Silenced Majority Portal

Ari Melber Talks to CNBC About Blog Topics - Amtrak, NW Pilots & Will Swine Flu Crash the Internet

Cenk Uygar Accurately Lays Out Three Categories of News Media

There are three categories of news media:

1. Opinion Outlets

 Keith Olbermann 
 Bill O'Reilly 
 The Young Turks 
 Wall Street Journal Editorial Side

2. Partisan Press (Ideologically Driven Press)

 The Nation 
 Fox News Channel 
 National Review 
 Mother Jones 
 Drudge Report

3. Straight News

 CNN 
 ABC News 
 MSNBC News Programs 
 New York Times 
 Wall Street Journal (Non-Editorial)

Daily Kos: Why the White House is 100% Right to Challenge Fox News

Most Inappropriate "Google" Suggests

Most Inappropriate Google Suggests Of All Time (PHOTOS, POLL)

Example: (original slideshow at HuffPo link above, or experiment on your own!)

FOLLOWUP: Minnesota State Fair Seed Art Exhibit

Bert recently brought us a Photo Essay on the Election of Senator Al Franken that started last year at the Minnesota State Fair that featured some of the works dedicated to The Great State of Minnesota's United States Senator, Mister Al Franken.

This year, well, I'll just let Doctor Rachels do the talking:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and

Here's Bert's original post and the Portrait of United States Senator Al Franken made using seeds:

Handsome, isn't he?

Noonan Unbound, Margaret Ellen Breaks Reagan's 11th Commandment

BREAKING!!!!  This one is totally worthy of a Drudge Siren...

The Up Is Down, Air Is Wet, Water Is Dry, Black Is White, White Is Black, Day Is Night, Night Is Day World we've all been living lately has taken a new turn.

Peggy Noonan just broke her old boss's 11th Commandment:

"Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of a Fellow Republican."

And this time, not on accident in front of a hot mike, using a Barn Yard Epithet either.

No, no, no.

Margaret Ellen didn't just stray of the Reservation, she went to town on dear Sister Sarah, with a kindler, gentler, rat-a-tat-tat, machine gun hand.

http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB...4620819351.html

Who knew the Thousand Points of Light were the glints coming off of razor sharp daggers?

Unbelievable.

I'm not even going to quote any of the zingers here, because the thing is just one relentless slam after another.

Noonan Unbound.

Joe Bob Briggs sez check it out.

If the comments are any indication, she's about to get the same crash course Chris Buckley got last year in what the seething underbelly of the Republican Party has devolved into.

Drove Buckley away from the organization his Dad founded and right into the waiting arms of Tina Brown.

This is a slaughter.

At this juncture I think what we are going to see from here on in is a complete fracturing of the Republican Party, spear-headed by Palin and her die hard supporters such as Hannity, Limbaugh, etc, etc, et al.

They, the True Conservatives, are going to splinter off and form their own Conservative Party. All their rhetoric on AM radio and in the blogosphere has been trending in that direction, for years now, and Peggy's little Declarations of War on Palin might be the thing that gets the ball really rolling towards that.

Here's the thing.

In a 3 way race, if things get bad enough, and stay bad by late 2012, a rabble rouser like Palin could easily beat a sitting Incumbent.

Especially if she has the full weight of the Media Apparatus that Murdoch built behind her.

Do not misunderstimate her, or the Power Mad people behind her.

---

Dateline: Iran, The Iranian Have Their Howard Beale Moment (From The Life Imitates Art Department)

I'm not a real big devotee of Twitter, since for the most part I find it to be a mile wide and a millimeter deep, mostly flash and very substance.

But it is perfectly suited to, and an accurate reflection of  this ADHD world we are mired in.

I find this description of life in America from 30 years ago to be an accurate description of the phenomenon:

"...the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. The old channels cannot contain it and in its search for new ones there seems to be growing havoc and destruction along its banks...."

However, that being said, I can't dismiss its impact on breaking events in Iran, since it seems the whole country, according to Andrew Sullivan, had a Howard Beale moment last night as a direct result of a single Twitter message, which compelled the citizenry to rise up on their feet and take to the streets.

Impressive.

Here's Howard Beale inspiring the masses, (pay attention to the shouting from the rooftops at the 4 minute mark), in the movie Network:

And here's the 140, (or less), character message that sparked the movement into the streets:

Here's what's going on in the street, as a result of that single message:

And here is a protestor protecting an Iranian Peace Officer from an unruly crowd:

(H/T to Robert George, over at his at Ragged Thots Blog, my favorite rational moderate Republican, whose doing a damn sight more than Chris Buckley to unfluck what's left of that Party, for bringing this 'The Revolution Will Be Blithely Pre-Empeted on CNN by Water Skiing Squirrels And Twittered Instead' sequence of events to my attention)

Flutter Will Make Twitter Obsolete - Nanoblogging

(Thanks to our pal Chris)

Comments We'd Like To See The NYT Print, Or Not

Just submitted the below to this latest Whine and Cheese Pity Party of Maureen Dowd's in today's NYT where she bemoans the death of the American Newspaper as Venerable and Right Revered Institution.

Enjoy.

April 25, 2009 11:57 pm

Michael Richards, please.

You are considered to be an intelligent writer, and as such can not possibly be serious, or show such a blinding unawareness of the problems inherent in America's for profit, and most certainly not in the Public Interest, Corporate Media.

One of the main reasons that newspapers are being abandoned by readers in droves is not because the Google and your hated Twitter are so much more convenient, but because since the time of the OJ Simpson trial American Media has proven itself to be so unreliable.

So people turn to other venues that they find more trustworthy.

I mean how much can we trust you, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News to report accurately on the sub-prime housing crisis when in the midst of that crisis all of those so called 'news' outlets ran this ad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Np1XDRRsSM non-stop, 24/7, on an auto-loop, that would make an MTV Programmer, from the days they still ran music videos, blush?

That's Primae Facie Exhibit A of a massive conflict of interest, and no doubt plenty of Americans, while they couldn't do the math on their ARM Mortgages, are smart enough to put 2 + 2 together and know that something is rotten.

We've seen through you, and we don't like what we've seen. So we did like the East Germans did before the Berlin Wall went up.

Voted with our feet and wallets.

Bye.

Want to restore Public Trust in your Hallowed Institution?

Drop all your Corporate Advertisers and stop passing off tabloid sensationalism and celebrity gossip as journalism and then maybe people will come back and read your beloved papers.

Until then, reap what you have sown.

But don't act all shocked and surprised at the results, it's unbecoming.

And, oh, btw, billionaire Phillip Bronfman is a lousy example to cite. I lived in SF for years and where the Chronicle and I parted company, save for Herb Caen, Jon Carroll and Mark Morford, is that The Chronicle's HQ was/is a block from one of the most blighted urban areas in the entire US, the Skid Row at 6th and Mission.

Not once did they ever cover the realities of that slice of Americana, save to repeatedly blame the victims, whose biggest crime was being poor in America.

And as far as Bronfman citing the Barry Bonds coverage as something to be proud of, are you kidding me?

The real story there should be is why are testing Professional Athletes for steroid use?

Why isn't it legal, regulated, and monitored by doctors instead of being pushed underground? In a nation where we force feed 6 million school children Ritalin everyday to 'improve their performance' and millions of adults take Adderall and other performance enhancing drugs, it is the ultimate double standard to expect different behavior from Professional Athletes, for whom the choice to take steroids or not take steroids can be tabulated in the millions of dollars.

Reading your stuff as of late is like a cross between Bizarro World and Through The Looking Glass.

Entertaining, yes, but not a lot of reality there, is there?

And I say this as one who really tried to give you the benefit of the doubt these past 8 years when you wrote of the Busch Administrations Peccadilloes. But try as I might, I, like many others, always had my readings of your stuff tempered by the gratuitous hatchet job that you performed on Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential Election.

You really went over the top there, lady, and really proved the truth of that adage of my late father's, 'With friends like you, we don't need any enemies'.

So if you're wondering why things are falling apart in your business, may I kindly suggest that you look no further than down your right hand sleeve.

And give Herr Senor Mister Carlos Slim my best when you pick up your next nice and fat paycheck from him.

Thanks, and as I'm sure you hear everyday that you're in Washington, DC 'You're Welcome.'

Pity Party, Party of One, Your Table Is Waiting.

John McCain's Daughter to Get High Six Digit Figure for Her Book

According to the NY Observer, Meghan McCain (known for airhead blog, arguments with talking heads about who's fat, and having a political father and beer distributor heir mother) will be writing a book and being paid well for it.  The press (Hyperion) is owned by Disney, which seems about right.  

Her first book was a picture book entitled, "My Dad, John McCain."  

If I am reading Wonkette correctly, this next book could be a romance novel.

American Female, Red Guard, Brown Shirt, circa 2009

For context of what is going on in this clip, read this artcle on Jerry Falwell's Libertty College Debate Team and their 'Wall of Noise'

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/magazine/319debate.html?pagewanted=all

and this New Yorker piece on how the Evangelical Home Schoolers are grooming their yunguns for Leadership positionat the Highest Levels of Bidness and Gubmint: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/06/27/050627fa_fact?currentPage=all

We start talking about Ann Coulter at about the 38 minute mark.

One the creepiest conversations I have ever had, and this is my 20th day here and this completely confirms that I made the right decision in leaving the USA.

There are way too many of these vile people in America now for me to feel safe there anymore.

I felt unclean for hours afterwards, ugh, and even a long hot soak didn't help.

This gchat with a frend gives some context to the above clip....

11:09 PM me: fucking evil bitch

11:10 PM 20 yrs old sounds like Michelle Malkin

 Christopher: wait wait. what is this?

11:11 PM or, who are you talking to?

11:14 PM me: chick from Los Angeles who is studying speech calls me at 2am her time this morning

  needs help with her homework

  starts friendly but then she starts asking these leading questions that go right to Republican talking points

11:15 PM so we go there

  and it gets heated

  i lay into her

  and here's the thing

  she never backed down

11:16 PM she's studying logic at 2am on a Friday nite, while wer're out partying cuz O man is Prez

  she had rebuttals for everything

 Christopher: good ones?

11:17 PM me: no but a lot of their rhetorical technique is pure push

  put your adversary in a corner

  she was real good at it

  never back down

  she's 20

 Christopher: damn.. i shall watch with interest.

11:18 PM me: she's not the only one

  the reich wing is a lot more organized than the left is still

11:19 PM while u listen to that starting around the 38 min mark read this from a few yrs back http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/magazine/319debate.html?pagewanted=all

11:21 PM and this http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/06/27/050627fa_fact?currentPage=1

  the right is like The Terminator or Microsoft

11:22 PM relentless

  they never stop

  and they keep working at shit til they get it right

  she's one of thousands upon thousands of them

11:23 PM what she's doing, the way she is using language is very very aggressive

  just waiting for a FAIL from me to attack me on

11:24 PM thats what they do

  very creepy

  on a lighter note did you see the FAIL I got on vid?

11:26 PM this is what the Red Guard refernce is about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards_(China)#Role_in_the_Cultural_Revolution

  she's the Americkan vers of that

11:28 PM it's estimated to in addition to destroying 5,000+ years of Chinese Culure, Mao's Red Guard played a major role in the 100 million murders (not a typo,wish it was), that occured during the Cultural Revolution in China

11:29 PM Christopher: shit..

11:30 PM me: thats were all this goes

  everytime ppl like her show up en masse in a culture shit like what happened in China, Russia, and Germany happens

11:31 PM when those places went south

  so I'm totally creeped out by the whole talk

  we had

11:32 PM and see for her it wasn't so much an argument, but her honing her attack skills

  and like I said she's REAL good at it

  and she's only 20

11:33 PM i felt physically ill all afternoon after this

11:34 PM Christopher: :\

11:35 PM me: doesn't matter to them that Obama is Prez

  they're getting ready for the day 4 or 8 yrs from now when he isn't

  they are mad fucking patient

11:36 PM and we get complacent

  happened after Nixon

11:37 PM after he resigned the left took the rest of the 20th century off, thinking we had 'won'

  let our guard down

  big mistake

  got us Busch in the end because we quit paying attention

11:39 PM Christopher: yea.. i've never believe the moderate-left to be all that smart.

  or left.

 me: we have no spine

  and all they do is pushups and lift weights all day long

11:40 PM Christopher: but we like trees! D:

11:41 PM me: oh yh

11:42 PM you'll see my gf was in on the convo

  she was appalled

  here they train schoolkids to look out for ppl like this bitch

  because of the whole Hitler thing

  they don't want a repeat of that era

11:43 PM Americans cant see it because we haven't been taught what to look for

11:47 PM Christopher: so what do we look for?

 me: it breaks down like this... most Americans aren't taught to think logically in the schools anymore, but the right goes out of its way to do that with their yunguns

11:49 PM and on top of not being taught critical thinking skills the cable TV pumps that signal 24/7, further weakening reasoning skills.

  these folks who are taught to argue like this can thren run circles around those that don't

11:50 PM that 'wall of noise' described in the Falwell Debate Team article is the goal

  drown out your opponent

  make it impssible for them to get in a word edgewise

  its all this very aggressive push

11:51 PM Christopher: that's ridiculous. logic is insane, in most cases.

 me: towards carving out Leadership Positions for themselves in this culture

  Logic is a weapon for these people

  a powerful one

11:52 PM she started by asking me about deductive reasoning at 2 AM IN THE MORNING from whre she was

  on a Friday night

  what 20 yr old does that?

11:53 PM when she's 30 she'll have had 10 yrs practise at this shit

11:54 PM and again she's just the tip of a huge iceberg

  the right cultivates these ppl the way pedophiles groom children

11:55 PM its just as nasty, if not more so

11:56 PM Christopher: and tough as fuck to counter.

 me: yh

  all it did was confirm I made the right decision at the right time

  forgot i had the recorder on

11:57 PM went back and listened to the back end of it when she was lobbing shit at me left and right

  man is she good

  kept circling back on me

  no matter what i said

 Christopher: my issue with arguments like these is keeping my arguments straight in my head. i just tend to forget my own logic.

11:58 PM me: if i didnt know what she was doing she would have wore me down

  thats the technique

  worked on gore in 2000

12:00 AM looking for a pic of these republicans that shouted down vote counters

  when that was going on

  had the most contorted looks on their faces

12:02 AM got it

12:03 AM this looks like a spontaneous group of Bush supporters, it's really a bunch of high level republicans http://www.albionmonitor.com/0012a/rightwingelection.htmlof high level

  oops http://www.albionmonitor.com/0012a/rightwingelection.html

12:06 AM Christopher: they look kinda.. dead.

12:07 AM me: they're psycho

  and the shit worked

  created such a ruckus the vote counters quit

12:08 AM Christopher: damnit.

 me: it was so surreal with her

  didn't read her at first

12:09 AM and then when it becameclear what she was I got phsically ill while talking with her

12:10 AM Christopher: how did she get in contact with you?

 me: random skype call

 Christopher: weird.

 me: was looking for help with the homework

12:11 AM i got intrigued so kept her on the line

  and then i lost my shit with her

12:12 AM these ppl are so destructive and power mad

12:13 AM it's that sneerting tone of voice they have

  sneering

  you can hear how her inflections are like Malkin and Coulters

  we may mock Coulter for talking like that

12:14 AM but for these people it's like blowing on a dog whistle

  psyche warfare

 Christopher: ai.

 me: and they're fucking good at it

  Sarah Palins Acceptance speech is a perfect example

12:15 AM as was that 'May I Call You, Joe?' bit at the debate

  she flubbed it during the debate tho

 Christopher: wait, i missed all that.

 me: stepped on the line

 Christopher: explicate.

12:16 AM me: she asked Biden at the debate if she could call him Joe and he said yes

  what was supposed to happen was she was to get off a zinger like 'There you go again, Joe'

  which she did

12:17 AM that was supposed to be the thing we all talked about the next day

  but she blew the delivery of the line, bad timing

  and jumbled it with another zing line

  Biden got lucky

12:18 AM that night

  and her Acceptance speech was all one long non stop snide sneer

  totally engineered speech

  was written months in advance for her

12:19 AM she wasn't an idle pick

 Christopher: gah. these people are so fucking weird and fabricated and scary.

 me: she'd been cultivated by them for years

12:20 AM Palin has natural ability

  we dont see it because we're kinda blind to what they do

12:21 AM but she was a great pick and she came damn close to pulling it off

 Christopher: i disagree there. she mangled her job.

  fucked up a lot, dropped her sentences.

 me: 4.1 percentage points

  to you and me, yh looks fucked up

  they werent going after our vote

  they wanted Joe the Plumber

  American Brown Shirts

12:22 AM Christopher: joe the plumber was fucking upper middle class. and not a plumber.

 me: actor is more like it

 Christopher: truth.

 me: dude just steps on the national stage like that?

  no

  he was prepped

12:23 AM Christopher: mm. wasn't he interviewed outside his 'home'?

  a lot of this happened while i was still so angry with politics that i didn't pay any attention.

 me: i couldnt do what he did without cracking under the pressure

  u get caught in the glare like that it aint easy

12:24 AM yet he held his own 4 weeks?

  uh uh no way

  i may have been born at nite but noit last nite

12:26 AM all i know is i'm gonna be extra nice to my gf this week

12:27 AM Christopher: mm? why? not that you shouldn't.

12:28 AM me: she gets all this shit intuitively

12:29 AM did u hear me ask that chick were she thought America would be if Palin was president right now?

12:30 AM that was abt the only thing that slowed her down

 Christopher: i'm watching it later, right now i'm juggling a few things.

 me: that and mocking McCain for his middle name

12:31 AM I said President HUSSEIN Obama and she took the bait

  McCain's middle name is SIDNEY

  a geigh girls name

12:32 AM told her so

 Christopher: hahaha x3

  that's not exactly debate team material.

12:33 AM me: and that if they wanted to play the middle name game like that like they did during the election she was talking to the wrong fucking person

  no, but they pounded that HUSSEIN shit hard last October

 Christopher: i got that.

  i thought it was pretty childish, passed it over.

 me: she so didnt see that one coming

12:34 AM the hussein thing worked on its intended audience

  a lot of them still beat that drum

  like anyone picks their own middle name

12:35 AM fucking retards

 Christopher: there's probably over a million Jesus' in the world, but does that make every one of them the christian savior of the world?

 me: a lot of the christians take offense at ppl named Jesus

12:36 AM http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/yee_haw_my_vote_cancels_out

12:37 AM American Politics at its finest

12:38 AM i gotta get off this tip

  I blame ShamWow for this

12:39 AM i did a drug last November that is used to treat addicts

  and in my case it lessened my interest in American politics

 Christopher: hahaha.

 me: and Shammy reignited this shit

  bastid

12:40 AM i was doing SO well b4 he showed up

  total relapse

  worse than a coke or heroin habit

  at least those are tangible

12:41 AM but this crap exists only in ones head

 Christopher: dcraves is your flame under the spoon, mm?

 me: harder to kick

12:42 AM awesome analogy

  i need to get to parties here

  GF has never been

  and they are off the hook here

  i already got her trained in FAIL

 Christopher: go, man, go!

 me: did u see that clip?

12:43 AM Christopher: which?

 me: car FAIL

 Christopher: oh, yea.

 me: i take pics of small fuel efficient ones here

  so ppl in America can see them

  his was so nice and trick

12:44 AM and then as soon as pressed the shutter FAIL

  i couldn't not shoot that

  felt a lil bad

  but well hard to let that pass

  plus it happened like 5 minutes after that call

  needed a pick me up

12:45 AM it helped

 Christopher: "honey, i got a fail" x3

 me: nobody' rated it

  had I known he was gonna fail I'd shot vid to begin with

12:46 AM the sputter of the FAIL is missing

12:47 AM dude on sfraves is trying to give me a hard time over it

  but he's been a total douche on that list for years

  kind of like their Entropy

12:48 AM drove a lot of ppl off what was once a vibrant list

  used to have hundreds of posts a day

  went back and looked at the past year

12:49 AM had to go back a full 6 mos to find one thread that went over 20 posts

 Christopher: shit.

 me: Rave Killer

 Christopher: oh, him?

 me: how these folks like Entropy glommed on to the scene i'll never gt

12:50 AM whoa speaking of which this just came in over there http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/21/madagascar

  fucking cool

12:51 AM Ravers, we're coming UP!

5 minutes

12:57 AM Christopher: that's so fucking hardcore.

12:58 AM aright, man, i gotta split. going to a punk show that started an hour ago.

  or, in punk layman's terms, half an hour ago.

  er. spellcheck on 'layman'.

1:01 AM me: lucky you

  we still havent adjusted our schedules to fit it going out

  we#

1:02 AM we're both going stir crzy

  cabin fever

  enjoy the show

  for us