"The Democratic Party is going after anyone who presents a credible challenge to their monopoly over their perceived voters...This lawsuit was filed to help advance a free and open electoral process for all candidates and voters. Candidate rights and voter rights nourish each other for more voices, choices, and a more open and competitive democracy."
“[a] racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality.”
• "The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: Dismantling White Privilege and Supporting Anti-Racist Education in Our Classrooms and Schools." Taught by a professor from St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, this session "is designed to help educators identify and deconstruct their own white privilege and in so doing more deeply commit themselves to anti-racist teaching and critical multicultural teaching."hat tip to Neal Boortz...
• "Talking About Religious Oppression and Unpacking Christian Privilege." This session, taught by a team of professors, "will examine the dynamics of Christian privilege and oppression of minority religious groups and nonbelievers as constructed and maintained on three distinct levels: individual, institutional and societal. A historical and legal lecturette will be presented and participants will engage in interactive learning modules."
• "Beyond Celebrating Diversity: Teaching Teachers How to be Critical Multicultural Educators." Taught by NAME regional director Paul Gorski, founder of the activist group EdChange, this session will start from the premise that multiculturalism's greatest danger "comes from educators who ostensibly support its goals, but whose work - cultural plunges, food fairs, etc. - reflects a compassionate conservative consciousness rather than social justice. This session focuses on preparing teachers, not for celebrating diversity, but for achieving justice in schools and society."
"I seriously believe we have to start asking questions about his mental health...There's something wrong. He does not seem to understand his words have real impact."neither does Kucinich, apparently...
in the past week or so i've blogged about the Kecksburg UFO investigation, AND how Shirley Maclaine sez in a book that Dennis Kucinich saw a UFO at her place....and NOW he wants to lead the military?Kucinich has been fairly low-key since the Maclaine admission...what's HE hiding?
"When I was in Congress I said (to the) Department of Defense ... 'What is the data? What is the data you have?' "emphasis mine, but it was important to capture the essence...the GRAVITY of that statement. Kucinich has not gone that far. Richardson seems to really mean business. right now i'm going with Richardson.
He was told that the records were classified.
"That ticked me off," he said.
"What do you want me to do? You want me to open up all those files?...I'll work with you on that."
“Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay”
I started just doing Google searches to try and figure out. You know, arson, arson, it was like crazy trying to figure out why is that being downplayed? Why is that, you know, just a small part of the story? And you know, every time I look for it what comes up, believe it or not, is that Blackwater wants to move to San Diego and build this giant complex in San Diego right where most of the evacuations are taking place and you know. You just know wherever there is fire, this administration will be out there doing what it does best and that is fanning the flames, you know. It just spooks me, I can’t explain to you how creepy this whole thing is that you know, you’ve got these fires. Some of them are thought to be the work of arsonists and in the same breath you’ve got a community that’s on fire that just recently protested Blackwater West. Just recently said no to Blackwater and apparently you don’t do that. I mean, I don’t even know what to think. You know, nobody is saying Blackwater set the fires, that is nobody that doesn’t want their house burned down. Nobody is saying that, but it is all so bizarre that this is America and you have to sort of sit there and wonder … arson, same place Blackwater West wants to be, people protesting. And then you find out that some of the guys that used to work for Blackwater are now in Schwarzenegger’s administration. It’s all so creepy.the actual audio is at this link, if you missed it above.
"As you know, one reason that we have the fires burning in Southern California is global warming. One reason the Colorado Basin is going dry is because of global warming."and then, six questions later, Reid's previous statement had dropped down the memory hole:
Question: Senator, on the California fires, you said that the reason the fires are burning in California is global warming?except, i heard the audio and Reid completely garbled the end of the sentence to where it sounded more like "...southerncalfornglobewarming...", like he was trying to speak with something large in his mouth...like his foot...
Reid: No. Here's what I - I didn't say the reason the fires were burning in Southern California was global warming...
In 1942, Hollywood went to war. It began pumping out countless movies designed both to entertain the public and bolster its will to fight. A lot of them were cheap, hokey, or both. But even in a nation that seemingly needed little reminder of the dastardly attack on Pearl Harbor or the evils of the Nazis, they kept drilling home the message that we must persevere no matter the costs or the duration.so, we had "United 93", which was pretty damn good. ABC broadcast "The Path to 9/11", which was excellent, even though liberals and former Clintonites freaked out about it. but, beyond that--nothing.
Well that they did. President Franklin Roosevelt lived in constant fear that the public would turn against the war. Indeed a Gallup Poll taken just five months before Germany’s collapse and long after the American public began learning of the horrors of the Holocaust, showed about one-fourth did not want to drive on to unconditional surrender.
Fast forward that reel to the post-9/11 era. Just how many Hollywood movies (not documentaries) have been made in which the bad guys are Islamist terrorists that do not specifically concern the Sept. 11 attacks? If you have to guess, guess “none.”
Apart from detailing the events that led to Meyer's Tasering, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement suggests Meyer had planned to act out during the campus political event. Meyer told a friend a week before the event that he would put on a show when Kerry came to UF, according to a witness who says he overheard the conversation.it wouldn't surprise me to find out that Meyer had come up with "don't tase me, bro!" beforehand.
The conversation took place on Sept. 11, according to the report, on a day when Meyer approached a student group on campus that was supporting former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign.
"Giuliani supporters had an interaction with (Meyer) in the Plaza of the Americas which resulted in (Meyer) allegedly kicking their candidate's signs. (Meyer's) behavior was characterized by witnesses as boisterous and provocative," the report says.
Meyer then proceeded to have a "heated exchange" with a female student who disagreed with Meyer's actions or views, the report says.
According to the report, Meyer then told an unnamed friend that, "If he liked what he had seen, referencing the verbal exchange/confrontation he had with the female student, that he should go to the Kerry speech and he would really see a show."
a) the professor is within his rights. anybody can run for congress, and nobody has to step down from their current job to do so.this whole new direction is one that i feel we're eventually going to regret. we want our candidates for office to be forthright and spontaneous, but technology is going to force them into becoming hyper-managed and robotic.
b) Lennox's tactics are bullshit, but in this new world of "macaca" what partisan can complain of videotapers trying to catch missteps or goading candidates into embarrassing statements?
c) it's just the way it is. Peters needs to deal with it.
How can Cat Stevens claim the copyright on a British TV show from 1989?
Please also tell me: Where are all the Ann Coulter critics who are so concerned with Anti-Semitism? I guess a bigoted, liberal (half)Black actress gets a pass where a conservative, blonde, white commentator does not. What was that which George Orwell said about all the animals in the barnyard being equal, but some being more equall than others?coulter was lambasted in the media recently for her comments that christians were "perfected" jews...
Too often, problem teachers are allowed to leave quietly. That can mean future abuse for another student and another school district.this line in the article really caught my eye:
"They might deal with it internally, suspending the person or having the person move on. So their license is never investigated," says Charol Shakeshaft, a leading expert in teacher sex abuse who heads the educational leadership department at Virginia Commonwealth University.
It's a dynamic so common it has its own nicknames - "passing the trash" or the "mobile molester."exactly who uses these phrases? teachers? administrators?
Often, as a way to save time and money, an administrator will cut a deal with the union in which he agrees to give a bad teacher a satisfactory rating in return for union help in transferring the teacher to another district. The problem teacher gets quietly passed along to someone else. Administrators call it “the dance of the lemons” or “passing the trash.” Howard Fuller, the superintendent of Milwaukee public schools from 1991 to 1995, explains: “Administrators found they needed to trade bad teachers because it’s easier than getting rid of them. We had one teacher who put a student’s head down the toilet. He simply got moved to another school.”
The NCAA rule -- Rule 8, Section 3, Article 2, states:
"The ball shall be put in play by the team that scored a six-point touchdown. If a touchdown is scored during a down in which time in the fourth period expires, the try shall not be attempted unless the point(s) would affect the outcome of the game."
Already the hysteria about anthropogenic global warming stoked by Al Gore and the Big Lie gang writing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's press releases has done enormous damage to vital environmental cleanup, sidetracking attention and money from work on sewers, toxic waste sites, filthy smokestacks--not to mention the vast disaster of agricultural pollution. Two other consequences of the hysteria will be deadly. Biofuels will steal the meals of the Third World poor and put them in First World gas tanks. Nuclear power is the hysteria's prime beneficiary. As Peter Montague describes it in our current CounterPunch newsletter, "The long-awaited and much-advertised 'nuclear renaissance' actually got under way this fall." NRG Energy, a New Jersey company, applied for a license to build two nuclear power plants in Bay City, Texas--the first formal application for such a license in thirty years.Cockburn demonstrably sees Gore's global warming/climate change histrionics as a "trojan horse" strategy on behalf of the nuclear power industry:
...As nuclear plants start to sprout like toadstools across the landscape, it is certainly appropriate to lay a large measure of the blame on Al Gore, who has been a shill for the nuclear industry ever since he came of age as a political harlot for the Oak Ridge Nuclear Laboratory in his home state of Tennessee.Cockburn is pretty brutal on Gore the rest of the article, especially on his hawkish past, specifically on the iraq issue, which i've previously blogged about here on NGNG...
The auction's been running for 3 days now. Why ebay's allowing it is beyond my comprehension. But there is something we can do about it.
Every auction has a "report" button on the bottom of the page. Let's report the hell out of it!
...
Press the "report" button at the bottom.
Choose "Listing Policy Violations"
Choose "Other Listing Violations"
Choose "Hateful, Discriminatory or Racial Language in an item description"
VERY IMPORTANT: do not stop here!
A spokesman for Obama, who wants to be the first black U.S. president, offered a tongue-in-cheek response. "Every family has a black sheep," said spokesman Bill Burton.not bad...
Falling numbers of state dentists in England has led to some people taking extreme measures, including extracting their own teeth, according to a new study released Monday.
Others have used superglue to stick crowns back on, rather than stumping up for private treatment, said the study. One person spoke of carrying out 14 separate extractions on himself with pliers.
Children, she said, should be able "to look at each other and examine each other's bodies. They can play doctor, play mother and father, dance naked and masturbate.thankgod.
"But their sexuality must also be socialized, so they are not, for example, allowed to masturbate while sitting and eating. Nor can they be allowed to pressure other children into doing things they don't want to."
Last month, one of the more mysterious episodes in the history of the Arab-Israel conflict began to leak slowly into the news. Although the facts are still unconfirmed, what seems to have happened has major implications not only for the region but even more for the laws of war and preemption that President Bush has been trying to redefine ever since his 2002 national security strategy paper.read the whole thing...
First, Syrian spokesmen complained that Israeli planes had violated their country's airspace on Sept. 6 -- and had been driven off, or so they said. Within a few days came stories -- mostly from anonymous sources -- that the planes had fired into Syria; these were followed by still other stories that a target had in fact been hit. But what was it?
After further journalistic digging, the most plausible accounts said that the Syrian targets were related to nuclear weapons activity and may even have been manned by North Koreans. Later reports suggest some dispute within the U.S. government about how far Syria had progressed in achieving its nuclear ambitions, but these same reports confirm that this is what Israel was targeting.
Ordinarily, the Arab states in the region are quick to condemn any warlike act by Israel, even measures as defensive as building a barrier against terrorists. Although many Arab states are unhappy these days with Syria's budding alliance with Iran, Israel is still, to one degree or another, the enemy, and Syria is, at worst, a wayward brother. So why were the Arab states suddenly mum about this invasion of Syria's sovereignty?i wonder if the arab world's silence had anything to do with embarrassment at how easily israel flew into Syria, avoided a new anti-aircraft system, and bombed the shit out of a nuclear reactor?
Their reticence -- and that of the rest of the international community, including the United States and Western Europe -- suggests, I think, that even though most governments believed that this was indeed a blow against Syrian nuclear ambitions, none of them, frankly, were displeased to see it happen....
...This latest episode suggests that an intense rethinking is underway in many capitals. Take away the nuclear issue and imagine a report that Israeli warplanes had flown over Syria, unprovoked, and had bombed ordinary military targets. The Arab states would have been up in arms, seconded by the other Muslim and "nonaligned" states and even Europe. The United States in all likelihood would have chastised Israel more gently and would probably have abstained, rather than vetoing a Security Council condemnation of Israel.
But instead, Israel received only pro forma rebukes -- apparently because it had blocked a weapon that no one wanted Damascus to have.
The White House press secretary, Dana Perino, said Saturday that the administration would have no comment on the intelligence issues surrounding the Israeli strike. Israel has also refused to comment.
...I balked at paying a visit to the American Enterprise Institute, though.I really would've liked to have seen an effort by private American citizens to take over the security and keep her over here, but i guess no rich conservatives would pony up, or maybe it's against Dutch law or something...Christopher Hitchens discusses this same issue in Slate....
Reason: Why the initial aversion?
Hirsi Ali: Because I thought they would be religious, and I had become an atheist. And I don’t consider myself a conservative. I consider myself a classical liberal.
Anyway, the Brookings Institution did not react. Johns Hopkins said they didn’t have enough money. The RAND Corporation wants its people to spend their days and nights in libraries figuring out statistics, and I’m very bad at statistics. But at AEI they were enthusiastic. It turns out that I have complete freedom of thought, freedom of expression. No one here imposed their religion on me, and I don’t impose my atheism on them.
"We're brainwashing our children," said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."instead of continuing to propagandize a bogus theory, Gray says:
"We have to quickly find a way to change the world's consciousness about exactly what we're facing.""EXACTLY what we're facing"...if i were a betting man, on the subject of "climate change" i would put my money on an actual climatologist over a member of the American political aristocracy any day...
The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee approved on Wednesday a resolution branding the killings during World War One as genocide.the Reuters article also discusses Turkish plans to invade the Kurdish portion of Iraq.
The issue of the Armenian massacres is deeply sensitive in Turkey, where it is a crime to portray them as "genocide."
The non-binding resolution now goes to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Democratic leaders say there will be a vote by mid-November.
Turkey, which has the second largest army in NATO, has said bilateral ties and military cooperation could be damaged if Congress passes the measure.
"Dont Use any computer, because Algebra (the foundation of Maths) and Algorithms are result of Muslim innovation"Investor's Business Daily sees it exactly the way i do...it's an example of creeping sharia invading the US. they ask:
"who the hell told you that algebra or algorithms were discovered by muslims??? bloody looters have looted from greeks and indians."
"Totla (sic) number of scientific publication in the last 150 years from all the islamic countries put together cannot equal equal Mexico's. That much for your scientific contribution."
"Why does it take 2 planes in the belly to get smart."
"What's next, Ground Zero festooned with crescent moons and stars?"you mean like...
...the Flight 93 memorial?WASHINGTON, Oct. 12— In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top American commander called the Bush administration’s handling of the war incompetent and warned that the United States was “living a nightmare with no end in sight.”the Times story goes on and on detailing the scathing criticisms of the Bush Admistration (and the federal government as a whole) by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez (former commander in Iraq, retired after Abu Ghraib scandal).
In one of his first major public speeches since leaving the Army in late 2006, retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez blamed the administration for a “catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current “surge” strategy as a “desperate” move that will not achieve long-term stability.
“After more than fours years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism,” Mr. Sanchez said, at a gathering here of military reporters and editors. (full story here)
SOME OF YOU MAY NOT BELIEVE THIS BUT I AM GLAD TO BE HERE. WHEN SIG ASKED ME IF I WOULD CONSIDER ADDRESSING YOU THERE WAS NO DOUBT THAT I SHOULD COME INTO THE LION'S DEN. THIS WAS IMPORTANT BECAUSE I HAVE FIRMLY BELIEVED SINCE DESERT SHIELD THAT IT IS NECESSARY FOR THE STRENGTH OF OUR DEMOCRACY THAT THE MILITARY AND THE PRESS CORPS MAINTAIN A STRONG, MUTUALLY RESPECTFUL AND ENABLING RELATIONSHIP. THIS CONTINUES TO BE PROBLEMATIC FOR OUR COUNTRY, ESPECIALLY DURING TIMES OF WAR. ONE OF THE GREATEST MILITARY CORRESPONDENTS OF OUR TIME, JOE GALLOWAY, MADE ME A BELIEVER WHEN HE JOINED THE 24TH INFANTRY DIVISION DURING DESERT STORM.okay, and THEN he gives his assessment of the national security situation & the failures of the policy to date. i guess the New York Times reporter missed that opening part of Sanchez' speech.
TODAY, I WILL ATTEMPT TO DO TWO THINGS - FIRST I WILL GIVE YOU MY ASSESSMENT OF THE MILITARY AND PRESS RELATIONSHIP AND THEN I WILL PROVIDE YOU SOME THOUGHTS ON THE CURRENT STATE OF OUR WAR EFFORT. AS ALL OF YOU KNOW I HAVE A WIDE RANGE OF RELATIONSHIPS AND EXPERIENCES WITH OUR NATIONS MILITARY WRITERS AND EDITORS. THERE ARE SOME IN YOUR RANKS WHO I CONSIDER TO BE THE EPITOME OF JOURNALISTIC PROFESSIONALISM - JOE GALLOWAY, THOM SHANKER, SIG CHRISTENSEN, AND JOHN BURNS IMMEDIATELY COME TO MIND. THEY EXEMPLIFY WHAT AMERICA SHOULD DEMAND OF OUR JOURNALISTS - TOUGH REPORTING THAT RELIES UPON INTEGRITY, OBJECTIVITY AND FAIRNESS TO GIVE ACCURATE AND THOROUGH ACCOUNTS THAT STRENGTHEN OUR FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND IN TURN OUR DEMOCRACY. ON THE OTHER HAND, UNFORTUNATELY, I HAVE ISSUED ULTIMATUMS TO SOME OF YOU FOR UNSCRUPULOUS REPORTING THAT WAS SOLELY FOCUSED ON SUPPORTING YOUR AGENDA AND PRECONCIEVED NOTIONS OF WHAT OUR MILITARY HAD DONE. I ALSO REFUSED TO TALK TO THE EUROPEAN STARS AND STRIPES FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS OF MY COMMAND IN GERMANY FOR THEIR EXTREME BIAS AND SINGLE MINDED FOCUS ON ABU GHARAIB.
LET ME REVIEW SOME OF THE DESCRIPTIVE PHRASES THAT HAVE BEEN USED BY SOME OF YOU THAT HAVE MADE MY PERSONAL INTERFACES WITH THE PRESS CORPS DIFFICULT:
"DICTATORIAL AND SOMEWHAT DENSE",
"NOT A STRATEGIC THOUGHT",
LIAR,
"DOES NOT GET IT" AND
THE MOST INEXPERIENCED LTG.
IN SOME CASES I HAVE NEVER EVEN MET YOU, YET YOU FEEL QUALIFIED TO MAKE CHARACTER JUDGMENTS THAT ARE COMMUNICATED TO THE WORLD. MY EXPERIENCE IS NOT UNIQUE AND WE CAN FIND OTHER EXAMPLES SUCH AS THE TREATMENT OF SECRETARY BROWN DURING KATRINA. THIS IS THE WORST DISPLAY OF JOURNALISM IMAGINABLE BY THOSE OF US THAT ARE BOUND BY A STRICT VALUE SYSTEM OF SELFLESS SERVICE, HONOR AND INTEGRITY. ALMOST INVARIABLY, MY PERCEPTION IS THAT THE SENSATIONALISTIC VALUE OF THESE ASSESSMENTS IS WHAT PROVIDED THE EDGE THAT YOU SEEK FOR SELF AGRANDIZEMENT OR TO ADVANCE YOUR INDIVIDUAL QUEST FOR GETTING ON THE FRONT PAGE WITH YOUR STORIES! AS I UNDERSTAND IT, YOUR MEASURE OF WORTH IS HOW MANY FRONT PAGE STORIES YOU HAVE WRITTEN AND UNFORTUNATELY SOME OF YOU WILL COMPROMISE YOUR INTEGRITY AND DISPLAY QUESTIONABLE ETHICS AS YOU SEEK TO KEEP AMERICA INFORMED. THIS IS MUCH LIKE THE INTELLIGENCE ANALYSTS WHOSE EFFECTIVENESS WAS MEASURED BY THE NUMBER OF INTELLIGENCE REPORTS HE PRODUCED. FOR SOME, IT SEEMS THAT AS LONG AS YOU GET A FRONT PAGE STORY THERE IS LITTLE OR NO REGARD FOR THE "COLLATERAL DAMAGE" YOU WILL CAUSE. PERSONAL REPUTATIONS HAVE NO VALUE AND YOU REPORT WITH TOTAL IMPUNITY AND ARE RARELY HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR UNETHICAL CONDUCT.
GIVEN THE NEAR INSTANTANEOUS ABILITY TO REPORT ACTIONS ON THE GROUND, THE RESPONSIBILITY TO ACCURATELY AND TRUTHFULLY REPORT TAKES ON AN UNPRECEDENTED IMPORTANCE. THE SPECULATIVE AND OFTEN UNINFORMED INITIAL REPORTING THAT CHARACTERIZES OUR MEDIA APPEARS TO BE RAPIDLY BECOMING THE STANDARD OF THE INDUSTRY. AN ARAB PROVERB STATES - "Four things come not back: the spoken word, the spent arrow, the past, the neglected opportunity." ONCE REPORTED, YOUR ASSESSMENTS BECOME CONVENTIONAL WISDOM AND NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO CHANGE. OTHER MAJOR CHALLENGES ARE YOUR WILLINGNESS TO BE MANIPULATED BY "HIGH LEVEL OFFICIALS" WHO LEAK STORIES AND BY LAWYERS WHO USE HYPERBOLE TO STRENGHTEN THEIR ARGUMENTS. YOUR UNWILLINGNESS TO ACCURATELY AND PROMINENTLY CORRECT YOUR MISTAKES AND YOUR AGENDA DRIVEN BIASES CONTRIBUTE TO THIS CORROSIVE ENVIRONMENT. ALL OF THESE CHALLENGES COMBINED CREATE A MEDIA ENVIRONMENT THAT DOES A TREMENDOUS DISSERVICE TO AMERICA. OVER THE COURSE OF THIS WAR TACTICALLY INSIGNIFICANT EVENTS HAVE BECOME STRATEGIC DEFEATS FOR AMERICA BECAUSE OF THE TREMENDOUS POWER AND IMPACT OF THE MEDIA AND BY EXTENSION YOU THE JOURNALIST. IN MANY CASES THE MEDIA HAS UNJUSTLY DESTROYED THE INDIVIDUAL REPUTATIONS AND CAREERS OF THOSE INVOLVED. WE REALIZE THAT BECAUSE OF THE NEAR REAL TIME REPORTING ENVIRONMENT THAT YOU FACE IT IS DIFFICULT TO REPORT ACCURATELY. IN MY BUSINESS ONE OF OUR FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS IS THAT "THE FIRST REPORT IS ALWAYS WRONG." UNFORTUNATELY, IN YOUR BUSINESS "THE FIRST REPORT" GIVES AMERICANS WHO RELY ON THE SNIPPETS OF CNN, IF YOU WILL, THEIR "TRUTHS" AND PERSPECTIVES ON AN ISSUE. AS A COROLLARY TO THIS DEADLINE DRIVEN NEED TO PUBLISH "INITIAL IMPRESSIONS OR OBSERVATIONS" VERSUS OBJECTIVE FACTS THERE IS AN ADDITIONAL CHALLENGE FOR US WHO ARE THE SUBJECT OF YOUR REPORTING. WHEN YOU ASSUME THAT YOU ARE CORRECT AND ON THE MORAL HIGH GROUND ON A STORY BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT RESPOND TO QUESTIONS YOU PROVIDED IS THE ULTIMATE ARROGANCE AND DISTORTION OF ETHICS. ONE OF YOUR HIGHLY REPECTED FELLOW JOURNALISTS ONCE TOLD ME THAT THERE ARE SOME AMONGST YOU WHO "FEED FROM A PIG'S TROUGH." IF THAT IS WHO I AM DEALING WITH THEN I WILL NEVER RESPOND OTHERWISE WE WILL BOTH GET DIRTY AND THE PIG WILL LOVE IT. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOUR STORY IS ACCURATE.
I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT THIS IS WHAT OUR FOREFATHERS INTENDED. THE CODE OF ETHICS FOR THE SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS STATES:
...PUBLIC ENLIGHTENMENT IS THE FORERUNNER OF JUSTICE AND THE FOUNDATION OF DEMOCRACY. THE DUTY OF THE JOURNALIST IS TO FURTHER THOSE ENDS BY SEEKING TRUTH AND PROVIDING A FAIR AND COMPREHENSIVE ACCOUNT OF EVENTS AND ISSUES. CONSCIENTIOUS JOURNALISTS FROM ALL MEDIA AND SPECIALTIES STRIVE TO SERVE THE PUBLIC WITH THOROUGHNESS AND HONESTY. PROFESSIONAL INTEGRITY IS THE CORNERSTONE OF A JOURNALIST'S CREDIBILITY
THE BASIC ETHICS OF A JOURNALIST THAT CALLS FOR:
1. SEEKING TRUTH,
2. PROVIDING FAIR AND COMPREHENSIVE ACCOUNT OF EVENTS AND ISSUES
3. THOROUGHNESS AND HONESTY
ALL ARE VICTIMS OF THE MASSIVE AGENDA DRIVEN COMPETITION FOR ECONOMIC OR POLITICAL SUPREMACY. THE DEATH KNELL OF YOUR ETHICS HAS BEEN ENABLED BY YOUR PARENT ORGANIZATIONS WHO HAVE CHOSEN TO ALIGN THEMSELVES WITH POLITICAL AGENDAS. WHAT IS CLEAR TO ME IS THAT YOU ARE PERPETUATING THE CORROSIVE PARTISAN POLITICS THAT IS DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY AND KILLING OUR SERVICEMEMBERS WHO ARE AT WAR.
MY ASSESSMENT IS THAT YOUR PROFESSION, TO SOME EXTENT, HAS STRAYED FROM THESE ETHICAL STANDARDS AND ALLOWED EXTERNAL AGENDAS TO MANIPULATE WHAT THE AMERICAN PUBLIC SEES ON TV, WHAT THEY READ IN OUR NEWSPAPERS AND WHAT THEY SEE ON THE WEB. FOR SOME OF YOU, JUST LIKE SOME OF OUR POLITICIANS, THE TRUTH IS OF LITTLE TO NO VALUE IF IT DOES NOT FIT YOUR OWN PRECONCIEVED NOTIONS, BIASES AND AGENDAS.
IT IS ASTOUNDING TO ME WHEN I HEAR THE VEHEMENT DISAGREEMENT WITH THE MILITARY'S FORAYS INTO INFORMATION OPERATIONS THAT SEEK TO DISSEMINATE THE TRUTH AND INFORM THE IRAQI PEOPLE IN ORDER TO COUNTER OUR ENEMY'S BLATANT PROPAGANDA. AS I ASSESS VARIOUS MEDIA ENTITIES, SOME ARE UNQUESTIONABLY ENGAGED IN POLITICAL PROPAGANDA THAT IS UNCONTROLLED. THERE IS NO QUESTION IN MY MIND THAT THE STRENGTH OUR DEMOCRACY AND OUR FREEDOMS REMAIN LINKED TO YOUR ABILITY TO EXERCISE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS - I ADAMANTLY SUPPORT THIS BASIC FOUNDATION OF OUR DEMOCRACY AND COMPLETELY SUPPORTED THE EMBEDDING OF MEDIA INTO OUR FORMATIONS UP UNTIL MY LAST DAY IN UNIFORM. THE ISSUE IS ONE OF MAINTAINING PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND STANDARDS FROM WITHIN YOUR INSTITUTION. MILITARY LEADERS MUST ACCEPT THAT THESE INJUSTICES WILL HAPPEN AND WHETHER THEY LIKE WHAT YOU PRINT OR NOT THEY MUST DEAL WITH YOU AND ENABLE YOU, IF YOU ARE AN ETHICAL JOURNALIST.
FINALLY, I WILL LEAVE THIS SUBJECT WITH A QUESTION THAT WE MUST ASK OURSELVES--WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MAINTAINING THE ETHICAL STANDARDS OF THE PROFESSION IN ORDER TO ENSURE THAT OUR DEMOCRACY DOES NOT CONTINUE TO BE THREATENED BY THIS DANGEROUS SHIFT AWAY FROM YOUR SACRED DUTY OF PUBLIC ENLIGHTENMENT?
Jaws dropped as Sanchez glared out at the room, and then eyes rolled as he spent an hour blaming everyone but himself. Most of what he said about the military has been said before: There’s no grand strategy, the Iraqi Army should not have been disbanded, there was no planning for stabilization or recovery past the initial invasion and, “the administration has failed.” (italics mine..)so, basically, you have the MSM, in this case the NYT, trying to make sure its readers never hear of the criticism of the war coverage by the press, and then, on the other hand, you have the military press showing its readers that the conventional wisdom in the military is that Sanchez is kind of a loon in his criticism of the military strategy.
there it is...in his formerly nicotine-stained fingers...the actual copy of the letter that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent to the CEO of ClearChannel asking him to spank Limbaugh about his "phony soldiers" remarks.In an interview with U.K. trade publication Music Week, Hufford and Bryce spoke at length about the downloadable version of Rainbows and how it plays into the larger plan of releasing a physical copy of the album in stores next year.it's all too technical for me, because my ears aren't what they used to be, but apparently the confirmation email for the order announced that the download would be offered at 160 kbps, when their entire back catalog was available at 320 kbps...
"In November we have to start with the mass-market plans and get them under way," Hufford told the magazine.
"If we didn't believe that when people hear the music they will want to buy the CD, then we wouldn't do what we are doing," Edge said.
"Radiohead has such delicate music that requires detail and depth of sound. ... I for one CAN tell the difference between 160 and 192," responded one commenter. "[With] 160 you can't hear the finer details that make Radiohead so great. I have lost a bit of respect for Radiohead for this. I would never make people pay for 160. They may as well just stream stuff off MySpace."
"Homelessness, and quality of life issues, are dividing the liberals and the progressives in this city," says David Binder, a statistical analyst and founder of David Binder Research. "The liberals will say we've got to get tough on the homeless and the progressives are more old-line liberal."it's got all the markings of a really sissified fight...but it could be funny...
New York's iconic Empire State Building is to be lit up green from Friday in honor of the Muslim holiday of Eid, the biggest festival in the Muslim calendar marking the end of Ramadan, officials said.
"This is the first time that the Empire State Building will be illuminated for Eid, and the lighting will become an annual event in the same tradition of the yearly lightings for Christmas and Hannukah," according to a statement.
Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the fasting month, is expected to be celebrated in New York from Friday, depending on when the new moon is sighted, and the city's tallest skyscraper will remain green until Sunday.
Built in the early 1930s, the 443-meter-tall (1,454-feet-tall) Empire State Building was first lit up with colored lighting in 1976, when red, white and blue lights were used to mark the American Bicentennial.
An estimated seven million Muslims live in the United States.
"First Nixon, then Clinton and now the Hooters Girls will make an impact in China’s capital. The Hooters of Beijing will host the grand opening celebration on September 12th."full story here...
