What Reporters Will Never Admit...

News reporters will never admit the truth of the following:

That people care more about their dog than who the President is,

That people want to look at porn more than any newspaper or web page,

That people actually look at porn more than any newspaper or web page,

Pornography dominates Internet content, not their discoveries and thoughts, and certainly not unrelated e-commerce,

Reporters are supposed to write interesting stories that get people to look at advertisements and then buy the stuff advertised.

I have heard many whining complaints about the amount of coverage President Obama's family gets for its choice of dog. There's a secret in there. That's what people care most about. The dog. And news coverage of the First Dog is an attempt to get some of those people to actually watch the news, and consequently see the advertisements and buy the products advertised.

So you can be a purist and want only real news, or you can build a well-watched show. Producers are opting for the latter.




Andrew Wilkow, Barack Obama, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks, Democratic Party, George F. Will, Gitmo, Goerge W. Bush, Guantanamo, John Gibson, Jon Stewart, Lawrence Kudlow, Mark Levin, Michelle Obama, Mike Church, Peggy Noonan, President Bush, President Obama, Rachel Maddow, Republican Party, Rich Lowry, Rupaul, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Media News, Columnist James Brady Dies, James Brady, James Brady Dies, James Brady Page Six Creator Dies, Page Six Creator Dies, Media News, Limbaugh Obama Comments, Mike Pence, Norah O'Donnell, Rush Limbaugh, Charles Grassley, National Science Foundation, Online Porn, Porn, Stephen Colbert, Video

In Defense of Blagojevich

Has anyone ever told you that you were the target of a Federal investigation? If they have, some of Gov. Blagojevich's words and actions might seem less awful.

Only a fool would think that innocence is a shield from an indictment, or even prosecution. Then it follows that you would be careful what you said on the phone because anything could be taken out of context. Please let's remember that the Governor didn't actually sell the Senate seat. The prosecutors "stopped" him first. In my opinion, they may have stopped him before they had a case.

I heard part of the case against Governor Blagojevich on the radio this morning. It seems one of the crimes he is alleged to have committed is authorizing the purchase of medicines from Canada. You know, to save money for the taxpayers.

Hearing that charge has changed my opinion on this whole affair. This fact, in combination with the premature timing of the charges leads me to think the timing of the prosecution may be related more to politics, and even the prosecution itself.

I have no doubt that any politician in the position of being able to appoint a U.S. Senator would want some kind of political payback or favor. Selling the seat for money, of course, is corrupt, but let's not pretend that there's no mutual backscratching going on with political appointments.

The arguments of the prosecutor rang a little hollow to me. He's accusing Governor Blagojevich of being a politician and a thief. Let's see if he can separate the two a little better in the future.



Blagojevich Senate Speech, Blagojevich Closing Argument, Rod Blagojevich, Blagojevich Trial, Blagojevich Senate Trial, Blagojevich Impeachment Vote, Blagojevich Impeachment, Blagojevich Impeachment Trial, Chicago News

Bad News for the Economy

I don't want anything. The last several weeks have been spent wrestling with the idea of a new car. In the end, I decided my old car was just fine.

My car is a little beat up, but is functional. My house is fine, except for a little weather stripping on one of the doors. I could use a few more suits, but should probably first dry clean the ones I have had in a bag for months. It's amazing. Whenever I finally get it together to dry clean clothes, it feels like my wardrobe has doubled. Usually it has. I am going to start an indoor garden any month now.

My consumer droolings are now limited to seeds for my garden this year and a water filter for the top floor. I don't even want a t.v. What for? We haven't had a t.v. for about a year or so and we don't miss it at all. And, frankly, YouTube original videos are far more interesting. My favorites are sxephil, the amazing atheist and drinkingwithbob. Their videos never fail to cheer me up if I'm feeling a little sad.

Back to my consumer desires. Perhaps others are like me and suddenly realize they don't need a whole lot of things they thought they did. If that's the case, consumer spending will not pick up in 2009. After our spending orgy, Americans may not need anything for a while. (Check out the YouTube video on gardening with trash. It shows you how to use trash as gardening containers. What a story to tell your grandchildren one day! And you might start walking to school with no shoes on for good measure.)

That's bad news for the whole world as our relentless appetite has fueled everybody else's economy as well.

A newsletter I subscribe to called John Maudlin's Outside the Box E-Newsletter described the consumer situation in terms of capacity. Americans have no more capacity for goods because their capacity is used up with all the stuff they have already. In other words, we really don't need anything when we take a good look at it.

Since now we have a President inspiring of hope, I have made changes for the betterment of the whole: composting and buying American. If we all buy American products, at least we can pull this country out of the hole. Together.

HOW TO MAKE SHAMPOO-Fun Project for the Kids

This YouTuber has a lot of great videos on making household items and products for yourself. Making your own shampoo would be a fun and educational project for the kids. Have I done it myself yet? No. But I plan to with apples from my mother's apple tree this summer.

I introduce this series of videos to my blog for a couple of reasons: it is a resource for people seeking to save serious money, it provides information to people in the event of a massive economic meltdown, it provides information to people if grocery supply chains are disrupted for any reason.

Call me a fatalist.

Economic Crisis, Economy, Financial Media, Investing, Investors, Picking Stocks, Stock Market, Stocks, Business News, AIG Bailout, Bad Bank, Bad Bank To Buy Toxic Assets, Bank Of America, FDIC Bad Bank, Sheila Blair To Run Bad Bank, Business News

PR Smackdown: Genetically Modified Foods Strikes Back!

The PR machine for genetically modified foods scored a big one in Slate. The case is artfully made in favor of frankenfoods: it produces less green house gases to have genetically modified cows, nitrogen is poisoning the soil if specially-tailored franken-vegetables are not created to use less nitrogen, and we have been using "hit or miss" breeding for centuries in developing the livestock we have now.

I have an idea. Let's use the methane gas produced by grass-fed cows to create electricity. Let's rotate crops to mitigate the gathering of nitrogen in soil. Let's allow nature to create animals in her own way instead of adding cucumber genes to chickens to get them to be more convenient to us.

What's interesting about the article, linked to the title of this post, is that it represents the PR efforts of Big Agribusiness to persuade the public that their weird combination of genes is just fine - and to stem the support of environmentalists for natural foods by dragging climate change into the debate. They are trying to sow divisions in the Green movement.

Reporters are lazy. If you hand them a press release with research that they can just reword, often they will use it. I'm not saying that's what happened here, I'm just saying that someone paid a lot of money to try to get this message into the mainstream media.




Antibiotics, Bacon, Biotech Agriculture, Center For Food Safety, Dna, Eating Matters, Fda, Food Matters, Genetically Modified Food, GM Foods, Green Living, Health, Hormone Treated Meat, Los Angeles Times, Nutrition, Salmon, Vegan, Vegetarian, Green News, Frankenfood, public relations, food, natural, organic, health, healthy

DC - When Inauguration Hits Town...

Run! Run fast!

My husband is working so we are stuck here in the crazed maze that will be total party mayhem.

Allegedly, the bars are no longer going to be open all night long. I'll believe that when I see it. You just know the police are going to have other things to do than to chase down liquor establishments that are open too long. Living in Columbia Heights, where the streets are teeming with 20 and 30-somethings, the party should be kicking until dawn. And then start all over again.

I'm just worried about all the bridge closings in and out of DC. With all the people coming to remote DC suburbs to stay, and then trying to get into DC by walking, there is bound to be problems with exposure to cold - which will only be compounded by the drinking. The recommendations are to arrive at the parade route five hours early. Five hours in freezing cold? Sounds dangerous.

And I don't envy Metro at all. It is going to be sheer hell for Metro employees. The train drivers are going to have to keep from running over people on the platforms who try to rush the train when it pulls into the station. Then people are not going to accept, after waiting in huge lines while trains go by without them, that the train in front of them cannot fit them inside. And what are the chances that someone, out of all the people who are in DC, will have seen too many Spiderman movies and try to hang on the the back of the train?

People will faint. People will vomit. They will take their little children against all advice and subject them to this gauntlet of celebration in freezing weather.

NOTE: The event is just as historical on t.v.









Inauguration Event List Sunday, Obama's Inauguration, Sunday Inauguration Schedule, Washington Dc Inauguration Events Sunday, Politics News, DC, Obama

Ben Stein on G-d

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning

Confession by Ben Stein:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees.. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year.. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a crèche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.
I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.
In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.
Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'
In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shall not kill, thou shall not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell . Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it..... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

Fleabite Journalism

That's what I'm doing with this blog. It's fleabite journalism. It's what some bloggers are doing. We are scratching the ground and creating little annoying fleabites that most likely will be ignored, but maybe won't be.

Think about it: annoying, persistent, pervasive. And if left alone: unbearable.

At a certain point, you've got to do something about it. You can't take the annoyance anymore and your health could be affected.

Damn! How inconvenient!

But then you react to address the problem.

The result: chalk another one up for fleabite journalism.

NASA Chief's Sexism Catches Up With Him - Bye Bye Michael Griffin !

So NASA chief Michael Griffin, when not staring at the boobs of Lori Garver as he is known to do to women he works with, actually told the direct representative of the next President of the United States that she was not qualified to "evaluate rocket options." Since that is the agency spokesman saying this, you know it has been a little sanitized.

I have an idea, just a little one since I am female, but an idea nonetheless.

Perhaps what Lori Garver is evaluating is the quality of your management, Mr. Griffin. No one is saying she should write rocket engineering plans. But certainly she is qualified to judge the quality of your management. One way to do that is by evaluating results.

Sadly for Michael Griffin, he doesn't do too well in that department. He has engineered NASA to do nothing except experiments. NASA doesn't produce anything. The only goal is the Mars dream which has come at the expense of any practical results from all this money being spent by NASA and it's blood-sucking contractors.

Here's the quote from the Bloomberg article by Demian McLean:

"NASA chief Michael Griffin opposes the idea and told Obama’s transition team leader, Lori Garver, that her colleagues lack the engineering background to evaluate rocket options, agency spokesman Chris Shank said."



NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Fiftieth anniversary, new, Moon, Mars, America, Program, United States, Apollo, Ares, Orion, Launch, Vehicle, Constellation, Altair, Kennedy, Johnson, center, exploration, Science, economic expansion, settlement, Vision, ATK, astronauts, education, lunar, Lander, rover, LCROSS,SMART 1, LRO, Reconnaissance, Orbiter, Alliant Techsystems, Next generation, spaceships, spacesuit, mission, directorate, ESMD, Human, research, technology, development, commercial, orbital, transportation, project, prime, contractors, subcontractors, crew, booster, cryogenic, propulsion, life support, extravehicular, upper, stage, shuttle


Excite, Free, Google, Hotel, Music, New, Online, Sex, Yahoo, pets, dogs, cats

NASA Chief's Sexism Catches Up With Him - Bye Bye Michael Griffin !

So NASA chief Michael Griffin, when not staring at the boobs of Lori Garver as he is known to do to women he works with, actually told the direct representative of the next President of the United States that she was not qualified to "evaluate rocket options." Since that is the agency spokesman saying this, you know it has been a little sanitized.

I have an idea, just a little one since I am female, but an idea nonetheless.

Perhaps what Lori Garver is evaluating is the quality of your management, Mr. Griffin. No one is saying she should write rocket engineering plans. But certainly she is qualified to judge the quality of your management. One way to do that is by evaluating results.

Sadly for Michael Griffin, he doesn't do too well in that department. He has engineered NASA to do nothing except experiments. NASA doesn't produce anything. The only goal is the Mars dream which has come at the expense of any practical results from all this money being spent by NASA and it's blood-sucking contractors.

Here's the quote from the Bloomberg article by Demian McLean:

"NASA chief Michael Griffin opposes the idea and told Obama’s transition team leader, Lori Garver, that her colleagues lack the engineering background to evaluate rocket options, agency spokesman Chris Shank said."



NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Fiftieth anniversary, new, Moon, Mars, America, Program, United States, Apollo, Ares, Orion, Launch, Vehicle, Constellation, Altair, Kennedy, Johnson, center, exploration, Science, economic expansion, settlement, Vision, ATK, astronauts, education, lunar, Lander, rover, LCROSS,SMART 1, LRO, Reconnaissance, Orbiter, Alliant Techsystems, Next generation, spaceships, spacesuit, mission, directorate, ESMD, Human, research, technology, development, commercial, orbital, transportation, project, prime, contractors, subcontractors, crew, booster, cryogenic, propulsion, life support, extravehicular, upper, stage, shuttle


Excite, Free, Google, Hotel, Music, New, Online, Sex, Yahoo

Israel is Wrong. Hamas is Wrong.

And now that we have a pair of children poking each other into armed conflict once again, the world will have to face that it must get involved to keep these people from killing each other and half the people in the region.

It's like a long car ride with kids in the back seat. They just can't keep their hands to themselves. They've got to throw things at each other, try to take most of the back seat, put their finger in the face of the other while claiming "I'm not touching you." The charge of immaturity was advanced by former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski on Morning Joe on MSNBC. I just added the imagery.

How to keep these immature people from goading each other? An international mechanism needs to be in place, which is what is being suggested now as a resolution to this conflict on more than a temporary basis.

Hamas needs to be prevented from arming and Israel needs to be prevented from overreacting. And the United States really needs to get involved soon.



Gaza, Gaza City, Hamas, Israel, Israel Airstrikes, Israel Gaza Airstrikes, Israel Gaza Operation, Israeli Airstrikes, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, World News, Hamas Rockets, terror, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon 2006

New FBI warning.... THIS IS A JOKE, OBVIOUSLY

The anti-piracy message from the FBI clearly needs an update according to this YouTube girl. So she created one! I wonder if the FBI take it whether they will arrest themselves for piracy?