Nice try

Submitted by SEDER on Thu, 01/21/2010 - 6:40pm.

I disagree, but we can't really play things out in an alternate universe in which it didn't exist.

"You look so tired-unhappy
Bring down the government
They don't, they don't speak for us"
-Radiohead.
www.sigzone.blogspot.com

Obviously it put Maddow on the map. If it weren't for AAR she would still be doing yardwork to subsidize her meager local Mass. radio show's income (which amuses me to no end-- a Rhodes scholar who did yardwork).

ANYWAY, Schultz would probably argue that AAR was much more of a hinderance to him and he would probably have hit it big much sooner if not for AAR.

"You look so tired-unhappy
Bring down the government
They don't, they don't speak for us"
-Radiohead.
www.sigzone.blogspot.com

Lou Dobbs was the ONLY one that talked about outsourcing.

I think that is more important than his views on immigration.

a little late now though

Sammy,

You, Janeane, Al and Kathrine helped keep me sane during the darkest days of Bush, Cheney, GOP Inc.

I am so grateful Air America Radio was there to push back.

============
Listening to Sammy since March 31, 2004

-

...we got this free blog for example. Thanks Sam, where would we be without you and WTF's his name? ;-)

Dead Air America.....signing off

Submitted by M the a-c on Thu, 01/21/2010 - 7:28pm.
...(which amuses me to no end-- a Rhodes scholar who did yardwork).
----------------------
You will certainly be amused by this passage located at the following link:

...Choosing an occupation is part of fashioning an identity, Mr. Stevens said, noting that people think of themselves as a “corporate type” or a free spirit, which is why you might find highly educated graduates working as bartenders instead of in an office...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/arts/18liberal.html

nor this Blog. :):(

... by the big picture of it's successes, many of which you highlighted in the OP, Sam.

So thanks to the Drobny's, you and the rest of the talent, from on-air hosts to their support staff (Brendan, Josh, Lauren, etc), and to my fellow denizens who made following the shows more enjoyable -- from bob over at AirAmericaPlace to all the regulars, here, on sss.com.

sniffle.

Hope to see you soon, Sam.

What a joke! Big Ed never needed AAR for anything. Big Ed knows AAR was always joke. AAR failed with a bunch of amatures trying to learn on the job. They never should have put Sam or Janeane on the air with no experience at all! All's well that ends well.

that it wasn't for AAR I never would have heard of you or Maron or Malloy, etc, etc, Franken probably wouldn't be a senator, who knows about Maddow? One important thing about AAR was that no matter how fucked up the management was--and it remained so up until the last day--they always could get the talent. Unfortunately they just wasted it so, as evidenced by their still-stunning shitcanning of Morning Sedition, easily the best radio show I've ever heard, not to mention the numerous slaps in the face to the great Sammy (their replacing the superlative "Sam Seder Show" with Lionel still makes me want to weep out loud thinking about it)and their treatment of Malloy and Rhodes yada yada yada. But the point is that they did provide exposure for a lot of great progressive voices who would have otherwise gone unheard and they paved the way for lib talk in general, so Air America Radio will always have a place in my heart.

would that it were AAR management as creative and dedicated as the talent and staff, you would still be there...so would they...

Submitted by M the a-c on Thu, 01/21/2010 - 7:28pm.
ANYWAY, Schultz would probably argue that AAR was much more of a hinderance to him and he would probably have hit it big much sooner if not for AAR.
-----

Here you are dead wrong. When Schultz radio show emerged, listeners assumed he was part of Air America. This is also true of Stephanie Miller. When audience members would thank Air America, Stephanie & Ed remained mum. They certainly did not reveal their true owners. That is, until Air America fell on hard times. Then Schultz & Miller proudly declared that they were not part of Air America.

Make no mistake about it, the former right-wing Republican Schultz, and silly Stephanie, rode the coattails of Air America to success.

...and bad luck...

don't let your schadenfreude foul the Karma for Big Ed...we need him.

this evening.

Good counterweight to all the verrry bad
news / 5/4 S.Court rule ing today.

I was about to jump off a tall building,
then realized we still have Malloy.

.
.
.

_ _ _
brr

brl vod | wtf

plooger on Thu, 01/21/2010 - 8:47pm. and all other posts singing "the song of Passage" of A.I.R.
;):(

Didn't Nancy Pelosi want to reintroduce the Fairness Doctrine in 2006? If you recall, the Right went ballistic. But the great shock was the stupidity of the Left. They didn't want it! Air America and the Jones network already had a monopoly on Progressive Radio. No more competition. So the selfish fools sold their souls- and the people's airwaves, and joined with the conservatives.

Ain't this a bi-atch!

What about Lauren?

I lost track.
Didn't she Blog somewhere? DKos?

.
.
.
_ _ _

brr

SvM | brl vod | wtf

not sure it was AAR show though:

Coal baron debates Kennedy over mountaintop mining

Don Blankenship and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the coal baron and the conservationist, are certain they could win over the world if only the public could see mountaintop removal mining through their eyes. On Thursday, they got their shot.

Blankenship, the outspoken chief executive of Massey Energy Co., went toe-to-toe with Kennedy, the celebrity environmental attorney, in a debate that amounted to a prize fight for the hearts and minds of Americans who know next to nothing about coal.

Each man stepped out of his customary setting — preaching to the converted about Appalachian strip mining — and addressed a hand-picked crowd of 950 at the University of Charleston. They hope the conversation will carry beyond coal country via the Internet.

Kennedy countered that surface mining has helped keep West Virginia among the poorest states in the country.

"What we're fighting here is not just the destruction — the massive and worst destruction of our environment," Kennedy said. "All of the institutions that are key to a functioning democracy are under assault because of this industry."

Before the event began, small groups stood in the raw drizzle in front of the university auditorium and gymnasium, talking with like-minded people rather than demonstrating or arguing.

James McGuinness of Rock Creek said the night's event could be a tipping point for the movement against mountaintop removal mining.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8910652

Malloy's on fire tonight.

Can't remember. But do remember she took impeachment off the table. George the Dope gave us the chance to throw half the Rethug leadership into prison, and the Dems pissed that away.

I fondly recall 2004 when I saw Al Franken on the Today Show talking about the start up of AAR - I was obsessed with finding out how, in rural Upstate NY, I was going to be able to hear it. It was then I signed up for XM - and as previous people stated - it was the oasis in the desert of the Bush Administration. I will always be grateful for the light during the darkest (to date) times. I thank AAR for being introduced to you Sam, along with Marc, Rachel, Mike, Thom and Randi.

I am very sad.

Jury picked for Kansas abortion shooting trial

The man charged with killing a Kansas abortion doctor will have his fate decided by jurors picked mostly in secret for a trial that has already inflamed both sides of the nation's abortion debate.

The selection process that ultimately whittled the jury down to eight men and six women took six days and occurred for the most part behind closed doors. Which two jurors are alternates will be decided later.

Only the final hour and a half of jury questioning was open to the media — and then only the four news outlets that had appealed the ruling closing it were allowed in the courtroom. Members of the public were turned away from all of it.

Opening statements are expected Friday,

which is also the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion.

"This is the kind of thing that invokes the specter of Star Chamber proceedings," said Dr. Warren Hern of Boulder, Colo., referring to an English court in the 1600s that met in secret and became a symbol of the misuse of power by the monarchy.

"Secret proceedings are the antithesis of a democratic society," said Hern, a longtime friend of Tiller who also performs late-term abortions.

The closed jury process took place even as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a drug trafficking case that the Constitution's guarantee of a public trial means judges may not ordinarily close their courtrooms during jury selection.

The Sixth Amendment gives criminal defendants the right to insist on a public trial, extending even to jury selection, the court said. In earlier rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court had said that the public and the news media could assert their right to attend all the phases of a trial.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8910646

a whole basketball league that can't jump!

...more

...and count my blessings I shall...the fight continues.

Thanks for everything and for the objective pragmatism.

That's why I love listening to you talk.

"this machine kills fascists"

A few months after AAR came on the air, a Jewish buddy of mine told me that AAR would fail because, "they have too many Jews. There will be chaos."

Looks as though my buddy was prescient.

I listened to AirAmerica from the start. I wasn't a big talk radio listener. The more I listened the more I liked, and then eventually that show/host would be fired.

Morning Sedition was a great thing to make coffee to
Rachel Maddow's 5-6am radio show was an assault of wire service information.

I'm thankful for those I discovered because of the network, but the management of the 'network' pissed me off constantly, seemingly at every chance.

I haven't listened since they took you guys off the air, or net.

talking about AAR in 2004 and I wrote down all the information, we had a Chicago channel when it first started.
I listened from morning to night and when we lost the Chicago station I streamed it. It did help me get through the Bush Cheney years and started me blogging. First on Al's blog and then on Al's and Sam's blog and I read Maron's blog and Randi's blog, she was a wellspring of info back then.

I ended up being most comfortable on Sam's blog. And here I am still!

AAR got alot of us through tough times with it's on air talent. And I remember thinking that Sam caught on so fast and I really liked listening to him more than Janeane.

Sam, maybe now you can do your own web show, even if it's once a week or join us on Blue Roots please. We do need you!

toniD's Ya Think?

if you'd like to state them here...it would be ok with me...My post about hope had nothing to do with you personally...It had to do with HOPE sounding to me as anarchism sounds to certain people here...There's no reason to pussy foot around...right?

We have different political views. And hope in the US govt is not one of my views...very simple.

census...

I learned more about national politics and getting involved during those first couple of years listening to AAR than ever in my life.

I found places to connect with other people with similar political views. I discovered a whole world of progressives that I barely knew existed.

I've become passionate about this country in a way I've never been before and started to take ownership for the first time in my life.

And when I poured my heart and soul as never before into a presidential campaign in 2004, the voices from Air America told me that I wasn't alone, raged with me and eventually helped me to laugh at the bastards who'd stolen my country once again.

The vision changed over the years and, except for a scant few shows, I haven't paid much attention to the old girl in some time.

But I will forever be grateful for the people that conceived of, launched and populated Air America Radio for everything they did.

sounds good

"this machine kills fascists"

I read Molly Ivan's book SHRUB before the 2000 election and knew that Bush was a disaster coming. I started searching for real news and didn't find it on cable TV. Then when I heard about AAR I spent a year pointing my Sony Walkman 100 miles to the NW to pick up Phoenix from N of Tucson. I could only hear the signal during the day so at first I didn't know about Sam.
Then I got an XM and like many others here, AAR became my lifeline. I loved Sam's AM show. His Sunday show was so packed with info. that I had to record it and listen many times. And I listened (and cried) many times over my recording of his last show(s) when all his loyal listeners called in. Sam, you worked so hard. You introduced us to bloggers, really an innovation and you did it first. And this blog is such a gift. Thank you, AAR could only be doomed when they ignored talent like you.

Sammy, your comments are classy, like you. You have given us so much -- and so has AAR: ideas, hope, direction -- and each other: the "talent" and us folk. Here's to an evolving relationship!

TONIGHT, 11 PM EST, Nicole Sandler will STILL be doing a show on SCOTUS screwing us with the Citizens United ruling -- from the UStream screen on her blog (which can used to jump to a bigger screen at UStream): http://radioornot.blogspot.com/

Reminder that her crew uses Thom Hartmann's chatroom so folks will likely be there tonight IF they have noted the announcement of the show, as I did, just minutes ago. Sorry about the late notice -- but I just learned about it at her blog.

Peace hugs,
Kate Anne

Maybe you will want to also:

www.movetoamend.org

Help fight back for Democracy.

toniD's Ya Think?

Tape delay of tonite"s
Mike Malloy show starts in about an hour

http://www.am1090seattle.com/

the 1st hour was great! imo

.
.
.
_ _ _

brr

SvM | brl vod | wtf

In 2005 I was in Hollywood on a vacation and Amy Goodman was there too at the same hotel as me...I asked her to sign her book "To the Majority Report Bloggers" and she asked me, "What is a blogger?....we've come a long way in that sense and Sam and Janeane I can thank for that...Janeane had rage and a certain amount of skepticism that no other AAR people emitted at the time...and she was one of the first to go...I feel like I missed out on a ton by not hearing her every single day since June 30th 2004...

Amy Goodman has similar skepticism sans the on air rage...so that's what I'm left with today...ALso, Amy looks at both sides (seemingly two, but one really in my view), from the perspective of the least heard humans...She goes where the silence is...Most people, the people who work hard to survive and all that jazz aren't represented by the democrats...they would have to be privileged enough to have a. time to become truly informed and b. a computer.

Tapper: Senate Dems not sure they can get the votes to reconfirm Bernanke

by John Aravosis (DC) on 1/21/2010 10:15:00 PM

One of the unexpected results of the Coakley defeat is, I think, a remarkable amount of spine suddenly arising from congressional liberals (i.e., refusing to accept the Senate HCR bill, and now, refusing to support Fed chair Bernanke's re-confirmation). At the same time, I think we're seeing both Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi telling the White House "if you want something, fight for it, don't just ask us to do your dirty work." Democrats in Congress want to keep their jobs more than they want to keep the White House happy. It took Coakley for them to understand that clearly, but now they seem to.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/01/senate-dems-not-sure-the...

toniD's Ya Think?

Just Now.
thanks tD

I'm watching the Live UStream Now
thanks KateAnne.

I'll be sleepwalking tommorrow at work.

We told you this was going to be a long, hard fight – thank you for sticking with us to take action on each and every unacceptable assault by the Obama Administration on our wild horses. We are up against deeply entrenched special interests who want wild horses removed from public lands so they can conduct business as usual. That means cheap usage of our public land for their private profits at the horses’ and taxpayers’ expense.
It’s time to get public comments in on another large removal of wild horses planned by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This time the BLM intends to remove over 500 of the estimated 645 horses living in or near the “Eagle Herd Management Area” in eastern Nevada outside of Ely. While 500 individuals is fewer than the 2,500 horses currently being rounded up and removed from the Calico Complex in northwest Nevada, the Eagle roundup is even more ludicrous because it is 125,000 acres larger than Calico, but the government will only allow 100 horses to remain! In Calico, by contrast, 500-900 horses will be left behind in the approximately 500,000-acre public land complex.
The proposed Eagle HMA plan puts these wild horses at great risk because the BLM is reducing the number of horses to dangerously low numbers, which could threaten the viability of the herd. Many horse advocates believe this is the BLM’s method of systematically dwindling horse population numbers down to untenable levels in order to ultimately eradicate these American living legends from public lands.
The Obama Administration is continuing the Bush Administration policy of targeting wild horses in order to serve special cattle and other industry interests. Under President Obama's oversight, the BLM is actually accelerating the pace of wild horse removals, with 12,000 horses targeted for capture from our public lands in Fiscal Year 2010 alone. The majority of these horses will be sent to government holding facilities, where they will join the 35,000 wild horses already stockpiled at taxpayer expense.

Please click here to send an e-mail to all the relevant decision-makers. Take the time today to submit your comments and protest against another massive Obama Administration wild horse roundup.

https://secure2.convio.net/ida/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=User...

"we've come a long way in that sense and Sam and Janeane I can thank for that...Janeane had rage and a certain amount of skepticism that no other AAR people emitted at the time...and she was one of the first to go...I feel like I missed out on a ton by not hearing her every single day since June 30th 2004..."

Is taking a jab at Keith O tonight.

And John Olver's show on Comedy Central tomorrow night will have Janeane on.

toniD's Ya Think?

IDA is thrilled that The Cove, the film about our Save Japan Dolphins Coalition, has won Best Documentary at the Critics' Choice Awards! This award often accurately predicts which documentary will win the Oscar, so our hopes are high.

As reported by Ecorazzi, "The Cove beat out other likely Oscar nominees like the brilliant Food, INC., Michael Jackson’s This Is It, and Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story. It was also recently selected for “The David Attenborough Award for Excellence in Nature Filmmaking” for the 25th Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The award “celebrates not just nature film making, but environmental causes,” said organizer Roger Durling, “and no better film has done it that The Cove this year.” Oscar nominations are announced February 2nd.

AIG retention bonus recipients no longer there
by Chris in Paris on 1/21/2010 02:55:00 PM
What fool approved this idea? The news from AIG never gets better.

A substantial number of AIG's Financial Products employees set to get some $195 million in retention payments no longer work with the bailed out insurer, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

This will be the latest round of retention payments to the staff of the American International Group unit that was behind the insurer's spectacular losses from credit derivatives and downfall in September 2008.

Original link:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/34970556

toniD's Ya Think?

In 2005 I was in Hollywood on a vacation and Amy Goodman was there too at the same hotel as me...I asked her to sign her book "To the Majority Report Bloggers" and she asked me, "What is a blogger?....we've come a long way in that sense and Sam and Janeane I can thank for that...Janeane had rage and a certain amount of skepticism that no other AAR people emitted at the time...and she was one of the first to go...I feel like I missed out on a ton by not hearing her every single day since June 30th 2004...

Amy Goodman has similar skepticism sans the on air rage...so that's what I'm left with today...ALso, Amy looks at both sides (seemingly two, but one really in my view), from the perspective of the least heard humans...She goes where the silence is...Most people, the people who work hard to survive and all that jazz aren't represented by the democrats...they would have to be privileged enough to have a. time to become truly informed and b. a computer.

Find Nicole Sandler on her UStream blog, embedded on her blog:

http://radioornot.blogspot.com/

Peace Hugs,
Kate Anne

I changed it between when my internet went down....I didn't notice the first one went up...

http://www.savedemocracy.net/

For giving all of us a space to have a wonderful blogging community of unique and remarkable citizens.

Submitted by Ducavurl on Thu, 01/21/2010 - 10:17pm.
A few months after AAR came on the air, a Jewish buddy of mine told me that AAR would fail because, "they have too many Jews
-----

The only show left on Air America that one could consider liberal was Ring Of Fire and that atheist show. The name of that show escapes me at the moment. When they replaced Sam with David Bender, that was a pure idiocy. But when they hired Montel and Lionel, failure was a certainly.

Mark Green also hired his relatives and friends. It sucked! Perhaps Mark Green wanted to use Air America to launch his own political career. He's been trying to run for office, forever. However, he sucks.

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez Wednesday accused the United States of causing the destruction in Haiti by testing a 'tectonic weapon' to induce the catastrophic earthquake that hit the country last week.

President Chavez said the US was "playing God" by testing devices capable of creating eco-type catastrophes, the Spanish newspaper ABC quoted him as saying.

A 7.0-magnitude quake rattled the desperately poor country on January 12, killing an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people. As Haiti looks to the world for basic sustenance, the authorities say the biggest dangers facing survivors are untreated wounds and rising disease.

Following the quake, appeals for humanitarian aid were responded to globally. However, the nation is struggling with violence and looting as aid is still not enough for the tens of thousands left homeless and injured.

Chavez said the killer earthquake followed a test of "weapon of earthquakes" just offshore from Haiti. He did not elaborate on the source of his claim.

The outspoken leader had earlier accused the US of occupying Haiti "under the guise of the natural disaster."

At least 11,000 US troops have been dispatched to the country to provide security for aid distribution efforts.

Venezuelan media have reported that the earthquake "may be associated with the project called HAARP, a system that can generate violent and unexpected changes in climate."

HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, is a study run in Alaska directed at the occasional reconfiguration of the properties of the Earth's ionosphere to improve satellite communications.

Former US Secretary of Defense William Cohen in 1997 expressed concerned over countries engaging "in eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves."

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116688&sectionid=351020704

American actor and activist Sean Penn has arrived in Haiti with aid and relief supplies as part of a mission led by former US presidential candidate John Edwards.

Penn and Edwards are part of a group which has flown to the Caribbean nation to hand out food and supplies to the survivors of last week's magnitude-7.0 earthquak.

The Oscar winning actor has become known for using his resources to help those in need after disasters — he visited New Orleans, Louisiana a week after Hurricane Katrina hit the region in 2005 and helped to rescue people stranded by floods.

An estimated 200,000 people are believed to have died in the earthquake, while another 250,000 are said to be injured.

Earlier in the week the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) described the situation in the Central American nation as "catastrophic."

"Prices for food and transport have skyrocketed since last Tuesday and incidents of violence and looting are on the rise as the desperation grows," the ICRC said in a statement on Monday.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116753&sectionid=351020706

–Rescue Worker Describes Pulling Woman Out of Rubble 7 Days After Haiti Quake

...
AMY GOODMAN: What did she say to you? When you could touch her, she could talk, but you couldn’t yet free her.

JEAN-PHILIPPE OUSTALET: [translated] We told her that we could get her, and she was saying, “Thank you.” But we told her we weren’t there for the thank yous.

AMY GOODMAN: How did it make you feel?

JEAN-PHILIPPE OUSTALET: [translated] I’m a search and rescue specialist, which has come for twenty years to all the catastrophes. [in English] It’s my better day, because I have found a lot of cadavres. [translated] I found a lot of cadavers. [in English] And when you found one life, my best day.

AMY GOODMAN: Your best day? Your best day?

JEAN-PHILIPPE OUSTALET: My best day, after—as securist, it was my—I have three best day: when I know my wife and when my two childrens was born and, after, yesterday.

AMY GOODMAN: Jean-Philippe Oustalet, head of Rescuers Without Borders, the team that had come to Haiti. Yes, one of the best days of his life, he said, in this horror show that is the earthquake that has rocked Haiti to the core.
...

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/21/she_had_a_desire_to_live

Young Woman Fights for Her Life After Being Pulled from the Rubble

...
DR. ERIC THAM: Eric Tham, I’m a pediatric emergency physician from the Children’s Hospital in Denver. This is probably the hardest case I’ve seen so far. There’s a twenty-some-year-old woman out there that’s a medical student, in her medical school when the earthquake happened, was buried alive for three days and survived by drinking of the blood of other people around her. And one of the fathers from one of the parishes around brought her—brought her to us this morning for further care. We put her IV in and were hoping to send her to another hospital that had intensive care capabilities. After circling around and—probably an hour or so, they finally found the compound where these physicians were, and they took her in. And then they saw that she might have a head injury, so there wasn’t much for her to do, so they brought her back here.

AMY GOODMAN: Can she speak?

DR. ERIC THAM: She has been speaking. They said she’s lucid.

AMY GOODMAN: How has this experience changed you, being here?

DR. ERIC THAM: I mean, I think it’s going to take some time for me to absorb all this. And you saw, this is the first time I’ve broken down since I’ve been here.

AMY GOODMAN: We followed Dr. Tham back behind the house to a soccer field where as many as a thousand people have taken refuge, where Patricia Cherie was, to talk to her.

Tell us your name, how old you are.

PATRICIA CHERIE: My name is Patricia.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you speak English?

PATRICIA CHERIE: [translated] No. I have been suffering for a long time. Everywhere I go, they just give me something and just send me home, but without getting ready. They just bring like this. That’s why I’m like that.

AMY GOODMAN: What happened to you? What happened in the earthquake?

PATRICIA CHERIE: [translated] She’s learning nurse, and one time—and she just said that the building fall down, and all the wall [inaudible] concrete fall on her. And I was sitting on a chair, and all the concrete fall on me. And the concrete all over my head. They cannot do anything for the head. And she probably goes somewhere else just to take care of her head, because everywhere she go, they say, no, nothing, nothing.

AMY GOODMAN: How did you survive?

PATRICIA CHERIE: [translated] OK, when she was under the concrete, and she says that “Anyway, I cannot stay here. I should do something to get out of there.” And then I was since 5:00—OK, 5:00 at night, and I get out at 11:00. And I scream out, calling Jesus. OK, and she was—I was thirsty, and then I just drink some water, and I find blood instead of water.

AMY GOODMAN: The blood of…?

PATRICIA CHERIE’S TRANSLATOR: The other students who were with her.
...

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/21/in_haiti_stories_of_desperation_an...

AMY GOODMAN AND JUAN GONZALES AND SHARIF KOUDOUSS AND ELIZABETH PRESS, ET AL.

but I'm also aware that the fact that you and I have the ability to adjust the temperature in our immediate environment is a blessing or whatever you want to call it...

is robbing the people blind!

http://www.abibitumikasa.com/forums/oppression-afrikans-economically/411...

(probably nothing...who knows)

YOU HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE! STOP THE LOOTING!
Jan 12, 2010 — admin 1. Forcing Americans to buy corporate products is unconstitutional! Send a letter for Medicare for All and share your ideas about how to build the single payer movement! (Learn more)
2. "People have said break 'em up. Well, I don't know anybody who can tell me in the abstract how to break 'em up." - Rep. Barney Frank LET'S TELL CONGRESS WE KNOW HOW!
3. Must read: the latest from the MOBILIZATION FOR HEALTH CARE FOR ALL!
This is a critical time in history. The economic collapse, energy shortages, job crisis, economic disparity, climate change impacts, and massive U.S. debt are all requiring change in government. We need to be in a position to push hard to make as much of the opportunities for change as possible and to build an organization that can have a longer term impact on creating an economy that works for the American people. I hope you will support our efforts with a donation and that you will stay involved and take action! - Kevin Zeese, Executive Director

http://www.prosperityagenda.us/node/88

(Says them...)

DJ Y alias JY – Rage Against Stratus - Rage Against The Machine – Killing In The Name Of Billy Cobham – Stratus

http://akamat.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/do-miracles-happen-12/

Rohaan Solare has spent the last ten years tracking and testing Dr. Jose Argüelles' interpretation of the Tzolkin Code as presented in Argüelles' 1987 book, The Mayan Factor.  Solare wants to prove that Argüelles was on the correct path by clarifying and expounding upon what he calls "Tzolkin Dynamics"--the inner workings of the interelated, discrete entities that make up the Tzolkin Code--which is itself the core component of the Ancient Maya-Meso-American Calendrical system. These entities have specific functions, locations and relationships in space-time, much like that of any mechano-dynamical system be it a DNA molecule, a cell or the human body. Solare goes beyond simply clarifying and validating aspects of the Argüellen interpretation--including his controversial date count, which differs from all other calenders--by relating Tzolkin Dynamics to other accepted bodies of scientific knowledge such as genetics, physics and chemistry. He also uses Tzolkin Dynamics to reveal a possible science of synchronicity:

According to Solare:
"The science of synchronicity can be defined as the knowledge and study of how energy-matter (EM) comes together, reacts, interacts, develops and evolves (events) and moves about (events) to create increasingly complex systems of organization (multiple simultaneous events) and the resultant coherent interaction among the various systems.

Systems beginning with atoms, then molecules, unicellular organisms, multi-cellular organisms and finally multi-organismic systems. Humanity would be at the top of what I call a multi-organismic system.

A system may be as simple as an atom (micro-system) or as complex as a human being (macro-system) who is composed of between 7 to 8 trillion cells (micro-systems) all working in near perfect harmony (synchrony)." 
 
Image: "Composite image of spiral galaxy M106".

Take Your Mama Out, mp3

:)

http://www.m-1.us/The_Antenna_Repairmen_-_Marvin_s_Udu_Voodoo__excerpt_....

The Antenna Repairmen are a Los Angeles trio who perform music solely on invented ceramic instruments. Some are pans filled with water that are struck with sticks, some are xylophone-like keyboards, and some look like jugs, as pictured on their cover of their album "Ghatam":

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120545208&sc=fb&cc=...

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirms that American security firms Xe Services LLC, formerly known as Blackwater, and DynCorp have been operating in Pakistan.

The two firms are operating in private capacities, Gates said on Thursday, adding that the companies were abiding by Pakistani laws.

However, he said that if the Pakistani parliament votes for a ban on the presence of the firms, the US government would comply with it.

Blackwater won notoriety for having gone on a shooting rampage in a heavily trafficked Baghdad intersection in September 2007 killing more than a dozen Iraqi civilians.

Blackwater Worldwide changed its name to Xe Services LLC in February 2009, after it came under international criticism for its disregard for civilian lives.

Two former Blackwater mercenaries have also been charged with the 2009 murder of two Afghan civilians in Kabul.

Asad Durani, former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had earlier told Press TV that the notorious firm, Blackwater, was involved in the deadly drone attacks on Pakistani territories, which usually result in civilian casualties.

"I learned somewhere that these people are employed certainly for…the logistic support at the drone bases. That is understandable," Durani said earlier in January.

Gates, meanwhile, said that Washington is considering sharing its Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology with Pakistan.

"These UAVs are useful and we have a budget for them," Gates said in an interview with a privately-run Pakistani television on Thursday.

He claimed that the drones had proved productive in Afghanistan and Iraq.
...

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116754&sectionid=351020401

Submitted by M the a-c on Thu, 01/21/2010 - 7:28pm.
ANYWAY, Schultz would probably argue that AAR was much more of a hinderance to him and he would probably have hit it big much sooner if not for AAR.
-----
Submitted by edna ellen poe on Thu, 01/21/2010 - 9:07pm.

Here you are dead wrong
____________

I didn't write that it was true or false. I wrote that he would argue it. It's something to ponder. I often write things in an objective way then let other people think about it.

"You look so tired-unhappy
Bring down the government
They don't, they don't speak for us"
-Radiohead.
www.sigzone.blogspot.com

To counteract this decision
new
Submitted by toniD on Thu, 01/21/2010 - 1:53pm.
I think we should impose a tax on corporations. Just an idea but we have to think of the type of tax they would have to pay for the commons. Enough of a tax that after paying investors, they don't have enough money to spend on anything that is not business related. Not enough to give big donations to polys without hurting their business needs.

Any ideas on a backlash type of policy to hinder Corporations from giving campaign money?

===========================

Does not sound like such taxes would bring the results you desire.

If the corporations cut down campaign contributions from millions to thousands, the politicos would still take the bribes to pass pro-corporation legislation, and it would still be the greatest return on investment of any corporate investment! Prominent donors always go the head of the line with politicos, no matter what.

Plus, with this ruling, the corps can use their "Free $$$peech" anyway they please. I expect to see them printing political ads on products or sales coupons or running split ads on TV (half advertising, half political), or any manner yet unimagined by mere citizenry.

Thanks..

Been back for a day or so..
Just don't feel like writing much..
I had a good time up North,though..
My Sister's surprise Birthday party was too much fun..
And,She had a great time too..
Friends & relatives came from all over the country..
If you knew her you would know why..She's very nice & cool..

Man,I almost forgot how beautiful it is up there..
SLO,Moro Bay,Pismo Beach..
I want to move to Pismo Beach..Maybe,in a year or two if
I can get the dough together..

I hope everyone has been doing well..
Are Toni & Bibi doing ok ?
I hope so.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

Thanks for the "Take Your Mama out Tonight". :)
Cool song..
Sounds abit like some old Elton John tunes,
back when he could hit the higher octaves..

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

while this shows how badly we need publicly financed campaigns, the least they could do is force corporations to identify their sponsorship in plain english and not let them hide behind some cute name. maybe it would get people to think a little more.

If your out there ?

www.licorice-pizza.blogspot.com

The Saints:

“Kissin’ Cousins”
“Night In Venice,”

http://licorice-pizza.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-thought-this-was-love-but-t...

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

Conan's last show is tonight. A few minutes ago (12:30 A.M., folks) I drove by the line that forms to get tickets for Conan's show. There are maybe 25 people camped outside-- mostly older crazy-looking men and college-aged guys. All white.

I might take my place amongst the nutbags in a few hours. The line is within walking distance of my apartment. I'm willing to wait a couple of hours. As it is, the people who are in line now will wait at least 6. THAT... I'm unwilling to do.

"You look so tired-unhappy
Bring down the government
They don't, they don't speak for us"
-Radiohead.
www.sigzone.blogspot.com

Isn't it against the law in some parts to organize a boycott - that is, to NOT spend money? Why isn't NOT Spending Money NOT SPEECH, while when Corporations $pend Money it IS 'Free $$$peech'?

Upside-down and backwards world makes me dizzy.

just asking because i never heard of that.

Submitted by edna ellen poe on Thu, 01/21/2010 - 9:07pm.
Submitted by M the a-c on Thu, 01/21/2010 - 7:28pm.
ANYWAY, Schultz would probably argue that AAR was much more of a hinderance to him and he would probably have hit it big much sooner if not for AAR.
-----

Here you are dead wrong. When Schultz radio show emerged, listeners assumed he was part of Air America. This is also true of Stephanie Miller. When audience members would thank Air America, Stephanie & Ed remained mum. They certainly did not reveal their true owners. That is, until Air America fell on hard times. Then Schultz & Miller proudly declared that they were not part of Air America.

Make no mistake about it, the former right-wing Republican Schultz, and silly Stephanie, rode the coattails of Air America to success.

» ==================

Yes, I heard that happen numerous times.

Schultz rode the AAR coattails, imo.

Previous to AAR I had listened to PACIFICA Radio, but it would bring me down and make current events seem impervious to efforts from the citizenry. I can't say I'm not sure this isn't a true portrayal of the situation in the late 20th/early 21st centuries. But I know I did feel heartened when AAR burst upon the scene in 2004 and I could see how progressive talk radio could make us feel ALIVE again --galvanizing some communities in broadcast areas, providing online blogging communities, energizing elections, showing us everyday how progressives can be ethical and factual in their delivery of their worldview, modelling the behavior of commitment to a cause for all us listeners, and still helping us LAUGH and enjoy ourselves despite the stew we're in!

Many thanks to SAM and all those who were really responsible for making AAR something worth remembering while we move on down the road. History was made in those first years, folks. History was made!

Sorry if already posted..

Who are these Corporate
F-ing Jackasses ? !

**

Activist U.S. Supreme Court Makes It Official, We're Now 'The Corporate States of America'

'We the People' lose, 'You the Corporations' Win..

The Brad Blog..

"The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation," wrote Justice John Paul Stevens in his dissenting opinion on today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, which will overturn decades of established campaign finance law.

"Threatens to"? That could be the understatement of the century. But this is what comes of not counting election results. We can thank, among a long list of others, John Kerry for having rolled over in Ohio in 2004.

Con't..

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7661

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

Chavez says US 'weapon' caused Haiti quake
Submitted by Alice on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 12:29am.
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez Wednesday accused the United States of causing the destruction in Haiti by testing a 'tectonic weapon' to induce the catastrophic earthquake that hit the country last week.

President Chavez said the US was "playing God" by testing devices capable of creating eco-type catastrophes, the Spanish newspaper ABC quoted him as saying.

A 7.0-magnitude quake rattled the desperately poor country on January 12, killing an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people. As Haiti looks to the world for basic sustenance, the authorities say the biggest dangers facing survivors are untreated wounds and rising disease.

Following the quake, appeals for humanitarian aid were responded to globally. However, the nation is struggling with violence and looting as aid is still not enough for the tens of thousands left homeless and injured.

Chavez said the killer earthquake followed a test of "weapon of earthquakes" just offshore from Haiti. He did not elaborate on the source of his claim.

The outspoken leader had earlier accused the US of occupying Haiti "under the guise of the natural disaster."

...
======================

If you watched the H.A.A.R.P. video I posted a few weeks back, you might remember that this device is used to take "photographs"/readings/maps of the Earth's crust to considerable depths using radiofrequency waves -- projecting/sending the super-hot radio waves, bouncing them off satellites to the Earth where they bounce back up and are recorded for the unique readings that are given for each Earth crust material. Could a tectonic disaster have been triggered just by using H.A.A.R.P. as the government claims it is being used for making Earth crust maps? I have even less of an understanding how the radio frequencies are used for sonar-to-satellite submarine tracking, but could that be another way something could've gone haywire?

Just a thought.

Speaking of 'Biblical', wasn't it Joshua and friends who brought down the walls of Jericho by blowing horns or something? I would not be surprised if the Christian Right elements of the U.S. Military had looked to develop a sound/vibration weapon.

Without proof, though, it seems Chavez is all bark. I wonder what will happen next.

viv48

I listened to AAR the first day, boy did I need it back then. I had been out of work at the time and I listened all day long. I believe AAR almost saved the country but unfortunately they couldn't, they screwed up by getting rid of the people who made a difference. Boy, do we need the independent voices now! I must thank all the people who made a difference in our lives, Marc Maron, Rachel Maddow, Liz Winstead, Chuck Dee, Al Franken, Randi Rhodes, Bobby Kennedy, Mike Papintonio, Mike Maloy, Jeanane Garofalo and of course Sam Seder. You hung in there Sam for the longest time and I appreciated it. We need you back and I hope that something comes along so you can keep us informed and laughing. RIP AAR

Interesting question.

MLK and other boycotters arrested for boycotting buses--

http://www.history.com/genericContent.do?id=61688

[excerpt]

About 90 boycotters, including King, were indicted under a law forbidding conspiracy to obstruct the operation of a business. Found guilty, King immediately appealed the decision. Meanwhile, the boycott stretched on for more than a year, and the bus company struggled to avoid bankruptcy. On November 13, 1956, in Browder v. Gayle, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision declaring the bus company’s segregation seating policy unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. King, called off the boycott on December 20, and Rosa Parks—known as the —mother of the civil rights movement”—would be one of the first to ride the newly desegregated buses.

[excerpt]

------------

And -- Office of Antiboycott Compliance in the Dept. of Commerce created by Congress in 1977.

http://www.boycottwatch.org/abi/divest002.htm

And this from Wiki--

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_States#Ban_on_mate...

[excerpt]

[edit] Ban on material support for foreign boycotts
Main article: Economic and political boycotts of Israel
A law passed by the U.S. Congress in 1977 prohibits all U.S. persons, defined to include individuals and companies located in the United States and their foreign affiliates, from supporting the boycott of Israel and provides penalties for those who willingly comply with the boycott. The B.I.S. website states:[15]

Conduct that may be penalized under the TRA and/or prohibited under the EAR includes:

Agreements to refuse or actual refusal to do business with or in Israel or with blacklisted companies.
Agreements to discriminate or actual discrimination against other persons based on race, religion, sex, national origin or nationality.
Agreements to furnish or actual furnishing of information about business relationships with or in Israel or with blacklisted companies.
Agreements to furnish or actual furnishing of information about the race, religion, sex, or national origin of another person.
Implementing letters of credit containing prohibited boycott terms or conditions.
The TRA does not "prohibit" conduct, but denies tax benefits ("penalizes") for certain types of boycott-related agreements.
On this basis, some American businesses have been punished for answering their customers' question about origin of their products.[16][17]

Some pro-Israeli activists have construed the law as forbidding speech and expression that supports any boycott of Israel (as opposed to actions taken to comply with the requests of foreign entities to boycott Israel) whether foreign in origin or domestic, and asked the US Anti-Boycott Office to prosecute divestment campaigners against Israel.[18]

However, it is clear that the law only forbids material participation in or material support of a boycott originated by a foreign nation or organization, not with a domestic boycott campaign, nor can the law be construed as forbidding speech that politically or morally (as opposed to materially) supports any boycott, whether foreign, or domestic. The law only prevents US organizations from being used by alien entities as agents of their foreign policy, when that foreign policy includes the pursuit of boycotting arrangements; it does not prevent US organizations or individuals from choosing how to spend or invest their money based on business or ethical considerations; it only forbids doing so as the result of a foreign entity's request. Material attempts to suppress speech through induction of state action under false pretenses, such as by claiming a domestic boycott campaign is foreign in origin may be unlawful, and may constitute conspiracy against civil rights, a Federal crime, punishable by fine and imprisonment. (Such speech is considered to be core political speech under the US Constitution, and any state actions interfering with core political speech are subject to the strictest Constitutional scrutiny.)

[end excerpt]

---------

And -- secondary boycotts --

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Secondary+Boycott

[excerpt]

-------------------

This is about group boycotts. Hey, maybe they will try to make it an expression of freedom of speech...

http://definitions.uslegal.com/b/boycott/

[excerpt]

A boycott is is an agreement by two or more people who refuse to do business with a person or company. Unlike a single company's boycott, or a boycott by consumers of a particular business, a group boycott is illegal under antitrust laws because it has the effect of restraining freedom of trade. A group boycott is a per se violation of the antitrust laws; meaning that antitrust laws are violated even if the businesses do not intend to restrain competition.

[end excerpt]
Generally a secondary boycott is considered an Unfair Labor Practice when it is organized by a labor union. Congress first acted to prohibit secondary boycotts in the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947 (29 U.S.C.A. § 141 et seq.), also called the Taft-Hartley Act. The Taft-Hartley Act was a set of amendments to the National Labor Relations Act, also known as the Wagner Act of 1935 (29 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq.). Congress limits the right of labor unions to conduct secondary boycotts because such activity is considered basically unfair and because it can have a devastating effect on intrastate and interstate commerce and the general state of the economy.

On the federal level, the right of a labor union to arrange a secondary boycott is limited by section 8(b)(4) of the National Labor Relations Act. Under the act, no labor union may threaten, coerce, or restrain any person engaged in commerce in order to force that person to cease doing business with any other person (29 U.S.C.A. § 158(b)(4)(ii)(B)). Secondary boycotts may be enjoined, or stopped, by order of a federal court, and an aggrieved business may file suit in court against the party initiating the secondary boycott to recover any monetary damages that resulted. If the federal act somehow does not cover the actions of a labor union in a particular case, an aggrieved business may seek relief under state laws.

[end excerpt]

at first i thought that last paragraph implied boycotts were illegal but the uslegal.com writing says unions cannot organize boycotts nor can they organize a boycott against a company that does business with the target of a union action as a means of bringing pressure on a negotiation.

it sounds like consumer boycotts are allowed but i would defer to sharper minds than mine.

Friday! Friday! Friday!

It's Friday! Boo ya!!!!

Forecast calls for 74 degrees and mostly sunny. Hope I don't nut myself in anticipation of this here sun rise.

Is Geithner On the Outs in Obama's White House?

The Big Money
Thu Jan 21, 2010 10:32pm EST

The Washington Post today speculates on whether Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is on the outs in the Obama Administration. The story hits all the dramatic notes from yesterday’s announcement that President Obama was proposing Paul Volcker’s version of a new Glass-Steagall Act over Geithner and economics advisor Larry Summers’ more modest plans for reform. Volcker, standing right behind the president, beamed. Geithner, further away, struck an emotionless pose. An anonymous figure says, “his influence may have slipped.” Geithner has actually agreed with Volcker’s thinking all along, just, you know, not enough to actually support his actual proposal until now. The second half of the article explains how Volcker, finding little support in the White House or Treasury, took his campaign out to the streets, or wherever it is economists and retired CEOs hang out, and picked up advocates outside of government. After reaching a critical mass, Austan Goolsbee, aligned and along with Vice President Biden, started pushing Volcker’s views. By late December, Obama was telling Geithner and Summers to go along and draft a legislative proposal incorporating Volcker’s ideas rather than theirs. As a reminder, the heart of Volcker’s proposal is to prevent banks taking advantage of their government protection as key components of the financial system to engage in prop trading, or investing with their own money, sometimes in direct conflicts with their clients’ interests. Of course, the proposal must now be voted on by Congress. The New York Times by the way, examines the populist overtones in Obama’s message, and mentions the fact that the political team considers the economic team of Geithner and Summers, “politically tone deaf.” Flooding the zone, it also gives voice to the plan’s critics.

[...]

Reuters

If he is going to clean house, he is going to need a pretty big dumpster....

that law by which Martin Luther King was arrested is still in force. I didn't see anything that said it was repealed.

The "secondary boycott" seems a refinement. I wonder if a "general strike" would fall under that?

Is that show still on?

There would be signs of radiation n'est pas?

they won a case on federal appeal that basically exempts boycotts by groups for political reasons from the laws that ban boycotts for economic reasons...

I'll see if I can dig up a link.

So Ted Olson argued this case that the Roberts Supreme Fascist Court used to give our elections to the corporations? Is that so? I heard it on one of the talk shows today, but haven't read it yet. Sheesh.

Now I'm in a suspicious mood and looking at the gay marriage case Ted Olson is arguing in California and seeing the way Olson rushed the case as a possible set up. What crossed my mind is this: Only a few states have passed laws providing gays with equal rights to marriage. Usually if a substantial number of states show a shift that proves a cultural change, doesn't that serve as a tipping point the Supreme Court respects? The gay community was going that route, one state at a time, but then Ted Olson pops up and rushes this to court before this cultural shift can happen and more states come on board for equal rights for gays. The Olson strategy completely changes the direction of the strategy and knocks the wind out of a longterm approach, killing the whole endeavor if the case is lost in California OR the SCOTUS.

As I see it, no matter WHAT is decided in the court reviewing it now, when it goes to the Supreme COurt of the U.S., I cannot see the Five Fascist Justices passing it without more than a few states showing a proven cultural shift and pressure from society at large to accept this acknowledgment of gay rights.

From this perspective, the gradual method used by the lawyers of the gay community, before Ted Olson showed up, seems to have been a moderate and sensible approach.

If Olson is purposely rushing it to have it squashed by the Roberts Court, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised.

in Tucson last night. I don't know if it will make it to Texas.

"Okay yeah. Sandy reminded me but she is not my best friend" I'm not sure why Alice titled a comment (Amended) like that last night. She and I have gotten into discussions about whether to work within the Dem party or go outside of it. That is a big discussion for a lot of people right now. And it ties back to the way AAR broke ground for liberals/progressives. Sam did do something unique, he brought the online community to the listening one. Many online disdain talk radio but I think it was the way to reach the noninformed & non computer savy. But like the Dem party when it goes Rep lite, watered down is worse than nothing. The only show I missed from AAR at the end(XM dropped AAR over a year ago) was Ring of Fire.

i thought haarp was electromagnetic pulses.

wasn't there a steven segal movie that had some sort of space based weapon that could trigger earthquakes, etc.

No radiation with HAARP. It's just radiowave stuff...they use giant radio towers like a big radio station uses but bigger and more of them.

and gives the general idea of their effect.

Jstor

under freedom of speech, and bans of boycotts as censorship.

Hmmm.

There would be huge amounts of dead fish no cell phones would work and they did.

From the Ring of Fire blog:
fcousins posted on January 21, 2010 16:57

If you hadn't already heard, Air America Radio is ceasing operations as of this afternoon. Please take the time to read the message at AirAmerica.com.

We have been with Air America since the earliest days of the network, and it is very sad to see one of the only liberal outlets in this country have to close their doors. We believe very strongly in what Air America was working to accomplish, and their presence on the radio will be tremendously missed.

I'm sure you are all now wondering what will become of Ring of Fire. The short answer is "nothing." We will continue to run our weekly radio show. Ring of Fire is independently produced, and we were only syndicated through Air America. We will simply be syndicated through another company, but rest assured, you will not miss a single beat. We are still set to air as per usual.

BY BOB SECHLER

General Electric Co. posted a 19% slump in fourth-quarter profit as it was again dinged by a big drop in earnings at its finance arm and substantial weakness at its NBC Universal media unit.

But the overall results topped Wall Street expectations, and the conglomerate heralded "encouraging signs" at its infrastructure divisions

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870450970457501867240776227...

I'm on my way out the cyberdoor....

for that prompt info on Ring of Fire.

The Future of Ring of Fire...
new
Submitted by Cat Chew on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 8:41am

*******

Stupid AAR Suits !

I just hope Brendan,Josh,Lauren & all will be ok..
And,get new jobs fast.. :)

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

I was watching the Barrett-Jackson auction again last night where they bring in these beautiful old cars that go for wads of money. The whole thing is going on in Scottsdale. The storm was really intense and it seemed the people in the auction tent were starting to panic. It was very dramatic. I hope nobody's ride got ruined. That storm gets here at 9am tomorrow.

the NYC WWRL am 1600 airwaves were very boring late at night. I hope the management replaces him soon. We could use a live show with Sam on it !

I think the one hour of Rachel at 5:00Am from the TV show the night before will be gone.

AIR AMERICA IS DEAD! No joke!

(I wonder how petemoon is.)

Been mourning the loss of AAR for years. Wasn't crazy about the zombie version, but it's still sad news.

G'morning, taozen.

all :)

;)

G'morning. Good to see you!

who made the connection between Sam & Markos. There's a diary on the recommended list and I copied below one of the comments.

Air America brought me to Daily Kos. (15+ / 0-)

Sam Seder interviewed Markos frequently, and Janeane Garofalo talked about Big Orange too. AA is where I heard Rachel Maddow, Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, Bill Press, Marc Maron and Thom Hartmann for the first time -- in fact, where I heard of them. It was the jumping off point for Al Franken's Senatorial campaign.

It became endlessly frustrating to have to try to find the shows I liked with all the scheduling changes, and they made some terrible choices: Lionel instead of Sam Seder? Marc Maron gone?

Air America served a real purpose at the time, but -- frankly, once I got here, I didn't need it anymore. But because of AA, I realized there was a huge progressive community out there, and all I had to do was go into my kitchen.

So -- may Air America's memory be for a blessing, and I hope to listen to the people I like online -- when I'm not listening to music and blogging.

And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools trying to anesthetize the way that you feel... Elvis

China Slams Clinton's Internet Speech: 'Information Imperialism'

BEIJING � China rejected Friday a call by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for the lifting of restrictions on the Internet in the communist country, denouncing her criticism as false and damaging to bilateral ties.

A state-run newspaper labeled the appeal from Washington as "information imperialism."

Clinton's speech Thursday elevated the issue of Internet freedom in the U.S. human rights agenda as never before. She urged China to investigate cyber intrusions that recently prompted search engine Google to threaten to pull out of the country.

"Regarding comments that contradict facts and harm China-U.S. relations, we are firmly opposed," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement posted Friday on the ministry's Web site.

"We urge the U.S. side to respect facts and stop using the so-called freedom of the Internet to make unjustified accusations against China," the statement said.

In her speech in Washington, Clinton cited China as among a number of countries where there has been "a spike in threats to the free flow of information" over the past year. She also named Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam.

Ma defended China's policies promoting the Web, saying the nation boasted more than 380 million users, 3.6 million Web sites, and 180 million blogs.

"The Chinese Internet is open and China is the country witnessing the most active development of the Internet," Ma said, adding that China regulated the Web according to law and in keeping with its "national conditions and cultural traditions."
Story continues below

Internet control is considered a crucial matter of state security in China, and Beijing is not expected to offer any concessions to the U.S. Beijing promotes Internet use for commerce, but heavily censors content it deems pornographic, anti-social or politically subversive.

Chinese cyber police troll the Web for sensitive content, and many foreign news and social media sites, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, are permanently blocked. Following ethnic rioting in Xinjiang last summer, authorities cut off public Web access entirely to the western region, portions of which they have only recently begun restoring.

Clinton's speech came on the heels of a Jan. 12 threat from Google to pull out of China unless the government relented on rules requiring the censorship of content the Communist Party considers subversive. The ultimatum came after Google said it had uncovered a computer attack that tried to plunder its software coding and the e-mail accounts of human rights activists protesting Chinese policies.

Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, said Thursday that the company hoped to find a way to maintain a presence in China but intended to stop censoring search results within "a reasonably short time."

U.S. State Department officials have said they intend to lodge a formal complaint with Chinese officials soon over the Google matter. Clinton not only urged China to investigate the cyber intrusions but openly publish its findings.

China has sought to downplay the Google dispute and Ma repeated China's standard line that its laws ban hacking and that it was a leading target for cyber crime.

On Thursday, Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency as saying the Google case "should not be linked with relations between the two governments and countries; otherwise, it's an over-interpretation."

Clinton's speech was also denounced by an official newspaper Friday as part of a U.S. campaign to impose its values and denigrate other cultures, labeling it "information imperialism."

China must defend itself from information from the West that comes "loaded with aggressive rhetoric against those countries that do not follow their lead," said the English-language Global Times, published by the Communist Party's official People's Daily as part of a government-sponsored campaign to develop international media and influence opinion about China overseas.

"Unlike advanced Western countries, Chinese society is still vulnerable to the effect of multifarious information flowing in, especially when it is for creating disorder," the newspaper said. It offered no examples.

As part of Washington's promotion of Internet freedoms, U.S. diplomats in China have reached out to bloggers as a method of skirting Beijing's Internet controls, sometimes called the "Great Firewall of China."

On Friday, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou were hosting Internet-streamed discussions with members of the blogging community to "share insights and answer questions about Clinton's speech," the embassy said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/22/china-slams-clintons-inte_n_432...

toniD's Ya Think?

Standing Up For Internet Freedom

John Kerry, 01.21.2010

The recent dispute between China and Google, and the use of Twitter in Iran made many aware for the first time of the potential for technology to aid those standing up for change. It belongs in our foreign policy discussion.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-kerry/standing-up-for-internet_b_4313...

toniD's Ya Think?

My first post Air America show

Today was a tough day. After learning that Air America had ceased operations, following the horrendous Supreme Court ruling on corporate campaign contributions, I knew I had to get back on the air, or web, as it were.

Thanks to all who came and watched & listened. I appreciate the support more than you know!

I'm going to take tomorrow off, have a long weekend, regroup, and I'll be back Monday. I'm not sure what time I'll be on, though. The late night thing does take it's toll, so I'll likely move the show to an earlier time slot. Your suggestions are welcome (nicole at nicolesandler.com).

Please check back here over the weekend or Monday morning, as I'll be sure to have an update here!

They're not just a dumb idea, they don't actually work.

BoingBoing: Naked airport scanner catches cellphone, misses bomb components

What the TSA's new body scanner images look like

for grousing and moaning about the demise of aar

very interesting

http://www.airamericaplace.com/index.php?showtopic=30681&st=0

and through that link i got here

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lizz-winstead/finding-a-new-voice_b_218912...

basically we will have to go and dig up the shows we like one by one, they will all be scattered around somewhere in the blogosphere, and yeah grateful to aar for starting the trend, but still quite resentful at them for having squandered a great opportunity, building a fan base and proceed to disappoint them over and over by taking away from them the talent that had just started to build a loyal following, and it seemed like, the larger and more devoted the following the swifter and harder the kick in the pants these followers got - over and over - so that it is hard to classify this as an anomaly, an occasional mistake... looked more like this was the strategy, stupid and self defeating - giant screw up or incompetence or deliberate FAIL, who knows, fact is, there is little affection left in the end for this effed up outfit, the shell of its beautiful idea that it had become

but since this is a funeral and it's not polite to look at the negatives, but rather concentrate on good memories, well ok... but jeez that was so long ago... but ok, i will rewatch that aar launch documentary (what was the title?) this weekend and cry

U.S. newborns are weighing less, study finds
Average birth weights have dropped slightly from 1990 to 2005. Researchers are unclear why.

By Jeannine Stein

January 22, 2010

Birth weights in the United States are on the decline, a study has found. The report, released Thursday, found a small but significant decrease in average birth weights from 1990 to 2005, for reasons that scientists say are unclear.

The numbers, published in the February issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, mark a shift from earlier reports that noted a rise in birth weights in the latter part of the 20th century.

They also seem to go against conventional wisdom, experts said. In recent years, women have gotten larger, are smoking less and are older when they have children, all factors that contribute to higher birth weight in offspring.

The study looked at the records of 36,827,828 single full-term babies delivered between 1990 and 2005 in the United States, and it found an average decrease of 52 grams, or 1.83 ounces, in birth weight.

An even more dramatic decline was seen among a subset of women at low risk for small babies (women who were educated, married, white, didn't smoke, had early prenatal care and had vaginal deliveries with no complications). On average, this group's babies weighed 79 grams, or 2.79 ounces, less in 2005 than in 1990.

"We were startled by the findings," said senior author Dr. Emily Oken, assistant professor of population medicine at Harvard Medical School. "We tried really hard to explain it away, but we were unable to."

Details such as maternal age, race, education, tobacco use, when prenatal care started and weight gain during pregnancy did not explain the observed change, the authors said. Nor did changes in rates of cesarean or vaginal deliveries, whether labor was induced, whether ultrasounds were done or whether the mothers had medical conditions such as high blood pressure, eclampsia and diabetes.

[...]

LATimes

i have always felt that a whole lot of airport security was an illusion. accept that the facts get out pretty quickly, i think the full body scanners were supposed to scare people into thinking there was nothing you could hide...

awww

Get my stitches out today. After that post removal, this should be a breeze.

Later

toniD's Ya Think?

Best wishes for a prompt recovery.

MORNING 2 U ;)

to u toniD - u r right, after that
post removal anything is a breeze

They say things are done for the majority
don't believe half of what you see and none of what you hear
It's like what my painter friend Donald said to me
"Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they're done"

Americans don't care too much for beauty
they'll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream
They'll watch dead rats wash up on the beach
and complain if they can't swim

I really doubt 911 was an inside job. Then again, when I left high school back in '75, if you would have predicted the nightmare world to me we have now, I would have run like hell-- or called the pigs.

I completely agree as far as the Chavez, Nuke thing-ee
I did NOT believe what I read.
I know better than that (especially with our
fucked up media)

lose/lose defined.

One went bankrupt. The other just sucks.

Fernando has pretty much collected all of Majority Report. I recorded pretty much all of the first year from mid April to the end of the year. Maybe I can play them on BRR without fear of reprisal.

Personally it's been Dead-Air America for me ever since Sam stopped the Sunday Show so this news isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

might consider starting up a new liberal/progressive radio syndicate?

She's now uniquely positioned for such a venture - she has a massive web presence and could start with podcasts directly from HuffPo.

Arianna? Whaddya think?

"Americans don't care too much for beauty
they'll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream
They'll watch dead rats wash up on the beach
and complain if they can't swim"

yeah i know mb, the old stuff is out there in fernando's files, but you know, it's not the same as listening to a fresh show every morning... the fire and brimstone and humor are there but the news is old

right now for instance i really need to hear sam's voice on this SCOTUS abomination

"I did NOT believe what I read."
All we have is the internets. Can't see that lasting much longer.

Hightower: Bernanke Wants Even More God-Like Powers for the Federal Reserve:

Our financial rulers were so intoxicated with the fumes of their own omnipotence that they failed abjectly as regulators, as public servants and, most certainly, as gods.
Editor's Note: It's now come out that Ben Bernanke's future at the helm of the Federal Reserve is in question. "Bernanke's confirmation vote by the Senate for a second four-year term has been delayed, pending receipt by the committee of documents concerning the Fed's role in the massive bailouts of the U.S. financial industry in 2008 during the economic meltdown." The Huffington Post reported that on Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a Bernanke opponent, said that opposition was growing against his re-confirmation. And on Thursday Jim Manley, senior communications adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), said that the vote had not been firmly locked in and won't take place this week. A spokeswoman for the Federal Reserve referred questions to the Senate."

http://www.alternet.org/politics/145330/hightower%3A_bernanke_wants_even...

he'll either come on BlueRootsRadio or send me something to play. I sick and tired of asking.

I have made contact with Lawrence Lessig's staff and they are going to consider doing something once this latest abomination settles. I proposed an ongoing online Town Hall type show purely on the subject of campaign finance reform and they were warm to the idea.

Maybe Sam would consider hosting that?

I don't do rejection all that well anymore.

How to Disappear from Facebook and Twitter

Need to disappear from Facebook or Twitter? Now you can scrub yourself from the Internet with Web 2.0 Suicide Machine, a nifty service that purges your online presence from these all-consuming social networks. Since its Dec. 19 launch, Suicide Machine has assisted more than 1,000 virtual deaths, severing more than 80,500 friendships on Facebook and removing some 276,000 tweets from Twitter.

Once you hand over your log-in details and click Commit, the program will methodically delete your info — Twitter tweets, MySpace contacts, Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections — much like users could do manually. What remains is a brittle cyberskeleton: a profile with no data. Users seem to love it. Testimonials range from joyous farewells ("Goodbye, cruel world!") to good-riddance denouements ("Thank you, microblogging. You are, in fact, totally useless"). Suicide Machine is so popular that thousands of people are waiting their turn for their own cyberoffing. "Our server is so busy handling the requests," says Suicide Machine co-creator Walter Langelaar.

But be warned: As in life, resurrection is impossible. Going through the process means that your Web doppelgänger will croak for good. When it does, you'll receive a cybermemorial on the site. RIP, 2.0. We'll miss you.

{...]

Time

Sum? 11? 52,000? 14 mill?

Off the Carolinas the sun shines brightly in the day
the lighthouse glows ghostly there at night
The chief of a local tribe had killed a racist mayor's son
and he'd been on death row since 1958

The mayor's kid was a rowdy pig
spit on Indians and lots worse
The old chief buried a hatchet in his head
life compared to death for him seemed worse

The tribal brothers gathered in the lighthouse to sing
and tried to conjure up a storm or rain
The harbor parted, The Great American Whale
sprang full up
and caused a hugh tidal wave

Is the Supreme Court Decision so Important in a Web 2.0 World?
Can Corporations Compete in 'Pull' Media World Anyway?

Of course, I-- like many social critics-- am dismayed at the Supreme Court ruling striking down elements of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act, and essentially giving corporations carte blanche to pay for attack videos against candidates they do not like and to release them late in a campaign.

But some of the hand-wringing about the decision seems to me excessive for a number of reasons. Here I am going to put on my hat as a blogger and as someone who has been deeply involved in the rise of internet communication, if in the narrow corner of foreign policy blogging.

The first thing to say is that it is not as if corporate interests were not already deeply involved in the electoral process. For instance, it has come out that five insurance companies funneled big money into attack ads against insurance reform. How? They just gave it to the Chamber of Commerce, which shares their view that 37 million Americans shouldn't get sick and if they do they should die quickly (as Rep. Alan Grayson correctly put it). Since there are so many already-existing work-arounds, the SCOTUS decision is less of a change than it might seem.

www.juancole.com

By that Sam must mean he can add unemployed radio host to the list. He is already an unemployed stand-up comedian. An unemployed Tv actor. An unemployed movie actor. And an unemployed author. When you add, law school drop-out, Sam has real good chance at the failure hall-of-fame! Maybe it's time for a singing career!

By that Sam must mean he can add unemployed radio host to the list. He is already an unemployed stand-up comedian. An unemployed Tv actor. An unemployed movie actor. And an unemployed author. When you add, law school drop-out, Sam has real good chance at the failure hall-of-fame! Maybe it's time for a singing career!

will Glen Beck urge such graciousness?:

Honduras offers Zelaya safe passage

The incoming Honduran president has agreed to offer Manuel Zelaya, the ousted leader, safe passage to the Dominican Republic.

Porfirio Lobo said on Wednesday that Zelaya, who was deposed in a coup in June, would be allowed to leave Honduras as part of a settlement to the country's lengthy political crisis.

The deal will allow Zelaya, who has been holed up in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa since September, to leave Honduras without being arrested.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/01/201012103810783687.ht...

Lizz Winstead tweeted that she's going to make some of the original Unfiltered shows on her BROADcast website sometime soon.

http://thebroadcast.us/

A conspiracy theorist??!! Who knew?!?

U.S. Earthquake machine test!

What, no sharks with frikkkin laser beams attached to their heads to surround the Hatian side of the island??

The (surely government produced) hurricane that passed over Arizona last night tore the roof off of one of my mom's porches.

I'm never getting out of here.

RAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHMMMM!

*shakes fist at sky*

morning :)

"this machine kills fascists"

Tea Cheers smcgee43 & top o' the day 2 U

and toniD Tea Cheers &

;D teahee ;)

http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-hate-war_21.html

I'm happy to hear you enjoyed your trip...

You're right about Morro Bay and Pismo...(and of course, Shell Beach :) Cambria is around there too I think..Those all look like such beautiful places to live...And Montecito...that place looks pretty hoity toity ....I heard Ellen D has a house there...and Pamela Bellwood too (she used to be on Dynasty)...

Don't forget to have a party when you move there.. ;)

Subscribe to Malloy

Farron Cousins has updated the RoF blog that the show will now be with a different distributor.

Maybe now they'll have Sam come in from time to time again?
http://ringoffireradio.com/BlogEngine/post/The-Future-of-Ring-of-Fire.as...

Thank U to "Bart-Cop" 4 the photos.

to keep people from dying. They need five anger white men to syndicate the nation.

Who's activist now? In election spending case, conservatives

During his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing, Roberts assured lawmakers that he would strive to achieve more unified court decisions. He further insisted that "judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent" that binds the court.

However, in what New York University Law School Professor Burt Neuborne called a "terrible, terrible body blow" to the court's institutional standing, Thursday's decision explicitly reversed an entire 1990 decision and part of a 2003 decision. Stevens spent a good portion of his 90-page dissent denouncing the seeming disregard for stare decisis, the principle of heeding past decisions.

"The majority blazes through our precedents, overruling or disavowing a body of case law," Stevens wrote, adding that "the path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution."

Ironically, the 57-page opinion that united the court's conservative wing might also provide ammunition for critics of "activist" judges....

"Hillary: The Movie" blasted Clinton amid her unsuccessful presidential run. The initial Supreme Court arguments heard last March centered on whether campaign finance restrictions covered the Clinton movie, though the film never explicitly told viewers to vote against her.

In an unusual twist, though, the court first ordered a second round of arguments to expand the case. The court's final decision Thursday did what Citizens United had given up on, which is to explicitly strike down part of the campaign finance law.

"Any other course of action would prolong the substantial, nationwide chilling effect caused by (the law's) prohibition on corporate expenditures," Kennedy wrote.

(i love this):
...legal scholar Ilya Shapiro of the libertarian Cato Institute insisted that "more spending — more political communication — leads to better informed voters.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/82798.html

Something tells me this one is gonna be good....

kpoj

Thoms Line up today...

Benie
Elizabeth Warren
Ralph Nader...

WOW...I may just listen to the whole show today...

pismu village near Pismo Beach, "tar" in Obispeño

Submitted by Cat Chew on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 9:07am.
(I wonder how petemoon is.)
------
Last night I wrote a post that didn't make the cut with the Bait editorial board (those bastards!). In short, it thanked AAR for bringing Petemoon to my cyber-acquaintance in a roundabout way. He's a pun master and a straight line bloodhound whose relentless gaiety continues to hold me in awe. (The previous sentence is Bait bait for Peter; come out, come out wherever you are...again.)
------------------------------
Submitted by Sandy on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 9:30am.
...But because of AA, I realized there was a huge progressive community out there, and all I had to do was go into my kitchen[,]
------
knock down an ankle-biter and wrest the computer away.
------------------------------
Submitted by Cat Chew on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 9:42am.
Full-body scanners: They're not just a dumb idea, they don't actually work.
------
(Cat Chew is amongst the disgruntled purchasers of X-Ray Specs hawked on the back page of 1960's comic books.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Ray_Specs_(novelty)#History
------------------------------
Submitted by TexasT on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 11:03am.
------
Your last name has been appropriated by a disparate group of people having no plan beyond a vague sense of Libertarian anger. Thought you'd like to know.
------------------------------
Hugo Chavez!
Submitted by 60th Street on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 11:09am.
...What, no sharks with frikkkin laser beams attached...?
------
Two words: Laser cats.
(Arm your dogs before it's too late.)
------------------------------
Finally, a word to all of the screen names that I barely recognize from infrequent posts or don't recognize at all: Don't be strangers who wait for events like an AAR postmortem to post mors...or less.

The Idiot Brigade needs all the idiots it can muster.

?

link not working Alice?

http://www.thomhartmann.com/ has a link to listen live.

i was having trouble with my itunes so i downloaded their link for the mp3 on the listen live page and then added the .pls file to my itunes library. there's probably other ways.

the mp3 download is a .pls file with the following:

[playlist]
NumberOfEntries=1

File1=http://c1.mp3.liquidcompass.net/THSIO
Length1=-1

-----------

you can drop http://c1.mp3.liquidcompass.net/THSIO into the itunes advanced open audio stream to stream it directly.

Version=2

yes it was good....we all move on and can continue to get the greats (Maddow, Hartmann, and, I hope, Ring of Fire) online.

Meanwhile, tune in to Pacifica Radio - they don't take advertisers and have some pretty decent programming. Many people who worked there moved to NPR and are known.

Tough economy expected to spark surge in tax refund loans

After several years of declining use, tax refund anticipation loans could make a big comeback this tax season with poor, cash-strapped taxpayers.

Known as "RALs," refund anticipation loans are bank loans secured by the amount of a person's expected income tax refund. Once a tax return is filed electronically by a commercial tax preparer, a third-party bank can provide the loan to the taxpayer in the amount of the expected refund.

Various costs, fees and finance charges are deducted from the check, which usually arrives in three to five days — or within a few hours for an extra fee of $25 to $39.

In turn, the IRS sends the taxpayer's actual refund check to the bank to pay off the loan.

The combination of widespread money woes, a sour economy and fatter tax refund checks for poor families could entice more people into taking the quickie loans, which have been one of the most pilloried financial products ever marketed...

(And who says the marketplace doesn't deliver):

Because the IRS usually repays the loans in one or two weeks, however, that $65 fee works out to an annual percentage rate of 72 percent, which is twice the 36-percent standard rate for small loans, Wu said.

Smaller refund checks have the highest APRs — nearly 500 percent for a $300 refund loan. While larger loans have lower APRs — about 50 percent for a $10,000 refund loan.

That costly rate structure is why Wu and other experts say that refund loans are predatory, overpriced and risky, because if the IRS doesn't pay the anticipated refund, the taxpayer is still on the hook for the full loan amount.

"By any reasonable measure of credit pricing, they're a bad deal," said Brookings' Berube, who's studied refund loans and their usage. He said the IRS now processes most electronic tax returns fast enough to make refund loans unnecessary except in the most dire situations.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/82791.html

Sam, Janeane, Mike Malloy, Marc Maron, Franken, Rhodes....I'll never forget how these amazing individuals from the original lineup really saved me from utter and complete despair during the Bush reign. I remember sitting at my desk listening to AAR every minute of the day that Bush was re-selected in 2004, crying all over my computer keyboard, but comforted by the fact that I wasn't the only one who thought the whole world had gone mad. I'll be ever grateful for the talented hosts who made me laugh during a really dark time, and who went to great lengths to tell a story that the mainstream media refused to mention. AAR lost me when they took Malloy and then Sam off the air, but the early days were amazing...thanks for the memories!

http://www.thomhartmann.com/hartmanvideo.html

http://beebo.org/smackerels/how-i-met-my-wife.html

How I Met My Wife

Jack Winter, the New Yorker, July 25, 1994.

It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate.

I was furling my weildy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way...

Forces at Guantanamo readied to assist Haiti quake victims

Friday was meant to be a bittersweet date -- President Barack Obama's missed one-year deadline to empty the Pentagon prison camps of the last 195 or so war-on-terror captives. In its place, there was an air of elation and purpose that the military at Guantánamo was helping out in an unambiguously good assignment.

`GRATIFYING'

``You see the look, the smile on a parent's face if you ease the suffering of an injured child, that's more exhilarating at the moment than walking the block in a detention camp,'' said Rear Adm. Thomas Copeman, the prison camps' commander. ``Not to say that walking the block is not an extremely important mission for the United States. But probably not as gratifying as saving somebody's life.''
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/82812.html

I've decided to form a corporation which includes all liberal and independent voters which I will call Acme Incorporated. No longer will you have to vote, you just write a check to AI and we'll go buy the candidate of your choice. No more messy fuss with that whole voting process.

Heil Roberts
Heil Scalia
Heil Kennedy
Heil Thomas
Heil Alito

We read you loud and clear fascist fathers. With anyone luck we'll buy your cheap asses too and hand them to you wrapped in the Constitution.

It was part of a comment on a diary at DKos I posted to show I wasn't the only one who noticed the ground breaking thing Sam did, bringing talk radio & blogging together. As I said last night, I couldn't hear a signal at night (not uncommon for AAR) I didn't hear the Majority Report at first. Later, listening to the MP3's, I think Janeanne had the name but Sam did the real work. That's why I loved his shows, I learned so much from them. And there was none better than Sam for talking to crazy right wingers (Dewey!)

And without this blog I wouldn't have been able to read your funny posts. I also watch my spelling and grammar more closely to keep from giving you more pun/crank bait.
I think Alice thinks I don't like her (not true) because I agree with you in the feral cat/song bird debate.

My pro-corporate buddy just asked me a very silly question: "Aren't corporations just groups of people?"

Certainly; but now those groups of people...say, Chinese Capitalists, or Saudi Oil barons; can buy our elections from the Presidential race down to the school boards. If they were to spend, say, as much as we've blown on wars in the last decade; they'd have enough to make our Presidential and every single State race theirs'.

If you didn't care for all the 'politics' and 'spin' from the last election, the next could be like that...times infinity.

They are now 'super-human' entities. They can live forever, don't claim citizenship or nationality, and now can spend however much they want in our elections.

Unlike us.

It's only a matter of time before they start 'thinking' and acting for themselves; already Corporations must act in a profitable manner by law, despite the results for it's shareholders. (and oh yeah, Unions are back, too)

Capitalism has been compared in the past to a Circus; three rings, lots of players, a complicated show that's tough to follow sometimes.

SCOTUS just opened all the cages. This won't be a stage act anymore.

It'll be chaos.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. ~ George Bernard Shaw

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5614

Good to see you here!!

How're you doing?

toniD's Ya Think?

-

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

From a review of Left of the Dial (thanks for reminding me, mire):

Midway through "Left of the Dial," an HBO documentary about the birth of Air America, Michael Moore is veering through the radio network's New York offices. Having just appeared on Al Franken's first afternoon show, the great Hollywood bomb-thrower runs into Air America's then-CEO, Mark Walsh. Without missing a beat, Moore openly snubs Walsh for his public comments about the network's philosophy. As Moore later explains to the camera, "[Walsh] says, 'We can't go too far, we gotta play it safe.' Playing it safe is what got us into this mess."

Not just food for kitty. Who knew?

"Finally, a word to all of the screen names that I barely recognize from infrequent posts or don't recognize at all: Don't be strangers who wait for events like an AAR postmortem to post mors...or less.

The Idiot Brigade needs all the idiots it can muster."

I THOUGHT I heard a clarion call!!

There I was thinking about going upstairs to paint the trim in my back bedroom as I paint my house in the mad rush to try to sell it before it goes into foreclosure. Suddenly, I was struck by the need .. that's right all out need, fire in the loins, undeniable and unmutable cry .. to check Twitter [Yes .. I twitter .. albeit VERY infrequently and usually not even remotely politically based .. and if you care to - search under MRRs and my nickname here and you will find me.] And there it was .. some obscure RT about premim members being charged for content before "they" disappeared. So I went to AAR.com and POOF! It is apparently no more!!

Damn! That does indeed suck .. but I will totally cop to being so wrapped up in the tiny b*llsh*t that is my life now that I hadn't listened in .. dayum .. forever! Now I have killed it! [However, Air America, do not feel bad! You are HARDLY the only media outlet I have killed in the last few years .. having taken out newspapers in mid 2008.]

But .. to assure Sam's blog place doesn't go the way of my former favorite program on AAR - Majority Report - I will endeavour to take a break from my daily b*llsh*t and post! Becuase let's face it .. I got no mans .. about to have no house and will be heading back to live in Mommy and Daddy's basement once more .. with my vulcan ears .. and my special recreation of Kim Catrall's outfit in "Undiscovered Country" .. I really have NOTHING better to do!

I will repost to the new ..

I admit I don't post frequently.

More often than not, I feel rather unequal to the other bloggers here. I do check what Sam posts and read the responses, but tend to sit in the background and marvel at others' insight.

Probably one of the reasons I never called either Majority Report, the Sam Seder Show or Seder on Sunday. Never quite felt up to the standard the rest of you displayed.

..so we can still order drinks after we fall to the floor.

..back to the new thread. I could not resist.

Submitted by ShelaghC on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 1:38pm.
...I do check what Sam posts and read the responses, but tend to sit in the background and marvel at others' insight...
----------
I did the same for a few weeks after discovering The Majority Report blog which eventually morphed into this one.

One of the first comments I posted lacked a crucial element [the facts] and Fishgrease handed me my ass and a link to go with it.

As it turned out, Fishgrease was Rick to my Captain Renault. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Okay..."beautiful" is a tad on the sappy side and our cyber-friendship didn't prevent Fishgrease from handing me my ass each time the opportunity presented itself, but the relationship didn't evolve as inauspiciously as it started.

The right-out-of-the-starting-gate embarrassment was a gift that caused me to backcheck facts that I thought I knew by heart but might have...uh...twisted over the years.

*

**

I apologize for using you as an excuse to post a link to a kitty picture. I'm weak and it's a hard habit to break.
I enjoyed your account of MRR/SSS blog - The Early Years. Fortunately I have a bad memory and cannot recall any amusing and instructive but embarrassing incidents of my own to share.

No, thank you, I don't want any help with that particular problem at the moment.

Submitted by Cat Chew on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 9:35am.
I apologize for using you as an excuse to post a link to a kitty picture. I'm weak and it's a hard habit to break.
----------
Weak or sinister, sister? I'm going with the latter.

When I started telling cat culture jokes, I expected some blowback from the faithful but, hoo-boy, the blowback has taken on a joke life of its own (especially with dedicated rib pokers).

I wouldn't be surprised if a back-up warning beep brought me to the window in time to see thousands of stuffed Garfields being dumped in my yard.

Satirical righteousness is on my side, though. See #5 from last night's Top Ten List on Letterman.

Top Ten Things To Be Happy About

5.) Go to YouTube, type "kitties" and thank me later.

Don't want to... Must!

Under The LobsterScope

...but I will not miss Lionel.

I started listening to AAR on the first day. I stayed with it for quite awhile (years!). It influenced the start of my blog, Under The LobsterScope, it made me an ongoing fan of Al and Marc and Rachel, and it provided a counterpunch to the overwhelming presence of Conservatives on the radio.

It was the coming of Lionel that made me realize that AAR was no longer a liberal creative spot. The people I started with were mostly gone and the station lost sight of its targets.

The fact that it is now out of business is unfortunate, but not unexpected.

-btchakir

Reporting for duty, Crank!

I started posting at Majority Report on the tenth day of existence, if memory serves. I listened from day one, but was too reticent to post at first. Eventually, I inherited the Majority Report Yahoo Group, where we posted our trading cards.

Someone described AAR as "pushback" and that's exactly what it was for me. I was pretty tired of those sorry douchebag Republicans cheating their way into the Whitehouse, looting the treasury, and crowing about how strong they were and how weak we were.

I've never seen politicans sink to such lows, and the trolls here epitomized everything that was wrong with humanity.

A lot of energy disappeared when Janeane left the show. Sammy's funny, but sometimes sparks need to fly to create energy.

I've enjoyed people here, and although I rarely stop by anymore, I'll always think of the original MRR crew, and the stuff we all went through, fighting off trolls, creating MRR cards, trying to hold some hope down for better days, and in-jokes like Patrioterer, "Lisa's Father," and "Peaches!"

Peaches, all.

Remember the time Conyers had the "meeting" in the basement of Da House? And you MC'd a panel the next night? Eh?

Good times.

Remember the "Fighting Dems"?

PSSSSSSST: Eric Massa could use some help now, esp since the SCOTUS..ah.."ruling".

from Brick TeeVee: Republic or Corporatocracy?...

Submitted by Cathy in Seattle on Sun, 01/24/2010 - 1:17am.
...in-jokes like Patrioterer, "Lisa's Father," and "Peaches!"
----------
Thanks and be damned, CatSea. I struggled for days trying to remember the advertisement with Lisa and her dad in it.

So now, thanks to you, I remember the 'Lisa's dad' part but I still don't remember what they were selling or how, dammit.

Maybe you'll report for duty in a few years and fill me in?

I agree with others that AAR was my life-line in those ugly old days. Sam and Jeanene, Al, were my favorites. I wish Sam would get a new gig where I could hear him every day. He breaks things down for me and thinks of angles on ideas that I never considered. Thank AAR we have Al Franken!

It was a PSA on Dads Not Being Involved In Their Children's Lives, ex: not showing up at Parent/Teacher meetings. Thus the empty chair and futile roll-call:

"Lisa's Dad? ... Lisa's Dad? ... Guess Lisa's Dad couldn't make it..."

You could just hear the teacher's scorn.

doh

Technically, the PSA was trying too ENCOURAGE participation of dads in their children's lives... etc..

Clarification:
Submitted by Cathy in Seattle on Wed, 01/27/2010 - 2:49pm.
---------
Thanks. I was 'way off track. I had a recurring image of a four-poster bed stuck in my head (for gawd knows what reason?). It caused me to try to remember a mattress advertisement, or Lisa's dad reading a bedtime story, or anything else (almost anything else) that might have planted the image of a four-poster bed in my head.

I clearly remember that a bevy of jokes and asides about Lisa and her dad were posted on the blog over a series of days (weeks?). Sad to say, I can't remember even one of them. Maybe the four-poster bed is a remnant of a forgotten witticism?

...or maybe I'm nuttier than a fruitcake.