Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Open Thread

Got NPR related comments? Leave 'em here.

15 comments:

Porter Melmoth said...

In a previous comment a couple days ago, I suggested that NPR might feature Bill Buckley in a proposed Liberal series, as answer to their Conservative series (I'm basically joshing). But Bill just expired today, so I feel obligated to eulogize a tad (at my peril). It's at my blog:
http://yakkingmelmoth.
blogspot.com/

Porter Melmoth said...

Some healthy NPR critiquing over at Crooks & Liars on account of the Glenn Beck segment:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/
2008/02/26/
listening-to-glenn-beck-on-npr-so-
you-dont-have-to/#comments

Sorry for the URL paragraph.

masbrow said...

I couldn't stomach all of the Buckley -love today. You'd think the guy had discovered a cure for cancer, or an alternative for petroleum, but no, we are informed that he "laid the (pseudo)intellectual ground work for the conservative movement", and basically, that he helped to bring us Reagan. If that's true, I think he should be reviled for eternity.

Anonymous said...

Oh, you'd BETTER be sorry, Port. Heh.

Yes, Rootypoop McCheekhole was eulogizing Buckley with someone whose name I didn't bother to catch (listening to NPR at half volume is mercifully half the aggravation). But alas, the current crop of blowhards on the right makes WFB's pontifications look pretty tame - only by degree of comparison, mind you.

Anonymous said...

It's me, the open thread specialist. I am in total harmony with NPR open threads. I scroll down. I plainly see that you don't post only or primarily open threads. I don't always visit on the same day. And yet, alas...

My NPR-related comment for the day: I miss "As It Happens" out of Canada, which an NPR station carried when I lived near DC. I heard my first report of the US "extraordinarily renditioning" someone, a Canadian citizen, on that program.

Didn't want to believe it - this was years before reports of US human rights violations started to surface in the US media. But it turned out to be the tip of a factual iceberg.

I say distribute As It Happens more widely...

Anonymous said...

Folks--Just in case you were worrying that the continued violence, almost complete lack of political progress, and plans to keep troop levels at their current levels ad infinitum in Iraq might cast in doubt the success of the "surge," Scott Horsely has some reassuring news: the surge, he tells us in another piece of John McCain, is an "apparent success." Not a failure. Not a mixed bag. Not even a partial success--you know, some grays mixed in with the sunshiney yellows, a few dark clouds in the sky. Nope. It's an "apparent success." Great. Guess we can all rest easy now--no worries. And I guess NPR need not bring on any additional civilian and military experts to discuss the surge and its effectiveness or lack thereof or broadcast any news reports about the lack of real progress in Iraq. Because Scott Horsely--and John McCain--said the surge was an apparent success. And that's all we need to know. Thanks, NPR. I feel better now.

Anonymous said...

confusing clause in above post should read: "another piece of John McCain hagiography"

Anonymous said...

That's right, artes - and so say all of us; as we smugly sip our frothy deep roasts between head-nods in faux intellectual self-satisfaction, and then commence to slurp off our cwute milk moustaches.

(forgive me - just stepping into the mindset of the average NoPR lackey)

Anonymous said...

Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrge!


Blech. Well, NPR helped us get into this quagmire with their woeful lack of critical reporting in the first place. Hell, none of their kids are being slaughtered, so it's all good.

Porter Melmoth said...

And because the Splurge is such a success, you just know that hagiographed McCain and Field Marshall Petraeus are dickering right now over the future division of the spoils:

2008-12 Generalissimo 'Panama Jack' McCain
2012-16 Citizen Jebber Bush
2016-?? God-Emperor Dave PETRAEVS

Sieg heil, baby!

Anonymous said...

Gawrsh, Port - you make the future look so bright that I wanna crawl in a bunker and never come out again. (j/k)

Anonymous said...

Gawrsh, Port - you make the future look so bright that I wanna crawl in a bunker and never come out again. (j/k)

Porter Melmoth said...

I just heard a puke-making interview in which Blob Siegel bids a fond farewell to Nicholas 'Nick' Burns, Undersecretary of State for Condescension, after a distinguished career. It's a doily-delicate affair, as one prig to another.

Do people like Burns actually make any difference? It makes one wonder what such a person really thinks they DID all those years of diplo 'service', because he offers no explanation of his role in the current, deliberately constipated mess in foreign affairs today, perpetuated by the worthless Condi & Co. I guess Nick's just too modest a guy to take any credit for it. Oh, he talks about the need to 'repair shaken bridges' or sumpthin'.

Blob let him down nice and easy at the end, via a gently whimsical Red Sox parachute. (Nick's a fan!) Diplomats and broadcasters are ever so civilized, aren't they?

A Bosnian friend of mine still marvels over how middle-class oriented NPR is.

Porter Melmoth said...

Easy does 'er b!p!, they're merely best laid plans, GOP-style, to be scoffed at, at best. Stay in the pink! Keep fuzzy!

Porter Melmoth said...

Before I get the hell out for the weekend, from my blog:

NPR's logo is a cheap rip-off of BBC's logo. (BBC cheaply ripped itself off a few years ago when they converted the rather nice logo of 'italic' boxes, as in: BBC (don't know how to make italics here), to boring right-angle boxes, like: BBC. (No SFX needed)) Anyway, NPR's logo has nice bright colors that get quite a bit of attention when attached to public mike stands. They scream: 'NPR is HERE!' Yeah, well, who cares if Mara Liarson or Dondi Gonorrhea is at the other end of the mike's wire. Damn! I WOULD have to bring those dreary names up!

Have a great weekend, all. Don't NPR too much...