Monday, September 12, 2011
More Debates?
Is this thing on CNN tonight a debate or a game show? From how Wolfe Blitzer is overdoing the introductions I can't tell.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
More bias
Brian Williams opened up tonight's Republican debate with a shot at President Bush by claiming more people blame Bush and Republicans for the current economic situation. This is a form of bias where news agencies pay for polls and then use them as if they are news. Polls are not news, they are a measure of opinion and depending on how they are conducted may or may not be of any real value at all. It is a common practice to conduct polls by news agencies and then report on their own polls as if it is big news, this is not a practice exclusive to NBC or MSNBC they all do it, it is ridiculous when they all do it not just when when Brian Williams does it. I only point it out because Williams chose to open a debate that is supposed to be about the future and what candidates will do in the future by taking shots at the past.
I did some searching for the source of this assertion by Williams since he did not cite his source. Not surprisingly it appears that his information comes form a June poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal. Similar questions were also asked in August. I guess it is fine to open a debate by taking shots at someone who has been out of office for over three years and in some fairness Brian Williams did point out that most people also do not believe President Obama had put the right polices in place to fix the problem. The thing is, isn't the later the point right now? George bush is not running, George Bush has been out of office for 3 years. Obama is running and has been in office for the last three years. People think Obama has not done the right things to fix the mess. that is of course if we want to assume the poll is even relevant or that Brian Williams represented the data completely and accurately. By now it should not surprise you that I am going to tell you he did neither.
First of all it is not relevant at all. It is a poll conducted by his own news organization and it is just an opinion poll which we will dissect more in a bit. I looked through several NBC/WSJ polls and found this question has appeared in some form or another over more than one poll and guess which way the numbers are moving? No mention of that at all so just to mention it out of context of the poll data itself makes it irrelevant.
Other data in the June 2011 poll and data from July and August also from the NBC/WSJ pools show a rise in the number of people who disapprove of the job that President Obama is doing, believe the country is on the wrong track, and disapprove of his handling of the economy. All of these items are directly related to someone who is running for President, not someone who was President 3 years ago. Brian Williams made a reference as I mentioned to that fact that many people also believe Obama is not implementing the right policies to fix the economy but what he did not mention is that it is now up to 73% believe we are on the wrong track up form 62% in the poll Williams did reference.
Also lets look at the numbers, in the old poll 14% blamed only Bush and 10% blamed only Obama which is what I think the Williams comment refereed to but all this really means is 24% of the respondents are political partisan hacks responding dishonestly or they are stupid. Frankly why do we care about partisan hacks and stupid people when we are in serious circumstances and if you are serious you tune into a debate it should be to evaluate the men and women running for office currently not what happened 3 years ago? In addition 33% of people think Bush was "mainly" responsible compared to 22% who think Obama was "mainly" responsible.
So here is 55% of their respondents who don't have a clue what happened leading up to the financial collapse and are gullible enough to think the President can be mainly responsible for policies and programs that predated him and many of which were designed and implemented by Congress and members of Congress who by they way are still in office while President bush again is not! To the extend that government is responsible for the mess at all it is simply absurd to think that either President Bush or President Obama can be fully or mainly responsible for the situation so why report on absurdity?
Now lets get into the real meat of the problem. While the August poll did not publish the data in the same way they did have one question that was similar. The question was if the current economic situation is one Obama inherited or or one his policies are mostly re4sponsible for and that number is 56% inherited to 33% caused by Obama Policies but that number had changed from June when it was 62% inherited and 25% caused by Obama's policies. That might be significant if you are going to mention these polls right?
Another question that was asked but not mentioned was are Obama's polices helping or hurting. 23% say helping, 37% say hurting. That also might be significant if we are going to play this game right?
Since the debate was at the Regan library another way of putting all of this would be to ask you to think about what the numbers say. Do more people think they are better off now than they were 4 years ago? I think what the numbers in NBC's own polls are showing is that more people think they are not better off.
There simply was no reason for NBC to cherry pick their own polls for data they can use to bash President Bush and Republicans while ignoring data in the same polls that shows more and more people are becoming dissatisfied with the direction the sitting President has taking our country in. Whoever the Republican nominee ends up being will not be running against George W Bush although they are running against someone who has left a lot of Bush policies in place he is not George W Bush. We had that election already or at least it was painted that way but frankly even John McCain was not George W Bush, not at all.... far more moderate than the squishy moderate Bush.
I find it interesting that some people, including whoever writes for Brian Williams' teleprompter cannot resist trying to run against Bush again but it is petty and it is biased.
I did some searching for the source of this assertion by Williams since he did not cite his source. Not surprisingly it appears that his information comes form a June poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal. Similar questions were also asked in August. I guess it is fine to open a debate by taking shots at someone who has been out of office for over three years and in some fairness Brian Williams did point out that most people also do not believe President Obama had put the right polices in place to fix the problem. The thing is, isn't the later the point right now? George bush is not running, George Bush has been out of office for 3 years. Obama is running and has been in office for the last three years. People think Obama has not done the right things to fix the mess. that is of course if we want to assume the poll is even relevant or that Brian Williams represented the data completely and accurately. By now it should not surprise you that I am going to tell you he did neither.
First of all it is not relevant at all. It is a poll conducted by his own news organization and it is just an opinion poll which we will dissect more in a bit. I looked through several NBC/WSJ polls and found this question has appeared in some form or another over more than one poll and guess which way the numbers are moving? No mention of that at all so just to mention it out of context of the poll data itself makes it irrelevant.
Other data in the June 2011 poll and data from July and August also from the NBC/WSJ pools show a rise in the number of people who disapprove of the job that President Obama is doing, believe the country is on the wrong track, and disapprove of his handling of the economy. All of these items are directly related to someone who is running for President, not someone who was President 3 years ago. Brian Williams made a reference as I mentioned to that fact that many people also believe Obama is not implementing the right policies to fix the economy but what he did not mention is that it is now up to 73% believe we are on the wrong track up form 62% in the poll Williams did reference.
Also lets look at the numbers, in the old poll 14% blamed only Bush and 10% blamed only Obama which is what I think the Williams comment refereed to but all this really means is 24% of the respondents are political partisan hacks responding dishonestly or they are stupid. Frankly why do we care about partisan hacks and stupid people when we are in serious circumstances and if you are serious you tune into a debate it should be to evaluate the men and women running for office currently not what happened 3 years ago? In addition 33% of people think Bush was "mainly" responsible compared to 22% who think Obama was "mainly" responsible.
So here is 55% of their respondents who don't have a clue what happened leading up to the financial collapse and are gullible enough to think the President can be mainly responsible for policies and programs that predated him and many of which were designed and implemented by Congress and members of Congress who by they way are still in office while President bush again is not! To the extend that government is responsible for the mess at all it is simply absurd to think that either President Bush or President Obama can be fully or mainly responsible for the situation so why report on absurdity?
Now lets get into the real meat of the problem. While the August poll did not publish the data in the same way they did have one question that was similar. The question was if the current economic situation is one Obama inherited or or one his policies are mostly re4sponsible for and that number is 56% inherited to 33% caused by Obama Policies but that number had changed from June when it was 62% inherited and 25% caused by Obama's policies. That might be significant if you are going to mention these polls right?
Another question that was asked but not mentioned was are Obama's polices helping or hurting. 23% say helping, 37% say hurting. That also might be significant if we are going to play this game right?
Since the debate was at the Regan library another way of putting all of this would be to ask you to think about what the numbers say. Do more people think they are better off now than they were 4 years ago? I think what the numbers in NBC's own polls are showing is that more people think they are not better off.
There simply was no reason for NBC to cherry pick their own polls for data they can use to bash President Bush and Republicans while ignoring data in the same polls that shows more and more people are becoming dissatisfied with the direction the sitting President has taking our country in. Whoever the Republican nominee ends up being will not be running against George W Bush although they are running against someone who has left a lot of Bush policies in place he is not George W Bush. We had that election already or at least it was painted that way but frankly even John McCain was not George W Bush, not at all.... far more moderate than the squishy moderate Bush.
I find it interesting that some people, including whoever writes for Brian Williams' teleprompter cannot resist trying to run against Bush again but it is petty and it is biased.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
News Hounds
I will give you a precition since I once played the part of Earl Gordon Curley internet slime ball... I mean psychic, and posted his 2000 predictions after he was in fact dead. I will reprise my role as prognosticator just long enough to day to predict that a certain youtube champion of "true speech" who's screen name starts with and L and ends in an R will not mention the James Hoffa remarks or the Presidents complete lack of concern over the rhetoric being ramped back up after liberals, including every network other than fox, tried to suggest that the horrible shooting of Gabriel Giffords was somehow the fault of the Tea Party and right wing rhetoric.
If you recall that was the mantra early on, that it was right wing extremism that caused the tragedy even though there was absolutely no evidence of this at all and it later came out that the shooter was not particularly political and certainly not right wing. There was even a focus on a map Sarah Palin had that showed targets on congressional districts even though several politicians from both parties had used similar maps in the past. The insinuation was that Palin was somehow responsible and this was carried in the left wing media. No comment by a particular youtuber on that.
So now we have James Hoffa of all people using phrases like "take them out" and calling people son's of bitches and suggesting that there is a war on the tea party and the left leaning press is mostly silent. I found nothing on this on MSNBC today as an example at least there was nothing prior to 5pm tonight 9/6/2011 and the remarks by Hoffa were to open up an Obama campaign stop, er I mean speech on jobs.
So I am predicting that instead of discussing this a certain youtuber will instead find something totally innocuous most of us never saw on Fox News because it was on when productive people are working. It will be something miniscule that means nothing maybe even something blathered by that great political thinker Steve Doocy or his other cohorts on that very serious news show Fox and Friends yeah I bet that will be it... again. I bet that is precisely what his next video will be. Some obscure comment on Fox News most people never saw on a topic no one really cares about and not about James Hoffa and Obama failing to denounce the rhetoric in spite of his calls a few months back to tone it down.
What is the over under on that? I am not sure...
If you recall that was the mantra early on, that it was right wing extremism that caused the tragedy even though there was absolutely no evidence of this at all and it later came out that the shooter was not particularly political and certainly not right wing. There was even a focus on a map Sarah Palin had that showed targets on congressional districts even though several politicians from both parties had used similar maps in the past. The insinuation was that Palin was somehow responsible and this was carried in the left wing media. No comment by a particular youtuber on that.
So now we have James Hoffa of all people using phrases like "take them out" and calling people son's of bitches and suggesting that there is a war on the tea party and the left leaning press is mostly silent. I found nothing on this on MSNBC today as an example at least there was nothing prior to 5pm tonight 9/6/2011 and the remarks by Hoffa were to open up an Obama campaign stop, er I mean speech on jobs.
So I am predicting that instead of discussing this a certain youtuber will instead find something totally innocuous most of us never saw on Fox News because it was on when productive people are working. It will be something miniscule that means nothing maybe even something blathered by that great political thinker Steve Doocy or his other cohorts on that very serious news show Fox and Friends yeah I bet that will be it... again. I bet that is precisely what his next video will be. Some obscure comment on Fox News most people never saw on a topic no one really cares about and not about James Hoffa and Obama failing to denounce the rhetoric in spite of his calls a few months back to tone it down.
What is the over under on that? I am not sure...
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Debt Clock
I just added the National Debt Clock to journal today. Debt became a major project of mine in the last 5 years as I determined to completely eliminate all my personal debt and do the best I can to remain debt free or if I do use credit to use it as sparing and wisely as possible.
I am within 3 months of seeing that goal accomplished. Having gone through this it made me realize more than I had before the differences between serious discussions of policy to adders our nation's debt and political ones. If you look at the National Debt Clock I have a few things to keep in mind. It has been going up rapidly for my entire lifetime. I have never known a period in my life when it wasn't going up. Every President in my life time has contributed to the problem.
Every president in modern times has taken money form the so-called "social security trust fund" to pay interest on the national debt. In 2005 the "trust fund" was exhausted. In 8 years of President Bush we saw the debt go up around $10,000,000,000,000.00. In just over two years of Obama it has going up by nearly 5,000,000,000,000 with trillions going to "stimulus" that we were told we had to have to keep unemployment below 8%. Since the fistulous unemployment has been over 9% for well over a year and at times was over 10%. the actual unemployment in the country is far higher than the official rate.
If we raised taxes on everyone in this nation to 100% of income we could not solve the debt problem with revenue increases. It stands to reason therefore that anyone constantly insisting that in an increase in revenue, which is code for raising taxes, on only some Americans is a serious fix to the problem is either delusional or lying. I know which I think it is...
Our nation has a terminal spending disease where we cannot seem to convince our leaders to act responsibly. current crops of leaders in both parties refuse to address the problem due to fear of political repercussions due to the pain it will have to cause to turn things around. our leaders are scared to do what needs to be done since it will require the country to face some realities as to what we can afford to continue spending on.
If we as a nation fail to address these issues I belie it is possible we will see the demise of our republic in my lifetime. Our current path is simply unsustainable.
The coming elections may demonstrate how many Americans really do understand what we are facing. The times dictate that it is no longer sufficient to argue over whether D or An R is better. What we need is to elect leaders who understand the reality we face and are willing to do what is necessary to start correcting it.
To continue to pretend that just having a D or an R is the basis for choosing leaders is folly. It is high time we start evaluating if those seeking higher office are qualified, serious, and honest enough to admit the situation at hand and bold enough to do what will be necessary to confront it.
I am within 3 months of seeing that goal accomplished. Having gone through this it made me realize more than I had before the differences between serious discussions of policy to adders our nation's debt and political ones. If you look at the National Debt Clock I have a few things to keep in mind. It has been going up rapidly for my entire lifetime. I have never known a period in my life when it wasn't going up. Every President in my life time has contributed to the problem.
Every president in modern times has taken money form the so-called "social security trust fund" to pay interest on the national debt. In 2005 the "trust fund" was exhausted. In 8 years of President Bush we saw the debt go up around $10,000,000,000,000.00. In just over two years of Obama it has going up by nearly 5,000,000,000,000 with trillions going to "stimulus" that we were told we had to have to keep unemployment below 8%. Since the fistulous unemployment has been over 9% for well over a year and at times was over 10%. the actual unemployment in the country is far higher than the official rate.
If we raised taxes on everyone in this nation to 100% of income we could not solve the debt problem with revenue increases. It stands to reason therefore that anyone constantly insisting that in an increase in revenue, which is code for raising taxes, on only some Americans is a serious fix to the problem is either delusional or lying. I know which I think it is...
Our nation has a terminal spending disease where we cannot seem to convince our leaders to act responsibly. current crops of leaders in both parties refuse to address the problem due to fear of political repercussions due to the pain it will have to cause to turn things around. our leaders are scared to do what needs to be done since it will require the country to face some realities as to what we can afford to continue spending on.
If we as a nation fail to address these issues I belie it is possible we will see the demise of our republic in my lifetime. Our current path is simply unsustainable.
The coming elections may demonstrate how many Americans really do understand what we are facing. The times dictate that it is no longer sufficient to argue over whether D or An R is better. What we need is to elect leaders who understand the reality we face and are willing to do what is necessary to start correcting it.
To continue to pretend that just having a D or an R is the basis for choosing leaders is folly. It is high time we start evaluating if those seeking higher office are qualified, serious, and honest enough to admit the situation at hand and bold enough to do what will be necessary to confront it.
Friday, August 26, 2011
YouTube NetKook Kill File
I have created rules on my mail servers where I can set certain criteria to kill file anything I no longer have interest n receiving. Sometimes this comes in handy for a person who posts content on the internet. As anyone who has spent any amount of time online knows there are a number of kooks out there. In the old days on the newsgroup sci.skeptic we called these people net kooks and they included people like Earl Gordon Curley a self proclaimed psychic and total net kook who's website I now have archived on one of my servers. By the way I was one of the people lucky enough to be threatened with law suites by this wing nut when he could not answer my challenges to his bogus claims.
I used the system of kill-filing things off and on in those days when someone was no longer fun to mess with or if they seemed as if they may be a legitimate threat and I no longer wanted to even see any correspondence mentioning their name. I have not used it in some time but recently re-instated a kill file rule on my server to weed out a particularly vial person on YouTube.
The reason I re-instated it was because I attempted to have a conversation, the other person was content to curse and twist facts to make political points. He was totally incapable of understanding I could care less about his political views and I was not going got play my party good your party bad with him. He was also incapable of being rational and posted disparaging remarks about Trig Palin who if you do not know has downs syndrome and is only a few years old. He saw nothing wrong with publicly making fun of a child with a disability to him it was political points to score.
People of this low character are the reason I used to have a kill file and if I am to be more public online again I thought it was high time to set one up again.
So this is a notice to raving lunatics, net kooks, vulgarians and degenerates that if you email me, my server deletes it. If you reply to me here, on YouTube or several other places I won't list and the forum or site emails me, the server deletes it.
Let me repeat how this works just so you wing nuts get it. You email me, the server deletes it. I will never see it.
Now, how does it know to delete it you may wonder? That's the question isn't it? Well I am not about to tell anyone. Just know that you email me, the sever deletes it.
Thanks for reading.
I used the system of kill-filing things off and on in those days when someone was no longer fun to mess with or if they seemed as if they may be a legitimate threat and I no longer wanted to even see any correspondence mentioning their name. I have not used it in some time but recently re-instated a kill file rule on my server to weed out a particularly vial person on YouTube.
The reason I re-instated it was because I attempted to have a conversation, the other person was content to curse and twist facts to make political points. He was totally incapable of understanding I could care less about his political views and I was not going got play my party good your party bad with him. He was also incapable of being rational and posted disparaging remarks about Trig Palin who if you do not know has downs syndrome and is only a few years old. He saw nothing wrong with publicly making fun of a child with a disability to him it was political points to score.
People of this low character are the reason I used to have a kill file and if I am to be more public online again I thought it was high time to set one up again.
So this is a notice to raving lunatics, net kooks, vulgarians and degenerates that if you email me, my server deletes it. If you reply to me here, on YouTube or several other places I won't list and the forum or site emails me, the server deletes it.
Let me repeat how this works just so you wing nuts get it. You email me, the server deletes it. I will never see it.
Now, how does it know to delete it you may wonder? That's the question isn't it? Well I am not about to tell anyone. Just know that you email me, the sever deletes it.
Thanks for reading.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Updates
If you wandered over here from my youtube channel I will explain briefly why it has been so long since I have posted anything new there.
First off this stuff is a hobby for me, I am not a film maker or a political activist or a former ACLU lawyer with no life who never does anything but watch Fox News looking for things to pretend to be outraged over.
In fact I work full time and for many years that meant around 90 hours a week, no kidding. I recently changed jobs to a position where I work half the hours for pretty much the same pay. I gave up a raise that I had just been granted, yes I got a raise in a recession, to move to a job that did not demand all my waking hours. I think the slight drop in pay was worth it but being a workaholic I am not adjusting to more free time as well as I expected.
I had fully expected to be back to making videos by now but I am not.
Another reason I am not doing more right now is that I lack motivation. Politics as it is often done on you tube bores the hell out of me after a few minutes. The thing I notice however is that political topics get more attention than my non political topics. I like to take on paranormal claims, I like to be critical of con-artists and Charlestons a lot more than I like to do politics but politics is what the number of views suggest people want for the most part.
I will get motivated again to do something, I have some ideas and I am pretty sure the format of what I do will change. I intend to do audio commentary with some visual presentation and less of the type of video I have done in the past. I also think it is likely I can get some video of candidates on the campaign trail and if by some miracle some of that is interesting I may post it.
First off this stuff is a hobby for me, I am not a film maker or a political activist or a former ACLU lawyer with no life who never does anything but watch Fox News looking for things to pretend to be outraged over.
In fact I work full time and for many years that meant around 90 hours a week, no kidding. I recently changed jobs to a position where I work half the hours for pretty much the same pay. I gave up a raise that I had just been granted, yes I got a raise in a recession, to move to a job that did not demand all my waking hours. I think the slight drop in pay was worth it but being a workaholic I am not adjusting to more free time as well as I expected.
I had fully expected to be back to making videos by now but I am not.
Another reason I am not doing more right now is that I lack motivation. Politics as it is often done on you tube bores the hell out of me after a few minutes. The thing I notice however is that political topics get more attention than my non political topics. I like to take on paranormal claims, I like to be critical of con-artists and Charlestons a lot more than I like to do politics but politics is what the number of views suggest people want for the most part.
I will get motivated again to do something, I have some ideas and I am pretty sure the format of what I do will change. I intend to do audio commentary with some visual presentation and less of the type of video I have done in the past. I also think it is likely I can get some video of candidates on the campaign trail and if by some miracle some of that is interesting I may post it.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
In response to the violence that occurred at Representative Russ Carnahan’s town hall meeting held in St. Louis on August 6th 2009 the Service Employers International Union or SEIU posted a video on YouTube suggesting we get back to more peaceful and respectful debate on the issue of Health Care Reform. While I would agree with that basic premise there is a problem with their video.
The video they posted shows union demonstrations as completely peaceful and nice while opposition to reform as being ugly and violent. They even used portions of the video of the incident that followed the Carnahan event. The problem is they edited out significant portions of the video including all portions that show people wearing SEIU shirts behaving erratically, cursing, and threatening other people on scene and finally at least one union member being arrested.
Who actually started the violence and what lead up to it is not entirely clear by any reporting I have seen to date. I am sure there will be law suits over this and the courts will have to decide who is at fault but it is clear the SEIU wanted no part of the embarrassing video of their members behaving in a manner that befits the label of union thug which they took strong offense to apparently.
Here is a link to the union website posting on the incident and the video.
http://www.seiu.org/2009/08/stop-the-violence-at-health-care-town-halls.php
Here is a link to the full video and below that is a link to the Weekly Standard Blog, which attempts to decipher the dialog in the video.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/08/eye_witness_to_st_louis_scuffl.asp
You be the judge of what really happened but what is hard to deny is there was more to this than the union wanted to acknowledge on their site.
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