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juantimer
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Name: Dr.
Country: United States
State: Hawaii
Interests: Sport fishing, photography, videography, hot rodding, paintball, Internet, gadgets, hardware
Expertise: Eating, sleeping and spending money.
Occupation: Artist
Industry: Media
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
6/13/2003
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| Republicans can't fix the economyThe financial crisis we are seeing these days is the poisonous fruit of a generation of reckless Republican economic policies. The unsustainable growth chicken has come home to roost.
Deregulation or lack of regulation in the financial industry has led to the problems we see now. Republicans are in no position to fix this because it is the basis of their economic policy. So no matter what John McCain says, he is most likely going to go right on doing what Republicans have been doing. That will screw the general public even more than they have been screwed up till now.
Sure, he might suddenly turn "maverick" once in office. But if that's the case, then he will oppose his party and implement policies that are essentially Democratic policies. The extent to which he does this, or whether he does this at all, is far from a sure thing; the only sure thing, then, is electing a Democrat.
It is not wrong to insure the economy against crises like these, because the free market is an unforgiving beast that can trample many blameless working class people, damaging the underpinnings of the economy and creating a downard spiral. Bailouts are not bad things, but bailouts without regulation ARE bad because they invariably will be much larger and more damaging.
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| What speech did they listen to?Maybe that's the problem, they didn't. I listened to Sarah Palin's speech tonight rather than watched it ... and, lack of substance and truthfulness aside, it was awful. Her delivery was shaky and amateurish, it lacked any gravitas and came off as snarky, snide and cheap. By all rights people should be clear beyond a shadow of a doubt now that she is not ready to be VP and is all the more reason to not vote McCain, but from what I'm reading people actually liked it. Oh well, the polls will tell the full story in a few days.
I would like to say it's absolutely disgraceful that the governor of Obama's home state, which overwhelmingly supports Obama, shilled for McCain. She can get fucked. Hopefully the Dems have the balls to hammer on this in future elections, how Republicans will sell the state out for the national party, which holds values (and I use the term loosely) that don't even bear a fleeting resemblance to Hawaii's.
And isn't it ironic that Lingle should appear before a Republican party now trying to tear down a man who happens to be a good speaker and is running on a platform of change?
Fuck Linda Lingle. Fuck Republicans. Fuck Sarah Palin, fuck John McCain, and fuck anybody who votes for them. I put my faith in the electorate to see past these sham candidates, I just hope we can prevent rigged elections in key states this time around.
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| News woesWell in light of recent industry events, I thought I'd reprise a little theme some of you have already heard from me, but which I believe is beyond critical for the news-consuming public to understand.
Conventional wisdom is that the news industry is suffering, especially print news, because "people are getting their news off the internet." This is the #1 comment I see about the plight of the news industry and it's said like some great wise pronouncement; an open and shut case.
But what few beyond industry insiders and observers realize is this: the internet for the most part gets its news off the traditional news industry.
Blogs comment on news items, usually pulled from where? Traditional news outlets. News "community" sites (Slashdot, et. al.) often base discussions on articles, again, from traditional news outlets. In forum discussions, links to traditional news outlets' reports often form the basis of backing up any serious argument.
There's good reason for this. Traditional news outlets have the resources, connections and infrastructure to most seriously report the most reliable news. And therein lies the problem.
The traditional news industry is losing those resources, connections and infrastructure. As its flow of news declines in quality and quantity, internet news will follow suit. Attempts at creating and operating internet-only news sources have met with at best lukewarm success and really only work in a few specific industries, such as technology (kind of an incestuous relationship if you think about it).
This dynamic is quite literally a threat to the first amendment because press freedom is being eroded, not by content censorship but by economic attrition. Part-time and casual journalists simply will not do as good of a job reporting news as full-time reporters, not the least reason for which is there is little accountability when your livelihood is not riding on it. And unquestionably, quantity of news produced cannot be matched on a simple time-spent basis.
So what is the solution? I obviously have no panaceas but the first step to a solution is properly identifying the problem, and that has not even begun yet as far as I have seen. The ultimate solution is the reversal of corporate consolidation of media, which has led to the neglect of its public service role and reduced competition, while increasing profit demands to levels that are no longer sustainable. But in lieu of that, which would surely be fought tooth and nail by said corporations ....
At the very least there should be a proper economic relationship with those who profit off of rebroadcasting news produced by others. Targeting individual bloggers, for example, would be difficult but targeting the advertising companies that pay them might be more viable. Once a blog is identified as one that habitually uses and profits from rebroadcasting what amounts to copyright material, part of its ad revenues could be redirected. To whom? That's another question I suppose.
Government subsidy is usually a taboo subject in journalism as a potential source of conflict of interest. But is it really any more of a conflict than journalism being dependent on corporate profits? Part of journalism training and journalistic ethics is managing these conflicts of interest, so perhaps the subject should be broached. Lord knows the government has no qualms about bailing out other industries deemed critical to public interest.
The journalism industry is indeed critical to public interest, too much so to leave any possibility unconsidered.
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| ChourneyThe new Journey featuring Arnel Pineda is out! 3 Disc set for only 12 bucks!
Downside is it's only available through Wal Mart but meh ... this is the first CD I've bought since Napster went down. Gotta support progressive causes haha ...
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| IndeedSarah Marshall = winner
Fun, fun movie, go see it!
Does anyone still check this crap?
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