Tucker Carlson tries to pass himself off as a journalist, but he is just a lying pile of shit. He used to be on television, but that passed. He has a web site now that doen’t bear linkage. He outed a email list center and left leaning journalists that was run by Ezra Klein. He lied through his teeth to get access to what people thought was a protected conversation.
I saw the headline, “Ten worst Iraq war books” and wondered which ones they could be.
1. Tommy R. Franks: American Soldier
2. L. Paul Bremer III: My Year in Iraq
3. Ricardo Sanchez: Wiser in Battle
4. Janis Karpinksi: One Woman’s Army
5. Douglas Feith: War and Decision
6. Richard Myers: Eyes on the Horizon
7. Mike DeLong: Inside Centcom
8. Nathan Sassaman: Warrior King
9. Michael Hastings: I Lost My Love in Baghdad
10. Midge Decter: Rumsfeld (likely to be replaced by the man’s own book)
Most of these people are assholes should be sent back to work as taxi cab drivers in Baghdad. Karpinski was the fall-guy.
I should have added this to my “We are all going to Hell” series because it is about the way we live and the things we do that show us unworthy of the wealth of Earth that we have been given.
From Foreign Policy:
There are people dying from hunger in this world, and these people are waxing and spray tanning their 10 year old daughter.
There is a Facebook group called sarahpalinisamoron. If there wasn’t, I was going to create one.
I raised this dynamic with an experienced political web operative — who did not want to go on record antagonizing Palin — and this pol argued that while Palin can drive magazine covers and book sales, her core political support remains vastly overstated. “More of the viewers were people critical of her rather than fans, although the lazy implication is for people to say, ‘Look at all her fans, she has 300k views on YouTube,’” said the operative, adding, “She doesn’t have real support among actual people, even Republican primary voters. She is a self-perpetuating phenomenon of, by and for the media.”
She is a media creation and she is self perpetuating.
I’m sitting outside on the balcony of our condo in Kailua and JMan comes up. He asks if Bookzilla can play music on the laptop. I had been singing “Fly Like An Eagle” by Steve Miller while pouring coffee to take out to the balcony. He asks, but it is a wild, scratchy, chortling voice. I say yes, then he says, “That’s you in 10 years.” I wrap an arm around him, laughing.
I remember something. I remember. Memories are funny things. Unused, they fade. I remember.
I pull up his t-shirt and give him a barump on the belly. He yelps and jumps back. We are both laughing like crazy. I can barely remember doing that to the kids. I stopped doing things like that because I didn’t think they were age appropriate for him anymore. He pulls my shirt collar down and gets revenge on my neck. A bunch of times.
Love it.
IRON BABY from Patrick Boivin on Vimeo.
Arnold, before he was governor.
For someone who read the Conan stuff as a kid, this is just too good.
The Seattle PI has an article up about www.stopgreed.org. Let see now long before the Blethen paper writes something about it.
What is Stop Greed? Glad you asked. Joel at the PI knows.
Who’s behind ballot Initiatives: A liberal guide
An ambitious new website, titled stopgreed.org, seeks to give financial footprints to big corporate and special interests behind “citizen” initiatives that have qualified for Washington’s November ballot. The site was launched quietly on Friday, but hopes to create plenty of vibrations during the next four months.
A partially complete “Rogues Gallery” of big givers is a centerpiece of the site, being constructed by The Northwest Progressive Institute, an Internet-oriented group of young liberal activists.
Tim Eyman, the state’s perennial professional initiative sponsor, is the site’s initial target, and a longtime target of NPI executive director Andrew Villeneuve. Eyman has secured a place on the 2010 ballot for Initiative 1053, which would require a two-thirds “supermajority” in the Legislature to raise taxes.
Big Oil, in the corporate personages of ConocoPhillips and Tesoro, pitched in with $25,000 apiece to help pay signature gatherers for I-1053.
How come? NPI explains the union of Big Oil and one of the state’s slickest political operators:
“Tesoro and ConocoPhillips are making good on a threat to tie legislators’ hands after the Legislature considered raising the tax on hazardous materials to provide additional money for environmental cleanup and water protection. A bill to raise the tax made it through the House, but died in the Senate this spring.
“Still, even though they killed the bill in the Senate, Conoco and Tesoro aren’t taking any chances. I-1053, if it takes effect, would help undemocratically block any future revenue increases aimed at forcing them to be more accountable. That’s just what executives at both oil companies want.”
(Tesoro operates an oil refinery at Anacortes, temporarily closed since an explosion and fire in March that killed seven workers.)
The NPI’s Villeneuve is a longtime champion of homeowners’ rights, a cause that the Building Industry Association of Washington has thwarted in the Legislature.
It’s not surprising his second target is Initiative 1082, put on the ballot thanks to signatures paid for by the BIAW. It would privatize the state’s non-profit workers compensation system and virtually put out of business the state Dept. of Labor and Industries.
The BIAW is blunt in its private communications, but often operates behind front groups with its election year spending.
In the latest issue of the BIAW’s “Building Insight,” for instance, BIAW executive vice president Tom McCabe declares:
“I personally yearn for the day when the mammoth state Department of Labor and Industries is closed down, windows shuttered with weeds growing all over its sprawling campus.”
“Stopgreed.org” sets out to give the BIAW public footprints.
It points out that BIAW has put $500,000 into the campaign committee pushing I-1082. And it points to the group’s past tactics:
“Its Orwellian-named campaign committees are designed to look as if they were created by organized labor (for example, ‘Workers Aganst Job Killing Rules’ was what they used in 2003).”
“Stopgreed.org” finds that the BIAW has a well-heeled helper.
Liberty Mutual, one of America’s largest insurance companies, has put $300,000 into the I-1082 war chest. “A few hundred thousand dollars is peanuts to Liberty Mutual when it potentially stands to gain millions,” says the NPI website.
“Stopgreed.org” plans next to take on those fueling campaigns to privatize the state’s liquor stores, and to roll back beverage taxes enacted to close the state’s yawning budget deficit.
As of yet, no conservative counterpart to “stopgreed.org” has emerged.
A full picture – of giving by big business, special interests like BIAW, and organized labor – would be a big help to voters confronted with multiple initiatives on their fall ballots.
