Newspaper Endorses the Candidate It's Suing Over Copyright 166
An anonymous reader writes "Remember Righthaven? The copyright troll owned by the owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal? You may remember, then, that Righthaven had sued Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle for posting LVRJ stories on her site. At the same time, LVRJ has been having its execs talk about how copyright infringement is no different than garden variety theft. So ... doesn't it seem a bit odd that the LVRJ is endorsing the very same candidate that it sued for such 'theft'?"
Welcome, (Score:2)
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Love your sig
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You seem to have misspelled fascist.
Corporations (Score:5, Insightful)
. So ... doesn't it seem a bit odd
Corporations aren't just immortals, they're schizophrenic immortals. With 'human' rights.
Try to keep this straight.
Re:Corporations (Score:5, Informative)
Nope, I'd bet it was more of a calculated decision. Put yourself in their position.
You are a local media mogul, and have a political candidate over a barrel. They've committed a violation of law.
There are two options. Well, two main ones. There are of course others.
1) They can fight you in court, but they'll get torn up both publicly in the media (which you own) and in court. They won't win their campaign.
2) You promise to forget about their little transgression, but in exchange you may ask for "favors" in the future. Additionally, you will support them in your media, adding to the stack of redeemable "favors".
Option 1 costs a lot of money, and no one wins.
Option 2 doesn't cost a lot, and it's advantageous to both parties involved. It's dirty, but that's the game of both business and politics.
Any good business person will go for option 2. Any responsible business person will go for option 1. Responsibility goes out the window when you can have a politician in your pocket.
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I like your reasoning.
Yet we have a copyright-abuser local newspaper worried that others might usurp them by having a sued candidate for govenor getting in bed with Fox News http://mediamatters.org/blog/201009220018 [mediamatters.org] instead of them.
Politics makes such odd bedfellows.
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Could be, but I kinda doubt it. Well, I assume they're suing the campaign, right? So if the campaign gets more money, then the campaign has something to pay with. But that's a dangerous prospect. They may accidentally put someone in power who has a grudge against them.
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No, they're sociopathic schizophrenic immortals.
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You left out psychopathic and narcissistic.
Nothing odd about it (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not odd, that's how it's supposed to work. The editorial staff should be independent from the business side of the business. It's only after being exposed to Murdoch-media for too long that you think the owner should be the only one deciding the newspaper's opinions.
It's also possible that the owner is - shock! - able to disagree with someone on one issue but agrees on others. Or maybe he doesn't put his own interest ahead of what he thinks is good for society. OF course if you want to be cynical, maybe he wants the candidate to win so she can pay whatever he's suing for.
Re:Nothing odd about it (Score:4, Insightful)
. It's only after being exposed to Murdoch-media for too long that you think the owner should be the only one deciding the newspaper's opinions.
Randolph Hearst predates him by a century, Ben Franklin when he was publishing stuck his nose into things and every other newspaper owner before them.
Re:Nothing odd about it (Score:5, Insightful)
But don't you realize that Murdoch is "right wing extremism" and that is bad, but people like Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr are okay because he's left wing?
When people troll on about "Faux News" and Murdock I simply point to the problems with other "news" organizations that don't report certain news stories because it doesn't fit the narrative of the left. Which is why people should get the news raw and and unfiltered.
And the internet provides a very broad voice for news accounts of important events and stories. Some are slanted left, others right, and somewhere there is the truth. It is out there, you just have to learn to filter out the bias.
Re:Nothing odd about it (Score:4, Insightful)
>>When people troll on about "Faux News" and Murdock I simply point to the problems with other "news" organizations that don't report certain news stories because it doesn't fit the narrative of the left. Which is why people should get the news raw and and unfiltered.
Shush! Next you'll be asking people to think for themselves!
I honestly think the best way to read news is to read *everything*, from Mother Jones to The Blaze, from NPR to Fox News, and when you find points of disagreement in their narratives, dig into it and figure it out for yourself. Too much work for most people, but if you just listen to one news source, due to the gatekeeper effect, you'll have a very biased idea of what is happening in our world.
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Take the newspaper. They have editorials. They are labeled as such and only two pages out of 50. But a news channel with more editorial than news and nothing differentiating them isn't a news channel. When even their name is lying to me, it's hard to be a fan.
And no, "the other guys do it too" doesn't excuse unethical behavior. If everyone else in you
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This is not a partisan issue. Murdoch isn't worse than Sulzberger because he's conservative and Sulzberger is liberal. Murdoch is worse than Sulzberger because he doesn't care about journalism. Not one little bit.
Other than the various business news organizations News Corp. owns (also probably a lot of local papers which I'm not familiar with) most of his newspapers and TV channels are complete tabloid trash. Fox News devotes 7 hours a day to news (even being generous and counting Shephard Smith and Mat
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It's also possible the paper is owned and published by flaming hypocrites.
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Re:Nothing odd about it (Score:4, Insightful)
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"It's also possible that for whatever deficiencies Sharron Angle exhibits, they see her as a vastly superior choice..."
Which is really fucking scary. Many people believe that Reid is a crappy Senator. Many of those are in his own party. But anyone who seriously believes that Angle would be an improvement is someone who is deficient in critical reasoning, thinking and logic skills.
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It does mean, however that either the owner things a thief is a perfectly viable representative or that the editorial staff believes the owner is wrong about the copying being theft.
It does provide interesting insight into the organization.
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Newspapers are still businesses and as such have financial interests that are affected by public policy.
Not Odd (Score:4, Insightful)
Just a statement on how bad the opposing candidate is.
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Re:Not Odd (Score:5, Insightful)
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Senate/House leaders are chosen on the basis of seniority and the unlikelihood of them being defeated in an election (or "safety", as they put it) and not for actual leadership qualities. This is true of both parties.
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Yeah, and he thinks that losing "only" 36,000 jobs in one day is good
I don't see how his outlook on that would have changed anything. Surely you're not suggesting the US economy had problems because Harry Reid wasn't optimistic enough.
He declared the Iraq war "lost" in 2007, and that the surge would be a failure.
Yep. He doesn't have a crystal ball and is clearly unfit for office. As far as losing the war, that was stupid to say for a politician. I'm not a politician, so I can say we lost the war when we confused Iraq with al qaeda.
He made prejudiced statements about President Obama.
So? Are we going to pretend most people in congress are not at least a little prejudiced? I'm taking it as a given th
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I hate to say it, but the Reps are kinda right about the DREAM Act providing preferred tuition. The problem is that it treats illegals as in-state residents, which they're not; they're illegal immigrants and not valid residents of any state.
Of course, throwing out a bunch of people who were brought into the country when they were small children and never even grew up in Mexico (or elsewhere; not all illegals are from Mexico, many are from Guatamala and other Central/South American countries), and might not
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Additionally, there are tremendous differences by region/location in the costs associated with running those college campuses: land acquisition costs, labor cost reflecting cost of living, and so on.
I hear you on everything else, but this part is irrelevant. If land and labor cost more in one place than another, then that means tuition should cost more in the higher-cost place, that's all. If students want to attend Central Wyoming University to save money, they should be able to do so.
But while I underst
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I wonder how charitable you'd be if all those things were ... say ... GWB? or some "right wing" candidate?
And by the look of the link you provided I can see you're not. I've not seen the ad by Angle, but I suppose it shows illegal immigrants flowing over the southern border and Gasp, HORROR they're all "brown", must be racism. It can't be anything else that Racist White People scared of brown people! Those Racist Teabaggers.
(never mind Rubio of Florida completely breaks the case that Tea Partiers hating "br
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I wonder how charitable you'd be if all those things were ... say ... GWB? or some "right wing" candidate?
I might find those gaffes funnier if it were coming from a republican, true, but it's not what Bush and the right wingers say that I have problems with, it's what they do.
I'd think you all would be past the "racist" thing by now, but you're losing so it is time to break out the old favorite card of the left.
Operagost brought up the race card about Reid. I only talked about it to point out that the pot is calling the kettle black.
Meanwhile I see that you aren't past pulling out the "pulling out the race card" card ;)
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Well, when the race card is played, it is like crying "child molester". You can deny it all you want, but the stench of "racist" or "child molester" never goes away.
Which is why it is hurled in the first place. It makes for a nice boogieman, and everything else becomes irrelevant.
When you can say the same thing about the shenanigans of the (D) you'll have proper outlook. There is no difference between the (D) and the (R)
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Well, when the race card is played, it is like crying "child molester". You can deny it all you want, but the stench of "racist" or "child molester" never goes away.
That might be why operagost threw it at Reid.
When you can say the same thing about the shenanigans of the (D) you'll have proper outlook. There is no difference between the (D) and the (R) parties in regards to how despicable the things they do are. It is called Politics.
So much for "draining the swamp". It is clear that the only way to "drain the swamp" is for us, the voters, to do it.
That second part is what I'm talking about: democrats get no points from me when they said they were going to drain the swamp. They would have gotten points only had they done it.
As far as the first part, I see no evidence to back that up. Recently an effort to get 9/11 responders free healthcare coverage failed because it would have closed a tax loophole for large corporations, and some republicans said illegal immigrants could be covered. I blame democrats f
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Quite frankly, isn't everyone going to get all the healthcare they need with ObamaCare? ;)
Okay, I jest. But seriously, if the bill was about doing just ONE THING, creating a healthcare fund for GZ cleanup and first responders, the (D) could have done it with Broad Bi-partisan support.
I'm sorry, the (D) are
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Maybe Senator Reid hasn't been playing ball with them lately.
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HAHAHahaha, Way to stick up for what you believe in AC.
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So one might argue that Sharon Angle is Nightmare on Elm Street?
Where does this sound familiar? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Apparently you don't realize that in a free society, when you place shares into the free market, anyone can buy them. There's nothing you can do to stop them - it's a free country.
It doesn't look like Rupert was telling him to sell his shares in this photo. [mideast-times.com]
HRH Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, Chairman of Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) met with Mr. Rupert Murdoch Chairman and CEO of News Corporation (News Corp.) at the company's headquarters in New York on Thursday 14th January, 2010.
The meeting began as Prince Alwaleed and Mr. Murdoch discussed economic and investment issues especially in the media sector and the two discussed Rotana and LBCSAT 90% owned by HRH. Moreov
Communication breakdown (Score:2)
Newspapers? Pshaw. (Score:3, Insightful)
I only read newspapers for the hilarity of their inaccuracy and the absurdity of what they leave in and what they leave out.
About twenty years ago when my children were small and we lived in a bad neighborhood, there was a gang war right down the street. Probably more than 50 rounds were fired; it sounded similar to strings of firecrackers going off (the timbre was different, of course). An innocent bystander was shot and crippled as he tried to get his kids inside. I watched a police car go airborne as it crossed the railroad tracks ate a very high rate of speed. Two days later the crack house the gangsters lived in "mysteriously" burned to the ground.
Not a word of this made the paper, [sj-r.com] although "news" of petty vandalism and burglaries and so forth were.
A few weeks ago a school bus carrying fifteen kids ran a red light and was hit by an SUV, and missed being hit by inches by another vehicle. This happened less than two minutes before I walked into the bar at that intersection. Several police cars showed up, then another school bus came by, parked in the biker bar's* [google.com] parking lot and the kids got on it and left. There were no injuries, but the SUV's air bags deployed and it was damaged pretty severely.
The next day's paper carried stories about fender benders, petty vandalism, and residential burglaries. Not a word about the school bus wreck or the school bus driver running a red light with kids on board.
And they wonder why their circulation continues to drop.
* Google maps is out of date; the place is called "Scooter's" now.
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why do you guys use "rate of speed" when "speed" would suffice ? to sound more seriouser ?
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I would argue that the rate of speed would really describe the acceleration, so using "rate of speed" to mean km/h is wrong.
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I only read newspapers for the hilarity of their inaccuracy and the absurdity of what they leave in and what they leave out.
So you are frequenting slashdot for its journalistic excellence, lack of absurdity, and total adherence to the truth.
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Actually it's because believe it or not, sometimes I actually learn something in the comments. I know of no other site where there are real scientists commenting on their field (even though there are some comments as ignorant as others are enlightening). And some of the comments are hilarious.
Journalism has nothing to do with it.
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Like all modern journalism sources, Slashdot isn't very useful for the official writing in the articles, what's useful is the comments (which of course you have to wade through to find interesting info).
It's like that for my own hometown paper, the Arizona Repugnant [azcentral.com]. The articles are horribly biased, missing obviously-needed information, etc., but it's worth reading the website (not the paper version) for the comments, where you'll sometimes find the real story.
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I only read newspapers for the hilarity of their inaccuracy and the absurdity of what they leave in and what they leave out.
So you are frequenting slashdot for its journalistic excellence, lack of absurdity, and total adherence to the truth.
Maybe the GP reads Slashdot for the same reason as he/she reads newspapers.
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There are reasons exciting news doesn't always make it to the paper. The biggest one would be, no reporter or photographers got to the scene. They may have been following bigger stories, or weren't even dispatched to it. A lot of times, they find out about events when citizens call them in. The police don't generally bring journalists along with them. They usually won't even call, unless there's some reason they want it to be leaked.
Just like you shouldn't say a word to a
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The biggest one would be, no reporter or photographers got to the scene.
The one a few weeks ago had several people taking pictures that I'm sure would love to sell to the paper. There are police scanners, which if I were running a newspaper someone would be paid to monitor.
Even if the journalist you're talking to is a honorable and reputable person, before you know it your sound bite or quote fragment makes you look like a serial killing pedophile.
I found that out speaking at a neighborhood meeting that the
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Newspapers are usually more than happy to buy pictures too. But...
If they never go to the paper with the shot, and/or they wanted too much money, or they don't have any information other than the picture, then it's worthless. You have to have text to put with it, or you just ha
It's simple survival tactics... (Score:2, Informative)
"We needed to have the press be our friend
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At least she is honest about it. That's more than you can say for most politicians, who won't ever tell you that they WANT the news to spin things certain ways and want them to ask questions they want to answer.
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Right, because Harry Reid gets so much positive press.
It's obvious (Score:2, Insightful)
The alternative would be to endorse Harry Reid. Given those choices, it doesn't matter what Angle stole, she still looks like the better candidate.
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Abortion for non-life of the mother issues like rape and incest is clearly equivalent to murder, if you believe a fetus is a human being. At least in life-of-the-mother you are trading one life against another, not just taking a life.
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I think you'll find that the pro-life and pro-death-penalty people usually rationalize it on the basis of innocence. You can't kill innocent people like babies. But murderers, rapists, and (worse) muslims? Go to town.
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Exactly ... with the religious right, we're not exactly dealing with the most rational people in the world. They're leading the most extremely subjective lives imaginable. And they are close to half the people in the US. It's very scary.
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Bout the only thing I have heard her say that sounded to have some kind of sanity to it was not fluorinating tap water.
$irony++;
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Wait, isn't Sharron Angle the person who suggested we pay our doctor bill with chickens?!!
Appropriate headline (Score:2)
"Las Vegas Review-Journal endorses garden-variety thief for office!"
Don't call it ironic! (Score:2)
Someone is supposed to say that, right? Whenever a textbook example of irony comes up? Someone idiot to act like everyone else is stupid?
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How is it used incorrectly? When an action is the opposite of what would be expected, it is ironic. The newspaper is suing someone, so the last thing I would expect would be then to support them for public office.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/irony [reference.com]
5: an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.
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Ironically, I would have expected you to agree with his assessment.
so, what is the message here? (Score:2)
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No one should endorse a candidate that they consider to be a thief. Mere disagreement in other matters is not such a big deal.
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Maybe you consider the other guy to be a child molestor. Maybe you consider the other guy to be a bigger thief. Maybe you consider the other guy to be equally thiefy and this guy better in other aspects.
Maybe you don't think being thief is such a bad thing in the first place?
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To actually endorse a candidate I would think you must approve of thievery. Otherwise, the "endorsement" would be of the form "B is a child molester, hold your nose and vote for A".
Why? (Score:2, Troll)
Is editorial independence such a foreign concept to you 'mericans ?
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Is editorial independence such a foreign concept to you 'mericans ?
Possibly so. Thank goodness you're here to explain it to us.
Making blanket statements about other nationalities, however, is a concept we're very familiar with.
It's a Trap!! (Score:5, Funny)
They're trying to get her to repost the endorsement so they can file an additional lawsuit.
multiple explanations (Score:2)
Most probable: the left hand isn't watching the right
Also likely: editorial staff cares more about other issues that differentiate the candidates (copyright is a very low priority for pretty much everyone except the AAs)
Leverage (Score:3, Insightful)
Their lawsuit gives them leverage over her.
If she wins, she gets power.
It's good for business to have leverage over people in power.
Doesn't It Seem a Bit Odd? (Score:3, Insightful)
Parsing error; restart universe... (Score:2)
My brain hiccupped and I read that as (Odd && Just Plain) (Fucking Nuts), like some kind of bizarre sexual airline snack. Oofda.
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In this case it's "we'd rather have a different candidate fronting for the party that's going to vote for our corporate interests, but we got this one and we still want our tax cuts despite the fact that it will deepen the recession".
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I live in the universe where I've read your post twice and you're still talking nonsense.
Bush's tax cuts did nothing to improve the economy and a lot to make things worse for all but the richest in America.
And he's the one who instituted Gitmo, illegal wiretaps, and the war in Iraq.
I'm pretty sure you have no idea why Obama has to keep Gitmo open, no clue why he has to defend the nation against the legal trouble that the illegal wiretaps caused, and probably haven't heard that he's ending the war in Iraq.
So
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Obama the Senator was right to rail against those things.
Obama the President is now stuck having to deal with those things. He can't just evaporate them. Gitmo is a legal quagmire, and moving those people stateside at this point is worse than leaving them where they are. He tried, and got nowhere with Congress on it because it's just too big a pig-fuck.
He stopped illegally wiretapping people, but he has to fight for the nation in the courts because of the illegal wiretaps that Bush conducted. He can't j
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Huh? Deflationary death spiral? It seems to me with all the printing of extra money going on and being handed out by the Federal government, and also from the price hikes I'm seeing, that we're entering an inflationary period.
Of course, IANAE, but then again I don't trust any of the "real" economists to know what's really going on either.
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Give it a few years, you'll be wishing for that deflationary death spiral.
Have you not noticed the USD making a record low against one currency or another on a daily basis?
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...brain...
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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Ideally, the newspaper should be reporting the news and not endorsing anybody.
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Ideally, the newspaper should be reporting the news and not endorsing anybody.
Except when it's in the editorial section where this endorsement happens?
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As long as the staff of the paper is not doing the endorsing, that is fine. Many times the editor uses the editorial section to endorse a candidate which is just as bad.
Newspaper staff shouldn't be using the newspaper as a vehicle to spread their endorsements.
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Well, that's an interesting idea, but runs counter to how newspapers have been run since there were newspapers.
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Why?
A paper is a business, and businesses endorse candidates all the time. Nothing wrong with that at all.
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Because I'd like to be able to trust a news reporter. If they are obviously partial, then that calls their reporting into suspicion.
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As opposed to when their partiality is more subtle? You just take their news at face value then?
Always be suspicious of the reporting. Always. It's all done by partial observers. All of it.
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So they think a thieve as themselves called him is the best candidate for the citizens?
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Angle is a verbally-spastic nutball, with little logic, even less grasp of facts, and nothing to recommend her other than a knowing look while she spews phrases that lack any connection to reality.
You left out that she is not Harry Reid. I believe that most of those who plan on voting for her consider that to be her greatest asset.
Re:*toot* (Score:4, Funny)
Did you get sued for it? Maybe you should think about running for office.
"The fart party: we promise to break the political gridlock in washington and also promise to break wind."
Maybe democrats should look into this as a method of getting past fillibustering everything: there's probably not a rule against farting in the face of the speaker to make him pass out (thus breaking the fillibuster). It's also not like that would be beneath the dignity of the senate.
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Did you get sued for it? Maybe you should think about running for office.
"The fart party: we promise to break the political gridlock in washington and also promise to break wind."
Maybe democrats should look into this as a method of getting past fillibustering everything: there's probably not a rule against farting in the face of the speaker to make him pass out (thus breaking the fillibuster). It's also not like that would be beneath the dignity of the senate.
I like the idea of MMA matches between the senators myself.
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It's *not* amnesia gas.
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But it sure is noxious! You've got to give me that!
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This is also the Senate where a comedian by trade is the smartest guy in the room.
In my experience, the smartest people in the room are usually the comedians. To be good at comedy, you have to understand what's happening around you, smart enough to not take it seriously and see the problems with most of the participants, and with enough empathy to express your thoughts in a way that others will consider funny. All that requires a serious level of intelligence.
Here in the US, surveys around the past severa