BluesBlogger's Bloviations

Mood: Meh...
Listening to: Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life

David Martin, a classy guy who covers the Pentagon for CBS, blogged recently about how he made a decision to not run a story about efforts the Army is using to beat improvised explosive devisces.

From Martin's comments:

"This week I killed a story about the battle against Improvised Explosive Devices after a senior military officer told me it contained information that would be helpful to the enemy. I didn’t find his argument about how it would help the enemy very persuasive, but because there’s a war on I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. I’ve done that a number of times over the years, and each time it’s turned out that going with the story wouldn’t have caused any harm. It’s always a difficult decision, made more difficult by the fact that it always seems to happen late in the day when you’re under deadline pressure. When I killed the story on Thursday, it was 5:30 – an hour to air – and I left the Evening News broadcast without a lead story which they had been counting on all day. Not a good career move."

Now the media has taken a lot of crap over the years for doing their job. Joyce Rumsfeld, the wife of the current Secretary of Defense, has been quoted as saying they have a job and so do folks like her husband who recently had strong words about the ability of folks to communicate effectively in a world where Al Qaeda uses every tool they can. Mr. Rumsfeld said this was going to be the way to go to win the information war when he was talking to the Council on Foreign Relations.

"The U.S. government will have to develop the institutional capability to anticipate and act within the same news cycle. That will require instituting 24-hour press operation centers, elevating Internet operations and other channels of communications to the equal status of traditional 20th Century press relations. It will result in much less reliance on the traditional print press, just as the publics of the U.S. and the world are relying less on newspapers as their principal source of information."

What Rumsfeld and Martin are both saying is the world is changing and so should the rules we use to judge both the government and media.

Mood: Pissed at having to pay over $2 a gallon for something that came from dinosaur carcasses
Listening to: the voices in my head.

"Exxon Mobil Corp. posted record profits for any U.S. company on Monday - $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter and $36.13 billion for the year - as the world's biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from high oil and natural-gas prices and solid demand for refined products."

Ok... let me run this by you. We could use ethanol which comes from something we can grow. You may have heard of it; it's called "corn" and, with small family farms going the way of the $5 haircut, this might be the time to make the move to something we can renew.

Also, this would cut the balls off the Middle East and Hugo "I can't wait until Fidel kicks so I can be the designated nutjob" Chavez who bend the world to their will by sticking us up for oil.

Why can't we move this ball away from the OPEC endzone?

Mood: Need a nap
Listening to: B.B. King - Never Make Your Move Too Soon

Work has been too crazy to write,but decided to get back to the writing here.

Something to consider with the Alito mess going on the same day as the State of the Union is the possibility this could be one of the coldest receptions this president is used to getting.

Even if the Dems don't pull the nuke option on Alito, the Republicans are noticeably weakened right now. Their leaders, who have long postured on ethics, are disgraced. Their partisans appear snipey and only interested in their own narrow focus.

Case in point, this AP article on AIDS research funding which says a lot of the money is ending up with religious groups to the exclusion of organizations which work with high risk groups like IV drug users and sex industry workers. These high-risk folks aren't going to go near a religious group with a ten-foot swagger stick if it means they are preached at and villified!

Have said for a long time the only thing that could save the GOP is a McCain-esque candidate arriving on the scene that could energize the moderates and the Blue Dog Democrats and take back the keys from the K Street Kommandos.

Mood: Annoyed
Listening to: Purple Rain

Let's see... the Republicans want an end to the judicial filibusters which they used so artfully during Clinton's administration to block Democratic judges.

Nothing lasts forever. Sooner or later, the balance of power will change and people will be screaming about the lack of a mechanism to stop judges that are pro-<insert issue here>. This is not to say this isn't happening already.

Harry Truman once said former presidents should become honorary members of the Senate. The reasoning was so senators could benefit from their experience and knowledge. His only caveat was they would have to limit their right to filibuster.

When does it end? When do we stop monkeying with small issues and get back to the business of doing what the legislature does? Pass budgets, put bills in place which benefit citizens and protect the weakest among us.

Call your senator and tell them to get back to the business of doing real work instead of being party hacks. 

Mood: Ehhhh...
Listening to: Dirty Laundry

Am I the only one who really could not give a crap that Paula Abdul slept with anyone?