Slashdot Mirror

Rush Limbaugh (www.rushlimbaugh.com) - OK

Website of the Al Franken Show (www.alfrankenshow.com) - "Forbidden, this page (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion."

I didn't say I was in iraq, and wikipedia isn't in the list I tested. Wikipedia is allowed. The one's they are saying are blocked only to marines in iraq are not blocked just to them, but to PACAF (PACific Air Forces)as well.

When I tested your link, I was able to view it.

The list I tested with the same results:

Wonkette - "Forbidden, this page (http://www.wonkette.com/) is categorized as: Forum/Bulletin Boards, Politics/Opinion."
Bill O'Reilly (www.billoreilly.com) - OK
Air America (www.airamericaradio.com) - "Forbidden, this page (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion."
Rush Limbaugh (www.rushlimbaugh.com) - OK
ABC News "The Note" - OK
Website of the Al Franken Show (www.alfrankenshow.com) - "Forbidden, this page (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion."
G. Gordon Liddy Show (www.liddyshow.us) - OK
Don & Mike Show (www.donandmikewebsite.com) - "Forbidden, this page (http://www.donandmikewebsite.com/) is categorized as: Profanity, Entertainment/Recreation/Hobbies."

There is a rather large difference between blocking the WHOLE WEBSITE and the actual streaming media that is linked to on a page! A simple look at cnn.com, msnbc.com, etc will provide plenty of links to high bandwidth VIDEO feeds but blocking cnn.com would be entirely too obvious! But banning some left leaning policatal sites was probably deemed an acceptable risk by someone...

Of course this one is hard to explain:
Wonkette - "Forbidden, this page (http://www.wonkette.com/) is categorized as: Forum/Bulletin Boards, Politics/Opinion

I don't see a high bandwidth content catagorization on that one. But of course BillOrielly.com offers live streaming of his radio show in a huge ad on the home page for members and as such would likely carry the Radio tag. Wouldn't it?

As for public forums there simply isn't enough data points in the sample size. Of course if they fail to mark a site like Slashdot which is ALL about forums and yet catagorize Wonkette which is more of a blog with an offer to comment about posted items since it doesn't allow user submitted topics then it would be the keyword POLITICS which is far more likely to be the filter. Of course why anyone would want to filter POLITICAL content discusing how military benefits are getting screwed with at home is beyond me... Oh yea, talking about benefit reductions undermines our military, but actually DOING it doesn't. Silly me.

Occam's razor and all that would seem to indicate that someone with access to some of the Marine's (only they were mentioned, not all branches) content filtering software just configured it wrong. The conspiracy minded folk concludes they just doesn't like some liberal sites. Of course this does raise the possiblity this was a trial ballon with plausible deniability. Don't forget that the pentagon felt free to carry a number of right wing wackos like Rush on the military channel (VoA or whatever it's called) that it feeds oversees to the troops but refused, stalled, or tied up conterbalancing pro-democratic shows for years. If you want the benefit of the doubt there can't be a paper trail of bias.

One rather interesting difference between left/right websites. Most left leaning sites include the ability to comment about articles and most right ones don't. One might argue that right wing bloggers just don't like to here criticism but this is true even of print magazine's online sites. Exploiting the openess of liberals by flagging all such sites as forums and then deciding to block all forums with political issues would be an interesting sensorship issue. Of course if they don't also block slashdot, google forums, yahoo groups, etc then the motive is obvious, but there aren't enough datapoints to make that conclusion from the info provided.

You're right. They hate our freedom and these are clearly terrorist acts. I don't think I even need to explain the link between them and 911, any idiot can see it.

We know they have weapons of mass destruction. We *KNOW* they have weapons of mass destruction. Freedom, freedom, stay the course, weapons of mass destruction. Freedom, freedom, stay the course, weapons of mass destruction.

Freedom, freedom, stay the course
Weapons of mass destruction

Bring 'em on!

Freedom, freedom, stay the course
Weapons of mass destruction

Fuck Greenland

Freedom, freedom, stay the course
Weapons of mass destruction

Fuck Greenland

Pussy, pansy motherfuckers
You know what you get
When you fuck with the red, the white, and the blue

We're coming to liberate you
We know who's responsible for 911
and it's fucking you

We're number one
We know what's best for you
We're coming to liberate you

Despite the notion that hordes of U.S. IT jobs are being sent offshore, in reality, less than 5% of the 10 million people who make up the U.S. IT job market had been displaced by foreign workers through 2004, says Scot Melland

I can't believe that our current government Spokesperson, Scott Mclellan would actually lie to the American public.

Yeah, they sure a bunch of losers. Not contributing a damn thing to society, just uselessly wanking about how much their dog ate and why their friends from high school don't write. Serious people only get their news and information, from trusted, reliable sources.

Seriously, what the hell is it about blogging that inspires such hatred in some people's hearts? Too many of you guys got ex-girlfriends with Livejournal accounts?

There is, we admit, something hypnotic about Hastert's deadpan delivery of allegedly important dispatches from his cranium; somehow the one-two punch of "I'm excited. This is the future" has us unfortunately contemplating the kind of terse randy talk that must accompany the Speaker's foreplay, e.g. "Baby, yes. I would like to sex you up."

I don't think he has much good to say about the RIAA and major labels either--fortunately, he's been small enough/smart enough to avoid them, yet he's been one of the most influential musicians of the past 25 years...

bonus question: what does his success say about the need for major labels?

/sickening

It might be worthwhile to note the Wonkette summarized the story as:

CNN said to be canning the show, replacing it with monkeys throwing their own shit at each other.

The fact of the matter is, sure, he was a respected tech writer and working for one of the best papers in the country, but there's a huge field growing out there, and I think journalism needs a slight kick in the head to a degree.

Don't get me wrong. I think we put together a great product day in and day out. However, we're bound by the same rigid corporate standards that other large entities are held to.

That's the thing that's so exciting about citizen journalism. You're not worried about a single use of the F-word, or if you forgot to lay out Dilbert on the page (yes, Virginia, people do call about that) -- you're taking it down to the basic elements, what journalism is all about. You don't have to dumb it down. Wonkette is an exciting blog because of its gossipy nature, and the fact that it doesn't give a crap about offending anyone.

Even though, I still think newspapers are an essential resource, but I think blogs and citizen journalism need breathing room, too.

that the websites who make money off of ads will not if nobody clicks on the advert.

Ahh, then those websites are running a failed business model and need to die or figure out how to work the web.

A great example of how websites can leverage advertisers is Wonkette. Her advertising policy reads

Main Section Graphic Ads - Regular Site Sponsorships.
Guarantee 50% of page views on front page, no impression guarantee, no rich media/3rd party served ads.

• 300x250IMU - (Rectangle, within editorial, between 4th and 5th posts on front page and after each post on individual archive pages)
  $500wk $1500 month
• 468x60 IMU - (Top banner, above fold, below logo)
  $400wk $1200 month

that the websites who make money off of ads will not if nobody clicks on the advert.

Ahh, then those websites are running a failed business model and need to die or figure out how to work the web.

A great example of how websites can leverage advertisers is Wonkette. Her advertising policy reads

Main Section Graphic Ads - Regular Site Sponsorships.
Guarantee 50% of page views on front page, no impression guarantee, no rich media/3rd party served ads.

• 300x250IMU - (Rectangle, within editorial, between 4th and 5th posts on front page and after each post on individual archive pages)
  $500wk $1500 month
• 468x60 IMU - (Top banner, above fold, below logo)
  $400wk $1200 month

That's not news. That's regurgitating press releases and product reviews, 95% of the time. The remaining 5% is where they will occasionally get a tip or discover some information others have overlooked. It's not news when someone is feeding it to you

Umm... I am unsure of what your definition of "news" is.

For me "news" is information about something that's happening or has happened recently. Blogs clearly qualify.

If you define news as original reporting then keep in mind that a very large part of content of newspapers/radio/TV comes straight off Reuters or AP newswire. Besides there are blogs such as Wonkette which do provide original reporting :-)

There's a transcript here, although I don't know if it supports what you're saying. O'Reilly pretty much starts off the interview by saying how scary it is that the "stoned slackers" who watch the Daily Show can vote. (Later on, he does say that he's just making fun of the show.) They do bring up about competition a bit later (since O'Reilly was complaining about how the Daily Show got Kerry to come on and he didn't), but that's a ways into the interview.

I'm looking forward to playing the debate drinking game.

Ana Marie Cox over at Wonkette has mastered the art of the political blog. Like all of the other Nick Denton nano-publishing subsidiaries, what makes Wonkette so great is that it treats its subject with a sort of bemused, drawl curiosity, much like a gaggle of upper-classmen watching freshmen arrive for their first day of high school. Cox's humor is so biting, so snarky that literally nobody is outside its pale, which is refreshing these days. However, unlike most bloggers who merely opine on the news, she's cultivated a true insider persona : people from all political quarters of the political scene treat her as one of them. And why not? She's smart, savvy, will turn on any one of them for a scoop and has expressed an interest in buggery: if that doesn't scream one of them, I don't know what does.

Besides, she broke the whole Washingtonienne scandal: that alone makes her aces in my book!

1. Ugga Bugga has good charts/info compression and researching.
   
2. Wonkette for shear entertainment value. She's great, and she has "scooped" the mainstream press, too.
   
3. Majority Report Radio has a blog that can be a good news source.
   
4. News Hounds, the anti-Fox. "We watch Fox so you don't have to."
   
5. Greg Palast has a very informative and well-researched blog.
   
6. Salon's War Room '04 is awesome, even if you have to watch a 30-second ad to read the whole thing. Not really a "blog" per-se, but sort of blog flavored...
   

1. Ugga Bugga has good charts/info compression and researching.
   
2. Wonkette for shear entertainment value. She's great, and she has "scooped" the mainstream press, too.
   
3. Majority Report Radio has a blog that can be a good news source.
   
4. News Hounds, the anti-Fox. "We watch Fox so you don't have to."
   
5. Greg Palast has a very informative and well-researched blog.
   
6. Salon's War Room '04 is awesome, even if you have to watch a 30-second ad to read the whole thing. Not really a "blog" per-se, but sort of blog flavored...
   

• Baseball Crank (baseball + conservative politics)
• Wonkette (more People mag, less politics)
• The Daily Kos (liberal, had a quick but unfortunately wrong analysis of the now-thoroughly-discredited Rather memos)
• Priorities and Frivolities (minimal baseball, principally politics from a centrist and semi-libertarian viewpoint)

While not quite a blog, Howard Kurtz's Media Notes are certainly much more even-handed than most, and the way I start every day:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/column s/kurtzhoward/

Other great kinda blogs are:
http://wonkette.com/
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/Th eNote.html
http://www.rogersimon.com/

When you've had enough of Drudge and MoveOn, and you're ready for dessert, it's time for http://wonkette.com/!

depends on your definition of a good lay

Even the Resident has referred to his wife as a lump in bed.

a pink haired girl wearing a cape, with a dildo collection

Little old lady Republicans are probably lousy lays too but if that is what you are into (and it is legal in your state).

Maybe that was a Catholic priest reference? Keeping track of Conservative perversions can be so difficult, what with all the dominatrix fetishes and girlieboyness.

Have you even bothered to go to Ana's website??? or are you just blathering on like most of the people on this forum, with complete disregard to the facts... true irony considering how many of you claim to want fact checking before posting.

"sounds like a capital..", "majority of the information coming from your loud mouth is false"? Where are you getting this from? Her site, BTW -- for those of you too lazy to look -- is mostly a stand-up (or maybe, sit-down?) comedy routine, with politics and politicians and those who report on politics and politicians being the main topic(s). All you should have to do is look at the graphic at the top of her website to know this is a spoof of a lark of a joke.

I'm your regular run-of-the-mill pretentious journalist. I read the Washington Post every day. I read Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, The National Review, Harpers and others. I find Time and Newsweek basically worthless. And I can't stand most television news.

I love Wonkette.

Wonkette is not journalism.

Her goal is not to inform, her goal is to entertain. Most importantly, she is upfront about this. She makes no proclamation that she will tell the whole truth. Her level of credibility is just a hair above The Onion and that's fine because she's entertaining and doesn't claim to be anything else.

Guess what: The people who read Wonkette know not to go to her for the news. Wonkette is just Entertainment Tonight for people who care about the stars of politics instead of the stars of hollywood etc. I couldn't care less if David Beckham had an affair, but I got a kick out of knowing that Mathew Yglesias was in Best Buy.

But, to get to why this is on Slashdot. Yes, the Internet is different. Previously, the news mediums available to us before were push only. They lectured to us. So, it was natural that articles looked like lectures.

The Internet instead is a conversational medium. As a result, much of it will inevitably look much more like what people are talking about, than a newspaper or even television.

Exactly.

Wonkette's gossip. And it's not presented as really anything else. They link to stories, generally on more reputable sites, and make comments about them. The "scoops" are laced with heavy dollops of wink, nudge, and psst-pass-it-on. Anything that could possibly be considered a scoop provides prime opportunity to make fun of Drudge headlines, and for more comments. For example: KERRY JOCKSTRAP SIZE REVEALED!!! WONKETTE EXCLUSIVE!!! MUST CREDIT WONKETTE!!!

This is like getting pissed off at the Daily Show or the Onion for not performing adequate research into the things they allege in jokes.

You mean like this doozie? (See the video!)