Shoot at the Big Targets First

On the very slim chance that anyone is nervous about the "Sambo" story, rest assured, this is pure fantasy. Just check out the source. "Charley James" says:

Frankly, writing as someone who has been covering news since the late 1960s for everything from local newspapers to major market TV and radio stations, to a major business newsweekly, journalists don’t like citing anonymous sources any more than much of the public likes reading pieces that quote people without attribution. Alas, more often than not, the reality is that in a highly-explosive story such as my piece about Sarah Palin I posted, granting anonymity may be the only way to get a source to agree to be interviewed.

So I am not surprised that a number of readers who wrote comments about the article raised questions about my sources. It has happened before, especially when I tackled a subject that raises a lot of dust, and it will happen again. Although I won’t reveal any sources – I honor promises of anonymity – let me explain.....

Does that smell fishy to you? Why not name the "major business newsweekly"? Or any of the papers? And if you check his blogspot profile you see he's only been blogging since June. Is this possibly one of those guys who says he "works" for such and such paper because he got a letter to the editor published back in 1982? About getting litter barrels for the bike path? OK, sure, could be he's a professional "journalist" who just didn't realize that this bit of writing looked suspiciously like what an internet poser would write. So I checked the google news archives. Guess what? I found nothing written by a Charley James.

Sure old Chaz can come up with some story about using a pseudonym, or maybe the CIA went through and purged all his old work. Sure. Only thing we can know for sure that he wrote is this new story. But look how this "professional" writes:

Frankly, writing as someone who has been covering news since the late 1960s for everything from local newspapers to major market TV and radio stations, to a major business newsweekly, journalists don’t like....

What? I'm not a professional and I can tell you that's wrong. The sentence could be fixed with: "Writing as a blah-blah-blah, I must say that journalists...." Or break it into two sentences. But that "writing as" went nowhere. That's just poor writing.

And Charley? What's this:

a highly-explosive story such as my piece about Sarah Palin I posted.

My piece I posted? Good lord, you're barely literate. OK, how about:

especially when I tackled a subject that raises

Oh, good Lord Charley, you write like one of those found-money Nigerian please-to-be-remitting letters. Charley it's: "especially when I tackled a subject that raised" RAISED you monkey at a typewriter. You illiterate hack.

So ok, he's not a professional. That's not a sin. But the intro to his piece says he is. And that's an obvious lie. When the whole thing starts out with a lie you need read no further. There is no Lucille. This story sprang from one of those feverish little internet lefties.

The LA Progressive, where I first saw the Snarly James piece, looked professional at first but that's just pretty graphics... a little digging shows it's two people with a Yahoo address who have been doing this for six months or so. More sizzle without the steak.

***Update: Reader participation! From his Blogger Profile:

I've been writing since I was eight years old and, after working in newsrooms for far too long, I have devoted much of the past decade as an independent investigtative jouralist.

Hey! Nigerian scammers -- hire this guy.

So That's How They Did It

These things have been around for awhile. What's great about the Chinese model is the idea to light up the spokes and ride lots of them around at night. They looked awesome. Now, in a daylight picture you can see pretty much how it was done. Those pedals are actually two different assemblies.

Elementary physics tells you they must be dangerous as hell, and impossible to stop quickly, but this is going on my short list of things to build when I've got the time.

We Have to Investigate

Have you heard the rumors that Sarah Palin has been recruiting a private army of chrome faced space aliens in the Alaskan woods? Me either; not until I wrote that anyway. But I'm not entirely put off by the thought of Chris Tingle-leg Mathews and Andrew Sullivan on a tree to tree search in the wilderness. Keep them out of trouble for awhile.

I Call Shenanigans

I've been watching video of the Obama speech in Duryea, PA. today. At one point he asks if Republicans just make stuff up.... but then: He says we're going to invest 15 billion in alternative energy. And create 5 million jobs, good paying jobs.

OK, do the math. That's $3,000 a year. I make almost twice that. Shenanigans!

But really, the whole Obama show is rigged. He is "giving" us absolutely everything, health insurance, high speed rail, infrastructure, personal jet packs, perfect teeth, I mean just everything. Oh and magically, "Ninety-five percent of Americans would get a tax cut under my proposal. Ninety-five percent. Ninety-five percent. Nobody disputes this. Nobody disputes it. Under my plan the middle class would get three times the amount of relief as under John McCain's plan." Sure, and when we get home from work, the government will have a large bowl of ice cream and a foot rub waiting for us.

I feel so much better after the Sarah bump, but Obama still has the charisma thing, plus the math-is-hard vote. If the man gets elected it will be because Americans have forgotten how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

Rolling Stone Cover

Jann Wenner must have bumped the Women Alcoholics issue (gee, who will be on the cover of that one) for this late-breaking news edition.

(yes, of course it's fake)

Silly Oprah

"The item in today's Drudge Report is categorically untrue. There has been absolutely no discussion about having Sarah Palin on my show. At the beginning of this Presidential campaign when I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate, I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates. I agree that Sarah Palin would be a fantastic interview, and I would love to have her on after the campaign is over."

Ummmm,Oprah.... after the election she's going to be a little busy.

***Update: I'm hearing some people giving Oprah hell for not having Sarah on. What? Oprah can do what she likes, hey, that's why it's called the Oprah show. Anyway, would you rather she had Sarah on and spent the whole time trying to tear her down?

True story: the worst book I ever read was an Oprah Book Club selection. I figured what the heck, if all these people are reading it, it can't be too bad. It was buckets full of too bad. It was monumental bad. I wanted to take drugs to get the words out of my head. And I learned something about Oprah's Book Club.

I've never watched her show beyond walking past a TV that had it on, but her show is like her book club: if it's good, people will watch. If it becomes a TV version of Air America, well, it will go the way of Air America. People won't watch her show, like I don't buy her books. Everybody wins.

Probable Time Cover

(clickabiggen)

Answer: yes

Live Stream from the RNC

Now you never have to navigate away from this page:

Live Videos by Ustream

BTW - Keep in mind that this is from Minnesota, ie, my people. Extra points if you hear,"Ya sure, you betcha!" or "well alrighty then".


If the video is broken, find it here.

Sarah News

Darnit! Annette Bening isn't impressed. There goes a good night's sleep for me.

Even worse, Gloria Steinem says:

Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Or more accurately, it's about the government baking a pie and giving it to us. She mentions her original choice for President:

.....Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

but now, tagged on the end:

Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.

Yikes. So she even likes the misogynist more than a woman. Maybe there's a point to the field of Gender Studies. This is obviously more complicated than I ever imagined.

Out of Touch

From Fox:

The troop surge in Iraq has been more successful than anyone could have imagined, Barack Obama conceded Thursday in his first-ever interview on FOX News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.”

Um, no. The surge may have been more successful than you could have imagined. It may have been more successful than anyone of your friends could have imagined. But imagining success was how the surge came to be formulated. It's that Vision thing. It's how the surge came into being, it's what prompted a huge effort by a huge number of men and women, and it's why the surge was ultimately successful.

That's one of those leadership things that it's nice to have: The ability to visualize success, come up with a plan, then roll up your sleeves and go out and do it. None of the architects are saying, Gee, we never thought it would really work."

Iraq may still face challenges, but the surge represents a sea change in conditions. That was the point in doing it. Congratulations to all involved.