Voices around the country, courtesy of The Freeway Blogger

The Freeway Blogger -- and allies around the country -- strike again. Check out the handiwork of this California activist, who has been putting up signs on the run along freeways for four years now. The project below was up in Berkeley, California on Friday.

I made it by duct-taping a couple of furniture boxes together, hitting it in sections with the overhead projecter, tracing, then painting. Took about forty minutes.

But it's not just California -- it's going on all over the country...





Surf over to see more. Read More......

Lowes pulls its advertising off O'Reilly

This is rather huge news (even more about it here). The most important advertiser to fall, and the most difficult, is the first. Now the rest (Home Depot) have to explain why they don't care as much as Lowes about threats against Hillary Clinton's life, why they don't care about suggestions regarding launching a terrorist strike against the US Capitol, why they don't care about wishing Rosie O'Donnell dead. Lowes is refusing to associate itself with hate speech and with death threats - why is Home Depot so comfortable with it?

Funny that Home Depot had no problem pulling its ads from BET (that would be black people), but when it comes to O'Reilly's hate, Home Depot blames YOU. So now we know that Home Depot DOES pull its ads. But it only pulls them from black TV networks, not TV networks that ATTACK blacks, not TV networks whose anchor's Web site contains threats to kill Hillary Clinton. No, that's okay for Home Depot.

Find more O'Reilly advertisers here and contact them all. Tell them about O'Reilly's hate, about the death threats against Hillary, about the suggested act of terror against the US Capitol, about wishing Rosie dead. Tell them Lowes pulled their ads over this horrendous show of hate. Why won't they?

As for Home Depot, let them really have it. They blame YOU for even having the nerve to contact them.

Ron Jarvis, Vice President of Environmental Innovation
ron_jarvis@homedepot.com

Frank Blake, Chief Executive Officer
francis_blake@homedepot.com

Carol Tome, Chief Financial Officer
carol_tome@homedepot.com

O'Reilly just two days ago vowed to destroy Daily Kos. He has slandered everyone of us, every one of you. He has compared you, our readers, to the KKK and the Nazis. He has claimed that we actually encourage people to post comments advocating the assassination of Vice President Cheney, and that when we're told about such comments, we refuse to remove them - a total lie. The man has jumped the shark in his desperate attempt to remain relevant in an America that no longer turns to FOX for its fake news. FAUX's reign of terror, O'Reilly's reign of terror, the far-right's lying, hateful reign of terror is over. We're not afraid of the hateful liars any more. Contact his advertisers now. Read More......

Cliff's Corner

The Week That Was 7/27/2007

Another week. More preposterousness to report.

Branding: As we know this is an important concept to Republicans. Because when your grandest achievements are a War On Condoms, increased disposable income for hookers and a never-ending conflict to enrich your campaign donors while soldiers-who-aren't-your-son keep dying, well, creating a false impression of reality is kinda essential.

Like penicilin for David Vitter essential.

Speaking of our favorite male whore-du-jour, guess what he is up to? I know you didn't guess so I'll tell you. He's the GOP's new marketing maestro. Their king of, well, branding.

Vitter , in fact, rose recently among his colleagues, the first time since his heartfelt admission that he had felt other organs than hearts. He talked about "re-branding" the GOP as "fiscal conservatives." Which is obviously an easy task when your party took a surplus and under unified, pork-pilfering government over six years, turned it into the largest deficit since the creation of the slide rule.

Yup, David Vitter, public perception maven. Next I hear he is going to re-brand the GOP as a combination of Scientology, Son of Sam and Ann Coulter's neck.

Fox has gotten in on the branding thing too. No, Roger Ailes didn't try and re-position himself as not being Jabba's slightly more homely BFF. That's just a bridge too far. But they are blabbering on and on that they're mainstream and it's bloggers who are extremists. Vicious people. Nasty. Like Brit Hume on a contents-of-Rush-Limbaugh's-medicine-cabinet binge.

Yeah, well, those silly attacks and a falafel will get you on the subway. Or a chance to be Murdoch's fourth wife. Or Sean Hannity's hairpiece.

Then there's my favorite re-brand artist, Mitt Romney. From canine-crushing, varmint-stalking human abortaficient into loveable right-wing family guy. Who apparently thinks we shouldn't protect our children from being molested and can't decide whether or not we need more people to possess machine guns.

For the dogs. Because, my God, who will stop those fearsome dogs!!

Maybe they should all just take Rep. Ray LaHood's advice. Take a look around. Realize they've wrecked the world, the country and Peggy Noonan's relationship with her shrink. And brand themselves retired. Read More......

O'Reilly now says extreme hate removed from his Web site. In fact, Media Matters says it's still there.

O'Reilly seemed to claim that the threats never even occurred at all, then claimed that they were removed. Which is an interesting defense, since it's exactly what we on the left do when hateful comments are found on our blogs - we remove them. Yet O'Reilly says that when we have hateful comments (that we remove) our sites are akin to the KKK and the Nazis. Get it? When he has the same comments, he's okay - when we have the same comments, we're the Klan and we need to be boycotted.

And in fact, Media Matters says that the hateful comments remain on O'Reilly's Web site, in spite of his claims that they've been removed. It's hard to claim that you're opposed to taking up loaded weapons against Hillary Clinton, and launching a terrorist strike against the US Capitol building, when you seem to continue tolerating hate on your Web site.

Why are Home Depot and jetBlue willing to associate themselves with death threats against Hillary Clinton and terrorist threats against the US Capitol? I'll tell you why: $. Read More......

Faux News attacks the blogosphere, Fox Attacks strikes back

Brave New Films takes on Faux News again in its Fox Attacks series ("They Distort. We Reply"). Its new video is Fox Attacks Bloggers. You will not believe what comes out of O'Reilly's mouth in these clips. Well, ok. You can imagine.

Faux seeks to frighten its viewers (who are disproportionately elderly and, most likely, not tech savvy) into thinking that progressive bloggers and netroots activist sites like MoveOn are nothing more than havens for extremists, hatemongerers, liars, and genocidal maniacs.

You can sign up to become a Fox Attacker, helping to build a database of Fox advertisers so that the network can be hit where it hurts for its constant disinformation campaigns. Read More......

Home Depot wants you to shut up

Oh, you're gonna love this. Home Depot is now telling its customers that if you have the audacity to complain about BillOReilly.com's death threats against Hillary Clinton and suggestions of a terrorist attack against the US Capitol then YOU are the problem.

Here is the letter Home Depot is sending its customers:

Our advertising campaigns have one simple objective to communicate with audiences in the most effective way possible. The Company is receptive to many forms and styles of media as we seek a balanced representation of programming to reach our customer base. Unfortunately campaigns like this one cause us to take time away from our sustainability goals and address a variance of political views.

Get it? If you complain about Home Depot sponsoring Bill O'Reilly's hate, then YOU are hurting the environment because you're wasting their precious time.

Somebody in corporate communications is going to get fired. Read More......

US demands, Europe agrees to provide, info on whether foreign travelers to US are gay, union members, religious beliefs

And what the hell business is it of the US government whether a foreign visitor is gay, let alone all the other new information they're demanding? And worse, how is this not a violation of EU privacy laws - how in the world did the European governments approve of this?

From the Washington Post:

The United States and the European Union have agreed to expand a security program that shares personal data about millions of U.S.-bound airline passengers a year, potentially including information about a person's race, ethnicity, religion and health.

Under the agreement, airlines flying from Europe to the United States are required to provide data related to these matters to U.S. authorities if it exists in their reservation systems. The deal allows Washington to retain and use it only "where the life of a data subject or of others could be imperiled or seriously impaired," such as in a counterterrorism investigation.

According to the deal, the information that can be used in such exceptional circumstances includes "racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership" and data about an individual's health, traveling partners and sexual orientation.

And what a surprise, the US is saying that if we only had this kind of information before September 11, we could have prevented the attacks.

If available at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Chertoff said, such information would have, "within a matter of moments, helped to identify many of the 19 hijackers by linking their methods of payment, phone numbers and seat assignments."

Uh huh. Had we only known which way Mohammad Atta swung in bed, maybe then George Bush wouldn't have gone on vacation for an entire month after having read a memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US." And in any case, notice how nothing Chertoff is saying has anything to do with your sexual orientation, philosophical beliefs, union status or anything else that is ACTUALLY on the list of info they're requesting.

There is nothing our government won't do, no rights they won't violate. But for Europe to agree to this mess, this incredible violation. It's time for you Europeans to have a little chat with your own governments.

Oh, and let me just say that had we a Congress that actually cared about privacy, perhaps we could have avoided this mess. Just saying. Read More......

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Slow Saturday in summer. Check out the editorial cartoons over at Bob Geiger's site. Gonzales gets pummeled. Great stuff.

After you've had a good laugh, start threading. Read More......

Q2 economy grows, economists debate direction

Last quarter was a respectable period for growth at 3.4% which jumps out compared to the limp 0.6% in Q1. The big question now is the direction through the end of the year. With the lending market falling apart thanks to complete mismanagement by both the Fed and the GOP Congress who built the flimsy mess, there is strong reason to believe Q2 was an aberration and the economy will continue to be soft as corporate lending also tightens and consumers - faced with lending problems such as an inability to take generous loans against their housing loan - will remain fight with their purse. A third option may also exist.

Both figures tend to misrepresent the overall trajectory of the economy, and economists said a more accurate picture lay between the two. And that suggests that real growth has still not returned to the roughly 3 percent rate that economists consider healthy and sustainable without feeding into higher inflation.

Read More......

Justice is slow in Cambodia

It's amazing to think that a small group of people could wipe out up to 25% of a population in just four years and manage to avoid a trial for almost thirty years. Cambodia is an amazing country, home to one of the most impressive ancient sites in the world, Angkor Wat, plus home to some of the nicest people you will ever meet. Despite this, Cambodia is a country where everyone you chat with will tell you a story about their own family during Khmer Rouge rule and a visit to Tuel Sleng or the Killing Fields will fill in any gaps. As a 40-something year old, this was not a distant moment of history like the Holocaust, but something that happened during my own life. (It's also horrifying to think that the US continued to support Pol Pot at the UN even after the killings were known.)

Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, may now be dead but it would be nice to finally have some kind of justice to help bring closure to one of the ugliest periods in our modern history. Read More......