Working at a Big 8 Peace Firm, a Look Back

War activists, like peace activists, push for an agenda. We don’t think of them as activists because they rotate in and out of government positions, receive huge amounts of funding, have access to big media, and get meetings with top officials just by asking — without having to generate a protest first.

— War Activists by Dave Swanson

I remember after graduating from Star Fleet I took a job with one of the Big 8 Peace firms in San Francisco.

I was a junior analyst working on developing pro-peace material. Part of my job was booking our leading peace advocates on the Sunday morning talk shows. If it seemed like every Sunday you saw the same peace advocates ganging up in a four to one “discussion” with one war monger there was a reason. Unlike them, our people were well trained, articulate and buddies with all the producers and hosts. The media loved our men and women as guests. We booked everyone, from the red white and blue wearing men to the serious, hard-hitting realist female experts.

You know all those op-ed pro-peace articles you read in the editorial sections of the major media editorial . . . → Read More: Working at a Big 8 Peace Firm, a Look Back

Heritage’s Freedom To Read™ program

Don’t have time to read and dog ear the corners of books but want your friends to think you have?

Introducing the Heritage Foundation’s Freedom to Read ™ program.

Heritage Foundation President Edwin Feulner.Photo by Medill DC under Creative Common’s License

Starting this April The Heritage Foundation has teamed with AEI, AFP, Cato, Hoover Institute and the EIEIO Institute to offer you pre-owned and distressed books for your home!

Includes all the classics you never had time to read, but want to say you have like:

The Fountainhead! Atlas Shrugged! Saul Alinsky’s, Rules for Radicals! (They’ve read it, why can’t you say you have?)

Hot current books like:

The complete, “Killing Somebody” series by Bill O’Reilly!

Books you didn’t read in college but said you did like:

Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations!

Bills the liberals have tried to ram down your throat like:

The Gay Agenda Bill and the “Give Homos Special Rights Bill” The Affordable Care Act–all 906 pages! The bill that inspired the “Read the Bill!” chant!

For a low monthly fee we also send you Heritage, AEI, Cato and Hoover Institute books our experts turn out each month that you only hear about on Fox, Hannity . . . → Read More: Heritage’s Freedom To Read™ program

Shock and Awe. Taser Drone Zaps Low Paid Worker

I love a good publicity stunt. At the South By Southwest festival (SXSW) festival, Chaotic Moon Studio used a drone to taze an intern.

What I love about this stunt is that it was designed and developed to be the perfect news story and that William “Whurley” Hurley, chief innovation officer, understood that it would be a conversation starter.

Because military drones are a hot topic and SXSW is a large global event, Hurley said they decided to bring to life the “fantasy of some people and nightmares of others.”

“We wanted to have an educated, well-informed discussion about how people feel about this as a society, or whether you’re a police officer or private citizen,” Hurley said. – ABC News

So, maybe we should have that discussion.

If not now, then on April 5 at 2:00 pm Pacific when I will be holding a Book Salon at Fire Dog Lake with Daniel Suarez on his book “Kill Decision.”

This should give you time to get and read the book. Yes, it’s science fiction, but it raises a lot of questions and it is structured as a thriller, so . . . → Read More: Shock and Awe. Taser Drone Zaps Low Paid Worker

True Detective’s Rust Cohle vs. Oscar Winner McConaughey

After watching True Detective did you wonder what Rust Cohle would have to say about Matt McConaughey’s Oscar speech? Well wonder no more. Comedian and Filmmaker Katie Halper shows us.

McConaughey is a great actor, but we should give credit to Rust Cohle’s creator, the writer Nic Pizzolatto. I don’t know who wrote McConaughey’s Oscar speech, but Rust’s words are all Pizzolatto.

I loved this show. Wonderful writing, acting and cinematography. I haven’t really felt a sense of mood like this since “The Killing” and it was not a surprise to me that Pizzolatto was involved in writing that. That show is another one of my favorites. I could watch just the face of Mireille Enos, the lead in that show, for hours.