The Opinionated Bastard

IT’S NOT PLAGIARISM when you repeat stuff from a press release without checking it — but it’s not journalism, either. It’s not even very good punditry.

Bah. I’ve been seeing that happen in the computer press for years.

Microsoft Press Release: Food-For-Windows is the best thing ever, it will revolutionize your recipes!

Computer Press “Review”: Food for Windows will revolutionize your recipes!

Its even funnier when much like Kerry’s “plan” for everything, “Food for Windows” turns out to be vaporware and there’s no way anyone could have reviewed it.

Understanding the MainStream Media is much easier if you just picture them as alcoholics in fedoras and trench-coats who just want to file their story as quickly as possible in order to get back to the buffet table. Yeah, they could spend hours reviewing the software, or tracking down facts, or whatever the naive assume that journalists do. Or they could cut/paste and go back to the buffet line while there are still some shrimp left…

The MSM isn’t evil/biased/liberal, just incompetent.

They have almost no understanding of how the economy actually works. Here’s an argument against any sort of incremental privatization of Social Security from Mike Kinsley, who according to Blog Maverick runs the editorial pages at the LA Times!

I’m going to fisk it, and I won’t be kind…however, as a bit of a disclaimer, I work on Wall Street for a mutual fund company so its possible that privatizing Social Security might help me professionally.

Mike Kinsley says:

My contention: Social Security privatization is not just unlikely to succeed, for various reasons that are subject to discussion. It is mathematically certain to fail. Discussion is pointless.

Discussion is never pointless, when the person is as wrong as you are.

The usual case against privatization is that (1) millions of inexperienced investors may end up worse off, and (2) stocks don’t necessarily do better than bonds over the long-run, as proponents assume.But privatization won’t work for a better reason: it can’t possibly work, even in theory. The logic is not very complicated.

Your logic is not complicated, that much is true, its just wrong.

\1. To “work,” privatization must generate more money for retirees than current arrangements. This bonus is supposed to be extra money in retirees’ pockets and/or it is supposed to make up for a reduction in promised benefits, thus helping to close the looming revenue gap.

Actually, it can “work” in a number of ways. It can provide people with more easy access to their SS-related retirement funds for instance. LA Times is a big company, so presumably, you have a 401K plan. I work for a small company, so I don’t, instead, I’m limited to this lame-ass IRA thing. Ever change jobs? Its a pain to move all that stuff. If President Bush just made 401K plans that were attached to the person instead the company, that would be a big win for millions of Americans, even if they never made a single dime more money.

An investment can also “work” if it provides other benefits. Some 401K plans let you borrow money against the plan, essentially paying yourself interest.

Imagine you want to finance $10,000 worth of car payment. If you get a bank loan, that $10K will cost you $15K. If you borrow against your 401K, that $10K will still cost you $15K, but you get the extra $5K for retirement.

“Working” could even mean as little as making Americans feel involved in the whole process and getting them to keep track of what is happening with Social Security.

So immediately, I challenge your assertion that it has to generate more money for it to work. But it doesn’t matter, because SS always invests in T-Bills by law (funding our National Debt), which is the least risky, but also least-returning form of investment. So its not hard to be.

\2. Where does this bonus come from? There are only two possibilities: from greater economic growth, or from other people.

No, it can come from more efficient use of the same money. There’s something I call “conservation of money” in that in general, money is neither created or destroyed.

When you spend $100 on a good or service, you now have that good or service, but the vendor now has $100, which they presumably spend on some other good or service. So that $100 is still there, moving around the economy.

The Federal Government, when they take $100 away from you, spends it on $40 worth of goods or services, sucking $60 out of the economy, because they are do mind-numbingly inefficient.

So its far better to have $100 free in the economy then $100 in taxes. Its important to understand that there’s not just money, there’s whether that money produces anything. If your employer pays you $100, then you probably produced $110 worth in goods and services. If the government pays a welfare recipient $100, whether that welfare recipient is on AFDC, a corporation getting subsidies, or foreign aid going to a corrupt leader, that $100 produced nothing, terminating the economic cycle.

The government, merely by existing is a drag on the economy.

\3. Greater economic growth requires either more capital to invest, or smarter investment of the same amount of capital. Privatization will not lead to either of these.

Or more efficient use of capital. The 1990’s saw a large amount of economic growth due to computerization leading to large efficiencies. Efficiencies that produced more profits, producing growth.

Its very important to realize that the economy is NOT a zero sum game, its a cycle. In private industry, $100 of capital is expected to produce $110 worth of good/services. All economic growth is based on that cycle…

So if the money can stay productive as long as it possibly can, it will lead to greater growth.

a) If nothing else in the federal budget changes, every dollar deflected from the federal treasury into private social security accounts must be replaced by a dollar that the government raises in private markets. So the total pool of capital available for private investment remains the same.

Well, at least you’re admitting that SS is basically a hidden tax of 15% on top of the existing income tax. In theory, ALL of the money in SS taxes was supposed to belong to the payee, that just never happened.

Anyways, its more complicated then that. If the government says: 1% of the 15% is yours to invest in something other then T-bills that’s not money the government is “losing”. Presumably the government would no longer have to pay out benefits attributable to that 1%, instead that would be a separate account that paid separate benefits.

b) The only change in decision-making about capital investment is that the decisions about some fraction of the capital stock will be made by people with little or no financial experience. Maybe this will not be the disaster that some critics predict. But there is no reason to think that it will actually increase the overall return on capital.

If you see the economy as a zero-sum game, no it wouldn’t. But the economy is NOT a zero-sum game, so it easily can. The key point you’re missing is that money in the government’s hands is nearly wasted, so by taking it (temporarily) out of the governments hands we increase the amount of productive money in circulation, increasing growth.

\4. If the economy doesn’t produce more than it otherwise would, the Social Security privatization bonus must come from other investors, in the form of a lower return.

Well, we have no way of telling what “it otherwise would”, but investing and the economy is NOT a zero sum game.

For heaven’s sakes, one of the main controls the Federal Reserve has is the M1, the money supply. How can you think its a zero sum game when the Government can adjust how much money exists in the economy at any point in time?

a) This is in fact the implicit assumption behind the notion of putting Social Security money into stocks, instead of government bonds, because stocks have a better long-term return. The bonus will come from those saps who sell the stocks and buy the bonds.

Actually, you could get a much larger return then SS just by buying something other then T-bills. There are other bonds besides T-Bills, but that’s all that SS invests in. SS privatization doesn’t have to be a big win, it can be a small win. If it just did a little bit better then inflation (which it doesn’t do now), that would help everyone.

b) In other words, privatization means betting the nation’s most important social program on a theory that cannot be true unless many people are convinced that it’s false.

c) Even if the theory is true, initially, privatization will make it false. The money newly available for private investment will bid up the price of (and thus lower the return on) stocks, while the government will need to raise the interest on bonds in order to attract replacement money.

Nope. More money in the stock market can also mean more new businesses, which means more new jobs, which means higher wages, which means a strong economy, which means more money in the stock market, which…

And which means more tax revenues. Were you asleep during the ’90s? Strong Stock market, Strong economy, strong tax base…

Plus there’s nothing that says the money would have to go into the stock market. It could go into bonds, thereby lowering interest rates, which would help relieve government debt…

d) In short, there is no way other investors can be tricked or induced into financing a higher return on Social Security.

If you were correct, which you’re not. You seem to think that we live on that mythical South Sea island that used large stones for money, so that the money supply was finite. Money is a lot more complicated in the modern world then that South Sea island. It moves in cycles, and the faster those cycles go, the more the economy grows.

Even on that South Sea Island, you had economic growth, because people could make new stones…

\5. If the privatization bonus cannot come from the existing economy, and cannot come from growth, it cannot exist. And therefore, privatization cannot work.

Q.E.D.

You seem to know very little about economics, and it stuns me that you are in any way affiliated with the editorial pages of the LA Times. The mind boggles.

Update: Original posting of Kinsleys email was here

Another update: This guy said it better Pie growing is more important then pie slicing.

I tried only minimal commenting on Ra^thergate, but I said at the time that you didn’t need to be a document expert, that it was HUGELY obvious that the documents were done in Microsoft Word if you had just a modicum of experience using computers.

Seems like the CBS report agrees with me.

The real issue is that it should have been minimally obvious to everyone involved that they were fake, even if they weren’t document experts. So its not just myopia on Rather’s part, its all computer illiteracy, the Ra^therGate story is interesting for what it tells us about CBS and Dan Rather.

1. Dan Rather probably doesn’t use a computer much. He’s probably the sort of person who has his secretary print out his email. If he, or any of the people who had looked at this story were both computer literate, and had reviewed the memos even a little bit, they would have thought: “That looks an awful lot like Microsoft Word”. Even if he either hates Bush, or he was so greedy for a story that he didn’t matter that his source was hugely tainted, he would have known they weren’t just forgeries, but bad forgeries

2. This story also serves as a warning to all professional journalists: These days, with lots of people having blogs, there are lots of people to call you on a mistake. You might want to remember that, even when under deadline pressure.

3. The annoying “helpfulness” of Microsoft Word to automatically put in superscripts probably got 4 people fired from their job. As a UI designer, I find this freaking hilarious.

So Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) has accused Karl Rove of planting the infamous Ra^therGate documents. transcript

Maurice, even if this was true, if the Democrats were so stupid that they fell for it then they don’t deserve to be in government because these weren’t just forgeries, they were bad forgeries.

BagNews

He analyzes photos he sees in the mainstream media for themes and content. Pretty interesting.

I didn’t get this until I got to the end. Then it made me laugh out loud as it sunk in.

Long Live Pope Cliff Clavin

In the introduction to one of his books, Noam Chomsky tells a story about himself. It seems that he went to the dentist because of some pain, and the dentist told him he was grinding his teeth, and to cut it out. After some investigation, he figured out that it was when he was reading the New York Times.

Me too.

Two Sundays ago, they had this article in the Sunday Magazine comparing action against the insurgents to death squads in El Salvador.

Now mind you, you could make a lot of interesting comparisons between Iraq and El Salvador. Did the NYT do that? NO! Instead, they made all these strained comparisons to El Salvador of the early 80’s, completely ignoring their history since then, like the elections in ‘89. A piece that could have been very interesting was made completely unreadable by their struggle to fit their flawed (and intentionally limited) metaphor.

Then Sunday, in the AZ Republic, I see an opinion piece by Paul Krugman reprinted from the NYT, somehow managing to argue that Bush’s proposal to cut benefits for the richest people still receiving Social Security was somehow designed to secretly benefit the wealthy because they don’t actually depend on Social Security. It was a pretty strained argument.

Jeesh. The New York Times wants to improve? How about adopting a “no strained metaphors” rule? Or perhaps adopt a rule that you don’t try to make Bush to be evil in every single opinion piece?

Everytime I read the NYT, I have to spend 75% of the time disentangling the reporters strained metaphors and obvious bias from the true facts of the piece. That’s why I grit my teeth.

And all I got was this lousy ticket stub.

Yeah, I saw the movie. MUCH better then the first two, even though its like watching a bad horror movie: You know what's going to happen...and you want to tell the people in the movie...don't go into the basement alone!!!! Or in this case, “Don't trust the evil chancellor, he'll turn you to the dark side.”

I spent a good part of the movie trying to keep from directing the characters, or making fun of them.

It did seem a bit like an Act III movie as I talked about earlier.

Check out the latest from In the Red Zone

Q: What is the difference between a press release from Halliburton and an article in the New York Times?

A:

Well, lets see.

Both the New York Times, and Halliburton are corporations. One sells newspapers, the other builds oil related stuff like pipelines and refineries. *

Recently, the New York Times Company has been branching out into the internet. Halliburton has been branching out into government contracts, they provide mashed potatoes to people in the armed services as well as some other weird stuff like dismantling weapons.

Recently, Halliburton was accused of inflating costs by the government, while the New York Times Company was accused of inflating circulation numbers used to set ad rates.

Halliburton exists as a corporation to make money, as long as said actions are legal. The New York Times Company is “committed to the creation of long-term shareholder value through investment and constancy of purpose.” * It's not clear whether “constancy of purpose” means legal or not, since they don't say what that purpose is.

The New York Times makes more money if a story is controversial. Halliburton's stock price will go down if a press release is controversial, but they'll be prosecuted by the SEC if its not controversial enough.

I know! The Halliburton press release is more likely to be true!

From Bookslut today:

Wal-Mart's PR flack for Arizona and Southern California has resigned after his office approved an ad comparing Arizona zoning proponents to book-burning Nazis. The store also evidently fired the firm that created the ad. Original Article

This is why I hate the media.  I live in the town in question, saw the ad, and it compared the zoning to book-burners, yes, but not specifically Nazis. 

It turned out that the picture in question was taking from a Nazi book-burning, but the poor shlub who used the picture just Googled for a picture of book-burning. The picture itself didn't have any obvious Nazi connotations, most people who saw it assumed it was a Southern book-burning.   The Pro-Proposition-100 forces in town recognized the photo, and tried to create this backlash against the anti-prop-100 people, but it was all a tempest in a teapot. 

But it illustrates for me how stuff gets blown out of proportion in the media. Our local paper, which ran the ad in question, loved calling it the “Nazi ad”, when it would have been easy to print the ad alongside the article so people could judge for themselves. 

But then it wouldn't have been a story.

But the way I read it is that some guy, on a deadline on Friday, did a Google search for an image, found one, and slapped it into the layout.

So some working joe loses his job because our local bourgeois revolutionaries don't like Walmart?

And by the way, the Proposition lost, so I guess the ad worked.

One of the sites I recommended awhile back was BAGnewsnotes, which I found interesting in his analysis of news photos.

Someone commented back that he was a flaming liberal, which is somewhat true, I just had been ignoring that, because his photo analysis was interesting.

But today he writes:

If anything, this discussion we've been having about the Mahmudiya photo on the “Orange” post points up to me just how fundamentally out of touch we are with the situation in Iraq, and just how cumbersome it is for the journalists there -- as talented as they are -- to deliver a bigger picture. 

He's talking about a discussion on his site here between a photojournalist in Iraq and bagnews's readers. While that discussion is interesting, what I find more interesting is that even someone who is fervently against the war is starting to complain about the press coverage...

So most of the right-wing blogs accepted the Downing Street memos at face value, though post Ra^thergate, a few questioned.

Which makes this interesting because in the process of investigating, they caught a newspaper faking a photograph. Long live blogs! Keep those newspaper guys on their toes!

One of the reasons I started blogging was because I subscribed to the State Department mailing list that sends you the transcripts of the daily briefing.

I was stunned by two things:

1. The Reporters asks the stupidest questions imaginable.

2. The news as reported didn't match the briefing.

That was before the war. The coverage of the war itself has been abysmal, because basically, all the reporters hide in their hotel rooms and make up shit. Want to see how bad? Mudville Gazette has some great pieces

So I’m watching this 60 minutes smear piece about armoring vehicles in Iraq.

I’m not going to write about that. What it sickening me right now is the clip they showed from Reuters of an IED blowing up. It’s perfectly clear to me that they knew where the IED was going to be, and stationed their camera in time to watch an American soldier get killed, and others wounded.

I hope they enjoyed their ratings, the evil fuckheads. For all the blathering I read about us killing people for corporate profits, what do you call not making a phone call if you know someone is going to blow up some American soldiers? Or if Reuters didn’t have a quarter, perhaps they could have just waved their arms and said “STOP!”.

If I was the family of that soldier who got killed, I’d be suing Reuters for $$$$$ right now.

So Blackfive a milblogger asked his readership for reviews and reactions to the FX show Over There. Both he and his readership found the characters stereotypical, cartoonish, and have lots of complaints about the accuracy of the program.

They're all wrong.

First off, this is Hollywood, so it could have been much, much worse.

I thought it portrayed several things very well, even in the first show:

1. American Soldiers aren't bloodthirsty maniacs. Terrorists are.
2. Being shot at sucks.
3. Keep your head down, asshole!
4. This is a complicated war.
5. Women Soldiers are fighting in combat.
6. The presences of the media is making this war very strange.

Sure, the characters are stereotypical. I can see the soldiers point, but its an entirely irrelevant one. Were the cops on Hill Street Blues, another Bochco show, stereotypical? You bet your ass they were. That's not the point. Over There, like Hill Street Blues is a genre piece. I expect it to follow the conventions of the genre, I also expect it to transcend them, based on the one show I've seen so far and Bochco's history.

In WWII, Frank Capra refined the war picture genre to a high degree. A war picture needs certain elements to be true to the genre:

• Only a few characters. The audience has to bond with the characters so having more then 4-5 characters diminishes that bond. In military terms, this means a platoon size is ideal. Naturally, this doesn't always make sense in reality. Why was a captain commanding a platoon in Saving Private Ryan?
• Those few characters have to in aggregate represent all of America. So there will be a College Guy, an ethnic, (these days) a woman, a WASP, etc. This is one of the most Capraesqe parts of the genre; Capra specifically intended his films to be propaganda; the audience had to feel the platoon represented a representative slice of America.
• Sergeants are tough bastards. Officers (especially lieutenants) are idiots. This isn't strictly necessary, but comes from two great truths: Americans hate authority, and sergeants have won more battles for America then any other type of soldier.

So does Over There have those elements? Of course it does. As a TV program, viewers have to be able to tune into any of these early shows and “get it” immediately. So the characters are going to be stereotypical and shallow at first.

Are the tactics vastly oversimplified? Of course. Complicated tactics won't be shown unless they have dramatic purpose. Similarly, on CSI, they can get DNA tests done in a day, where in real life they take 2 weeks.

So give the show a break guys. I think that while you'll always have problems with the technical accuracy, I think that Over There is going to turn out to be great TV. It may be oversimplifying the war, but that's OK. If the New York Times coverage of the war was as good as this show, I wouldn't have to blog.

Hat Tip: Wind's of Change Iraq Report

Update: Lots of comments keep talking about the officer-noncom thing. They must not have seen the show.

It's really mild in the pilot. The sergeant moves up 25 meters, and doesn't want to move up any farther. He calls his lieutenant who says, “I was told 50 meters, so move up 50 meters”. The sergeant refuses. Later, the sergeant, the lieutenant and the captain have a meeting, where the captain tells the lieutenant “Be more flexible. Bring up stupid stuff like this goes on everyone's record and it looks bad for everyone.”

So I wouldn't characterize it as an officer-noncom thing, after all the captain is being pretty reasonable. Its more of a sergeant-lieutenant thing.

As for the platoon/squad thing, I think that just proves my point...

I watched the second episode of Over There last night.

First off, much better then the first. Last episode was the pilot though, and pilots are what they are.

Since last time I had to defend the episode from its military critics, this time I'm going to start with the things I didn't like in their honor.

The episode starts with this dream sequence of a soldier being screamed at and tortured by a terrorists.

This whole bit offended me. It was gratuitous, and violent. I ended up fast forwarding through the whole thing so if it had any redeeming virtues, I didn't see them. I do the same thing on Alias, so its not unique to this show. I don't mind violence in shows in general, but sometimes...

The soldier wakes up, and he's in Germany, he's lost part of his leg. (Hence the nightmare.) From that point on the episode was OK though later on there's a comparison between jihad and Woodstock I found fumbly and offensive.

Now the main criticism of the pilot from the soldiers over at Blackfive besides the tactics was the stereotypical characters. That didn't actually bother me at the time, because its standard for the soldier genre, plus its a pilot; you have 40 minutes to introduce 8 characters. Plus sometimes I think pilots are written for the purpose of convincing studio executives, and they have very small brains.

Not so bad in this episode. Instead of forcefeeding the characters to the audience, the characters are allowed to develop more naturally. This makes them seem much less cartoonish.

One character still grates though: The Red-Headed Divorced Slut. I've decided her whole reason for existence is to provide a counter point to my favorite character, Tough Army Wife so I guess its ok if she lives.

Ok, things I liked:

The injured soldier's wife is tough as nails, and she's obviously been an Army wife for awhile. In this first episode, you get the sense that when it comes to her man, if its between her and the entire US Army, bet on her.

She reminded me of my wife, so she's probably going to be my favorite character. Plus she's HOT!

Most of the episode though centers around the soldiers maintaining a roadblock/checkpoint out in the middle of nowhere. There were some key things the writers were trying to communicate here:

1. Guard duty is so boring that its worth starting a fist fight just to have something to do.
2. You have no idea what is going on in a car when its coming towards you. and you have seconds to make a decision.
3. The terrorists are quite willing to sacrifice two young men, 4 old women, a little girl, and two old men; when caught, they will prattle on about the Geneva Convention.
4. Having soldiers who speak the language would be invaluable.

At least, that's what I got from the episode.

I suspect the military folks will have lots of critiques of their tactics, and I welcome them in the comments below. For my part, as a civilian supporting their efforts, for half and hour, I was able to feel some of what they're going through.

That of course, is the ultimate purpose of the show.

Update: Someone else Agrees

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Over There, puppy

Matt Kaufman and Dean Bonzani got into an interesting discussion about propoganda and the Capra movie Why We Fight. I thought I'd bring it up to the front so they could go back and forth more easily.

BTW, you can subscribe to comments by checking the appropriate box when you leave a comment of your own (you have to supply your own email address obviously). Then you get an email when someone leaves a comment on this article, so you can follow the back and forth more easily.

Here's some discussion ideas from Matt:

I think a big issue today is that the “Mainstream Media” were long thought to present a balanced and objective viewpoint of news and events.  There were exceptions - everybody knew that McCormick's Chicago Tribune was a conservative paper - but now EVERYONE feel that every media organ out there is “progogating an agenda” rather than “reporting objectively”.   Propoganda need not have a bad name - it can have a noble objective, as WWF certainly did, but when it is presented as “truth” rather than “persuasion”, or in the case of totalitarian regimes, “indoctrination”,  then you run into real problems.

And a thought from me is that Fahrenheit 9/11 was clearly a piece of propaganda. Perhaps I could call it Why We Shouldn't Fight.

Contrast that with some other films I've seen about Iraq like Iraqi Voices.

Anyways, here's a recap:

That episode was so mind-boggingly bad that I could only watch 2 minutes, then I had to turn it off.

Check out www.militaryvideos.net. It's all raw footage shot and edited by our troops. You'll need a bittorrent client to download the footage.

As a Macintosh/Computer guy, it's interesting that this kind of stuff is within the reach of privates now. Though QuickTime is still better then Windows media, hands down.

Of course, it just makes me hate the MSM even more. Why do I have to go to sites like this to get a sense of what are troops are seeing? Why aren't they showing these once/week on one of the cable news networks? For heaven sakes, give away 100 video cameras to our troops, and you could start an Iraq Channel!

Warning to hippies and others of delicate sensibilities. Our soldiers are the video game generation, so don't draw any conclusions from the tone of these videos. Even the nicest guys will gloat after killing someone who was shooting at them, it doesn't make them bad people, it makes them human.

Humans can commit acts of utter depravity that would make demons shudder, then turn around and commit acts of utter grace beyond any angel.

Again, that's why the MSM coverage of the war sucks. OK, there was a car bomb in Baghdad last night. Who? Why? Get out of your freaking hotels! I don't need a rehash of the Centcom press releases, I can read them online!

From this press conference:

Q     Sir, this is Tony Capaccio with Bloomberg News.  We met back in November when I was up there.  I have an equipment question. Not only are you fighting the insurgents, but you're the highlight unit for the Stryker, that's gotten mixed publicity.  We were told by The Washington Post earlier this year that it could be unsafe for soldiers to ride in.  Give me the unvarnished assessment of how well the vehicle has performed and what are some of the weaknesses that need to be corrected.    

            COL. BROWN:  Yeah, Tony, I'm glad you brought that up, because I'll tell you, nothing makes our soldiers madder than criticism of the Stryker.  That report, I think, was absolutely ridiculous.  The Post -- I'll be honest with you.  They had a reporter up here and he wanted to provide input.  I said, “Go talk to any soldiers you want.  Go ask any soldier which vehicle they would prefer to ride in; they would choose a Stryker, I guarantee it.”  And they never asked them.  They published the report based on a lessons learned report of how you could improve the vehicle.  Well, of course, we try to improve every vehicle we have.  No vehicle's perfect.   

            The Stryker's fantastic.  It has incredible mobility, incredible speed.  It has saved hundreds of my soldiers' lives.  I'm telling you hundreds of their lives.  We've been hit by 84 suicide VBIEDs have hit Strykers, and I've had the greater majority of soldiers walk away without even a scratch.  It's absolutely amazing.  If I were in any other type vehicle, I would've had huge problems. 

Later:

I will tell you, interestingly enough, that same Washington Post reporter, after that report came out, he came to me and he said, please, Colonel Brown, do not make me ride in a Humvee.  He said please, let me ride in a Stryker.  And I was too nice a guy.  I should have made him ride in a Humvee.  I let him ride in a Stryker. 

Pretty cool, the Tampa Tribune has started interviewing soldiers:

Article 1

Article 2

Hat Tip: Instapundit not like he needs the traffic...

At the end of a long, perfectly correct rant about the MSM coverage of Iraq was this tidbit:

I have had my staff aggressively pursue media coverage for all sorts of events that tell the other side of the story only to have them turned down or ignored by the press in Baghdad. Strangely, I found it much easier to lure the Arab media to a “non-lethal” event than the western outlets. Open a renovated school or a youth center and I could always count on Al-Iraqia or even Al-Jazeera to show up, but no western media ever showed up - ever.

It's pretty weird that the Arab media was more willing to show our good side then our own media...

About 10+ years ago, I forget the exact date, Congress was looking into regulating professional wrestling. The head of the WWE was testifying, and he said “we're not a sport, we're sports entertainment”. Congress said basically, “Oh”, and decided not to regulate it.

My problem with the Mainstream Media is that they aren't news, they're news entertainment. There's no difference between the MSM and WWE trash talking in my opinion, other then that the WWE is probably more interesting and have better clothes. Though I can't really say, I don't watch much of either.

vs.

My wife owes me about two movies where guys run around and blow shit up for making me sit through that piece of crap.

First off, they're not cowboys, they're SHEEPHERDERS.

Yep, all that crap you read about how “cutting edge” it is to portray “gay cowboys”.

They're sheepherders, dammit. Gay sheepherders isn't exactly news. Only you city folks could get shepherds and cowboys confused.

Second, the whole “getting together” thing was a complete sandbag. One minute they're complaining about being sick of beans, the next minute they're having anal sex (for about 10 seconds). So I was totally unconvinced about their relationship then, because as far as you can tell from the rest of the movie their relationship consists of being miserable together. Except for a couple of kisses, they have no happy moments together...

Finally, watching the movie is like being bludgeoned over the head repeatedly. There is literally no moment after they get together where the filmmaker is not trying to make some “point”. Any point made has to be made as subtly as a boot to the head.

Gah.

Wife liked it.

Gah.

Did I mention that one of the characters was named Penis?

Not for themselves mind you. The movie industry is doomed: I had to watch a 3:40 commercial for them, and none of it was about how their movies might be say, fun to watch. No, they were good for you.

Bite me, movie industry. Even Jon Stewart had to make fun, connecting the number of movies about “important stuff”, to well, the fact that no one went to the movies in 2005...because they all SUCKED!

And what was all that stuff ragging on how the big screen was “better” then DVD? Oh yeah? When I watch a movie on DVD, beer and wine are served.

If I want to be preached at, I'll go to church.

Anyways, the Oscars were fun for me this time because I played “Oscar Bingo” with my wife. Seems the Mars company of M&M fame had this cool little PDF you could download.

Hey, those rapper dudes are wearing sunglasses! BINGO!

So if you TiVo'ed it, you might want to download the cards.

Because it's gotten to the point that ordinary people ask better questions then the journalists do...

Head over to last week's Ask the White House. Everything you ever wanted to know about the administration's point of view, direct from the “Director for Iraq” on the National Security Council.

Remember, I started blogging because I found that the media couldn't even report what the administration said correctly. So whether you agree with the administration or not, you should at least know exactly what they said, not what's its been reported they said.

A reader sent me this link.

Ok, if the DOD is rotating in 92,000 troops of the course of this year, and they decided NOT to rotate in 3,500 of them, that means we're now only rotating in 88,500 troops.

Yet another “troop reduction” that slips by the mainstream media.

Though I've always preferred: Qui custodes custodies

Who watches the watchmen?

So who makes sure the news media is really reporting the “news”?