Saturday, January 31, 2004

The Star Tribune Strikes Again!

The Star Tribune (sometimes known as the Star and Sickle) editorial crew, secure in their conviction that conservatives and republicans are Evil, has again managed via the power of selective memory to produce another biased and inaccurate piece. This one compares/contrasts their opinions about the Kay Report and the Hutton Report. I was going to make it the target of my very first fisking, but Mitch Berg at A Shot in the Dark beat me to it. Now, biased is OK for an editorial (even if I think their heads are stuck up between their collective gluetius maximus), but it is the inaccuracy that is hard to forgive.

Thursday, January 29, 2004

About the BBC...

As probably the whole Western world knows by now, the results of an investigation into the death of David Kelley by Lord Justice Hutton were reported in Britain yesterday, with Justice Hutton basically vindicating the government and ripping the BBC a new anal orifice. Jeff Jarvis has been on this thing like a blanket, (start here and scroll down) so I won't repeat it.

All I really wanted to say about the matter is that it's about time. The local public radio news station carries the BBC World Service during the late evening/early mornings, and the bias in their coverage of the United States is just short of blatant. It usually takes the form of an 'analysis' piece bout some Bush administration policy/decision where the 'American view' is presented by a person critical of or hostile to said policy. Only rarely do they deign to have a guest that is supportive of administration policy. This is a rather odd way of fulfilling the part of the BBC charter that requires impartiality.

The resignations of Gavyn Davies and Greg Dykes are a start, but not nearly enough. Andrew Gilligan's head delivered to Jeff Jarvis (as requested ;-) ) isn't enough. There is a whole culture there that needs removal, root and branch. I just hope the next BBC chairman has a big enough shovel.

Bloggers vs. (?) Big Media

While I was perusing his blog for stuff about the Hutton report, I found this post that probably does a better job of expressing what I'm going to try to say here.

It seems a fact of life that (at least for the moment) despite the words posted on blogs decrying the sloppiness and the limits of 'Big Media', bloggers are utterly dependent on it for information. Yes, the analysis provided by the professional journalists is often biased or just plain silly ( yes, Reuters, I'm pointing a finger at you!). And yep, sometimes their asses desperately need fact checking. But for all the buzz about the blogosphere being the 'better' way, we still depend on the major news organizations for the raw material. With rare execption, the basic reporting is done by the news organizations and their people in the field. Bloggers analyze and criticize the results, but the means by which the raw information hasn't changed much. As access to the internet becomes easier to get everywhere in the world, it is conceivable that reporting will become an activity pursued by one and all, since anywone will have the ability to post what they see/know in the window for the whole world to see. My question is, will the signal to noise ratio be better or worse?

Tuesday, January 27, 2004

What is a Tightwad to Do?

After perusing this item at Opinion Journal, its hard to see where a political home can be found for those of us who are concerned with the growing federal deficits. If the author's figures are accurate, the Democrats are promising to spend even more money than Bush, and repealing Bush's tax cut will not make up the difference.

Since fiscal sanity apparently is not to be found in either major party, what other criteria are left to decide on a vote? National security and the economy are probably the most important since without those two under control, other domestic concerns are moot. At this point the only major Democratic candidate that has convinced me he's serious on security is Sen. Lieberman, and he has about the same chance of winning the Dem. nomination as I do. As far as the economy, they all seem to be interested in raising tax and regulation burdens - which doesn't leave me with a case of the warm fuzzies either. It would seem that I may be pushed towards voting for Bush by default. Please, Democrats, make some decent arguments so at least I can think I have more than one reasonable choice.

Monday, January 26, 2004

Why I won't be voting for Kerry, Part XXX

I keep finding reasons why I won't be able to vote for John Kerry come November. The latest was a statement he made while being interviewed on Fox last Sunday. When he was asked if he thought that President Bush had deliberately led us into war under false pretenses, he dodged the question by accusing Dick Cheney of misleading us into the Iraq invasion instead of concentrating on Al Qaida. As answers go, this one bothered me on multiple grounds.

First, the re-introductions of the 'Bush is dumb' and 'Bush is a puppet' themes by implying that Vice President Cheney is the one really running the government. Second is the idea that the US government dropped the hunt for Al Qaida scumbags in favor of the invasion of Iraq. Earth to Kerry - the government can multitask, and the hunt for Bin Laden's boys hasn't stopped. Last is the weasel factor - if Kerry wants to accuse the administration of wrongdoing, he should have the guts to do it directly instead of attacking Bush indirectly via Cheney.

Saturday, January 24, 2004

And I haven't found any Shakespeare yet...

Well, after reading some many of the fine blogs out here on the 'Net such as InstaPundit, Little Green Footballs, A Small Victory, Tim Blair and many others (to be listed after I figure out how to add a blogroll) I've decided to take the plunge, while ignoring minor difficulties such as lack of wit, talent, writing skills, etc. .

If nothing else, I may manage to demonstrate that it is not necessary to be a politician to produce mounds of verbiage and yet produce zero actual content. I'll get to an introductory post a bit later that covers political opinion and whatever other relevant stuff seems pertinent.