PR Watch

Jed Babbin: The Pentagon's Most Prolific Pundit

China's Gold Medal Spin

Has Fake News Become the Real News?
An article in the New York Times asks whether Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's Daily Show has become the most trusted man in America, pointing out that his fake news comedy show has emerged in recent years as a "genuine cultural and political force."

Canada's Oilsands Tarred with the "Greenwash" Brush

Spin of the Day » Aug 18, 2008
Foxes Invited to Guard the Endangered Species Coop

'Uncounted' To Expose Election Fraud Message

Tuesday, 19 August 2008, 10:10 am
Press Release: Uncounted

NASHVILLE, TN, (August 18, 2008) – For the last seven months, documentary filmmaker David Earnhardt has taken UNCOUNTED: The New Math of American Elections to more than 30 cities. During that time he used the film as a grassroots tool to shed some much-needed light on the systemic problems inherent in our elections - including voting machines that render every vote unverifiable and un-auditable and Jim Crow-like intimidation tactics. The screenings have drawn thousands, awakening in viewers an urgent need to help fix our electoral system.

Now with a critical presidential election looming, UNCOUNTED will take the leap from grassroots organizing tool to mainstream wake-up call with a timely convergence of events that will expose its message to wider audience.


First, premium movie service provider Starz will present the world television premiere of UNCOUNTED on Starz Edge, Monday, August 25 at 10:30 p.m. (et/pt), and Starz Cinema on Thursday, August 28 at 10:00 P.M...

UNCOUNTED will continue to spread its message until the November election with screenings and panel discussions all over the country, including a stop in Los Angeles at the Regency Fairfax Cinemas on Tuesday, September 23, and San Diego at the UltraStar Theatre at Hazard Center in Mission Valley, on Wednesday, September 24. The LA panel discussion will feature Earnhardt, journalist Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com, Diebold-whistleblower Steve Heller, and Heller's lawyer, Blair Berk. The San Diego panel will feature Earnhardt and Friedman.

Mom, Can My Voting Machine Spend the Night?
August 19, 2008, 1:59 pm
By Anahad O'Connor

Oh, why of course dear! they can stay for a whole fucking week.

yessh, moving on...

Chewing the Buddha
By Greg Palast
For Tricycle: The Buddhist Review
18 August 2008
Lhasa, Tibet - China's secret police are just terrible at keeping themselves secret.

I don't care if you're sick of Michael Phelps

What this kid did is amazing:

How Phelps Made Swimming History
Sunday, Aug. 17, 2008 By ALICE PARK / BEIJING
Time CNN

Phelps' Olympic feat lifts NBC to 18-year record
Mon Aug 18, 2008 8:31am EDT
Reuters

Phelps Hopes to Change Face of Swimming
Olympics May Be Over for Phelps, but His Mission Has Just Begun
By MONICA NISTA
Aug. 18, 2008
ABC

Phelps Moves On to a New Challenge
By Barry Svrluga
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 18, 2008; 9:58 AM

And he's got help from Coughlin and Torres:


Great support he had from team members we will see right there on our TV:


And some we might not:


And frankly, it's just nice to see some noble, hard-working and sportsman-like athletes grab the interest of the media in this country. As a country, we needed to see some winners after 8 years of our obnoxious loser President. To see the media focus on a largely ignored sport that I happen to have spent untold hours participating in, without ever dreaming of becoming an Olympic athlete is quite thrilling for me.

Winning relay and awards video

Phelps Earns Eighth Gold
Michael Phelps celebrates his eighth gold medal of the Beijing Games, which breaks Mark Spitz's mark of seven, set in 1972 at Munich. (By Jonathan Newton -- The Washington Post)
By Barry Svrluga
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 17, 2008; Page A01


And a wrap up of why the swimmers deserve so much attention.


Swimmers do not recieve the attention they deserve in this country. The work-out regimen has included a minimum of 3 to 5 hours a day for at least the last 30 years of the sport's history. It's tedious and expensive, and the public only gets interested when somebody like Phelps, with 14 Olympic golds, and who is is bulit for swimming ,comes along. The press over does it with other sports in my opinion. Hopefully things will change now.

I don't know why the women don't swim the 1500m in the Olympics. They swim it. Hell, I swam it 30 freaking years ago. So much has changed, but there was controversy then and there's some now.

Phelps ties Spitz with 7 golds in one Olympics

You have to watch him slam that wall in order to believe it.

Update

History written: Phelps wins No. 8
By Steven Nelson
Posted Saturday, August 16, 2008 7:12 PM ET

Shouldn't be too hard to watch the kid bathe in the glory of making history, he sure seems like a nice kid.

And Torres?

3 olympic silver medals at 41 in a sport where most people know they're going somewhere or they're not at 15.

Dara Torres

Dude. This woman is waaaaaaaaay inspiring to some of us old bitches.

Amazing swimmers

Go Michael!


Great job !

Just don't get those medals anywhere near your mouth!

Lead out of China?

Now who'da thunk it?

"We will smash them up!" France's Alain Bernard boasted on Sunday after the heats of the men's 4x100m freestyle relay.



Watching Lezak was incredibly exciting.
These guys are really good.

Wow

In an unbelievable string of bad luck when it comes to computers, the loaner, which looks like it does everything except wipe your butt for you, can't find the monitor.

I'm pretty fed up with this bullshit.

Russia expands Georgia blitz, deploys ships

Monday, Aug. 11, 2008
By MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI Associated Press Writer

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - Russia and Georgia clashed on land and at sea Sunday despite a Georgian cease-fire offer and claim of withdrawal from the separatist province of South Ossetia, officials from both countries said...

Russia appears determined to subdue diminutive, U.S.-backed Georgia despite international condemnation. Russia ignored a wave of calls to observe Georgia's cease-fire, saying it must first be assured that Georgian troops had indeed pulled back from South Ossetia.

Illusions of Victory
How the United States Did Not Reinvent War… But Thought It Did
By Andrew Bacevich

Moving on-----

I've had three computers go down since the first week of June this year. My friend's computer is acting up also. Coinky-dink? Yeah sure, like all the weird coinky-dinks that happened to me 5 years ago. I've never been arrested, or questioned for anything before because I don't break the law. Whoever fucked with me and my family did.

I didn't need the road map of North Africa and the Middle East with a stranger's writing on it and Addis Ababa circled that I found in my car a couple of days after my car door was left hanging open. I don't have a passport. I never have had one. Not to mention the fact that a Muslim country full of just the kind of ignorant assholes that I love to hate is the last place a woman like me wants to be. I barbequed the fucker. Nobody I know has any idea where it came from, or who's writing was on it.

The little baby squidlies playing Billy BadAss who made sure I noticed them (I'll never forget that dark turquoisey matte SUV with the dealer paper instead of plates, the little black driver and the big white goon) noticing me on the way home from a friend's house way back then. There was more, but who knows? Could just be coinky-dink.

Glaring incompetence, arrogance and buffoonery give me a sneaking suspicion as to who was behind it, but I'm not going there. Seems to me that terrorizing me was a complete waste of time. That's exactly how I felt for a couple of weeks though. Terrorized. I'm still bitter. I haven't done anything wrong, unless having an e-mail conversation disagreeing on the usefulness of the Iraq war with a local right-wing dickhead mil-blogger was against the law 5 years ago was illegal.

Was it?

Whoops there it is.

This is a red county. They don't like dissidents here. Fucking red fucking fucks.

The County's gotta be pissing their pants over the new grant money from Homeland Security.

SAN DIEGO -- San Diego County has received $7.6 million in grants from the state Office of Homeland Security, an increase of 14 percent, the county announced Thursday

Aloof?

Chained ghosts
Aug 7th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Americans in the Gulag

Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union

Georgia's importance as an energy
transit state
- Fri Aug 8, 2008 11:21am

US army exercises begin in Georgia UPDATED ON:
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
20:21 Mecca time, 17:21 GMT

Did the U.S. Prep Georgia for War with Russia?
By Nathan Hodge August 08, 2008 12:52:00 PM
Categories: Crazy Ivans

Now onto the Olympics. And the question of repression. We believe that we are above it. Is that possible?

MAJOR FOREIGN HOLDERS OF TREASURY SECURITIES
(in billions s of dollars)

Planet of Slums by Mike Davis

With a highly globalised world economy struggling with a current population of 6.7 billion, how long can we fool ourselves that we are aloof?

Corporate America Prepares for Battle Against Worker Campaign to Roll Back Assault on the Middle Class
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted August 8, 2008.
Big business has prepared a war chest of at least $150 million to stop progressive economic legislation that would seriously tax the rich.

Last Comic Standing

Iliza won.

Yessssssssssss!!!!!

Whiny titty baby repugnant thuglicans circle jerk

instead of telling their asinine trader buddies to quit fucking the world with their speculation.

Assholes.

Stopping the greedy f*ck$

S.D. agents help bust massive ID-theft ring

The thieves hacked into wireless networks of retailers, including BJ's Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority, Forever 21 and DSW, as well as TJX Cos., owners of Marshalls and T.J. Maxx, authorities said.

I remember watching some news magazine show and they rode around in a van with a laptop computer that had some program downloaded from the internet on it that literally got your credit or debit card number out of the air outside the stores.

40 million of them in this bust.

The stores who lost the numbers in the newgazine that I watched had already lost millions of numbers and knew that they needed to upgrade to a more secure network and it was more expensive so they didn't.

So are these scumbag assholes who got busted (who look like they are from what used to be communist countries, where generally people survive by bribery, corruption and ruthlessness) to blame or are the stores who refuse to protect their own revenues, profits and your card numbers?

Ok, on to more soutions to greedy fucks that are making our lives harder.

Obama Nails It: Calls For Release of 70 Million Barrels From The Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Raymond J. Learsy
Posted August 4, 2008 05:35 PM (EST)

...Nothing would be more immediately effective than a willingness to release oil from the SPR to rein in oil prices. It would immediately impact the psychology of the traders, having them begin a run for the exits. It would be a signal to oil producers, most especially OPEC that our days of being patsies to their cartel corruption are at an end. And it would have an immediate and salutary impact on the price of oil. Witness today simply mentioning the possibility broke the price of oil almost immediately by over $5 per barrel to under $120/bbl ending the day a shade under $4 barrel lower...

Military spying

Controversial military counterspy office closed
By PAMELA HESS – 1 day ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon on Monday officially dissolved an intelligence office that once created a controversial database about potential threats to military bases, shifting it to the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Oh, so they won't be spying on Quakers anymore?


DIA's new mission adds to intel arsenal
By PAMELA HESS – 3 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Defense Intelligence Agency, long a home for intelligence analysis, is joining the spy vs. spy game.

Mmmmmmm, OK.

Russian Judge Rules Sexual Harrassment is Ok as it Ensures Survival of the Human Race

Does this surprise me?

Nope, I'm still reading Anne Applebaums's Gulag. And chapter 11 in Naomi Klein's the Shock Doctrine is all about the Pinochet style economic shock treatment applied in Russia.





Not surprising to me either is that Amazon Warrior Priestess graves have been excavated on the Russian Steppes.

Some answers, but not all, likely in anthrax case

What? This tiny little article is just baffling. What's the point?


Yeesh, the whole case, and the reporting on it is giving me a headache. Anthrax Vaccine -- posts by Meryl Nass, M.D. is covering the updates and other articles.

Moving on, sort of, I can't help but be cynical about the anthrax case because I read TomDispatch on a pretty regular basis.
Today's post is no exception to a long line of must reads.

PS this made me laugh:
San Diego Company Helped with Anthrax Case

Why would it make me laugh?

I got an e-mail recently asking me how life was in "the black heart of the military-industrial-complex?"

A perfectly valid question.

The Navy needs PR help

The Navy hopes to award the contract in September.

Oh OH OH, My hand's up, Pick me. Pick Me . Piiiiiiiicccckkk Meeeeeeeeeee.
BWWAAAA HAA Ha ha ha ha, just kidding.

Democracy Now covers the anthrax case

Amy Goodman talks to Glenn Greenwald and Dr. Meryl Nass. Links to more from them on the Democracy Now page (click on title link).


Bradblog

Olbermann



TPM Muckraker

Am I the only one who automatically looks for the defense contractor, Homeland Security contractor, and who in the administration sits on the board? All those guys sit on a million different boards. They all make money off of this shit.

Better to convict (in the mainstream media) the dead guy who had a patent on some of his anthrax vaccine work than to look at what might be hinky connections right?

Bullshit.

Cui Bono?

Rummy made money at Gilead, Cheney made money at Halliburton; they got their war, and that's all war is to those sick fucks, it's cha ching time, and Oh, who's this?
From Brownieland, it's Joe and this little board that he's director of got two federal grants totaling $4.5 million for development of its botulism and next-generation anthrax vaccine candidates, reported here July 29, 2008

Local stuff

Regulators say San Onofre nuclear plant is safe
Not all neighbors of the facility are reassured as another inquiry begins.
By Elizabeth Douglass, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 1, 2008

Despite the launch of its third special inspection in a year at Southern California Edison Co.'s San Onofre nuclear plant, federal regulators Thursday night assured the public that the coastal power plant is safe.

oh, Ok, sure, if the Regulators in the United States of De-Regulation say that it's safe it must be safe, right?

Desalination plan going back to coastal panel
By Michael Burge
STAFF WRITER
August 4, 2008

CARLSBAD – The long-running tug of war between a developer and the California Coastal Commission staff over the state's first large-scale ocean-water desalination plant continues this week as the two sides wrangle over environmental issues...

...MacLaggan said even if that is so, it's beyond the control of Poseidon (Yeah, what an appealing name, eh?) and its customers. Moreover, Poseidon officials say the greenhouse gas law doesn't apply to their operation.
“Under the Coastal Act, (coastal commissioners) don't have the authority to require greenhouse gas mitigation,” said Scott Maloni, a Poseidon vice president.

map

Gulag by Anne Applebaum

So far this book is telling a story of horrors unimaginable to me, or most Americans, I would hope. I'm curious now as to what young Stalin had to do with the Czarist secret police?


Update 5:42 PM 8/3/2008
Last struggle is over for Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
From The Times
Tony Halpin in Moscow
August 4, 2008

more on Solzhenitsyn

OK, then I guess I picked a weird time to read this book eh?

Dead whales and oil companies' seismic testing

Mmm, missed this last month.
Whales stranded off Madagascar
BBC News - news.bbc.co.uk
09 Jun 2008

Same old shit, different company.

Whatever.

Missed this one,

and this one

Shit. All of these articles go on and on about algae blooms and chasing fish, and eating sand and blah blah blah. Most of these mass beaching have one of two things in common:

Seismic testing (generally for oil or gas), or Navy Sonar testing in the area recently, both of which are so fucking loud that the bones in ceteceans' ears break.

I'm not a scientist, but I'm not a freaking idiot either. I became a liberal after taking business classes, how's that for defiant?

The militaries which depend upon oil probably don't want me connecting the dots, eh?

Fuck 'em. This planet is so fucked because of human activity.

Friday Squirrel Blogging

Meet the McFakes, oops I mean McFates -- DC whores

There's Something About Mary: Unmasking a Gun Lobby Mole
July 30, 2008
Mary McFate was a prominent gun control activist. Mary Lou Sapone was a freelance spy with an NRA connection. They are the same person. A Mother Jones investigation

War and recruiting standards?

I was reading this from Nick Turse's book last night:

The report from the Criminal Investigation Command, or CID, tracks an increase from 23 reported gang incidents in fiscal 2005 to 60 in fiscal 2006, saying in part the new servicewide definition of gangs added more cases to the total.

And heard about this this morning:

Navy cites smoking as likely cause of carrier fire
By CHELSEA J. CARTER – 13 hours ago

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Smoking appears to have sparked a fire that caused $70 million in damage to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington, Naval officials said Wednesday

US Navy calls MySpace kids an "Alien Life Force"
Posted by Xeni Jardin, September 28, 2007 10:00 AM permalink

You know, I read a lot of depressing shit, and I grew up in San Diego, so a lot of what's in this book comes as no surprise to me, but I gotta say the most depressing part of this book is the connection (that if you're ME, anyway, you could find) between the Defense Department's astronomical need for oil (fuel) and this fucked up war in Iraq. That and some recruiting has been privatized also, and not just for mercenaries.

Moving on, I read the newz today Oh boy...

When the newz steals, they steal BIG.

Asia-Pacific
A Base for Another World War
By Tanveer Jafri
Contributing Writer
"The whole world is passing through a phase of inflation and starvation that has never been imagined so far."

Wow, this Tanveer Jafri person must be a fucking genius.

Hey genius, has the world ever passed through the phase of this kind of human population numbers? How about this phase of ecological destruction caused by human population pressures?

Fuck me.

Here's more of the genius at work:

Despite America is trying to prepare fuel from food grains and that is causing the food problem of the world..

American president Bush has asked Israel army not to hesitate to attack with missiles on the nuclear establishment of Iran...

Even president Bush has called Iran the 'Axis of Satan...

Last year I was astonished to hear that the name of a man of aggressive nature, George Bush was proposed for Noble peace prize...

I don't know what language this piece of shit was originally written in, but the English translation is sad, as is the author's knowledge of International politics, and truly sad is the author's knowledge of American politics.

Still reading

I'm reading "The Complex" by Nick Turse and I'll be disappointed if the voting part of the matrix isn't covered in the book, or at the very least, the RepugnantThuglican IT guys. Watch this 6 minute clip .

The Complex and the Gulag

Since my friend is ok, ( 5.4 aint no big deal ) & I'm sick of bad news, I think I'll just read today. These two titles together make me think of Blackwater and Halliburton.


Predators of press freedom

Bilbray sighting in San Diego

Dang, where's my rotten tomatoes when I need them?

Can't decide what to blog today

So yer gettin' all of it.
Immigration.

Both sides 'o the same story.

John Dean on Impeachment

Chalmers Johnson on the military-industrial-complex, which basically makes the whole immigration flashpoint debate irrelevant.

Kidnapping

Top 10 Places to get Kidnapped From (According to an insurance agency that sells kidnapping insurance)

Mexico Update August 5, 2008Mexican police linked to rising kidnappings
Brazil
Colombia yeah hmmmmm
Venezuela
Philippines yeah hmmmm
Nigeria
Afghanistan
Iraq
Haiti
Runners Up
India
South Africa
Argentina (huh? 6 years ago maybe)
Nepal
They didn't mention Somalia and the Horn of Africa
Must not pay to insure aid workers, or something.
Pakistan is mentioned in the top five here
Pakistan Taliban legalized kidnapping in March

Why? I was curious after watching Manda Bala (Send a Bullet) (2007)

I browsed around looking for connections. I looked at the usual suspects:

Corruption

Percentage of people living in poverty

Inequality

Then, since the kidnapper in the slums of Sao Paulo had ten kids I wondered if it was

Little access to family planning

Even though it's wanted and needed

Abortions illegal

or

Humanitarian crisis

or drug trafficking whoops, better not pull that shit in Iran or Saudi Arabia or China

And while I was stumbling around I happened upon some other connections which may or may not be added factors.

Oil reserves
Gas reserves
Pipelines

So, after reading enough stuff online today to be bleary eyed and tired, and wonder why this list that was done in '99 pops right up, my opinion is that the reasons for kidnapping generally involve 3 or more factors listed.
5:02 PM 7/27/2008

Friday night was full of important messages from Carolinians

I watched this PBS NOW episode with N. Carolinian John Edwards but I was goofing off Friday night, I missed Bill Moyers.

Big mistake. This needs to be seen.

Ex Senator from S. Carolina, Ernest "Fritz" Hollings' book Making Government Work