Time To Make The Donuts!

This takes a steady hand, and an enormous amount of dedicated concentration.

For a professional (we use the term loosely) journalist, to ignore the overwhelming, blaring, blanketing news-of-the-day, that has the television talking heads doing somersaults, and all but taping their mouths shut, to keep from saying that the presidential race is all but over, you have to take off your baker's hat and tip it to the Associated Press's Liz Sidoti.

Yesterday, she see's what virtually no one else sees, a kind of "Sixth Sense" thing ...

"I see-dead-candidates."

AP presidential poll: All even in the homestretch

The presidential race tightened after the final debate, with John McCain gaining among whites and people earning less than $50,000, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that shows McCain and Barack Obama essentially running even among likely voters in the election homestretch.

The poll, which found Obama at 44 percent and McCain at 43 percent, supports what some Republicans and Democrats privately have said in recent days: that the race narrowed after the third debate as GOP-leaning voters drifted home to their party and McCain's "Joe the plumber" analogy struck a chord.

Pretty amazing, no?

To take an obscure, outlying poll, very narrow as to its subject, when most of all the other reputable ones have a span of 8%-14% lead of Obama, and boast that her favorite donut eater is still in the game, that certainly must be earning her a front seat on the Dead Campaign Express.

Just to refresh you, Ms. Sidoti doesn't just deliver stories to the AP, she also delivers donuts to Stumblin' Bumblin' John McKKKain.

AP writer rips Obama, gives McCain doughnuts (true story)

Normally, I wouldn't waste my time or yours with Sidoti's nonsense, but there's an amusing story to tell involving her that's just too good not to share. It goes back to April 14, when both John McCain and Barack Obama appeared at an event for newspaper editors hosted by the AP.

At the event, the head of AP addressed Barack as "Osama" while John McCain was given a box of Dunkin' Donuts -- with sprinkles. And coffee, with a little cream and a little sugar. By none other than Liz Sidoti.

Here's the video, so you can see just how accommodating she was.

Sidoti spent the rest of her article painting as rosy a picture for the debunked Maverick as possible, apparently emulating her hero, like he did in the debate, by shielding her eyes away from Obama, the prevailing - and growing - trends, that has most of the media whispering "landslide".

The only thing missing from the piece was visibly showing the pom-poms.

Way to go Liz!

Maybe, after the campaign, you can get AP to assign you to Arizona, and you can keep delivering the donuts (with sprinkles) to the bitter, angry, defeated Fly Boy.

Bonus Donut Hole Riffs

Attaturk: Hatchet Job…with sprinkles

Jay Rosen: Just How Did John McCain Obtain What He Has in the Bank with the Press?

Nick Juliano: 'Keep up the fight,' Top AP editor once wrote Rove

Some More Donuts, There, Mr. Halperin?

The Bob Dole For The New Millennium

It's A Fiesta In Blue!

But Wait, There's More! ... AP Update

We buried the lead, sort of.

When we posted yesterday - No AP Here! - about the incredibly dumbass, stupid actions of the Associated Press, if we had waited a few hours, we could have included the "new" news;

AP sets up a toll booth for bloggers citing its stories

Where the group had previously invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and sent cease-and-desist orders to at least one blogger, seeking the removal of excerpted content (in some cases as few as 17 words in length), now the press service has attached an "Excerpt for Web Use" charge for passages as short as five words in length.

The pricing scale for excerpting AP content begins at $12.50 for 5-25 words and goes as high as $100 for 251 words and up. Nonprofit organizations and educational institutions enjoy a discounted rate.

Yeah, you got it ... They want to charge bloggers for quoting - and, in many cases, linking back to - AP content.

Sorry, but that's not in my budget. I'm all tapped, for paying to see the sun rise every morning (I wish they offered a discounted subscription rate for that).

This is ridiculous.

Is AP, without telling anybody, making some sort of crazy, screwball, Mack Sennett-like comedy?

Are they sitting in their offices, gouging eyes, pulling ears, slapping noses, ala The Three Stooges.

If they are not, boy, do they need a new PR person.

The great-and-powerful KOS weighed in ("More on the AP idiots"), offering to kick ass, then knock their teeth out for mumbling about it;

Lots of blogs are calling for boycotts of AP content. Not me. I'm going to keep using it. I will copy and paste as many words as I feel necessary to make my points and that I feel are within bounds of copyright law (and remember, I've got a JD and specialized in media law, so I know the rules pretty well). And I will keep doing so if I get an AP takedown notice (which I will make a big public show of ignoring). And then, either the AP -- an organization famous for taking its members work without credit -- will either back down and shut the hell up, or we'll have a judge resolve the easiest question of law in the history of copyright jurisprudence.

The AP doesn't get to negotiate copyright law. But now, perhaps, they'll threaten someone who can afford to fight back, instead of cowardly going after small bloggers.

Jane Hamsher, over on Firedoglake, in her "$12.50 For Five Words? “Bite Me” Indeed, AP", is also scratching her head;

I still can't wrap my head around the idea of charging someone to link to you. We've been witness to some staggeringly stupid acts on the internet, but this one really takes the cake.

Do they understand that if they sue Markos, he'll get all the traffic he can eat? Do they even understand the whole concept of traffic?

Yesterday, we asked for someone to send the AP Dale Carnegie's book "How To Win Friends and Influence People".

That's still needed.

For today, another request - Call the folks at the Darwin Awards, and see if we can streamline it for the Associated Press to zoom to the top of the list (perhaps in the area of Self-selection, which is "Cause of one's own demise").


Bonus Links

John Amato - C&L: The AP walked right into a buzz saw

Libby Spencer: AP update

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, TMV Columnist - Associated Press: A Brief Look at Fair Use and a Lost Story of The Grateful Dead

No AP Here!

Quick, somebody ... Anybody, go out and send Dale Carnegie's book "How To Win Friends and Influence People" to the Associated Press.

This has been a gathering storm for the past few days.

It began with this;

AP Files 7 DMCA Takedowns Against Drudge Retort

I'm currently engaged in a legal disagreement with the Associated Press, which claims that Drudge Retort users linking to its stories are violating its copyright and committing "'hot news' misappropriation under New York state law." An AP attorney filed six Digital Millenium Copyright Act takedown requests this week demanding the removal of blog entries and another for a user comment.

And, in the spirit of "when you a Jet you’re a Jet all the way ...", bloggers and writers from as far as the eye could rallied around.

Here’s Our New Policy On A.P. stories: They’re Banned

AP boycott working

AP, hole, dig

The Associated Press, kind of, realized, the screwed the pooch ("Associated Press to Set Guidelines for Using Its Articles in Blogs"), which, is like calling someone an asshole, and then apologizing with "I'm sorry that you are an asshole".

It didn't fly, and Steve Benen, over on The Carpetbagger Report has a good rundown on it.

Here, on The Garlic, I can say with some confidence, we haven't linked to the AP very much (I think a bunch of Yahoo News tags may be AP content), and, if you are a regular reader, you know that, more often than not, we bypass the MSM, highligting and tagging (linking) other bloggers and writers (which we do generously - there's a lot of great stuff out there).

So, we will stand guard and definitely ignore the Associated Press and we hope, that you, our readers, will also make an effort to avoid their content.

Visit the Unassociated Press to stay on top of this, and, sign their petition.

A Thread Of Garlic - Hey AP, Hands Off Olbermann!

As many of our readers know, The Garlic is an unabashed fan of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and the hero-anchor himself. With our Minced Garlic posts, we've highlighted his blistering, but very much needed, Special Comments (while adding in our own two cloves).

And you may be aware of the dust-up that began last week.

First, Olbermann layed into presidential wishful Rudy Guiliani, for his hijacking the Bush Grindhouse rhetoric of "vote Republican and you'll be safe, vote Democrat and you die".

This led Guiliani to complain to MSNBC, as to Olbermann's presence in anchoring on the coverage of the Republican Candidate's Debate and the charge that he is partisan.

This lead AP writer David Bauder to pen an article (MSNBC's Olbermann seeks delicate balance) suggesting that Olbermann is, indeed, not fair, that it is a source of trouble for MSNBC and, the whopper, of comparing placing Olbermann on the debate coverage is akin to the Fox News Network placing Bill O'Reilly similarly.

Olbermann and O'Reilly on the same level?

Okay, I'll wait for you to stop laughing and pick yourself up off the floor.

Riding to the rescue, among others, was Salon's Joan Walsh and Glenn Greenwald (who The Garlic highlighted last Saturday), with two great posts yesterday.

Check it out!

Links

A hit job on Keith Olbermann

Brit Hume is a "journalist"; Keith Olbermann is "partisan"

AP Uncritically Reports Giuliani Campaign’s Efforts To Marginalize Olbermann

Olbermann Equals O'Reilly. Huh?