http://thedecaturminute.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/see-you-at-terrific-thursday/

http://thedecaturminute.wordpress.com/?p=3591

Look for this sign in the window of participating Decatur businesses.

Terrific Thursdays continue tonight in Decatur! Not only can you find bargains and refreshments while shopping locally, but you can enjoy the new lights around the Square while riding the Pedicab. Wow- was there enough information in that sentence?

Seriously, tonight (and every Thursday through December 17) is the night you will want to shop Decatur. Businesses and restaurants are staying open late and offering discounts or refreshments, or both. We have also hired the Pedicab to transport you and your packages from place to place. Look for their lights and “Free Rides” signs.

The Pedicab is waiting to take you for a ride!

Look for the "Free Rides" sign.

The Bandstand Glows at Night

Hope to see you shopping and dining in Decatur!

http://thedecaturminute.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/decatur-holiday-tour-of-homes-tickets-on-sale/

http://thedecaturminute.wordpress.com/?p=3577

The 27th Annual Decatur Holiday Candlelight Tour of Homes tickets are now on sale. I know everyone is going to rush out to get theirs just like they did the Beer Festival tickets!

This year’s tour features 8 Homes and 2 Points of Interest in the Clairemont/Great Lakes area of Decatur. The Tour of Homes committee has planned the tour so attendees could walk from home to home. There will also be a shuttle available, compliments of Decatur Active Living. You can park your car at the Decatur First Baptist Church on Clairemont and ride the shuttle to all the homes.

Tickets are $20 in advance and are being sold at The Seen Gallery on Church Street, The Seventeen Steps on Ponce de Leon Place, Bicycle South on North Decatur Road and Intown Ace Hardware on Scott Boulevard. Tickets will also be available during the Tour at each home for $25.

Proceeds from the Tour of Homes go to the Decatur Youth Fund and the Decatur Preservation Alliance.

For more information visit www.decaturtourofhomes.com.

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/media-reform-and-ouster-lou-dobbs-ye

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Gosh. Looks like we won't have Lou Dobbs to kick around anymore. Except, of course, for when he lands that fat Fox Business Channel gig.

In the meantime, some congratulations are in order -- and, as Greg Sargent suggests, the left blogosphere in general deserves a great deal of credit in finally forcing one of the nation's leading hatemongers -- and disinformation specialists -- out the door.

That's especially the case with Media Matters, which really led the way. (MM has great retrospective of their own.) And the campaigns that organized to compel his ouster at CNN -- including Basta Dobbs and America's Voice -- should take a bow as well.

While we wait for the right-wing violins to cue their usual "Mean Liberals Went On a Witch Hunt" number, we should also take special note of what this means: It means that liberal activism to force our media to act responsibly works.

I know that a lot of time it feels like we're just shouting into the wind. It's that feeling of utter helplessness that ordinary citizens always get when they pit themselves against the power of big money and big corporations. Sure, we can document all the media misbehavior we like, but it's becoming so voluminous and steady now that it's hard to keep up, and it's even harder to spark outrage over it.

But eventually, if we keep pounding and pounding and working, it works.

The biggest job of all lies ahead, of course: Confronting Fox News, whose daily deluge of disinformation and fearmongering is so immense now that it makes Dobbs' contributions shrink to insignificance.

But it's true: Yes, we can do this. And we must.

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/report-president-obama-resisting-troo

If this is real resistance, and not a choreographed dance to make himself look "strong," we might possibly (it's a long shot, I know) avoid sinking deeper into this Afghanistan quagmire:

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.

In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Obama is still close to announcing his revamped war strategy — most likely shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia that ends on Nov. 19.

But the president raised questions at a war council meeting Wednesday that could alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Obama's thinking.

Military officials said Obama has asked for a rewrite before and resisted what one official called a one-way highway toward war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal's recommendations for more troops. The sense that he was being rushed and railroaded has stiffened Obama's resolve to seek information and options beyond military planning, officials said, though a substantial troop increase is still likely.

Sometimes people are layered like that. There's something totally different underneath than what's on the surface. But sometimes, there's a third, even deeper level, and that one is the same as the top surface one. Like with pie.
- Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, and Jed Whedon

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/chuck-norris-hears-black-helicopters

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Chuck Norris seems to have been hanging out listening to his good buddy Glenn Beck a bit much these days.

He went on Neil Cavuto's Fox News show yesterday and regurgitated a lot Beck's talking points about how Obama is radically transforming the country, but took them the next logical step into militia-style black-helicopter territory.

What had him all worked up was Obama's pending trip to Copenhagen to help negotiate a global-warming treaty:

Norris: I really think he's going over there to try to create a one world order. And I think --

Cavuto: Well, what's your big worry?

Norris: My big worry is the fact is that we, as a nation, if we start having to be, ah, obligated to other countries. Like -- in this conference, they're going to try to take our money and send it to third-world countries, because we spend so much oil, and so other countries have suffered, and they want to give our money to these, uh, third world countries.

Neil, we have people here who are starving in our own country. I -- you know, my foundation, I have families who are making nine thousand dollars a year -- the kids that I'm teaching. Why aren't we trying to help the poverty in our own country?

Nevermind, of course, that we have this thing called to Aid to Families With Dependent Children and a host of other poverty-fighting programs -- aka "welfare" -- that work reasonably well in attacking poverty in the USA. Except that funding for these programs keeps getting cut by right-wing anti-tax nutcases who think like Chuck Norris.

No, what really is bothering Chuck is that looming New World Order. This is also why he doesn't believe in global warming: "I don't believe it for a second. I think it's a big con game that they're doing."

And if Obama indeed hands over our "sovereignty"?

Who knows what's going to happen. God forbid this happens in our country. Our country as we know it now will no longer exist, Neil, that's the whole thing right there.

A little later, he brought up health-care reform as a signal event in the New World Order takeover:

Norris: I'll tell you what, the thing that worries me the most is this health-care bill. And why I'm scared about it -- it's not about the health care. It's about the provisions that are in that bill.

One, is that if this thing passes, the government will have the right to come into our home and regulate how we raise our children. I found that in the bill.

Cavuto, to his credit, wasn't buying: "I don't believe that."

Give it a day or two. I bet Glenn Beck does.

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http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=207538

blackheads. everyone gets them.

u gotz 2 maek sur u wash rly gud.

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In the world of entertainment, there are things that make me laugh, there are things that make me cry, and there are the rare things that work on so many different levels, or are so surprising, they simply drop my jaw to the floor and blow my mind.

This cover of Poker Face by Molly Lewis is one of those things.

Molly Lewis, you are a national treasure. It is an honor to occasionally share the stage with you.

http://crooksandliars.com/jason-sigger/aint-misbehaving-saving-my-contracts

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I am shocked, shocked to discover that US contractors bribed Iraqi government officials to overlook its misconduct... Really, does this surprise anyone when it comes to Blackwater?

Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.

Blackwater approved the cash payments in December 2007, the officials said, as protests over the deadly shootings in Nisour Square stoked long-simmering anger inside Iraq about reckless practices by the security company’s employees. American and Iraqi investigators had already concluded that the shootings were unjustified, top Iraqi officials were calling for Blackwater’s ouster from the country, and company officials feared that Blackwater might be refused an operating license it would need to retain its contracts with the State Department and private clients, worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
----------
The four former Blackwater executives, who had held high-ranking posts at the company, would speak only on condition of anonymity. Two of them said they took part in talks about the payments; the two others said they had been told by several Blackwater officials about the discussions. In agreeing to describe those conversations, the four officials said that they were troubled by a pattern of questionable conduct by Blackwater, which had led them to leave the company.

A senior State Department official said that American diplomats were not aware of any payoffs to Iraqi officials.

Of course the US government was blind to this - they didn't want to know, they turned a blind eye to what Blackwater was doing because it would have been too hard to arrange for another contractor to do all the security missions that it had ongoing. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, there are as many private contractors as there are uniformed military personnel. Most of them are not security guards as Blackwater's most visible function was. The lack of oversight is abhorrent but not surprising; the State Dept's failure to can this company is inexcusable.

My only observation on this article is to suggest how the US government got into this predicament, and it's pretty easy to see. The Bush administration wanted to hold onto the fiction of a few conservative principles, one of those being the concept of a small federal government. Since it already blew that "principle" with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, I'm betting there was White House guidance that directed "no more personnel growth in DOD or State." That didn't mean that there wasn't lots of work to be done, however. The beans and the bullets still had to get out to the Middle East, and it was still dangerous Injun country for all those unarmed State Dept civilians doing Condi's work out there.

So out come the sole source, cost-plus contracts for KBR, Haliburton, and Blackwater, adding tens of thousands of additional personnel to the mix. The growth of contractors wasn't only apparent overseas, it's very apparent in the Washington DC area in support of larger defense contracts and operations (confession: I is one of them). Now SecDef Gates is trying to flush out the system, and it's going to prove much harder than he puts on in his speeches. Everyone admits there's a problem - but no one wants to create the necessary oversight mechanism to stop this misbehavior in the future. Regulating industry is bad, don't you know.

It's a good thing that people insist that the government investigate important scandals like ACORN, isn't it? It's your tax money, going to only the best and brightest that money can buy.

http://thedecaturminute.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/november-classes-at-mama-bath-body/

http://thedecaturminute.wordpress.com/?p=3573

Mama Bath + Body, located behind The Cookie Studio on E. College Ave., offers a great assortment of homemade body lotion, candles, lip balms, soap and sugar scrubs. And now the recently opened store is offering two classes this month.

Free Tea Blending Workshop – Join the tea lady, Brandi from Just Add Honey, at the shop this Saturday, November 14th between 11am and 3pm. She will have a stock of tea-licious ingredients on hand to teach you how to blend your own flavor! She will also have her full selection of custom blended teas and will be offering savory suggestions for the holidays.

Soy container candlemaking 101 – Our long-awaited candlemaking classes are finally here! Learn how to save money by making your own all-natural soy container candles. Each participant will create and decorate their own soy candle to take home. This class includes an overview of the benefits of soy wax over paraffin wax candles. You will also learn about essential oils and will custom blend your own to scent your candle.

These classes sound like the perfect way to have fun and make some great personalized gifts for the upcoming holidays. Just a little something to think about on this Terrific Thursday!

Visit www.loveyourmama.com for more information.

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/abcs-brian-ross-cooks-dangerously-ina

ABC's Brian Ross has a history of bizarre "scoops" (like this one, when he announced that Hillary Clinton had indeed been in the White House the day Monica went down on her knees). And yet, ABC News is still proud to have him as their chief investigative correspondent, for some odd reason.

Now he overreaches on yet another story, this one claiming Nidal Malik Hasan attempted to contact al Qaeda. You heard it all over the news, right? Via Gawker:

ABC News' Brian Ross has a breathtaking record of recklessly inaccurate, overhyped stories that don't live up to the headline. His scoop yesterday about Nidal Malik Hasan's "attempt to reach out to al Qaeda" was one of them.

Ross' report yesterday that Hasan had attempted to "make contact with people associated with al Qaeda" took over the internet yesterday and sparked a furious round of speculation that Hasan's attack was part of an Islamic terrorist plot. The headline, "Officials: U.S. Army Told of Hasan's Contacts with al Qaeda," said it all. The far more mundane truth emerged today in the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post: Hasan had communicated via e-mail with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American cleric living in Yemen who formerly served as the imam of a mosque Hasan had attended in Virginia. What did they talk about? From the Washington Post:

The FBI determined that the e-mails did not warrant an investigation, according to the law enforcement official. Investigators said Hasan's e-mails were consistent with the topic of his academic research and involved some social chatter and religious discourse.

We were confused this morning, because Ross had clearly reported that Hasan had made contact with "people associated with Al Qaeda," and the only contacts that other reporters were confirming were with al-Awlaki, who is, as far as we know, a single person. We called Ross and asked him if there were more "people." No, he told us, his initial report was only in reference to al-Awlaki.

"That's how it was initially described to me by my sources," he says. "Given what they told me, that's all I could say. It's a strange use of the word 'people.' But when pinned down, my sources said it's just al-Awlaki."

A strange use, indeed. How about false, too? Especially because Ross' original story did, in fact, report that al-Awliki was among the "people" Hasan was suspected of having contacted. So he reported that Hasan contacted more than one person associated with al Qaeda, and then named one person that he was suspected of contacting. What he apparently didn't bother to do was "pin his sources down" on exactly what they were saying. The result was a clear suggestion that Hasan had tried to communicate with the al Qaeda network on more than one occasion.

So did he? Al-Awlaki is routinely described by the FBI and others as an al Qaeda supporter, and a fiery inciter of violence against infidels. And he was the imam at the Virginia mosque attended by two of the 9/11 hijackers, as well as Hasan. But while it's clear that Al-Awlaki is a bad guy, what's not clear is whether he's simply a propagandist or someone who actually operates as a part of al Qaeda. It's one thing for Hasan to have sent e-mails to someone who vocally supports al Qaeda, and quite another for him to have sent e-mails to al Qaeda itself, or to operatives actively involved in trying to kill people. Ross told us that, according to his sources, "Al-Awlaki is considered a recruiter," which is how he justified invoking the name of the terrorist network. We'll defer to him on that point.

But without knowing what the e-mails are about, can it really be known that Hasan's communications were "attempts to reach out"? The FBI didn't consider them as such. Ross didn't know the contents of the e-mails when he described them that way, but felt perfectly justified in doing so based solely on the knowledge that Hasan had sent the e-mails.

We asked Ross if he had tried to contact Al-Awlaki in reporting the story:

"Yes."

So you reached out to al Qaeda, then?

"To al Qaeda? No. I reached out to him. Oh. I see what you're saying."

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http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=208633

I foundz yarnia!

wheerz teh prize?

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http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/hannity-apologizes-jon-stewart-inadvertent

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Looks like Jon Stewart got the attention of Fox News with his segment criticizing Sean Hannity for showing footage of Glenn Beck's 9-12 rally and pretending it was crazy-eyes Michele Bachmann's teabagger health care protest. Hannity 'apologized,' if you want to call it that. It was a mistake...honest.

Hannity: He was correct. We screwed up. We aired some video of a rally in September, along with video from the actual event. It was an inadvertent mistake. But a mistake nonetheless.

Sure it was, Sean.

As Media Matters reports, his apology might be taken seriously if Fox News didn't have a record of doing this sort of thing--Hannity video switch-up is only the tip of Fox News' video-doctoring iceberg.

Dave N.: Cable-network producers know exactly what they're doing when they make these edits -- what their sources are, what they're representing. Inadvertent my tookus.

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picture: Jane_S. lol caption: dunno

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November 10, 2009 CBS David Letterman