Trying to listen to The Majority Report because Janeane is hot and funny. (She is hot. Maybe it's an Irish thing but I think she's totally hot. She's always knocking herself and putting herself down but she's hot. With dark hair. I didn't go for the blonde.) And because Anthony Lappe is on. I saw that at The Common Ills today.
I want to say BIG THANKS to friends and family. Family's been calling like crazy about last night's post and if you're e-mailing me, you're my friend. I'm glad everybody liked it and like felt it was a long time coming. I agree.
I hope by saying "I agree" I'm not being abusive lol. You know how those tiny freaks are over in loser-ville.
The big questions was "Mike, do you think you're blacklisted?" Since most of you wrote "you were ripped off!" I'll say that if you are right, I'm sure they'll continue to lift and reword.
But yeah, I probably am blacklisted. So is Rebecca and C.I. and that's cool. I called C.I. a few times today and got a call back about two hours ago. It was a quick chat because from work, it's volunteer work. So I tell C.I. there's been calls and e-mails and C.I. goes you don't know about them do you?
And no, I know they have this "staff" but anything good is written by someone else. Like you look at it and go, "Oh yeah, C.I. linked to that CounterPunch story awhile back." But C.I. gives me some sites to go to and goes that they have a history online that's not pretty.
So I go surfing and sure enough, Narco News got ripped off. They took Narco News' stuff and you can read about it here. There's no question on the Narco News stuff. Maybe with my funny line, they just happened to think the same? But they ripped off Narco News and you can read about it here.
And FAIR and Project Censored. Go read about it.
Project Censored is one of the books we read for The Third Estate Sunday Review last week. And we had this really great conversation about it and four other books and then the whole darn post got lost. But we're going to come back and start over tomorrow so look for it.
So yeah, there is a blacklist. I'm proud to be on it. C.I.'s proud and so is Rebecca. It's like Rebecca says, "They banned Tom Hayden. Mike, we're in the same company as Tom Hayden!"
And yeah that's so cool. My folks have all his books.
I didn't mention them by name yesterday. That was partly cause Rebecca was hoping the asshole would apologize to the kid. He didn't. So Rebecca was pulling a 'C.I. high road' yesterday. But she said, "C.I. is not naming them and don't you because links are measured and don't you give them a link." I won't. They're bad. They're boring.
Let's pull out some e-mails:
Raylene wants to know why they're set up like a magazine when all they do is reprint stuff? She says that their blogs are "laughably bad."
On their blogs, Callie writes in to say that they do not know what they are doing "obviously."
Lynne says she realizes C.I. only linked to the one blog and did it because members from the UK thought it had something to say but that she was offended from the start and kept saying that to C.I.
I heard from bloggers including one biggie who told me that "they are such a joke and so fucked up." He said BuzzFlash has so replaced them and asked me if I knew about the time they ripped off Intervention? I didn't then, but dude I do now. It's all over the net.
I can't believe anyone thinks they're a good organization. I like the guy who wrote in about how they were paranoid. That would explain why they treated the kid the way they did. Writers who have had their work used there, some without permission, complained and got banned and I guess that was "abusive" too like when they told the kid he was "abusive" for saying "Step out of the GOP closet."
They're a bunch of little cowards screaming for money.
And like the blogger pointed out, BuzzFlash is the one. BuzzFlash doesn't rip people off. They also put out premiums. And don't ask their workers to write phoney reviews at Amazon.com the way this link says that the jerk offs did.
They want to act like, "Look at us, we're a magazine!" But they aren't. They can't write worth crap and that's probably why they have to take from other magazines and sites.
The blogger said they copied CJR, Slate and Salon with their blog report and he thinks it was partly to keep people scared to speak the truth online about them.
I ain't scared of them.
My folks are pretty progressive and into the Catholic Social Workers and all that. But like when I was at dinner and told them about how the silly not a magazine attacked FAIR, they were like, "What!" That's one of the sites we know about because of The Common Ills. We learned about it there and Amy Goodman had on a guy today who helped start FAIR. So go check that out. He knows where he stands on the war. Other people need to pay attention if they still can't figure it out on their own.
So Dad goes, "Mike, they won't publish Tom Hayden and they don't like FAIR so screw 'em."
And Ma goes that she has told everyone at the church about me being ripped off! I go, "Ma, we don't know I was ripped off for sure. It could be a coincidence." Ma goes, "I am your mother and I can say what I want." You don't want to tick off my mother lol.
Janeane is making these really good comments about 28 Days which is this real cool movie and how it's like about rage as a virus and how we've seen it in our country. I'm putting that in for C.I. who would like to listen, and Fridays is C.I.'s favorite, but is out fighting the good fight as my folks would say.
I was telling C.I. what I wrote and C.I. was all like, "Mike, I would've linked!" I wasn't asking for a link. And I know C.I. doesn't have time to go to sites and stuff coz of work and working to help organize and mobilize with the upcoming Court battle. C.I.'s all "Mike you've got my phone numbers and my personal e-mail so let me know what you're writing so I can link."
Ain't gonna do it, C.I.'s busy enough. Wouldn't have even called but everyone was asking me if I was banned at the wants-to-be-a-magazine. So yeah, I'm banned.
Banned and proud.
And I'm so proud of what Rebecca wrote last night. She could have kept quiet but she didn't. She said it was unacceptable. C.I. did too. It's the first post last night. You should read that.
C.I.'s talking about the community and explaining it's like a dinner table and some people have plates set for them and some don't.
I didn't realize when I'd heard about Hayden being banned that it was such a thing. I mean I thought well the jerks banned him but they'll come back when they need him. Then I go to those links and see it's like paranoid city and you're like banned for life. So I think it was more than brave for Tom Hayden to tell the truth. He had stuff going up there and all. And he knew he was speaking the truth would cost him. But the issue was important and that's really cool because a lot of people would be silent and all. They'd be like "Oh God, if I'm banned, I'll lose out."
But sometimes you just got to grow a pair and say, "Screw it."
So I used my voice and I'm real proud to be in the company of others who have. Some day, enough people will know and they won't waste their time on that reprint magazine trying to do blog reports to liven up their boring site.
Jim called me and goes, "Mikey, you blow me away!" We were laughing on the phone.
I ask Jim if we'll be doing anything on that wants to be a magazine site and Jim goes that Jess and Ava already go that they'll stand with C.I. and are pretty sure that means "We don't waste time on the jerks." He goes maybe C.I. will feel different. But Ty and Dona are ready to go.
If you read the gina & krista round-robin this morning, give up for my buds and great writers and great women cause they nailed it so perfect. i loved the drawing Isaiah did for them. It goes "We wish we were a real mag." And one of them is staring into space and going, "Hmmm, what male blogger can I rip off today?" and the two guys are off in their own worlds. The curly headed ugly one is going, "I love me some Republicans, let me plug Andrew Sullivan" and the bald one is going, "Plus Andrew Sullivan? That is abusive! Abusive! I ban you! I ban you!" It's hilarious. I got Isaiah's permission to talk about it but he goes he gave it to Gina and Krista and it's exclusive to them. See, I respect that. I don't try to rip off Gina and Krista to put something up on my site. It's called ethics.
I loved their interview with West. And like Rebecca says, if the dork with the curls had a problem with West, he should have been man enough to take it up with West. Not sick baldie on him after they go through deleting posts. That was cowardly. But they are cowardly. They called Robert McChesney paranoid. I'm not kidding about read the link.
They have a whole history. Like with Intervention. I had no idea. I thought they were a dumb site. I didn't know the half of it.
I'm going on and on cause I'm waiting for Anthony to come on and want to write something about that cause I really do want to capture a sense of it for C.I. Other than Democracy Now!, the only thing C.I. got to listen to this week was Randi's first day back. C.I. said Randi was so funny and I wish I was able to listen cause the jokes sounded really funny when C.I. was telling them. But if it's a work and school day, all I can catch is Democracy Now! during the day.
I was on campus today and go to The Daily Howler directly cause C.I. gave the heads up that post would be late at The Common Ills. And I'm looking at my watch and looking at the page and thinking, "Where is The Daily Howler?"
Then I started thinking about the stuff C.I.'s been saying and all at The Common Ills. And about the part that was up The Howler yesterday. About how people were mad at him for writing what he wrote and all. And I got to say I felt real bad and kind of guilty. I didn't e-mail him when he was writing about Joe Wilson but I was thinking, "What is this shit?"
And then I thought about all the stuff C.I.'s been writing and how that guy needs to speak in his own voice because that's the only way he's going to be real and true and all that stuff. I didn't e-mail the guy about it and I didn't write about it here but I'll say I'm sorry up here because I did just want him to write what I already thought. He needs to say what he believes. And if people disagree, they need to say so. But they can talk about it without being mean about it because when I didn't see the Howler, I was thinking, "Man it must have really hurt." Cause it must have been like do you like me for my writing (the way C.I. does) or do you just come here because you think you're going to get talking points?"
If someone's speaking their truth, you're not going to be nodding everytime they speak. I mean, like if I got "My favorite candy bar is Snickers with almonds" there are people who're going to be like, "I love Milky Way!" or "I was with you until you said almonds!" So is it about enjoying the way the person is writing and talking or just about hearing what confirms what you already believe?
I just looked and I don't even have him on my blog roll. I'll add him and some other stuff tonight. He was talking today or yesterday about how it was the usual this time of year angry e-mails to him and all. So he knew this would come down from telling his truth. And when it took so long for the post to go up, I was even thinking, "Man, is he packing it in?"
Cause like C.I. wrote, he's not getting paid to do The Daily Howler. He does it because he cares and all. So it must hurt even more when it's all like, "Shut up! I don't want to hear it!" I can understand disagreeing with him cause I did. But if that happens again, I'll probably put something up here going "I disagree with him on this" and remember that he's telling the truth and it's okay to disagree.
Anthony better come on soon cause I got to split in a hour. My girlfriend's at work and we're going to hang out for a bit. I asked her if I could write about her and she goes "Are you going to talk about us having sex?" And I go I wasn't planning on it. Just like her name and stuff. Her name's Nina and she's 19 and that's all that's going up now cause she said I could put that but nothing else. I'll say she's pretty cool.
Okay, I did some links to the blog roll I've been meaning to do but not all. Now I got to go because Nina will be off soon. I guess I'll miss Anthony. We'll go out with something from Democracy Now!
White House Worried About Possible Indictments
The Washington Post is reporting that White House officials are privately saying that they are concerned that the investigation into the outing of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame will lead to an indictment of someone in the administration later this year. This comes as Democrats escalate their calls for the man known as "Bush's brain" to be stripped of his security clearance and fired. There are also calls for Congressional hearings. One of those leading the charge in the House is California Democrat Henry Waxman.
Henry Waxmann (D, California):"This is a serious matter because it affects the national security of this nation. It's an even more serious matter because if our national security has been jeopardized, it's been jeopardized for political purposes."
