pazienza, they may soon be known as the Most Busted Name in News.
Rock on Chez!

-Fight the powers.

Total Lunar Eclipse Wednesday Night

Tomorrow night there will be a total eclipse of the moon. If you're on the left coast, like me, the moon will move into the earth's shadow at about 5:43pm PST (8:43pm EST). First hints of the eclipse will be visible earlier at 7pm PST. It should be cool because the moon is waxing gibbous at 97% full tonight. More details in this Slashdot post.

Castro Resigns: Can Bush Say Fair Elections Without Irony?

Does anyone, but me, find any irony in this statement by President Bush in the video above regarding fair elections? Any irony in the fact that Cuba is just 90 miles from Florida? Hanging chads? Daddy's hand-picked Justices key to his Supreme Court declared election in 2000. Disenfranchisement of African American voters who's votes were lost? Is that Bush talking about fair elections? To give him credit, he has always spoken out for fair elections, that is in almost any country except the US.

The video below is a retrospective of the life and career of Fidel Castro, Cuban leader and dictator since January of 1959. Castro is stepping down this morning from his post as Cuban head of state. This NY Times article also summarizes his career, the things we always hear about him, dictator, Communist, responsible for a failed economy, and inciter of Communist revolution around the globe. Despite all he managed to reign in the shadow of the US, the biggest superpower on the globe for almost 50 years and accomplished a few things we could not in this country with our great wealth. Among them, universal health care, free education through college, and according to the Times, the "rooting out of racism."

-Fight the powers.

Barack Obama Superstar!!!

He's the Beatles of politicians. Or the *NSync. Six separate incidents of women fainting at Obama rallies. Ok, it's strange, but it been a good long time since a politician generated this much excitement, and so far, I think that's a good thing.

More Guns on College Campuses - Bizarro World?

I watch a lot of news, maybe too much. As of yet I have heard absolutely nothing in response to the NIU school shooting suggesting more control of guns in this country. And today on CNN, I see this story, suggesting more guns on college campuses might be what's needed. Am I in Bizarro World? Is this not an absolutely insane suggestion or maybe it's me? Maybe I watch too much CNN.

-Fight the powers.

CNN - Just Sniping: Accusing Obama of Pagiarism

CNN is making a big deal out of this campaign propaganda from the Clinton camp, actually calling it plagiarism. Instead of focusing on real news, like the item I just posted today about Clinton links to a polling company that supplies polls to CNN. Uhm, OK, I can see why they wouldn't want to cover that story, they focus on sniping from the desperate Clinton campaign. The Clinton campaign accuses Obama of lifting rhetoric from a speech by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. CNN updated the story with this response from Barack Obama, I'll post video of it as soon as I can find some.

CNN's Chris Welch reports that Obama is playing down the allegations, telling reporters that he's written two books and most of his own speeches.

“Deval and I do trade ideas all the time, and you know he's occasionally used lines of mine, and I at a Jefferson Jackson dinner in Wisconsin used some words of his. And you know I would add I’ve noticed on occasion Sen. Clinton has used words of mine as well,” said Obama, adding, "…As I said before, I really don't think this is too big of a deal."

Reminds me of this cartoon I saw from This Modern World this morning.

-Fight the powers.

the Clintonian Files: CNN Polling Company Linked to Clinton Contributor

I met Zennie (he's in the video below) a couple years ago at Youtube's As One Festival in San Francisco. He's a video blogger and has a regular (not video) blog called Zennie's Zeitgeist. His vlog below is about a link between the Clintons and the owner of a Polling company that supplies polling data to CNN. Zennie makes a few assertions in this video that are yet to be substantiated, the suspicions however, are warranted. But to me there's enough of a problem here without drawing any additional conclusions.

Here's a couple blurbs from Zennie's blog:

I argued that CNN -- the Cable News Network -- should not be using polls that came from a company linked to Vinod Gupta, a major Clinton Donor. Gupta owns Info USA and the Opinion Research Corporation (OPC). It's the OPC that makes the polls that are reported by CNN, and those same polls early in the 2008 Democratic Presidential race gave consistently enormously high leads for Senator Clinton. Polls by the OPC were consistently high for months, even as other organizations like Gallup USA began to show Obama closing on Clinton.

Now, it's revealed in this NPR article that the Clinton campaign sold -- or rented -- their donor list to Info USA and the OPC, but NPR's article does not make the extra step of explaining why InfoUSA / OPC would even need such a list. That's what this video is about. The list was rented for just $8,225, and not the six-figures it's valued to be, and the Clinton campaign did not collect the money until 11-months after the list was delivered.

And....

Meanwhile Gupta himself is in some trouble, as his activities of lending the Clintons the use of his private jet, and hiring President Bill Clinton for $3 million a year have ignited a shareholder lawsuit against Gupta. as Gupta's corporate operatives want to know what value, if any, Gupta's free-spending ways on Clinton have gained InfoUSA.

It raises the question of whether Democrats want someone with potential skeletons in the closet like this as their nominee this fall. Especially in view of the fact that the Republicans will be especially energized and gunning for her. Check out Zennie's Zeitgiest and the accompanying links.

-Fight the powers.

Sir Charles Blasts Fake "christians"

Love him or hate him, you have to give Sir Charles Barkley credit for always speaking his mind. It's not always a virtue, but you can't say that he ever lied about how he felt. I think Charles is expressing the frustration a lot of us feel after almost eight years of George "Mission Accomplished" Bush, and the rest of the chickenhawk Neo-Cons, and the christian Wrong.

I may not be the first, but I'd like to start the practice of referring to their ilk as the small "c" christians. That is the ones who think they can stand as judge and jury on the lifestyles and morality of everyone else in the world. As opposed to the large "C" Christians who are living an example of being Christ-like. I doubt whether speaking his mind like this will get Barkley elected Governor of Alabama. If I was a resident, I'd vote for him. We may have to give Sir Charles a new moniker and dub him Reverend Barkley, because he makes me want to say, Amen!

-Fight the powers.

It's Not "Democrat Party", Stupid!

Ok, this has been a pet peeve of mine for awhile and I saw this as a user's sig on Daily Kos and had to make a posting about it because it drives me just a little crazy. The sig is:

It's the DemocratIC Party, dammit. The "Democrat" Party is an epithet. Someone can be a Democrat. A Democrat supports the Democratic Party.

It belongs to this user and I had to give him a shout.

Our idiot president starts using the term, Democrat party, basically to make a digs at it, and now you hear it parroted all over the place. On the news by commentators, anchors and politicians who should know better. What the hell, is stupidity contagious?

Ok, rant over.
-Fight the powers.

It's Torture Talk - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

This time Jon examine's Senator Arlen Specter's priorities.

Hehehe, She Said Vagina

Above is video of Jane Fonda letting the "C" word slip in an interview with Meredith Viera on the Today Show on NBC. Below is the entire interview with Eve Enslser, author of The Vagina Monologues, and Jane. More important than Jane's slip, although the slip was the reason it was posted on Huffington Post and how I found it, is the reason for the interview. To promote V Day, an organization that fights violence against women. The organization's web site is www.vday.org.

An Informed Voter is Beautiful

An informed voter is a beautiful thing.

School Shooter "Off Meds" Bought Guns Legally Days Ago

It's only a small part of this report, but two important facts are pointed out. One, that the shooter, and lets not give him that much credit, let's call him a murderer; that he was off his "meds". They won't at this point say what those meds were, but it leads one to suspect that he may have had some history of mental illness. The second that he bought two guns a couple days ago in Champaign Illinois.

Sound anything like the Virginia Tech shooting? A person with a history of mental illness able to buy guns legally and use them to murder people. Yet I have not heard a single report in the MSM mention gun control. Not a single one. I even heard a report discussing closing college campuses so that they would not be open to the public. Amazing. To be fair, maybe the press is waiting for confirmation that these were meds indeed for mental illness. Yet, even if this guy was sane as anyone else, gun control should be part of this discussion.

Another School Shooting at NIU

Absolutely too many of these school shootings as NBC's Brian Williams observes. But one is too many. How many will it take to convince Americans that something must be done about the ease of obtaining guns in this country? We need national gun control laws and enforcement and we need them now. We need a MADD style organization to oppose the political influence of organizations like the NRA and to bring some sanity to our gun laws.

The shooting occurred at Northern Illinois University near Chicago Illinois, our home town. So far it has been determined that 5 people were killed, including the gunman and 17 more have been injured. Our condolences to those who have lost loved ones in this tragedy and we hope for as speedy and complete a recovery of all those who are injured as can be expected. No doubt they will all be affected for the rest of their lives.

Update:
A total of 21 people were shot. Seven people died, including the gunman.

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on FISA Law Extension

Another Keith Olbermann Special Comment. This one on Bush's hypocrisy regarding extension of the FISA (NSA Domestic Spying) Law. I could summarize, but no one says it more eloquently that Keith. He can certainly speak for himself and I will let him.

-Fight the powers.

The Internet Freedom Preservation Act

The Internet Freedom Preservation Act is being introduced in Congress by Representative Ed Markey (D-MA). You can help get your congresspersons to support it. Find out how at http://savetheinternet.com/.

Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?

The trailer is hilarious, can't wait to see the movie. From the Youtube description:

New trailer for Morgan Spurlock's upcoming documentary 'Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?'

If Morgan Spurlock has learned anything from over 30 years of movie-watching, it's that if the world needs saving, it's best done by one lone man willing to face danger head on to take it down, action hero style. So, with no military experience, knowledge or expertise, he sets off to do what the CIA, FBI and countless bounty hunters have failed to do: find the world's most wanted man. Why take on such a seemingly impossible mission? Simple -- he wants to make the world safe for his soon to be born child. But before he finds Osama bin Laden, he first needs to learn where he came from, what makes him tick, and most importantly, what exactly created bin Laden to begin with.

The Weinstein Company
http://whereisobl.com/

-Fight the powers.

Stephen Colber on Obama's Biggest Win

Colbert on Obama's Grammy win.

Clinton's Gambit

gam·bit

-noun

1. Chess. an opening in which a player seeks to obtain some advantage by sacrificing a pawn or piece.
2. a calculated move by which one seeks to gain an advantage.

In 2005 I was sure, like a lot of people, that Hillary Clinton would run for president in 2008. And I was almost as sure that she would win. I knew that it would make the Republican wingnuts absolutely crazy so I was sure I would be glad to vote for her. It was soon after that I started to change my mind about her. I remember because that was when I saw this article on the Washington Post's web site, Star-Spangled Pandering, by Richard Cohen. He starts by citing Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's views on flag burning.

The argument that this famously conservative member of the Supreme Court advanced -- actually, reiterated -- was that while he may or may not approve of flag burning, it was clear to him that it was a form of speech, a way of making a political statement, and that the First Amendment protected it. I could not agree more.

Clinton, apparently, could not agree less. Along with Sen. Robert Bennett, a Utah Republican, she has introduced a bill that would make flag burning illegal.

It was nearly the perfect pandering issue. Some, but not many, people are going to speak out in favor of free speech, when it's connected to burning the flag. Anyone who does will surely be branded by the other side as far left and anti-American. And almost no politician wants to appear to be someone who protects people who burn the flag. It was also then I started to notice that Hillary Clinton was beginning to tweak her image. To move as far as possible to the right. At the time it was probably the smart move. It was just after George Bush's election to his second term as president. And all the media were buzzing about "values voters" and the part they played in electing Bush to a second term.

It appeared that the electorate, at least the participating electorate, was leaning to the right and the election was almost 3 years away. She took the calculated risk that either the electorate would be in the same place when the election rolled around, or that they wouldn't remember how she tried to remake herself in the style of the politics du jour. That, along with her support for the war in Iraq, made me a lot less excited about the prospect of another Clinton in the White House. What good would it do to have a someone in the office who was a Democrat in name only? Someone who would pander to the same people and support the same policies that we'd suffered with for eight years.

More important than that is, if Senator Clinton could support a position that would weaken our most fundamental right as Americans, the First Amendment to the constitution, how could we expect her to stand up for and protect us against the assaults on the constitution that we've suffered under the Bush administration. The assaults on our rights to privacy through the NSA's warrantless surveillance of ordinary citizens, the Patriot Act, and human rights violations through use of torture, such as waterboarding and extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects, some of whom turned out to be innocent.

It was then that I started to hope, and I even came close to praying, that someone would present a viable alternative to Clinton in 2008 for the Democrats. At the time Barack Obama was busy dampening speculation that he would run, telling anyone that asked that it was too early to consider, and that he first had to concentrate on his job as senator. After An Inconvenient Truth, I held out hope for Al Gore.

After Barack Obama decided to run and even to win, I still held out little hope that he could beat the well funded, well-organized, politically calculating Clintons. After Super Tuesday and especially after last night, I am starting to believe that it's possible for the person who doesn't rely upon the polls and public opinion to determine their positions on the issues, can win. Clinton's gambit was that if she positioned herself in the right place in the political winds that she could sail smoothly into the White House. And John McCain is pretty much in the same boat on the Republican side. Positioning himself as well, more to the right in order to pander to his party's base. The great irony is that they both still inspire tremendous acrimony from the far right. And now they've lost a lot of us who stood with them at first. Serves them both right.

The voters are now making their first response, it appears in the end we will see Clinton's gambit declined.

Washington DC Primary Election Results

NBC and CNN project Barack Obama winner of the Washington DC Democratic Primary. The Republican race is too early to call.

Update:
John McCain is the winner of the DC Primary.

Maryland Primary Election Results

NBC and CNN project Barack Obama winner of the Maryland Democratic Primary by a substantial margin. Both networks also project John McCain the winner on the GOP side.

Virginia Primary Election Results

NBC and CNN project Barack Obama winner of the Virginia Democratic Primary by a substantial margin. The Republican race is still to close to call.

Update:
Both NBC and CNN project John McCain the winner of Virginia's Republican Primary.

Colbert in the Garden of Good and Evil

A primer on good and evil with Stephen Colbert and band leader Guy Lombardo...wait a minute, sorry, it's professor and author Phillip Zimbardo. He's the author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (Random House, 2007). About the book Dr. Zimbardo says on his web site, http://www.lucifereffect.org/:

In this book, I summarize more than 30 years of research on factors that can create a "perfect storm" which leads good people to engage in evil actions. This transformation of human character is what I call the "Lucifer Effect," named after God's favorite angel, Lucifer, who fell from grace and ultimately became Satan.

Rather than providing a religious analysis, however, I offer a psychological account of how ordinary people sometimes turn evil and commit unspeakable acts. As part of this account, The Lucifer Effect tells, for the first time, the full story behind the Stanford Prison Experiment, a now-classic study I conducted in 1971. In that study, normal college students were randomly assigned to play the role of guard or inmate for two weeks in a simulated prison, yet the guards quickly became so brutal that the experiment had to be shut down after only six days.

It's from The Colbert Report, Monday February, 11, 2008.

-Fight the powers.

Election 2008 Campaign Events Calendar

A handy dandy calender of elections, caucuses, campaign events, candidate appearances, scheduled debates and the like for the Presidential elections for 2008. It's a combination of several public Google calendars including the NY Times calendar of events for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain and Mike Huckabee, the NY Times public calendar of state primary elections and caucuses, the NY Times public calendar of scheduled candidate debates, and Google's public calendar of US Holidays. There's a smaller version in the sidebar to the lower right. Enjoy.

-Fight the Powers.

McCain Music Video

This is funny, but what McCain is saying is absolutely tragic and shows a complete misunderstanding of the world geopolitically, especially the Middle East. It's stupid adherence to failed Bush Administration policies. What's he trying to do, recruit terrorists? What made Bin Laden a terrorist is anger over infidel troops, that would be us (actually first the Russians, then us) on Muslim soil. So McCain wants to keep troops in Iraq for 10,000 years. Simply unbelievable. Here, Bill Maher says it better than I do.

The B Word

Recently the punditry and the Democratic leadership have been worrying their little heads off about the possibility of a brokered convention in August. According to them it would be bad. Real bad. There would be party bosses huddled in smoke-filled rooms, actually smoke-free rooms this time, but that spoils the imagery. And they'd be making deals. Back room deals. The kind of deals that would disaffect the party faithful and lead to disaster in November. As evidence that a brokered convention would be bad they cite the last two brokered conventions that happened way back in the olden days. I could provide a link, but hey, you got fingers, google it or look it up in Wikipedia. Trust me, it happened and it was bad.

With the momentum Barack Obama is gaining from this weekend's sweeps of primaries and caucuses in Washington, Nebraska, Louisiana, Maine and the Virgin Islands, talk of a long drawn out campaign could be moot. But if Hillary Clinton should make a comeback as expected in Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, making it a horse race to the end, would that necessarily be all bad? It does mean that the candidates will spend time, energy and resources (read: money) fighting each other and not John McCain. And there is also the possibility that the dreaded superdelegates could pick the candidate least favored by the voting public and cause a rift in the party. On the other hand, there are some good things are happening now, and could happen as the result of a real fight to the end.

First, there's the excitement and the participation of Democratic voters in primaries and caucuses in record numbers. A percentage of participation much higher than Republican participation, which is waning. This race has people excited in a way they have not been in a long time. It's much more exciting and generates more news cycles than anything happening on the Republican side. And as Barack Obama frequently states in his stump speech, it's not all because of the candidates. Seven years of George Bush has something to do with it.

Secondly, it would be historic. It hasn't happened since...uhm...I thought I told you to google it. As long as the campaign doesn't turn nasty, which is a possibility as candidates get desperate, but not if they are thinking in the best interest of the party and the country (country should be first). And as long as the decision of the superdelegates does not disaffect the majority. As long as voters don't feel like they did in 2004 after Florida and hanging chads, I think we will be fine.

Polls indicate 84% of Democrats will support either candidate. And the idea of a dream ticket, whether it's Obama/Clinton, or Clinton/Obama, seems to excite Democrats even more. I wonder if there are any polls that pit a dream ticket against McCain and anybody else? It would probably be a landslide. And that possibility might force the candidates to consider it.

So I don't think the pundits, John Dean and Donna "I get two votes" Brazile need to worry their pretty little heads so much over a having brokered convention, as much as how we have one, should it come down to that.

-Fight the Powers.

From the "Judging a Book by Its Cover" Department

Researchers accurately predicted the results of Super Tuesday's elections in August of last year using Australian and New Zealand school girls' snap judgments of whether the candidates looked competent.

Researchers Scott Armstrong, Kesten Green, Randy Jones, and Malcolm Wright had their interest piqued by the work of Alexander Todorov.

“Todorov and co had found that snap judgments of competence based on color pictures of candidates’ faces did a good job of predicting congressional and senate races,” Prof Wright said.

“So the Wharton team decided to extend the test to the current US presidential election and from May through mid-August 2007 we worked with them to get ratings of competence, based on photos of the faces of the 24 potential contenders for their parties’ nomination as candidate for the 2008 presidential election.”

Only a little bit scary to think that the entire process of picking a president could boil down to who looks presidential. Australian and New Zealand school girls were picked precisely because they did not know the candidates. The results of those who recognized a candidate were discounted. The full article is here.

First Prediction of Winner of Maine Caucuses - Obama

Arevolutionofone Projects Obama Winner of Maine Caucuses. Based on 59% of the caucus voting returns and, although we are unable to conduct exit polls, we are also basing our projection on some creakiness in our joints that also crops up when it's about to rain, we are calling the Maine causes for Barack Obama. We planned to read chicken entrails but that would make the PETA folks go nuts. Barack Obama, according to Arevolutionofone blog, is the winner of the Maine caucuses.

Based on 59% reporting, Obama leads in state delegates 1,305 (57%) to 956 (42%) for Hillary Clinton. Here's a link to results from CNN.

Update:
With 70% reporting Obama leads 1,564 (58%) to 1,122 (41%) for Clinton.

Possible End to Writer's Strike Today

I almost posted some boring MSNBC video about writers considering and voting on the newest proposal to end the strike and that some may be back at work as soon as Monday. In fact I may post it below. Instead I searched Youtube and found something not only more interesting, but that makes their case in the most convincing way that I've seen to date (not that I needed to be convinced).

The video above was posted last fall soon after the strike began, but it demonstrates what pricks the studios are for causing the strike, and for letting it last so long when it was the only fair thing to do. Not to mention the fact that they screwed the writers on their last deal for a share of DVD sales. These are the studios that put out the anti-piracy ads telling us how people are stealing from them when they copy their movies and TV shows. But the studios are not stealing when they don't pay the people who wrote them. They're just being tough minded business negotiators. When you think about how this business has treated artists, those anti-piracy ads should make you laugh. Or if you're a writer, they might make you cry. Now, here's that boring MSNBC video.

Much Ado 'Bout Pimpin'

This would be funny if it wasn't sad and a little bit silly. Ok, sorry, it really is funny.

Update:
Ok, not to dump on Chelsea Clinton, but while we are on the topic; I found this at Crooks and Liars. This really is sad and not at all funny. And not surprisingly, it was said by John McCain back in 1998.

Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.”

– Sen. John McCain, speaking to a Republican dinner, June 1998.

I guess the point being made is that this is a lot worse than what David Schuster said. Point taken. The real question might be, why is John McCain so ugly? And we're not just talking about his looks.

Clean Sweep of Saturday's Primaries & Caucuses for Obama

Barack Obama makes a clean sweep of the primaries and caucuses tonight, Saturday February 09, 2008, with wins in Washington state, Nebraska, Louisiana and the Virgin Islands.

Links to Results from CNN:

Louisiana
Nebraska
Washington

Digg Search Sucks - Updated

How many times have you found a story you want to Digg, entered it into the search to see if it is a duplicate, found no matching results? So you took the time to enter the whole story, to have it Digg through your submission, entered a title, a witty description, selected a topic, proved that you are indeed a flesh and blood human being only to have it search for duplicates and find one???

And it's not that someone happens to be submitting the story the same time you are. With this story, http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/02/08/japan.sumo/index.html, I searched again using only "Sumo". I got 3 articles, none of them the matching this story. I asked it to include buried stories and got four results returned. None matching. I even searched on the link itself. No matches. Yet here is the story with the word "Sumo" in the title, http://www.digg.com/world_news/Sumo_hazing_allegations_rock_Japan. Why can't you do the search for dups on the link first instead of wasting your time? Has anyone else experienced this?

Update:
It turns out that the initial search from the top nav bar only searches the front page stories. You have to go to the search page and explicitly choose to search all stories. You wouldn't assume that the top nav search would only search the front page. What real value is that? But it's good to know the search works.

Oddball - Naughty Cops Caught on Tape

Oddball segment from February 8, 2008, Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Cops caught on tape copping a feel from a young woman apparently in custody. Caught on their own station house camera. A twist on the basic dumb criminals story. Bad cops, bad cops, whatcha gonna do...?

I gotta say that I love the fact that the MSM is finally waking up to the fact that there's the internets and blogs out there and are allowing us lowly bloggers to embed content. It's funny sometimes how they do it, as if it's something new they discovered and are legitimizing it. And it's funny for example to hear Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty discussing their blogs. Or Anderson Cooper talk about live blogging during commercials, shouldn't he be preparing for the next segment? I wonder when CNN will get a clue and allow their video to be embedded.

I like it for partially selfish reasons. Because it saves me time from having to rip their content and upload it to Youtube. But it's a win win. Instead of fighting the whole blogosphere to keep their content in one tiny place on the web, they get much more exposure and many more people viewing their video. Plus a link back to their site, with their high priced advertising to make their filthy lucre and everyone, including moi, and hopefully you out there, is happy.

Thank you MSNBC. Get a clue CNN. I don't know if ABC, CBS, or Faux News are doing it. But your intrepid blogger will surf to the ends of the internets, by googling their links from the couch, to find out.

Update:
CBS is a yes, ABC and Faux allow links and email, but no embed.

-Fight the powers.

The Daily Show - Author Laton McCartney Interview

Author Laton McCartney describes some of the colorful characters from one of America's biggest political scandals, in the Teapot Dome Scandal.

Choke Classic 18-1 T-shirt from Zazzle.com

This is the best dig at the 18-1 New England Patriots I have seen to date. It's available here.

Conan O'Brien, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart Brawl

The climax or probably the longest running, serial, cable network v. broadcast network, comedy bit, in the history of television. It ends in a knock-down, drag out, brawl between Conan O'Brien, Stephen Colbert, and Jon Stewart. It's a scream.

-Fight the powers.

The Daily Show - Super Hump Day

Jon condenses more than six hours' worth of Super Tuesday tedium and refuses to be pigeonholed as part of a special interest vote.

Daily Show Interview - Tom Brokaw

Jon Stewart interviews erstwhile NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw.

We Gots Widgets - Pimp My Blog

We just spent half the day pimping out the blog with widgets and a few new features. I started out to add a couple things this morning and tweaked out on it. So here's what we got now:

• You can watch Comedy Central Daily Show clips in the side bar to the right. I will also add them to regular posts as well.
• You can see the updated 2008 Presidential Primary Election Delegate counts via MSNBC's widget, also in the sidebar.
  
• You can get headlines from Google's Newsreel (above). You can click on a headline to view the article.
  
• There will be the occasional cheesy, meaningless, unscientific poll, like the ones you see on CNN and other news sites, and on Daily Kos. The current one is on which version of the Dem Dream ticket you'd rather see. Also in the sidebar.
  
• You may have noticed also that I changed the logo. Not to go into a long rant about it, I reluctantly took El Che off. He was a bit controversial with some people. Not that this in itself is bad. Others just didn't get it. So I'm going with the chicken foot (Peace symbol) for now.
  
• We have that Snap Shots dealie so that when you mouse over a link you see a preview of the site it links to. Schweet.

Comments are invited. Enjoy.
-Fight the Powers.

Yes We Can! Si Se Puede!

Link to the video.
BarackObama.com.

Would a Democratic President pull out of Iraq?

Tom Hayden, anti-war activist gives us some of the straightest talk I have heard to date about the Iraq war and the Democrat's plans to pull the troops out and "end" it. Especially the stuff the MSM doesn't tell you about what the candidates are saying and what is actually happening in Iraq.

An ex-president, a mining deal, a big donor - The New York Times - MSNBC.com

Huge Kazakh deal follows financier’s trip with Clinton, precedes donation, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22926743/
By Jo Becker and Don Van Natta Jr.
updated 11:11 p.m. PT, Wed., Jan. 30, 2008

Late on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium that could fuel nuclear reactors around the world. And Mr. Giustra was in hot pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them.

Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the United States, Bill Clinton. (more)

Personally I think this is better than when former US and A Premier Bill Clinton made in the mouth sexy time with Monica Lewinsky. High five!

Digg it.

Caroline Kennedy's Campaign Ad for Obama

Caroline Kennedy's campaign commercial for Barack Obama. Airing in 2008 Super Duper Tuesday Primary states just a week before the election. Yes we can! Si se puede!

Rescue Internet Radio: Sign the Petition

This is just a cut & paste job of email I got from freepress.net. Just passing it on.


Rescue Internet Radio: Sign the Petition
Online music is in danger. A recent ruling by an obscure regulatory board threatens to put independent and public radio on the Internet out of business.

The "Copyright Royalty Board" is dramatically increasing the royalties "webcasters" must pay every time they stream a song online. Public Internet radio like NPR is especially at risk.

The rules could shut down nonprofit and smaller commercial Internet radio outlets and force larger webcasters to play the same cookie-cutter music as Clear Channel. So much for new online alternatives.

This is not just another petition. The Copyright Royalty Board isn't used to hearing from the public, so your action can really make a difference. And we need to stop them before the new charges go into effect.

Artists must be compensated for their work. But the new regulations don't even differentiate between public outlets, small upstarts, and the largest commercial companies. The proposed increase would silence many outlets that play independent artists and musical genres you can't find anymore on the radio dial.

As soon as smaller webcasters start to attract a sizable audience, the royalty costs would be astronomical -- and likely fatal. And nonprofit stations like NPR should not be forced to pay so much money that they actually fear an increase in their listeners.

Industry-wide consolidation has destroyed musical diversity and shut out independent and local artists on broadcast radio. We can't let the same thing happen on the Internet.

The Copyright Royalty Board -- or if necessary, Congress -- needs to fix the rules so that artist and musicians thrive alongside a new generation of Internet radio webcasters. Send them a message by adding your name to our petition.

Tell Your Friends

Our goal is collect 50,000 signatures by Monday. Help us get there by telling all your friends that now is the time to take action.

Thanks for all you do,

Josh Silver
Executive Director
Free Press
www.freepress.net

We Are the Media

When I think about what I wrote in the last post, and I look at Zennie's video and I see so many cameras. So many people doing what he's doing. And so many people are doing it on Youtube and Google Video and Live Video and Revver and iFilm and so many other outlets, it makes you realize that in a sense we are becoming, or that we already are the media. That the old paradigm of waiting for some elite group of "journalists" to tell us what's news and what's not is fading slowly and thankfully away. We inform ourselves and we do a much more thorough and complete job of it than the conventional media, who are by definition not democratic and who, because of who owns them, and their closeness to power, must necessarily have their own agendas.

Barack Obama Hosted By Sen. Barbara Boxer In San Francisco

This is a video by Zennie Abraham, one of the people I met at As One San Francisco. He's in one of the videos below. It is a great example of the kind of citizen journalism that Youtube has the potential to produce. And is producing. It gives us a view we don't always get from the conventional media. I'm still trying to get around to the videos of people I met at As One SF and as I do I'm more and more impressed.

Google is the Devil!!!

This is priceless.

As One Gathering San Francisco - Part Cinq

Last Saturday the Youtube community came together in San Francisco. We stepped out from the anonymity of our webcams, to met people in the flesh that we'd only seen as 425 by 350 pixels on a computer screen. As real people. Then we videotaped it so we could go home and watch it on our computers. Cause that's what we do. We're Youtubers. It was kind of like the Summer of Love for nerds. Peace.

Play with our widget: http://www.tubesurferwidget.com

As One Gathering San Francisco - Part Sept

Part 7 in the continuing saga of a bunch of Youtubers wandering around Pier 39, filming each other.

As One Gathering San Francisco - Part Six

More of my video from As One in San Francisco. This is some random footage mostly of Renetto.

http://www.tubesurferwidget.com.

Does YouTube Have Celebrities?

A response video to Khayav, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1A2d_7EAaw.

Youtube As One Gathering - San Francisco Part Quatre

Having some fun with Renetto at the As One gathering in san Francisco.

Youtube As One Gathering - San Francisco Part Trois

Mr. Safety, is that a chicken between your legs...?

Youtube As One Gathering - San Francisco Part Deux

Part Deux of my footage from the As One Youtube gathering in San Francisco. Spricket24 shakes her groove thang at the gathering after party.

Youtube As One Gathering - San Francisco Part Un

My footage from the As One Youtube gathering in San Francisco last weekend. I am just getting it online. Am I lame or what?

A Very Special Video Valentine

What every girl can expect for Valentine's Day. This one's especially for those ladies without a special someone today, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaPc5KvdvAQ. A video response to tokenblackchic's E-Valentine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL4Uzun4CKA.

Baby I Swear No Hot Chick Could Distract Me From....

He swears to the maker of the "Guide to the Hot Chick", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boJc3ze6Qjg, that he could never be distracted by a hot chick while sitting across from her. A response video to....

A Word About My Widget

You may have noticed recently that my posts have not been about the coming revolution, but about my widget. I want to assure you all, that though I have been diligently engaged in the process of developing and promoting the tubesurferwidget, my own creation, that I have not sold out to the man. And that any and all profits therefrom, will be used to continue to fight The Global War Against the Man! Now, go play with my widget, http://www.tubesurferwidget.com.

-Fight the powers.

tubeworthy POTD

My tubeworthy Pick Of The Day is kind of random. Just because I haven't posted one so far today. I was scouring the Internets searching for worthy videos, or was it that I was wasting time watching hours and hours worth of videos, and this one was one of the one's that appeared at the end of another video I was watching. You know how they put those two random videos which may or may not have anything to do with what you just watched up at the end of each video and they keep switching them. And recently I figured out you can flip back and forth through that list with the arrows. Ok, I would say I digress, but this entire exercise is digression.

Annnyyyywaaayyyy, I was researching videos of people I want to feature as artists (read that again, wasting time watching videos) and I clicked on this one because I had some ideas about using bluescreen and it was titled, Trying out GreenScreen. I looked at her profile and it said, "I am a very random girl...." So, it's not particularly impressive for anything but the fact that it is quintessentially Youtube. If that means anything at all. I think it does. And I like it. BTW, anyone featured here gets a free Premium version of our tubesurfer widget, a $9.95 value (wow!). We'd give t-shirts but we can't afford them. Now, go play with my widget! http://www.tubesurferwidget.com.

Our First Tubeworthy Artist Pick: HappySlip

HappySlip, a one woman production team, is the true spirit of Youtube. Not to put down two or more person production teams, but to me this medium is especially for individual, talented, but low budget, artistic expression. Most of all it’s about fun. HappySlip is also funny, talented, and not at all hard on the eyes. Her videos are fun, with good production values and without an edge. Many feature hilarious, but loving, impersonations of her family. Especially her mother. I could say more about her, but her videos, especially HappySlip Vlog #1 (at right in the widget) tell her story much better than I can.

The featured video above is one of my favorites. It’s a one woman soap opera where she plays that cliché of all soap opera clichés, twins. One, of course, evil. Happyslip u r tubeworthy. So, r u tubeworthy? Know someone who is? Comment @ our blog at tubeworthy.com, or write us @ tubeworthy@tubesurferwidget.com. Now, go play with my widget.

Criswell Predicts Bears Over Colts in 1956

This stunning Bears over Colts Superbowl prediction was made by the psychic The Amazing Criswell back in 1956. Making him without a doubt the world's first Superfan.

Crossposted @ http://tubesurfer.blogspot.com.

Is That a Widget In Your Sidebar....

....Or are you just glad to see me? Just installed to your left (forgot to put it in when I posted re: the tubesurfer widget below).

Our First Tubeworthy Pick: The Superfan Shuffle!

I don't need to remind anyone that the Superbowl is tomorrow and that the greatest team in the history of the NFL ever (except for the 1985 Bears) Da Bears, are playing some other team (if that team even bothers to show up). La, la, la, la, la...I can't hear you saying Da Bears haven't won or been in a Superbowl since 1985 because I'm a Superfan and my fanship defies all logic or reality. Da Bears are great. Period. Ditka is the greatest coach ever and the Superbowl Trophy should be a Ditka. No disrespect to Vince Lombardi, he just happened to have coached the Packers. Nuff said.

But I need to get to the point. Do I have a point? No, a Superfan does not need a point. The video above Da Superfan Shuffle Music Video is Da tubesurfer's first ever pick of a tubeworthy video. More tubeworthy picks to come. Now, go play with my widget....

Crossposted @ http://tubesurfer.blogspot.com.

Play With Our Widget - tubesurferwidget.com

At tubesurfer they have a serious problem. They can’t seem to stop playing with Their widget. We think that if you play tubesurfer awhile, you’ll understand why. It’s an addictive mashup of Youtube, Myspace and Blogger. With tubesurfer, visitors to your profile can surf your Youtube videos on Myspace, the sidebar of your blog, on your vlog or almost anywhere you can go on the web. tubesurfer is like an iPod sized version of Youtube that you can use to feature all your videos, playlists, and Youtube’s list of featured videos. Check out their widget @ http://www.tubesurferwidget.com.

Merry Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah to All!

Ok, I may be a little late in sending out this holiday greeting, but late or not, what really matters in a world of war and conflict, expecially religious conflict, is that we find time to celebrate a holiday that doesn't separate us, but brings us together. And that holiday is Chrismahanukwanzakah - a celebration of everything. While Secular Humanists are getting their War on Christmas on, or at least they are in Bill O'Reilly's mind, through the marketing genuis of Virgin Mobile, we have an invented holiday that no one wants to make war on. So, Peace on Earth and a Merry Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah to All!

My "One World" Response Video

And here's mine. War != answer (war is not the answer). The Youtube video is here.

Revolutionary QOTD: November 21, 2006

This is the original "One World" video posted on Youtube making it's statement in a unique way and inviting others to make one in a similar way. It has inspired thousands of responses, including mine which I will post shortly.

Racist Rehab

Remember back when acoholics were drunks and when someone did something that indicated they might need some help with an alcohol problem, there was always the big denial. They would say something like, "I don't really have a problem with alcohol. I like to have a few drinks. Have some fun. I got out of control, but I'm not really an alcoholic." These days we have the complete opposite when it comes to openness about alcohol problems. In this age of celebrity rehab clinics, Oprah and the public emotional confessional, the first thing a public figure is ready to admit when they are busted doing anything embarrassing or wrong or even criminal is that they have a problem with alcohol and/or drugs. And they can at least unload some of the responsibility for what they did on their dependence problem. Then they fly into rehab and out of the public eye for awhile. It's almost a cliche at this point, especially after the Mark Foley scandal and several others.

Too bad we're not at that point of openness about racism and other forms of intolerance such as anti-semitism. One of the first things someone who does or says something racist is allowed to get away with is a denial that they are a racist or anti-semite. Mel Gibson said it after his drunken anti-semetic tirade. And now actor Michael Richards is saying that he is not racist after his public tirade at a comedy club. And he doesn't have alcohol or drugs to lay part of the blame on.

Now I get what Richards is saying about free associating and his pushing the envelop with is comedy. And maybe he tried to go somewhere with his routine and it just didn't work and he couldn't work his way out of it. I can't see into his or anyone's heart to tell you whether they are a racist or not. But I can hear what they say and see how they act and I can get a pretty good idea from it. And maybe if you are free associating and pushing the envelop, or driving drunk down PCH and what spews out of your mouth in a moment of stress is a diatribe of hate speech, maybe you could consider the possibility that you might have a problem with race or anti-semitism. Just maybe this is something you ought to look at.

The odd thing is that I started this post this morning, but didn't finish before I was supposed to go sailing with a friend, so I saved it. When I got back I had an email message from someone railing on me and calling me a racist for something I wrote almost a year ago about, about the case of Corey Maye. And the weird thing about it was that she was calling me a racist and my blog racist for alleging racism in the Maye case. It's come to the point in this country where if you dare point out that racism exists, or point to a case of racism, someone will say that you are racist for seeing it. The country is in such denial about race, they simply refuse to allow racism exists anymore.

I'm not one of these people who sees racism in everything. Far from it. But I'm not blind either. And unless I missed it when America reached that Martin Luther King I have a dream speech utopia where children, white and black, protestant and catholic are walking hand in hand and singing to the words of the Negro spirtual, free at last...well, you get the point. Some racism still exists in this country. Maybe we're just supposed to shut up about it and ignore it. Be a part of the denial.

If you're listening closely to Richards, and I haven't heard anyone else mention it yet, he calls the persons he was yelling at, "Afro-American". He's about a generation behind in his PC nomenclature and maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe we can come to a point in recognizing racial problems where we can see it, like alcohol and drug problems, as an illness. And someone doesn't have to be a bad person, and maybe they are someone who doesn't want to live with and express hate, but need help in order to rid themselves of it. Maybe we need a kind of racist rehab and that Oprah confessional kind of openness so that people can admit to it and get help with it.

Bad Comics

First bad cops, now bad comics being caught on video doing and saying bad things. The pervasiveness of the video camera makes it hard for people who do something that's highly embarrassing, as Richards did, and those who abuse their power, as those officers did in the video in my last post, to spin what they did afterward. When the whole world can see it as it happened, it gives them no opportunity to explain it way to people who weren't there to see it. Orwell warned us of the threat to liberty when Big Brother could see everything we do. But he never imagined what the same power in the hands of the public could do. These days it's Little Brother who's watching. Working as a check and balance on the power of Big Brother. The video on Youtube is here.

Bad Cops

Could it be a new Reality TV show? A new video by moi. More on this topic shortly. For now enjoy the video.

The Illusion of Homeland Security

This CNN report details problems at one of our nations Supermax prisons. Prisons which house the most dangerous terrorist prisoners in the world. One of the problems is lack of personnel to monitor their communications. Maybe they should call the NSA on that one. Over 300 billion spent on the War on Terror in Iraq. Our national reputation scared by support for torture of prisoners of war. Our freedoms threatened at home by the Patriot Act and domestic spying. But a drug dealer can run a major operation out of the most "secure" prison on the planet and terrorist can make phone calls to their friends without monitoring. Not to mention lack of security at our ports and along our border. Is Homeland Security just an illusion? Is it being maintained solely by war in oil rich countries abroad and at the cost of our civil liberties at home? The video is here. And on CNN.com here.

Google "the google on the Internets dot com".

Olbermann on Faux News Memos

Keith Olbermann discusses Fox News network memos that outline to reports ways to slant the news to the right. He discusses their complete lack of journalistic integrity with Robert Greenwald, maker of the documentary film Outfoxed. From MSNBC. The video is here. Also on MSNBC here.

Revolutionary QOTD: November 14, 2006

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
-Bob Marley.

This is kind of a Revolutionary QOTD replay. I used this quote back here on the anniversary of Bob Marley's death this year. I didn't use the video then. It's classic old-school reggae. Enjoy.

Make http://thegoogleontheinternets.com your default search engine.

-Fight the powers.

John Edwards on the Daily Show with John Stewart

Former Senator from North Carolina John Edwards on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Does Edwards seem a little hesitant when asked about an old associate? Stewart asks the questions other anchors dare not ask.

The Youtube Be Down

Youtube is down for maintenance so all my videos won't appear until they are back up. I guess that is the drawback of using Youtube videos. I have no idea how long they will be down or how often they do something like this. There was a notice on the site saying they'd be down at 9pm PST. It's only 8pm PST. Maybe they missed that whole end of Daylight Savings Time thing a couple weeks or so ago. Or maybe the maintenance is done by a bunch of nerds who blazed up a fattie of the ganjah beforehand. Dammit Chad and Steve. You make your 1.8 billion from the Google and do you care about us? The average everyday 'Tubers? Nuh uhnn. I guess if the Google paid me 1.8 billion I wouldn't care about you mofo's either.

I see what the problem be here. Their notice actually says 9pm PDT. That be Pacific Daylight Time. But it ain't Daylight Savings Time no mo. Dudes. Put down the joint and handle yo' bidness. K'?

Update: Just visited da tube and they are officially down now. As evinced by the graphic:

I guess they do be knowin' what time it be.

Update: They're back up and now I can get my tube on.

-Fight the powers.

A Daily Show Primer on Republican Campaign Strategy

The Daily Show, in a Rob Riggle report, looks farther ahead that anyone else in the news media. They look to the 2044 Pesidential Elections and in the process give a useful tutorial on Republican campaign strategies.

Google "the google on the internets dot com". It's recursive.

Nancy Pelosi Clarifies Feelings About Bush - the Daily Show

Pelosi gets no honeymoon from Jon Stewart and the Daily Show as Speaker of the House elect. In this clip she clarifies what she didn't and didn't say about President Bush previously.

It's About Time - Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Presidents, civil rights icons, celebrities and ordinary citizens gathered Monday on the National Mall, where construction is getting under way for a monument honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The monument will be built on a four-acre site near the Lincoln Memorial, where King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream " speech in 1963.

CNN.com

Revolutionary QOTD: November 13, 2006

Father, father
We don't need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate.
-Marvin Gaye, What's Going On

Revolutionary QOTD: November 12, 2006

"But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow."

-The Beatles - Revolution.

Could they mean someone like me and the picture of El Che on my logo? Nah.

Bring Home the Troops - Send in LAPD

I'm probably not the first to say this after looking at this video. Not that the fisasco in Iraq is the fault in any way of the troops or that LAPD could do better, but they are bad ass. I just can't wait for the TV show, Greatest Rodney King Style Police Ass Whuppin's. Or When LAPD Attacks! There must be enough of this kind of footage to put together a special for sweeps week.

In fairness to the LAPD, the guy that they're on top of is probably a punk that I'd want to punch and I'm half a pacifist. And it appears one of the officers is trying to stop his partner. But it's something that shouldn't happen. I stress my fairness to LAPD in this regard because I myself don't want to end up the victim of one of these, as W would put it, thumpin's. Especially not one that ends up on video on the Youtube. Link to the video here.

-Don't "Fight the Powers" if they happen to be LAPD attempting to arrest you.