So we have two major ground-beef recalls in progress. Both, they tell us, for e. coli contamination. One got a reasonably big, non-hysterical but thorough, coverage on the Saturday evening (NBC anyway) news. That’s this one, which covers a great whacking lot of dead cow over a great number of states. All out West. But one of those no-name meatpackers you never heard of, whose stuff is sold mostly under store brand names.

Unmentioned, oddly enough, was another recall announced just yesterday. That’s this one here. It covers less meat admittedly, but only two companies: Tyson Fresh Meats which processed the stuff, and Wal-Mart which sells it.

Wonder why NBC, when reporting the big Western recall, made no mention of the Eastern, Tyson, Walmart one?  Read more 

Shh. Follow me to the depths, through the secret tunnels under the Mighty Corrente Building, where after a long and torturous journey you will either reach Underground Froomkin or, possibly, suffer devourage. Here’s where St. Froom’ tells you what he really thinks, before it gets watered down for the delicate ears of Post readers:

What is it about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert that makes them so refreshing and attractive to a wide variety of viewers (including those so-important younger ones)? I would argue that, more than anything else, it is that they enthusiastically call bullshit.  Read more 

So you’ve probably heard, I’ve relocated to DC out of the Midwest, and I’ve come into a financial situation that will allow me to do nothing but blogging for a time (love you grrrl!). Yesterday, I went to the Greenwald and Blumenthal event at CAP, and a reader questioned my liveblogged report. Well and good, let’s get some things straight before I get too caught up in the muck here in our nation’s cesspool.

Eventually, someone is going to out me, or I’ll out myself, and you’ll be able to find out my real name and probably a bunch of other stuff that I may or may not want you to know. But I’m not going to help in that process just yet. Corrente is and always will be my first and best blogging home, and I’m very proud and honored to write here with such excellent people. But it’s also the case that not too many people in DC read it, yet, and so for a time, I’m going to use my anonymity as a shield, and do a little work in an undercover fashion.

There is absolutely no reason why anyone should believe a word I write here. Or, for that matter, anything you read in the NYTimes, or hear on Katie Couric’s “news” program. If you don’t see something with your own eyes or hear it with your own ears, it’s all just second hand and hearsay to you. I trust my own judgment just as I’m sure you trust yours; you can choose to believe what I write here or not, I really don’t care.  Read more 

Thank you for your efforts, and farewell and good luck on the book, Charles. You’ll be missed.

I don’t really have anything profound to say to his final post, although I do wonder if that’s the essential difference between a “proud mainstread journalist” and a blogger. I’ve taken breaks before, almost every blogger I know has and will again in the future. You can’t be a sensate human being and be exposed to all this horror without the occasional burn out and need to rest. But to me, the backbiting, gotcha fact checking, and shrill proclimations are exactly why I find the blogosphere so interesting. Even trolls are an important and necessary part of this medium. They may be annoying, but they keep you either sharp with your facts, or minded of exactly what the other side is saying and writing. Thanks for being here, so I don’t have to go to Powerloin, Nuddy.  Read more 

All I can say is, titter!. You decide if this this important:

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I’m on the road, so I have to keep this short, but let me say that I agree with Steve and I’d be even more strident if I had time today to write a whole post. It’s not only just time to start formulating not “new ideas” but actually implementing them. Do you think Mr. Rich Ranger Republican whines when Rove calls and says, “I need you to give us $100K stat, we’ve got a meme problem and I need to pay some journalists to crush it before people start talking about it?” No, he coughs it up. If you really trust the blogosphere to do a better job telling you the truth, then it’s time for you to consider, and express your support by agreeing to commit to a subscription or other regular donation, for the first bunch of bloggers to put together a reporting-centric site with funded investigations. It’s not like the Democratic Party is going to do it for you, and frankly, after six years of reading Atrios, FDL, Kos, etc., I’d really like all the talent out there to be put to a greater use instead of reading the same “the media lies!” headlines day in and day out :

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