(Spoiler Alert: I will be recapping this episode so don't read on if you haven't seen it yet.)

Sunday's episode helped propel season three onward to its climax in a couple of weeks, but did so with much less action and spent much more time in fewer locations. I enjoy the complexity of GOT, but it's not easy recapping a show that has over twenty main characters inhabiting Seven Kingdoms, the Wall, the Free Cities and many other locations so it's much appreciated when the story gets concentrated a bit. Anyway....

Arya and the Hound

Arya wakes up to see the Hound (Sandor Clegane) is still sleeping so she picks up a rock and approaches him to bash his brains out.

I will give you one try, girl. Kill me and you're free, but if I live, I'll break both your hands. Go on hit me. Hit me hard.

She wisely gives up the attempt and while riding together soon after, Sandor tells her that she's lucky she's with him and not alone in the world. He's not a really bad man after all, not like those child rapers and such. Heck, he even saved her sister from being killed. You're lying, she says. The Hound then turns her world upside down when he tells her he's not taking her to King's Landing, but to the Twins to sell her to her mother and brother who will be there for this really big wedding. Everyone one is yapping about it. For the first time her rage has been rendered speechless. It's something she doesn't know quite how to handle either.
Things are starting to look up for Arya finally---at the hands of all people, the Hound

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (100)

PLAYS: (1338)

Embed

If we've done anything successfully in the last nine years, C&L has proven without a shadow of a doubt the conservative projection phenomena. Anything that conservatives accuse the other side of doing is because they themselves are guilty of it. So Freedomworks-funded Rush Limbaugh can accuse liberals of taking Soros' paychecks (still waiting for mine, George) without even the slightest evidence of cognitive dissonance. Or you can hear every single Republican parrot talking points crafted by Heritage and Grover Norquist on the Sunday news shows.

Sadly or not, depending on your point of view, there isn't this kind of infrastructure on the liberal side. But that doesn't stop openly partisan hack Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post from dismissing Take Action News' David Shuster bringing facts to the coordinated 'outrage' with the accusation that he is merely saying "Media Matters talking points".

SHUSTER: The overall Republican point here that the Obama administration was trying to protect the State Department. The Obama administration trying to protect the State Department and that the White House was somehow trying to characterize the talking points or change the talking points in order to minimize political damage.

That Republican -- that Republican idea is just flat out wrong. This turns out to be a boring set of e-mails where simply CIA and State Department officials are --

RUBIN: All right, you had your speech coming out of the administration.

KURTZ: David, Jennifer --

RUBIN: Very nice to have the Media Matters talking points recited out of David's lips.

SHUSTER: What are you talking? What are you talking about, Jane?

RUBIN: Howard. If you want to hear me, fine.

(CROSSTALK)

SHUSTER: Let somebody from Media Matters --

KURTZ: Let's assume that everybody is giving their own views and you may disagree with them.

RUBIN: No, they're actually on Media Matters. These exact comments are coming out of Media Matters. Absolutely.

KURTZ: OK.

SHUSTER: Well, I don't talk to Media Matters. Jennifer, that's an unfair accusation for you to make. But the bottom line is, the Republican argument in all of this is flat out wrong --

Does Bill O'Reilly know that Rubin is stealing his shtick? It's so pathetic that Rubin actually asks Kurtz to "mute" Shuster.

And of course, it needs not be said that Rubin is doing nothing more than distracting from the real scandal for partisan advantage. Jonathan Karl was absolutely wrong because he failed at the most basic of journalistic skills. All he did was take the word of a Republican operative and regurgitate it without even a bit of fact checking or confirmation. They tried the same thing with Major Garrett and Jake Tapper, who were able to see through it. But this is kind of lazy journalism that Karl does regularly.

DOWNLOADS: (34)

PLAYS: (44)

Embed

This Week with George Stephanopoulos notes the deaths of service members killed in Afghanistan.

US Army SFC Trenton L Rhea, 33, Oakley, KS
US Army SFC Jeffrey C Baker, 29, Hesperia, CA
US Army SPC Mitchell K Daehling, 24, Dalton, MA
US Amry SPC William J Gilbert, 24, Hacienda Heights, CA

According to iCasualties, the total number of service members killed in Afghanistan is now 3,315.

In addition, the following notable names lost their lives this week:

Russian politician Sergei Alexeyev, 88
Psychologist and television personality Joyce Brothers, 85
WA state politician Margaret Rayburn, 86
Argentinian president Jorge Rafael Videla, 87
Singer/songwriter Alan O'Day, 72

DOWNLOADS: (62)

PLAYS: (232)

Embed

It's a little surprising that this story hasn't gotten more traction, because on its face, it's far more egregious than the AP 'scandal'. If you haven't heard of it, a little background:

Reporters from the famous multinational mass media corporation Bloomberg are accused of using the company’s financial data terminal to spy on individuals that use the service for market news and trading information.

The news came to light after Goldman Sachs representatives started complaining about the fact that Bloomberg reporters were keeping tabs on their employees.

A few hours ago, Matthew Winkler, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, admitted that reporters had accessed client information. However, he stressed that they could only access limited data.

Michael Bloomberg made his fortune, in part, from the sale of these terminals, found in almost every financial office and media outlet that reports financial news. For decades, those terminals have not only allowed for the monitoring of financial news and trades, but allowed those in the know (which reportedly included some at Bloomberg News) to monitor what was being monitored through back door security. Think about it: every article on a company's financial status, every search of buying and selling trends, every examination of trades by influential finanicial organizations was available for Bloomberg News to cull together for stories or even actions. At best, this is espionage by a private company that allowed them to access the search the financial actions of nearly EVERY company and financial officer (including Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner). At worst, this is potentially the biggest violation of privacy for personal profit in American history, but hey, let's get ourselves in a lather over a legal--albeit secret--subpoena.

Having stipulated that, it's instructive to look at this segment of Reliable Sources to see how well the media seems to understand not only the larger ramifications of this story, and the condemnation of their own industry but also how they do their jobs. Mediaite's Joe Concha -- who has never attempted to tamp down his own conservative leanings in his reporting -- loves the idea of taking this very serious story and glibly use it to smear Michael Bloomberg, who by all reports, separated himself from Bloomberg News when he ran for office as Mayor of New York City. Even as Howard Kurtz corrects him, Concha shrugs it off.

It takes Jane Hall, late of Fox News, to point out the hypocrisy of journalists wailing about being monitored (legally, and with a subpoena, mind you) by the government when they had no compunction of doing their own monitoring completely illegally. And they're hardly the only ones. We've still yet to find out if the wiretapping and hacking done in the UK was done by NewsCorp outlets in the US, although I think it's fair to assume the practice was widespread.

But once again, the media fails to realize that their collective actions are exactly the reason why nobody trusts them anymore.

It's incredibly ironic that after years of the Patriot Act, and actually sitting on information that the Bush administration had been monitoring millions of Americans' communications without warrants that the media is now up in arms and wailing "First Amendment!" when they find out that the Obama administration got a subpoena to check the phone records of AP journalists in an attempt to find a national security leak.

For what it's worth, I'm not sure that this is the case that the collective media wants to hang their "chilling whistleblowers" hats on. In the case of sensitive counterterrorism (and especially, as in this case, a turned operative), I think maybe it's a good thing that whoever had those loose lips feels chilled from leaking information to the media. This isn't a case where a crusading whistleblower exposes malfeasance. This could have potentially hurt future counterterrorism targets. However, because ultimately, this is about them feeling violated, they ignore the legal subpoena and groundwork they didn't report on when it was established and just clutch their pearls.

In any event, it's time to dispel the laughable notion that any of us has any privacy any more any way. From grocery store buyers cards to Facebook, Americans have essentially waived their privacy away. The amount of information available on any and all of us is astounding, and much of it is freely given away by us. I've logged into my Facebook account only to find friends "checking in" from gyms, restaurants and even holidays (nice to let the world know you're not at home for potential burglers). Amazon crafts special deals based on my browsing history. Tweet about Wegman's Deli and watch Whole Foods send you a tweet about their superior deli department, as happened to a friend of mine.

And yes, the government is listening as well. The Patriot Act has been strengthened, not weakened in the intervening years. To the best of my knowledge, Room 614A in the SBC Building in San Francisco is still operational.

Privacy in the Google age is a myth. The sooner the media catches up to the reality that affects all of us, the sooner we can start discussing the real issues surrounding our privacy and rights.

Bluestem Prairie - idiot GOP Rep hates butt sex, United Nations, lots of other things;

Dependable Renegade - umbrellas? ... really GOP?

Joe.My.God - a gay man shot to death in ... Greenwich Village?

Sadly, No! - Benghazi forever!

Towleroad - asshole Texas judge splits up lesbian couple.

blogenfreude blogs at stinque.com, twatters @blogenfreude, and saw the new Star Trek movie today, and it pushed all of his 8-year-old buttons. GO SEE IT! send tips to MBRU at crooksandliars dot com.

Happy Saturday night, folks! It's Blue Gal from The Professional Left Podcast, bringing you this week's podcast round up. Be aware that these podcasts are also available on i-Tunes, and may not be safe for work.

CNN / The Big Three (new podcast): Interview with Rep. Keith Ellison

The LEFT Show: The GOP only serves you if you have your papers, your incorporation papers, that is.

PBS Idea Channel (video) - Is a DOS Attack a Weapon?

Open Thread below....

Joy Reid at The Grio:

In a letter to members of Congress, which was obtained by NBC News, Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation (which recently found itself in hot water over the racial IQ theories of the co-author of their widely panned immigration reform study, Jason Richwine, who resigned from the think tank last Friday), urged Republicans on Capitol Hill not to govern, and instead, to focus on the would-be “scandals” plaguing the Obama administration.

Continue reading »

Ordinarily I wouldn't give this kind of a story attention, but the radio host who said that disgusting thing has somehow gotten enough traction in radio-land to attract the likes of Larry Pratt and Ted Nugent. Plus, I've had my own personal encounter with him.

Back in 2008 I did a daily online radio show called NewsGang Live with some techies, some political types, and others. At the time, there was no BlogTalkRadio but Steve and Tina Gillmor managed to figure out how to do it with uStream and a call-in conference number . Peter Santilli would call into the show often, presenting himself as an independent voter who wasn't sure how he would vote in 2008. He was disruptive and annoying but he wasn't crazy and he wasn't especially much of an independent either, but more of a straight-up conservative and conspiracy nut.

Now he's a crazy conservative. Via Right Wing Watch:

Continue reading »

Amazon Video recently released 14 series pilots, and asked the internet to vote. The big winner? "Alpha House," a very funny series by Garry "Doonesbury" Trudeau about four wingnut senators sharing the same house. (I'm hoping "Onion News Empire," an Airplane-esque takeoff, also makes the cut.)

Let's just say that I think you may recognize a couple of the senators.

So what story lines would you like to see them use?