Archive for January, 2009

Another “how did they think of that?” gadget:

Proof that the American entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well — and very imaginative — and proof that the American consumer will buy just about anything!

An aunt in the country illegally and a half-brother arrested on drug charges in Kenya: how are these Barack Obama’s problem?

If your aunt or brother did something illegal, should your reputation be besmirched if you had no involvement in their illicit activities? Does blood relation now automatically qualify you as a conspirator to any of your relatives’ bad choices?

In his weekly address, President Barack Obama announced that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is preparing a new strategy for reviving our financial system, and urged the swift passage of an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.

Running Time: 26 Minutes, 45 Seconds.

I wonder what’s so funny about an alternative-energy CNG vehicle being towed. I mean, we never see a broken down fossil fuel vehicle being towed, huh?

October 7, 1996.

That’s when Roger Ailes, well-known former Republican political strategist, launched the “fair and balanced” Fox News Channel for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. empire.

Today, the right-wing blogosphere is all atwitter about this from CNN.

It’s “proof” of CNN’s bias, they say. While I agree that news networks don’t need to be in the propaganda business and that exploiting the extraordinary popularity of the new president by hocking merchandise emblazened with Obama-centric news headlines can create the appearance of tainted journalism, CNN is hardly the trailblazer in the biased news and propaganda department.

Here’s a couple of interesting tidbits about the original trailblazer:

• A series of internal memos issued by Fox News V.P. John Moody to news personnel in 2003 and 2004 were leaked to the media in July 2004. These editorial directives contained comments such as “[then Democratic presidential candidate] John Kerry may wish he’d taken off his microphone before trashing the GOP“. Media watchdog groups such as Media Matters for America cite the leaked memos as evidence that top-down pressure is the source of Fox News channel’s pro-Republican bias.
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• While promoting his memoir, What Happened, Scott McClellan, former White House Press Secretary (2003–2006) for President George W. Bush stated on the July 25, 2008 edition of Hardball with Chris Matthews that the Bush White House routinely gave talking points to Fox News commentators — but not journalists — in order to influence discourse and content.

I have no problem with people criticizing CNN’s latest income-generator ploy that certainly can give the appearance of bias. However, those same people critical of CNN should be “fair and balanced” and give the network that they are more sympathetic to the same honest scrutiny.

If Republicans can’t have a perfect bill to stimulate the economy,
they’d rather have no economy at all.

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A lot of great cabinet nominees are here tonight, and also Tim Geithner.

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Eric Holder blows it at the confirmation hearings by answering the questions in unequivocal, straightforward terms.

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As my wife exclaimed when I read this story to her: “Oh, good grief!”

Every dog has his day, but Sir Lancelot — or at least his carbon copy — has a second one.

A Boca Raton, Florida, couple paid a California firm $155,000 to clone their beloved Labrador retriever, who died from cancer a year ago. The clone, a 10-week-old puppy dubbed Lancey, was hand-delivered to them earlier this week by Lou Hawthorne, chairman of BioArts International, a biotechnology company.

Some people indeed have too much money.