Slashdot Mirror

• Commentary: Phil Agre's Election 2000 wrapup, which was sent Dec. 23, 2000, to subscribers to his Red Rock Eater Digest mailing list. No one tears into political jargon and other dissembling rhetoric the way Agre does, and this post-election contribution was widely forwarded around the Net after its publication.
• Feature Journalism: The Bleat by James Lileks, a daily column that's among the best feature writing in any medium, which is more impressive because his subject matter is nothing -- more specifically, the minutiae of his daily life, like movies, moving and odd yearbook discoveries.
• Commentary: Deb Weiss. Though her columns are hosted by the Drudge Report, Weiss is an amateur commentator who graduated from writing letters to the editor, not a professional. Though I disagree with her on every single political issue that matters, I have to admit that in columns like this Oct. 19, 2000, recap of the first Gore-Bush debate, Weiss rips into everyone to the left of Pat Buchanan with style, intelligence and savage wit.

There are lots of multi-billion dollar "non-profit" companies out there. I used to work for one. The way the game is played is this: If you have a surprisingly successful quarter, you pay out huge "bonuses" to your executive staff. That way, they come out just as well as if they were shareholding execs in a for-profit venture.

It's really just a difference of semantics.

Even setting that aside, your theory has one small problem...

If you are a human being, you are biased.

There is no such thing as purely objective journalism. Even those who try be "just the facts" reporters will allow their bias to bleed into their selection of stories, their choices of emphasis, and the "experts" they choose to interview.

As one example, Jim Lehrer of PBS's "News Hour" tries his darndest to be fair and objective, yet vast majority of Republicans who are invited to appear as talking heads on his show are liberal republicans like David Gergan. You are not likely to ever see the likes of Jack Kemp on his show. Mr. Lehrer does not have a similar aversion to the far left, so debates on his show are usually held between a liberal Democrat and a liberal Republican (which results in a very civil debate... lots of consensus of opinion is usually found between them.)

That's why, when I want to read or watch news analysis, I always turn to the extremists on both sides. Why? Because they are up front about their bias. On the Internet, The Smoking Gun makes no secret of being a JonKatzian-style anti-corporate leftist site, while The Drudge Report is published by an unapologetic Republican cheerleader.

The panel of the quirky-yet-entertaining PBS show "Mental Engineering" probably don't really think of themselves as lefties, but do such a poor job of hiding their bias that they might as well have a running caption that says "we hate capitalist marketing". And on the same network we have William F. Buckley's "Firing Line". Nobody ever accused Mr. Buckley of pretending to be unbiased.

When you consume media that is open about their bias, it invites critical thinking, which is a Good Thing. In our local radio market, there is a conservative blowhard named Jason Lewis who dominates the late afternoon drive. I find that about half the time, I disagree with either his position, or the argument he uses to support a position I would otherwise agree with, but I appreciate that he comes right out of the blocks proclaiming his bias. I wish more journalists would do the same.

I know that Slashdot doesn't employ reporters, like CNN and AP. Nevertheless, in claiming to be "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters", and considering the respect Slashdot has earned as a source of editorialized news filtering, doesn't it seem about time for Slashdot to be a source of direct dissemination of this sort of news concerning technological breakthroughs?

Right now, Slashdot in some ways resembles The Drudge Report. Drudge himself is hardly even a hack in the news space. He is, at best, a right-leaning news filtration system, with a taste for lurid sensationalism (hence his willingness to constantly link to stories which many in the right-wing would call immoral, perverse, and/or otherwise not worth calling news...). He is, at worst, a launderer of political gossip for extreme wings of either political party, most especially the right. (Again, his love of the lurid will often lead him to be used as a tool for spreading gossip for the left-wing, normally against political opponents on the right... But such is the lot of a tool and slave of scandal and gossip.)

Point being: Drudge barely participates in traditional journalism (and thank the heavens for that, considering his absolutely cringe-inducing grandstanding). His existence is truly parasitical. He depends solely on real journalists working for other news organizations, magazines, etc. to create his own brand of "news".

Slashdot differs from Drudge Report in many ways obvious to any reader of this message board. The very fact that there is a "community" component to Slashdot, with peer-review of comments, and further reviews of those reviews, is substantially more engaging to the news reader than Drudge's gossip post. Yet the two news sites share a common trait- namely, that they fashion their own "source" of news that is itself simply a filtered bias towards other news, administered dutifully every day by human decision-makers who understand the values / interests / worldviews of the demographic they are serving.

Now, fast-forward to my point about "Pixie Dust", so I can tie this sprawling mess into one universal point and walk to my fridge and grab myself a Bawls or two...

It seems to me that there would be an incentive for companies like IBM to cultivate a direct relationship with top-tier tech-news outlets like Slashdot, so that they could break news of their own breakthroughs even faster than they currently do. (Just as political operatives have incentives to break news on DrudgeReport, for instant penetration of the radars of the community...) It seems a marginal effort would be required to get releases about such breakthroughs DIRECTLY to slashdot, so that we would be able to see it here FIRST, rather than see it first on CNN, then a couple of other sites, and FINALLY breaking on Slashdot (the "news for nerds, stuff that matters" network) after it is already soon to be pulled from front page rotation on CNN, etc. I'd prefer that my specialized news sources, like Slashdot, were breaking stories about their field of specialty (technogeek news, in this case) rather than rehashing the geek ephemera that generalized news powerhouses like CNN are producing.

I want to see Slashdot evolve so that it doesn't continue to subsist in the purely parasitical manner that Drudge does.

I want to see whatever clout you've created as a news brand parlayed into better access to breaking news, right from the source.

I want to see some evidence that the successes you've had are leading to growth not only in awareness about you but in your power and sophistication as a news site.

Most importantly, after saying all this, please consider my last request as carefully as anything else you've seen in this entreaty, should the fates smile on me and moderate me upward into your scrutiny.

As you grow more and more like a news organization, gaining in power and might, for the love of all that is good to us your readers, please oh please don't put another Jon Katz on your payroll.

That is all.

The EU (not necessarily the individual countries, mind you) is not a friend of personal freedom. A few months ago, it outlawed written speech (i.e. newspapers) critical of the government. The Italian government is actively trying to shut down independent Internet journalists (their version of a Matt Drudge. The EU police JAILED an Englishman for not selling bananas on a street market in kilograms.

While a government may hand out food and entertainment to keep people from rioting (just like Rome in its decline), that doesn't mean it's a healthy one.

Besides, a better measure of prosperity is WHERE ARE PEOPLE GOING. Which country more than any other country on earth has people clamoring to get in? Which one has people braving shark infested waters in log floats to reach? Which country has people risking death in the desert to get inside?

The answer is simple. The United States of America.

The US plane was in distress and landed at the nearest airfield, which was the Chinese base.

The developments came as Chinese sources gave a more detailed account of the collision than that given by Zhao Yu, the second Chinese pilot.

Zhao told state-run TV that he and Wang initially tracked the EP-3 at a distance of about 400 metres in their F-8 fighters. He said the US plane veered abruptly, the propeller on its left wing smashing into Wang's plane and causing it to plunge into the sea.

The sources said Zhao's account was incomplete. After seeing the loss of Wang's plane, Zhao radioed ground control for permission to shoot down the US plane, but this was refused, they said.

"The officials at ground control were cool-headed," one source said. "Zhao could have shot the plane down but that would have meant the death of 24 US airmen. It would have been an act of war, whereas the collision was an accident."

The sources said that after the collision, the spy plane attempted to fly to the northeast, away from China. However, Zhao manoeuvred to prevent this and forced the plane to land at Hainan's Lingshui base, where it was immediately surrounded by Chinese military.

The US plane was in distress and landed at the nearest airfield, which was the Chinese base.

The developments came as Chinese sources gave a more detailed account of the collision than that given by Zhao Yu, the second Chinese pilot.

Zhao told state-run TV that he and Wang initially tracked the EP-3 at a distance of about 400 metres in their F-8 fighters. He said the US plane veered abruptly, the propeller on its left wing smashing into Wang's plane and causing it to plunge into the sea.

The sources said Zhao's account was incomplete. After seeing the loss of Wang's plane, Zhao radioed ground control for permission to shoot down the US plane, but this was refused, they said.

"The officials at ground control were cool-headed," one source said. "Zhao could have shot the plane down but that would have meant the death of 24 US airmen. It would have been an act of war, whereas the collision was an accident."

The sources said that after the collision, the spy plane attempted to fly to the northeast, away from China. However, Zhao manoeuvred to prevent this and forced the plane to land at Hainan's Lingshui base, where it was immediately surrounded by Chinese military.

...from washington times

From the Drudge Report: "THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED: NAPSTER TOLD TO STOP
Court directed NAPSTER to remove links to users trading copyrighted songs stored as MP3 files... "

2) Newt Gingrich was for ditching crypto controls several years ago, wrote a very nice two page essay in Boardwatch Magazine (which I still have). Newt, while no longer in office, is about as pro-technology as you can get. Meanwhile, it took massive bribes--er, "contributions" from Silicon Valley to get the Clintonistas to finally back off on those crypto regs.

3) Larry Ellison, Scott McNealy, and various other tech $billionaires bribed the Clinton Administration into declaring war against their competitor Microsoft. Up until then, SV was largely apolitical. Now everyone knows that if they don't make their "contributions" to the Democratic Party, bad things might happen to them.

4) Read Nat Hentoff's (libertarian First Amendment advocate) syndicated columns for more interesting info.

I see President Bush promoting filtering software and parental supervision as a means of countering 'net porn, which, by golly, is all he's been doing.

And we right-wingers have been heavy users of the 'net to get our political message past the liberal media censors (National Review, Town Hall, Matt Drudge, etc). We probably wouldn't have won this past election without the 'net and most of us know it.

I swear, being a Microsoft advocate and reading slashdot is like being a Democrat and reading the Drudge Report.

Don't forget granite canyon. They provide free DNS server hosting. They help quality sites such as the drudge report stay alive.

His whole point was that there is no clear winner nationally or in FL. So does that mean we should allow the loser to twist and manipulate the data with these biased hand counts till he becomes the winner? Of course not! The whole point is that the race is so close that the margin of error is greater than the lead either of the candidates would have in winning! But you still need to have a winner and you need to do it in a fair way, not this selective and biased hand count abomination that Gore and the democrats are trying to do.

Fourth, dimpled chads aren't being counted.

You obviously don't know what you are talking about here. How do you think Gore picked up those 500+ extra votes in Broward county? Anyone who watched the live coverage of the hand counts in that county could see Ms. Gunzburger making up votes for Gore by looking for tiny dimples or faint impressions. By her twisted logic you don't even need a dimple if the rest of the ballot was straight democratic, she would just assume that you meant to vote for Gore if you left that column out. Read this partial transcript of the hand counts if you don't believe me.

I've yet to hear of this video of democrats "bending ballots" ....

Take a look at the transcript above, the republican observers had to ask one of the democratic canvassing board members not to bend the ballots.

~Jazbo

"It doesn't matter who votes, it only matters who counts the votes." -- Stalin

The Drudge Report has vowed to post the latest unconfirmed news before the major news channels are willing to report. It seems to be overloaded, so here's a mirror.

Drudge Report Down?
I've been trying to dredge up THE DRUDGE REPORT since this morning. It's been 12 hours so far. What's up with that? Anybody else able to get in?
He's been bragging all week about how he's going to be posting exit polls as they become available, even if the polls are still open. Slate tried the same thing during the primaries until they were threatened with a law suit by Voter News Service and changed their minds.
Friend Jonah Goldberg is quoted as saying,"I would be shocked, knowing Drudge like I do, if he doesn't do it -- particularly if it pisses people off."
Could DRUDGE be server swamped? DOS'ed? Technical difficulties? chickened out?

The major news sites are all covering the results, but they are also really bogged down.

You think the majors are bogged?

Matt Drudge promised to break the embargo by reporting exit poll data before the polls close. But I haven't been able to get his site to respond with a page for more than 6 hours. (Last success was at 11:15 PST, or 2:15 PM EST.)

Site responds to pings, though. (Paranoia strikes: Maybe somebebody doesn't like Matt reporting results before poll closing. B-) )

The CNN results get updated every few minutes.

What happened to Drudge Report, who swore on reporting election results throughout the day (before the polls closed in each state)? It's been down all day.

I'm expecting at least localized outages. Particularly the drudgereport.com site, since Drudge has pledged to post the results of exit polling. Slate and National Review, which in the past have posted this only-available-to-the-press (i.e. not supposed to be released to the public) data, but have said they won't this time. This will cause a great deal of traffic at the Drudge site, which has been crashed in the past by some breaking stories. It wouldn't surprise me if that resulted in related 'spill-over' outages, like everyone trying to call a particular telephone exchange at one time.

Flynt has only alleged this and has no evidence to back the claim since the informant and him could not agree on a price. The woman at the center of the controversy denied ever having intercourse with Bush has blasted Flynt telling him to "put up, or shut up" with the facts on the Drudge Report last week.

You really need to be careful where you get your information from on the internet.

Check to make sure it's a valid source and not just some propaganda bullshit. Unfortunately, the net makes it very easy to spread untrue information just as easy as it is to promote validated facts.

Sure, there is freedom of speech, but don't believe everything you read on the internet, what may look like valid news may actually be nothing but rumour mongerers spreading their bullshit.

For an example, check out The Drudge Report. Facts or rumours? Make sure you know who you're getting your news from.

I would challange you to back this assertion of yours, but I think it will be more telling to watch this bill get thrashed by Hyde and everyone else on the Judiciary Committee. Selling influence is bi-partisan, and though the entertainment industry leans Democratic, they've hardly put all their eggs in one basket.

And hey, remember the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act? Or the, *drumroll...* DMCA?

Henry Hyde is a good guy-- I don't see what you accomplish by trashing him on general principles. The slashdot They're All Bought Anyway Corps never seems to deploy when democrats are talking. Gore said some virulently anti-gay things in the 80's, but people have been remarkably forgiving of him (I would say, way too forgiving). Republicans on slashdot appear to be guilty until proven innocent-- often, are still 'guilty' no matter how hard they fight for us. If anything, the biggest threat to the CS community is the fact that the community refuses to vote based on the issues they bitch constantly about.

Democrat politicians know that they can support the RIAA, push for national ID's, oppose fair use, support the clipper chip, and hold up export controls on strong encryption. Why? Because programmers vote for them anyway. So, naturally, that is their record. The only technology issue which the democrats can brag about on slashdot right now is the M$ trial-- and their solution, a breakup, makes as much sense as cutting a planaria worm in half: you just get two monopolies.

Yes, Orin Hatch authored the DMCA. And the RIAA and the courts (judges appointed by who? oh yeah, the president) have interpretted the law in ways that Senator Hatch didn't expect or like. That's why the Senate filed a brief with the courts saying that they didn't support the interpretation of the DMCA. That's why they are holding hearings. Hatch pinned Gail Rosen to the wall in the Napster hearings he called, while democrat Diane Feinstein supported the RIAA as it fought the idea of fair use tooth and nail.

So if you are from California (many/most of us are), vote against Feinstein. If you are from Utah, vote for Senator Hatch. That is, if these are the issues you care about. It is very telling that one of the authors of the DMCA is fighting the way it is being interpretted in courts, and we should be helping out.

Of course not. There will always be sites like The Register, The Onion, and The Drudge Report out there simply because they have good news and they are willing to take chances that the 'biggies' won't.

Also, this is America. We're always going to need a news source to point out every time AOL, MSN, or News.com does something stupid.

No, It's right there.
Drudgereport.com
Sometimes it hangs when he does an update.

currently failing DNS Lookup
???

-j

I agree that Slashdot is slow to getting a story out... If you want to get really breaking news, you gotta go to DrudgeReport.com... granted, it's usually about politics, and has a right-wing agenda, but, shit, the stuff comes out before it happens...

I recall last year, during the events at Columbine, when I closely followed the Drudge Report. It is an admittedly sesnationalist news source, but it has its advantages in that it is sensationalist across the board - it will provide links to every source of sensationalist reporting.

What struck me most about the links I found on the Drudge Report is that, given the enormous volume (at least 30) of different news articles it listed regarding Columbine, almost every single article was reporting different "facts" about the story. Most notable, of course, is that until the day after the events, almost every media source in the country was listing a death toll of "at least 25". There is nothing the media likes more than an enormous number of murders to report, presumably because they assume that the number of people who take in their media is directly proportional to the scale of the tragedy being reported. Also remarkable, however, is that most of the news sites listed all manner of "reasons" for the actions of the two killers, and almost every single one of these reasons later turned out to be true.

Most of this erronous reporting centered on either racism, Marilyn Manson, Hitler worship, or the Internet (or a combination of all of these). None of them touched upon the kids' harrassment at the hands of their peers, their open and ridiculed homosexuality, or their seemingly innocuous threats that were made the day before the events on Usenet. Despite all of this false information, I didn't see a *single* retraction in ANY news source that apologized for false or lacking reporting.

Needless to say, I to this day run into people who are convinced that Marilyn Manson should be banned because they caused the tragedy at Columbine. This is the kind of thing that really demonstrates what power false and sensational media reporting has to mold public opinion and allow travesties of justice like the WAVE program to continue unchecked.

One of the serious downsides of the freedom of speech and the press afforded us by the First Amendment is that people are allowed to say anything, regardless of fact, and get away with it unless someone else objects in a court of law. Of course, in a situation like Columbine there isn't a public figure in the world who would dare risk the alienation of voters by protesting the spread of misinformation by the media about two obviously deranged killers. It is much easier to villify, demonize, and dehumanize murderers and write them off under labels like "psycho" than it is to sit down and attempt to truly understand what has happened.

Of course, the WAVE program is a response to current attempts by school administrators to finally undergo this process of trying to understand what causes such tragedies to occur. The problem lies in that these administrators go about this process with a level of judgement that has already been clouded and molded by the previous erronous media reporting. They may say they are trying to be nonpartial and look at the issue from a new angle, but it is obvious that the government of North Carolina is being strongly influenced by both their own pre-formed opinions, and the pre-formed opinions of the voters who keep them in power.

The solution, then, to stopping programs like WAVE is not to go after the Pinkerton corporation, who like typical coperatists are examining nothing but the bottom line. The solution is to work against the spread of misinformation about teen violence and its causes. The media would much rather continue to report about the threat posed by "social outcasts", then admit their own errors and attempt to rectify the problems their false reporting has created.

The general media, then, can not be looked to to help the situation. The only way we can stop this program from expanding and spawning other, similar programs it to somehow find a means of educating the public, of making them aware of media misreporting and sensationalism. I really don't know where to begin in this process, but I'm sure that if some way could be found to do this, things really could get better.

Of course, there is a real obstacle in that general human nature thirsts for "gossipy" and exaggerated stories. There is nothing like the imagined threat of violence to make life seem so much more exciting than it really is. However, something really needs to be done, or problems created by things like the WAVE program will just continue to get worse.

This has been on the Drudge Report for days. I'm still having a hard time deciphering what the point is. I have yet to see a calculation of the number of E-Mails discovered vs the number turned over to the special prosecutor. Not to mention the number with relevent content.

Without knowing if any of the e-mails had relevent content I'd say this is just a case of drudging up more dirt to use against Gore. As far as this being relevent to a discussion of anonymity it will never be allowed for official government correspondence. There are requirements for retaining documents and security regulations. On the other hand, the use of internet e-mail services would have to be curtailed.

Gotta love Drude this made the headline on DrudgeReport....check it out here at yahoo....the report makes more sense in straight english :)

Well that line grows thinner every day.

I say let these guys stretch things as thin as they want. It encourages competition. Traditional news outlets refuse to print (broadcast) tons of not 100%-verified news (even though all the reporters talk about it), and so we have The Drudge Report.

Broadcasters like CBS/NBC have already lost tons of influence to cable, now thet are losing it to the Internet. The more they do to violate this "trust" the sooner their fall will come. I'm not sorry.

-cwk.

The news media reports rumors as rumors all the time. If you don't believe me, watch any of the hundreds of hours devoted each week to covering the 2000 presidential race. (If you can't pry yourself from the monitor, visit the kind of rumormongering journalism: Matt Drudge.)

If a rumor is widespread enough for it to be submitted numerous times to Slashdot, I think they serve a useful purpose by stating this -- as long as they include the caveat that it is a rumor. It's certainly 10 times more useful than Jon Katz taking the current week's hot-button issue, no matter what it is, and turning it into a pity party for misunderstood geeks.

As for picking up the phone and calling Yahoo!, do you really think some random public information droid at the company is going to be honest about a rumored switch to Windows Media Player?

Slashdot: "Hi. Can I speak to Mr. or Mrs. Yahoo?"

Yahoo: "Speaking."

Slashdot: "Have you received secret orders from Redmond that force you to abandon RealPlayer for Windows Media Player?"

Yahoo: "Yes."

Slashdot: "Thanks for letting us know!"

Yahoo: "Call anytime. B-bye."

IMHO, Congress, as individuals, are scared to death about doing anything adverse to the open 'standards' of the net. If there is one thing congress understands, it's backlash. They know about www.gwbush.com, The Drudge Report, the death of DIVX, the death of the Communications Decency Act, and other movements that have been powered, at least in part, by the net. Congress is still trying to grasp what the net is all about, and until they think they figure that out, they will most likely keep their paws off of it.

Of course, I'm probably wrong.

Since so few people read the original article, note also that North Korea has missle technology that can hit Chicago (as well as the entire West Coast).

Also note that this successful test was against a fairly sophisticated Minuteman II ICBM with several decoys around it. The combined velocity at impact was 15,000 mph, or about 6 or 7 kilometers per second.

For a transcript of a military briefing on friday that covered this click here.

A counterexample to the Monica Lewinsky scandal is Salon's coverage of far-right politicians "conspiring" against President Clinton. In this case, the President publically acknowledged the e-zine for news that may never have been seen outside of your local free alternative newspaper.

The media has long been considered to be the fourth branch of the the US government. They cover the bully pulpits of President and the Legistature and keep the public abreast of political happenings. With the arrival of the Net and CNN, the media has become reporting on a 24 hour cycle which meant more invasion of politician's lives and their motives. The consant need for new news forces the media and the media pundits to continue talking, trying to find new scandals, trying to finds new angles on old scandals, trying to tittlate, and letting finding solutions fall onto others.

Katz tries to convince us that the new political "Max Headroom" will change American politics via the Net. But there is no Max Headroom, no entity that exists only on the Net who can show as much charisma as a live/taped politician with party support. It's hard to convey that sense of charisma over the Net and no reason to do so. I can think of few people who get their primary political information off of the Net. Increasing interactability doesn't necessarily mean a net chat when doing a radio talk show will reach so many more people (something politicans are loath to do). I don't expect to vote for someone because of their website anymore than I would vote for them because I got their junk mail. However I can be influenced by a variety of news websites.

The Net has already changed politics, but not in the way that Katz thinks it has or will. It has become another media filter, but one that is improved by not just being another corporate newsmill. It allows disperate views to have their say on a more level playing ground than any other form of media. It's more alternative than your local alternative rag and has more POVs than a cocktail party. As it expands, there will be even more opinions and ideas. The question is if people will listen to them.

-S. Louie

Go here.

First off, fabulous job rob. This is amazing. You're the closest thing I'll ever have to a home page.

Now, the suggestions: The following sites are just begging to be added.

1. Matt Drudge - The Internet Muckraker's headlines would be great. Find out when the President next rapes someone, right here on Slashdot.
2. Goats - Funniest comic on the Web. Not sure how to encapsulate it though... a comic strip's a bit big to put on the frontpage.
3. The NY Times Op-Ed Page - The latest articles from the NY Times would be another great addition.

I look forward to the day when I can take the above sites off 'Evan Vetere's SLashbox'.

Did anyone catch the article in Washington Times last week that told how Jobs was trying to strong-arm the California Congressional delegation to vote against impeachment and conviction?

Every day, it gets worse for Clinton. Now a 13-year-old is being DNA tested to see if he is Clinton's son. The kid's mother was a crack whore from Little Rock. The kid's DNA is being compared against Clinton's DNA information that Kenneth Starr published in his report to Congress. See www.drudgereport.com for more information.

Jobs need to quit inviting Clinton for sleepovers in his house and dump this Loser.

Except for that, Jobs is doing great.