Pal2pal

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”
~~ Ronald Reagan ~~

Monday, July 26, 2010

Catching Up with This and That

I’m happy to report that I’ve restored most of my system. I have most of my files and about half of my programs restored. What a hassle the last 10 days have been with many sleepless nights struggling with backups that wanted to crash over and over. Now, it is just a matter of some housekeeping and a small amount of maintenance and then going online to find some of my more favorite downloaded utilities and programs that somehow got lost. That sound you hear is me making a huge sigh of relief that I was able to recover almost all of my most commonly used programs and all my pictures, some which would have been irreplaceable.

So, lots has been happening since I went down and I’m not only catching up personally, but trying to catch you up as well.

The big reveal this past week was the names and associations of the members of Journolist. It is a chilling revelation, even to someone like me who follows politics closely and has no allusions that what we are given by the legacy media is unbiased. Proof that you should NEVER believe anything these so-called journalistas tell you without doing some active research on your own. Yes, there are many names you’ve never heard mentioned, but take a look at the affiliations. For instance, will you be so willing to take anything written at Politico at face value now that you see three of their contributors on the list? Whether you lean right or left, this Journolist endeavor should give you pause. Do we really want the press debating on making coordination with Obama explicit? The press was given special status by our Founding Fathers and the Constitution because its role is to be a watchdog on government, not a cheerleader for one side or the other. Where has old-fashioned journalistic competition gone? No need to answer that. Many of those on the list come out of schools in an age where competition is frowned upon and actively discouraged because someone has to lose and that might be bad for dear little Johnny’s or Janie’s self-esteem.

Here is the list as published by Buckeye Texan via Doug Ross Journal:

1. Spencer Ackerman – Wired, FireDogLake, Washington Independent, Talking Points Memo, The American Prospect
2. Ben Adler – Newsweek, POLITICO
3. Mike Allen - POLITICO
4. Eric Alterman – The Nation, Media Matters for America
5. Marc Ambinder - The Atlantic
6. Greg Anrig – The Century Foundation
7. Ryan Avent – Economist
8. Dean Baker - The American Prospect
9. Nick Baumann – Mother Jones
10. Josh Bearman – LA Weekly
11. Steven Benen - The Carpetbagger Report
12. Jared Bernstein – Economic Policy Institute
13. Michael Berube - Crooked Timber (blog), Pennsylvania State University
14. Lindsay Beyerstein - (blogger)
15. Joel Bleifuss - In These Times
16. John Blevins – South Texas College of Law
17. Sam Boyd - The American Prospect
18. Rich Byrne - Playwright and freelancer
19. Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic
20. Jonathan Chait – The New Republic
21. Lakshmi Chaudry - In These Times
22. Isaac Chotiner – The New Republic
23. Michael Cohen – New America Foundation
24. Jonathan Cohn – The New Republic
25. Joe Conason – The New York Observer
26. David Corn – Mother Jones
27. Daniel Davies – The Guardian
28. David Dayen - FireDogLake
29. Brad DeLong – The Economists’ Voice, University of California at Berkley
30. Ryan Donmoyer - Bloomberg
31. Kevin Drum – Washington Monthly
32. Matt Duss – Center for American Progress
33. Eve Fairbanks – The New Republic
34. Henry Farrell – George Washington University
35. Tim Fernholz – American Prospect
36. James Galbraith - University of Texas at Austin (professor)
37. Todd Gitlin – Columbia University
38. Ilan Goldenberg - National Security Network
39. Dana Goldstein – The Daily Beast
40. Merrill Goozner - Chicago Tribune
41. David Greenberg - Slate
42. Robert Greenwald - Brave New Films
43. Chris Hayes – The Nation
44. Don Hazen - Alternet
45. Michael Hirsh - Newsweek
46. John Judis – The New Republic, The American Prospect
47. Michael Kazin - Georgetown University (law professor)
48. Ed Kilgore – Democratic Stategist
49. Richard Kim – The Nation
50. Mark Kleiman - The Reality Based Community
51. Ezra Klein - Washington Post, Newsweek, The American Prospect
52. Joe Klein - TIME
53. Paul Krugman – The New York Times, Princeton University
54. Lisa Lerer - POLITICO
55. Daniel Levy – Century Foundation
56. Alec McGillis – Washington Post
57. Scott McLemee - Inside Higher Ed
58. Ari Melber - The Nation
59. Seth Michaels – MyDD.com
60. Luke Mitchell – Harper’s Magazine
61. Gautham Nagesh – The Hill, Daily Caller
62. Suzanne Nossel – Human Rights Watch
63. Michael O’Hare - University of California, Berkeley
64. Rick Perlstein – Author, Campaign for America’s Future
65. Harold Pollack – University of Chicago
66. Foster Kamer – The Village Voice
67. Katha Pollitt – The Nation
68. Ari Rabin-Havt - Media Matters
69. David Roberts - Grist
70. Alyssa Rosenberg – Washingtonian, The Atlantic, Government Executive
71. Alex Rossmiller – National Security Network
72. Laura Rozen – Politico, Mother Jones
73. Greg Sargent – Washington Post
74. Thomas Schaller – Baltimore Sun
75. Noam Scheiber – The New Republic
76. Michael Scherer - TIME
77. Mark Schmitt – American Prospect
78. Adam Serwer – American Prospect
79. Thomas Schaller - Baltimore Sun (columnist), University of Maryland, Baltimore County (professor), FiveThirtyEight.com (contributing writer)
80. Julie Bergman Sender - Balcony Films
81. Walter Shapiro – PoliticsDaily.com
82. Nate Silver - FiveThirtyEight.com
83. Jesse Singal – The Boston Globe, Washington Monthly
84. Ben Smith - POLITICO
85. Sarah Spitz – NPR
86. Adele Stan – The Media Consortium
87. Kate Steadman – Kaiser Health News
88. Jonathan Stein – Mother Jones
89. Sam Stein - The Huffington Post
90. Jesse Taylor – Pandagon.net
91. Steven Teles – Yale University
92. Thoma - The Economist’s View (blog), University of Oregon (professor)
93. Michael Tomasky – The Guardian
94. Jeffrey Toobin – CNN, The New Yorker
95. Rebecca Traister - Salon (columnist)
96. Cenk Uygur - The Young Turks
97. Tracy Van Slyke - The Media Consortium
98. Dave Weigel - Washington Post, MSNBC, The Washington Independent
99. Moira Whelan – National Security Network
100. Scott Winship – Pew Economic Mobility Project
101. Kai Wright - The Root
102. Holly Yeager – Columbia Journalism Review
103. Rich Yeselson – Change to Win
104. Matthew Yglesias – Center for American Progress, The Atlantic Monthly
105. Jonathan Zasloff – UCLA
106. Julian Zelizer - Princeton professor and CNN contributor
107. Avi Zenilman – POLITICO

UPDATE:

Journey Into the Media’s Heart of Darkness

How ironic that on a day when we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, The Daily Caller released 15 pages of JournoListers’ email exchanges about a dark and demented conspiracy regarding my son, Trig.

It’s tough to fittingly describe these numerous members of the mainstream media who actively engaged in the debate about this conspiracy back when I was first introduced as John McCain’s running mate, and it’s impossible to legitimize any “prominent” media publication that continues to traffic in this bizarre narrative today. It wasn’t just a few fringe characters in that JournoList discussion. It included writers for major newspapers, magazines, and online news publications. Those participating in this immature exchange in attempts to plant seeds of doubt and falsely accuse even included a famous historian.

This JournoList exchange exposes the warped nature of today’s media, thus explaining why many of us are forced, in fairness to the public, to utilize other mediums to communicate until the mainstream media wakes up and begins respecting the public’s intelligence and desire for truth in reporting. There is a sickness and darkness in today’s liberal media. With revelations like the JournoList exchanges, may the light keep shining to expose the problem.

I am already sick of the Shirley Sherrod debacle and have no reason to cover it. For the latest, Bob Owens has a post up that will bring you somewhat up to date with links to fuller discussions. You can follow the link to Dan Riehl and see if you agree that her husband is a real piece of nastiness.

The “Full Sherrod”

Getting away from politics and to things that are just cool:

Spitzer Telescope Finds First-Ever Buckyballs in Space

Spitzer Finds Buckyballs in Space An artist’s depiction.. NASA/JPL-Caltech

And now that I’ve gotten a post ready to go, I’ve discovered a problem with a couple of my folders that need immediate attention. Be back later with more.