Brian Williams and Baghdad Bob

From FlaglerLive: "He lied even in his apology. He claimed he’d been following the helicopter that was struck. He hadn’t. His helicopter was forced to land because of a sand storm. Only later was Williams able to speak to the crew of the copter hit by an RPG round, when that aircraft landed in the same place. He claimed he’d “conflated” some events in a “bungled attempt” to publicly thank a veteran on the PA system at a New York Rangers game (another one of those moments of choreographed pandering the television camera and its distortive effects love so much). That was a lie too because two years ago on Letterman Williams marked the 10th anniversary of that bogus story by going on the show and boasting about it." The full piece. 

2012

You mean this is still live?

Florida Loves Polluters, Girl Crushes of 2010, and Madonna vs. Lady Gaga: The Live Wire, Dec. 13, 2010

• Florida's Civil Liberties at Risk
• Florida Loves Polluters
• Florida's New Muscle in DC
• Madonna vs. Lady Gaga
• Girl Crushes of 2010
• The State of Giving in the US
• African American Society's Gift-Giving
• Palm Coast's Holiday Joy Ride
• Free Tennis Clinics
• A Few Good Links
• Help Jamie Bly

And Keep in Mind:

• GOP Blocks 9/11 Health Care Bill
• Markowitz Special: Dave Brubeck
• The Lies of "Waiting for Superman"

The Full Wire | The Previous Wire

Where You Ought To Be

If you've landed here, you're two years to late. This is where you want to be:

http://pierretristam.com

Lost Causes

Good Morning. A couple of new items today.

• There is, after all, another war going on, the original war, the one “on terror,” the one that was supposed to end terrorism and states that support it. That Afghanistan is getting little attention anymore is the fruit of two poisoned trees: the situation there is intractable. And it is not about to be resolved, neither by a splurge of surges nor by imports of cash, no matter the tonnage. Canadians are catching on. NATO isn't. See "Remember Afghanistan?"
  

• And it's not as if Iraq has it better. It wasn’t 48 hours ago that the Bush junta was chatting up its lockdown of Baghdad as a result of the ongoing “surge” of Iraqi and American forces through the capital. It was the latest of dozens of so-called lockdowns over the years. None of which have done more than fuel the insurgency. See "Now what?"
  

• "From the Diary of an Iraqi Librarian."

Much more in the Daily Journal. Thanks for reading Candide's Notebooks. Spread the word.pt

Severed Heads and Sensibility

Good morning. Too many new items to count...

• In Book Eight of Marcus Aurelius’s “Meditations,” we come across this line: “Have you ever seen a hand or a foot cut off, or a head sliced off, lying anywhere apart from the rest of the body?” The question has more relevance today than we're willing to admit. So does Aurelius's answer. Pierre's essay explores both. See "Severed Heads and Sensibility."
  

• Target Iran: The Bush junta is going after Iran with the same guile and mix of propaganda and fabulism as it did going after Iraq. Yet again, the media are swallowing the farce whole. See "Iranian Gulf of Tonkin"
  

• On the US-Mexico border, there are vigilantes, and there are murderers. And there are both. See "Vigilantes and Murderers."
  

• Fox News decides to do business porn.
  

• Fear of lesbians begins early, often and cruelly. A tale from the trenches. See "Fifth-Grade Homophobia."
  

As always, more in the Daily Journal. Thanks for reading.pt

Anna Nicole Smith or Jimi Hendrix?

Try both.

• You can see Anna Nicole Smith in her more pious poses (and some of those fabulous Playboy covers): "Vickie A.N. Smith, Alas"
  

• What was the meaning of Jimi Hendrix's star-spangled ordnance at Woodstock? See Candide's Notebooks contributor Rick de Yampert's "Anthem to Jimi Hendrix"

Good weekend everyone...pt

Of Vaccine Trials and Deaths Foretold

Good Morning. A few new items today...

• Sexually-Transmitted Profits: See "Merck, God, and the War Over the HPV Vaccine."
  

• Remember Bush declaring victory in the Iraq war on the USS Abraham Lincoln in May 2003? Even then, the writing of the mayhem to come was on the wall--or in the papers. See "Chronicle of Deaths Foretold."
  

• If it's a romp through Tim Russert's Rolodex you're interested in, fine. But "Spare Me the Libby Trial."
  

• Surge here, disperse there: "The Iraq Insurgency Goes Suburban."

More in the Daily Journal. Thanks for reading Candide's Notebooks. Spread the word.pt

Taser Brutality in Our Schools

Good Morning. A couple of items today...

• Last Thursday morning a 16-year-old special education student at a Florida high school was shot with a Taser by a school cop. It all began when the student refused to do his school work. He ended up with a felony charge and in juvenile detention. Welcome to our brave new America. See "Taser Brutality In Our Schools."
  

• "Ehren Watada's War Theater: A Soldier Disputes an Illegal War"
  

• Happy Birthday, Eubie Blake: a Ragtime Rover.
  

• The WPA Guides: Arizona, "Ancient and Venerable Land"

As always, thanks for reading... and welcome new subscribers. Spread the word...pt

Cowards and Militarists

Good Morning. A few new items today. Cue up the Sousa.

• When a society is no longer exclusively and vigilantly civil, its claim to be a civilized society, let alone a civilizing one, is in peril. Other countries have been discovering that about the United States . We’re discovering it at home, too, every time a police shield is flashed with the presumptive power of an M-16 burst. See "America's March Toward a Military State."
  

• The Senate folds on an anti-war resolution. See "Cowards."
  

• He's a Sixth Amendment thug. See "Henry Stimson, a Lousy Pentagon Lawyer, Thankfully Resigns."
  

• Had a Snickers bar lately? Feeling woozily homophobic? See "Those Superbowl Ads Again."
  

The best of the blogosphere and more crumbs and quickies in The Daily Journal. Thanks for reading.pt

Superduds

Good morning. A few new items as the sogginess outside our Floridian windows continues. In FEMA's absence, as always.

• I didn't know who the Colts were and wasn't sure why the Bears were there, but commented the Superbowl anyway. See "The Superbowl, Semi-Live."
  

• Robert Fisk and the fallacies of the word terrorist, see "Spare Me the Word Terrorist"
  

• It's getting old: The Bush administration has been inventing a case for war against Iran out of thin air. See "Iran, the Muddle."

More in the Daily Journal. Thanks for reading.pt

Loquacious Ineloquence from Bush to Biden

Good Morning. A few items for the weekend...

• President Bush was scampering discrepant all over Wall Street This week, including a lay-over with the Wall Street Journal Editorial board. The result? See "Bush's Wall Street Bull."
  

• Joe Biden's Loquacious Ineloquence.
  

• Remembering Molly Ivins, and her Queens Days.
  

• Why is the Federal Emergency Management Agency the stand-out champion among federal agencies of the Bush administration's incompetence? See "FEMA's Shams."
  

• The Pentagon thinks there are almost 30,000 fewer casualties than does the Veterans Administration, which recently put the number of wounded out of Iraq at 50,000. The discrepancy is indicative of the government's total war on truth. See "When Casualties Aren't."
  

• Tales of neo-martial law: "What Military States Are Made Of."

Plenty more in the various editions of the Daily Journal. Good weekend everyone (and welcome, new subscribers: the past ten days have brought a surge of their own, and I'm all for this one).pt

War Trash

Good Morning. A few new items...

• A two-part column on war's most common by-product: art and memorials. See part I, "Ash to Art, Art to Dust," and part II, "The Human Tolerance Walls Can Speak Of."
  

• West Virginia is a rolling heartbreak. The explosion at a convenience store on Monday is one more example. See "An Explosion in Ghent."
  

• Hezbollah Wears Prada: See "Lebanon's Nasrallah, Coy Warrior"
  

• America's police agencies are going military. See "Cops' Military Fetish."

Plenty more in the Daily Journal. Thanks for reading.pt

Genocide as Wallpaper

Good morning. A few new items:

• What happens if a genocide takes place and the press does report it as it's happening? Usually, indifference. See "Genocide as Wallpaper"
  

• "Banning Unpleasant Muslims"
  

• Holocaust Memorial Day and its (attempted) hijackers
  

• Roger Federer wins the Australian Open. Big yawn.

More in the Daily Journal. Thanks for reading, and welcome new subscribers: Last week The Notebooks got linked by Crooks & Liars, Slate, Romenesko's Media News and Meta Filter, among others.pt

Kafka in Canada

Good Morning. A few items for the weekend...

• Maher Arar is the Syrian-born wireless technology consultant American authorities detained on false information from Canada, then "rendered" to Syria, where Arar was imprisoned and tortured for almost a year before his release. Canada cleared him of all suspicions. The Americans refuse to remove him from a terrorist watch list. See "The Hounding of Maher Arar"
  

• "The Bush presidency Is Over." Need we say more?
  

• "The Multinational Failures of Condi Rice"
  

• "Hugo Chavez, Press Thug"
  

• "Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Islam's Prickly Enlightenment"
  

Plenty more in the Daily Journal. Thanks for reading.pt
Plenty

Herbert Tippen Davidson Jr., 1925-2007

Good morning,

On Tuesday morning, Herbert Davidson, third-generation owner of the last major family-owned newspapers in Florida, died. A personal tribute, "Colossus of Heart and Verve."

• Hezbollah is at it again in Lebanon, edging the country toward civil war: See "Lebanon's Slide."

• A tribute to Jacques Brel and "Le plat pays," see "Brel, Ever Alive and Well."

Much more in the Daily Journal. Thanks for reading.pt

Education's Heists

Good Morning. A couple of new items today...

• What's the purpose of education--to manufacture workers or mold individuals? The "free" market drives the answer. See Pierre's Tuesday Column, "Cogs and Ends: Education's Heist?"
  

• Anthony Swofford scored big with Jarhead, his memoir of the first Gulf War. His first novel, Exit A, draws less than pink mist. See "Jarhead Shoots Blanks."
  

• From the archives: 15 years old and shot down for wielding a fake gun. Remember "Chris Penley's Fatal Bullies."

Plenty more in the Daily Journal. Thanks for reading.pt

Bush the Empire Slayer

Good morning. A few items from the weekend...

• Bernard Chazelle, a computer science professor at Princeton, contributes a terrifically written piece that sums up the Bush years in red white and blight: See "Bush the Empire Slayer."
  

• The war on terror's great delusion? That Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are American allies, when they are, in fact, al-Qaeda's enabling axis. See "Pakistan, Bush and the Taliban"
  

• On Lebanon's Michel Aoun, "The General in His Laban Cloth"
  

• Can Bach--or any classical music--be translated into words? Not likely. But don;t let that stop you from trying. See "For the Love of Bach."

Plenty more in the Daily Journal. Thanks for reading.pt

Deceptive Reversal on Spying

Good Morning. Several new items today...

• What was that about Bush's reversal on domestic spying? Don't believe it. See "Bush Isn't Ending Domestic Spying. Only Due Process."
  

• Condi Rice--and most Americans--aren't paying a personal price for the Iraq war. See Pierre's Tuesday Column, "Barbara Boxer was right."
  

• So it turns out the US government has been torturing prisoners without a clue about the effectiveness of the technique. See "Torture for Dummies."
  

• "How to Eradicate Poverty By Ignoring It."
  

• A Lebanese Immortal Dies: See "Pepe, 1910-2007."

Plenty more in the Daily Journal. Thanks for reading. pt

Reviled Prophets

Good Morning. Several new items on the theme of reviled prophets today.

• Today marks the fifteenth anniversary of the break-out of the first Gulf War, brought to you by CNN's Peter Arnett, Jim Holliman and Bernard Shaw live in Baghdad. But let's not forget what Peter Arnett prophesied about the second war, just eight days into the invasion, on April 1, 2003, only to be summarily fired for it. See "Peter Arnett's Prophesies"
  

• Whatever happened to the $1 billion American embassy in Baghdad? See "Fortress of Folly"
  

• Mark McGwire's steroid problem was his own. And ours. See "Of Beefcakes and Role Models"
  

• Notebooks contributor Ohdave reviews Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. See "Jimmy Carter's Holy Land"
  

• Diarist: $5,000 braces. For what? See "For the Love of Torture"

Plenty more, including Glenn Gould and Burqah-bikinis, in the Daily Journal...

Thanks for reading...pt

Bush's Cambodia

• The latest from the Daily Journal: see Bush's Low Grade War on Iran