For Fox News fans who like Alan Colmes almost as much as they like Eleanor Clift or Helen Thomas, Wednesday night’s “Hannity and Colmes” was a blessed event (hat tip to Expose the Left with a video link to follow).

In a special Wednesday night edition of our ongoing “Friday Night Fights” series, in the left corner, Alan “I’m only here to disagree with everything my more intelligent partner says” Colmes. In the right corner, Mark “The Great One” Levin. Let’s get ready to rrrrrrrummmmmbbbble.

Like the CBS and NBC evening newscasts on Thursday, ABC led with how at a Senate hearing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace and General John Abizaid acceded to the “possibility” that Iraq “could” fall into civil war -- what substitute ABC anchor Diane Sawyer heralded as a “stunning admission” -- but ABC also hyped as important how after the hearing Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton called for President Bush to accept the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Sawyer touted “breaking political news tonight” and brought aboard George Stephanopoulos from Washington, DC who trumpeted how “for the first time, she has called on President Bush to accept Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation.” Stephanopoulos asserted that the New York Senator “has resisted that for the last three years” and propounded that though the “chances of President Bush accepting that advice are about zero,” it is, ABC's Chief Washington correspondent insisted, “a dramatic sign of how much the support for this war effort is slipping on Capitol Hill." (Transcript follows)

Variety reviewer Robert Koehler (formerly of the L.A. Times) recently reviewed a new documentary titled "Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater." The main driver behind the project is his granddaughter, C.C. Goldwater, and it's scheduled to air on HBO on September 18. The list of interviewees underlines it's not a big right-wing project: it includes Walter Cronkite, Ted Kennedy, Al Franken, Helen Thomas, James Carville, Bob Schieffer, Andy Rooney, Julian Bond, Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn, John Dean, and erstwhile Goldwater Girl Hillary Rodham Clinton. A few righties appear (Richard Viguerie, George Will) and some more centrist GOP types do, too (John Warner, Sandra Day O'Connor).

Here's how Koehler sums the film up: "Pic reflects on a contempo religious GOP right wing that would have profoundly alienated Goldwater, who rarely brought God into his politics."

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

newsbusters thread follower

This appears cumbersome at first, but after you do it a couple of times, it's really easy. It beats hunting down the article you need, then wading through all the comments, trying to find your spot. This will take you right to the comment you made, as well as any followups from other readers. Mine works over a month back, so far. There is one caveat : if the node(article) has more than one page, usually due to being taken over by trolls, this system breaks down as far as the comment is concerned and only takes you to the node. In that case, after it takes you to the article(node) your comment is in, you will have to go over to the blank space below the up/down slider bar and click for page down, or if you want, keep pressing page down, until you see what you want. If it is a thread you want to keep following, just keep track of approximately how many times you had to hit page down, and make a note in your notepad record for that thread.Note: Veteran and professional computer users ignore this : If you are really green on computers like I was not long ago, this involves basic cut and paste operations, as well as use of the right mouse button and the bar at the bottom of the page that shows what programs you have open that I can't think of the name for at the moment. If you need clarification or help on any of this, drop me a comment, and I'll try to help you out if I can. Hope this helps.1. Make a notepad file. I just called it "Busters link finder".2. At the very top of the page, you will need a template to use for changing "reply" button formats to a format that can be used to find your previous links. Type a line, at the very top, that says: FORMATTING TEMPLATE Then drop down a line and type this: http://newsbuters.org/node/#comment- . That's five spaces after the dash following "comment". Do not include the period. You are in "Notepad" at this point, so the "link" format will not show. I keep this template at the top of the page.3. After making a comment in Newsbusters, right click the "Reply" button, click "copy link", then open your notepad.
4. Leave a space after the last entry, then click edit, then time/date or F5 to make a time/date stamp. Hit space a couple of times, then make a short comment about the post, for example: "reply to troll re: his changing subject from Laura Ingaham calling the media to task on Iraq reporting"

5. Go to the next line and paste the link you copied from the "reply" button on the newsbusters page.

6. Scroll to the top of the page and copy the formatting template(after you get a bunch of entries, you will have to scroll a long way up). Scroll back down to underneath the "reply" link that you just pasted in. Paste the formatted link template under the "reply" link and set your flashing cursor in between the slash after the word "node", and the "#" symbol that follows the slash and type in the node # that appears in the previous line. Then type in the comment # after the dash following the word "comment".

7. Go up one line and delete the "reply" link, then hit delete again to move the completed link up under the time/date/short note line.


Here is what the Notepad page looks like:
Busters post links.txt - NotepadFile Edit Search HelpFORMATTING TEMPLATEhttp://newsbusters.org/node/#comment-
1:28 PM 2/27/2006 Reply to MassLiberal
http://newsbusters.org/node/4186#comment-6626612:56 PM 2/27/2006 Reply to Realamericansvc
http://newsbusters.org/node/4186#comment-66505
Note : the underlined, "link" style format will NOT appear in Notepad, but in other programs it gets picked up that way automatically, as you see above. What you see above is what is left after entering the numbers into the formatting template, using the information in the "reply" button links. The "reply" button links have then been deleted, and when you hit delete again, the line you want to keep moves up under the time/date/comment line.
8. Shut down, go away, come back the next day and sign in. Open the Notepad link follower, copy, for instance, http://newsbusters.org/node/4186#comment-66505 , paste it into your address bar, and hit go. When the page comes up, you will probably have to scroll up a little to find the post you have navigated to. For some reason, this drops you into the thread below your actual comment. Also, keep in mind the caveat discussed above.That's the completed form. It looks worse than it is. After you have done it a couple of times, it is really easy, and has become routine for me. The biggest problem I have with it is keeping straight when to copy and when to paste. If I catch a goof in time, the undo button is a help.If, like me, you only get to check articles irregularly, this is a real help to find articles and comments that are more than a few days old. This is a fast moving news discussion site and until I figured out how to do this, it was overwhelming to try to remember where I had been more than a few minutes, much less days, previous.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Follow comments anywhere

To all you newsbusters, I think you'll like this. The template I came up with in March works great if the particular blog doesn't run past one page of comments. But if it is a hot topic, or if the trolls jump in, it can quickly expand to two or more pages. That's where the procedure I gave you earlier, falls down, as any of you that have tried it, know well. If, for example, your comment is on page two or three, the old procedure will take you to the top of page one, and you have to search all comments if you want to find what you are looking for. Well, no longer.

We will still follow the same basic template as before, like this:http://newsbusters.org/node/zzzz#comment-zzzzzz ....where z is a digit.

Note that at the top of the page in the address bar is a URL that has a four digit node number, which takes you to the blog itself. There is also a five or six digit comment number which will take you to the comment itself, if it is on the first page. I have noticed that sometimes the page needs to be scrolled up a little to find the comment. Don't know why.

If you have a comment that has been pushed onto page whatever, then when you go to that page, you will notice some new characters in the string in the URL in the address bar. What I noticed is that it is consistent, and also that each page past 1, has a value of 90 or a multiple of 90. This is to set the number of comments at 90 per page. So, now, if your comment is on page 2, use this format:http://newsbusters.org/node/zzzz?from=90&#comment-zzzzzz

If on page three, use the following:http://newsbusters.org/node/zzzz?from=180&#comment-zzzzzz

and so on.

Here is the template all together:



FORMAT TEMPLATE
Page one: http://newsbusters.org/node/zzzz#comment-zzzzzz

Page two: http://newsbusters.org/node/zzzz?from=90&#comment-zzzzzz

Page three: http://newsbusters.org/node/zzzz?from=180&#comment-zzzz


Notice that the only real change when going to page two or more, is the " ?from=zzz& " in between the node number and the # symbol preceding the word comment. As before, I keep a Notepad file, with time/date stamp, and comments to help me remember what the post was about. I have found this to be handy when trying to find older posts/comments that refer to a current post. I'm going to have to start another notepad page due to this one getting fairly lengthy.

Here are some examples of what I have on my notepad (If you can make sense of them):


1:14 PM 5/7/2006 rt: Noel Sheppard blog re:Bill Maher comparing Moo-sowie to Exxon CEO/link to American Thinker article re: Junk science/greenpiece/nuclear power OK w former heads of greenpiece & FOEhttp://newsbusters.org/node/5251#comment-104272
Also: rt: balboa re: global warming/extinction, etc.http://newsbusters.org/node/5251#comment-104494
Also: rt: Roger the Shrubber re: MassLib's lib checklist.http://newsbusters.org/comment/reply/5251/104704


1:19 PM 5/7/2006 rt: balboa re: bill maher comparing moo-sowie to exxon CEOhttp://newsbusters.org/node/5251#comment-104275


6:18 PM 5/7/2006 rt Mr Bishop re: illustrating absurdity re: p kennedy & ambienhttp://newsbusters.org/node/5246#comment-104306


10:19 PM 5/8/2006 rt: KarlRove re: 9 yrs left till meltdown of ice caps/don't look under bedhttp://newsbusters.org/node/5251#comment-104868
Also: rt: Karlrove re: someone moderating conservative comments: deep into page 3http://newsbusters.org/node/5251?from=180&#comment-104877
Also: rt Dan the man2 re: algore globalwarm comment; found one by JFKerry here:http://newsbusters.org/node/4542#comment-77303 (the link to the Kerry comment)http://newsbusters.org/node/5251?from=90&#comment-105406 (the reply to dan the man2 on page 2, way down)



You will notice that in the first grouping, that starts with the reply to (rt) the Noel Sheppard blog, on node 5251, if you paste any of those links into your address bar to see where they go, if they are past page one, all you get is that very unflattering picture of Bill Maher. In the second grouping, which starts with a rt: (reply to) Karl Rove, and follow those links, they will go right to the post, even if it has been moderated. The notes were just notes I made prior to working this out, so that I could have a record of where the comment could be found from the first page of the blog. One other caveat that I can think of at this time, is, if, since you commented, the blog has gotten a lot of activity, you will have to reset the page. For example, in the first grouping from 5-7-06, I think all the links were to page one comments. I remember looking at it later that night and it was still only one page. But then, the next day, I checked it out again, and it was up to three pages and all I could get was Bill Maher's face. Whoa!

If you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to let me know, either here, or e-mail at the NB site. Hope it helps.

No, he doesn't appear to be kidding.

New York Times critic-at-large Stephen Holden profiles Tony Bennett on the eve of the singer’s 80th birthday and finds broader meaning:

“Careers that last as long and have been as distinguished as Mr. Bennett’s have something to tell us about collective cultural experience over decades. It has been said that Sinatra’s journey from skinny, starry-eyed ‘Frankie,’ strewing hearts and flowers, to the imperious, volatile Chairman of the Board roughly parallels an American loss of innocence. As Sinatra entered his noir period in the mid-1950’s, his romantic faith gave way to a soul-searching existentialism that yielded the most psychologically complex popular music ever recorded. Following a similar arc, the country grew from a nation of hungry dreamers fleeing the Depression and fighting ‘the good war’ into an arrogant empire drunk on power and angry at the failure of the American dream to bring utopia.”

If Mary Mapes is looking for a way to fill her days, HDNet’s upcoming “Dan Rather Reports” seems to have plenty of job openings left to fill.

According to Dan Rather’s new employer, the debut of “Dan Rather Reports” is scheduled for just two months from now, in October. Yet according to HDNet's Web site, the program is currently (as of August 3) seeking multiple producers, associate producers and editors — basically, all of the off-camera reporters and production staffers who make a big TV news show work.

Besides the disgraced ex-CBS Evening News anchor, HDNet has announced just one hire for “Dan Rather Reports,” tapping a longtime CBS veteran producer, Wayne Nelson, who will be the Executive Producer for new “investigative news” program. (Wasn’t “investigative news” what got Rather into trouble in the first place?) Nelson’s career highlights include stints at CBS’s Dallas bureau, the CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes.

Our one-year anniversary is coming up very soon (Aug. 9). As we head into our second year of operation, we're pleased that NewsBusters has become one of the top 10 conservative blogs and one of the top 100 blogs in the world according to Technorati.

What are some of your suggestions for our second year? What kinds of new features, events, site components or other things would you like to see?

“From the beginning Spike Lee knew that Hurricane Katrina was a story he had to tell.”

That’s how The New York Times begins Agony of New Orleans, Through Spike Lee’s Eyes, on the director’s upcoming Katrina documentary. Times reporter Felicia R. Lee doesn’t tell readers of one of the reasons Lee was drawn to the story: he thinks the government may have deliberately flooded New Orleans.

That’s right. HBO wanted to make “the film of record” on America’s worst natural disaster, and entrusted the task to a man who thinks it may actually have been a government conspiracy. And it gave him $2 million to do it.

Could reporter Lee (no relation, I hope) simply have not been aware of director Lee’s conspiracy theories? They’re not hard to find. The director went on CNN and said: “I don't put anything past the United States government. I don't find it too far-fetched that they tried to displace all the black people out of New Orleans.”

And the questions surrounding the air strike at Qana keep coming.

This photo was first noted as a possible staged photo by A.J. Strata on July 31st.

This photo came one day later on August 1st.

Most people viewing this photo, noticing the shattered toy perched precariously on shattered slabs, are even more convinced it was placed there by human hands, most logically the photographer's.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz did a report Thursday (hat tip to Drudge) on the Hezbollah propaganda machine. As one reads the revelations about how this terrorist group uses the media to affect opinion in Lebanon, Israel, and across the globe, it is difficult not to wonder what impact similar efforts by liberal press representatives in America is having on the war in Iraq as well as the war on terrorism.

Haaretz began:

If Hezbollah-run media are to be believed, then 35 Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed or wounded in Aita Shaab, militants downed an Israeli helicopter and destroyed a house in which IDF soldiers were hiding, and IDF troops are always hit in the back because they are running away.

An ABC Good Morning America story by Claire Shipman reports on the $150 billion in tax revenue that the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations says is lost because of the wealthy who figure out ways to avoid paying taxes.

That's enough money to cover the budgets for the Department of Education, the State Department, the Justice Department, and the Department of Homeland Security.

Or to purchase 60 Virginia-class nuclear subs. Or enough to give $500 to every American.

As required, Republicans have to be trashed in this story and not Democrats. First she quoted a Democratic Senator who moralized about the situation, not any Republicans, which fit in nicely with the next principle, which is to only cite Republicans who are doing the immoral thing in question.

"Something smells here. … Something is rotten here," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who sits on the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.

"The abuse of offshore tax havens by U.S. individuals are shifting the tax burden to all of us," Levin said. "The report blows the lid off tax haven abuses."

It's become a punchline:  Sure, Fidel forces champions of democracy to rot in prison.  Yes, his kleptocracy-called-communism has empoverished the masses while enriching the elite. OK, he did permit the Soviets to install nuclear weapons pointed at us.  But -  altogether now - THEY HAVE FREE HEALTHCARE IN CUBA!

You'd think the Boston Globe would be embarrassed to sing that song.  But apparently the MSM are beyond shame.  Here's what the Globe had to say in its editorial of this morning, On Cuba, Try Kindness:

"Cuba is justifiably proud of its healthcare system."

You're a Connecticut resident, a good citizen but not a political junkie. You scan the Hartford Courant - the state's largest paper - this morning and see the following headline:

'Lamont Spokesman: Blog Photo Offensive'

Quick: which campaign did something wrong, and which is rightly outraged? Based on the headline, you could certainly be forgiven for assuming that Lamont was the injured party.

As it turns out, the facts are just the opposite.

Even the Bush-bashing New York Times can tell you today: there's no room for conspiracy theories about the White House sending reporters across the park for press briefings for a few months while they renovate and update the briefing room. Everyone in the press corps knows this room is a pit, with rotten, broken theater seats and drafty conditions that ruin your mood in hot weather and cold -- but especially hot, since you're already got on a big press day a pile of TV lights and 50 reporters squeezed in like sardines.

Nearly everyone has the same reaction upon seeing the room for the first time: This is it? This run-down shack? (I certainly did when I arrived in 2001.) But no one actually works in the briefing room most of the time. The big-time 24-7 wire and network reporters work in tiny cubicles behind the briefing room, and some more are down the stairs (in my tenure, that was for Fox News, Salem, and Bloomberg, among others.) If you work for a daily or weekly print publication, you don't work inside the gates.

The Washington Post is editorializing today against the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which held hearings twice in July on questions surrounding the "hockey stick" temperature studies.

Says the Post: "Instead of concentrating on the changing climate, the House Energy Committee picks on climatologists."

Whoever wrote the Post editorial seems to be genuinely unfamiliar with the hearings held, their purpose and what they revealed. It was irresponsible of the Post to publish something like this editorial without researching the matter a little bit first.

Appearing on FNC's The O'Reilly Factor Wednesday, former CBS News anchor Dan Rather conceded there's a "problem" with America's media in its treatment of Hezbollah and Israel with "moral equivalence," even including himself as part of the problem. As host Bill O'Reilly brought up the topic, stating his criticism that "Some networks give moral equivalency to Hezbollah in the reporting of this war," Rather voiced agreement and went on to acknowledge the media's reluctance to label Hezbollah as a "terrorist organization." Rather: "It's a problem that those of us in journalism have been reluctant to address -- I do not exclude myself from this criticism -- reluctant to address that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. It's committed to the destruction of Israel. It isn't committed to trying to just gain territory. It's committed to its destruction." (Transcript follows)

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