Currently viewing the tag: "Scandal"

Sweet Sweet Murdochfreude

by Metavirus on 18 July 2011

Rupert Mudoch’s Wall Street Journal has climbed on board the waaahmbulance (via mistermix):

The Schadenfreude is so thick you can’t cut it with a chainsaw. Especially redolent are lectures about journalistic standards from publications that give Julian Assange and WikiLeaks their moral imprimatur. They want their readers to believe, based on no evidence, that the tabloid excesses of one publication somehow tarnish thousands of other News Corp. journalists across the world.

After decades of US and UK politicians cowering at the feet of the Great and Glorious Murdoch, I say revel in the sweet Murdochfreude for as long as you like:

You know the liberating feeling when someone unpopular leaves the room and everyone breathes a sigh of relief before openly discussing how much they dislike them? I don’t. What’s it like? What do people say? I only ever catch the odd whisper as the door shuts behind me. I’d love to hear the full conversation. Fortunately, watching Britain’s politicians queue up to denounce Rupert Murdoch has given me a taste of how such talk might play out.

A few weeks ago, Murdoch, or rather the more savage tendencies of the press as a whole, represented God. Fear of God isn’t always a bad thing in itself, if it keeps you on the straight and narrow – but politicians behaved like medieval villagers who didn’t just believe in Him, but quaked at the mere suggestion of a glimmer of a whisper of His name. You must never anger God. God wields immense power. God can hear everything you say. You must worship God, and please Him, or He will destroy you. For God controls the sun, which may shine upon you, or singe you to a Kinnock. Soon he will control the entire sky.

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Surprise! Declassified Doc Shows That Bush Admin Sought Out Something To Justify Iraq War

by Metavirus on 23 September 2010

Wow, what a surprise:

[W]ith the help of a Freedom of Information Act request, the National Security Archive has obtained a newly declassified document that details talking points that emerged from a meeting between Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and CENTCOM Commander General Tommy Franks in November 2001.[...]

[T]he most alarming part of the document is a bullet point titled, “How start?” (which is a discussion that actually appears after the planning of the entire war). The participants in the Rumsfeld-Frank meeting discussed possible ways to provoke a conflict with Iraq, including an attack by Saddam Hussein against the Kurdish north, the U.S. discovering a “Saddam connection” to 9/11 or the anthrax attacks, or a dispute over WMD inspections.

So, does it still relegate me to the radical fringe if I accuse the Bush administration of being hell-bent on invading Iraq, without a care to the actual justification they used?  I especially love the second point – although I really wish it read:
US “discovers” Saddam connection to Sept. 11 attack or to anthrax attacks?
The air-quotes would have really made it a document for the ages.

Any other helpful post-hoc suggestions for the Bushies?  How about:

  • Saddam insults Bush I in a Baghdad Times news article?
  • US “discovers” Saddam in bed with Justin Bieber?
  • Dispute over asylum case of Saddam’s manicurist?
    • Start now collecting embarrassing photos of Saddam with fingers in warm soapy solution.
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Quote of the Day: Serwer on the Right’s Constant Quest to Excuse Their Own Racism

by Metavirus on 22 July 2010
Adam Serwer summarizes the all-too-familiar meta-context behind the shamelessly doctored Sherrod tape:
For all the sound and fury, Breitbart’s video was nothing more than an alibi, an attempt to collectively exonerate the right from a charge of racism by turning it back on the NAACP. This is the precise origin of the oppositional culture developed by some conservatives in the aftermath of the 2008 election. It is broadly premised on convincing conservatives they face a similar kind of institutional racism black people have faced throughout history, while maintaining that the sole obstacle to black advancement is the same culture of grievance they’re so desperate to imitate. Glenn Beck saying today’s America is “like the 1950s except the races are reversed,” isn’t an observation; it’s a demand for absolution. This is the same selfish white guilt rightly mocked when possessed by liberals, curdled into a bitter stew of defensive anger and epic self-pity. Yet even Beck thinks Sherrod was wronged.

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You Absolutely Must Watch The Documentary Gasland Immediately. I Mean It. Right Now.

by Metavirus on 23 June 2010


I just got done watching the HBO documentary Gasland.  I had to turn it off because I was crying too much and my head started to hurt really bad.  Here’s a summary of what the movie explores:
It is happening all across America—rural landowners wake up one day to find a lucrative offer from an energy company wanting to lease their property. Reason? The company hopes to tap into a reservoir dubbed the “Saudi Arabia of natural gas.” Halliburton developed a way to get the gas out of the ground—a hydraulic drilling process called “fracking”—and suddenly America finds itself on the precipice of becoming an energy superpower.

But what comes out of the ground with that “natural” gas? How does it affect our air and drinking water? GASLAND is a powerful personal documentary that confronts these questions with spirit, strength, and a sense of humor. When filmmaker Josh Fox receives his cash offer in the mail, he travels across 32 states to meet other rural residents on the front lines of fracking. He discovers toxic streams, ruined aquifers, dying livestock, brutal illnesses, and kitchen sinks that burst into flame. He learns that all water is connected and perhaps some things are more valuable than money.

Even as I’m typing up this blog post, I am still crying.  I want to lock every last one of the government-hating teabagger crowd into a room with this movie and scream at them, “What the fuck is wrong with you!?”.

I want to lock Dick Cheney in a house right next to a natural gas drilling operation and force him to drink the water that has made all of the people in this movie sick and not let him out until the poisons have fully leeched into his system, given him seventeen different types of cancer and caused his brain tissues to melt away.

If anyone can watch this movie and not come away with the profound sense that we, as a country, are permanently and irredeemably fucked, I really don’t know what to say.

We really are permanently and irredeemably fucked.  I don’t even know why I bother to fight it anymore.

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Peggerton Noonanshire Really Needs To Be Put Out to Pasture

by Metavirus on 28 May 2010

I am really fed up with everyone (left and right) being enamored of the fantasy that Obama could use his magical fire breath to cap the oil spill (and save the maidens fair).

Peggerton Noonanshire is particularly insane on this:

The disaster in the Gulf may well spell the political end of the president and his administration …
That is one of the worst, reality-free pieces of hackery I’ve read in a long time. This woman is far beyond her mental golden years.

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Guess Who’s To Blame For the BP Spill? YOU!

by Metavirus on 26 May 2010

Some classic Al Giordano – and he makes a very good point:

I don’t know how to cap the big oil leak in the Gulf and truth is neither do you. And even if it is capped in five minutes from now, the damage is already done.

That said, as a longtime vocal opponent of off shore oil drilling, and proponent of renewable energy, I wish to publicly disassociate myself from all the newly concerned voices screaming at the top of their lungs that the government must “do something” if they don’t come with concrete suggestions for what exactly can be done. They do not represent me and please don’t ever confuse me with them, okay?

Without an easy solution in sight, and with the knowledge sinking in of just how harmful this oil gusher will be to the Gulf of Mexico, its shores, its fishing and tourism and quality of life, a lot of people seem to be screaming that somebody should yell louder and point their fingers harder.

Okay, just this once, I will point fingers. You know who is to blame in addition to BP and the government that allowed this oil rig to be built? Every single one of us that ever drove a car, got in an airplane, or drank from a plastic bottle (they’re made from petroleum, too). The heavier our “carbon footprints” the greater each of us is to blame. Go yell at yourself now. [...]

But you know what? Even though I would be somewhat justified in yelling and pointing fingers at you, I’m only being tongue in cheek about it here to make a point. Yelling doesn’t solve anything. And it sure won’t plug the leak or make anyone else do it faster, because nobody has yet figured out a surefire way to do it. But they sure ain’t gonna think faster with you yelling in their ears.

Yelling is for panic, and panic is for losers. In the movies, you know, the scary ones where soldiers or zombies or aliens come and kill whomever they find in their path, don’t you remember who always gets eaten first? The idiot who screams hysterically! That’s who you are behaving like today. And if you keep thinking that screaming at others to yell louder and share your misery aloud is going to save the earth, you and the rest of your pestilent species are already doomed. The earth will carry on. It’s you who won’t. And at least it’ll be a lot quieter around here, then.

I would just like to go on the record and say that it’s pretty amazing that Sarah Palin and Keith Olbermann both seem to agree on one point: “ZOMG, the government ISN’t Doing enufffff!!!1111!!!!!“

Yes, all of you kvetchers, please do tell me how the government could be doing much of anything to, you know, plug the fucking leak?

{ crickets … }

I thought so.

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BP: Simply a Rational Actor That Faces Little Consequence

by Metavirus on 24 May 2010

John Cole puts together what I think is a pretty accurate rationale for why BP is acting the way it is right now:

BP is just acting rationally, if you ask me. They’ve looked at the landscape, realize that even if they get sued for a shitload, the courts will strike it down as unfair, and they know they have nothing to fear from the government because both parties are littered with politicians they’ve completely paid off, and they know damned well that one major party wants to get rid of the EPA and the blue dogs in the Democratic caucus would join them, so they have no reason whatsoever to listen to that agency. Basically, the rational decision for any corporation in this country is to do whatever the fuck you want, because there simply won’t be any consequences. They have a lot of shareholders who will look the other way, a country desperate for oil, politicians completely in their pocket, and they can afford better attorneys than the poor bastards who used to catch shrimp in the Gulf.
Note: I would quibble with the highlighted bit insofar as the only companies that are able to get off scot-free are the ones with the pockets deep enough to pay off everyone in sight (which is implied).

Update: See below in the comments for more info on what I meant by the above. This post by Mistermix can also help add a little context:

The Economist:
The spill has so far cost BP $760m dollars. The company’s stock has fallen by a quarter. That was inevitable. What was not inevitable is the damage the company has done to its own reputation by continuing to lowball its estimates of the magnitude of the spill.
One of the beauties of being part of an oligopoly is that you don’t have to give a damn about your bad reputation. Sure, BP is going to have a few down quarters, and they’ll spend millions on ads and re-branding. But they’re not in any kind of mortal danger, in part because oil is a commodity where brand doesn’t really matter, but mostly because the sound and fury being emitted by Congress and the Obama Administration will amount to nothing.

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