Knock Knock

Who’s there?

Al Gore.

Again? Listen, for the last time, my dishes come out more sparkly when I use the detergent with phosphates. So piss off, would you?

Well, not physically — he’s still in Fallujah — but yesterday he was able to speak to the Chimperor hisself via satellite hookup:

My question and […] President Bush’s somewhat paraphrased answer follows. The meeting was on the record, but notes took the place of recording devices due to the sensitive nature of the video conference’s surroundings:

INDC: Mr. President, first I’d like to let you know that I was in Fallujah for the month of January and returned to compare the situation this month, and security progress in Fallujah specifically and Anbar as a whole is somewhat remarkable and heartening. But a key to maintaining security momentum in the province is for the Iraqi government at the national level to pick up where US support leaves off, by providing funds to support reconstruction and logistics to local security forces. What influence or leverage is being applied with the national Iraqi government to ensure that such assistance is delivered to the province? And note that the desire for support is tempered by the local belief - incorrect or correct to whatever degree - that the central Iraqi government under Maliki is compromised by Iranian interests.

“The military can only do so much. There has to be follow-up with jobs and hope,” said Bush. “We recognize that the man on the street needs to feel like his government cares about him.”

He then mentioned the death of Sheik Abdul Sitar Abu-Risha, and wondered if his demise would stall the process, or, as he suspects, would cause like-minded individuals to redouble their efforts. He cited the example of his meeting with the governing council of Anbar on his recent trip to the area. “We had this meeting with the governing council. The head of the provincial council was like the governor and the local sheiks were like mayors.” He said that each link in the chain requested more help from the next higher position, “the sheiks requested help from the governor and the governor said ‘we need help from [Maliki].’”

“By putting them at the table it made it abundantly clear that they needed assistance … so [the federal Iraqi government] went out there with $120 million to begin with and [more funds] to follow.”

For my part, I spent yesterday playing with the PowerScrub™ function of my new dishwasher.

Tomato, tomahto.

But for the record? Had Ardolino been able to land these kinds of guests while we were doing our radio gig, I think we could have made some serious coin from it.

Now, if Bill could just figure out a way to have Senator Feingold read one of his posts into the Congressional Record, he might just be able to parlay such success into a Salon column…

check-out lady: “Need anything else? Stamps, ice…?”

CJ: “Well, a little less defeatism from our national Democrats would be welcome.”

check-out lady: “If you say so — though they’d probably counter that a little more realism from bloodthirsty warmongers might be nice. Paper or plastic?”

CJ: “Plastic.”

CJ: “– And you know what? Triple-bag that shit, too. Freakin’ Hippie.”

AJ Strata:

Six years ago the US saw the cheers of Palestinians at the destruction of 9-11. We saw the smiles of Saddam and his butchers and we heard the gloating of Bin Laden. Six years later Saddam is gone and Bin Laden is still running from justice. But now Iraqis are chanting “al-Qaeda is the enemy of Allah”. This is a stunning turn around, and it is all due to the wide gulf that separates American values from al-Qaeda’s bloodlust and hunger for absolute power over others.

When Muslim are chanting these things about al-Qaeda it is clear we have hit a turning point in the war on Terror. The Muslim street DOES see us as liberators and protectors in Iraq. And it sees we have a common enemy in al-Qaeda.

Well, then. Perfect time to pull out and concentrate on universal health care and mandatory low flush toilets.

LET’S ROLL!

Via Middle East Online:

Al-Qaeda will release a third video marking the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, this time showing its top leader in Afghanistan, US monitoring groups said Wednesday.

After releasing two videos featuring Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in recent days, the terror network will now show a video “presenting reasons and motives for the attacks on New York and Washington,” the SITE Intelligence Group said in a press release.

The new video will show Al-Qaeda’s chief in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid, also known as Sheikh Said, said SITE, which monitors extremist websites.

The tape also features a montage of images showing the burning World Trade Center towers in New York and individuals such as Saudi King Abdullah, SITE said.

Another US-based monitoring group, IntelCenter, said it expected the video to be released by Al-Qaeda within 72 hours.

Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid?

Sorry, but like Hugh Jackman, he just ain’t that big a draw.

No, what this one needed was, say, Joe Pesci as a bumbling informant, and Usama bin Laden — weary of his partner’s cowboy recklessness — delivering, in a tone of exasperated resignation, his trademark quip: “I’m gettin’ too dead for this shit.”

Pass.

(h/t STACLU and Gateway Pundit)

“I served with General Washington in the legislature of Virginia, before the revolution, and, during it, with Dr. Franklin in Congress.  I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point, which was to decide the question. They laid their shoulders to the great points., knowing that the little ones would follow of themselves. If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise, in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour? That one hundred and fifty lawyers should do business together, ought not to be expected.” 

– Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821

From the FEC’s “Campaign Guide for Nonconnected Committees”, under the subhead “discounts”:

If a corporation or labor organization sells goods or services to a political committee at a price below the usual or normal charge, a prohibited contribution results in the amount of the discount. 100.52(d). A reduced price is not considered a contribution, however, if it is offered by the vendor in the ordinary course of business and at the same amount charged to nonpolitical clients. See, e.g., AO 1989-14.

Notes Karl Maher:

MoveOn.org Political Action is a Political Action Committee, which is regulated by the Federal Elections Commission. It is NOT a 527 regulated by the IRS. The latter can accept unlimited contributions; the former, not.

PACs may not accept contributions from corporations. Further, they may not accept contributions in excess of $5,000. The value of the discount MoveOn received was on the order of $100,000.

[…]

It seems to me that the price the NYT charged to Freedom’s Watch, as well as the price they quoted the Washington Times, puts the discount out of the range of the ordinary course of business.

So the question once again is, was the discount offered by the NYT to MoveOn.org within the parameters of discounts given in the “ordinary course of business?

And will we ever know anyway, given that the Times will (as is their prerogative) comment only generally on their advertising pricing policies?

For my part, I’d be fine with the NYT openly advocating for its political fellow travelers — provided they were willing to admit upfront to their political biases. And as I wrote in a comment to my earlier post, this wouldn’t be an issue at all had the Times not displayed a demonstrable history of shading its reporting.

But so long as they continue to hide their advocacy beneath the shroud of “objectivity,” they should exact some price for violating that (unspoken, but still largely taught) contract with their readership.

And that’s why it matters.

However, being no supporter of McCain-Feingold myself, I’d just as soon it be informed readers — and not the government — who exact that price by canceling subscriptions, or by regularly pointing out how the Times has turned into a mouthpiece for a particular ideology.

****
More, from Gabriel Malor.

****
update, Sept. 14:: From USA TODAY :

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani this morning got what he demanded yesterday from The New York Times: The right to run a full-page ad in the newspaper attacking both the liberal group MoveOn.org Political Action for saying that Gen. David Petraeus might better be known as “General Betray Us” and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for her alleged “commitment to defending MoveOn.org.” Plus, Giuliani got the same “discount” ad rate that MoveOn paid for its “Betray Us” ad on Monday.

This morning, the Times reports that MoveOn paid what the newspaper says is the “standby” rate for its full page ad: About $65,000, which is considerably less than the nearly $182,000 that a full-priced full-page ad can cost in the newspaper. But, according to the Times, that is a typical price charged to advocacy groups for an ad they want to run on a specific day — if they’re willing to put up with not getting a guarantee that the ad will run on that day.

Anybody else find it odd that a PAC flush with capital would take a chance on “standby” on a very time-specific ad?

Seems dubious, but who knows — perhaps MoveOn.org received assurances that there would almost certainly be room for their ad even if purchased on standby. The NYT stock price being what it is and all.

Now if only both parties could show this kind of frugality with our tax dollars, we’d all be better off.

First militant: “Forgive me for bringing this up just now, Farhad, but I’m beginning to wonder if this fight is worth dying for.”*

Second militant: “– Blasphemy! We do the work of God, Javeed, and the work of God is always worth dying for. Be thankful we are friends, or I would slit your cowardly throat myself for daring to question the will of Allah.”*

First militant: “Oh, don’t get me wrong, brother: I’d happily kill any filthy Jew a goodly tree informed me was cowering behind its majestic trunk. But what I don’t understand is why I’m supposed to be concerned about subprime interest loans — or by the Great Satan’s refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol.”

Second militant: “Oh.”

Second militant:

Second militant:

Second militant: “Well, in Osama’s defense, it has been unseasonably warm this summer, Javeed…”

Seems General Betray Us managed to overcome the Democratic Congressional / true conservative “mandate” to bring the troops home now!

The new center, it won’t be happy about this.

No sir. I expect additional purges. Physics tells us, after all, that the center simply cannot hold when there are so many pro-Petraeus centrists gumming up the works and pulling the unified narrative apart like so much string cheese.

The answer? Purify.

BECAUSE THE PEOPLE-POWERED PEOPLE’S PEOPLE WILL NOT STAND FOR SUCH UNPEOPLED WRETCHEDNESS!