Outside the Spectrum

   Over the Hedge, reality-style.

   It’s an amusing little story. Check it out.

   In other news, the Bush Administration’s obsession with secrecy has led to it spying (this time with warrants, I hope) on journalists in an effort to curb leaks. Much has been written of this administration’s fixation on secrecy, which began long before September 11th. Read John Dean’s Worse Than Watergate for an excellent survey of this subject. That book was published in 2004. I imagine that Dean could write another book just based on the new information that’s come out in the last two years.

   There is other news as well, but this kind of news has become so routine that it should be taken for granted. Energy-industry funded “scientists” are releasing ads that distort facts and make it seem as if carbon dioxide is an unfairly maligned gas and that global warming is a hoax. Bush is raising taxes despite a 1999 campaign pledge. If I had a dime for every campaign pledge he broke…

   Though I have been late in noting this, right-wing bastard Glenn Beck was hired recently by CNN. From Bill Bennett to Michael Savage, main stream media just doesn’t seem to have principles in hiring conservative polemicists and making them a part of the “main stream.” I would love to see some kind of corollary to this, to see CNN hire Noam Chomsky as an editorialist. Beck’s fanaticism has been evident for a long time before CNN hired him: he’s called Cindy Sheehan a “prostitute,” Jimmy Carter a “waste of skin,” suggested that abortion clinics are more profitable than casinos, etc. He loves to skirt outright bigotry by calling Mexico a “scumbag country” and vilifying Mexican immigrants, defending much of what Joe McCarthy did, making jokes of truly questionable taste about African-Americans, Jews, and Chinese.

   My favorite is when Beck praised a caller on air who (at least claimed to have) tortured US detainees by pinning open their eyes and then burning their retinas and blowing out their eardrums with high-pressure water and air. Beck congratulated the caller, telling him “Good job,” “I appreciate your service,” and “I’m glad you’re on our side.”

   RED FLAG, CNN. Merciful Lord in Heaven, what do you have to say to disqualify yourself from consideration as a CNN anchor!?!