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Wednesday, February 4, 2004 - 02:13 p.m. -
GOP financing Sharpton.
Duh? Didn't they help Nader a few years back, or was that a rumor? This looks indisputable - and Sharpton's calling racism on the Voice. Instead of denying it.
Wednesday, February 4, 2004 - 02:09 p.m. -
Holy noun!
I reckon half of you have already seen this insane pilot for "Kids Show," but the other half of you had better start downloading. It's pretty much not safe for anywhere, though, so beware. Puppet sex, livestock snuff, kids saying things that will shock anyone who still holds a particle of propriety. Uneven but damn funy when it's funny. USA said no, MTV said yes - dunno what that means.
Sunday, February 1, 2004 - 06:09 p.m. -
Dood, kewl.
Saturday, January 31, 2004 - 10:16 a.m. -
Toward the end of this article
on the genocide conference:
"The U.S. delegation raised the issue of action against 'recurring atrocities' in southern Sudan and the eastern and Ituri regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Both the Congolese regions and southern Sudan are rich in oil, casting a less than altruistic light on the Bush administration motives."
Can't you just totally see the U.S. delegate standing up and saying "The Bush administration is deeply concerned about...um...genocide?...in the following regions: Sudan, the Congo, and, oh, Iran...maybe Syria..." then wiping the drool from his chin and taking his seat. Then an hour of stunned silence from the conference. Then lunch.
Thursday, January 29, 2004 - 11:49 a.m. -
This is so much better
than a do-not-call list, as far as I'm concerned.
Wednesday, January 28, 2004 - 11:14 a.m. -
Super-neat!
Get 'em started young.
Tuesday, January 27, 2004 - 12:34 p.m. -
Paul and Sean and I were e-chatting about Hipublican National Review writer Jonah Goldberg, whom I loathe for lots of reasons (chiefly his delight in prison rape jokes). The notion of media bias popped up, as it does, and gave me the chance to articulate some thoughts on that topic that have been prancing around naked in my head for a while. Here:
Anti-conservative bias is a creation of right-wing think tanks and is an absolutely brilliant strategic tool. Just as many on the left think the media has an inherent anti-left bias, and why are they wrong? Because they didn't get there first or loudest.
Here's a thought experiment: Imagine a large, mainstream media organization that wants to maximize its readership/viewership/etc. The best way to do that is to offend as few people as possible, so it skews to the center politically and cuts off voices from either fringe. So this hypothetical organization presents viewpoints from a bell-curve truncated equally on either end. (I'm not saying this is always what happens, this is just an experiment.)
So anyone appreciably off-center politically sees proportionally more voices representing "the other side" - and the farther out s/he is, the bigger the perceived bias. So there doesn't have to be any real bias to feed perceptions of bias. The conservatives that decided to exploit this simple mistake of perspective have made their interpretation such deeply embedded conventional wisdom that it's practically unassailable. Of course there's a left-leaning media bias...if you're looking at it from the right.
I think the only real media bias - the one that spans all outlets - is self-interest.
Tuesday, January 27, 2004 - 12:33 p.m. -
Smooth, Franken.
Body-slamming a heckler in defense of free speech. Awesome.
Thursday, January 22, 2004 - 11:18 a.m. -
"War is a tremendous focus..."
(Thanks, Michael!)
Tuesday, January 20, 2004 - 12:38 p.m. -
Another wonderful, silly, hopeless idea -
but it's a good counter to the "Reagan everywhere" madness.
Tuesday, January 20, 2004 - 12:37 p.m. -
Punk's not dead!
No comment, honestly.
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