Anyone not familiar with it should right-click the image and open the site it points to -- Snopes.com -- in another tab, and get familiar with it.

During this election season, in particular, that site will come in handy.

Another site that will come in handy is this one:

So this guy with an odd name writes an article in the Asia Times that says Bush plans to run an air strike on Iran by August. Do we ignore it or do we start squirreling away canned pears in the family fallout shelter?

Self described “former broadcast news producer” Muhammad Cohen writes in a May 28 article that “The George W. Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months.” This is according to something “an informed source tells Asia Times Online.” We can be reasonably certain that “Asia Times Online” is Mr. Cohen. The identity of the “informed source” is somewhat less scrutable.

Tom Friedman of the New York Times thinks we’re in a cold war with Iran. He’s correct that we’re in a cold war, but he’s two Friedman units and change late coming to that conclusion, and he’s got the enemy country wrong. We’re no more in a cold war with Iran than we were in a cold war for 50 years with Belarus.

There are, nonetheless, a few similarities between that cold war and this one.

It's hard to be believe that a local newspaper can outsource its advertising team to India but that is what appears to be happening. Jennifer Thompson reports:

Now, as if this weren't enough of a blow, the kicker is this: the employees will retain their employment until after their replacements - who are being flown in, and put up here in Kansas City - have been trained by the displaced employees. And furthermore, according to a blog comment from the best friend of one of those laid off,The Kansas City Star is not giving letters of recommendation to those being let go! Talk about serious insult to injury. ...

[and according to blog sources]

McClatchy, owner of The Kansas City Star has taken the same action with other holdings, such as Miami Herald, the Sacramento Bee, and the Raleigh News & Observer.

Anatoly Kirichenko
Future of the Internet

Falls Church News Press editorial printed by permission of owner/editor.

'Best Revival of the Liberal Media’

Last month, the Washington City Paper, the most prominent “alternative weekly” in the nation’s capital, did its first “Best of D.C.” edition in 15 years. In addition to “bests” as voted on by its readers, it included a group of special categories made up and filled by its editors.

I am very proud to report that my newspaper, the Falls Church News-Press, the paper that I founded 17 years ago, own and edit, was named by the City Paper the “Best Remnant of the Liberal Media.”

I’ve told friends I want that as the epitaph on my tombstone, though there’s no rush. When we began touting the paper as “the most progressive newspaper in Virginia” awhile ago, there were no challengers. We pride ourselves as being in the epicenter of where Virginia is shifting from a “red” to a “blue” state, something confirmed by where the votes came from that tipped the balance to Democrats in the last three statewide elections.

The story that most likely would have knocked the bottom out of the Bush administration’s case for war with Iran occurred over a week ago, and the mainstream media hasn’t reported it.

While flipping through channels on the evening of May 12, I accidentally heard Keith Olberman referencing a story from the LA Times that told how the U.S. military was all ready to show the American press enclave in Iraq the big cache of Iranian arms that Iraqi security forces had captured from Moqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army during the recent fighting in the Iraqi cities of Basra and Karbala.

The arms, in theory, would have proven once and for all the administration’s assertions that Iran is arming Sadr’s Shiite militiamen. There was just one glitch; when U.S. inspectors went in to inspect the captured arms, they said that none of the weapons or ammunition could be reliably traced to Iran.

Bumped.

On Saturday May 3rd, 2008 the first annual Race and New Media conference was held at the CUNY campus of New York City College of Technology. The conference was held as a platform for panel discussions on topics of race, new media, politics and religion, and included an insightful keynote speech by Omar Wasow, omarwasow.com. Wasow is a co-founder and ongoing strategic advisor of BlackPlanet.com. Under Wasow's leadership, BlackPlanet.com became the leading website for African Americans, reaching over three million people a month. Wasow has been featured on TV segments for NBC's Today Show and public radio's Tavis Smiley Show, exposing modern issues of technology.

Good afternoon, guys.

I'm conducting a survey on the intersection of citizen journalism and the changes taking place in traditional media. The data will be used in a research paper submitted as my final in my NIU Media Management class (J449). If you are or were a member of the MSM, the independent press, a J school educator, or consider yourself a citizen journalist would you consider helping by answering the questions below?

It turns out that James “Spider” Marks, retired Army general and military analyst, was pushing the Bush administration’s war propaganda on CNN under the guise of objective journalism for fun and profit.

Say it ain’t so, Spider.

“Shoeless” Barry McCaffrey and “Clueless” Ken Allard were also among the ranks of retired officers who cashed in on their military experience to shill young Mr. Bush’s woebegone war on the major news networks, according to an article in last Sunday’s New York Times by David Barstow. Many of the faux analysts who spoke with Barstow were so contrite they sounded like they were trying to put their hands on a Get Out of Hell Free card. Allard was especially amusing, seeming to want us to think that it took him five years or so to figure out that he was being duped by the Pentagon, but now that he’s figured things out, boy he’s hoppin’ mad about it.

It’ s difficult to believe Allard could have been that dumb for that long, but keep in mind that he’s a former intelligence officer, and that the average intelligence officer is no more intelligent than the average fighter pilot, so he might have been.