OK Go Away Now

I am.

It’s The Internets Fault

Whatever it is, that’s it.

Serious Criticism Of The Media

I tend to tease and tease and then say something really snotty about the media, but this post is really serious and looks into a systemic failure of the media for decades.

The media is an excellent example of this. In the 1990s, the media led the charge to depose Bill Clinton. As Gene Lyons meticulously documented in Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater, the New York Times and Washington Post persistently, repeatedly, and egregiously misreported virtually every major aspect of the so-called “Whitewater scandal.” When that failed, and the Monica Lewinsky scandal emerged in its place, dozens of leading newspapers editorialized that Clinton should resign. Sixty percent of the American people disagreed, but they couldn’t get a word in edgewise-which is where, when and how MoveOn.org was founded.

In contrast, George W. Bush has not merely subverted the most central aspects of our constitutional order with his dictatorial theories of unchecked executive power, he has shredded the Magna Charta as well as the Constitution, and yet the media persists in lying that only the “loonie left” thinks that there’s anything amiss.

I think the savings and loan scandals had such an impact on Americans that the news had to be covered, but after doing research I was surprised out how much information failed to penetrate into the public conscience.

I can’t even get into too much detail in this post without bring up the Keating Five, two of whom have run for President. You can’t mention Iran Contra without mentioning Ghorbanifar, who is now involved with passing Iranian disinformation to the current Bush administration previous to the war in Iraq.

You can’t dig into BCCI without winding up in the nine eleven commission report.

None of this stuff should have been the sole domain of books. Hegemony appears to be the correct term to use, but it carries a neutral connotation and when we look at the corruption being reported today we have to wonder how much is not being reported on, and why not. How is the dying of the older media not a good thing?

We Are Special

via Oliver

Update: Of course with the primary over …

I can see why none of this clip makes it onto the air. If I were Obama or McCain I would know all about the underground city of Washington DC. I would even make a game out of sneaking up behind them.

Awesome!

That is one helluva woman.

Update: I was somewhat amazed I had nothing to say about Bobby yesterday. Now I know why.

Electric Prunes

I deleted “I had to much to dream last night” for all sorts of puns and reasons. This is a serious policy blog.

Meanwhile At Stately Clinton Manor

Batman ponders the motorcycle parked in the driveway.

Chris Wallace May Be Wrong

But he thinks Hillary will concede today.

Ignorance Is Bliss

Conservatives is happy.

Update: Fog-Like Sensations

Know Thyself, Is Difficult At Best

How many years did it take for you to start thinking in tandem with your spouse?

Hillary Clinton: An Appreciation

I mean, how the hell would they really know? I don’t think I’ll be revealing anything new by pointing out that most of the time, people’s public images are bullshit. Fergawdsakes, we’ve just about endured eight years of a president whose public image was sold to us as a regular guy who was like regular people, and he was anything but — more like a rich frat kid on steroids.

Baby You Can Park That Car

Ezra Klein is helpful.

So consensus from the assignment desk thread is that you all want to know what’s up with oil, and in particular, the $11 jump in prices today. Honest answer? No idea, and I don’t think anyone else really knows either. But if you’re interested in picking through some theories, you could do worse than checking out The Oil Drum.

Mexicans, Like Iraqis, Want To Be Like Us

Somewhere in the American psyche is a little voice that tells us other people in other nations want to be just like us. Mexico accuses U.S. of meddling in drug war

MEXICO CITY: Few slights irk Mexican politicians so much as when Washington treats Mexico like a backward country in need of outside guidance, and that anger raged full throttle in the past week as top Mexican officials threatened to walk away from a major U.S. aid package to help defeat drug traffickers.

The reason: Democrats in the U.S. Congress have tied the aid to guarantees that the police and military will not violate human rights. Officials from President Felipe Calderón on down have assailed the idea that the United States would withhold a quarter of the aid for Mexico if it did not meet human rights standards, calling it an attack on their sovereignty.

Of course everybody wants to drink liquor like you do too. Ask Al Capone.

Living In A Black Hole

Hints of ‘time before Big Bang’

The CMB is relic radiation that fills the entire Universe and is regarded as the most conclusive evidence for the Big Bang.

Although this microwave background is mostly smooth, the Cobe satellite in 1992 discovered small fluctuations that were believed to be the seeds from which the galaxy clusters we see in today’s Universe grew.

Dr Adrienne Erickcek, and colleagues from the California Institute for Technology (Caltech), now believes these fluctuations contain hints that our Universe “bubbled off” from a previous one.

Maybe dark matter is the stuff outside the bubble.