i dont watch the news anymore

[Fwiffo]

Fox News bobble-heads would get fired for not raising money for Republicans.

[keyboardlover]

Fox News bobble-heads would get fired for not raising money for Republicans.

Lol! That's a good one.



Edit: I want an O'Reilly bobble head. That'd be awesome.

[quadibloc]

He was suspended for funding politicians, not for his beliefs.

Reading the Guardian article, though, it's clear that donating to a politician isn't a corrupt act - so the only legitimate reason for reacting to a donation is that it gives an appearance that a journalist is biased.

"Like suspending Glenn Beck for being a moron"... when that is apparently what he was hired for... probably puts it quite well, given that Obermann was an opinionated voice. Still, I don't fault liberals for wanting to take the high road, even if Republicans don't.

[wellington1869]

Still, I don't fault liberals for wanting to take the high road, even if Republicans don't.

maybe there's some value in that, i agree, and its good not to emulate fox news; but this seems over the top, like they were looking for a reason to fire him anyway (how were his ratings? I havent watched olbermann in a long time. I rather liked ben affleck's parody of him on SNL earlier this year).

[wellington1869]

That's not ludicrous.

THIS is ludicrous.

Show Image

good point

[Fwiffo]

Olbermann is the highest rated show on MSNBC, as was Phil Donahue at the time he was fired.

I actually don't care for him; I think he's insufferable (Rachael Maddow is so much better), but it's obvious given the timing and the double standard WRT to conservatives on the network, that it was just an excuse to fire him for being a liberal.

[godly_music]

what do you mean 'shoehorned'? Saddam claimed kuwait for decades and finally decided to act on it. He didnt believe (because of his own faulty intelligence) that the US or anyone else would ultimately intervene. and he was locked in an ongoing war-to-the-death with iran at the time.

Kuwait was an important ally in Iraq's war against Iran. Iraq had a heavy debt to Kuwait and tried to get out of it by OPEC production cuts. Kuwait would not pardon the debt, and instead increased their own oil production to counter the decrease. Iraq economy collapsed, and it was called an act of aggression. Kuwait didn't want to back down against an enemy already putting up troops on the borders. This is seen by some as hint that Kuwait had US backing in a plan to lure Iraq into the offense.

this is true. Doesnt mean we have no values; It does mean we can be very shortsighted from time to time and we pay the price if we dont learn from our mistakes.  As depicted pretty well in that movie (what was it called? charlie?) our mistake in afghanistan was not following thru with real support for democratic education once the soviets were defeated. It was an enormous mistake and a real missed opportunity.  We're great at intervention, we're really bad at follow-through.

Who knows why people do what they do in world politics. What I do know is that it wouldn't hurt for America to turn their eyes inward for a change. The thing that many people argue Bush Jr. was trying to distract from with what he did.

its not a 'bogus concept'.  Terrorism is all too real. The issue is how best to tackle it, and its on that score that bush fell flat on his face taking most of america with him.

Terrorists following a single ideology can come from many different countries that may all be at peace with their neighbors and the rest of the world. You do not wage war on individuals, that is what's bogus about it. You're right, this only boils down to how you tackle the issue. But a nonsensical expression like this can only have been made up by people who have no clue how to tackle the issue because they haven't grasped how terrorism works. And the result of this was an unimaginative, traditional war that completely ignored the issue.

no, tv's role is to make a profit for its parent company. it does that job the best that it can. When media corporations get too big they dont let diversity thrive, and thats when the dissemination of information -- so vital to a healthy democracy -- suffers.  Its not rocket science. The problem isnt corporations as such, its monopolies and oligopolies as such.  (And the lack of originality or creativity or courage, things today's media desperately needs.)

Yeah, it does that. I should've said it's the effect, not the role.

I find information suffers much earlier. When a guy who is involved with a show or the news goes: "We'll get more people with car crashes." Doesn't need a monopoly to smell the best bait. Doesn't need a genius to figure out in what direction this pushes people mentally.

[wellington1869]

Kuwait was an important ally in Iraq's war against Iran. Iraq had a heavy debt to Kuwait and tried to get out of it by OPEC production cuts. Kuwait would not pardon the debt, and instead increased their own oil production to counter the decrease. Iraq economy collapsed, and it was called an act of aggression. Kuwait didn't want to back down against an enemy already putting up troops on the borders. This is seen by some as hint that Kuwait had US backing in a plan to lure Iraq into the offense.

ok, fair enough. He did claim for a long time that kuwait was part of 'historical iraq' though.  Also I still dont see how he was 'shoehorned' into the war with kuwait, which makes it sound like he had no choice. Instead, it sounds like he needed a scapegoat and a distraction from his internal woes.
 

What I do know is that it wouldn't hurt for America to turn their eyes inward for a change.

this is true of nearly any nation or group, and arguably today, evangelical islam in particular.  

Terrorists following a single ideology can come from many different countries that may all be at peace with their neighbors and the rest of the world. You do not wage war on individuals, that is what's bogus about it. You're right, this only boils down to how you tackle the issue. But a nonsensical expression like this can only have been made up by people who have no clue how to tackle the issue because they haven't grasped how terrorism works. And the result of this was an unimaginative, traditional war that completely ignored the issue.

i actually agree with this.  The name reflects the frightened state of affairs that a misguided political correctness has landed us in.

I find information suffers much earlier. When a guy who is involved with a show or the news goes: "We'll get more people with car crashes." Doesn't need a monopoly to smell the best bait.

true, too much competition can create unhealthy desperation for ratings too. creating a situation as bland and destructive as any monopoly.

Doesn't need a genius to figure out in what direction this pushes people mentally.

well, i'm just saying I dont think there's a conspiracy to make people dumb. I think the effect is an outcome of other factors (like too much or too little economic competition) rather than individuals engaging in conspiracy, whcih is what this sounds like a bit.

[godly_music]

well, i'm just saying I dont think there's a conspiracy to make people dumb. I think the effect is an outcome of other factors (like too much or too little economic competition) rather than individuals engaging in conspiracy, whcih is what this sounds like a bit.

Oh yeah, I go on that tangent pretty easily. People sitting in a dimmed room smoking cigars and plotting to kill a large part of the earth's population by producing products that cause cancer.. does sound silly. What's kinda scary though is that, the effects we get from TV overexposure, buying medicated meat or other possibly hazardous processed foods and drugs, yada yada, would work pretty well in a conspiracy situation. That we do all this **** to ourselves just out of stupidity and greed is kind of putting humankind in a worse light than option A.

[wellington1869]

That we do all this **** to ourselves just out of stupidity and greed is kind of putting humankind in a worse light than option A.

i guess i'm inclined to think humankind is that dumb even as our masters are that evil Its kind of a lose lose situation  Not hopeless, but will take a ton of work to improve it any cuz if we're not fighting evil overlords then we're fighting really, really stupid masses.

[keyboardlover]

Actually it'll get better once women take control.

Nancy Pelosi announces she'll become House Minority Leader.

Republicans hate strong women so this should result in much lulz.

I think it will result in much lulz because she'll likely fail and bring Obama down with her. Not that I think he cares. His heart's not in it.

Other lulz may result from her face drooping during public speaking events.

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

Vote for Joad Cressbeckler!

He is someone we all can believe in...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iqktCdX0hs

[keyboardlover]

Republicans are a "do nothing" party.  It's going to be embarassing in two years when their only accomplishment will be sending more jobs overseas and extending tax credits to the wealthy.

Ironic since historically they've done more to make the country competitive than Democrats (talk about a party that REALLY does nothng). More FUD from the leftist GH peanut gallery.

[wellington1869]

Vote for Joad Cressbeckler!

He is someone we all can believe in...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iqktCdX0hs

lol, i'm a huge fan of joad cressbeckler! I keep hoping the onion gives him his own regular show already.
(saw him on a different ad the other day, for a make-your-own business cards site.)

fs=1&hl=en_US">

[audioave10]

It seems that news reporters have all become "Stars".
(at least in their own mind)
I don't watch ANY of them.

[Senor_Cartmenez]

...that we know of. He's definitely been linked with Al Qaeda.

[wellington1869]

my friend received this as spam, but its pretty funny actually:

------------------------------------

A teacher asked her 6th grade class how many of them were Palin fans.

Not really knowing what a Palin fan is, but wanting to be liked by the
teacher, all the kids raised their hands except for Little Johnny.

The teacher asked Little Johnny why he has decided to be different... again.

Little Johnny said, "Because I'm not a Palin fan."

The teacher asked, "Why aren't you a fan of Palin?"

Johnny said, "Because I'm a Democrat."

The teacher asked him why he's a Democrat.


 Little Johnny answered, "Well, my mom's a Democrat and my dad 's a
Democrat, so I'm a Democrat."

Annoyed by this answer, the teacher asked, "If your mom were a moron and
your dad were an idiot, what would that make you?"

With a big smile, Little Johnny replied, "That would make me a Palin fan."
------------------------------------




tee hee.

[zefrer]

Lol that's pretty funny

[Voixdelion]

Late to the party on this thread, but here's my two cents on the first page (first):

i mean any news. I read about current events in snippets online, like the AP ticker on yahoo or something,, but thats about it.

i find more than ever that all the news does is make me depressed or angry and is presented in a manner that is intended to do so.  so i'm not going to be the newsreader's ***** anymore.

While at Emerson College, to which I transferred for the purpose of majoring in broadcast journalism, it took only a few actual days of attending my "News history, analysis and research" class (basic req. course for the major) before becoming totally disillusioned with the entire concept.  

The coursework involved actually having to watch several news programs on daily basis, and after knowing what I then knew about what went into them before airing, I couldn't stomach it any longer.  Dropped both the course and the major in under two weeks and switched to advertising and PR, which actually seemed like the more honest career with more integrity after learning the truth about "News."    

The thing that I appreciate most about Emerson is what I learned about the Mass Media as a whole and the way communication is so affected by the relationship between the message and the messenger.  I realize that my perception of the world would not likely be the same had I not attended Emerson.  Now that I think of it, too, it actually helps me understand why the country is so out of whack considering that most people did NOT get that sort of information from the schools they attended.

My mom didn't really value the idea of education for the sake of itself, but she wanted me to attend college so that I could "get a job."  If I had known that when I was applying to schools, I would have not even bothered until I had some Idea of what kind of job I wanted to get, possibly even saved her $100,000 in tuition in the process.  I just assumed it was expected of me, the same way that graduation from high school was.   I don't know if a degree in "Communication Studies" is useful for a damn thing as far as making me more employable, but I will say that the practical knowledge if afforded me is something I consider invaluable now.  

Use your anger, Welly. Reach out with your mind, and find the politician who will actually fix the things that are wrong instead of doing something stupid.

I think what the U.S. needs is a Populist politician, who, like a Democrat, will cut imports and immigration to put people back to work, and like a Republican, will keep the nation's defenses strong.

But sinister forces are working so that what the nation will get, instead, as the answer to its discontent will be Sarah Palin.

It's time for concerned Americans to stop the Tea Party, and bring either the Republicans or the Democrats back to the center, so that Americans will have a rational alternative to vote for. Nehemiah Scudder must not win in 2012!

The man that would fit that bill never had a shot, although he did run:  Mike Gravel.  He got my attention one Sunday morning that the TV was left on and the Iowa (?) debates awakened me.  I was about to turn it off and go back to bed, but it was Gravel's turn to speak and he was pretty ticked about something, so it got my attention long enough to process the fact that he seemed, surprisingly, to be making a good deal more sense than I expected a politician to be making.  I recall sitting there in shock thinking, "Holy ****, did he really just say that?  That sounded suspiciously like the truth.  Who the hell is this guy?"   Now I ****in' LOVE im.

[wellington1869]

it took only a few actual days of attending my "News history, analysis and research" class (basic req. course for the major) before becoming totally disillusioned with the entire concept.  

lol, i had that experience with my first graduate course in historical methods.

The coursework involved actually having to watch several news programs on daily basis, and after knowing what I then knew about what went into them before airing, I couldn't stomach it any longer.  

ditto for me and History coursework. After knowing what goes into the writing of a historical book, I cant stomach it anymore. The politics and the bull**** is just amazing, and the end product is so polished and "authoritative" that the general public has no freaking idea.

Dropped both the course and the major in under two weeks and switched to advertising and PR, which actually seemed like the more honest career with more integrity after learning the truth about "News."    

lol, at least they're up front about the bull****, yea. Less hypocrisy, i agree.

The thing that I appreciate most about Emerson is what I learned about the Mass Media as a whole and the way communication is so affected by the relationship between the message and the messenger.  I realize that my perception of the world would not likely be the same had I not attended Emerson.  Now that I think of it, too, it actually helps me understand why the country is so out of whack considering that most people did NOT get that sort of information from the schools they attended.

exact same thing can be said about academic history programs.

My mom didn't really value the idea of education for the sake of itself, but she wanted me to attend college so that I could "get a job."  If I had known that when I was applying to schools, I would have not even bothered until I had some Idea of what kind of job I wanted to get, possibly even saved her $100,000 in tuition in the process.  I just assumed it was expected of me, the same way that graduation from high school was.   I don't know if a degree in "Communication Studies" is useful for a damn thing as far as making me more employable, but I will say that the practical knowledge if afforded me is something I consider invaluable now.  

same here. i'm doing the degree for my own education, not because i expect a job out of it. Which, ironically, allows me to have more personal integrity as I go thru the program, and while so many of my colleagues have to sell their soul and their intellectual integrity to scramble to get a job in the field.

[Fwiffo]

Mike Gravel produced the best two pieces of political ANYTHING in the past 20 years.

[microsoft windows]

lol, i'm a huge fan of joad cressbeckler! I keep hoping the onion gives him his own regular show already.
(saw him on a different ad the other day, for a make-your-own business cards site.)

fs=1&hl=en_US">

[patrickgeekhack]

i mean any news. I read about current events in snippets online, like the AP ticker on yahoo or something,, but thats about it.

i find more than ever that all the news does is make me depressed or angry and is presented in a manner that is intended to do so.  so i'm not going to be the newsreader's ***** anymore.

I try to tell that to my relatives and to my friends, that they should take what is being said on the news with a grain of salt, because these "news sellers" need to create sensation, otherwise their "news" would be boring, and no one will be interested. For example, we will never see something like: "Here's a small town in Canada. As you can see, it's business as usual, nothing extraordinary is happening today."

What I find more annoying is that some people believe everything they see on the internet. Just because it's on the internet does not mean that it is 100% true.

[Fwiffo]

Just because it's on the internet does not mean that it is 100% true.

What about NATURE'S 4 CORNER HARMONIC SIMULTANEOUS 4-DAY TIME CUBE?

[Lanx]

I try to tell that to my relatives and to my friends, that they should take what is being said on the news with a grain of salt, because these "news sellers" need to create sensation, otherwise their "news" would be boring, and no one will be interested. For example, we will never see something like: "Here's a small town in Canada. As you can see, it's business as usual, nothing extraordinary is happening today."

What I find more annoying is that some people believe everything they see on the internet. Just because it's on the internet does not mean that it is 100% true.

News media pretty much created the swine flu, which was so rampant and detrimental to the pork industry they lobbied the media to call it H1N1. And in the end? nothing.

[Spinifex]

You might be interested in this.  

The reasoning is this.  The value of TV is relatively limited.  The main purpose of TV, is to generate income for the Television broadcaster, disregarding public service television.  The way this is achieved is YOUR ATTENTION is SOLD to advertisers.  

Yes.  You have your sorry ass hocked to advertisers the more you sit in front of the idiot box.  I use to work in the industry.  It is pathetic.

[wellington1869]

 The way this is achieved is YOUR ATTENTION is SOLD to advertisers.  

thats basically it. As noam chomsky put it, they're in the business of selling you to advertizers. Everything else -- news value, informational value, etc -- is incidental.

[wellington1869]

In the end you are a lump of biological cells bonded by chemistry for the sole purpose of consuming resources for driving the economy.

Get over it.

When Katie Couric puts on glasses I think she gets even Hawter.

Show Image

didnt she put video of her rectal exam online or something? (to promote awareness of annual check ups for rectal cancer). Pretty sure she did, and yea i dont think it was very 'hawt', lol!  Now every time i see her all i can think of is a colonoscopy.

[wellington1869]

Not funny dude.  Her husband died of colon cancer and she's been very vocal for the cause.

In fact she went on the next day and did the news after her husband died.

thats great and all, but dude, i did not need to see her rectum. just saying.

[itlnstln]

I guess it depends if you live in a ****-hole or not.

[quadibloc]

News media pretty much created the swine flu, which was so rampant and detrimental to the pork industry they lobbied the media to call it H1N1. And in the end? nothing.

Usually, even when an influenza epidemic is so severe that many people die, they're usually the ill and elderly.

This time? Adults in their prime of life, hale and hearty, died from the swine flu in large numbers in Mexico City.

Does that mean that if people hadn't shown up to take their shots, thanks to the media raising awareness, there would have been a catastrophe? No, since the shots didn't even become available in time to do more than protect against the third wave of the epidemic. Instead, it turned out, luckily for everyone, that the only reason that particular flu virus was so deadly in Mexico was that peoples' immune systems were compromised... by low levels of arsenic in the drinking water there.

But does that guarantee we'll be as lucky next time? If a new flu virus is knocking over healthy young adults, it makes sense to react quickly and strongly. Overreacting ten times in a row... is way better than missing the time when hundreds of thousands of people are killed needlessly because we did nothing.

[Fwiffo]

The media can overreact and generate stories out of nothing (remember the Summer of the Shark?), but I don't think this is a case of that happening. The 1918 flu killed 3% of the world population. If there's even a small chance of pandemic flu, the media SHOULD go ape**** on the story.

[wellington1869]

My wife made me look at the inside of Dr. Oz's colon.

i'd like to know what Dr. Oz was doing inside your house.

[wellington1869]

Welly, you ever been in a Turkish prison?  I have and you don't want to drop the soap.

you might get a colonoscopy?

fs=1&hl=en_US">

[Lanx]

link is very much on topic.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20101115/pl_yblog_theticket/almost-5-million-people-watched-sarah-palins-alaska
5million viewers? biggest premiere for TLC? that's a lot of GOP looking at a milf.

[wellington1869]

link is very much on topic.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20101115/pl_yblog_theticket/almost-5-million-people-watched-sarah-palins-alaska
5million viewers? biggest premiere for TLC? that's a lot of GOP looking at a milf.

its the same reason people slow down to watch a car wreck... (or glenn beck)

[keyboardlover]

its the same reason people slow down to watch a car wreck... (or glenn beck)

You call Glenn Beck a carwreck? You seem to have a different definition of carwreck than me:

[Lanx]

Glen beck is a mormon, something he decided to become while sitting at the dinner table with his wife and basically saying "ok what religion do we want to be a part of?"
i don't know much about mormons, i know i live in mormon ville, i have mormon churches and mormon specific banks all around and the ppl look normal enough. But i base all my bias on anything i learn from south park.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/guide/episodes/s07e12-all-about-the-mormons
and a little wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon

so yea if trainwreck means that beck is bat**** crazy, then i'm in agreement.

[keyboardlover]

While I personally think Mormonism is a bit strange, calling someone a carwreck for their religious beliefs is pretty dumb. Anyway, if Glenn Beck is a carwreck, he's laughing about it all the way to the bizank.

[wellington1869]

While I personally think Mormonism is a bit strange, calling someone a carwreck for their religious beliefs is pretty dumb.

no its not. Jihadis are car wrecks. So is glenn beck.

Anyway, if Glenn Beck is a carwreck, he's laughing about it all the way to the bizank.

yes, lunatic religious folk usually do pretty well for themselves. For a while anyway.

[Senor_Cartmenez]

The southpark episode "all about mormons" says all there is to know about mormons. I have never met one, living in central Europe and such, but I don't need to have met a scientologist either to know that their "religion" is based on a book written by a failed Sci-Fi writer who used to have sex with little boys and what they are talking about is just weird and stupid.

Poor people who are so messed up in their heads that they turn to something like this.

I pity the fool, so does Mr. T.


/Edit
now that the thread has slowly swung towards religion can we just skip this step and get to talking about nazis?

[itlnstln]

Glen Wreck?  Conservatives are paranoid.  Look it up.

[Lanx]

so sad for nazi's they used to be the most feared and hated group of ppl 50 odd years ago. Now they are just the de-factor bad guys when creative ppl stop being creative.
1. FPS games
"who do we fight? the taliban!!!" "dude too soon" "the vietcong!!!" "dude too racist" "f-it we'll fight nazi's again!" "safe bet!"
2. indiana jones 4 *sad face*
3. when ppl make protest signs and say that the first black president is just like Hitler... um lol wtf? crazy GOP ppl are crazy
or crazy Tea party ppl are crazy

[Senor_Cartmenez]

When will they realize that these days it is time to fight the space nazis not just old regular nazis?

[wellington1869]

i've been seeing scientology ads on tv.  Guess they finally launched some kind of PR campaign to counter all the, er, negative publicity.

[keyboardlover]

Interesting article today:
Olbermann, O'Reilly and the death of real news

[microsoft windows]

I always get a good laugh when people are talking to me about how being against radical Islam is "racist". But then I ask them about how they felt about the Holocaust and they talk all about how Anti-Semitism is so bad.

Doesn't it stink talking politics with idiots?

P. S.: If you don't understand this then you should do some research on who's into annihilating Judaism and Israel in the Middle East.

[keyboardlover]

I always get a good laugh when people are talking to me about how being against radical Islam is "racist". But then I ask them about how they felt about the Holocaust and they talk all about how Anti-Semitism is so bad.

Doesn't it stink talking politics with idiots?

Yes. Glenn Beck wrote a book about it:



A New York Times Bestseller might I add...

[microsoft windows]

Well, there's both conservatives and liberals who know what they're talking about. And there are also idiots on both sides (More liberals these days since that's where the younger audience in the US is currently leaning).

I definitely would not call Glenn Beck an idiot though. Even if you don't agree with his political view point, I would recommend reading about the "Restoring Honor" rally he and a few others hosted in Washington, D. C. a few months ago.

[keyboardlover]

I definitely would not call Glenn Beck an idiot though. Even if you don't agree with his political view point, I would recommend reading about the "Restoring Honor" rally he and a few others hosted in Washington, D. C. a few months ago.

I'm pretty sure Glenn Beck wrote that book about Welly.