...more recent posts
yahoo podcasting search.
frank rich oped
"pit bull in size six shoes"
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.discussed
In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban.
The contract with Mr. Williams and the general contours of the public relations campaign had been known for months. The report Friday provided the first definitive ruling on the legality of the activities.
Lawyers from the accountability office, an independent nonpartisan arm of Congress, found that the administration systematically analyzed news articles to see if they carried the message, "The Bush administration/the G.O.P. is committed to education."
The auditors declared: "We see no use for such information except for partisan political purposes. Engaging in a purely political activity such as this is not a proper use of appropriated funds."
The report also sharply criticized the Education Department for telling Ketchum Inc., a public relations company, to pay Mr. Williams for newspaper columns and television appearances praising Mr. Bush's education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act.
ny times unselect:
today in krugman
DeLay indicted on criminal conspiracy charges, will step aside as majority leader.
May he be the first in a long line!
first giant squid to be caught on film
size of the storm
from here
via the map room
trail minotaur blogged blogged
via fmu msg board off topic
per cnn: levee breach at industrial canal in NO
correctiion: officials now calling it an "over topping" and workers are working on it in lower 9th ward - water rose 5-10 inches in 5 min. levee is broken.
-also : problem western side chintillie (sp?) west NO
donahue on oriley like white on rice
19 hours to get from houston to austin by car
my mom in dallas happens to have her sister in town, they were heading out for batteries, water and wine. hope theres someone around for jim louis's mom. tell her to call my mom if need be.
via fmu station manager ken :
From the mouth of Steinski: I dunno whether Kanye was right about George Bush and black people, but I love it that someone turned his interview into a mashup, and someone else turned the mashup into a video, all in like a week.
from todays ny post:
This plan is for the birds.
City officials and NYC Audubon want all lights decorating the outside of buildings above the 40th floor to be turned off by midnight from now until the end of October.
The initiative, called Lights Out New York, is to be announced today and is designed to help hundreds of thousands of migrating birds navigate safely through the Big Apple on their annual route south.
free flags
q: what is W's position on roe vs wade
a: he doesnt care how they get out of new orleans
as told by jimb last night
what i want to know is: can bloggers sue really dumfuck idiotwind commenters ?
from dkos
NOAA overflight pics of Katrina damage
letter to michael moore : DONT DO IT
Moore is reportedly considering making a documentary about Bush and Katrina. It would be the easiest film he's ever done.
from toms otherwise stellar katrina crono quote post
pr cnn - 1/2 of la ca in state of electrical blackout
started as rollling (brownout) outages
the fire department reports no related emergency conditions other than people stuck in elevators
etymology request: any body got anything better than this. the name of an LA coffeehouse ?
anything to do with this other fifth?
"You can't take the city out of the yat, and you can't take the yat out of the city," said Frank Searle, a longtime Baton Rouge resident, using a slang term for New Orleanians derived from the local greeting, "Where y'at?"