Newsweek's Howard Fineman observes:

"Much of the media coverage of Obama has been fawning to say the least, and with good reason. He is one of the most winsome, charismatic candidates to have appeared on the scene in decades."

That's just how they taught it in journalism school. A reporter's job is to comfort the winsome and afflict the uncharismatic.

Willeford

"NOT long after I met Charles Willeford, he told me the secret to writing. "Never allow yourself to take a leak in the morning," he said, "until you've written a page. That way you're guaranteed a page a day, and at the end of a year you have a novel."

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/05/fisher.htm

Dieter

I feel like it may sound like hyperbole, but this movie was simply amazing. I can't stop thinking about it and would recommend it highly. I am not sure I have ever watched something with my mouth wide open in amazement like this...find it and watch.

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Get ready.

With nary a hint of irony, Politico reports that the coverage of John McCain has been overwhelmingly negative.

The good news for John McCain? He’s now receiving as much attention from the national media as his Democratic rival. The bad news? It’s overwhelmingly negative.

Just 14 percent of the stories about John McCain, from the conventions through the final presidential debate, were positive in tone, according to a study released today, while nearly 60 percent were negative — the least favorable coverage of any of the four candidates on the two tickets.

The study, by The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, a nonpartisan journalism watchdog organization, examined 2,412 stories from 43 newspapers and cable news shows in the six-week period beginning just after the conventions and ending with the final presidential debate.

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
by Orson Scott Card
October 20, 2008

An open letter to the local daily paper -- almost every local daily paper in America:I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.The goal of this rule change was to help the poor -- which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house -- along with their credit rating.They end up worse off than before.This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of congressmen who support increasing their budget.)Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."Instead, it was Sen. Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" (http://snipurl.com/457to): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.And after Fred Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign -- because that campaign had sought his advice -- you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension -- so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie -- that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad -- even bad weather -- on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth -- even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means. That's how trust is earned.Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time -- and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter -- while you ignored the story of John Edwards' own adultery for many months.So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women (NOW) threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.That's where you are right now.It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe -- and vote as if -- President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats -- including Barack Obama -- and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans -- then you are not journalists by any standard.You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a daily newspaper in our city.

http://streetbonersandtvcarnage.com/blog/voting-is-so-gay/

• "In Wednesday night's debate, John McCain warned that a group called Acorn is 'on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history' and 'may be destroying the fabric of democracy.' Viewers may have been wondering what Mr. McCain was talking about. So were we."--editorial, New York Times, Oct. 17

• "Several F.B.I. offices are reviewing reports of fraudulent voter registrations submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, a liberal community organizing group that has been under fire from Republicans."--news story, New York Times, Oct. 17

I recommend this instant espresso- it tastes great!

Narrator:

My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos. Ruined dreams. This wasted land. But most of all, I remember The Road Warrior. The man we called "Max". To understand who he was, you have to go back to another time. When the world was powered by the black fuel. And the desert sprouted great cities of pipe and steel. Gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel, they were nothing. They built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked. But nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men. On the roads it was a white line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice. And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered and smashed. Men like Max. The warrior Max. In the roar of an engine, he lost everything. And became a shell of a man, a burnt out, desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again...

Ah Europe.

Americans are all too eager to accept the cultural superiority of Europeans as gospel, particularly NorthEastern liberals. Europe has "free" health care! Europe didn't embroil itself in Iraq! It has culture!

Fucking bullshit. Europe's economies are a train wreck. Their socialist policies have failed to curb rampant unemployment and poor economic growth. They have been the model for the failure of long-term psuedo-socialist Keynesian policy.

6.1% unemployment in America is a crisis. That would be the lowest rate in France since, what, WWII? And that prick Sarkozy is wagging his finger at America about its policies?

But don't worry, Europe can keep up its pointless Schadenfreude party, because Germany and Ireland have guaranteed all bank deposits. Sure, their national debt would be something like 325% of GDP if that promise were ever tested, but hey! Europe's BETTER THAN AMERICA. They're superior culturally and ethically! Except they've made an infinitely more ridiculous promise to their citizens while staring down their noses at the bailout plan.

Hypocrites. In other news, the dollar is kicking the Euro's ass, because with those promises Berlin has effectively declared the currency worthless. The US may borrow big but at least we aren't giving up on fiat.

Dora Lives

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200806/?read=article_lunenfeld

Members Of Twisted Sister Now Willing To Take It
September 29, 2008 Issue 44•40

NEW YORK—In a stunning reversal of their long-stated reluctance to take it, members of heavy-metal band Twisted Sister announced Monday that, after 24 years of fervent refusal, they are now willing to take it. "I acknowledge that we promised not to take it anymore, but things change. The world is a different place today, and with that in mind, we would like to go on record as saying that, starting right now, we are going to take it," read a statement released by the band's lead singer, Dee Snider. "To clarify, we would still prefer not to take it, but as of now, taking it is an option that we would be open to. That is all." Bassist Mark "the Animal" Mendoza also stated that, in regards to what he wants to do with his life, he no longer solely wants to rock, but would instead prefer doing other things, such as raising a family and working as a claims adjuster in Rye, NY.

"Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods." - Mencken

Wenatchee teen accused of assaulting allergic victim with peanut butter
by The Associated Press
Friday October 03, 2008, 6:06 AM

A 19-year-old accused of smearing peanut butter on the forehead of a fellow high school student with a peanut allergy has been charged with assault, the Wenatchee World is reporting.
Joshua Hickson of Malaga was charged this week by a city prosecutor. If convicted of the gross misdemeanor, he could face a maximum year in jail and a $5,000 fine.
Police Sgt. Cherie Smith says the targeted student had no allergic reaction.
According to a police report, Hickson was eating lunch Sept. 8 at Wenatchee High School when he heard a conversation that indicated a male student sitting next to him was allergic to peanuts. Officer Steve Evitt says that Hickson smeared his fingers with peanut butter from someone's sandwich and wiped it on the allergic student's forehead.
The officer says Hickson said he didn't think anything would happen.
Hickson was suspended from school; school administrators refused to comment on his current
status.--

The Associated Press

Rescue Plan Hits Bull's-Eye for Kids' Arrow-Makers (Update2)
By Ryan J. Donmoyer

Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Rose City Archery Inc., an Oregon company that makes arrows used by children, hit a bull's-eye with the Senate's approval of a measure that would rescue Wall Street banks.
A provision repealing a 39-cent excise tax on wooden arrows designed for children was attached to an historic $700 billion financial-markets rescue that passed last night by a vote of 74- 25. The provision, reported earlier on the Web site Dealbreaker, was originally proposed by Oregon senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith. It will save manufacturers such as Rose City Archery in Myrtle Point, Oregon, about $200,000 a year.
It's one of dozens of tax breaks benefiting Hollywood producers, stock-car racetrack owners and Virgin Islands rum- makers included in the broader legislation in an effort to win support from House Republicans, whose defection contributed to a rejection of an earlier version of the legislation earlier this week on a 228-205 vote.
``This is how Washington works,'' said Keith Ashdown, chief investigator at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington research group. ``A big pot of pork is their recipe for final passage.''
Representatives for Wyden, a Democrat, and Smith, a Republican, didn't immediately return calls seeking comment. Wyden voted against the bailout measure last night and Smith voted for it. Jerry Dishion, president of Rose City Archery, was in meetings and unavailable to comment, a receptionist at the company said.
`Extenders'
Most of the provisions are part of a package of measures known as ``extenders'' because they are renewed for only a few years at a time.
Popular with lawmakers, the provisions include a research tax credit worth about $8.3 billion a year for companies such as Microsoft Corp. and Harley-Davidson Inc., and subsidies for the overseas financial services earnings of U.S.-based multinational corporations such as General Electric Co. and Citigroup Inc.
The tax package also would spare 24 million American households from a scheduled increase in the alternative minimum tax amounting to $62 billion this year and renew about $17 billion of incentives to promote energy production from renewable sources such as solar and wind.
Nascar Tracks
Other, smaller provisions, such as one that will save Nascar track builders $109 million this year, have been staples of the tax code since 2004 or earlier. They periodically expire and are renewed, and include hundreds of millions of dollars of tax incentives for companies that invest on Indian reservations, in the District of Columbia, and American Samoa. Other breaks would subsidize renovations of restaurant franchises and cut import duties on wool and wood.
Several others are new provisions, including two tax breaks worth $478 million over the next decade for movie and television producers who shoot films in the United States. The legislation would allow filmmakers to qualify for a 3 percentage-point reduction from the 35 percent top tax rate approved in 2004 for domestic manufacturers.
The package also renews a $33 million break for companies that invest in American Samoa, a benefit targeted at tuna canners such as Del Monte Foods Co., which owns the Star-Kist tuna brand, and is based in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco district.
Boy Scout Arrows
The arrows provision seeks to reverse an anomaly in a 2004 law that created the 39 cent excise tax on the weapons. Intended for more expensive arrows, the tax also applies to arrows used by Boy Scouts and other youth organizations that cost about 30 cents a piece. Ten manufacturers in nine U.S. states stand to benefit from the change, according to a description of the legislation from Wyden's office.
Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner, said the inclusion of the tax breaks ``will increase the appeal of the package for our members.''
The Congressional Budget Office said yesterday the tax provisions will add about $112 billion to budget deficits over the next five years because the legislation doesn't contain enough offsetting revenue increases to keep the budget balanced.
The biggest revenue-raising provision in the bill would cost managers of hedge funds about $25 billion over the next decade by prohibiting an accounting technique they currently use to defer for as long as 10 years U.S. taxes on their income earned in foreign countries, usually tax havens such as the Cayman Islands.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ryan J. Donmoyer in Washington at rdonmoyer@bloomberg.net Last Updated: October 2, 2008 13:59 EDT

Name the movie!

"No more cockamamie cigar smoke. No more Swedish meatballs there, tootsie. And no more phoney Irish whisky. No more goddamn jerky beef. The party's over."

Explanation of Credit Crunch

Very good explanation of why Wall Street matters to Main Street.

http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/printarticle.asp?id=mwo092608