Roger Waters closes down Coachella with "an epic two set performance that included playing all of Dark Side of the Moon." Apparently he also attached his stance on the upcoming US Presidential Election onto the bottom of the infamous inflatable pig. Floyd has always been a band with political leanings but imploring fans to vote for a specific candidate is annoying to me. Though I'm not sure why since their songs that have a political slant are enjoyable for just that reason, among others. glc

I've never seen a story as bizarre as this one. Frightening. Depressing. In general, totally insane. (via drudge) glc

According to a recent Newsweek survey, all three presidential candidates are less popular than they were one month ago. jmj

This July at the 7th Annual Lebowski Fest, fans of the Coen brothers' film The Big Lebowski will celebrate the film's tenth anniversary. jmj

He who was once blind, now can see. And with only a single injection of gene therapy into the retina at the back of the eye. SCIENCE! glc

Will Robinson, the first black NCAA Division I basketball coach, died yesterday at the age of 96. jmj

Apparently it's pretty hard these days to simply get a sit down with our local representatives to discuss topics of importance. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation has resorted to petitioning for Congressman Chris Smith's time. Perhaps you would like to help by signing online. glc

Just one from me today. A big one. Here is the link, from the New York Times.

The Pentagon has been puppeting ex-military talking heads (as if we didn’t know this at some level). They infiltrated the ranks of upper-level guys from the services to send in front of the cameras, especially the guys who are connected to “private sector” security firms, who are always looking to hook-up with an ongoing war, or “infrastructure rebuilding” companies, ditto for them.

It was implicit quid pro quo: you follow our script, we help your business find a nice defense contract - access to top-level officials played middle man.

One day you speak to a special press aide, who hands you a packet of information. Rules are no quoting the material directly and hush-hush about the Pentagon interaction. Then you go on TV and push the agenda. Soon, Don Rumsfeld is thanking you personally. And this just so happens to be the same guy that you needed to speak with about your defense company. Just so happens.

Rumsfeld said in a memo to the gov’t head of this cabal of carrion fowl: “Let’s think about having some of the folks who did such a good job as talking heads in after this thing is over.”

Pentagon: You, me, and Iraq.
Analyst: Huh?
Pentagon: We’re all gonna be like three little Fonzies. And what’s Fonzi like?
Analyst: Uh...
Pentagon: Come on, Yolanda, what’s Fonzi like!
Analyst: ...Cool?
Pentagon: What!
Analyst: Cool.
Pentagon: Correct-a-mundo! And that’s what we’re gonna be. We’re gonna be cool.
Analyst: So, about that contract?
Pentagon: Don’t worry, Ringo.
Analyst: Cool.

The Times article is lengthy and in-depth. This problem of Pentagon propaganda goes back to before September 11, before Afghanistan, before Iraq. It is entrenched in the full spectrum of American news sources. From the article:

The largest contingent was affiliated with Fox News, followed by NBC and CNN, the other networks with 24-hour cable outlets. But analysts from CBS and ABC were included, too. Some recruits, though not on any network payroll, were influential in other ways — either because they were sought out by radio hosts, or because they often published op-ed articles or were quoted in magazines, Web sites and newspapers. At least nine of them have written op-ed articles for The Times.

The analysts were given the “the George Romney memorial trip to Iraq,” and other places like Guantánamo Bay:

One trip participant, General Nash of ABC, said some briefings were so clearly “artificial” that he joked to another group member that they were on “the George Romney memorial trip to Iraq,” a reference to Mr. Romney’s infamous claim that American officials had “brainwashed” him into supporting the Vietnam War during a tour there in 1965, while he was governor of Michigan.

Its success only intensified the Pentagon’s campaign. The pace of briefings accelerated. More trips were organized. Eventually the effort involved officials from Washington to Baghdad to Kabul to Guantánamo and back to Tampa, Fla., the headquarters of United States Central Command.

How do you get fired from the Propaganda Patrol? One analyst was fired “when he told Bill O’Reilly that the United States was ‘not on a good glide path right now’ in Iraq.” That's all it took.

The media’s blame gets more description in the Q&A session the day following the article. Radar had a highlight piece on the story:

Once upon a time, long before Britney Spears was born, every serious news outlets would have felt compelled to follow up on such a huge story on the front page of the Sunday New York Times. No more. There was no mention of it on NBC's Meet the Press, CBS's Face the Nation, or ABC's This Week, although Howie Kurtz did mention it on Reliable Sources on CNN. Kurtz also followed up with a decent 900-word piece in the Washington Post on Monday.
NPR's Neal Conan led a lengthy discussion on Talk of the Nation—in which Harper's Washington editor Ken Silverstein actually advanced the story by pointing out that the program described by the Times was just one part of an even larger Surrogates Program, which included outreach to bloggers, think tanks, and new media.

All in all, the news is not surprising. It is disheartening, though. People who profit off of war are not my kind of people. The ones that lie to the public to profit off of war, well they can rot for all I care. Swindling the public will get you no where. The most amazing legacy of the Bush administration will be their ability to keep all of their lies straight. That, and not getting ousted. tjc