31
Oct
Nope, I’m not talking about THE Patriot Act, I’m talking about The PATRIOTS Act.
In September 2003, John Kerry of Boston appeared in front of an aircraft carrier to inform the world he intended to run for President.
In September 2003, The New England Patriots of Boston lost for the last time.
The last possible game before the Boston candidate faces the end of his game, the Patriots apparently are going to lose.
Is this an omen? We’ll see.
The definite stick in the mud is the Red Sox of Boston won the World Series. However, since it ended a curse, it could be that curse is moving on to something else. Curses don’t die easy.
We’ll see soon enough.
Last night, Hannity and Colmes decided to “evaluate” Bin Laden’s speech. Hannity made the mistake of using Peggy Noonan as a guest. As expected, she gave a very partisan interpretation of it. Colmes then lashed into her with a vengeance I would have preferred he displayed for Bin Laden. By the time show was over, Jim Crow, the KKK, Bin Laden, and Hitler were tossed around.
People wonder why the country is so polarized. There is no intelligent discussion of current events on tv any more. None. It’s all rhetoric with screaming and childish name-calling tossed in to make it exciting.
That was the very last time I will ever watch anything to do with Alan Colmes. Guaranteed. I don’t care for Peggy Noonan, but she is a fellow patriot of mine whether I agree with her opinions or not. Colmes could have at least given her just a little more respect than he reserved for Bin Laden.
If people want to know the solution to the polarization of the US, it’s very simple.
Quit watching editorial tv.
Let them report.
You decide.
Don’t let them make your opinions for you.
Michael Moore released Fahrenheit 9/11 as purely an effort to embarass George Bush. It did some damage as the anti-Bush segment of the population rallied around it moreso than they were their own candidate at the time. Four days before the election, Osama Bin Laden appears before our very eyes basically endorsing Kerry as well ( by way of taunting Bush repeatedly ). However, during Bin Laden’s speech, he apparently quotes Michael Moore.
Now, here’s the irony straight from a Greek classic. Bin Laden using Michael Moore’s video basically did nothing but absolutely hammer home the fact that the war on terror is alive and still very dangerous. My guess is it just raised the bar of concern about the safety of the country for those people that were straddling the fence on which issue would determine who they voted for.
Bottom line, Bin Laden, by way of Michael Moore, probably guaranteed Bush the election.
If for no other reason at this point, I want Bush to win so that Michael Moore and Bin Laden realize exactly what they’ve done.
I’d really like to know what Moore is thinking right now. People accused Moore of pandering to the enemy, Bin Laden proved it.
29
Oct
The law, called Check 21, promises to save the banking industry $2 billion per year by electronically processing checks, which will eliminate the physical transportation involved now.
This takes effect now. If you like to kite, watch out!
Moon
29
Oct
Kerry’s edge on Bush in California narrows
By Bill Ainsworth
STAFF WRITER
October 29, 2004
SACRAMENTO – Democrat John Kerry’s lead over President Bush has narrowed to seven points among likely California voters, while Sen. Barbara Boxer has increased her lead over Republican Bill Jones to 19 points, according to the latest Field Poll.
If there’s any validity to this claim at all, Kerry is toast. He doesn’t have to lose California to be toast, but if there is enough doubt about Kerry in the most liberal state in the country barring possibly Vermont, there’s a weakness in the states where the balance between liberals and conservatives are more equal such as Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania (not dismissing other states, but these three are in-play and most likely will determine the election). A perceived weakness within his core voting block within days of the election could prove fatal.
Host note: Although there is no way in hell Kerry will lose California, he is showing signs of weakness there that is not all that new. On most electoral vote prognostication pages, most have not had California in the “strong Kerry” column.
Rant #7
John Dvorak had an item in PC Magazine this month that got me to thinking, and I’m in agreement with him.
Quote: Information revolution notwithstanding, the Internet will prove to be the undoing of society and civilization as we know it.
TEOTWAWKI
His premise is that the Internet is turning into a bad dream. And Nobody wants to admit it, but the Web’s natural ability to remove normal interpersonal structures that prevent society from falling into chaos is not a benefit to anyone.
Look at politics! Look at this CE board, and the PA board! The Net and the New Media have changed the entire political and interpersonal scene, and not for the better, IMV. Not so suddenly, politics has turned into a massively dysfunctional virtual squabbling series of boorish kvetching pranksters, whom we call Bloggers. And to whom we now attach ourselves, based on our own political bias and collectively and rigidly defined viewpoints. Personal interplay, the free flowing exchange of ideas or information is gone. Reading the newspapers is now supplanted by reading on-line Blogs. Where there is rarely or never, any normal inter-personal discourse or debate between these two warring camps of political Bloggers. Debate has been so coarsened, that it is now commonplace to call another Blogger an Idiot or Uninformed or worse, just plain Insane.
These two political camps, mobs of liberals and of conservatives, are growing in numbers, and becoming increasingly more powerful, and far less tolerant of any POV that might vary in the least from their own cast in concrete perspectives. The tone of discourse is stifling. It’s bickering, carried to excess, and it destroys any chance of intelligent debate, or even the analysis of what is true or what is merely opinion by individuals. Civility has been replaced by the swarming thought police of the Bloggers.
The noise is deafening!
Worse, the Mob’s have hijacked both of the major political parties and turned both of them into mere pipe-organs parroting anything the Bloggers might have to say on today’s posting. Even the major News Media takes its own daily political lead from the Mobs.
But it’s ALL opinion! And we are taught to believe that everyone’s got one, and should be respected for that. But WHY? Opinions ARE WORTHLESS! Mine, yours, the other guy’s. Free Speech forgetaboutit! Ain’t nothing free about it. Thanks to the Internet and the mob of Bloggers out there, we’re confronted with far too much, and far too many, worthless opinions. We can’t avoid them, we can’t just not read them. It’s too much! It’s overload of the worst sort, and with no means of visually assessing the opinion-maker we call the Blogger, we can NOT decide who is the serious writer, and who is the lunatic whack job.
The Net is anonymous. False identities just make it worse. False personas pumped up by other phonies, virtual lynch mobs like locusts swarming over every on-line rumor that meets their own frustrated and dangerous and personal opinion.
To quote John again: By the time the liberal and conservative extremes, incensed by blog-driven blather, leave the house, it will be as two swarms of locusts hell-bent on revolution – or battling each other.
It’s disgusting!
How can ANYONE, liberal or conservative, govern in such an environment? It won’t matter which candidate wins in Nov. It will be, imo, a pyrric victory.
And the anonymous Net did it to us, as we did it to ourselves, to protect our own alter-egos, removing us from direct inter-personal contacts where our ideas and thoughts could be directly challenged and debated.
TEOTWAWKI
KBM (Rant #7)
….Just stating the obvious: everything either candidate does now is done to influence one segment or another of the electorate…..
MichaelR
Geez, I wish it would all just stop right now….I think the world has seen enough of these two and the parties who support them. They should just go to their separate corners and await the bell. The roar of the media at the betting windows has now become something to laugh at.
What a sorry bunch. Add this little p.s. to your rant, KBM.
Donna
h
From Stormwarning
3) Let me ask you another (not so obvious) question (I guess). Considering he (Spitzer) is the Attorney General of the State of NY and the companies that he is investigating either are located in, or do business in New York State, would you have him sit back and do nothing when confronted with wrong doing? The investigation cited in your CNN link talks about the possibility that the recording companies have returned to payola as a means of having their newest releases being played on the radio (you do remember the payola scandals of the late 1950′s when Alan Freed was forced to resign as the DJ on WABC 770 radio in NY City and was replaced by the late, great Scott Muni???). Would you have Spitzer look the other way when he finds insurance scandals? Or when he finds other companies/industries not only breaking the rules, but breaking the public trust? Especially public companies have obligations under Sarbanes-Oxley. The NYSE does business in New York State, his jurisdiction…should he look the other way?
4) Perhaps a new hobby (other than political blog quoting) would be good…LOL…considering that I agree wholeheartedly with KentM’s “Opinion Politics” Rant #7 post this morning (which I regret I could only rec once…but the subject of which I have written previously, but far less eloquently)… http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=21484732
With that, have a nice weekend. I realize that some of the “newbies” on this board question my integrity, and that is just too bad…doesn’t hurt me at all (those who do know me, know the truth). Unless I see immediate needs, I might be back on Election Eve.
From Ursula on TMF:
KBM,
I disagree with Mr. Dvorak when he is saying:
Quote: Information revolution notwithstanding, the Internet will prove to be the undoing of society and civilization as we know it.
The internet is just a tool. Nothing more and nothing less. Like with printed stuff like papers and books in abundance, the art is to make an informed choice. Like with most things in life.
“His premise is that the Internet is turning into a bad dream. And Nobody wants to admit it, but the Web’s natural ability to remove normal interpersonal structures that prevent society from falling into chaos is not a benefit to anyone.
Again, I disagree. My husband and self have had a pretty good time with a lurker from CE in a restaurant in Frankfurt, 3 weeks ago – a nice american family living and working in Germany. We will certainly see them again.
Last year a mother-poster (imagine, from PA) sent me her young son who was on his way to Iraq. We took him out and had him in the house and it was a very pleasent experience.
Unfortunately, when he returned we were about to travel to the Indian Ocean and were prevented from seeing him again.Without the internet, this wonderful exchange would not have been possible.
“Not so suddenly, politics has turned into a massively dysfunctional virtual squabbling series of boorish kvetching pranksters, whom we call Bloggers.
Aha, Mr. Dvorak wants us to stick with the “old media”, the C-BS´s, the ABC´s, the CNN forever? Because those outlets are so “informative” and “intellectual”?
I do agree, if we all had to stick with those biased sources, manipulating the masses would be much easier for some, wouldn´t it? As JLC remarked: what would Mr. Dvorak have had to say about Guttenberg´s printing press and the resulting flow of information (instead of handwritings for “a few” done by monks and professional writers)?“And to whom we now attach ourselves, based on our own political bias and collectively and rigidly defined viewpoints. Personal interplay, the free flowing exchange of ideas or information is gone. Reading the newspapers is now supplanted by reading on-line Blogs.”
Maybe true for Mr. Dvorak but not for me. I still check the FAZ, The Telegraph, Haaretz, the Washington Post (and NRO) DAILY. Besides the magazines from left to right I look at once a week!
“Where there is rarely or never, any normal inter-personal discourse or debate between these two warring camps of political Bloggers. Debate has been so coarsened, that it is now commonplace to call another Blogger an Idiot or Uninformed or worse, just plain Insane.
These two political camps, mobs of liberals and of conservatives, are growing in numbers, and becoming increasingly more powerful, and far less tolerant of any POV that might vary in the least from their own cast in concrete perspectives. The tone of discourse is stifling. It’s bickering, carried to excess, and it destroys any chance of intelligent debate, or even the analysis of what is true or what is merely opinion by individuals. Civility has been replaced by the swarming thought police of the Bloggers.
…”becoming increasingly more powerful,”…
…”It’s bickering, carried to excess, and it destroys any chance of intelligent debate, or even the analysis of what is true or what is merely opinion by individuals.”
Is this a joke? It seems to be a problem for him that the new media is gaining power but HE is part of that new media.
And I ask you KBM, is this “bickering”? Or the “untruth”?
Has Dvorak or YOU ever had an e-mail exchange with those 3 people?
Or with one of the writers from NRO? I had. The three from powerline are of such intellectual capacity that they could eat the Rathers and Blathers from the whole old media ALL at once.
Steve’s retort:
C what U made me do?
I really doubt that bloggers are any worse that water cooler babble, or the hateful bigoted spew from talk radio and fundamentalist pulpits. I doubt bloggers do any more damage to political discourse then the editorial in the Manchester Union Leader that accused Ed Muskie’s wife of being a drunk, or the “canuck letter”, or Don Segretti’s entire year of peddling rumors and bunk about all the Dem candidates.
On the other hand, the net provides a vast number of resources for fact checking. Remember the snip posted here from a left wing underground web site about Bush walking out of a press briefing because the reporters kept asking him about his relationship with Ken Lay? I would have dismissed this report as political propaganda as the US media that day were reporting on that press briefing and quoting Scott McClellan’s comments, but not saying a word about Bush being there. Thanks to the web, I was able to confirm via a newspaper in Ireland, that Bush had indeed had a public temper tantrum which the US and English media had entirely surpressed.
The people who are being duped and brainwashed by bloggers today, are the same type who were brainwashed 20 years ago by Falwell and Robertson and Buchannan into buying Reagan’s simpleminded slogans, while ignoring the reality of what Reagan was doing. Reagan’s trimuph of propaganda over reality resulted in his landslide in 1984, and paved the road to fascism on which we now find ourselves.
One last point: FIND YOU OWN BLOCK OF RANT NUMBERS! I have used everything from #1: plot to disrupt oil production in increase prices to #39: campaign to turn the US into a police state.
Steve
Rant #7
#39
Numeric correction
KBM
KBM Reply:
I “hate to break the news” to you Urs….but that “Pathetic sorry loner”, is me….LOL
Most of that “rant” is mine…not John’s…his article, merely triggered some things I’ve been thinking about for a long time…
I quoted John D, with “” only where I used his stuff.
So have at it “gurl friend”………What you read, is indeed what I “think”….
KBM (political cynics R us)
PS: I used much of your reply as an addendum to rant #7….to be published elsewhere.
From TheStamper on TMF
Bush, and Bush alone has caused our country to be divided..
I disagree. IMHO, Rush Limbaugh (and his types) caused the divide to which you refer.
As a person that happens to agree (in general) with the political philosophy espoused by the so-called Great El-Rushbo, I must concede that the day-in-and-day-out partisan bashing of the opposing party (and its leadership) over nationally syndicated radio has created an environment of political intolerance which I fear may be spiraling out of control.
Since I have a job, it is a rare occasion that I will be able to listen the big blow-hard himself. However, I am able to catch him on days-off or on the days I have forgotten my lunch at home. I admit that I have long enjoyed the opportunity get his take on recent news or events. At first I, considered it a refreshing change from the Katie Kurics, Dan Rathers, Larry Kings. Robert Siegels, Micheal Moores and Alec Balwins of the world. Indeed, I still keep a soft place in my heart for Rush because he is still the only person (that I know of), among the aforementioned names, that has the courage to admit his political views that shape the content of his broadcast. It is indeed a pity that these people are unable to admit, or unwilling to see the bias imbedded in their own content. For, it is this specific short-sightedness that is largely responsible for the likes of The Rush Limbaugh Show, and Fox News Channel.
Never the less, the veiled and passive-aggressive nature of the Pre-Rush media was, in its own way, civil if not non-divisive. The same can not be said about any aspect of Mr. Limbaugh’s show. The bellicose, hyperventilating Limbaugh has made divisiveness a corner-stone of his program. Through the categorical partisanship of his shrill and sometimes mean-spirited broadcast, Rush upped the ante in the way political issues will (for the foreseeable future) be addressed both in the mainstream media and in other areas of our lives.
Strolling through these TMF boards we can now see countless examples of Rush Limbaugh-Al Franken-Ann Coultier-Michael Moore-wannabes. Certain posters will tirelessly regurgitate the latest Talking Points from the DNC or RNC; mock the latest slip-of-the-tongue in the political area; cherry pick or manipulate the latest government report; distort or rehash 40 year-old college scores or business dealing; and cast aspersions about 40 year-old relationships or military records. And, while I will defend to the death their right to do every one of these things, it occurs to me that no common good could ever be served by activity that is so blinded by partisan thinking, and so broadly practiced.
Few, if any, broadcasts these days are devoted to factual analysis of the days issues. Instead many shows prefer to televise point-counterpoint screaming matches between two radical (but diametrically opposed) representatives armed with an endless arsenal of slanderous accusations. The end result is a program filled miss-information and with no identifiable solution.
To me, it appears that political debate has turned in to an unnecessary shouting match dissecting irrelevant issues. While I for one stand guilty of occasionally contributing to the problem, I have come to realize my energy is largely wasted. For the same reasons I suspect this post will either be completely ignored, or universally flamed; no one is willing to consider the middle. Being in the middle requires objectivity, and that is something most people have a hard time maintaining when the vein-popping windbag on the radio has called everyone that disagrees with him a mouth-breathing, philandering traitor (for example).
This isn’t to say that we should not have passions or even disagreements. However, when it comes time to admit the error in your thinking, it can be a difficult thing to do when the person you are debating has called in to question your family’s gene pool; your personal grooming habits, and your mother’s generous social behavior. And, prior to Rush Limbaugh, I don’t recall the need for some many political discussions to be hostile, and at the same time, irrelevant.
But then…what do I know. I’m just a stupid, Capitalist, Marxist, neo-con lovin’, draft-dodging, philandering pot-head (with a secret criminal record).
Stamp
KBM (Again) in response to HarryHope:
3 good points Harry….Thx…..
As to “who reads them”? well a whole lotta folks in my “experience” and John D’s as well. Just check out the CE board for instance. Worse, imv, many of those same “Bloggers” use the “Mob Blogs” as their ONLY source of information. And there in lays the rub. We’ve made it far to easy, on the Net, to “see only that we wish to see”, and NOTHING else.
Harry, I’m NOT being critical of U or the folks on this board.
I am intentionally, calling out a criticism of what we’ve allowed the Net to do to “political discourse”. “Mob psychology”, imv, now “rules the Net”, and that can not ultimately be “good” for the future, the need to “govern by majority consensus of the governed” imho.
Where we once debated, “face to face”, in political meetings, in union halls, at home, in conventions, on the street corners or door to door, we now “facelessly” argue, or scream at one another, anonymously, across the written word of the Net. Insular, protected, and oblivious to human civility.
There will be, imho, no end to this, even after the election is over. The Genie is out of the bottle. And cannot be plugged back into the bottle.
KBM (Political Cynic)
Harry’s Reply:
Reading the newspapers is now supplanted by reading on-line Blogs.
The Net is anonymous. False identities just make it worse. False personas pumped up by other phonies, virtual lynch mobs like locusts swarming over every on-line rumor that meets their own frustrated and dangerous and personal opinion.
In lieu of the threat from “Azzam the American“, I can’t help but wonder, given all the heated rhetoric, whether a domestic citizen might feel compelled to affect the election with a faux Al Qaeda agenda. Just act like you’re Al Qaeda, make a video claiming to be Al Qaeda, and kill a bunch of innocent people and voila, you’ve got the terrorist attack everyone’s feared and expected.
I’m not totally convinced Azzam the “American” is a true Al Qaeda operative. There’s something just not quite right about the video. That doesn’t mean I consider him any less of a threat and if captured deserves immediate and painless death ( I only support painful death when pain has been inflicted on others ). But, I’m more inclined to have the impression that Azzam ( which sounds too much like Barney’s “shazzam!”, is a domestic threat using the fear of Al Qaeda to make his threat more viable.
We’ll see in the next few days. If Azzam does blow himself up, I just hope he’s alone when it happens.
Moon
28
Oct
These guys are AWESOME!
28
Oct
I have often wondered why the media is so quick to dismiss Kerry’s frequent mis-speaks. When Quayle misspelled potatoe, the media jumped all over it, turning Quayle into a liability Bush could never recover from. Kerry does it all the time, no mention of it by the media at all. IBD finally tackles the issue:
If John Kerry loses Wisconsin in a close national election, the difference may very well be the cheeseheads who were offended when he referred to the home of the Green Bay Packers as “Lambert Field.” Yet the media hardly noticed.
In the debates, Kerry repeatedly asserted things that ar false, such as “50% of the black males (in New York) are unemployed.” That’s true, but only if you include babies, children, teens and seniors.
During the second debate, Kerry said he met with members of the Security Council before voting to use of force in Iraq. He said, “I talked to all of them.” The Washington Times checked; Kerry met only with envoys from only Singapore, Cameroon and, yes, France.
And they come to this conclusion:
IBD just summarily dismisses the media bias. I want a little more concrete commitment to what they are claiming. The laws changed a few years ago, being partisan is not so “innocent” any more. If IBD truly believes what they say, they should be filing complaints with the FEC.
Otherwise, it’s an excellent read.
27
Oct
Excellent read.
The more time we express our opinions, the less time we have to talk about the facts, Westin said. Unfortunately, opinion is driving out facts too often in most of what we see on television today.
Someone in media has gotten the picture possibly. Now, if he’s willing to put ABC’s mouth where their words are, we might be on to something. ABC however, is showing the same bias as everyone else right now, he’s got a long hard fight ahead of him.
