I see Jack Cahill has an article up breaking down the minute by minute of the Trayvon Martin incident, proving that the lamestream media is ignoring the fact that rather than being a seventeen year old kid with an Arizona Iced Tea and a bag of Skittles, he was in fact a dangerous gangbanger finally put out of commission by a heroic and misunderstood George Zimmerman. Or something like that. I feel a fisking coming on...
Thursday, June 7, 2012
The Drudge and Switch
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has an blurb a few days ago noting something posted on the Drudge Report recall election night that I also noticed. At a bit after seven, before polls had closed, Matt Drudge posted a headline indicating that early exits confirmed a Scott Walker victory.
As he is merely a link aggregator with out any original content, and as I was interested in the early exit information, I clicked through to an AP article regarding the election. I scanned through briefly, unable to locate the polls he was referring to. I read more carefully, still unable to find them. I finally did a page search for phrases like the words "poll" and "exit," which yielded three of the former and none of the latter, with none of the appearances in any way related to exit polling information. He made it up out of thin air.
Now, it turns out that it didn't matter as Walker won comfortably anyway, the only thing that conservatives seemed to take away from Drudge's total fabrication. This isn't the point. The point is that Matt Drudge knows that more people scan his headlines than actually click through to his links, and so without even producing content, he can provoke entirely different reactions based upon a scan of his top links than would be provoked if the same person read the articles he was linked to.
This case was merely an instance where he fabricated a fact that didn't originate from the linked article, but Drudge has repeatedly distorted headlines to the point that they no longer accurately represent even the gist of the articles they link to, and has used the aggregation of unrelated stories to push media narratives that aren't backed up by any kind of fact. Half the time he might as well be linking to Justin Bieber music videos for all the more germane his links are to the point he is trying to get across.
I'll be the first to say that the Drudge Report has its uses. Matt clearly has a mole in the New York Times newsroom, and picks up their scoops before they post on their site. He also provides occasional excellent primary source journalism, albeit just a few hours before everyone else jumps on board, such as breaking the Biden VP selection back in 2008. This is why he's on my list. But by and large the man is a shameless propagandist, and anyone who believes anything his headlines say without clicking through to verify probably shouldn't be trusted to tie their shoes.
As he is merely a link aggregator with out any original content, and as I was interested in the early exit information, I clicked through to an AP article regarding the election. I scanned through briefly, unable to locate the polls he was referring to. I read more carefully, still unable to find them. I finally did a page search for phrases like the words "poll" and "exit," which yielded three of the former and none of the latter, with none of the appearances in any way related to exit polling information. He made it up out of thin air.
Now, it turns out that it didn't matter as Walker won comfortably anyway, the only thing that conservatives seemed to take away from Drudge's total fabrication. This isn't the point. The point is that Matt Drudge knows that more people scan his headlines than actually click through to his links, and so without even producing content, he can provoke entirely different reactions based upon a scan of his top links than would be provoked if the same person read the articles he was linked to.
This case was merely an instance where he fabricated a fact that didn't originate from the linked article, but Drudge has repeatedly distorted headlines to the point that they no longer accurately represent even the gist of the articles they link to, and has used the aggregation of unrelated stories to push media narratives that aren't backed up by any kind of fact. Half the time he might as well be linking to Justin Bieber music videos for all the more germane his links are to the point he is trying to get across.
I'll be the first to say that the Drudge Report has its uses. Matt clearly has a mole in the New York Times newsroom, and picks up their scoops before they post on their site. He also provides occasional excellent primary source journalism, albeit just a few hours before everyone else jumps on board, such as breaking the Biden VP selection back in 2008. This is why he's on my list. But by and large the man is a shameless propagandist, and anyone who believes anything his headlines say without clicking through to verify probably shouldn't be trusted to tie their shoes.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Ahead of his Time
Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for pointing out my favorite quote in a while:
"We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that," - Thomas Edison
Monday, June 4, 2012
A Tale of Two Charts
Our collective debt, at the Federal level, 1980-2019 (projected of course, extrapolated using what appears at a glance to be the CBO's alternative fiscal scenario):
The Fairness Doctrine
I'm about a week late to the party, but Fox News aired this gem on May 30:
Normally, I am not someone that thinks that efforts to restore the "Fairness Doctrine" are worth the Herculean lift that would be necessary to overcome all the conspiracy-mongering and ill will it would generate among the masses.If FNC viewers weren't tuning in to this stuff, they'd be getting it from Rush. If someone made Rush provide equal time for opposing views, they'd tune him out in favor of pirate radio like the kind I used to listen while driving through rural Indiana on the way to Valparaiso. If we managed to get all the pirates, if that were even a good thing, people would simply get their news from chain emails.
The point is that in a country that respects free speech, there is no option but to respect the right to be grossly misinformed or propagandized to in a decidedly unidirectional manner. People have a right to their epistemic closure. My objection here is that there is no question that the above segment is for all practical purposes an in kind contribution to the Romney campaign, a four minute advertisement for which the campaign did not have to spend ad dollars, either for the airtime or for the production.
The absence of a fairness doctrine, combined with a willingness on the part of any sufficiently funded individuals to masquerade as journalists while in reality working as de facto campaign operatives creates a loophole in any kind of campaign finance law that you could push a battleship through. If this sort of thing is permissible, we might as well pare down the role of the FEC to merely rubber stamping attempts to disenfranchise minorities.
Normally, I am not someone that thinks that efforts to restore the "Fairness Doctrine" are worth the Herculean lift that would be necessary to overcome all the conspiracy-mongering and ill will it would generate among the masses.If FNC viewers weren't tuning in to this stuff, they'd be getting it from Rush. If someone made Rush provide equal time for opposing views, they'd tune him out in favor of pirate radio like the kind I used to listen while driving through rural Indiana on the way to Valparaiso. If we managed to get all the pirates, if that were even a good thing, people would simply get their news from chain emails.
The point is that in a country that respects free speech, there is no option but to respect the right to be grossly misinformed or propagandized to in a decidedly unidirectional manner. People have a right to their epistemic closure. My objection here is that there is no question that the above segment is for all practical purposes an in kind contribution to the Romney campaign, a four minute advertisement for which the campaign did not have to spend ad dollars, either for the airtime or for the production.
The absence of a fairness doctrine, combined with a willingness on the part of any sufficiently funded individuals to masquerade as journalists while in reality working as de facto campaign operatives creates a loophole in any kind of campaign finance law that you could push a battleship through. If this sort of thing is permissible, we might as well pare down the role of the FEC to merely rubber stamping attempts to disenfranchise minorities.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Star Trek: 2018
Corning has released a second "A Day Made of Glass" segment highlighting their developmental interactive glass technology. With the quickening pace of this kind of application, it's not difficult to see how this sort of thing could be ready for market in five to ten years, even as today's versions fall short of the prize. Video after the jump:
I'm Baaaack...
Yes indeed ladies and gents, after a nearly four year hiatus filled with family life, cable television, cooling towers and cockatiels flying about my head, I am returning to the fold to share my wisdom with the masses. Or my ignorance in silence. However it works out. I can't hear the whooping and applause, which I assume is because I am so far out in the country now, but feel free to send flowers and laurels. Or scotch. Good scotch.
The focus of this blog is going to drift a little, going from a straight political feed to something more like The Daily Dish that Andrew Sullivan has been putting out for more than a decade, minus the Mental Health Break and dubstep fixation. Over the last four years, technology has leapt forward, and since the last post on this blog we have woken up to the iPad (and the ubiquitousness of the tablet in general), the explosion of the smart phone, the advent of the first self-driving cars, not just in terms of prototypes, but also in practice and legal acceptance and adoption. We are rapidly approaching a future when technology will become so integrated into our lives that the the technological singularity sneaks up on us without even a thought. This exponential trend is fascinating to me, and you should expect to see it covered here in depth.
You can also expect updates regarding the coming Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut that I await with bated breath, commentary on television shows like Mad Men, personal tales from my increasingly bizarre life, and occasional sports commentary. Yeah, no, just kidding on that last. Positively no sports. I look forward to getting back into the saddle, and hope I still have what it takes not to disappoint all my loyal readers (you still out there, Guiseppe?), should I ever develop any. Well, for better or ill, here we go.
The focus of this blog is going to drift a little, going from a straight political feed to something more like The Daily Dish that Andrew Sullivan has been putting out for more than a decade, minus the Mental Health Break and dubstep fixation. Over the last four years, technology has leapt forward, and since the last post on this blog we have woken up to the iPad (and the ubiquitousness of the tablet in general), the explosion of the smart phone, the advent of the first self-driving cars, not just in terms of prototypes, but also in practice and legal acceptance and adoption. We are rapidly approaching a future when technology will become so integrated into our lives that the the technological singularity sneaks up on us without even a thought. This exponential trend is fascinating to me, and you should expect to see it covered here in depth.
You can also expect updates regarding the coming Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut that I await with bated breath, commentary on television shows like Mad Men, personal tales from my increasingly bizarre life, and occasional sports commentary. Yeah, no, just kidding on that last. Positively no sports. I look forward to getting back into the saddle, and hope I still have what it takes not to disappoint all my loyal readers (you still out there, Guiseppe?), should I ever develop any. Well, for better or ill, here we go.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
