Monkey Media Report Archive

A North Carolina
news and arts Weblog
June 2005

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6.29.05 - Links for this week's show:

Great review of Bush's speech last night at Slate:

...it was disingenuous and offensive for Bush to stand there and say with a straight face, "Terrorists want to attack our country and kill our citizens, and Iraq is where they are making their stand." After all, terrorists came to Iraq only after Bush invaded it, then failed to secure it, practically inviting jihadists across the region to come perfect their bomb-making talents against the American infidels.

Nevertheless, the inescapable fact is that terrorists are making their stand in Iraq now, abetted by Baathists, criminals, and tribal or nationalist resisters. The Iraqi military is not nearly strong enough to stave them off. If the United States withdrew now or announced a date of departure in the near future, there is a real danger that Iraq could turn into another Afghanistan—or spark the tinder of a regional war...

President Bush claimed the war is important, even vital. But he didn't acknowledge for a second that any mistakes have been made, that any correction in course might be necessary. He defined the war as a regional, even a global, conflict—yet he outlined no new ideas on how to attract more allies. He did not lay out a strategy, except to continue along the same shrapnel-strewn path and hope for the best.

Yep, that about covers it. I'll post more links after the show. I mean, soon.

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6.22.05 - Fun links discussed on Monkeytime TV this week:

• Was the 9/11 World Trade Center collapse an inside job?
• Weeks before he started wooing Katie Holmes, Tom Cruise tried to seduce 19-year-old Scarlett Johansson into joining the Church of $cientology
• Jossip says Katie was Tom's fifth choice
• Fascinating info about Katie's new high-level $cientologist handler
• Fascinating info about core $cientology beliefs, like the intergalactic evil overlord Xenu and his 75-million-year-old plans to conquer us all
• More from Operation Clambake: The Fight Against The Church of Scientology On The Net

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6.8.05 - Fun links discussed on Monkeytime TV this week:

• Ex-oil industry lobbyist/White House official edits your government's scientific reports about global warming
• "Bob Woodward’s gonna get all the glory for this, but we could make at least enough money to pay some bills."
• Diehard conservatives list the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries, and Metafilter picks it apart
• Video of Larry King blowing his nose and glad-handing the elder Bush couple for charity between commercial breaks
• The Beast Blender, a beautifully simple creative collaboration
• Bill O'Reilly Love Boat cancelled for lack of interest

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6.1.05 - My first political memory is sitting in the kitchen of the apartment shared by my grandma and great-aunt Goldie, watching my dad bang his fist on the table and yell at the televised Watergate hearings, "They're all goddamn crooks. All of them." Funny, then, that I've never really given a fuck about who Deep Throat was. It always seemed to me that Watergate's significance had very little to do with the actual, oh-so-secret identity of the leak.

But, damn, did I laugh out loud when our current Republican liar-in-chief was quoted today saying the news "caught me by surprise." Whatever. Mark Felt has been the leading contender for at least 13 years now, since this article appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in May 1992. Timothy Noah at Slate has been not-so-subtly pointing at Felt since 1999. And Bush - who surely has access to files journalists don't - says he's surprised?

Riiight. Like I said, over the years it never occured to me to spend time with this particular non-story, but please don't insult my intelligence by telling me G.W. Bush and his pals weren't on it like white on rice. And now the rightwing amen chorus is going to use the revelation to whine about the idea of an adversarial press, and wax poetic about the need for everyone in the federal government to be diehard loyal to whatever morons happen to be leading the executive branch. Watch for it.

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