Weekend Roundup 4/21/08
by Chris 3 comments Leave a comment April 21st, 2008“Some will call this a backward-looking distraction, but only by fully understanding what Mr. Bush has done over eight years to distort the rule of law and violate civil liberties and human rights can Americans ever hope to repair the damage and ensure it does not happen again.”
The New York Times finally bothered to discuss the small problem of having our top government officials approving torture. You can read my thoughts here and here.
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“when news articles revealed that troops in Iraq were dying because of inadequate body armor, a senior Pentagon official wrote to his colleagues: “I think our analysts — properly armed — can push back in that arena.”
If you’ve ever spent any time watching network and cable news you’ll often see retired generals giving us their expert and, of course, independent analysis of our ongoing and future wars. Turns out that these guys are part of a Pentagon propaganda plan.
Glenn Greenwald says this story is nothing new and, “the most incredible aspect of the NYT story is that most of the news organizations which deceived their readers and viewers by using these “objective” analysts — CBS, NBC, Fox — simply refused to comment on what they knew about any of this or what their procedures are for safeguarding against it.”
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“John McCain’s campaign has sent out a fundraising e-mail warning recipients that Hamas is rooting for Barack Obama.”
TPM is reporting that maybe McCain was lying when he said he would run a “respectful campaign.”
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Nico Pitney of the Huffington Post examines the debates and finds Obama has been treated worse than Clinton. I gotta say, I don’t remember a huge anti-Obama bias in the previous debates. Even if there was, I would still chalk it up to his front runner status.
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The NBA playoffs have begun! There is a long way to go, but I’m rooting for a Lakers victory over the Celtics in the finals… and if you haven’t yet seen it, you should check out this awesome Kobe/Shaq NBA commercial. Those NBA marketing people are geniuses.
The Lebron/KG commercial is equally good.
Whenever a general goes to report to Congress it isn’t to be objective. They’re there to resell the war to the bankers.
Dude, why do you hate on King George so much? Yeah, I voted for him. Yeah, I’d do it again. Do you know why? Two words — Daylight Savings. That’s right. He got us another two months of it. And it’s fucking awesome. Two more months out of the year where if I leave a bar early after pouring drinks into some chick I can see her in the light. And BAM! just saved myself from messing around with a velociraptor. They just knock over the furniture like crazy. Not to mention eating your face.
I consider myself corrected.