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Media and Technology
The GOP and Technology = Water and Oil
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on January 6, 2009 at 4:58 AM.
When the six men hoping to lead the Republican National Committee weren't promising to build a religion around Ronald Reagan, they were talking about how hip they are to the tools the kids are using on the tubes.
"We have to do it in the Facebook, with the Twittering, the different technology that young people are using today," Duncan ventured.
"Let me just say that I have 4,000 friends on Facebook," contributed Blackwell, putting his hand on Dawson's and Anuzis's knees. "That's probably more than these two guys put together, but who's counting, you know?" Acknowledged Saltsman: "I'm not sure all of us combined Twitter as much as Saul."
Anuzis claimed he had "somewhere between 2- and 3,000" Facebook friends, which prompted Blackwell to remind the audience that he has 4,000 friends on the social networking site by waving four fingers behind Anuzis's head.
Well, if one candidate has more Facebook friends than another candidate, it's obvious who the superior visionary is.
Listening to Republican officials talk about technology is becoming increasingly painful. It's a bit like listening to an inept advertising agency promising a business that they'll have a strong "online presence" because it'll have a blog and its commercials will be on YouTube.
Let's call it the Republicans' Underpants Gnomes' Innovation Agenda. It's a three-part plan:
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Fox News Claims 'Magic Negro' Text Was 'Inadvertently Cleared for Air'
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on January 3, 2009 at 10:51 AM.
As ThinkProgress recently noted, Fox News allowed at least one racist message directed toward President-elect Obama to make it on the air during its New Years broadcast. In a statement to TVNewser yesterday, Fox News VP of programming Suzanne Scott defended the incident, claiming that the text message referring to Rush Limbaugh's "Barack the Magic Negro" song was "inadvertently cleared for air." Instead of offering an apology, Scott took the opportunity to attack Fox's rivals:
Fox News VP of programming Suzanne Scott explains, "We received tens of thousands of text message submissions during our New Years Eve special, and this particular viewer submission was inadvertently cleared for air. At FOX we recognize our error as opposed to networks who allow their hosts to utter crude vulgarities to the public."
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Fox News Allows 'Magic Negro' New Year's Message to Be Broadcast
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on January 2, 2009 at 12:16 PM.
Throughout their New Year's eve broadcast, Fox News Channel allowed viewers to send in New Year’s greetings and wishes via text message. The messages were then scrolled across the bottom of the screen, replacing Fox’s normal crawling news headlines. While most messages were cordial, Fox allowed at least one racist message directed toward President-elect Obama to be broadcast. The message referenced Rush Limbaugh’s “Barack the Magic Negro” song:
HAPPY NEW YEAR AND LET’S HOPE THE MAGIC NEGRO DOES A GOOD JOB. LOVE JEN AND JOHN C.
This Week in God: Pat Robertson Turns on Bush, NYT Lies About Church Numbers, and More
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on December 28, 2008 at 4:52 AM.
First up from the God Machine this week is the question of whether more Americans are attending worship services in light of the economic crisis.
The New York Times recently ran a front-page piece, and concluded that there's a definite trend -- as the recession has worsened, attendance at houses of worship has increased. The Times based this conclusion on a "spot check of large Roman Catholic parishes and mainline Protestant churches around the nation," and reported that since September, "[P]astors nationwide say they have seen such a burst of new interest that they find themselves contending with powerful conflicting emotions -- deep empathy and quiet excitement -- as they re-encounter an old piece of religious lore: Bad times are good for evangelical churches."
Is this true? Slate's Jack Shafer dug a little deeper and has his doubts.
Has today's freshly cratered economy already given bloom to increased church attendance? No, Gallup's editor in chief, Frank Newport, writes in a Dec. 17 Web posting in reaction to the Times story. He asserts that "a review of almost 300,000 interviews conducted by Gallup so far in 2008 shows no evidence that church attendance in America has been increasing late this year as a result of bad economic times."
About 42 percent of Americans polled by Gallup in September, October, November and into December said that they had attended church weekly or almost every week, a number unchanged from earlier in the year. Newport also stated these findings in a letter to the Times that the paper published on Dec. 20. Newport allows in his Times letter that attendance may have increased at selected evangelical churches but that such an increase would be too limited to register nationally.
Ordinarily, when the Times traffics in a trend story, it indemnifies itself by quoting a skeptic on the other side of the issue or it tosses off a "to be sure" paragraph noting the weakness of its anecdotal evidence. Not here. Given this leap of faith, let's hope the Times isn't looking into the existence of Santa Claus. Imagine the headline: "Despite Naysayers, Hundreds of Millions Believe in St. Nick."
Also from the God Machine this week:
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Rick Warren Doubles Down, Accuses Critics Of 'Christophobia'
Posted by Jed Lewison, Daily Kos on December 26, 2008 at 4:37 PM.
Via John Aravosis at AMERICAblog, Rick Warren is doubling down and accusing his critics of "hate-speech" and "Christophobia."
Rachel Maddow has the video, and takes Warren to task for the hypocrisy of saying that it's unfair to call his views hateful while simultaneously accusing his critics of hate speech. Moreover, as Rachel notes, Warren flat-out lies about his comments comparing gay marriage to pedophilia and incest.
Setting aside Warren's role as inaugural invocation speaker (for a brief moment), I don't think there's any way to defend what he is now saying. I accept the proposition that it's possible to disagree on the issue of gay marriage without calling someone names.
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AP Shocker: Obama's a Geek!
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 25, 2008 at 11:26 AM.
I suppose this is among the slowest news days on the calendar, but I was still surprised to see this profound bit of reporting gracing the front page real estate of the San Francisco Chronicle this AM:
President-elect Barack Obama used to collect comic books, can't part with his BlackBerry, and once flashed Leonard "Mr. Spock" Nimoy the Vulcan "Live Long and Prosper" sign.
That and other evidence has convinced some of Obama's nerdier fans that he'll be the first American president to show distinct signs of geekiness. And that's got them as excited as a Tribble around a Klingon.
Obama is good at "repressing his inner geek, but you can tell it's there," especially when he goes into nuanced explanations of technical matters, said Benjamin Nugent, author of the book "American Nerd: The Story of My People."
"One imagines a terrifying rally of 'Star Trek' people shouting, 'One of us!'" Nugent said, in an interview conducted by e-mail, of course.
Others see only some geek qualities, qualifying the president-elect as merely "nerd-adjacent." After all, he's an athlete and kind of cool, some experts demur. Still, there's enough there for geeks to celebrate.
Psychology professor Larry Welkowitz of Keene State College in New Hampshire hopefully speculated that there's a shift in what's cool and that "smart can be in. Maybe that started with the computer programmers of the '90s."
Maybe you should shut up, nerd.
The AP helpfully offers a kind of taxonomy of spazzes for the unitinitiated:
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Maddow Busts Morgan Stanley Board Member for Lack of Transparency
Posted by David Sirota, Blog for Our Future on December 24, 2008 at 8:34 AM.
Last night, Rachel Maddow did something I never thought I'd see a journalist do: In the name of transparency, she went back and clarified that a bailout-justifying guest of hers actually had a blatant conflict of interest. Watch the clip here.
On Monday, Maddow had on Berkley professor Laura Tyson to talk about the bailout. You can watch that clip here. As you'll see, Tyson defended the firms that have received bailout money, saying they are not at fault in either how they are using the money, or in how they are refusing to answer questions about their use of the money. She also insisted that companies that get bailout money should be able to keep paying dividends to their shareholders.
Yet, Tyson didn't tell viewers that she sits on the board of directors of Morgan Stanley, a bank that has received $10 billion in bailout money. That's right - according to Morgan Stanley's SEC filings, Tyson makes about $350,000 a year from Morgan Stanley in total compensation from that position, and she now owns about 79,000 shares of the company. In other words, she has a direct financial interest in defending the bailout, absolving bailout recipients of wrongdoing, and justifying the use of bailout money for shareholder dividends.
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WSJ Uses 'Reporting' to Print Free Political Advertising for Anti-Labor Group
Posted by Scarecrow , Firedoglake on December 23, 2008 at 7:47 AM.
When you see this WSJ headline, "Illinois Scandal Spotlights SEIU's Use of Political Tactics," attached to a story in the Journal's "news" section, you'd expect there to be some actual reporting and not just an excuse to repeat anonymous, unproven or fact-free allegations and innuendo. But this is the new WSJ.
Instead, what we get from this article by "reporters" Kris Maher and David Kesmodel is just another excuse to front for an anonymous anti-labor group whose spokesperson admits that its political agenda is to air hit pieces on the SEIU in order to undermine support for the Employee Free Choice Act.
The dishonesty starts with the fact that the merits of providing workers with another option for organizing -- the heart of the EFCA -- have nothing to do with anything in the article. The anti-EFCA forces, including the Journal owners, just want you to think there's a connection to some scandal. With that in mind, here's the dishonest set up for this ad masquerading as "reporting."
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Conservatives' Crazy Conspiracy Theories About the Econapocalypse
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on December 23, 2008 at 7:23 AM.
For a while, before the presidential campaign, conservatives on Fox News and talk radio had an idea: the economy wasn't that bad, but Americans had been led to believe it was, thanks to an elaborate conspiracy involving the media and Democrats.
After the election, high-profile conservatives, including Bill O'Reilly and Karl Rove, publicly described a new theory: an elaborate conspiracy involving the media and Democrats is still working to convince Americans the economy is in bad shape, so as to help Barack Obama appear even more impressive when conditions turn around.
This week, we have yet another conspiracy theory, this time from Rush Limbaugh, who's just delusional enough to believe Democrats, most notably Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), deliberately created the global economic crisis for partisan gain.
Here's how Limbaugh's conspiracy theory goes: Schumer caused on run on IndyMac bank in California this summer, in order to create a feeling of financial panic amongst the public. Democrats then capitalized on this panic with electoral wins in the White House and Congress. The purpose of gaining this power, according to Limbaugh, was to nationalize U.S. industries:
"Who's benefiting? Aside from the people being bailed out. The Democrat [sic] Party and Barack Obama are benefiting.
"They got elected, they increased their numbers in the House, they increased their numbers in the Senate, they got the White House now, and they've got a crisis that people think can only be fixed with the all-mighty and powerful government interceding to save this or to save that, when in fact, the government is going to nationalize the automobile industry. It's going to nationalize some banks. It's going to nationalize the mortgage industry, and may end up nationalizing the automobile industry."
Keep in mind, this isn't just some poor man ranting on a street corner; this is a well-paid, well-connected conservative media personality.
It just doesn't occur to any of these clowns that the economy really is in awful shape, and Bush's conservative economic policies fueled the crisis. Since reality couldn't possibly be true, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Rove, and others concoct these bizarre ideas about conspiracies to help them make sense of the world. It's kind of sad, really.
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How Will Obama Deal with Bush's Worst Abuses of Power?
Posted by Nick Penniman, American News Project on December 18, 2008 at 3:39 PM.
From his perch at the New York Times, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist James Risen has been at the forefront of uncovering some of the Bush administration's worst abuses of power. As a result, he has been hauled before a grand jury and pressured by the government to name his anonymous sources. A few days after this interview was filmed, one of Risen's key sources, Thomas Tamm, was featured on the cover of Newsweek as "The Fed Who Blew the Whistle." Risen spoke with ANP about the rise in executive power during Bush's tenure and how the media failed to be vigilant in the wake of 9/11.
Rachel Maddow Mocks Bush for His Taliban Lie
Posted by Jason Linkins, Huffington Post on December 18, 2008 at 12:02 PM.
Yesterday, I talked about how President George W. Bush had made the extraordinary utterance that he had never before said that "the Taliban was eliminated," when in fact, he had done so personally a BUNCH of times. So much so, that the notion of an eliminated Taliban was an enduring myth for the myth-besotted throughout the aughts. Well, last night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow put a nice little button on this attempt at revising the historical record. "Why is that ringing the big 'YOU'RE TELLING A LIE' bell in my head?" Maddow wondered, before pulling out a pair of statements straight from Bush's mouth:
2003: "In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban."
2004: "As a result of the United States military, the Taliban is no longer in existence."
As figures in the mainstream media go, Maddow does a pretty fine job in batting back Bush's contentions. Additionally, as figures in the mainstream media go, Maddow is one of the few doing that job at all.
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Fox Gives Racist, Out of Control Cop His Own TV Show
Posted by Angela Kelley, America's Voice on December 18, 2008 at 7:58 AM.
"Smile, You're Under Arrest" -- that's the name of a new reality TV show starring none other than Sheriff Joe Arpaio of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO). Yet Maricopa County citizens aren't smiling as Arpaio's tactics have wreaked a lot of havoc, and fought little crime.
Arpaio has transformed his police department into an immigration-enforcement agency, gaining international notoriety in the process. Armed with a 287(g) agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and a mandate to enforce immigration law, Arpaio has taken the pursuit of undocumented immigrants to "unconstitutional extremes
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Rick Warren, Obama's Invocation Choice, Causing Real Rift With Progressives
Posted by Sam Stein, Huffington Post on December 18, 2008 at 5:36 AM.
Ever since Barack Obama was elected president, the media has been pining to write a story about liberal dissatisfaction with his transition efforts. By and large, the meme has been blown out of proportion, as the press overestimated how divisive Obama's cabinet choices were for progressives.
The press may now have its conflict moment. And it comes in the form of the spiritual leader chosen to launch Obama's inauguration.
On Wednesday, the transition team and Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies announced that Rick Warren, pastor of the powerful Saddleback Church, would give the invocation on January 20th. The selection may not have been incredibly surprising. Obama and Warren are reportedly close -- Obama praised the Megachurch leader in his second book "The Audacity of Hope." Warren, meanwhile, hosted a values forum between Obama and McCain during the general election. Nevertheless, the announcement is being greeted with deep skepticism in progressive religious and political circles.
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Andy Samberg: The Hilarious King of YouTube
Posted by Danny Shea, Huffington Post on December 16, 2008 at 10:24 AM.
AdAge's Michael Learmonth declares Andy Samberg King of YouTube as he reports that SNL's digital short "Jizz in My Pants" is the most-watched YouTube video of the past month, clocking in thus far at 6.7 million views. Of course, what makes this interesting is that "Jizz in My Pants" is one of the rare SNL clips available on the Google-owned YouTube:
NBC has a tortured relationship with YouTube, and takes a hard line toward enforcing copyright. The video's presence on YouTube likely has something to do with the fact that the song is the first single from Universal Music Group's upcoming release, "Incredibad," and the label has some interest in building an audience for it. The video was uploaded by Samberg's production company, The Lonely Island.
NBC is trying to make a buck from the short on its own site via advertising from Nissan and Wrigley's, where the video is receiving far fewer views (561,000). NBC also gets 70%-80% of the ad revenue from sales on Hulu.com, which doesn't disclose views but is running the video with an Absolute Vodka ad.
Last month, Ars Technica speculated that Samberg's viral hit "Lazy Sunday" was responsible for YouTube's $1.5 billion sale. The video, which debuted in December 2005, is widely credited with introducing YouTube to America, but NBC had it removed from the site so it could host it exclusively in its own player.
Watch Samberg's hit clips below:
The latest, Jizz in My Pants:
The first, Lazy Sunday:
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Meet the Man Who Threw His Shoes at Bush: Muntader al-Zeidi
Posted by Hanna Ingber Win, Huffington Post on December 15, 2008 at 11:05 AM.
An Iraqi journalist who threw his shoe at President Bush has been hailed as a hero across the Middle East, and is receiving so much attention Wikipedia already has an entry for him.
Reuters reports that Muntadhar al-Zeidi will be given an award by a Libyan charity group called Wa Attassimou.
"Waatassimou group has taken the decision to give Muntazer al-Zaidi the courage award ... because what he did represents a victory for human rights across the world," the group, headed by Aicha Gaddafi, said in a statement.
The group said the Iraqi authorities should honour the journalist for his actions.
Zaidi, accused by the Iraqi government of a "barbaric and ignominious act" will be tried on charges of insulting the Iraqi state, said the Iraqi prime minister's media advisor, Yasin Majeed.
The AP reports that thousands took to the streets Monday to demand his release from jail.
Journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi, who was kidnapped by militants last year, was being held by Iraqi security Monday and interrogated about whether anybody paid him to throw his shoes at Bush during a press conference the previous day in Baghdad, said an Iraqi official.
He was also being tested for alcohol and drugs, and his shoes were being held as evidence, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Showing the sole of your shoe to someone in the Arab world is a sign of extreme disrespect, and throwing your shoes is even worse. Iraqis whacked a statue of Saddam with their shoes after U.S. Marines toppled it to the ground following the 2003 invasion.
Al Jazeera reports that the journalist's employer, Al-Baghdadiya television, has demanded his release as well. Zeidi faces a minimum of two years in prison if he is convicted of insulting a visiting head of state, according to the report.
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