Here is my favorite recent Steno Sue major error that manages to further the wingnut agenda. 7/10/2004:
According to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998.
oops:
_____Correction_____ In some editions of the Post, a July 10 story on a new Senate report on intelligence failures said that former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV told his contacts at the CIA that Iraq had tried to buy 400 tons of uranium from the African nation of Niger in 1998. In fact, it was Iran that was interested in making that purchase, but no contract was signed, according to the report.
Republicans are walking around right now pretending this is a winning issue for them. They like to scare Dems into thinking that anything which makes Bush look like Warrior Daddy, even drunken crazy please take away the car keys Warrior Daddy, is good for them.
They're right, but only because they know they can frighten Democrats into, once again, being nothing but a confused puddle of jello, with an assist from all of the Fox News Democrats talking about just how bad this will make them look. Contra Jason Zengerle, I wasn't pissed that Keller held back on this story because I thought it would win the election for Kerry. In fact, I doubt it would've helped him (in part, of course, because of the puddle of jello dynamic). I was pissed because I think it's the kind of thing the people should know before making an informed decision.
But, anyway, those people who think that in the middle of a metaphorical war the president can do anything he wants as long as he claims it's in the interest of national security, whatever that means these days, including violating judicial orders and congressional statutes, do have principles I guess. They're just not my principles, and not the principles the Democrats should share.
I haven’t liked it much here lately. It took me 10 years to realize I was wrong: OC is just as conservative as the stereotype, which I’d denied up and down to anyone listening. Hell, I was surrounded by right-thinking folks at the Weekly and consorted only with museum types, punks and drunkards. John Birch is dead. Long live la raza!
It took Arnold’s propositions, overwhelmingly denied through the rest of the state and overwhelmingly approved here, to make me see just how willingly I’d blinded myself. But it’s not the conservatism that bothers me: principled stands of any kind are a-okay with me. It’s the nastiness. The nattering classes I’d thought were fringy were in fact the opinion makers. The Scrooges on the local blogs went to war lest the OC Board of Supes approve LouCorrea’s motion to insure 20,000 of the county’s poorest kids with an outlay of just $2.1 million. It would, they fumed, create an entitlement. Now, how many millions do you think the supes spend on mailings?
When I lived in Irvine-then-Laguna Beach I always wanted to hang out with Commie Girl because the Orange County she wrote about was always much much cooler than anything I ever saw and always eluded me. That isn't to say there's nothing good about the place, but she always seemed to live in an OC that was just off limits to me.
Oh well, hopefully she comes back in the New Year and keeps defending the OC's honor as despite its flaws it isn't *that* bad.
Garance discusses variations in costs of living. There has been a lot of discussion about high housing prices lately and of course it should be pointed out repeatedly that the housing boom isn't happening everywhere.
A missing part of the discussion is that it isn't just people who are willing to pay high rents, it's also businesses and firms. Sure some local commerce is going to be generated naturally by all those people who want to live in fine California weather, but local retail generally isn't on its own enough to sustain a local economy except in prime tourist locations. It isn't just people who are willing to pay obscene rents in Manhattan and other high priced cities, it's also businesses.
I would propose cutting back on contrived debates. Why not interview those with opposing views separately and give each more than a minute or two to make their point without having to respond to another person's debating tactics? And why not encourage interviewers to intervene when blatant errors or falsehoods are offered as facts?
I've commented before that to his credit Wolf Blitzer seems to have been doing just that since he let us all move into the Situation Room. I've noticed he does a lot more one on one interviewing than we're used to seeing, and he achieves the always necessary "balance" by having opposing sides come on in different segments.
Having two sides on for every issue takes the responsibility off the host - it leaves the job of correcting bullshit to the other guest and the host just guides the conversation. Having on just one guest at at time means the host has to take responsibility for any bullshit.
-- Forty-one percent (41%) of U.S. adults believe that Saddam Hussein had "strong links to Al Qaeda." -- Twenty-two percent (22%) of adults believe that Saddam Hussein "helped plan and support the hijackers who attacked the United States on September 11." -- Twenty-six percent (26%) of adults believe that Iraq "had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded." -- Twenty-four percent (24%) of all adults believe that "several of the hijackers who attacked the United States on September 11 were Iraqis."
However, all of these beliefs and others have declined sharply since the questions were asked in February 2005. For example: -- Those who think Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al Qaeda have fallen from 64 to 41 percent. -- Those who believe that Iraq was a serious threat to U.S. security are down from 61 to 48 percent. -- Those who think Saddam Hussein helped plan 9/11 are down from 47 to 22 percent. -- Those who think Iraq had weapons of mass destruction are down from 36 to 26 percent. -- Those who think Iraqi hijackers attacked the United States on 9/11 have fallen from 44 to 24 percent.
Stranger writes about this horrible extended piece CNN keeps running which can basically be described as "Israel has smart intrusive security and Americans are idiots for not doing everything they do."
When is it appropriate to describe a person by saying that some people love them and some people hate them?
I've never manged to see any pattern regarding what poll numbers justify such descriptions. I've seen 50-50 splits on issues described as "dividing the nation" and I've seen 75-25 splits described the same way.
Ney and Abramoff, whom DeLay once described as "one of my closest and dearest friends," crossed paths as early as 1996. That year Ney took a trip to Montenegro sponsored by a foundation that had links to Abramoff, who was a lobbyist for Montenegro.
DeLay, a Christian conservative, did not quite know what to make of Abramoff, who wore a beard and a yarmulke. They forged political ties, but the two men never became personally close, according to associates of both men.
What are even to make of this construction? It would be unthinkable that the good and honorable and wonderful conservative Christian DeLay could be friends with big Jewy Jew Abramoff?
Mark Weisbrot tells us about Venezuela. There are certainly reasons people should be less than enamored by Chavez, but the degree of American media bullshit peddling about what goes on in that country, especially about supposed media crackdowns, is amazing.
Media reports that U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay had convinced the state's highest court to hear his appeal were as widely circulated as they were, well, wrong.
Justices for the Texas Court Criminal Appeals agreed merely to consider hearing DeLay's money laundering case. They never said they would accept the case, said Edward Marty, the court's general counsel.
The erroneous media reports, which the San Antonio Express-News published in a wire story and displayed online, come from DeLay's spokesman, Kevin Madden, in an e-mail sent to reporters Tuesday evening, after courts had closed for the night.
"FYI-Breaking news out of Austin, TX," the e-mail stated. "The state Court of Criminal Appeals has agreed to hear Mr. DeLay's habeas motion that was filed at the end of last week. The court has set a one-week deadline for briefs to be filed by the parties involved. The court could essentially decide to end Ronnie Earle's prosecution after hearing this motion and the facts presented."
Madden said this afternoon that he made an error and never intended to "spin" the story.
"In an effort to be instantaneous, I wasn't precise.....My understanding (of the decision) was correct. The way I relayed it wasn't," he said.
I mean, yeah, I'm all for getting warrants for the surveilliance of "terrorism suspects." I'm just not for unnecessary illegal warrantless searches by our criminal president.
I'm also for rounding up and arresting all the people "who have a history of blowing up commuter trains, weddings, and churches" and I'm a bit puzzled why the Bush administration isn't doing so.
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