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"Tyrants almost always disguise their lust for power as sympathy for the persecuted and downtrodden .."

Who did the following George Dubya or Chavez.

Pass a law giving him total authority over the entire federal government.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20 070509-12.html

Plotted to steal an election through a rigged electronic voting machine, targeting ethnecally unsound voters. Eg blacks and Hispanics and overseas members of the armed forces who were also black or Hispanic.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/1725601 2.htm

Invaded a country and steal the oil and sell it back to them.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052607Z.shtml

Revoke the US commitment to the Geneva Conventions, something that was implimented by the US in the aftermath of the nazi excesses of WW2.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Cheney_criticizes_Ge neva_Convention_in_Military_0526.html

Dispense with the right to a fair trial

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/05/20/AR2007052001409.html

Announce you are planning to cancel the nuclear arms reduction treaty with the Russian Federation and put missiles in Bulgaria, Romania and Poland.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/05/20/AR2007052001409.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6708459.st m

Enthuse the police to shoot anti globalization protestors

http://youtube.com/watch?v=G63FEamhpA0&mode=relate d&search=

Can you show a link detailing the accusation you bring up?

Cambridge Energy Research Associates said in a report that the world has some 3.74 trillion barrels of oil left -- enough to last 122 years at current consumption rates and triple the amount estimated by "peak oil" theorists.

Sounds like their analysis is rather simplistic. They looked at the *current* consumption rates, assumed that consumption rates would be static for the next 122 years, and then said we've got plenty of oil for 122 years. Nevermind the fact that places like China and India are quickly increasing their oil consumption.

China's petroleum imports are expected to grow fourfold from 2003 to 2030 Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/oil.html

World oil consumption rose by about 1.2 million barrels per day in 2005, after an increase of 2.6 million barrels per day in 2004. Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/oil.html

Overall, global oil consumption is expected to grow by about 1.4 percent each year over the next 25 years - roughly a 40% increase. If those rates hold steady, we'll be using twice the oil in 50 years. Based on increasing oil consumption, that 122 years shrinks down to something like 80 years.

Further, their report assumed a bunch of new oil discoveries, and that we'll be extracting known, but expensive-to-extract oil deposits in shale and other places. Nevermind that these alternatives routinely rank in the $70-$100 per barrel range. Here's a graphic of their sources of oil: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington//160120 61.htm

It says:
1.08 trillion barrels already consumed
0.76 trillion barrels available from conventional sources
1.07 trillion barrels yet to be discovered
1.91 trillion barrels available from unconventional sources

In other words, of the 3.74 trillion barrels they're talking about, 30% is assumed to exist (we just haven't found it yet), and 50% is from unconventional sources (ranging from expensive to extremely expensive). Only 20% of their 3.74 trillion barrel estimate comes from known, economical sources! That means that known, conventional sources are expected to run out in 24 years - and that's according to current consumption rates, so 24 years is an overestimate. We'd better hope that lots of new oil is discovered and put into production before then (it takes about 10 years to get a new oil well up and running to full capacity), and we'll be switching to more and more expensive unconventional sources in the meantime.

Remember - peak oil doesn't say when the oil will run out, it talks about the interplay between cost, consumption, and economics.

Maybe now they can find the missing 2.3 trillion dollars and maybe the Defense Department's Office of the Inspector General will finally be able to improve the pentagons accounting standards

Basing a war on lies is wrong for the person who does it, but our soldiers, the people GP was talking about, did not base their actions in this ware on lies. They based them on fairly accurate opinions of the Iraq situation built up over the last 12 years.

You know I'm amazed some americans still believe this.

The Downing street memo
Doubts, dissent stripped from public version of Iraq assessment
CIA leak illustrates selective use of intelligence on Iraq
Bush talking on the political advantages of war in 99

We didn't attack Iraq, we attacked its government. There is a huge difference. The country as a whole still suffers consequences, but that doesn't diminish the distinction.

The people of Iraq may not agree. I sure as hell don't. Collateral damage is newspeak:
U.S. invasion responsible deaths of over 250,000 civilians in Iraq
THE REAL WMD'S IN IRAQ - OURS
Displaced Iraqis 'living like animals'
'unknown Americans' are provoking civil war in Iraq
The Missing Girls of Iraq

Basing a war on lies is wrong for the person who does it, but our soldiers, the people GP was talking about, did not base their actions in this ware on lies. They based them on fairly accurate opinions of the Iraq situation built up over the last 12 years.

You know I'm amazed some americans still believe this.

The Downing street memo
Doubts, dissent stripped from public version of Iraq assessment
CIA leak illustrates selective use of intelligence on Iraq
Bush talking on the political advantages of war in 99

We didn't attack Iraq, we attacked its government. There is a huge difference. The country as a whole still suffers consequences, but that doesn't diminish the distinction.

The people of Iraq may not agree. I sure as hell don't. Collateral damage is newspeak:
U.S. invasion responsible deaths of over 250,000 civilians in Iraq
THE REAL WMD'S IN IRAQ - OURS
Displaced Iraqis 'living like animals'
'unknown Americans' are provoking civil war in Iraq
The Missing Girls of Iraq

Yes, we agree on many points. And I'm glad we managed to keep this civil. The points we disagree on are rather big though:

I do not believe that the death of tens of thousands of civilians can be justified by claiming to be bringing democracy.

I do not believe that you can force democracy on a country. All you can achive that way is a pseudo colony with a pseudo democracy. The kind of situation leading to the current state of Africa.

I do not believe that Bush believed there were WMDs in Iraq, nor that Iraq was closely tied to Al Quaeda, nor that Iraq was any kind of threat to the US.
I do believe that the "intelligence failures" were 100% intentional.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-15936 07,00.html
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/sp ecial_packages/iraq/intelligence/11901380.htm
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/sp ecial_packages/iraq/intelligence/12995512.htm

I do not believe that Bush invaded Iraq for humanitarian reasons.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
This count is most likely closer to the truth:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11 674.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2006/05/12/wirq12.xml
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2162249, 00.html
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1 186519,00.html
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArti cle.asp?articleID=8218

The list is endless but I'll stop here.

I believe that Bush does and will continue to do exactly whatever he feels will benefit him, with no concern what so ever for how many dies for his gain. Not that you actually need anything but his actions and his statements to prove this, but here are more links:
http://downingstreetmemo.com/archive/2004-10-31-Ho ustonChron-Herskowitz/
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12 885.htm

I believe that Bush is now planning his next war of aggression.
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&trh=20 060511&hn=33036
http://www.rense.com/general71/tdarg.htm
http://wakeupfromyourslumber.blogspot.com/2006/05/ us-feverishly-works-to-frame-iran_13.html
http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/2006/05/839133.sh tml
http://english.people.com.cn/200605/13/eng20060513 _265252.html
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Condoleeza_Rice_ admits_she_responded_to_0509.html

Yes, we agree on many points. And I'm glad we managed to keep this civil. The points we disagree on are rather big though:

I do not believe that the death of tens of thousands of civilians can be justified by claiming to be bringing democracy.

I do not believe that you can force democracy on a country. All you can achive that way is a pseudo colony with a pseudo democracy. The kind of situation leading to the current state of Africa.

I do not believe that Bush believed there were WMDs in Iraq, nor that Iraq was closely tied to Al Quaeda, nor that Iraq was any kind of threat to the US.
I do believe that the "intelligence failures" were 100% intentional.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-15936 07,00.html
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/sp ecial_packages/iraq/intelligence/11901380.htm
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/sp ecial_packages/iraq/intelligence/12995512.htm

I do not believe that Bush invaded Iraq for humanitarian reasons.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
This count is most likely closer to the truth:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11 674.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2006/05/12/wirq12.xml
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2162249, 00.html
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1 186519,00.html
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArti cle.asp?articleID=8218

The list is endless but I'll stop here.

I believe that Bush does and will continue to do exactly whatever he feels will benefit him, with no concern what so ever for how many dies for his gain. Not that you actually need anything but his actions and his statements to prove this, but here are more links:
http://downingstreetmemo.com/archive/2004-10-31-Ho ustonChron-Herskowitz/
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12 885.htm

I believe that Bush is now planning his next war of aggression.
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&trh=20 060511&hn=33036
http://www.rense.com/general71/tdarg.htm
http://wakeupfromyourslumber.blogspot.com/2006/05/ us-feverishly-works-to-frame-iran_13.html
http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/2006/05/839133.sh tml
http://english.people.com.cn/200605/13/eng20060513 _265252.html
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Condoleeza_Rice_ admits_she_responded_to_0509.html

FDA oversight of 'off-label' drug use wanes
By CHRIS ADAMS and ALISON YOUNG
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- In 1962, a Congress horrified that thousands of European babies had been deformed by the medication thalidomide ordered the Food and Drug Administration to make sure the same thing never happened in America.

Congress gave the FDA the power to assess the safety and effectiveness of all drugs before they could be sold on the U.S. market.

Forty years later, however, an ever-growing segment of the American pharmaceutical business is eluding that rigorous scrutiny. Millions of patients are being given drugs by their doctors that the FDA hasn't approved for treating their particular illnesses. Off-label prescribing, as it's called, puts patients at risk while offering no assurance the drugs will work.

And while the FDA has argued in court that the "risk to the public from unproven uses of drugs and devices is both real and substantial," the agency rarely has tried to curb it. When it attempted to do so in the 1990s, its efforts fizzled.
Now as the phenomenon soars -- Knight Ridder found that off-label prescribing for a sample

of top-selling drugs has nearly doubled in the last five years -- the Bush administration has opened the door to doing even less to stop it.

Saying recent court rulings have eroded its power, the FDA has sought public comment on whether drug makers should have more leeway to market the unapproved uses of their profitable drugs. Overseeing the effort is a Bush appointee who, before coming to the FDA, helped sue the agency over its marketing and advertising restrictions.

"They certainly are backing off," said Michael Wilkes, the vice dean at the School of Medicine at the University of California, Davis. He studied off-label promotions for the FDA in the 1990s.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/sp ecial_packages/riskyrx/7152542.htm

You wouldn't be refering to Petey Hoekstra, who just last July participated in a secret Parisian ménage à trois with Congressman Curt '007' Weldon, and an agent of known prevaricator, and conman to the reagancomics, Manucher Ghorbanifar?

House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Peter Hoekstra and Rep. Curt Weldon met secretly in Europe last week with an Iranian exile who CIA officials charge has passed worthless or bogus intelligence to the United States, current and former U.S. government officials said.

The Paris meeting appears to be the latest in a string of incidents in which players outside the intelligence community try to affect American foreign policy by highlighting threats that the CIA and other agencies find dubious.

[. . .]

Weldon, R-Pa., claims in a new book that the Iranian exile, whom he calls "Ali," told him of dramatic Iranian-sponsored terrorist plots against the United States.

But the CIA says that it has wasted hundreds of hours checking the claims of Ali - whose real name is Fereidoun Mahdavi - and that they are a mix of fabrications and embellishments of press reports, according to a letter from the CIA to Weldon.

The meeting was disclosed by current and former U.S. officials who requested anonymity because they said they did not want to anger Weldon or Hoekstra.

Mahdavi is a longtime associate of Iranian arms merchant Manucher Ghorbanifar, the officials say. Ghorbanifar, a key figure in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, has had two CIA "burn notices" issued on him, meaning agency officers are not to deal with him.

Warren P. Strobel, "Lawmakers met with Iranian exile scrutinized over intelligence", Knight Ridder Newspapers, July 20, 2005

The same Hoekstra who was part of the GOP House leadership that greenlighted LtCol Anthony Shaffer's motor mouth?

House Republican leaders approved in advance plans by a military intelligence official to go public with details of a top-secret Pentagon project code-named Able Danger.

Army Reserve Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer says the data-mining project identified Mohamed Atta and three of the other September 11 hijackers as members of an al Qaeda cell more than a year before the attacks.

"I spoke personally to Denny Hastert and to Pete Hoekstra," Col. Shaffer said. Mr. Hastert, Illinois Republican, is speaker of the House, and Mr. Hoekstra, Michigan Republican, is chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

"I was given assurances by [them] that this was the right thing to do. ... I was given assurances we would not suffer any adverse consequences for bringing this to the attention of the public," Col. Shaffer said.

Shaun Waterman, Colonel got permission to disclose pre-9/11 data", UPI/WashTimes, August 22, 2005

That's right citizens, move along...nothing to see here...Congressman Hoekstra is on it...

The article is sorely lacking in good pictures. Surfing around, the Philadelphia Inquirer has a much more thorough article here.

They've also got a flash presentation with exploded diagrams of the structure of the car. http://www.realcities.com/multimedia/philly/inquir er/KRT_packages/archive/graphics/hybrid_car/index. html

In fact, not even a day later, Bush's staff explains that Bush was full of shit when promising to reduce America's addiction to foreign oil. Just as I expected.

Now what was that about believing Bush on something like pharmaco patents?

And did I hear something about America's faith in Bush?

Manipulated intelligence, you mean. This was reported by Knight-Ridder long before the Downing Street memo came to light; in fact it was reported even before the illegal invasion itself.

And stick the evidence of Chertoff's miserable failure up your ass, too.

Or maybe you'll be pleased to read how Bush called R-MS Governor Barbour several times, but D-LA Governor Blanco couldn't even get Bush to return her calls during the catastrophe. Maybe that's why you suck up to these lethally incompetent partisans: you think they might cut you in on the booty, instead of leaving you to drown.

You're running cover for murderers now, rightwing asshole. Enjoy it while you can. Because none of these Neros hears all the hard work you're doing - you're just as expendible as the next schmuck.

Last year, FEMA spent $250,000 to conduct an eight-day hurricane drill for a mock killer storm hitting New Orleans. Some 250 emergency officials attended. Many of the scenarios now playing out, including a helicopter evacuation of the Superdome, were discussed in that drill for a fictional storm named Pam.

This year, the group was to design a plan to fix such unresolved problems as evacuating sick and injured people from the Superdome and housing tens of thousands of stranded citizens.

Funding for that planning was cut, said Tolbert, the former FEMA disaster response director.

"A lot of good was done, but it just wasn't finished," said Tolbert, who was the disaster chief for the state of North Carolina. "I don't know if it would have saved more lives. It would have made the response faster. You might say it would have saved lives."

FEMA wasn't alone in cutting hurricane spending in New Orleans and the surrounding area.

Federal flood control spending for southeastern Louisiana has been chopped from $69 million in 2001 to $36.5 million in 2005, according to budget documents. Federal hurricane protection for the Lake Pontchartrain vicinity in the Army Corps of Engineers' budget dropped from $14.25 million in 2002 to $5.7 million this year. Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu requested $27 million this year.

Both the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper and a local business magazine reported that the effects of the budget cuts at the Army Corps of Engineers were severe.

In 2004, the Corps essentially stopped major work on the now-breached levee system that had protected New Orleans from flooding. It was the first such stoppage in 37 years, the Times-Picayune reported.

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay," Jefferson Parish emergency management chief Walter Maestri told the newspaper. "Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

The Army Corps' New Orleans office, facing a $71 million cut, also eliminated funds to pay for a study on how to protect the Crescent City from a Category 5 storm, New Orleans City Business reported in June.

Being prepared for a disaster is basic emergency management, disaster experts say.

For example, in the 1990s, in planning for a New Orleans nightmare scenario, the federal government figured it would pre-deploy nearby ships with pumps to remove water from the below-sea-level city and have hospital ships nearby, said James Lee Witt, who was FEMA director under President Clinton.

Federal officials said a hospital ship would leave from Baltimore on Friday.

Yesterday there were news reports that the Bush administration is suppressing the generation of a report which would estimate the success of the War On Terror. Last years report was such an embarassment to the administration because the first release of the report indicated that Bush was completely triumphant in that world terrorism was reduced significantly. He ran with this news in the run up to the 2004 election. Shortly after the election a footnote appeared which explained that the results of that report were flawed, and that world terrorism has actually increased since Bush was in office. This was very, very embarassing for the dumb-fark Bush.

SOLUTION: Don't come out with the report this year. We don't want people to know the truth that America is losing the war on terrorism. Less information is good for the administration, because it becomes easier for them to lie to the people.

This is the worst damn administration and worst president EVER...

Michael

Link to story

Where do these people come from? I don't like Kerry one bit either, but Bush has done nothing to show that he deserves any American's trust in the war on terrorism. News flash -- his unprovoked war in Iraq has actually increased terrorism. And while his actions in Afghanistan have helped destroy some of al-Qaeda's leadership, the organization has gotten more resilient as new leaders have emerged, and bin Laden has inspired hosts of other terrorist groups, and his ideology has gotten stronger. And don't forget that Bush gave al Qaeda a month to regroup and abandon bases and training camps that US officials knew the locations of because he wanted to invade Iraq first! These are just some basic military realities; never mind the long series of scandals and embarassments this administration has led us through. How is it, after 3 years of miserable failure, people still trust George W. Bush to win the war on terrorism?

I've registered for the New York Times, Washington Post, the Belo conglomerate (Dallas Morning News etc.). These sites ask for email address and a small amount of info. Yes, it is annoying, but I can live with it.

But check out the registration for the Miami Herald. They want:

• Email address
• Name
• Complete home address
• Gender
• Year of birth

But even if you do not opt in to receive emails for any "newsletters", "special deals" or "discount" emails, the fine print says that:

Occasionally, we will send you email to update you on new features and products from Herald.com and on behalf of our selected partners and advertisers.

Come on now, I love Dave Barry, but there is no way I'm going to give them permission to spam me!

This study of al Qaeda terrorists in particular backs this point up. It may be true that many "fundamentalists" are not so bright, the ones who stay committed enough to become terrorists tend to be pretty bright (and I think this is true of other religious fundamentalisms as well, not just Islamists).

From this article:

One, which he called human interaction, would send a puzzle back to the sender. The puzzle would be designed so that only a human could solve it. The e-mail would be accepted only if the puzzle were solved.

Maybe they should team up with the Maytag repairman.

Gordon Jump, dude. Gordon Jump.

I would like to help solidify your platform.

• Abortion: Spot on, man. Making abortion illegal has the direct result of teenagers in bathtubs with coathangers, which are far more of a burden on our health care system. Besides, there's supposed to be separation of church and state, and anti-abortion is a religious stance in most cases.
• Taxes: Please read up on the FairTax initiative. My favorite part is that it taxes consumption rather than earnings, so those who reuse/recycle/buy used goods/consume less will end up paying less taxes.
• Death Penalty: Abolish it. If even 0.001% of the criminals executed are innocent, it's too many. And statistics show that it costs less to keep a criminal in jail for the rest of their life, than it costs to execute them. From both a compassionate and fiscal stance, eliminating the death penalty makes sense.
• Gun Control: This is a tough one. Why should someone be denied the ability (right?) to defend themselves and their family simply because of a mistake they made in their past? And requiring a license makes it easy to "round up the guns" which the Nazis did in taking over power. A disarmed populace is an easily controlled populace. The 2nd Amendment is important; however, there needs to be a balance because otherwise violence may get out of hand. Long story short I think I'd leave it the way it currently is, or perhaps put less restrictions on it.
• Space Program: Another post had a quote from Jerry Pournelle with a great plan: the government would give a tax-free reward to the first American company to cross a specific finish line. Here's a link to that post.
• Prayer in School: Your later response is correct: prayer should not be mandatory, led by school officials, or otherwise forced on students; and also, students should not be prevented from praying (as long as they don't do it out loud).
• Education: Web cams in classrooms will go a long way toward bettering the teachers; if the teachers are graded by the students then teachers might "dumb down" their classes so the students like them better. But having the parents grade the teachers makes sense -- the parents can watch the teachers in action through the webcams, and can also judge how well their child is learning by asking their child questions. Funding should be increased, and by funding I mean teachers salaries should be doubled (or so). Give financial incentives to enter a teaching profession and we'll get better teachers. So we can finally do away with the old saying, "Those who can't do, teach. (And those who can't teach, teach gym.)"
• War in Iraq: I'd like to say get out now, stop wasting money. We've spent $75 billion, and Bush is now asking for $87 billion more. Iraq oil could generate $12 billion next year and $20 billion/year for the next two years (can't find the article, I read it last week). Given this, we would need to appropriate 100% of Iraq's oil revenues for ourselves for 7-10 years in order to "pay for" our military action. I don't think we're going to see that money, which is why I recommend getting out fast and letting the UN clean it up.
• War on Drugs: Pot should be legal, agreed -- then we'd spend far less money enforcing laws that a majority don't want in the first place; and we'd also enjoy increased tax revenue. Treat it just like alcohol: enjoy your body and mind on your own time, but if you're in

SiliconValley.com has audio of one of their reporter's interviews with Danger CEO Andy Rubin. Interesting stuff...

Lots of robots don't even request /robots.txt, but proceed to download and index stories.

Requiring registration is more than 10 times as effective in stopping robots, as /robots.txt is.

Note that the NYTimes and other sites often allow backdoor entry with referers. For example, one of my favorite news portals is MyNewsFirst.com. When you click on a NYTimes story listed there, you don't have to register, because it sends either a "passthrough referer", or an extra query string certificate (e.g. &partner=mynewsfirst), which bypasses the registration requirement.

I'm just glad most RealCities newspapers aren't doing it yet, since they provide geographically diverse news.

Look Jon -- It's a convenient device to raise the battle between Spider-man and AotC to the level of culture-shifting battles between one kids generation and the next.

But to say that Lucas has a lock on marketroid obsession and that the Stan Lee clan hasn't tried to "shroud Spider-man in market hype", and that that's why Spider-man is winning the hearts of all the little Generation X++ers, isn't just wishful thinking... it's plain wrong.

For breakfast this morning, I had Kellog's Spider-man cereal. (Honestly. I really did.) It tasted just like Cap'n Crunch Berries, but it sure looked like little spider webs. I could have tried the Spider-man Pop-tarts or Rice-Krispies, but I was in the mood for something a little sweeter.

After breakfast I signed up for the new Spider-man Cingular account that I saw lots of cool commecials for, and entered to win a custom Spider-man Dodge Viper.

Then I popped over to Wal-mart to pick up the new Spider-man game, and found out I could get a free trip to Universal Studios, complements of Sam Walton! For lunch I "swung into Carl's Jr" or did I "drop into Hardee's" for a quick Spider-man burger, and washed it down with a Spider-man Dr. Pepper, which I became a big fan of ever since I heard they were racing a Spider-man Dr. Pepper car in the NASCAR Busch Series.

The amazing thing is, even the marketing press is completely aware of what Sony Pictures is doing with Spider-man. Why aren't you?

I work in the online newspaper industry and before taking a cushy, stress-free job in a small civil war town in Virginia, I supported most of the Knight Ridder-owned newspaper sites as well as a number of sites owned by Gannett and Landmark Communications (Detroit Free Press, San Jose Mercury, Washington Times, Miami Herald, Virginian Pilot, etc.). Knight-Ridder got big on portals about 2 years ago and began building this which you will see, looks a lot like the other portals.

A portal is just what it says. It is a window to all the news, websites, etc available on the internet that is of interest to the user. Remember MyExcite? The way you can tell it what weather, news, links, etc. you wanted to see?

The goal of a portal is to make a better homepage than a simple link to your bookmarks (like I do). The goal of a search engine is nothing more than finding information, whereas a good portal provides the information you want on your homepage and has a search function should you need something else.

Because unfortunately, most of the stories your paper runs from outside the local area are probably from one source (the AP collective). And because, like it or not, if the NYT or the WSJ or the Washington Post prints it, most reporters think something is true. And because if a newspaper prints it, the TeeVee drones dutifully put it on the air, minus 99 percent of the content and analysis. And because most of the media (probably including yours) is owned by gigantic evil mega-corporations obsessed with increasing shareholder value at the expense of their viewers'/readers' minds.

More importantly, though, your average local reporter knows a little about a lot, but a lot about only a little, of what she or he covers. That means we rely on experts, and I think too often, we anoint experts without really knowing too much about how much they actually know.

And I think using the Nexis-Lexis database to find experts is just about the WORST thing a reporter can do. Because that leads to the kinds of vicious spirals that turn idiots like Vranesevich into spokesmen for things they know little or nothing about. We should spend a little extra time and find our own experts by researching the field we report on, talking to the relevant players, and figuring out who they respect.

This is an interesting discussion, so don't be offended by my self righteous tone. I sometimes rely on these anointed experts too, but I wish I didn't.

[ps-this was already posted once, but somehow ended up in a completely different article]