Tear Down This Myth: How Reagan's Legacy Haunts Our Future | Media and Technology | AlterNet

REAGAN AND REVISION
It's always sunny at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in California where "The Great Communicator" speaks out from the great beyond. But he leaves out some very important details about his time in office. There's no note about his administration accumulating more debt in real dollars than all the presidents who came before him combined. Or, about the fact that the federal payroll increased from 1981 to 1989. No mention, either, of the Iran-Contra affair, the scandal that almost toppled his presidency. How about the lower class backs he rode, or about who exactly benefited from his tenure, and who is now paying him back by helping construct his memorial? Mum's the word.
(ALTERNET)

Media Matters - Limbaugh, Hannity, and the GOP: an iron triangle of stimulus misinformation

BIG FAT LIARS
On any given day during the current congressional debate over the economic recovery plan, chances are good that Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity will say something false about the administration's or congressional Democrats' efforts to pass a bill. And they do not promote these falsehoods in isolation; they are often promoted concurrently with each other and with Republican members of Congress.
(MEDIA MATTERS)

New GOP Standard Bearer Rush Limbaugh Is Less Popular Than Jeremiah Wright | | AlterNet

LIMBAUGH DETRACTORS, WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?
Rush Limbaugh is so unpopular that only 44 percent of Republican voters reported "warm" feelings toward him, ten points less than those who felt the same way about Limbaugh's top competitor, Fox News' Sean Hannity, and a full 20 points lower than Fox News itself. Yet in spite of rock-bottom favorable numbers, Limbaugh confidently declared one week after Obama's inauguration that his power far exceeded that of the Republican Party's top two leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives.
(ALTERNET)

C-SPAN Video Player - President Obama Attends Democrat Conference

OBAMA ADDRESSES HOUSE DEMS
Check out Obama's remarks at the House Democrats’ retreat in Williamsburg, Virginia. (C-SPAN, suggested by West Virginia Blue)

'Veggie Love': PETA's Banned Super Bowl Ad | PETA.org

EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!
For a proposed Super Bowl commercial touting vegetarianism, the animal rights group PETA went the scandalous route, featuring women in lingerie doing provocative things with veggies. NBC requested PETA cut the woman "rubbing pelvic region with pumpkin" and the one "screwing herself with the broccoli." PETA decided to keep their ad and not air it — but still get lots of online attention from people wanting to see the ad too hot for NBC. Well played, PETA.
(Suggested by TV GUIDE)

Democracy Corps » Obama’s Win Equal Parts Turnout, Persuasion

ELECTION POSTMORTEM
It would be wrong to say that new voters alone won Obama the presidency. He performed far better than John Kerry among the 2004 electorate that elected George Bush, moving a significant number of Bush voters into the Democratic column to win the presidency.
(DEMOCRACY CORPS)

STICK IN THE EYE
Susan J. Crawford, convening authority of the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, and a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general, is hardly anybody's liberal pundit. Crawford recently told Bob Woodward that the charges against Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed al-Qahtani were dropped because he was tortured. This has devastating consequences for the Bush administration's entire rationale for the new techniques of interrogation: that they would make the United States safer by producing intelligence and keeping dangerous individuals off the streets. We now know they do neither. The torture produced no useful information from al-Qahtani, and the cruelty heaped upon him will make it more difficult, if not impossible, to justify his long-term incarceration.

MOBILE MARDI GRAS MOVIE TO AIR ON PBS
For those of you who missed the local premiere, PBS' Independent Lens will air The Order of Myths on February 24. The film follows the parallel racial universes of Mardi Gras. Director Margaret Brown exposes not only the obvious dichotomy but also the historical connection between the white and black organizations that embody Mobile's inescapable racial divide.
(MOTHER JONES)

Demotix | The Street Wire

NOT YOUTUBE
Demotix is a new site from England that allows downloads of video and photos (right now it's limited to photos right but text and video are due soon). Because its English, you will see things there from a distinctly different orientation. For example, check out these raw images from Gaza.
(Suggested by TechCrunch)

Announcing the 2008 P.U.-litzer Prizes | Media and Technology | AlterNet

WHO IS THE STINKIEST OF THEM ALL?
Now in their 17th year, the P.U.-litzer Prizes recognize some of the nation's stinkiest media performances.
(ALTERNET)

HAPPY NEW YEAR
This video reminds me that what we hope for these holidays is not new toys but time at home with our families and loved ones, that everyone is special, and may need someone to stand by them.

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT HUNGER AND HOMELESSNESS
(Suggested by Connie Acevedo)

WORLD CLOCK
This is so cool I have added a permanent link on each of our sites.
(Suggested by KATHRYN MILLER)

LEAVE SARAH PALIN ALONE!
Here’s a cute picture I got from a friend. Don’t know if its real or photoshopped or what the real story is but it reminds me of some shenanigans I was involved in in 1972, the year we crazies took over the Democratic Party in Alabama.
After the debacle of 1968, the party was abandoned by the white folk. Blacks were busy creating their own political blocs and divisions. And, so, in the resultant power vacuum Don Siegelman, Al Lapiere and other novices captured the state party apparatus.
In Mobile no one wanted to even look like they were campaigning for George McGovern. The Mims brothers were in full rebellion, refusing to mount even a token campaign. Helen Morgan, her daddy, a few others, and I volunteered to swim up the proverbial waterfall, launching the McGovern campaign here.
The local Republicans were trying to upset Senator John Sparkman by riding on Nixon's coattails. It would be a major victory to unseat this party stalwart and institution. They busily linked McGovern to Sparkman on all of the issues, never missing an opportunity to call it the “McGovern/Sparkman” ticket. Sparkman was about as anxious to be linked with McGovern as McCain welcomed Bush on the campaign trail.
We? Well we did our best to dance around the minefield, trying to run a professional campaign without experience, without the support of our local machine, without money, and with an abysmally unpopular candidate who we happened to love. A real Democratic Party dream team.
At some point - I’m guessing it was after McGovern gave some heckler the finger and told him to kiss his ass – we went to a Sparkman breakfast at the Admiral Semmes. We sat there and fumed as Sparkman spoke. He didn’t just distance himself from McGovern, he did everything but endorse Nixon. We came back to the office completely pissed.
I went to our portable sign outside and put “VOTE THE MCGOVERN/SPARKMAN TICKET” on it and then called the local GOP office to tell them what I had “just seen at the McGovern office.” Ann Bedsole showed up shortly thereafter to take pictures. I kidded with her, letting her know that it was an orchestrated payback from us. I even helped her take the pictures. We got chastised by the state office and soon agreed with them that we had acted selfishly and impolitic just to make a point and took our sign down but, secretly, we were glad we made our point.
Political campaigns are still run by people who react in all sorts of ways and for all sorts of reasons. After these last two contentious political years, the paradigm for gauging political contentions should be obvious: delve beyond what someone says something means but first, check to see if what they said was said is itself accurate. For varying reasons people are eager to pile onto Sarah Palin on the basis of “something” coming from “somebody”, third-hand through a journalist. Somehow, that’s seen as gospel. No matter that we know that McCain’s campaign was high jacked by the same party hacks who have years of shady history behind them, that there were divisions within the GOP establishment as well as within each contender’s ranks that constantly showed turmoil and that there is something out there called “the base” (“the lowest”) driving their party to all sorts of suicidal distractions.
I think Palin is a lightweight and that given enough rope she will hang herself. I hope she takes the GOP down with her. But I think that she deserves to be treated in the same way we wanted our candidate to be treated. With respect and with the accurate assessment of what she herself claims, not by some amorphous Rovian whisper campaign that is being directed by who knows who.
(Photo courtesy Tom Cooksey)

ROME REDUX
Through the magic of Google Earth you can now travel back in time to see Ancient Rome and all of its architecture in full 3D. The feature was developed by the Rome Reborn Project which aims to recreate a 3D representation of the ancient city of Rome from the year 320 AD, at the peak of the city's development.
(PC WORLD)

OBAMA AND CUBA?
This Wall Street Journal article details the crack in the door for changes in US-Cuba policy occasioned by Obama's election victory. (The Wall Street Journal? The biggest "champions" of opening trade and relations with Cuba have been agri-business giants like Archer Daniels.) Will Obama follow Clinton's lead and not "upset the (hard-line Miami-Dade Cuban American) applecart"? After all, his plate is pretty full. While Clinton's first missteps (like "don't ask, don't tell") are legion the opportunities he missed (ending the Cuban Blockade is one of those) are also worth scrutinizing.
Obama has several avenues available to him. He can work with Congress to end the travel ban, change some travel regulations to the extent of his executive authority, while engaging diplomatically with Cuba in a way that respects its sovereignty as a nation.
Here is an ARTICLE in which Obama's Latin America foreign policy advisor reiterated the president-elect's Cuba policy: " …as president the candidate will move quickly 'within [the] possible and practical bounds of his authority' to lift the family travel and remittances restrictions. Anything more than that, Sanchez told the Miami Herald, will have to wait."
Cuba could present Obama with a quick opportunity to show that he is serious about trying to right wrongheaded policies and in wanting to doctor up our ailing image abroad. Where better than in our hemisphere? That Latin America is watching and holding its breath is evident in this:

ARTICLE in the British newspaper, The Guardian, on the hope of reconciliation between the United States and Latin America, starting with Cuba. ARTICLE reporting Brazilian President Lula's call to President-elect Obama to end the blockade on Cuba. His voice is part of a growing chorus from Latin America. (WALL STREET JOURNAL, suggested by Latin American Working Group)