Raleigh

Paul Krugman's twice-weekly Op-Ed is avalable to all now that Times Select, the New York Times on-line subscription program, has ended. Now it's time to go hit the Krugman archive and read up on what we've been missing! He also has a blog!

I also recommend Bob Herbert.

The 2007 local election is October 9th. In fact, early voting for Wake Couty has already begun in downtown Raleigh. There is a second location in Cary which will open on 10/3. Here are the locations, dates and times:

Wake County Board of Elections Office
337 S. Salisbury Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
Monday - Friday, 8:30am - 5:00 pm
September 20th - October 5th

Herbert C. Young Community Center
101 Wilkinson Ave.
Cary, NC 27513
11:00 am - 7:00 pm
Wednesday, October 3rd - Friday, October 5th

Here a link to the WakeGOV.com site for more information, plus an article from the N&O.

Get out and vote AND encourage others to do the same!

Alan "The Maestro" Greenspan's idiocy, in four delightful panels:

This Modern World

An amazing story of shared sacrifice.

Band of Five Brothers

When you hear some bonehead talking about the "liberal media", tell him/her about this:

Charge: Desperate To Curry Favor With Bush, CBS Execs Tried Not To Run Abu Ghraib Story

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Specifically, buried in the lawsuit is the allegation that top CBS execs, under intense pressure from government officials, refused for weeks to air the torture story, despite mounting evidence that the story was solid. The execs fingered are CBS News president Andrew Heyward and senior vice president Betsy West.
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40. Even after obtaining nearly a dozen, now notorious, photographs, which made it impossible to deny the accuracy of the story, Mr. Heyward and Ms. West continued to delay the story for an additional three weeks. This delay was, in part, occasioned by acceding to pressures brought to bear by government officials urging CBS to drop the story or at least delay it. As a part of that pressure, Mr. Rather received a personal telephone call from General Richard B. Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, urging him to delay the story.
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Even if the majority of reporters/columnists identify themselves as liberal-leaning, the direction of content comes from above - those suck-ups trying to earn favor with Republicans and the Washington D.C. establishment (Daveid Border, et.al.).

Matthew Yglesias lays it out for us:

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The only showdown that mattered happened months ago. Democrats passed a war appropriation that funded the phased withdrawal of troops. Bush vetoed that appropriation and said he would only sign an appropriation that funded open-ended war. Bush sought to portray a congressional refusal to appropriate money for an open-ended military involvement in Iraq as some kind of plot to leave the troops starving and without bullets in Iraq. The press largely bought into this frame, which was re-enforced by the fact that many leading Democrats immediately decided to buy into as well. The party then decided not to try to fight to reframe the issue but, instead, to accept it. Given that framing of the question, the only thing to do was surrender and give Bush his money. And given that precedent, the only thing to do is to keep on surrendering any time Bush rhetorically holds the troops' well-being hostage to his preference for perpetual war.

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Local event this weekend, September 20-23 in downtown Raleigh.

SPARK CON
igniting the creative hub of the south
September 20-23 2007

From the site:

What is SPARK CON?

SPARK CON grows every time a new person gets involved with a SPARK. They can create their own SPARK, or they can join in to help an existing one. It's an open-source, "for the people, by the people" approach to an incredible series of events. It's definition and focus is dynamic. In 2007, we have over 40 volunteer organizers developing these events.

Several of us regular DLers attended a live broadcast of the show 'Monkey Time' tonight, hosted by Todd Morman. It airs every Wednesday at 8pm on Raleigh cable channel 10, with reruns Thursday at midnight. We had a lot of fun and a good laugh. Set your DVR/TiVo to record the show, which is definitely worth your time.

For an idea of the kind of topics covered in this call-in show, see the Monkey Media Report at http://www.monkeytime.org/.

Todd Morman
Photo by Shawn Soni

Suddenly there's a new, more popular attraction in Minnesota than the Mall of America!

Fateful Bathroom Draws Crowds of the Curious

By CHRISTINA CAPECCHI
Published: September 19, 2007

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 18 — Michael Wolkomir would not consider his vacation, which included 10 days’ sightseeing in California, complete until on his way home he posed in front of what is now known as the Larry Craig bathroom at the airport here.

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By the way, as of Tuesday, 'Times Select' is no more. The New York Times site has ended it's pay for content program. Now we can all read Paul Krugman's column again! Hooray!!!

This pretty well sums up why I can't stand the 'Maestro', Alan Greenspan.

No, Greenspan Doesn’t Get To Rehabilitate His Reputation

So Alan Greenspan has a new book coming out on Monday. And it says nasty things about the Bush administration. Welcome to the club Alan - the club of Bush enablers who write books once they aren’t in power, in a pathetic attempt to pretend they weren’t culpable in Bush’s mess. But back when it mattered, back when you were in charge of the Fed, when you were lionized as the Maestro… oh, back then, when you could have actually, I don’t know, oh, done something concrete to oppose Bush’s policies, did you? No, no you didn’t.

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