I’m glad the Saints won, but I must say my first reaction to this commercial by Audi was not positive:
I’m a big fan of humor but …
Second-Order Remixing
Julian Sanchez put together a fun and insightful web video on the subject of “remix culture” and the idea of people producing remixes that play off other remixes, building a larger web of community.
Harold Ford Goes Negative . . . on Eleanor Roosevelt
Another day, another puzzling remark from Harold Ford:
“I’m not comparing myself to Bobby Kennedy by any stretch, but he was opposed by the liberal establishment, too,” Ford said. “Eleanor Roosevelt was the biggest opponent to him running.”
That’s via Ben Smith who observes that Roosevelt died in 1962. Kennedy didn’t run for Senate until 1964. Is Ford going to use a time machine and go back to 2008 to take out Chuck Schumer and other key Gillibrand supporters?
Would-be climate destroyer Sarah Palin attacks Obama for “generational theft”
Ex-gov writes “energy” on her hand, apparently so she’d remember to mention it.
The annual convention of hypocrites with short memory (aka the Tea Partiers) paid FoxNews commentator Sarah Palin $100,000 to repeat conservative talking points:
Sarah Palin says President Barack Obama’s proposed 2011 budget is “immoral” because it increases the national debt, which she called “generational theft.”
Palin told the national “tea party” convention Saturday that America’s national debt, which is held largely by other nations, “makes us less free” and “should tick us off.”
The 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee got one of several standing ovations from the gathering of about 600 people when she said the nation is drowning in debt. The Obama administration argues that much of the nation’s debt is being caused by tax cuts and a Medicare drug program enacted under former President George W. Bush.
Given that anti-science conservatives like Palin are the champions of the most grievous imaginable “generational theft” — doing nothing to stop catastrophic climate change — and given that they continue to push this “generational theft” meme, I’m going to update my earlier response (see “The Generational Theft Act of 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001″¦.).”
But first, yes, those are crib notes on her left hand — top word “energy” — as HuffPost (and photo below) show:
Overestimating Congo’s Death Toll
Charli Carpenter observes that the latest Human Security Report contains the interesting news that the wars in Congo have not been quite as deadly as some widely cited figures suggest. In particular, they say that once you get the “baseline” mortality levels in Congo right, the death toll has been closer to 3 million than to 5.7 million. Carpenter comments:
Why do people think we need exaggerated statistics to set the agenda? If “only” some 3 million people, instead of 5.4 million, died by 2007, should this invalidate Kristof’s call for action on the Congo? By no means. In fact, given that this number has been circulating for three years without the effect Kristof seems to want, one wonders if the “millions have died” frame is even the most effective one for global advocacy.
A more useful metric may not be the absolute numbers but rather the relative numbers: Congo is one of the few places in the world where, according to this report, violence has reached sufficient levels to actually raise the national mortality rate for children under five (which appears to be declining in nations elsewhere around the globe in both war and peacetime). According to the HSR data, the one other case in which this occurred in recent decades is Rwanda. The analogy might perhaps be more effective as a clarion call than sheer numbers, inflated or not, which in fact seem to have done little to arouse international concern over the past decade.
The larger message of the HSR is that peace has been on the increase worldwide. The waning of great power conflict, changes in the conduct of war, and improved humanitarian response have all combined to make armed conflict rarer and also less costly. There’s often enormous skepticism about the efficacy of peace-oriented activities, but the evidence is pretty clear that a big difference is being made.
Palin says she’s fine with Limbaugh’s use of the ‘r-word.’
This morning on Fox News, host Chris Wallace asked Sarah Palin about her public call for White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to resign after reports surfaced that he called a group of liberal activists “f—ing retarded.” Palin reiterated her call for Emanuel to “step down” and explained that while she’s not “politically correct” or “one to be a word police,” she was committed to “reaching out and to helping the special needs community.” But when Wallace asked Palin about Rush Limbaugh’s endorsement of the language, Palin said she was fine with Limbaugh’s satirical comments. “I didn’t hear Rush Limbaugh calling a group of people whom he did not agree with ‘f-ing retards,’” she said. “There is a big difference there”:
PALIN: I agree with Rush Limbaugh. He was using satire to politically correct —
WALLACE: He used the “r” word.
PALIN: He used satire. Name-calling by anyone, I teach this to my children and you teach it to your children and grandchildren, too. Name calling by anyone is just unnecessary. It just wastes time. Let’s speak to the issues and — [...]
PALIN: I didn’t hear Rush Limbaugh calling a group of people whom he did not agree with ‘f-ing retards’ and we did know that Rahm Emanuel has been reported, did say that. there is a big difference there. Again, name-calling, using language that is insensitive, by anyone, male, female, Republican, Democrat, is unnecessary. It’s inappropriate. Let’s all just grow up.
Watch it:
Emanuel, who has apologized for the remark to Special Olympics CEO Tim Shriver, now plans to host “a delegation of advocates, including two people with mental disabilities, at the White House” as part of his effort to make amends. Limbaugh, meanwhile, gleefully used a derivative of the word “retard” at least forty times, saying that “there’s going to be a retard summit at the White House. Much like the beer summit between Obama and Gates and that cop in Cambridge.”
Why I’m Rooting for the Colts
“I’ll kill a snitch. I’m not saying I have, I’m not saying I haven’t. You know what I mean. Whatever.”
That, and I think the guy is a great, great quarterback.
Soda Lobbying
I’ll consider this chart (via Kevin Drum) evidence that money does in fact matter in politics. There was talk of using a tax on sweetened beverages to help finance health reform and look what happened:
If only these people would use their powers for good and lobby for an end to restrictions on importing sugar.
Podesta Calls On McConnell To Apologize For Denigrating FBI Interrogation Of Abdulmuttalab
Last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) besmirched the reputation of FBI agents who interrogated terrorist Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab after he was arrested. “He was given a 50 minute interrogation, probably Larry King has interrogated people longer and better than that,” McConnell said on Fox News.
This morning on ABC’s This Week, Center for American Progress Action Fund President and CEO John Podesta noted that intelligence agents have skillfully secured the cooperation of Abdulmuttalab’s family. Because his family was assured that Abdulmuttalab was not being tortured, they worked with the FBI to convince the terrorist to talk. Abdulmuttalab then provided intelligence, some of which was apparently used to capture terrorists in Malaysia.
“I think you can huff and puff as former Governor Palin likes to do, but the proof’s in the pudding — he’s talking, they’ve gotten actionable intelligence, they’re acting on it,” Podesta said. When conservative pundit Peggy Noonan complained that the administration shouldn’t have told the public that Abdulmuttalab was cooperating, Podesta suggested disclosure may not have been necessary if political leaders like McConnell weren’t criticizing intelligence agents:
PODESTA: Maybe if all those politicians stopped attacking the FBI – Mitch McConnell likened the FBI to a Larry King interview – maybe if they stopped with the politics –
RUTH MARCUS: Now that’s cruel.
PODESTA: Well, no, I think he owes the FBI an apology. But if they’d stop with the politics, maybe they wouldn’t have to respond.
Watch it:
Later, Podesta defended the FBI: “I tend to listen to the professionals, and other people tend to listen to Governor Palin.”
He also referenced Sen. Richard Shelby’s (R-AL) “blanket hold” on Obama’s 70 executive nominees — two of whom include the head of the State Department intelligence official and the Homeland Security intelligence official. “What gives here?” Podesta asked. “Are these people serious or are they just playing politics?
Update
On Meet the Press this morning, Obama’s homeland security adviser John Brennan noted that Republican leaders were briefed immediately following Abdulmuttalab’s arrest, and none of them raised the criticisms that they are issuing now:
JOHN BRENNAN: On Christmas night, I called a number of– senior members of Congress. I spoke to Senators McConnell and Bond. I spoke to Representative Boehner and Hoekstra. I explained to them that he was in F.B.I. custody. That Mr. Abdulmutallab was in fact talking. That he was cooperating at that point. They knew that in F.B.I. custody means that there’s a process then you follow as far as mirandizing and presenting him in front of the magistrate.
None of those individuals raised any concerns with me, at that point. They didn’t say, “Is he going into military custody? Is he going to be mirandized?” They were very appreciative of the information. We told them we’d keep them informed. And that’s what we did. So, there’s been– quite a bit of an outcry after the fact. Where again, I’m just very concerned on behalf of the counterterrorism professionals throughout our government that politicians continue to make this a political football. And are using it for whatever political or partisan purposes.
Abandoning all journalistic standards, CBS libels Michael Mann based on a YouTube video — while reporting his exoneration!
Once-great network airs charges it knew to be false
“You know you’re in trouble when you’re being spoofed on YouTube.”
So begins one of the most shockingly unprofessional “news stories” you are ever likely to see from a major network that isn’t Fox.
The news organization that gave us Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite now bases its reporting on YouTube videos. Thursday, CBS libeled climatologist Michael Mann on the basis of nothing more than a jingle someone uploaded to the Web:
