Vintage Phoenix Takes My Money News

So Close To a Complete Marvel Zombies Collection

Only Black Panther #27 to go and I have every issue either in hardback or single issue. Huzzah!

Phillip Agee and the non-Kage Baker Company
So Phillip Agee, the ex-spy who wrote a tell-all book on the CIA that exposed many of its less savory assets to public scrutiny in the 70s, has died in Cuba after illness.

His legacy is an odd one. Aside from a law banning ex-spys and government types from doing just what he did, which Scooter Libby et al broke on Valerie Plame without consequence, he certainly put a wrench in some of our CIA activities in that era... which were almost universally bad, bad things.

On the other hand, he's spent much of his later years as something of a mouthpiece for the Cuban government, which is neither as bad as Americans think, nor as good as they themselves profess. Odd for a civil libertarian, at least a supposed one, to become a shill for a country without a great record on liberty.

He apparently has been making his money arranging trips for Americans to Cuba in spite of the embargo. I approve of this as well, but on the whole, the guy seems sort of skeezy.

Ah well. Life goes on, for the rest of us at least.

Full Disclosure: I had a great-uncle who was CIA and supposedly had his career ruined by Agee's book. The family still thinks this is a horrible scandal. From what they've also told me about his 'work', I can't say I agree.

Source: Raw Story

Fox Noise: Factually Challenged
So on primary day in New Hampshire (Motto: A Rifle in Every Hand, We Matter Every Four Years), Fox ran a story saying that Paul Begala of CNN had joined the Clinton campaign, based it seems on anonymous sources. Without calling him to confirm it.

Ok, not a great practice, but not a huge deal?

Turns out the story was false, so Begala contacted Fox to tell them so, tell the 'journalist' in particular that he was not joining the campaign.

They refused to retract it, saying their sources were, err, better than Begala. They then added to the story, expanding it by saying he'd been on a conference call with the Hillary camp. That he hadn't.

Fox's official response to Begala's request not to, er, lie about him?

After I told Fox it wasn't true -- and this is the surreal part -- they kept reporting it anyway. In fact, Fox's Garrett told me he'd "take it under advisement." Take it under advisement? I realize I'm generally seen as just another liberal with an opinion, but this was not a matter of opinion, it was a matter of fact. Fox now knew their story was flatly, factually wrong, and they took it "under advisement."

Fox Noise, ladies and gentlemen.

Source: The Huffington Post

Do I Own Anything Orange?
The ACLU wants Americans to wear orange to protest the sixth anniversary of our legal netherworld in Guantanamo.

I guess I'll be making a run to Target for a nice orange t-shirt.

Source: Talk Left

Hillary Hecklers
From before the primary, some hecklers who apparently think because Hillary is a woman, that she should iron their clothes.

I don't own any clothes to iron. Or an iron. But if I did, I'd get punched a lot for trying to make the roommate do it for me.

Source: Raw Story

More Ballot Wackiness
So it seems in New Hampshire, people have very short attention spans, and will tend to vote for the name at the top of the list slightly more just because it's there.

Keep in mind in the primary this list is like 6 lines long.

Until this year, they solved this problem by having different ballots at different polling places, same candidates, different order. Studying the returns at these places is what allowed some political sciency guy to determine that the top listed viable candidate gets a 3% boost from being there.

This year, they went by random letter alphabetical order; the alphabet started at Z and wrapped around. Hillary was thus the first 'viable' candidate listed.

As the article notes though, Obama didn't lose by a 3 point swing; he lost by like a 12 point swing from early polling. Many theories are being advanced, including the old 'white guilt' one, where supposedly white voters lie in the entrance/exit polls because they don't want to be seen as voting against the black guy.

Shrug.

Whatever the case, just another random oddity of elections, and people who hate to read and yet turn out to vote. Yes, I know, there's bound to be a slight psychological effect on undecideds just seeing the name first. But if you're undecided, don't go vote! Yeesh. Random voting does not actually help the process.

Source: Raw Story