Kinda sums it up in a simple way even the barbeque lovin media lapdogs could appreciate, no?

Trying for a minimal, clear statement/question but apparently we now need 300 characters to create a diary so maybe this is enough? To fill out, well...I imagine this rule makes sense but it's a bit of a pain in the ass when you're just trying to make a simple marketing pitch

This week I happened to have 2 houseguests from The Netherlands, which as you well know, takes water very seriously.  Their hard-headed,empirical 21st Cent reaction was telling, especially in contrast with the initial soft-touch yet sensational
media presentation:  

Watching the the water pour through the broken levees, they said where's the army?
In Holland, the levees would have been patrolled & watched, with the army on
hand to shore up any weak areas immediately.  What we watched was a gaping hole
in the levee, water pouring in and no one, absolutely no one there doing anything
about it.

When Bush added a line into his speech from Arizona along the lines of "pray
for New Orleans," they howled, saying what the hell good is that supposed to do?
They were stunned that that would be the response of the leader of the nation.

Hillary Clinton is in Singapore to promote NYC's flailing Olympic bid, and she's a hit.

Even the Clinton-hating NY Times gritted their teeth and wrote:  

Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was greeted like a rock star as she made her way around this tidy Asian island on Tuesday promoting the city's bid for the 2012 Summer Games. Delegates sought to have their picture taken with her, or at least get her autograph. And while many showed up late for their meetings with representatives of the five cities bidding, for Mrs. Clinton they showed up early, sometimes standing in line.

and New Hampshire, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and Idaho?

The above states should be our honor roll of shame -- these are the states that had their laws allowing the execution of minors rescinded in a surprising decision by the Supreme Court.

Why the honor roll of shame?  Because this case has brought to light the fact that in the entire world, including ALL of the nastiest corners of the world, all governments except those of the above American states no longer sanction legal execution of minors under the age of 18.

The Big Lies continue to be parrotted faithfully by almost all the media -- that this administration wants to bring freedom & light to the benighted world, that the Iraqi insurgents are simply against democracy & elections, that these will be the first elections ever in Iraq, that the upcoming elections will be fair & result in an expression of the Iraqi people's will.

Finally, today, I came across an opinion peace in Newsday that actually looked at the facts & the history: UP AGAINST THE PAST
The last time Iraq tried a parliamentary system, it ended in failure, under circumstances not unlike today's

One of the dirty little secrets of celebrity journalism is the huge sums they get paid in speaking fees.  Through Leading Authorities, you too can buy a journalist -- they helpfully give their bios & fees.  Here's a small sample:

Gwen Ifill just distorted Kerry's words in the NY Times magazine piece, stating the Kerry sees terrorism as a nuisance.

Listen to the piece and contact them at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/letters.html

This is the letter I sent:

I just watched this piece in which Ms. Ifill cited the NY Times magazine piece saying that John Kerry views terrorism as a nuisance, etc.

While this is the Bush campaign's spin, that is NOT what Kerry said:   ''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance."

Shame on the Newshour for putting out campaign spin as fact and misquoting a candidate's position.  Did Ms Ifill even read the article?  Is the Newshour unfamiliar with Google in which the correct quote can be found in about 5 seconds?

This mis-statement of a quote can only be attributed to shoddy journalism or a partisan slant to the piece, neither of which is in keeping with the mission of the Newshour, which purports to report the NEWS, not spin.

We have to work together to keep them at least somewhat honest.

According to the Wash Post Style section, Laura B is redoing the Lincoln bedroom:

The pièce de résistance, both decoratively and symbolically, will be a carved bed canopy in the shape of a crown. It too has been sent for gilding. When affixed to the ceiling, the crown will support yards of regal purple satin over white lace, both trailing to the floor.

While the media mantra to account for the animosity towards the RNC is that New York is an overwhelmingly Democratic city that's only part of it.  What they don't get is that here, sorry, but it's personal.  

As a Zogby poll commissioned by 911Truth.org shows:

Half of New Yorkers Believe U.S. Leaders Had
Foreknowledge of Impending 9/11 Attacks and
"Consciously Failed" To Act;  

66% Call For New Probe of Unanswered Questions  
by Congress or New York's Attorney General,
New Zogby International Poll Reveals

From Reuters:

nti-Bush Activists Launch NYC Convention Protests
Fri Aug 27, 2004 09:37 PM ET
By Mark Egan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thousands of cyclists brought traffic in midtown Manhattan to a virtual standstill on Friday in the first significant protest ahead of the Republican convention at which President Bush will be nominated to run for a second White House term.

Thousands of cyclists swarmed down Broadway from Central Park in a parade stretching more than a mile on Friday evening -- a time when the area is typically crowded with theatergoers and people out for dinner and drinks.

The protest lasted several hours, with many chanting "No more Bush," and was the first sizable demonstration ahead of the Aug. 30-Sept. 2 convention. Many locals in the mostly Democratic city stopped to applaud the cyclists as they passed through a bustling Times Square.

At least 30 cyclists were detained and handcuffed at various locations along the route after small altercations between riders and motorists who were irritated at the congestion, according to Reuters witnesses.

The New York Police Department said it had no immediate information about arrests.

The event was mounted by a group called Critical Mass, which wants to boost the rights of cyclists in traffic-clogged city streets and holds its rides in cities around the world on the last Friday of each month.

More demonstrations are expected in the coming days.

The biggest anti-Bush protest is set for Sunday, when more than 200,000 are expected to march to decry the Bush administration's economic policies, the war in Iraq and what they see as the erosion of civil liberties at home after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The group organizing Sunday's march was denied a permit to rally in Central Park on the grounds such a large crowd would damage the grass.

An unprecedented security effort has been put in place to protect the Republican convention after Washington said the event, and last month's Democratic convention in Boston, were possible terrorist targets.

Things are in full-swing here -- a few of today's events follow:

Across Brooklyn, people have been putting blue tarps with messages on their rooftops for the Republicans to see as they fly in:

Brooklyn Welcomes the Republicans!

A group of activists called Operation Sybl draped a tasteful banner welcoming our president from the

I couldn't make this sh*t up -- that's currently the lead at CNN.com.  Ay, the liberal media.

PBS coverage was pretty good, I though babbling Brooks was ready to vote Dem & Shields has certainly been on-line for a while as he's grown alot better informed & fiesty, it's a pleasure to watch him. The panel of historians was soporific (doesn't Bechloss remind you of a grown Eddy Haskell?), the exception being the Norton guy, who's quirky & always fun to watch

The low/high moment came with intollerably smug & cynical Gwen Ifill on the floor interviewing a woman who was, I believe the head of the Dade County delegation.  Ifill asked if she could now laugh about Florida 2000 debacle -- the delegate looked sort of shocked & said no, then clearly told Ifill that the disenfranchisement of voters was not something to laugh about.  Ifill should have been shamed, but instead followed up with some question about what "you believe happened" as if the disenfranchisement was just some conspiracy believed by the delegate.  Rarely has the smugness of the SCLM been so contrasted with people like those on this site who take these things seriously.

Later, when Ifill interviewed Rahm Emmanuel, she mentioned how the Democratic Party had lost its way over the last 12 years.....Emmanuel asked, "over the last 12 years?" incredulously & looked at here like she was really really stupid, then caught himself & went back into interview mode.

In my book, Ifill runs a close second for creepy idiot media star of the public airwaves.

While the media keeps putting out the Admin spin that things have improved in Iraq since the handover of "sovereignty," the number of US casualties has, according to my calculations, actually gone up 65% since June.  This prompted me to write the following to the NY Times public editor; we need to at least try to shame the media into not putting out this bull:

Dear Mr. Okrent:

In his July 21st piece, Adam Nagourney had the following:

Mr. Bush has other factors potentially in his favor, several Republicans said. The economy is showing signs of strengthening, though it remains an open question whether that is happening in time to change voter attitudes about how Mr. Bush is managing the economy. In Iraq, the transfer of sovereignty has led to some reduction in American casualties.

Then, last night on the Charlie Rose show, I heard David Sanger repeat the same, that US casualties had gone down since the transfer of sovreignty in Iraq.

According to the website, Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (http://icasualties.org/oif/), the US has lost 47 soldiers so far in the month of July -- as opposed to a loss of 42 soldiers in June.  

To break these grim statistics down, the US in July is suffering losses at a rate of 2.32/day (47/22) as opposed to 1.4 in June (42/30) -- or an increase of approx 65%.

How is it that 2 of the Times' star reporters, Nagourney & Sanger, label a 65% increase in casualties as a reduction?  How is it that they could be so wrong about what is arguably THE big story of the past 2 years?

Pushed by the administration, the idea that things are getting better in Iraq seems to have become conventional wisdom in the mainstream media -- yet again, reporters seem to be accepting the spin put out as fact.  Is it laziness, incompetence or simply faith-based reporting yet again.

Is it any wonder The Times (along with most of the rest of the major US media) has lost its credibility?

Thanks for your consideration & efforts to bring some at least some of the more egregious errors to the light of day.

Sincerely,

XXXXXXX

Reuters has strayed off the reservation yet again to point out that rather than clinch US supremacy, Iraq has instead shown the very real limits to US power;  read to the end for some new info on the less than successful $10,000 re-enlistment bonuses and the long stop-gap extension of terms:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military is overstretched by deployments in Iraq and elsewhere, forcing the Pentagon to keep thousands of soldiers and reservists in uniform long beyond their release dates with potentially dangerous effects on morale, experts say.

"There is no question that the force is stretched too thin," said David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland.

"We have stopped treating the reserves as a force in reserve. Our volunteer army is closer to being broken today than ever before in its 30-year history," Segal said.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and U.S. commanders concede that the 1.4 million-member active duty armed forces, which have been cut by about a third since the end of the Cold War, are stretched by deployments in South Korea and Europe as well as post-2001 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But Rumsfeld says he has seen no evidence so far in a major ongoing Pentagon study to support calls from analysts and some Army officials to boost the service's strength by perhaps 20,000 troops to 500,000.

Signs of strain are appearing, however. Segal said the National Guard finished last year around 10,000 below its recruitment target and he predicted more severe recruitment and retention problems next year.

To stem losses, the army has started offering re-enlistment bonuses of up to $10,000 to soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait. At the same time, it is preventing soldiers rotating home from retiring or leaving the service for up to 90 days after returning to their home bases.

BLOCKING DEPARTURES

The Army alone has blocked the departure of more than 40,000 soldiers, about 16,000 of them National Guard and reserve members who were eligible to leave the service this year, the Washington Post reported this week.

The Pentagon said that 187,746 National Guard and Reserve troops were mobilized as of Dec. 31, 2003. About 20 percent of the troops in Iraq are reservists or Guard members but this proportion is expected to double next year.

Their enforced service has created major financial and emotional difficulties for many. Last month, a group of angry reservists sent out an e-mail entitled "Chained in Iraq" complaining that their businesses and careers in the civilian world were being ruined by their enforced absence.

Karen, 28, an air traffic controller, was supposed to leave the Navy in December 2001 but her retirement was frozen after the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.
Eventually she signed on for two extra years after being promised she would be posted to the same base as her husband. Instead, she wound up in Iraq.

The two years have expired but she recently received notice of another eight-month deployment there starting next month. After five years of marriage, Karen, who did not to be named or directly quoted, has never lived with her husband.

Margo Loomis is engaged to a captain in the Army Rangers whose service was supposed to end in May 2002. He is currently in Iraq and has been told he should expect to remain there until next Christmas.

In an e-mail to Reuters, Loomis said her fiance, whom she declined to name, has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. "My fiance and I are now 27 and 28 and are eager to begin our future together," she wrote.

"Every minute of every day is filled with concern for him. From my understanding, soldiers were not to be sent to war-zone type of deployments for longer than six months. I guess our country is no longer playing by the rules."

THREAT TO MILITARY?

Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a non-partisan think-tank, said an army where soldiers were forced to serve against their will was an unhappy military and would eventually become an ineffective military.

"The fact that the force is stretched so thin creates conditions that make more people anxious to leave. We're darned close to this becoming a serious operational issue," he said.

Rumsfeld said this week the number of troops being prevented from leaving was relatively small and the military had been able to retain the numbers of people it needed.

"We've got a number of programs underway to reduce stress on the force today. I think that there's been a very positive response to the way that this is being managed," he said.

Analysts believe some strains are inevitable as the force is remodeled to make it more flexible and based more on high tech weapons than boots on the ground.

General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added: "We're asking extraordinary things from the force and their families. I think most individuals understand and their families understand what we're asking them to do. We're asking them a lot. They're responding magnificently."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4095969

Did anyone catch From on the Newshour tonight discussing Dean?  I'd never seen him on TV before, but the guy is, well, wierd, smirking in the background when he thought he wasn't on camera, and blustering, but almost choking when he was.  His comments on Dean were brutal (and imho discredited) CW, and when Lehrer asked him if he would support Dean as the candidate, he took a long pause and finally, as a misbehaving schoolboy might spit out, said, "I'll support the Democratic Party's candidate."

The guy is doing real harm to the Party, and ironically, to himself & the DLC by living in the past.  He offered no vision of the future, no coherent arguments against Dean other than the fact that he couldn't beat a popular president with 60-65% popularity polling (sic).

Who is funding this guy anymore?  Granted, From & the DLC, with Clinton ripped the party away from the tired 60's top-down big program liberalism, a good move imho.  But the guy hasn't moved with the times, still making the same arguments he made 12 years ago, and wrongly sees Dean as moving the party back to that formula that had clearly outlived it's time.

Unfortunately, his counterpart in the discussion, some bright woman who had worked for Clinton & now teaches at Harvard, missed all the points and didn't really engage From, nor pointed out that Dean HAS put out various platforms (and isn't just running on "Bush hatred" as From claimed).
Nor did she point out that From's brilliant strategy of Bush lite lost the Senate in '02.  

Time to figure out the funding sources for From & the DLC's think tank, engage them in dialogue & ask them why they're spending their $$$$ on this directionless, angry, counterproductive enterprise.

Forget UPI & AP, Reuters still does incredible reporting and their raw footage is remarkable.  They have a video report, "Basra Boils Over" on riots in the supposedly tranquil south that I haven't seen mentioned in any US media.  See:  http://www.reuters.com/news.jhtml

Can there be any doubt about NPR's continuing decline to mediawhoredom when tonight, on Weekend Edition Sunday, Mara Liasson who is, get this, National Political Correspondent, plugged the Dean unelectability line with the comment on Iraq that "the war is going swimmingly..." This comment could only be made by someone so stunningly out of touch with reality as perceived by I would think most Americans that one can only wonder at the judgement of NPR to broadcast their analysis of anything.  Listen for yourself at npr.org and if you, like me, intend to contact them regarding this particular outrage (on so many levels), their email is wesun@npr.org