Wed Sep 24, 3:23 PM ET
UNITED NATIONS - Michael Douglas had to field questions Wednesday about the financial turmoil shaking world markets from reporters recalling his role in the 1987 film “Wall Street.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080924/ap_on_en_mo/people_michael_douglas
The cable news era is now complete.
Journalists can no longer distinguish between reality and fantasy.
First, read Obama’s words on diplomacy:
“Strong countries and strong Presidents talk to their adversaries. That’s what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That’s what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That’s what Nixon did with Mao. I mean, think about it: Iran, Cuba, Venezuela — these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, ‘We’re going to wipe you off the planet.’ And ultimately, that direct engagement led to a series of measures that helped prevent nuclear war and over time allowed the kind of opening that brought down the Berlin Wall.”
Now watch McCain’s new ad:
Egregious. Outrageous. This isn’t just twisting the truth — it’s lying.
One of the depressing things about the post-primary campaign is that there is no debate between Obama and the Left, which has left him scurrying to the center like a frightened puppydog. This clip is a refreshing antidote to that, and if I saw a bunch more like it, I might feel like contributing again.
Andrew Sullivan reflects on his own gay wedding — and offers this synopsis of the California Supreme Court’s verdict:
The individual citizen posited by the court is defined as prior to his or her sexual orientation. He or she exists as a person before he or she exists as straight or gay. And the right under discussion is defined as “the opportunity of an individual” to choose another “person” to “establish a family” in which reproduction and children are not necessary. And so the distinction between gay and straight is essentially abolished.
Churches may pick and choose for whom sacraments are appropriate — but a civil right is just that…a civil right.
The Christianists are up in arms, of course, putting forth Proposition 8 to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry and calling it “Armageddon.”
The cute little girl in the red dress who wowed the world during the Olympic opening ceremonies? Lipsynching. Because God knows the one on the right just isn’t precious enough. Gack.
What I love are the rationales given for the change, which was dictated by a member of the Politburo:
“This is in the national interest. It is the image of our national music, national culture. Especially the entrance of our national flag; this is an extremely important, extremely serious matter,” Chen Qigang, the event’s general music designer, explained to a Beijing radio station.
One more reason to love America.
“I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue,” said Bush after his first meeting with Putin.
“I was able to get a sense of his soul.”
The GLBT Historical Society is seeking donations for a new office at 18th and Castro, right near my old San Francisco stomping grounds. As gays in California begin to marry and otherwise assimiliate, the old “gay culture” seems kind of…quaint. Time for a museum.
With in-laws on Guam, I’m always intrigued when it pops up in the news. The brown tree snake has been a popular ecological horror story for decades, but it’s nice to know that its impact has now extended to flora.
Pity Matt Yglesias has nothing more interesting than Invasive Species Blogging for the debut of his new blog…although the comments are a hoot!
McCain’s speech on the Georgia Crisis may have leaned on Wikipedia for some of its factoids. Uh-oh…
Nowhere Now, a documentary about the music scene in my adopted hometown, will be screening at NewFilmmakers NY on August 20, 2008, at 6:00 pm. I think I’m in there talking about my dear friend Fred Drake, the reason I moved to Joshua Tree in the first place.
NewFilmmakers NY is at Anthology Film Archives, located at 32 Second Ave (at 2nd Street), New York, NY, 10009. Call 212-505-5110 for more info.
A buncha my cool friends and neighbors are featured, as well! And Ted Quinn will be at the screening, live and in person!
Gotta love this t-shirt design. Yes, I owned EVERY one of these! My first Mac used a TV as a monitor and a cassette player for storage. I even had a Mac Luggable, back in the day. I wish they’d do an OS X with the classic look and feel, just for us old farts…
I was one of the million cash cows Obama rode to primary victory, before promptly singing, “Goodnight and thank you, whoever” with his dealbreaker.
All part of the Democrats’ brilliant strategy of defeat, which Michael Moore outlines in the Guardian today. Renounce your previously held beliefs, Obama, then listen for…
…the sound of your supporters shuffling away in silence. Don’t worry, though - they won’t vote for McCain. They’ll just stop showing up at the campaign headquarters over on Maple Street. They’ll say they’re too busy to go on another three-hour door-to-door literature drop. They’ll still take a list of a hundred voters home to call and read the index card over the phone about “why you should vote for Obama” - but there won’t be much enthusiasm in their voice, and the voter on the other end of the line will hear that. After 15 or 20 calls, they’ll give up - after all, there’s dishes to do and a dog to walk. And on election day they’ll go do their duty and vote, but they will not be up at 6am driving around the city picking up strangers who need a ride to the polls.
Moore’s analysis of the 2006 election — and its aftermath — are dead on:
Well, in 2006, the Dems had a come-to-Jesus meeting with themselves and, under the leadership of Rahm Emanuel, won so many House seats, they just waltzed in and took the place over. What a great day that was, seeing Nancy Pelosi bang the gavel down to open Congress. And what was her first act? To declare that any discussion of the impeachment of George W Bush was verboten and no one was ever to bring it up again. And that was that. It sent a clear message to Bush that he could just keep doing what he’d been doing for the first six years. The result? That’s exactly what he did, with Congress authorising every war funding bill he sent to them. How did the American people respond? Congress’s approval rating sank lower than Bush’s.
MCain’s campaign continues to make Obama the issue — which wouldn’t be nearly so unacceptable if they at least attacked the real Obama and his policies, instead of creating a stream of lies.
Newsweek.com tallies McCain’s “misrepresentations” in his recent attack ad on taxes — or you can watch a three-minute dissection from the Obama campaign:
We’ve just gotten done with a president who lied us into war and torture. I’m not sure we need another one.
There’s still time to sign on at Accountability Now PAC for Today’s Money Bomb:
“It don’t Gitmo better!” at a new Coney Island exhibition of United States atrocity methods.
Almost as much fun as an episode of 24, huh? Or a trip to Auschwitz. Don’t forget the souvenirs…
While McCain plasters the airwaves with what a man of the people he is — as opposed to Obama, that arugula-sniffing, Europe-trotting poseur — don’t forget the real story, summed up for us by Andrew Sullivan:
McCain was a child of immense privilege, a son and grandson of admirals, given a prized education at the Naval Academy which he threw away - a performance he now touts in his favor. He dumped his first wife in favor of a fantastically wealthy heiress. He has had more money for a longer time than Obama has ever dreamed of. Obama, meanwhile, grew up on food stamps, was reared by a single mother and grandparents and by dint of sheer talent and hard work got to be the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. He was given very little and made the most of it; McCain was given so much and began his life, as he concedes, by taking it all for granted.
The New York Times tries to sort out coffee’s health contradictions:
Another review found that compared with noncoffee drinkers, people who drank four to six cups of coffee a day, with or without caffeine, had a 28 percent lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. This benefit probably comes from coffee’s antioxidants and chlorogenic acid.
Didn’t help me…
I’m writing because truth is important to me. As a journalism major, I was taught to FACTCHECK. There are two new books out there in dire need of the harsh light of truth: The Case Against Barack Obama and The Obama Nation. These books are in no way legitimate nonfiction — they’re a smear campaign, based largely on falsehood.
Authors whose sole goal is to smear Barack Obama should be exposed for the charlatans they are. This is NOT a matter of opinion, in which two sides should be presented. It is a matter of simple FACT. Please do your duty as journalists, and let the American people know the truth. Thanks.
(What the hell — I threw in ABC, CBS, and MSNBC while I was at it…)
A brilliant, if worrying, observation from Drew Westen:
There is a simple fact about elections that has eluded Democrats in every presidential campaign they have lost in the last 40 years: that as a candidate, you have to focus first and foremost not on a litany of “issues” but on four stories: the story you tell about yourself, the story your opponent is telling about himself, the story your opponent is telling about you, and the story you are telling about your opponent. Candidates who offer compelling stories in all four quadrants of this “message grid” win, and those who leave any of them to chance generally lose.
One of the live things I could no longer ignore is my utter disgust at American journalism (or the lack thereof). A nice article here, buried in which is the real culprit:
August 4 was the twenty-first anniversary of the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine — the rule that gave us the concept of “equal opportunity” in the media. Its repeal had been engineered by various groups, including wealthy conservative media tycoons looking to take certain conservative AM radio talkers, such as Rush Limbaugh, to a national audience, using their money and influence to drown out non-conservative voices.
Thus was engineered the idea of the “white male victim” and the “liberal media”…