Requiem for a flyweight

Robert Parry, Consortium:

Al Gore’s soon-to-be-defunct Current TV should serve as a case study for American progressives on how not to construct a media outlet. It was a failure in nearly all respects, with possibly its only lasting contribution the fact that its sale to Al Jazeera may finally give that important media voice from the Islamic world a foothold in the United States.

The biggest error committed by Gore and his partner Joel Hyatt occurred at Current’s founding in 2004-05 when the project intentionally ducked what was then the most important fight underway for the future of America, whether President George W. Bush’s strategy for a permanent Republican majority would go unchallenged.

Yeah, that and firing Keith Olbermann, who brought them an instant audience of several hundred thousand even if he is a prima donna and PITA. Now Al Jazeera, which constantly has to thread the needle with the US, is sure to back off controversy for fear of being accused of meddling in American politics. Maybe they’ll do some nice international documentaries or something.

Al Gore made $100M off the sale of Current TV. I sure hope he uses it more wisely than he did his investment on Current. I wonder, more and more, whether he really was up to the job of being president.

End the filibuster

Credo has a petition to end the filibuster here.

So, call, e-mail, or whatever, but D-O  S-O-M-E-T-H-I-N-G to end this farce.

Friday Cat Blogging

Snark of the year award… for 2013

Sometimes a piece of snark is so good that you know it will be remembered as best-in-class. Now, you must know that there is a site called Shadowstats, written by John Williams, which has been claiming that inflation is running much higher than the government says it is. Not only has the BLS delivered a convincing rebuttal, the claims do not pass the common sense test. They predict, for example, that American incomes fell disastrously during the 1990s (because inflation, Williams says, was very high).

So, in a long, detailed discussion on inflation and why it has not re-appeared during this period of quantitative easing as the inflationistas have predicted, James Hamilton of Econbrowser said this:

I also like Paul Krugman’s suggested inflation measure– the change over time in the dollar price for a one-year subscription to Shadowstats. Six years ago, it would cost you $175 to get a one-year subscription. For 2013, Shadowstats is offering a one year subscription for … $175.

Well, ok. Krugman wins the award, and it was in 2012. But Hamilton gets an assist.