] Y'see, Dennis Miller isn't the genius he pretends to be,
] he's that asshole you see at parties who's always making
] obscure references in the hopes that nobody every calls
] him on it. He's the guy who quotes poetry to girls and
] then feigns embarrassment for showing his "sensitive
] side". He's the guy who reads the Cliff's Notes and
] pretends he read the whole book. Miller knows that 98% of
] the time, he can confuse people with "witty" remarks that
] mean nothing like "Howard Dean reminds me of what happens
] when Steve from Blue's Clues pulls an all-night Red Bull
] and absinthe binge with the Marquis de Sade and Snoop
] Doggy Dog." Miller's shtick worked well when we was
] giving softball interviews to celebrities once a week,
] but now that he's got five hours of per week to fill on a
] news channel, he's clearly out of his league.

You should actually go to this site and click the link to Eric Alterman (liberal writer) wrecking Dennis Miller on his new show.

The Talent Show:

] "Trust in journalism has been declining for a
] generation," said project director Tom Rosenstiel. "This
] study suggests one reason is that news media are locked
] in a vicious cycle. As audiences fragment, newsrooms are
] cut back, which further erodes public trust."
]
] Circulation of English-language daily newspapers has
] dropped 11 percent since 1990; network news ratings are
] down 34 percent since 1994; late night local TV news
] viewership fell 16 percent lower since 1997 and cable
] news viewership has been flat since late 2001.

The public viewing audience has flocked to either the 24 hour news networks or the Internet for their world view.

] Technology was driving many of the changes.
]
] "Journalism is in the midst of an epochal transformation,
] as momentous probably as the invention of the telegraph
] or television," the report said.

We get them all in the end. The audience and the journalists. Dialogue engines are the new medium revolution.

Yahoo! News - Report Sees Bleak Trend in U.S. News Media

Decius wrote:
] Security isn't about technology so much as its about how that
] technology is used. We're not even talking about addressing
] that.
]
] This is a product of the fact that elections administrators
] have been almost totally unwilling to engage in a constructive
] dialog about these problems, preferring instead to play
] political spin zone with it and thereby eliminating any
] credibility they might have had.
]
] While this is a political victory for those who are concerned
] about this problem, if you think its an ideal solution you've
] drunk the koolaid.

Ryan: While that may be the case, the sitation is this: the election is in November. There is not enough time to put another system in effect. Our only hope is to get some kind of backup accountability (which we DO NOT have right now) or to scrap the system altogether. I think that for now, this is the only solution we have. We continue to fight the fight for accountability in the system itself once the election is over.

[ Agreed. It's a stopgap measure. There are some who've always thought printed reciepts would solve the problem... i'm not one of them. I agree w/ Decius insofar as i think the real solution is transparency and easy auditability. A paper reciept doesn't really do that. But it's something. I feel like I'd rather have that than the existing shenanigans.

Although, maybe signifigant shenanigans in a national election is what it's gonna take to convince people what a bad idea this whole thing is. I dunno. -k]

RE: Blog for Democracy: SB-500 Update

There were, no doubt, other mishaps that did not come to light because of the stunning lack of transparency around voting in the state. When a Times editorial writer dropped in on one Palm Beach precinct where there were reports of malfunctioning machines, county officials called the police to remove him.

[ Problems were reported in MD, CA and GA as well, and that's just from major media. eVoting systems are broken. Period. -k]

Florida as the Next Florida

A CNN Political analyst has called weblogs the Liberal answer to Conservative talk shows.
...
The study draws a very different conclusion about the democratic bias then this commentator. They think its because the democrats have a primary this year. They seem to believe that if the U.S. had a democratic president the net would be swarming with republicans. I'm not sure I agree that its that simple.

[ This is an interesting meme that's been floating around for a little while. It definitely seems to me like the majority of the organized blogging on the internet is left of center. I've spent some time trying to figure out why myself, and the first possible conclusion i came to is that my own bias is leading me to sites that trend my direction. That seems less and less likely anymore, now that other people and studies are showing the same kind of left orientaion. I thought it might be because the sort of people able to entertain a dialog online must be somewhat more open minded, which i think seems to be a hallmark of the left more than the right, in general.
Anyway, whatever reason, you can bet that the righties won't let it stay that way forever. Expect a sizable influx of conservative blogs to pop up and try to monopolize the mindshare. Unless they're somehow not wired to succeed in the diverse and chaotic sea that is the internet. -k]

Daily Kos || Weblogs are the liberal answer to talk shows.

] City officials were so concerned about the potentially
] dangerous properties of dihydrogen monoxide that they
] considered banning foam cups after they learned the
] chemical was used in their production.
]
] Then they learned that dihydrogen monoxide - H2O for
] short - is the scientific term for water.

[ D'oh! -k]

sacbee.com -- AP State Wire News -- City falls victim to Internet hoax, considers banning items made with water

] Every citation of contrast is not a negative attack from
] the opposing smear machine. Campaigns are about
] illuminating differences and arguing why your side is
] right.
]
] But voters are entitled to a minimum level of honesty in
] the argument. On that score, Mr. Bush's initial attacks
] fall short. For example, the respective views of the two
] candidates on the proper use of intelligence in the war
] on terrorism are a legitimate -- indeed a critical --
] issue in the first election of a president after Sept.
] 11, 2001. Yet Mr. Bush's attack on a Kerry proposal nine
] years ago to cut the intelligence budget does more to
] distort than to illuminate. When Mr. Kerry proposed a
] $1.5 billion cut over five years in the intelligence
] budget, the United States was reaping the "peace
] dividend" from the Cold War, and the center of
] congressional debate was not whether cuts could be made
] but how much could be cut from Pentagon and CIA spending.
] Mr. Kerry's proposed 1 percent cut was not a "gutting,"
] as Mr. Bush alleged.

[ The Wash. Post in a rare look through the spin... -k]

October in March (washingtonpost.com)

] A $1 million race across the Mojave Desert by driverless
] robots ended Saturday after all 15 entries either broke
] down or withdrew, a race official said.
]
] Two of the entries covered about seven miles of the
] roughly 150-mile course while eight failed to make it to
] the one-mile mark. Others crashed seconds after starting.

[ Not belittle, or whatever, but, i was kinda hoping for more than 7 miles. Must be kinda disappointing. -k]

CNN.com - Robot race ends without a winner - Mar 13, 2004

] Google has been testing a new look with a small percent
] of visitors. I wrote a bookmarklet that lets you make
] Google show you the new look:

[ The look is ok. Nothing revolutionary, but it's cleaner. I'm interested to know if there are backend improvements to go along with the new look.

I'm not gonna be satisfied until the computer knows what i want to look at based on correlating its semantic map with whatever i'm working on. If I happen to be reading a document about global warming affecting coastal sea bird populations, i want the computer to know that and be looking for related information before i ask it, so when i do ask for more, it's right there, sorted by subtopics at multiple levels, coded for relevance and preferably with a prefetched version of the resources already stored locally. -k]

Jesse Ruderman: Experience Google's new look

] I read about Melissa Ann Rowland in the Dallas paper this
] morning By now, most of you probably have read or heard
] that she has been charged with murder for refusing to
] have a C-section which doctors had told her was the only
] way to ensure that both of the twins she was pregnant
] with would survive. One was stillborn. If convicted, Ms.
] Rowland could be sentenced to five years to life in
] prison. She is being held at the Salt Lake City jail.
]
]
] Ever since legislatures started enacting statutes that
] make it a crime to kill a fetus, events have conspired to
] get us to this point - a woman didn't want surgery, and
] is being charged as a murderer for refusing. Think about
] that for a minute - she didn't want to have surgery.
] She's charged with a crime.

[ Total and complete bullshit. If she agrees to the surgery and she dies as a result, did she commit suicide? What if something goes wrong with the surgery and both fetuses die? Double homicide? Absurd. -k]

Eschaton - The War on Women