Rayne Today

As FireDogLake's liveblogging of Libby's trial continues, I note a number of abbreviations, acronyms, slang, shorthand popping up on the fly that most of us Plame-maniacs already know but newbies may not grasp. I'm going to try to document them here, a kind of not-so-secret decoder ring. If there's something you'd like to see added, leave me a comment and I'll cover it here. NOTE: in the event of a server crash at FireDogLake.com, check Windcatpond for announcements, as well as DailyKos for alternative live blogging posts. Complete list of FireDogLake's Libby trial live blog and related posts her e. Acronyms and Abbreviations: "ADD" From notes introduced during testimony by David Addington; abbreviation referred to Addington himself. ADDOPS ? -- Believe to be “Asst. Deputy Director Operations”-CIA (if you can confirm this one, leave me a comment, tks!) CIPA ...

We are witnessing history in the prosecution of the U.S. v. Libby trial. But not because this case presents the hologram in which the strategy to launch a unilateral war was prepared and promoted; it is because bloggers are covering this trial within a federal courthouse, side by side with traditional media journalists. What this means to the futures of blogging and journalism is not clear. There is a wariness and a grudging respect, like that between professional and amateur athletes. They appreciate each others' skills and occasionally play on the same fields, but the money gets in the way by creating a line of demarcation between them. In theory, traditional media shares the same objectives with most bloggers; to discover the truth and to write cogently about it. But something happened to traditional media; it lost its way, believing that its customers were advertisers and shareholders, forgetting that readers were the core of their business. Writing to sell product is a ...

I received the most disgusting email today from people who should know better. It was little more than a rant against brown-skinned AMERICANS -- the students who protested this past year in Whittier and Pioneer CA against what was then pending immigration reform legislation. This email showed the students raising the Mexican national flag and an upside-down American flag and was meant to inflame the reader. It was right-wing hate speech and racist propaganda. I cried reading it, cried more thinking about the people who forwarded it to me and the persons they received it from and those to whom they forwarded it again. Simply breaks my heart to think that persons very close to me are such bigoted and ignorant humans. I felt compelled to respond; I don't know that I could have looked myself in the mirror if I hadn't. Here's my response to the email they sent me with the subject line, "This should make your blood boil": Concentration camps on American soil. That...