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"ABC Leaves Ideology Out of Investigation Into 9/11 Truthers: 'They Come From All Over the Political Spectrum'" says NewsBusters. And because they don't use the Truther label as a alternate pejorative to 'liberal', that's a bad thing.

Nightline's Chris Bury on Monday investigated the so-called 9/11 Truth movement, but made no effort to look at the ideological make up of those who believe that the government was behind the 2001 terror attacks. Reporting from the group's convention, he asserted, "Over the weekend hundreds of Americans calling themselves 9/11 Truthers gathered at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. They come from all over the political spectrum."

However, according to a 2007 poll by Rasmussen, 35 percent of Democrats believed that President Bush knew about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in advance. Yet, Bury blandly explained, "They are an eclectic group with widely different agenda, including war protestors, first responders who feel neglected and families of some 9/11 victims."

NewsBuster's use of the word "however" here is proof that's the whole operation is just a propaganda enterprise. Like many conservative organizations, they're not interested in exposing a double standard, they're interested in implementing one.

If you read the entire article, they consider how many Democrats believe stupid stuff like Bush knowing 9/11 was going to happen, but nowhere does the article consider how many Republicans do. Worse, they call out Nightline for positing the possibility that Republicans can.

This is not the thought process of someone interested in fairness. The irony of calling out Nightline for saying "They Come From All Over the Political Spectrum" and only looking the beliefs of Democrats to "challenge" that statement is completely lost on these simpletons.

Reading conservative blogs, the feeling I'm getting is that conservatives are breaking out their kabuki masks of outrage again just because Rather is a target they want in their crosshairs permanently. He gave them another opportunity to sight their scopes last Sunday:

Far more real, measurable and blatant examples of racism get no traction in the conservative blogosphere, naturally. Questioning the importance or even the existence of environmental, workplace or other types of racism are the norm. Yet their ears perk up and they pretend to care over an offhand comment, that at it's absolute worst could be described as "unfortunate."

Of course, today sees the inevitable and probably unnecessary apology from Rather. It's horribly shallow to think that uttering the word watermelon and mentioning Obama devoid of any racist context is automatically a bad thing, but here we are.

"Lohan sues eTrade for $100M over ad with ‘milkaholic’ Lindsay."

This is my favorite e-Trade commercial yet, and it in no way made me think of Lindsay Lohan:

For the record, eTrade is denying the allegations.

True hard-core libertarians want damn near everything privatized, including our public schools:

The Washington Post ran an incisive op-ed yesterday by Kelly Amis and Joseph Robert on the DC voucher program. As they noted, Sen. Joseph Lieberman is calling on the Senate to restore funding for the program which was terminated on a nearly party-line vote by Congress last December.

A few Democrats (Dianne Feinstein and Robert Byrd) have joined with Lieberman, but the rest of the party has apparently decided that producing better educational outcomes for poor kids at one quarter the cost of public schooling is not politically advantageous.

I couldn't help but notice that last link. Better education for 1/4 the price? Sounds awesome! If that was the case, you'd think politicians would be all over that.

But they aren't.

It's not hard to figure out why. If you actually read the link, the article argues that the voucher program was cheaper than public schools, but the case is not made (or even addressed!) for voucher education being better.

I have to wonder why not?

"Postal Service Doesn't Need To Cut Delivery Days."

Political Animal: "Courting Disaster."

Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Black Damsel In Dating Distress

Think Progress: Bachmann To Vote For Resolution Promoting Census After Leading Campaign To Smear It

If this goes anywhere I'm going to do a complete about face and join the right-wing nutjobs in stocking up on ammunition, denouncing the government and whatnot.

My first five years of life we spent in Skagway, Alaska, right there by Whitehorse. Believe it or not -- this was in the '60s -- we used to hustle on over the border for health care that we would receive in Whitehorse. I remember my brother, he burned his ankle in some little kid accident thing and my parents had to put him on a train and rush him over to Whitehorse and I think, isn't that kind of ironic now. Zooming over the border, getting health care from Canada.

--Sarah Palin

"Republicans scold Liz Cheney."

If you haven't seen the ad that provoked this reaction, I highly recommend watching it:

The thing I don't get is how everyone is focusing on how shameless she is. Now I'm not saying she isn't shameless: that's already been proven due to her forceful rejection of the truth.

What I'm wondering about that very few people are talking about is simple - what about her and her opinions makes her someone worth putting on TV? Her resume seems to consist simply of her last name, which she inherited from one of the least popular politicians alive. Every job she has ever had could be explained as nepotism, what has she done to stand out in any one of them? She's not particularly insightful or even basically truthful, so why's she on my TV set so often?

I'm a huge Dwayne McDuffie fan, and it's a sin and a shame that I've let this blog go on so long without ever having mentioned him.

The Atlantic has a wonderful interview with McDuffie up, covering a lot of his work in the DC Comics animated universe and his career as a writer for both Marvel and DC Comics.

But the highlight of his work for me was his hand in the creation of the Milestone comics universe. Other than Garth Ennis's recent run on The Punisher, the Milestone lineup was the only time I've been truly excited by reading comics in the last two decades. The fact that they're not around anymore is probably the largest reason I really don't read many comics these days. With Milestone gone, they literally don't make them like they used to. You're all the poorer if you haven't had the chance to read those comics. (Especially this one. Dwayne didn't write that, but it's one of the best single issue comics I've ever read.

Let me plug his work on the absolutely awesome Justice League Unlimited show. "Panic in the Sky" and "Divided We Fall" easily rival Star Trek's "Best of Both Worlds" for best sci-fi story to ever cross the TV screen. And that's not hyperbole. It's that good. Buy the whole show though, it's easily worth the money.

"INTERVIEW: Chomsky Post-Earthquake."

"Program Will Pay Homeowners to Sell at a Loss."

Sounds all well and good, isn't a large part of the problem that nobody's buying? Who's the prospective buyers here?

AlterNet: Controversy Grows over Study Claiming Liberals and Atheists Are Smarter

NewsBusters: "Bill Maher Wishes Glenn Beck Had Been Killed at Pentagon Thursday."

OK fine, it's not funny, it's disgusting. When are they calling Ann Coulter out for saying the exact. same. thing? Never, of course.

"Armed Robbers Storm Poker Tournament on Live TV."

"Now, that doesn't diminish his talent, which is major, but it does make him kind of a mindless partisan"

--Bill O'Reilly, the pot, calling Tom Hanks, black

Normally, I'd make fun of Star Trek nerds getting worked into a tizzy, but . . . DAMN:

This is a recap of the promotion and the resulting firestorm for those who don't want to read 206+ pages. Please note I'm trying to be objective. Let me know if I missed a major "event".

Friday, February 26th

• Atari/Cryptic offers a $10 discount on all ST:O boxes sold only by Atari until March 3rd. This promotion also comes with an additional 60 free days on top of the included 30 free days, for a total of 90 days of free playtime. This promotion comes less than a month after ST:O "officially" goes live.


• Some existing subscribers, many of them who have been with the game since Closed Beta, feel slighted by the timing of this promotion (and specifically the 60 additional free days) and begin to express their displeasure on the official forums.


• Numerous threads appear on the official forums over the weekend expressing outrage at the promotion, which is viewed by many as a blatant "money-grab". Some posts, by both protesters and supporters of the promotion, are contentious.

Sunday, February 28th

• GM_IndigoFyre, the administrator for the official ST:O forums, stickied the primary protest thread, stating "it wont leave the top of the page until the question gets answered." (See here)

Monday, March 1st

• The thread GM_IndigoFyre stickied is unstickied and closed, along with any other thread relating to subscribers protesting the Atari/Cryptic promotion. All of the closed threads are redirected to a new thread created by Community Rep Phoxe titled "Re: Atari Sale".


• Rumors begin to appear on the forums that Atari/Cryptic are no longer giving refunds on lifetime subscriptions, whereas on Friday Feb. 28th they still were. While the sales agreement at the time of purchase stated clearly that lifetime subscriptions were non-refundable, Atari/Cryptic had been refunding them anyway. Now it seemed that instead of counting the 30-day window for return from when the registration key was entered Atari/Cryptic were now counting from when the purchase was actually made. Since many had purchased early, this change eliminated them from refund consideration. This change in return policy does not occur until the beginning of the workday, US Pacific Time (mid-afternoon UK time).


• Some subscribers, many of whom were very vocal in protesting the Friday promotion, begin to be banned from the official forums. Many of those protesting the Feb. 28th promotion view this as blatant censorship. Some of those who were banned take their protests to other industry-related forums. News of the negative reaction to the promotion spreads to those websites and beyond. (See here)


• The promotion that started it all is altered to remove the 60 free days. The $10 price reduction is left intact.


• Cryptic customer service representatives claim that at no point were 60 free days offered in the promotion, despite an email being sent out to many ST:O players stating otherwise.


• At 3:38pm PST Director of Customer Service GM_Marauder makes an official statement regarding the promotion and the backlash surrounding it. (See here)


• Rumors begin circulating that CSR's have refused to honor the terms of the promotion, specifically the 60 free days. Community Rep Phoxe states unequivocally that the terms of the promotion would be honored. (See here)

Wednesday, March 3rd

• Community Rep Phoxe creates a stickied (and locked) thread titled "I Quit" Threads, and states that they will immediately close any "I Quit" thread due to the negativity surrounding them. (See here)

Current

• General consensus regarding the Feb. 26th promotion is impossible. Opinions range from "a botched marketing plan" to "criminal bait-and-switch". The promotion, which was timed to coincide with the ending of the 30 free days that came with every purchase of ST:O, generated significant negative press for Atari/Cryptic generally, and ST:O specifically. The lasting effect of the promotion and its backlash, if any, remain to be seen.

I'll go with "criminal bait-and-switch."

"Playing the Nazi Card: Comparing Obama to Hitler becomes a standard right-wing trope."

Jeffrey Kuhner's comment wins the grand prize. The only rational summary of his Times quote is "Okay, I'm going to smear Obama by comparing him to Hitler, then walk it back because I can't stomach what I just said."

The blogger known as Jon Swift has died. He and his work will be missed.

Salon hops on the false equivalency bandwagon.

I know that fallacy is popular in the mainstream media, but it's not good for the liberal media to join in to. Oh, and the piece is vapid and pointless on top of stupid, yet it made it to Google's "most viewed page."

"Trading bibles for porn in San Antonio."