Archive for March, 2004

Noam Chomsky is Blogging

Thursday, March 25th, 2004

Somehow the Earth just seems a little unbalanced, and I can’t quite put my finger on why the thought that the “Favourite Leftist Academic to Hate” has set himself up a blog makes me lose all bodily sensation (at least for a second).

I had a similar reaction when I saw that Jimmy Carter was “blogging”, but for different reasons… besides which, Carter’s blog didn’t have the trappings of your typical blog.

The comments section can be rather funny, and at times they can be rather infantile. I know I shouldn’t laugh at some of the more infantile stuff (and I know I should laugh at some of the satire from his critics), but the following I found amusing:

I am very confused by this. I am at this site to look for a nice Garden Noam to put in my front lawn. I am going to put a red Garden Noam next to my bird-bath.

But this website has a bunch of articles with poor grammar (I should know I’m an English teacher) written by a schizophrenic. WHERE ARE THE GARDEN NOAMS FOR SALE?

But he overdoes this joke by posting it several times, only able to add this to a later post:

NOAM, I AM WRITING AN EMAIL TO A FRIEND TELLING HIM THAT THE HOLOCAUST DIDNT HAPPEN. PLEASE WONT YOU “FORWARD” THE EMAIL.

(I could annotate the joke, but I’m not clear on the details of Chomsky’s accidental praise of a Holocaust Denier.)

WARNING!!! THIS SITE IS NOT, repeat NOT, RUN BY NOAM CHOMSKY, BUT IS A FASCIST CIA FRONT TO INFILTRATE THE LEFT.

READ QUICKLY BEFORE THIS POST IS DELETED BY THE CIA. Please use a proxy to hide your IP address AS IT IS BEING RECORDED!

COINTELPRO is an acronym for a series of FBI counterintelligence programs designed to neutralize political dissidents.

Counterintelligence goes beyond investigation; it refers to techniques used to neutralize enemy agents.

Although covert operations have been employed throughout FBI history, the formal COINTELPRO’s of 1956-1971 were broadly targeted against radical political organizations. In the early 1950s, the Communist Party was illegal in the United States. The Senate and House of Representatives each set up investigating committees to prosecute communists and publicly expose them. (The House Committee on Un-American Activities and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy). When a series of Supreme Court rulings in 1956 and 1957 challenged these committees and questioned the constitutionality of Smith Act prosecutions and Subversive Activities Control Board hearings, the FBI’s response was COINTELPRO, a program designed to “neutralize” those who could no longer be prosecuted. Over the years, similar programs were created to neutralize civil rights, anti-war, and many other groups, all said to be “communist front organizations.”

THIS “BLOG” IS JUST COINTELPRO CIA PRETENDING TO BE CHOMSKY. THEY ARE TRYING TO GET YOUR IP ADDRESS SO THEY CAN SEND YOU TO GITMO!

THIS “BLOG” MUST BE STOPPED!!!!! FUCK CORPORATE MEDIA!!!!

Anyway, for your… Noam Chomsky’s blog for you

Maybe Howard Zinn is thinking of starting a blog. (Actually, I would go for that one, without the smirking you see me with toward Chomsky.)

Update: the Comments section of Chomsky’s blog have been turned off… within the past hour.

Zell Miller… Democrats for Bush

Wednesday, March 24th, 2004

A look at the Kerry – Bush blog hybrid:

Looks like Zell Miller has his “Democrats for Bush” organization rolling right ahead.

People cheered, clapped and nodded in agreement as Senator Miller delivered empowering remarks about his faith in President Bush and his belief in the direction of our nation.

Yeah. Whatever. That party has shifted left, left, left… eh? So left, they almost match Nixon’s politics these days…(*)

Zell Miller, the 56th most Democratic Senator…

Heading up Democrats for Landon… I mean, Bush.

A quote, searching through google cache of Usenet posts.
“(George Bush) talks lik Dirty Harry, but acts like Barney Fife!”
–Georgia Governor, Zell Miller, 1992.

Looking through the Democrats for Bush blog:

Dan Ackyrod has endorsed Bush! And… to this, we get the comment: Bush in 2004 – Hillary in 2008. Sentiments I could agree with

Hm. A Bush loving Clintonite. That’s an… oddity.

Any day now, someone’s going to have to mention on that blog that Phil Hendrie is supporting Bush…

(*)The current ironic political thinking: Nixon was the last big-spending Liberal.

If You look up “Loop” in the dictionary…

Wednesday, March 24th, 2004

“Well, he wasn’t — he wasn’t in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff….For example, just three weeks after the — after we got here, there was communication, for example, with the President of Pakistan, laying out our concerns about Afghanistan and al Qaeda, and the importance of going after the Taliban and getting them to end their support for the al Qaeda. This was, say, within three weeks of our arrival here.” — Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh.

I’m not the first person to say this, and I won’t be the last, but… “wasn’t in the loop”?

His job title was White House Counterterrorism Coordinator

If you look up “loop” in the dictionary, circa 2001, you will see, since the items in this loop are in the photograph’s sight, a picture of Richard Clark smack dab in the middle of said loop…

Maybe Cheney would be on the edge of this loop… I don’t know.

Unless we have more than one loop going here. A more… how do you say… loopy loop in parallel with this loop.

“Democratic Circus” from Talking Heads’ “Naked” album

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2004

Found out this morning
There’s a circus coming to town
They drive in cadillacs
Using walkie-talkies, and the secret service

Their big top
Imitation of life
And all the flags and microphones
We have to cover our eyes

We play the sideshows
And we like the tunnel of love
And when we ride the ferris wheel
We’re little children again

And when they’re asking for volunteers
We’ll be the first ones aboard
And when the ringmaster calls our names
We’ll be the first ones to go … to sleep

Stealing all our dreams
Dreams for sale
They sell ’em back to you

On with the show
Start the parade
We sand along
Sweep us away

It’s political party time
Going down, going down
And the celebrities all come out
Coming down, coming down, coming…

The sun is going down
And the dogs are starting to howl
We stay out after dark
Eating cotton candy
And the music’s playing…

How we all laughed!
We split our sides
The cameras flashed
We almost died!

The rain’s gonna pour on down, falling out of the sky
Coming down, coming down
And the celebrities all run out, and the rain’s
Coming down, coming down

Gonna rain,
Gonna rain, gonna rain
Gonna rain, gonna rain,
Rain, rain
Rain, rain

And now I wonder who’s boss
And who he’s leavin’ behind?

Rock and Roll Part Two

Monday, March 22nd, 2004

Listening to “MAX 910 AM” “Talk Radio for Guys” (flickering past the generic old “Hot Talk 1080” — “Hot Talk” in radio parlence signifying only “Talk Radio that is not firebrad Republican Right-Wing”, now alerting to the world its demographic reach extends not beyond the reader of Maxim), it’s pretty easy to remember the reasons that, just beyond the war with Iraq, why “Media Regulation” is Cause #2 for America’s “Liberal / Left”.

Even if some of the programs remain the same… Phil Hendrie and Clyde Lewis in particular… the entire packaging of the station makes the station…

Unbearable. Unlistenable.

But never mind. After Friday night’s debacle, I was anxious to hear Clyde Lewis on Saturday. Probably a bit more anxious than he even really deserves, but, you see, the sizzle is sometimes more intriguing than the steak.

10:00. He wasn’t on. Dead air. I basically felt like the kids in the movie Pump Up the Voume (a thinly veiled copycat of Network, but never ye mind), tuned into the radio to see if “Hard Harry” was going to manage to come on even as the powers that be were clamping down on his rogue pirate radio operation.

Forty minutes later… slight glitches of sound coming through intermittently, and…

Canned Comedy routines. The routines that the station programmers have replaced CNN at-the-hour news-updates with.

For a moment it sounded as though Clyde didn’t make it.

But, there he was. At 11:05. Apologized for the technical glitch. And… he was off. An unremarkable showing, followed the next night by the house astrologist disappointingly, mind ye, but there it was.

From his forum, we have this stream of postings:

23:04: And now at the top of the hour, a silent void. Waiting for Clyde, but only the sound of silence from the radio. NOT a good sign.

23:30 As Phills program ended the station just powered down big time.
and a no go on 1390.
thanks for the info.
but AllI get is the sound of raido frogs.
some sort of static….frogs….
crickets….
no Clyde…..
time to just go ta bed

06:30 No more Ghettos”…Really Red, 1979. A song that is fitting for a thought. Play it right now.

Here we are. The future. Comedy 910 AM. Omnipresent. Ubik. Unescapeable. Another trough for the sheeple. Leykus 101.

I am so sickened that I feel like peeling my own face off. I loved 1080’s weekend nights with Clyde Lewis during my horrible Taxi shift. A ray of hope…honesty…humanity…

………..

In Austin, a huge public problem was created by Free Radio Austin, a powerful pirate station. People said what they wanted to, across an incredible spectrum of ideologies. It made trouble, and eventually it was shut down. But it lasted for a long time, and it was extremely inclusive of various disenfranchised elements of human society, regardless of the content of said ideologies. A truly subversive collection of voices.

In Portland…there is, what, KBOO ? Countless hours of outmoded guilt ridden reverse racism and embarassingly bad Communist theatre, mixed with the sourest joke of all…the retarded fundamentalist strain of Christianity that is Rastafarianism and it’s insane religious hymns. Such a nasty buffet of regurgitated stale vomit this is, so idiotic and boring that I actually turn to the jazz or classical station at times when the really awful autocrats get ahold of the mike. It’s terrible. I even wish that I had never heard that amazing Desmond Dekker ska music when this mental diarrhea inevitably comes around. Jah ? Get down on those knees and suck my cock, Goddess or God.

Sometimes the programming on this station is so naively terrible that I am able to convince people that the whole thing is tongue in cheek. An unwitting self parody, forever locked into 1971. I wonder if people show up at the meetings with a Little Red Book in hand. The same blank eyed people who fill the demonstrations to fart and mill around aimlessly while they cruise for leftist sex partners like some perverse inversion of a 70’s singles bar scene.

Yeah, Portland is in need of some real Pirate Radio. And not the little 96 point something mini over on the near NE side…

11:03 So is Saturday just a lead in to worse to come?
will 910 F with its Audience and listeners?
was this an honest mistake …or something more sinister.
are they really ready to cut off their nose to spite there face.
who, ? and I mean who? Has better Friday sat and Sunday late night talk during those hours. Nobody I woud tune into
Clyde Could you please post the market shares during the time slot.
that would speak volumes.

And so it goes…

Richard Clarke’s allegations

Monday, March 22nd, 2004

Thinking about Richard Clarke’s allegations.

“Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq,” Clarke said to Stahl. “And we all said … no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren’t any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, ‘Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.

“Initially, I thought when he said, ‘There aren’t enough targets in– in Afghanistan,’ I thought he was joking.

“I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we’ve looked at this issue for years. For years we’ve looked and there’s just no connection.”

How is this news? Welcome to Memory-less America, I suppose.

Sept. 4, 2002

It was 12:05 p.m. when the director of Central Intelligence told Rumsfeld about the intercepted conversation.

Rumsfeld felt it was “vague,” that it “might not mean something,” and that there was “no good basis for hanging hat.” In other words, the evidence was not clear-cut enough to justify military action against bin Laden.

But later that afternoon, the CIA reported the passenger manifests for the hijacked airliners showed three of the hijackers were suspected al Qaeda operatives.

“One guy is associate of Cole bomber,” the notes say, a reference to the October 2000 suicide boat attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, which had also been the work of bin Laden.

With the intelligence all pointing toward bin Laden, Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans. And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted “best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H.” – meaning Saddam Hussein – “at same time. Not only UBL” – the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden.

Other than that… no, we can’t place any blame on Bush for lack of stewardship on the issue of terrorism pre- 9/11 (as the Hart / Rudman Report tried to sound the alarm.) … this’ll be settled in his one hour closed door session with the investigation. Above all, remember: IT’S All Bill Clinton’s‘s Fault…

Howard Stern… the Poor Man’s Lenny Bruce?

Monday, March 22nd, 2004

So, Howard Stern is turning himself into the Poor Man’s Lenny Bruce… who, in the waning days of his career during his obscenity trias took to reading his court transcripts for his routine.

Well, here’s Howard Stern:

http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=1452

Stern pointed to Thursday’s Oprah Winfrey Show TV broadcast focusing on teenage girls’ sexual behavior, including a “secret language” of sexual terms.

“Don’t bleep it,” Stern pleaded with his producer. “This is what is going to expose the hypocrisy. If they fine me for this, they have to fine Oprah. And if they fine Oprah all hell is going to break loose.”

But Stern’s sidekick Robin Quivers noted: “Those aren’t doctors talking” on the Oprah show.

“It’s hoopla,” Stern agreed. “It’s Oprah going woo…”

Bear with me. Here’s the transcript from Oprah Winfrey’s show, not aired on Howard Stern’s show.:

WINFREY: Yeah. So you say–let’s talk about that secret language, Michelle.

Ms. BURFORD: Yes.

WINFREY: I didn’t know any of this.

Ms. BURFORD: I have–yeah, I have–I’ve gotten a whole new vocabulary, let me tell you.

WINFREY: I did not know any of this. Does this–does this mean I am no longer hip?

REED: …(Unintelligible).

Ms. BURFORD: Salad-tossing. I’m thinking cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes. OK? I am definitely not hip.

WINFREY: OK–so–OK, so what is a salad toss?

Ms. BURFORD: OK, a tossed salad is–get ready; hold on to your underwear for this one–oral anal sex. So oral sex to the anus is what tossed salad is. Hi, Mom. OK. A rainbow party is an oral sex party. It’s a gathering where oral sex is performed. And a–rainbow comes from–all of the girls put on lipstick and each one puts her mouth around the penis of the gentleman or gentlemen who are there to receive favors and makes a mark in a different place on the penis, hence, the term rainbow. So…

They Took My Show Away

Saturday, March 20th, 2004

Entercom purchases Infinity Broadcasting. (I think that’s what they bought.)

They swap the local Sports Talk Radio with the local “Hot Talk” radio stations.

And I turn on the two stations as they swap, just before the “Art Bell / Jeff Rense” type local Clyde Lewis is supposed to come on.

And, the introductory spot shows the obvious: the corporate bosses have segmented the audience down to the average Maxim reader… all shows designed to serve the centerpiece of the station: Tom Leykis

And Clyde Lewis does not come on.

Here’s Clyde’s message:

Not Quite, Not Yet

On August 19th, Ground Zero did not air. The show was scheduled to air however it didn’t. The show may not ever run on Friday nights again.

Saturday and Sundays are now iffy as well.

The reason is that Corporate radio programmers say that “Conspiritorial and Controversial” shows do not attract the “Type” of listener they are looking for.

THE TIME OF BEING PASSIVE IS OVER!

If you passively listen to Ground Zero and you have not ever called with a question of the guest.. NOW IS THE TIME TO DO IT.

This is also an invite for all of those who listen around the World to phone in..

New Numbers are:

503-535-9100 or 1-877-535-9100

In Portland there are already petitions being signed and mailed to the program Director.

So Far the Schedule for Ground Zero is not Concrete.

The reason the site has not been updated is because Max Damage, the webmaster just had Shoulder surgery.

The latest reports so far:

Friday Night: Ground Zero off the air TFN

Saturday 10PM Pacific till 1AM Pacific

Sunday has moved! 10PM till 1AM

This schedule seems to be subject to change. The removal of the show on Friday was a shock when Ground Zero’s Ratings are very High for the weekend and compared to the weekday shows grabs a very impressive ratings share as well.

I am suspecting that I am not getting the whole story at the moment I can’t figure it out and I am very disapointed.

I can only ask that you call and ask if Ground Zero will air and at what times.

And here’s a better summary of the audience for “Max 910”:

a rich, golfing, jock a**hole whose idea of culture is dwarf-tossing at the local bar. Yeah, the world is full is this “type” all right. They make about 6 figures a year working as “sales manangers”, the only TV shows they watch are reality programs and sports, they buy season tickets for the Blazers so they can show off their silicone addled trophy wives in public, their favorite bands are Creed and Jimmy Eat World, and of course, their preferred brand of talk radio is Stern and Leykis. Nothing funnier than listening to some smarmy hack say “boobies” over and over with Enter Sandman playing in the background.