Virtually Speaking

Commentators Avedon Carol & Stuart Zechman. Political satire from Culture of Truth. Jay Ackroyd  moderates. Public conversations: "getting angry about what was actually done" vs "getting offended by what someone else told you was said," and Avedon's Sideshow's focus on the former. Virtually Speaking Sundays: A counterpoint to the Sunday morning talk shows. The 2014 Virtually Speaking Media Panel: Allison Kilkenny, Avedon Carol, Cliff Schecter, David Dayen, Dave Johnson, David Waldman, digby, Gaius Publius, Joan McCarter, Marcy Wheeler, RJ Eskow, Stuart Zechman

Author David Brin recently updated his essay Why Transparency will Save Privacy.  Jay and David discuss the implications of recent revelations of US government surveillance activities. Hugo, Nebula, Campbell and ALA award winning David Brin is also the author of the remarkably prescient The Transparent Society.   Awarded the ALA Freedom of  Speech award, in this book he argues that technological innovation makes surveillance impossible to stop, but that the ultimate response by civil libertarians is to turn the camera around, and make the activities of powerful public and private organizations more transparent.

Tom Levenson hosts a conversation with Katie Hinde — Harvard based evolutionary biologist and "major-domo" of the world-class awesome blog "Mammals Suck…Milk!"  A wonderfully accessible hour + about how questions can lead to research and a greater understanding of how the world works. Follow @TomLevenson @Mammals_Suck Produced by @Sherry_Reson

Feb 16, 2014 - Political satirist Culture of Truth bases The Bobblespeak Translations on the Sunday Talk Shows:  Meet the Press and This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Using show transcripts, he creates the 'most ridiculous moment' for Virtually Speaking Sundays. We create a separate podcast and post the copy here.  Follow @Bobblespeak Text and links at VirtuallySpeaking.us

Feb 16, 2014 – This week, commentators RJ Eskow & Gaius Publius  talk about the mentality of plutocrats and the climate horizone. Plus political satire from Culture of Truth. Jay Ackroyd moderates. Follow @gaius_publius @rjeskow @jayackroyd @bobblespeak Virtually Speaking Sundays – a counterpoint to the Sunday morning talk shows. Links here. The 2014 Virtually Speaking Media Panel: Allison Kilkenny, Avedon Carol, Cliff Schecter, David Dayen, Dave Johnson, David Waldman, digby, Gaius Publius, Joan McCarter, Marcy Wheeler, RJ Eskow, Stuart Zechman

In this 5 min editorial, first presented duGring the course of his Jan 2014 Counterpoints conversation with Economist Stephanie Kelton, Gaius Publius considers Noam Chomsky's ideas of Unpeople, adapted from George Orwell’s term for those unfit to enter history.

Feb 9, 2014 - Political satirist Culture of Truth bases The Bobblespeak Translations on the Sunday Talk Shows:  Meet the Press and This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Using show transcripts, he creates the 'most ridiculous moment' for Virtually Speaking Sundays. We create a separate podcast and post the copy here.  Follow @Bobblespeak

digby & David Dayen comment on the postal banking proposal; ACA and entrepreneurship; bipartisan McCarthyism from Mike Rogers (R) House Intelligence, and Dianne Feinstein (D), Senate Intelligence. Political satire from Culture of Truth. Jay Ackroyd moderates. Follow @digby56 @Ddayen @Bobblespeak @JayAckroyd Links will be posted at VirtuallySpeaking.us The 2014 Virtually Speaking Media Panel: Allison Kilkenny, Avedon Carol, Cliff Schecter, David Dayen, Dave Johnson, David Waldman, digby, Gaius Publius, Joan McCarter, Marcy Wheeler, RJ Eskow, Stuart Zechman

David Atkins discusses a world where the central banks' closest partners, the money center banks, routinely engage in criminal activity. It has the effect of turning the entire economy into a house of cards: If that's a terrifying thought, it should be. This isn't a question of social and economic injustice. This is a question of an economy built on lies and mirrors, an economy whose sickness is so deep that even a small dose of justice to its asset classes could kill the patient. Wage growth and reductions in income and wealth inequality are the only medicine that will nurse this dying patient back to health. Without it, even a small breeze like prosecuting some money launderers might be enough to snuff out the candle. This discussion takes place in the context of a rapidly developing debate about the effects of concentration of income and wealth on economic growth. Follow @DavidOAtkins More at VS.US    

In the wake of the Feb 4 debate between Bill Nye the Science Guy and and creationist Ken Ham (Answers in Genesis), Alan Boyle (NBC Digital News), Award winning filmmaker Antony Thomas (HBO's Questioning Darwin) and Josh Rosenau (Natl Ctr for Science Education) consider the stakes and challenges of promoting scientific literacy in the 21st Century. Follow @b0yle @ncse @HBOdocs

Peter Moskos is an associate professor in the Department of Law, Police Science, and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He is also on the faculty of CUNY's Doctoral Program in Sociology and teaches a class at LaGuardia Community College in Queens. His first book, Cop in the Hood, won the 2008 American Publishers Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence, Best Book in Sociology. His second book, In Defense of Flogging, was listed as a "Favorite Book of the Year" by Mother Jones. We discuss the legalization of marijuana, the effect of the drug war on incarceration rates, and on society in general.

: Progressive Radio in the 21st Century. Nicole Belle debuts her Virtually Speaking Counterpoints program with Nicole Sandler and Cliff Schecter.  NIcole Sandler brought 30 years of terrestrial radio experience to pioneer internet radio.  She explains how we got where we are, and where radio, on air and on the network, is destined. She is live every weekday at RadioOrNot.com, Monday through Thursday at 10 AM Eastern. Cliff Schecter is a principal at WeAct Radio broadcasting at WPWC 1480 AM in Washington DC. He also appears weekly on Sam Seder's Majority Report, and is a member of the Virtually Speaking media panel. Cliff tells the story of WeAct radio, and the difficulties facing progressive talk.

Political satirist Culture of Truth bases The Bobblespeak Translations on the Sunday Talk Shows:  Meet the Press and This Week with George Stephanopoulos. He creates the 'most ridiculous moment' for Virtually Speaking Sundays. We create a separate podcast and post the copy here.  Follow @Bobblespeak

Joan McCarter (Daily Kos) & RJ Eskow (Campaign for America's Future) consider Income inequality. Are we seeing austerity fade away or morph itself into something different and more salable"? NSA and the The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (P-CLOB)  report. ...implications of the Ukraine cell phone event. Failure and the corrosive nature of secrecy. Political satire from Culture of Truth. Jay Ackroyd moderates. Follow @JoanMcCarter @RJEskow @JayAckroyd The 2014 Virtually Speaking Media Panel: Allison Kilkenny, Avedon Carol, Cliff Schecter, David Dayen, Dave Johnson, David Waldman, digby, Gaius Publius, Joan McCarter, Marcy Wheeler, RJ Eskow, Stuart Zechman

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (P-CLOB)  report and Pres. Obama's NSA Speech are the focus for investigative journalist Marcy Wheeler and cybersecurity policy and privacy expert Allan Friedman.  One of a series of conversations exploring cryptography, security, NSA, CIA, security state, intelligence, terrorism and cyber terrorism. A Visiting Scholar at the Cyber Security Policy Research Institute at George Washington University’s Computer Science Dept. studies information security, cybersecurity policy and privacy issues. Allan is the author (with PW SInger) of Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know,  Marcy Wheeler is the author of Anatomy of Deceit: How the Bush Administration Used the Media to Sell the Iraq War and Out a Spy,  the definitive work on the Scooter Libby trial. Marcy blogs as Emptywheel.net, and tweets as @emptywheel. You can find Allan on line at Allanfriedmans.org and on Twitter as @AllanFriedman