CNN Seriously Sucks

I don’t know if you have watched the insane debacle that has become the CNN 24-newscast, but their website was one redeeming quality. It was filled with good content, rarely anything that filled the airwaves.

However, their Opinions that they placed on the website routinely held an air of, how do I say this, idiocy rarely seen.

Often these opinion piece would stem from their correspondents or “experts” that often shared these “valid” opinions on their television outlet.

But now, David Gergen (who has the personalty of a wet shoe) wrote this opinion piece on how the U.S. needs a leader like Winston Churchill.

So, several reasons exist for why this analogy/wish is ridiculously stupid.

One, the financial shit-hole the U.S. is in, is hardly a comparable instance to the Nazis bombing the fuck out of our country.

Two, leaders like Churchill couldn’t exist in our world today.

Yes, the era of Churchill was not that long ago, I get that. However, with the Internet’s ability to dig up as much crap on people as it can, and subsequently allowing everyone to have an opinion make for a political environment no politician could successfully endure.

Three, why ask for something gone by in time? I don’t want Churchill, I want something better.

Old dogs always want old day back. However, the old days would not cut it today.

We need better than Churchill. We need better than Obama. We need better than America if we wish to still sit at the top of the hill.

Murdoch’s Fall from Grace

The sensationalism of Fox News during the Obama Administration’s first iteration has been nothing short of just that, sensational.

Bogus headlines, flat-out lies and the constant perpetuation of misinformation have led to a different type of news source in the U.S. It has been shown in studies, that viewers will only gravitate toward news sources that they believe follow their views.

Viewers do not want “Fair and Balanced” unless that fairness and balance directly falls into their bias. So, Fox News is – media at its finest, and journalism at in its worst form.

But all of this was conducted by a CEO who was routinely hands-off. And by hands-off, I mean, the man Rupert Murdoch steered Fox News and other new outlets under his helm into a right-wing juggernaut.

The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and other outlets have continued their right-leaning position in the years since News Corp. bought them. Whereas some objectivity may have existed, with slight leans, these outlets are leaning so far now, they look like Michael Jackson in “Smooth Criminal.”

Now, all of this is receiving more attention, as New Corp. finds itself in a corner for advocating the actions of a phone hacking scandal from the now defunct New of the World.

The phone hacking scandal, for those not informed, has shaken the world of journalism, as the News of the World hacked and tried to hack countless cell phones owned by celebrities, politicians regular civilians and the culmination coming from the hacking of a murder victim.

Now, arrests are being made. Now, action is being taken. As these actions are illegal, these movements almost come too little too late.

Rebekah Brooks, former  Chief Executive of News International (owned by Murdoch), has recently been arrested for her involvement in the hacking scandal. She is the tenth of these kinds of arrests.

But the issue I have is that New of the World was the top-selling “newspaper” in England. Fox News is the highest watched “news” outlet in America.

Sensational is not always the best thing, in fact it is the worst thing. Because as we, the public, begin to lean toward more sensational headlines and more sensational stories, journalists will take more sensational actions to keep that pace up for us. They will cut corners, cheat and lie as much as they can.

But those that do that are no longer journalists. They are the bane in the world of journalism, and deplorable.

Likewise, as organization that allows these actions is more so disgusting. Anyone who thinks Murdoch was unaware of these actions is naive.

This fall from journalistic integrity wasn’t just one journalist, it wasn’t just one editor, it wasn’t just one executive. It was a culture bred from the top down. This fall came from less about providing facts and more about making money.

Murdoch shut down News of the World quickly, because ties exist between what happened in England and what goes on here in the U.S. He is afraid, and he should be.

Murdoch should be afraid, because somewhere, a true journalist is following leads, and writing. Writing a story that will take down the empire of lies and sensationalism Murdoch has built.

Ending of Space Shuttle Program Proof of America’s Decline

I cannot think of a better ending to the Space Shuttle Program. Oh, wait, yes I can.

See You Space Cowboy

It would be that it never ended.

Today was the last launch of the last of the Space Shuttles. The wires, hot plates, engines, metal and brawn that went into the creation of this angelic behemoths is something of legendary status. Atlantis had the honor of streaking through the sky, hurling itself into orbit as exclamation point on a program that has done so much for American society.

Yet, this is the end of the program. It did have to end at some point, well at least this iteration of it had to end. The shuttles were beginning to show age, and the instruments and technology was getting a little behind the curve. I mean, the technology used is far advanced from anything we use in the consumer world of technology, but shouldn’t the shuttles be using holographic control systems or start looking like a Star Destroyer?

In the 1930s to let’s say the 1980s, we had a kick in the science. Why? Because we were competing with those dickhead Nazis and those crazy Russians throughout all those years. We had innovate and invent ways to be better than them. Early on, the inventions were used for war, then as the Cold War progressed, science and technology was invented in case we went to war.

But the NASA and other Space Program endeavors within the United States were created to defeat those pesky Russians in another area. The scientific advancement of our society.

Then something changed. We no longer had to defeat anybody in anything. America was No. 1 and everyone else sucked. Everyone had to learn English and we had to make up wars just so we could show off our new technology that kills people.

The thing that saddens me the most, is that with the proposed cuts the GOP has presented, Space Exploration could be a thing of the past. It could be a story I tell my children about one day. About how man flew into the heavens and continued to explore the unknown. About how our feeble little minds and tiny little bodies created machines and vehicles that allowed to travel and exist thousands and thousands and thousands of miles into the sky.

It could be the stuff of legends for my children.

Our ingenuity is what set us apart as a Nation. Many people will say it is our work hard mentality, or it is our roughness. Some will say it is our military mindset and world political prowess. But I believe is has more to do with our minds and willingness to stare at the void of space and say, “How do we get there?”

We no longer care about progress. We no longer care about ingenuity. We no longer care about extending a program that brought more understanding of our universe, of ourselves.

We care about the bottom line. We care about taxes. We care about being the ones who are right, as opposed to doing the right thing.

We have become too complacent. Our complacency is what shows our decline as a world leader more than anything else.

I can’t think of a better observation than our willingness to just say, “Yeah, we don’t need to go to Space anymore. I mean, Earth is all we need to know.”

 

They run and they run: A Lesson on Bullrushing

I once posted about how no one in the GOP can defeat Obama in the looming 2012 election. Considering that no true candidate has positioned themselves for a run, it seems that a new strategy is appearing.

Bullrush. I am coining this term, and will now define its usage in the political world.

Due to Americans inability to focus on anything that lasts long than a sentence, a new strategy has appeared. It worked for the healthcare overall bill and it worked for the 2010 elections that saw the GOP gain ground in the Senate and gain the majority in the House.

They can’t win based on truth, that has become easily apparent. They can’t win based on their ties, as they are tied up with the richest of the rich while they ignore the needs of the middle class and lower class. They can’t win based on policy, as the last 10 years have practically been dictated by GOP ideology.

So, how do you defeat someone in a duel when you don’t even have a gun and they do?

You Bullrush them, and see what happens.

When the one-and-half year mark hits, all of these speculated candidates will throw their hats in to the race. They will fill the media with as much spew and misinformation as possible, causing Obama’s campaign to do nothing but run damage control. He won’t be able to promote a message because he will (even though today he is releasing his long form birth certificate) continue to have to deny claims that he is from Kenya.

He will have to continue to fight claims about his socialistic tendencies and his hate of corporate America. He will have to defend his Christianity. He will not have time to show his accomplishments in the past couple of years, and he will not be able to highlight new goals and aspirations.

He will never be able to get his shot off, successfully taking out his opponent, as the field will be too cluttered to focus on one target.

This is an ingenious strategy, and if anyone thinks the field of GOP candidates haven’t talked this over, you are foolish. They are all going to systematically come at Obama. they are letting the crazies take a first stab, Trump, and then everyone is going to fall into the race.

Bullrushing worked before, and it has to work again this time, if they want to win.

This is quite the disgusting case of irony

South Dakota moves to legalize killing abortion providers, essentially making it legal to kill any doctor who performs an abortion or harms a fetus by expanding the definition of “justifiable homicide.”

So, pro-lifers are for killing people. Ah, the irony of the situation is perplexing to say the least.

FTA: “The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Phil Jensen, a committed foe of abortion rights, alters the state’s legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person ‘while resisting an attempt to harm’ that person’s unborn child or the unborn child of that person’s spouse, partner, parent, or child. If the bill passes, it could in theory allow a woman’s father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion—even if she wanted one.”

The argument over abortion is a tricky and lengthy conversation. Science says several things, religion says several things and people implant their own thoughts into when exactly the “beginning of life” actually begins.

But ending a life that is currently living should not be “justifiable” by any extent. I don’t care how much people want to extend the definition of “justifiable homicide” but killing is wrong and sinful unto itself. Placing “justifiable” in front of “homicide” hardly changes the fact that the 10 Commandments do not ever once say “justifiable homicide” in them. “Thou shalt not kill” or “You shall not murder,” depending on the interpretation of the Bible you are reading.

We can argue until we are blue in the face about how to go about whether we are pro-choice or pro-life. We can argue over funding of programs and the choice of a woman or should it be the choice of the parents. We can argue over whether rape or incest victims fit into the argument. We can justify any peaceful action or discussion in this argument.

However, no justification can be made for this type “justifiable homicide.”