Happy Holidays And Thanks!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS to one and all. And my thanks to the greatest readers and commenters on teh internets! You folks are awesome, and none of it works without you. And thanks, most of all, to Marcy for the tireless and incredible work she does, and for letting me hang around and be part of the fun and excitement.
We had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner at Casa de bmaz and then retired to watch Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in Holiday Inn. For those not aware, Holiday Inn is the movie the Irving Berlin classic song White Christmas actually comes from, not the later movie with the title "White Christmas".
Well, Santa has just now completed his night’s work and, later in the morning, it will be present time. Here’s wishing you and yours all the very best.
It’s the Holidays! How about a little more music? Well alright then, away we go!
Merry Christmas one and all.
As for this informational medium that we all embrace (and much to Sam Zell’s chagrin):
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/….._1224.html
The proverbial “letter to the editor” has been usurped, as has the entire medium. Investigative reporting will still need to be carried out, and if the ink-media goes the way of the buggy whip, so too goes the budget to pay the reporters to write the stories that we rely on.
To a great extent, the Internet has been so successful thanks to free access to the articles that in prior years could only be accessed by subscription fee or news stand sales. By disnintermediating this entire sector, we all run the risk that true investigative reporting will effectively disappear for lack of funding. If the plutocrat-induced “Great Bush/Cheney Depression” kills off the newspapers, and then they pull the plug on the Internets, we’ll all be left with the government controlled TeeVee “news” to tell us what to think and how to interpret events that may have occurred, or may only appear to have occurred.
With the truth of their crimes being revealed daily and their own personal freedom and money at risk, would they do that?
Indeed, Merry Christmas to all here. EW (& Next Hurrah) has been on top of my daily reading list for long time now, w/horde of really smart, informed commenters. I really appreciate this place, and thank all for informative insights.
God bless you all, & thanks.
Snoopy!
Good Christmas morning to all, and my thanks again to EW and to you, bmaz, for creating this wonderful site all over again every day.
To plunger @ 1:
I don’t think that this will happen, or at least it doesn’t have to. Newspapers and magazines haven’t made their money from subscriptions for a long time, if ever. They make their money from advertising. If the readers are switching to websites, then the advertisers will go there too.
The smarter publishers figured that out first and took their subscription walls down early; now we’re watching the last holdouts (like the silly Grope and Flail) give in inch by inch (a lot of their articles now go behind a sub wall after a few days, which makes linking to them impractical — I wonder how long it will take them to figure that one out).
My home page is the Guardian, which has never had a sub wall, I don’t think, and I haven’t noticed any decline in their reporting. The threat to good news sources that I worry about is ideological — our neocon PM, for instance, is just itching to sell off / destroy the CBC (public broadcaster), and if he ever gets a majority government, he’ll do that, which would be a disaster.
Thank you, bmaz, and a Happy Holidays to you, Marcy and everyone who reads and comments here. And to everyone else as well.
We had our family celebration on Tuesday evening, a time we could all be together while allowing our children to coordinate their schedules with their in-laws’. And a wonderful celebration it was, being the first with our 7 1/2 month old first grandchild. She’s been the life of the party around here for most of the past week.
Well, the Jets need a Hanukkah miracle. I can say that much. My failure to mention NE losing at least spared EW’s delicate sensibilities.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you do. The importance of ideology has suddenly become central in some parts of Left Blogtopia. But ideology can simply be who you are for, or it can be connecting things through the kind of complex stories we see told here every day.
Thanks bmaz, and a merry merry to you , EW, and the serious commenters here.
I’m thankful that this year I found you folks at FiredogLake.
It is said that we humans are born with an innate yearning for “home”.
For whatever reason, I’ve always had an incurable compulsion to understand more. In the environment in which I grew up that set me apart from most every one else. Too often I heard, “Don’t be that way, Peggy Ann!!”
Here at FDL I think I’ve found in my final years a group that truly shows what America should be like: respect for the views of each yet each feeling free to have and express a differing view. It’s o.k. to “be different”.
I feel like I have at last ‘come home’.
Merry Christmas Emptywheel and bmaz and may 2009 be good
to everyone. Thank you for the great reading.
Happy Holidays to yous (the inestimable EW and BMAZ) out there on the front lines of critical commentary around the rule of law. It is appreciated. And just to clear the air as the year ends. It is quite clear to me that eggheads don’t play rugby.
Here’s to renaissance in 2009?
!, even ….
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukka, Festivus, Kwanzaa and Sweet Winter Solstice bmaz and EW.
May 2009 bring wonderful surprises- the good kind…you know, like maybe they haven’t looted EVERYTHING.
Please Santa.
As they say down under, Merry Chrissy to everyone!
Man, the quality of Marcy’s work leading right up to Christmas never fell off, and THAT is impressive!! My own work has sucked for days now!
Merry Merry to all!
Merry Christmas – to the naughty and the nice.
Merry Christmas, emptywheel, bmaz & all.
Thanks for all you do!
It’s only because of you all that I have any sanity left from the last 8 years!
I would like to thank EW and BMAZ and everyone here for helping me hang on to what’s left of my sanity.
I spent hours a day grooming GOOGLE news for ANY evidence that anyone else saw what was going on in this country besides me. I had to keep my frustration to myself as my industry is fairly conservative.
Then there was one first page Google reference to TNH and I was saved!
Hallelujah! (Pass the bottle). There are people that think like me in the world! I am not alone! (And bmaz is a fan of be-bop delux as well!)
Happy happy holidays to one and all and thanks for that one little corner of my sanity you helped preserve.
Heh, I even put up the Tubes for you on the last Trash Talk! This is a one stop curiosity shop.
Solstice-related holoday greetings to all (yes, even Mr. O’Rielly).
holiday. Guess more eggnog is needed.
Thank you bmaz. I just went back and got that video. It didn’t have a title so I never noticed! I’m listening now.
I always said their stage show kinda overshadowed how talented they really were. Never got to see them live.
Wendy-o-Williams (and the Plazmatics) did personally throw me off stage in Georgetown one night, at least twice. I’m not exactly sure how I climbed up there but a bottle of Rumplemintz consumed in line kinda helped that along. I lost interest in alcohol over the years, but I really had to quit drinkin’ that stuff.
Happy Holidays to EW, Christy, Jane, bmaz, Ian, Blue Texan and the rest of you. I used to read the yahoo message boards but they turned to trashing gays and blacks. I found this site during the Libby trial. That was exciting with the first live blogging of a trial. Bought ew’s book, she has awesome insite not only from what one says and does but from what one doesn’t say and doesn’t do. You all are so smart and entertaining so I stayed. A huge thanks for all you do!
A very cute video from youtube I found posted downstairs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP7QuCHmYVc
Little Drummer Boy
Jimi Hendrix: Little Drummer Boy/Silent Night.
Turns out the video is incorrectly titled, it is actually Little Drummer Boy/Auld Lang Syne.
I submit – Silent Night/Auld Lang Syne
;~P
A little Be Bop Deluxe present for bmaz, Ry Cooder’s Let’s have a ball…
Ry is too cool.
Word…! He sure is… Tear drops will fall…
That’s a keeper. Here is Police Dog Blues from the same session.
Good evening. Thanks bmaz.
Happy Holidays
May your arm be strong,
Your delivery spurt,
Your motion spry,
And may your shoe strike its
Target, Bulls Eye.
Have you ever wondered why Dean Jagger was relieved of command at the beginning of White Christmas? Relieved of command, during the middle of a battle! God knows how many GI’s had lost their lives up to that point due to his incompetence. And then, after his relief did show up, with a wink and nod Jagger directed his driver to take the new general the long way around to the front line. Take the long way around in the middle of a fight, when every second counts! When the slightest delay could result in the deaths of God knows how many more GI’s! Yet this was the swine of an officer that Crosby and Kaye rallied to, along with the survivors of that outfit. The dumb bastards.