Blogressive January 26, 2006
Al Gore and Ralph Nader at the Sundance Film Festival
"Gore and Nader lead what's shaping up as a powerhouse year for documentaries, always a strong suit at Sundance. Director Davis Guggenheim's 'An Inconvenient Truth' chronicles former Vice President Gore's dogged campaign to convince a reluctant society of fossil-fuel profiteers and consumers about the dangers of global warming. Nader, viewed by critics as the spoiler whose campaign kept Gore out of the White House in the 2000 election, is the subject of Henriette Mantel and Stephen Skrovan's 'An Unreasonable Man,' a portrait of the crusader for consumer rights and safety." Source: ap.com
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Chris Matthews
"'Bin Laden sounds like Clint Eastwood' -- 'Bin Laden sounds like Ron Silver' -- 'Bin Laden sounds like Rush Limbaugh' -- 'Bin Laden sounds like Bill O'Reilly'-- "Bin Laden sounds like Mel Gibson" -- 'Bin Laden sounds like Bruce Willis' -- 'Bin Laden sounds like Michelle Malkin'... Imagine the outrage on the right and in the press (but I repeat myself) if a major media figure spat out those words. Well, on Hardball, Chris Matthews just blurted out that Bin Laden sounds like Michael Moore. Simple: Matthews should apologize. On the air. This has NOTHING to do with Michael Moore and everything to do with how far media figures can go slandering the left."
Peter Daou at salon.com.
Quotable
"I should have asked for the military sooner."
Former FEMA Director Michael Brown makes the understatement of the year.
Are men (and women) who email necessary? Now you have to pay to email Maureen Dowd, others. "Back in September the Times asked the hundreds of papers who publish the Op-Ed contributors through The New York Times News Service (NYTNS) to stop printing the writers' e-mail addresses with the columns (and to take the columns off their Web sites, too). Apparently not everyone got the message, because last week the Times' syndication service sent out an advisory reminding its client papers to remove the e-mail addresses.'If you are not a TimesSelect subscriber you won't have access to that e-mail functionality,' Times spokesman Toby Usnik confirmed Tuesday. 'It centralizes [the columnists' e-mails] around the TimesSelect site.' " Source: editorandpublisher.com
Good news. You are Rich! You might be surprised at just how wealthy you are when you try this spiffy calculator at Good news. You are Rich! You might be surprised at just how wealthy you are when you try this spiffy calculator at globalrichlist.com. "Three decades ago, the people in well-to-do countries were 30 times better off than those in countries where the poorest 20 percent of the world's people live. By 1998, this gap had widened to 82 times." Source: globalrichlist.com
West Virginia's pirating operation. "State investigators have stumbled onto a basement office in the West Virginia Capitol outfitted with computers, video and audio gear, and software used to pirate movies and music recordings, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press... The review found that someone in General Services sidestepped state purchasing rules to buy more than $88,000 worth of computers and related equipment over the last three years, including the items discovered in the basement office." West Virginia's pirating operation. "State investigators have stumbled onto a basement office in the West Virginia Capitol outfitted with computers, video and audio gear, and software used to pirate movies and music recordings, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press... The review found that someone in General Services sidestepped state purchasing rules to buy more than $88,000 worth of computers and related equipment over the last three years, including the items discovered in the basement office." Source: wvgazette.com
Majoritiy Leader Roy Blunt buys the domain Majoritiy Leader Roy Blunt buys the domain roybluntsucks.com. Still no interest from anyone for rights to roybluntdoesnotsuck.com. "Roybluntsucks.com takes you directly to Blunt's campaign page... Blunt spokeswoman Burson Taylor said they first started the practice before the last election cycle. 'It's certainly a preemptive strike,' she said. 'We wouldn't want anybody else to own them.' " Source: rawstory.com
Al-Jazeera wants to see Bush's bombing transcript. "Lawyers representing al-Jazeera yesterday demanded to see a Downing Street record of a conversation between Tony Blair and George Bush in which the US president said he wanted to bomb the Arabic satellite television station based in the Gulf state of Qatar. The document is said to be a transcript of a conversation between the two leaders in April 2004. 'Any thought of bombing al-Jazeera ... would be both morally wicked and legally indefensible,' said Mark Stephens, the TV station's lawyer." Al-Jazeera wants to see Bush's bombing transcript. "Lawyers representing al-Jazeera yesterday demanded to see a Downing Street record of a conversation between Tony Blair and George Bush in which the US president said he wanted to bomb the Arabic satellite television station based in the Gulf state of Qatar. The document is said to be a transcript of a conversation between the two leaders in April 2004. 'Any thought of bombing al-Jazeera ... would be both morally wicked and legally indefensible,' said Mark Stephens, the TV station's lawyer." Source: guardian.co.uk