Welcome to Left Out, reality-based independent radio broadcasting on WRCT 88.3FM and podcasting on the worldwide web at leftout.info. Left Out discusses the news from a perspective left out of the mainstream media. Left Out is co-hosted by Bob Harper and Danny Sleator. Today's program is produced by Matt Hornyak. Listeners are invited to call the program at (412) 268-WRCT (9728), or to send email to bob@leftout.info.
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Keith Olbermann is a former sportscaster. Since March of 2003 he's anchored a news show called Countdown on MSNBC, a cable network owened by NBC and Microsoft. (Countdown filled the slot left when MSNBC canned the Donahue show because it presented a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war......He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." [link to alternet] [link to media matters] )
Well, it turns out that the sportscaster is a great writer, brilliant,
funny, and brutally honest. (Perhaps Olbermann imported the brutal
honesty thing from the sports beat, where such honesty seems to be far
more common than in the news beat.) There's an ongoing feud between
Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly. Olbermann regularly lampoons the
blow-hard with devistating effectiveness.
For example: link.
You can watch a bunch of
these as captured on this link on
www.youtube.com.
He also regularly skewers Ann Coulter, whom he calls "the Coltergeist".
But what really caught my attention was a commentary he did last week after Donald Rumsfield's speech. In the speech Rumsfeld equated critics of the administration with "Nazi appeasers" before world war II. In his elloquent commentary, Olbermann rips this to shreds. He points out that Rumsfeld "has the battery plugged in backwards". In fact, the current administration is really much more like the Chamberlain administration, which heavy handedly dismissed all criticism, such as that from Churchill. We'll play the commentary on the air. You can watch it here, as well as read the transcript.
Rachel Maddow hosts a daily program on Air America Radio [link]. I'll play an excerpt from a recent program. It's a diatribe she had on the air in response to the alleged plot to blow up airplanes using binary liquid explosives. It's elloquent, outraged, and powerful. Eat your heart out Lynn Cullen. [listen to it].
The thrust of these remarks is that most nothing has been done by the administration to make us safer, and what they've done has made us less safe. I would simply add that if there is (God forbid) another terrorist attack against the US, it will give a tremendous boost to the right --- which is an incredible irony, because if this happens, it will be their fault.
David Hughes is the founder of Citizen Power www.citizenpower.com, a non-profit based in Pittsburgh. From their web site:
CITIZEN POWER is the outgrowth of 20 years of work for safe, clean and affordable energy. We work to protect the consumer and the environment by influencing public policy through research, education and advocacy. As educators, we disseminate information, in an understandable format, through the media, and by providing direct educational services to requesting organizations. As advocates, we participate in regulatory and legal proceedings at the state, regional and national level that can impact the environment and the regional economy.
We'll be discussing the politics and environmental impact of our electrical power generation system. Following California's successful model (ugh) major deregulation of power in Pennsylvania is about to kick in. We'll discuss the changes likely to result from this. And we'll also talk about what you can do to reduce your power consumption.
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