Or maybe it exists in some parallel universe where I have a goatee? I got into a conversation today about the future. Not the future, as in the election or what will be the state of the stock market in the next quarter, but the sort of future people believed in as children. The one where our cars would fly and computers would talk to us, and be servants that tackle the mundane & serious problems of life. Instead, at the beginning of the 21st Century, we're struggling to find ways to keep the road cars running without damaging the planet, and when not suffering from blue screens of death, computers still aren't "smart" like HAL (well, a non-homicidal HAL) and more likely being used to watch "2 Girls & A Cup" or some other thing going around the series of tubes.
So I thought it might be interesting to see a few of the ideas that never were... or at least... not yet.
Yes this is a horrible idea. Perhaps just make customs and immigration a bit more pleasant instead?
As a US Citizen, Duncan gets to see the best parts of US Customs and Immigration. I'm not, and while I got to experience some of that VIP treatment during the nine years I was a permanent resident alien, I've also seen the other side.
They neglect to mention that 90% of Obama's war chest IS public financing. 90% is from donations of $1000 or less! Count on Olbermann to make that point tonight on Countdown.
Charlie whines like a little two-year old asking if Obama's decision is "fair." Was it fair in '04 when the Repugs were flush with cash? Was it fair when they stole Ohio and before that Florida? It's our turn, bitch! Deal with it and stop spreading your whiny little propaganda. This isn't a question of unfairness. It's a question of justice. Now bite me!
McCain's Speechmaking Panned by Pundits
Disney Imagineers Plan Emergency Upgrade
Richieville News Service – BURBANK, CA
Following John McCain's widely-panned performance in a speech given last Tuesday in Kenner, Louisiana, Republican strategists have called in engineers from Walt Disney Productions for what is being termed an "emergency upgrade," to the candidate's public speaking abilities.
Update 3:20 p.m. ET: Just minutes after this was posted, Obama and McCain both rejected the ABC/Bloomberg proposal. Congratulations - we must have scared them!
First, Mike Bloomberg is a Republican billionaire who gives to (and raises money for) Republicans.
Second, ABC News hosted the very worst Presidential debate (and there was a lot of competition!) on April 16. The first hour was devoted to outrageous and meaningless questions, including one attacking Obama's patriotism that was written by Sean Hannity! Later, Charlie Gibson attacked Obama for wanting to slightly increase the capital gains tax, which would take a few pennies out of Gibson's (and Bloomberg's) cavernous pockets.
Like many Americans I was completely disgusted with ABC and its corporate master Disney. The presidential debate held on April 16th was not just an embarrassment to the journalistic profession, but in my opinion a crass attempt to hijack the discourse of American politics by injecting some of the most puerile asinine idiotic ideas imaginable. Does your pastor love America? What kind of jewelry do you wear to show your patriotism? Do you recognize the sound of sniper fire and why did you take your daughter to hear it? Who the hell is William Ayers? Answer yes or no! Submit to ABC defining your campaign! That kind of attitude, the attention on things that simply do not matter is what got us into adventures like Iraq, and our mortgage lending crisis. Like Howard Beale said from the movie Network I and my wife became mad as hell and we were not going to take it anymore! We decided to let the men from Mouse know it.
We can protest all we want on the Internet but the corrupt corporate media only takes note when our actions affect their bottom line profits. For several decades now, our representatives have been voting lockstep to extend copyright protections to all of Disney's intellectual property including their mascot - Mickey Mouse which should already have become public domain by now.
The greatest possible financial loss to Disney would be for enraged citizens to work to pressure their representatives so that Disney loses its perpetual copyright protection for everything it has ever created.
Let us dedicate ourselves to achieving this goal. Let us symbolically kill the mouse, eh, rat.
Munchausen Syndrome or Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSbP), are insidious disorders in which injury is deliberately and gradually inflicted upon a person usually for gaining attention[1] or some other benefit[2].
In high school, I won all kinds of awards for journalistic writing. I was the Editor-In-Chief of the school paper, and I got several invitations to enter from year one into college journalism programs. I had always planned on writing but was unsure how to use that particular strength of mine. But I was concerned that if I went right into journalism I wouldn't get a chance to explore.
Therefore, I chose a Big Ten school and mucked around for quite a while. I got distracted and wound up in the health sciences.
Some days my journalism teacher's words haunted me. I stopped by to visit my high school one day in late college, when I had planned on going to grad school in mental health. She got a sorrowful look on her face and said, "What a writer you would have made."
Those words used to create a knot in my stomach every time I thought of them. But as of yesterday's debate debacle, I'm freed of that particular ghost.
The April 16 Democratic Presidential Candidate debate is indeed a travesty. I shall report the complaint to FCC for the conflict of interest and for engaging in irrelevant trivia that disregards the spirited, substantive and informative debate.
ABC News directors & producers and Walt Disney Company media executives have turned America into a laughingstock of the world.
[Because] George S. and Charlie Gibson clearly neglect the standard of broadcast journalism, this [failure] warrant the discipline & termination.
Well folks, you've witnessed it. I can't describe it any better than what you've already seen. I'm not sure what their motivation is. I really don't care. I've never seen anything quite like it in my life and I hope I never have to see it again.
My opinions on this are largely irrelevant. What matters to this network is money, and that is where we need to go. Starting tomorrow, my spare time, meager as it is, will be dedicated to revealing the advertisers of this network, for the purpose of organized boycotts.
The article reports that Disney CEO Roger Iger's big bucks pay package is being challenged by a fund manager, Tom Borelli, at Disney's annual shareholder's meeting due to Disney's shelving of the DVD version of The Path to 9/11, a 2006 miniseries.
Fifty medical workers -- doctors, nurses, therapists and administrators among them -- sat in a room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center gazing at a slide of Donald Duck on a screen.
The oft-cranky Disney cartoon character, wearing his blue sailor jacket and cap, was in a palpable rage. His webbed feet had lifted off the ground, his beak was gaping, and his white-gloved hands were tightly clutching an old-fashioned two-piece telephone.
Sure, there are a lot of reporters who could qualify for the title "worst reporter ever"? Judith Miller, Wolf Blitzer, Tom Friedman, David Broder...there is a large class of people who claim to practice journalism but seem to be caught in the grips of gullibility, conventional wisdom, their own ideology or simply the desire to kiss up to the rich and powerful. But, for my money, the person who really sets the current standard today is Michael Cieply.
Not surprisingly, the Directors Guild of America has struck a tentative deal with Big Media. The DGA has always been perceived as more producer-friendly in the business because many of the heavy-weight directors are producers themselves and some are mini-empires. Of course, the spin that is being put out is that this is a great deal:
"It's really an excellent deal," Gilbert Cates, who led the directors’ negotiating committee, said in a telephone interview.
Okay, so you can take that for what it is: self-congratulation that comes before most people can study the fine print. I would say the same thing if I was the negotiator. The deal appears to be predicated on the DGA's view that Internet-based revenues will be quite small over the life of the three-year deal. The question is: did the DGA sacrifice terrain that is now lost forever? From my vantage point, there are some good things here but also some areas of concern.
Boycott Disney, Watch football. Vote Kucinich.
I was watching an exciting football game instead of inhaling the ipecac, but still, I had to rubberneck a bit and watch the car crash that is debate, so please fill me in on anything I may have missed. GO GIANTS!
The other day a diary by SteveUFT made the recommended list which was about the alleged evils of the Disney corporation because it removed a teachers name from a list of honorees of a now defunct educational award its company gave out. It was claimed his name was removed because the person was previously listed as a signatory on a protest letter against the company.
I don't know Leo Casey, who put forward this plot by Disney against him over on the EdWize blog. From what I gather Mr. Casey is a special representative for the United Federation of Teachers in New York City and is well-respected and competent. I have no truck against him personally, and certainly not against union teachers or unions as a whole.
Yet there is a serious gaping hole in the story which makes his claims border on the bat-shit crazy.
Or maybe it exists in some parallel universe where I have a goatee? I got into a conversation today about the future. Not the future, as in the election or what will be the state of the stock market in the next quarter, but the sort of future people believed in as children. The one where our cars would fly and computers would talk to us, and be servants that tackle the mundane & serious problems of life. Instead, at the beginning of the 21st Century, we're struggling to find ways to keep the road cars running without damaging the planet, and when not suffering from blue screens of death, computers still aren't "smart" like HAL (well, a non-homicidal HAL) and more likely being used to watch "2 Girls & A Cup" or some other thing going around the series of tubes.
