telescreen.org

Take a gander at some strange statues from around the world.

"There is a difference between being elitist and being elite.  We are both."

Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH), January 15, 2006:

"I want to assure my colleagues and my constituents that I have done absolutely nothing wrong and I am convinced that I will be vindicated completely at the end of this difficult process". . .

"[O]nce these false allegations have been put to rest, and I have the full confidence that they will be, I look forward to resuming the chair for the rest of my appointed term and continuing the important work of the committee."

More GOP corruption:  Rep. Ney pleads guilty, faces prison.

President George W. Bush, September 5, 2006:

Osama bin Laden, declared the massacre of nearly 3,000 people that day -- I quote -- "an unparalleled and magnificent feat of valor, unmatched by any in humankind before them." . . .

Osama bin Laden has called the 9/11 attacks -- in his words -- "a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the Righteous… [Caliphate]." . . .

Again, hear the words of Osama bin Laden earlier this year: "Death is better than living on this Earth with the unbelievers among us." . . .

With the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden says, "al Qaeda spent $500,000 on the event, while America… lost -- according to the lowest estimate -- $500 billion… Meaning that every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars” of America. Bin Laden concludes from this experience that "America is definitely a great power, with… unbelievable military strength and a vibrant economy, but all of these have been built on a very weak and hollow foundation." He went on to say, "Therefore, it is very easy to target the flimsy base and concentrate on their weak points, and even if we're able to target one-tenth of these weak points, we will be able [to] crush and destroy them." . . .

Hear the words of bin Laden: "I now address… the whole… Islamic nation: Listen and understand… The most… serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War… [that] is raging in [Iraq]." He calls it "a war of destiny between infidelity and Islam." He says, "The whole world is watching this war," and that it will end in "victory and glory or misery and humiliation."

President George W. Bush, September 12, 2006, as paraphrased by Weekly Standard editor George Barnes:

"Bin Laden doesn't fit with the Administration's strategy for combating terrorism" . . .

[Capturing bin Laden] "is not a top priority use of American resources." . . .

". . .getting Osama bin Laden is a low priority. . ."

Hmph.  Is it safe to draw the conclusion that President Bush is far more interested in quoting Osama bin Laden than capturing or killing him?  I think it is.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth money man bankrolls new anti-Dem 527...to the tune of $5 million.

And I thought 527s were bad?  Didn't Bush say so?

Why yes, yes he did.  (Except for his 527, apparently.)

That noose in George Allen's office?  He says it was "more of a lasso."

Too bad he didn't protest the numerous times it was described in print as a noose...even by his own campaign manager (the astroturf king and Swift Boater Chris LaCivita.)

Not just a racist, but a liar too.

CNN.com:  Teacher won't shave until bin Laden caught.

Nice gesture.  But isn't he worried that he'll be mistaken for a terrorist?

So George Allen apologizes -- yet again -- for his racist "macaca" comment last month.

But the outside observer could be excused for thinking that Allen hasn't quite gotten the message, I think, especially when Allen is trumpeting "ethnic rallies" on his website:

(Screenshot taken by me, just a moment ago.  Click to see it bigger.)

From my Queens rooftop, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

From my rooftop in Queens.

Freedom, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

Gandhi at Ground Zero, #2, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

On September 11, 1906, Mahatma Gandhi launched his nonviolence movement at a rally in South Africa.

(Addendum:  How the Cover Came to Be)

Helluva job.

Chuck Klosterman's author photos, mocked by Slate.

My mother was unbelievably generous a few weeks ago, and gave B. and me a Cuisinart food processor out of the blue, saying only that "You needed one."  So we broke it in a couple nights back with fresh basil (from our Hellgate CSA share) and made pesto.  So good.  Thanks, Mom!

(Recipe -- from the Cook's Illustrated cookbook The Best Recipe -- here, complete with step-by-step photos.)

Inteligent People Please.

(Via Dana, whose blog I really miss.)

"One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror," Mr. Bush said.

Sheesh.

From CNN's Situation Room yesterday (my emphasis):

WOLF BLITZER: Bill, as you know and as most of our viewers will remember, after 9/11, there was a brief period where top administration officials were holding out the possibility that perhaps Saddam Hussein, when he was in power in Iraq had much more to do with 9/11, although much more recently including the president in recent days has flatly said Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, yet that is not reflected in this most recent CNN poll, is it?

BILL SCHNEIDER: Well, no. While 43 percent of Americans continue to believe Saddam Hussein is connected to 9/11. That belief is surprisingly resilient. The number has held pretty steady for the past two years, but it's not partisan. The number of Republicans that believe he was connected to 9/11 is 46 percent, about the same as others. The belief is powerfully related to education. A majority of high school educated Americans believe Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. And that number drops to 39 percent of those who attended college, 26 percent of college graduates, and only 19 percent of people who went to graduate school.

The better educated and presumably better informed you are, the less likely you are to think that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11.

I find this to be a striking statistic.  We may not be leaving children behind...but we're leaving the whole country behind.

And Bush yesterday finally endorsed the Geneva Conventions (too little, too late) and acknowledged the existence of secret CIA prisons, which prompted one commenter over at TPM to ask:

I am a bit confused, too. I thought the administration and its lackeys claimed it was treasonous to publicly discuss these secret prisons. I thought that the administration and its lackeys were pushing for journalists to be prosecuted for reporting about their existence. I thought that we were disloyal Americans for talking about such secret prisons. Are the administration's past statements no longer operable now that there is an election two months away?

Good question.  Why won't someone in the press corps ask it?

Also:  Go read this excellent NYT analysis of yesterday's announcement.  An excerpt:

In calling for public war-crime trials at Guantánamo Bay, President Bush is calculating that with a critical election just nine weeks away, neither angry Democrats nor nervous Republicans will dare deny him the power to detain, interrogate and try suspects his way. . .

Mr. Bush had more than one agenda at work when he announced on Wednesday that the country should “wait no longer’’ to bring to trial those seized by the CIA and accused of  planning the Sept. 11 attacks.

He is trying to rebuff a Supreme Court that visibly angered him in June when it ruled that his procedures for interrogation and trials violated both the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions.

And he is trying to divert voters from the morass of Iraq and to revive the emotionally potent question of what powers the president should be able to use to defend the country.

And, not incidentally, he's trying to scare the shit out of you just before the midterm elections, and hope that you'll ignore the morass of bad acts and faith-based policy decisions that have turned Iraq into a civil war where the only thing the participants agree on is how much they hate America.  And the politically-driven national security policy that has, so far, failed to make us safer while simultaneously breeding countless new terrorists.   And, of course, failing to catch the ones that are already out there...and approving deals like the peace treaty Pakistan (remember them?  Our so-called "greatest ally in the war on terror"?) signed with the Taliban.  The one that would let bin Laden or Zawahiri go free, until the outcry forced them to backtrack.

So many things to distract the public from, so little time.

The Ultimate Blog Post.  Funny 'cause it's true.

Dove Shoot, originally uploaded by hundertwasser.

Happy September 11th.

Go raise money for the GOP on 9/11 by shooting the symbol of peace.

Air Force woman missing from Kyrgyzstan mall.

Not a "U.S. Air Force officer", as the lede has it.  An "Air Force woman."  Is this like an "army man"?

Katie Couric debuted last night on the CBS Evening News, something about which this blog has expressed some trepidation in the past.  Some reax to the broadcast:

It wasn't awful.  But it was nowhere near great, either.  The thing that struck me the most was how...pedestrian it was.  The writers for the CBS Evening News couldn't put something together with a little more style, more flair, more panache than ""The folks at Chevron today felt like they won the lottery when they announced that they struck oil in the Gulf of Mexico..."?  C'mon. (And I'm gonna pull a Howard Beale the next time I hear "pain at the pump"...)  They obviously went to huge expense for the set, the graphics (though as a commenter at TVNewser mentioned, the typeface in the logo seemed straight out of MS Word), the lighting -- it looked like a million bucks, while staying utterly conventional -- couldn't they turn a phrase better?

I liked the long Lara Logan exclusive on the Taliban (even though it didn't break much new ground), and the Jim Axelrod (WRAL alum!) piece on the war was good, as was the Q&A with the Moustache of Understanding.  But the story count was low, the Suri Cruise pictures were Paula Zahn-esque, and dammit, I miss Bob Schieffer's inquisitive-but-not-fluffy back-and-forth with the correspondents.  I think the "freeSpeech" segment (Dude.  Ditch the InterCaps, please) is a sop to the bloggers; is there really a desperate need for commentary on the airwaves?  And, all these branded segments -- "freeSpeech", "Snap Shots", etc. -- are corny and need to be streamlined outta there. 

And Morgan Spurlock was eccentrically dressed, but hey, he's a filmmaker.  An Arts Guy.  (And he's from my natal town of Parkersburg, WV, which should excuse a lot.)

So:  A fairly solid "Meh" from me.  If they just did a bit more with the news, I could live with the broadcast, though I'd probably keep going to Charlie Gibson or Brian Williams.  It was inspiring to hear the Uncle Walter intro voiceover, though...but if they used his example to build a better newscast, rather than using his voice to lend them credibility, I'd be happier with it.

There's no more!

The blogging styles of Katie Couric vs. Brian Williams:

Couric: Like Henry Blogg, this blog is shoving off from the harbor, and heading out to a mysterious and uncharted sea. The harbor was great. But, let's face it: we're supposed to be exploring the wider world. This is what we were built for. And that's what we'll be doing at "Couric & Co." So grab an oar. Take a deep breath. And let's get going. Hopefully, we won't all end up like Gilligan...

Williams: Welcome to this inaugural edition of what we're calling The Daily Nightly. We hope this will be a useful supplement to viewers of Nightly News, as both a narrative and as a window into our editorial process. We had hoped to file this inaugural issue earlier in the day, but we work in a busy place where decisions need to be made constantly... and then changed. Just as we hope Nightly News is a part of your evening viewing, we hope you'll stop here first each day to find out how the broadcast is taking shape.