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Looking for Unbiased War News?
AlexisKai asks: "With the forecast for tomorrow being sunny with a 90% chance of airstrikes, the US government will be clamping down on unpatriotic stories and the rest will be self-censored by the major media anyway. Where are Slashdot readers planning to look for reliable, disinterested reports as events in Iraq unfold?"
It might be worth while to try checking google news since they pull from many different sites. This seems like best choice.
the best source I've been able to find is Guerrilla News Network (gnn.tv)
Ain't no such animal. Imho the closest thing online is BBCi and that's where I'll be spending my bandwidth over the next (hopefully very) few weeks.
Life is like surrealism: if you have to have it explained to you, you can't afford it.
Canada is not participating in the attack against Iraq and therefore any news reported out of Canada will be unbiased. CBC is the Canadian government owned national broadcaster. Click here for a direct link.
I am not sure if this is "Neutral" enough, I would think news from areas such as Hong Kong (China) South China Morning Post maybe a more "neutral" source of news. More ?
Great way to throw a totally unproven topic into a intelligent forum.
Have you any proof of any sites that have been removed by government censorship?
About the only data that I've seen targeted by the government is information that relates to military actions, for the safety of our troops.
I can't believe this even got posted without any proof !
I read em all and then believe 1% of all of what I read. I love the BBC, the Brits are always interesting, polite, and just damn cool.
Zed's dead baby. Zed's dead.
Well, let's see.. we have the US media which is either "patriotic" (look at this anti-war protester, isn't he cute that he thinks anybody cares?) or "politically correct" (be sure to show the opinions 50% support and 50% protestor. try not to get into any details, facts or nuance).
.. well it's mostly propaganda I'm afraid.
Europe is either "pro-American" (President Bush this and President Bush that blah blah let's just copy the feed from CNN) or "anti-American" (can you believe those Americans thinking they are more important than France?).
Middle East news is either "propaganda" (we will be victorious over the American invaders! oh, and never mind about your neighbor who was taken from his house in the middle of the night and executed for dissent) or
So basically, you are surrounded by lies, distortions, and self-censorship.
Personally, I'm watching MSNBC (those retired generals are cool, don't you think?) and listening to BBC World. And reading slashdot of course, though I'd hardly call the crowd here "unbiased".
Wow. Someone who uses 'disinterested' correctly. AlexeisKai, you're my new best friend. =)
As for news sources... thank God we have the Internet. I'm willing to bet some European or South American news sites ought to have a fairly unbiased coverage.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
The sooner you realize that all media is slanted, intentionally or otherwise, the sooner you'll accept that fact and move on. Its just how the nature of media (ALL media, not just news) is.
My advice? Get your news from a variety of different sources, and then check on who THEIR sources are. At least then you'll be somewhat more informed than the average (dumb) Joe who recites facts (or "facts" if we're talking about Fox) without knowing anything about the situation.
And we are involved in the war.
For a fairly neutral, balanced view, try the Sydney Morning Herald.
The news will not cover the war. You won't learn what it was like for some Iraqi soldier to get carbonized instantly by a gunship (because his country's despot ruler is a punk). Why bother? Read an AP or Reuters report and get on with your life, the one with your $3 latte on the way to work tomorrow morning, because your life ain't the one those Iraqis are living, and it sure as hell isn't anything like what FoxCNNMSNBC is gonna show you.
I like their non-liberal bullshit slant on things.
Holy Crap!!! There's "reliable, disinterested reports" about the war out there? No kidding? I didn't know such a thing existed.
You'll have that sometimes...
For links to stories about how hidden elements of the U.S. government sell everyone else on war, see What should be the Response to Violence?
U.S. government agencies like the NSA, CIA, and FBI function as a world-wide secret police force. If they make trouble, they get more attention and funding. There is a huge conflict of interest.
Big weapons makers in the U.S. like GE own media companies, so they can make sure that war is seen as necessary and even interesting and fun. For many people in the U.S. war is an adult video game. They don't really think of the pain and suffering the U.S. government has caused. The U.S. government has bombed 14 countries in 35 years and killed more than 3,000,000 people.
U.S. taxpayers pay Israel $900 per year for every man woman and child in Israel. That money must be used to buy weapons from U.S. weapons makers. So much money for war tends to prevent peace.
The U.S. interferes with needed governmental change in Saudia Arabia. I don't think violence is justified. However, Saudi friends have told me that Osama bin Laden's complaints about the U.S. government are justified.
I find it deeply painful to realize that the government of the U.S. is partly corrupt.
- IP map, reliability
- DNS tests and location of servers
So what could an actual method to do this actually be?
The gauntlet is down.
A blog I run for the wealth
I have found that in such situations, the best that one can do is look for news sources which you expect to be biased towards both sides of the issue. I mean, read BBC and, say, DAWN, a pakistani newspaper (a rather respectable newspaper, very balanced, relative to most others that i have found from islamic countries).
So both of these are mostly very unbiased, but on such a issue, probably leaning to opposite sides. one can expect them to report pretty much all relevant points to the issue between them, and then, once u have all the information, build your own opinion...no, not as easy as getting your opinion ready made for you by a single source, but i think the only way one has any chance at knowing even a part of the truth. I know this is what i am going to do.
One thing i am not going to do is read CNN, though. CNN has recently been a major dissapointment in its over all coverage of ALL issues, from the ENRON and co. scams, to the IRAQ issue. I think they are guilty of fraud, the way they omit an anti-goverment viewpoint, eg in the case of the hugely edited UN weapons inspector transscript posted on CNN (read about it on that other site )...thats just one example. Their coverage of the worldwide anti-war protests could have made one feel that it was just a dozen hippies who made a bit of noise, not the 10 million plus who marched all over the world. What good is the guarentee of freedom of press when the press is unwilling to use that freedom? Its weird that a govt. owned news channel (BBC) manages a much more balanced reporting that a completely independent and very powerfull entity like CNN. The irony get worse when you consider that CNN gained most of its worldwide popularity during operation desert storm, when it was the only international news network allowed to operate from inside iraq by saddam, because, as the iraqi govt put it: "they are the only ones we trust to objectively report the truth".
Its a weird world.
Ghoul2
Sigura Non Grata
Go find whoever taught you what "bias" means and ask for your money back. Bias isn't about whether "facts" presented are "actual"; bias is about which facts are presented. (And if you really think Fox is unbiased news--which is what the question asks for--then you are willfully ignorant.)
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
Shoot, take a course in Latin America's history and the idea that the government of the U.S. is partily corrupt will seem like a gross understatement.
The U.S. government's foreign policy is in no way dictated or influenced by the opinions or needs of American citizens (or any other world citizen, for that matter) or moral imperatives. U.S. foreign policy decisions are made entirely on the basis of economic interest, Cold War style paranoia, or both.
& a quick look at the financial profiles of Bush & a large number of Congress members makes it fairly obvious that U.S. politics has reached a state where lawmakers and U.S. government leaders don't really even need to be bribed by interest groups, they can bribe themselves. For example, Bush's oil-industry stock is going to skyrocket if the U.S. can take control of the Iraqi oil fields for a multitude of reasons. On the domestic side of things, that same oil-industry stock portfolio also discourages him from enacting good environmental policies such as a push for more fuel-efficient automobiles or programs to encourage the development of the United States's public transportation infrastructure.
That's all you need to know. Interesting to read the Bahrain news, Jerusalem Post, Pakistan newswire, etc. All found on Drudgereport.com and news.google.com. Keep away from CNN/ABC/CBS/NBC
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Slashdot.org?
Oh wait... reliable
Radio Netherlands
Guardian
Messages to/for me ( in me journal )
I sympathize with your arguments, and am deeply disappointed with the Bush administration--its existence, its policies, you name it.
But I have to say, I find your arguments completely irresponsible and the source of numerous difficulties in the world today.
For example, 3000000 people killed by US bombing in the past 35 years? What exactly are you referring to? Would you care to elaborate? Where are your sources on that figure?
As for Israel: what about the money funneled illegally (according to international law) to purchase weaponry for Palestinian terrorism? What about intentional killing of innocent Israeli civilians? I'm not about to suggest that Palestinians are solely at fault--far from it--but I'm not about to sit and listen to someone try and pin the Israel-Palestine problem solely on Israel.
And about Saudi Arabia: yes, the Saudi government is a massive problem. Yes, the US isn't doing much to address it. But no one else is either. So I have little sympathy with suggestions that terrorism--against anyone, to say the least of foreign citizenry--is somehow condonable because of what the Saudi government is doing.
I consider myself a very liberal individual, and usually find myself defending liberal positions whereever I am. I find statements such as those you're making incredibly irresponsible, however, especially because they make it more difficult to reason with individuals who are opposed to liberal ideals to begin with. How can someone move closer to convincing another individual that Bush is acting completely irresponsibly in the middle east when fodder such as this is provided to those who say "the only people who oppose US military policy are those who oppose the US irrationally for its own sake"?
This is the same sort of nonsense that led to ridiculous claims that the genocide and exodus in Kosovo was a media scam perpetrated by conservative US media.
As much as I detest the naive corporate conservative religious ideology represented by the current administration, I equally detest opposition that exists for its own sake, based on lies and lacking reason.
Good suggestion. But you say...
"CBC is the Canadian government owned national broadcaster. "
That makes our dear CBC sound like a wing of Canada's Government, which it is not. CBC may be publicly funded, but it does have independance. There have been many times when CBC has been the loudest critic of Government actions, presenting the case with much less bias than the other media conglomerates that live here.
CBC is public broadcasting. That means, or it is supposed to mean, that the people of Canada own the broadcaster. I pay taxes to keep them on the air, and (for once) I'm very pleased to do so.
http://www.alternet.org
Independant Media Center http://www.indymedia.org/ Indymedia is a collective of independent media organizations and hundreds of journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage. Indymedia is a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth.
That "Danish Guy" is Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Danish Prime Minister.
I'm not suggesting BBC coverage is terrible - it is very good in fact, just that any suggestions it is unbiased are exagerated.
Also, the BBC, especially on TV, has a nasty habit of wildly speculating about things. More than once I have seen them suggest that something is certainly going to happen, only for it to later not happen. Quire often the truth gets less coverage than the original incorrect speculation.
I think this is one of the nastier symptoms of "I WANT NEWS NOW!" syndrome. The media is so eager to report news the instant it happens (and public demand drives this) that by the time something has actually happened people are already moving on to speculating what will happen next.
Bambi was a boy.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
...and then read about what really happened in the history books. This doesn't always work -- the Japanese are still claiming that they just had to attack the U.S. out of self-defense -- but it is a lot better than the current "fog of reporting" that we will have for the next weeks.
"Journalism is politics by other means."
:-)
To trust journalists for unbiased anything is to misunderstand the nature of the beast. "Fair and Balanced," via Fox News means they just try to present an offsetting viewpoint to the other mainstream networks. They do this because many feel the others present a decidedly left bias--an assessment open to debate depending on which end of the spectrum one finds himself. However, if this bias weren't perceived by a significant number of people, then Fox News would not be as popular as it is.
Just look at the early years of the US to see how journalism is simply an extension of politics. If you want an unbiased viewpoint on the war, the best way to achieve this is to enlist in the military and volunteer. Then you get to see it with your own eyes, just keep your head down.
Of course, even then, the 'media' (eyes, ears, etc.) will be biased.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
The best probe is that in most issues the BBC is accussed of bias by all the different people holding different opinions about the same issue.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'm sorry, but we have kids to feed all over this country. We have NO MONEY for other countries. Foreign aid is almost always used as a bribe. We are bribing the very rich (95% of the time) for access to community property (forests, oil, coal, etc) while the very rich here and there get richer. Or, in Israel's case, to support their Nazi-esque extermination of the Palestinians. Or, in Russia's case, to try to keep at least some of their nukes under their control.
If there was ANY accountability in America, the free cash pony ride would stop. Maybe donate cash to Zimbabwe - they seem to need it seeing as how the IMF wants their food aid to pay their cash debts, despite there being a famine because of a virtual halt of modern agriculture (because of the land reclaimation there).
Asking for bribery (say that however you like - campaign contributions, pork barrel projects, aid, contracts that never seem to go anywhere yet never get cancelled either) to stop being involved in politics is like calling for an end to the color blue, though. We need laws that are harshly enforced to stop it. I like 'betraying the public trust'. Kind of like treason for public officials.
I personnally only learned recently of the awfull (and criminal) turkey shooting on the highway of death that happend in gulf war I. I don't think we'll know any detail (that is outside the outcome of war) before very long.
Seeing the war is one thing, but being brainwashed to support the war you're fighting isn't exactly unbiased either. It's my understanding that the military tries very hard to prevent soldiers from assembling any clear picture of the latest world news, so that they will not try to form their own ideas about their cause.
Most of you are activists with a very well defined bias.
Nothing wrong about that unless you pretend it is not true.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
wo3 ye3 dong3 zhong1wen2.
(why did Slashdot disable Unicode HTML entities? Tried to post in UTF-8, but got the stupid
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.)
http://www.uruklink.net/iraq/
Yes, while I admit I had no idea who he was from the picture, I read the caption. Which is how I knew he was a Danish guy.
ABC News.
... the ABC in Australia does its best in most cases to report fairly and accurately.
Nothing to do with the compliant US ABC
In particular, Max Uechtritz - one of Australia's most respected war correspondents - is currently the head of news and current affairs at the ABC.
read about what really happened in the history books
Sorry dude .sig says it all
History books are written by the winners (and those who want to influance the young) and can be very biased.
eg Many history books fail to mention the staggering numbers of civilians killed when allies carpet bombed German cities in WW2.
You certainly wont find a US history book that mentions Regans bombing of Tripolli in the 80's nor will kids be tought about the US embarasment in Somallia. Simerly, here in Britain very little is tought to children about the history of Northen Irelend and the problems there. "History as we know it is a lie"
I think my
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
I am not anti-jewish before you start that shit I've dated 2 jewish women both have been like me against the existance of israel. I don't date racists, which I have met in jewish culture more so than Hollywood would have you believe.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Since NZ isn't in this war either, I can usually use http://www.nzoom.com/ (which covers our major news network there). Probably http://www.bbc.co.uk (as well as many other of the great bbc sites)
I have actually heard a high placed member of the Bush administration threaten to attack 'un-authorized' satelite links.
Yes this is true. :-) But they do link in to the transcripts.
First quote I have found is here
Not that the regester is known for unbiased reporting
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
These were useful during the Afghan invasion: Lebanon, Jordan, Arab News, Gulf News
ALL news will be censored since the pentegon have said unauthoriesd satellie broadcasts (including those from journalists) will be targets. Read this from Kate Adie. (Kate Adie is a BBC reporter who covered the last gulf war and is regared very highly in the UK)
If the US blocks all outside broardcasts we can only wait until after the war to see anything like the truth. Censorship sucks.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
Calling Indymedia unbiased is the height of telling lies.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
You will struggle to beat the BBC coverage from any other single source, their coverage is extensive and impartial.
BBC News Online.
The BBC World Service is available on both online and RadioWorld-Wide.
BBC News 24 is available on Digital Satellite thought the world.
The only way you're gonna get a clear picture is to the get two or more biased ones and average them out. Actually antiwar.com probably isn't extreme enough to balance cnn... maybe throw in some loonie lefty sources as well? Whatever you do, don't just settle for one source... one man's bias is another man's impartiality.
Software patents delenda est.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=4116
Start at number 1 and work your way down.
I tend to get most of my "reliable" news from NPR(National Public Radio). My local NPR station also broadcasts PRI (Public Radio International) in the afternoon.
Mod the parent down. Murdoch does not own the SMH. He does own just about every other newspaper in Australia though.
The U.S. government killed an estimated 2,000,000 people in the Vietnam war. The bombing of Cambodia killed a huge number.
I find the arguments credible that the bombing of Cambodia destabilized the society there, and the U.S. government must take some responsibility for the deaths of millions after the bombing. But only those killed directly are included in the 3,000,000. Note that no one in Vietnam or Cambodia ever directly threatened anyone in the United States. I often heard military people speculating why the U.S. was in Vietnam. Some said oil. Most said that the military was tired of waiting so long to have a war to fight.
There have been many "smaller" killings. The U.S. government killed an estimated 6,000 people in the war in Panama. Remember that? They called it Operation Just Cause.
It always shocks me when I realize that most people have no idea of the extent of the violence of the U.S. government.
For more about this, see a comment in this story by someone else: #5552921. The U.S. has a history of secret interference with the governments of other countries. Note that some of the information is from a U.S. government web site.
It looks like proper Japanese to me... There are many ways to romanize Japanese--the particle "wo" is often romanized as "o". And while you've shown me that you're quite impolite, that's you, not me.
BTW, you might want to take a look at what Google has to say about romanization wo o. In particular, the first hit says, "The Romanization is "o", but some people use "wo" instead."
heres a blog by a guy who lives in iraq.
Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
Slashdot comments at -1, of course. They're the most reliable source of information on the web!
MSN Slate
Truthout
The Guardian
BBC
Reuters
Kalen D'arrie
I suggest consulting several sources with a broad range of perspectives. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Guardian Unlimited's World News Guide is a good starting point. It contains pointers to international sources for news from every region of the world.
The worst source for information is the American electronic media. They are obsessed with breaking the newest little piece of news, ignoring normal journalist practices of verifying information before going live with it. They focus on areas and events where they have reporter who can transmit live, and give little time to anything else. I watched CNN for half an hour this morning, and not even once did they slow down long enough to provide a summary of what was happening. FOX, CBS, etc. are just as bad. ABC is a little better, but only when Peter Jennings the anchor.
"Unbiased media" is an oxymoron.
All media is biased, one way or another; the only difference is the direction of that bias. The most dangerous media outlets are the ones who claim to be unbiased, because they've lost sight of their bias in their arrogance.
So if you want a balanced view of the war, looking for a single source will do you no good, because no single source exists. Instead, get your news from multiple sources, always aware of each source's bias, and then think for yourself. The classic "CNN and the BBC" may not work well in this particular case, given that they're both located in nations with a direct hand in the attack. If you really want to walk on the wild side you could use Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore, but many people can't stomach either of them, much less both.
Look around, and you'll find something. Just remember this rule: don't let anyone do your thinking for you.
If you can't get unbiased media, you can try to read all sides and make your own mind up. A key part of that is getting at the data the press are filtering for you.
http://www.centcom.mil/ is where the US military distribute their news, eg transcripts of press briefings, images of leaflets they've been dropping on Iraq, that kind of thing. Unfortunately they seem to be running it off a teeny weeny server so its always on the brink of falling over.
The BBC's John Simpson was going to be crossing the border into Iraq from the Kurdish side as soon as possible, and is not travelling with Army units (he says "the army - anybody's army - gets in the way of reporting"). His reports can be interesting if a little self-aggrandizing (if you heard his reports when he arrived in Kabul last year you'll know what I mean). Anyway, unlike most of the press, he won't just be reporting what he's been briefed by the military.
well, for one I'm proud to be an American (it's not USian), and don't think it sucks at all (why should it?).
As for "unbiased news", you expect we'll listen to someone with a blatent 'anti-american' slant?
Yeah, I know you're a troll. Just frustrated at the latest anti-american 'fad'...
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Warning...
Your sarcasm detector seems to be malfunctioning. Please return the unit to it's place of purchase and return it for a new one (if the current detector is still under warrenty) or (if it is no longer under warrenty) feel free to disassemble the detector yourself and look for any obvious problems.
Units over the age of 50 tend to suffer problems with their input devices. This does not necessarily indicate a problem with the sarcasm detector itself.
Also, certain units seem have problems with their spell checkers.
_Partially_ true. Nobody "threatened to attack" journalists, but they were warned that broadcasting from somewhere behind enemy lines can make you a target. This is only because of the new RADAR-seeking missiles that are being used to destroy Iraqi radar and communication installations...
A missile isn't smart enough to tell the difference between a high-power television transmission and a radar dish of the same power... RTFA people, this isn't censoring of the media, they're simply trying to keep the reporters from getting themselves killed.
New? the HARM is a derivative of the Shirke missle that has been deployed by the USAF since the mid-60's, though you have the rest down pat.
The AR in HARM (Anti-Radiation) means that it finds the strongest source of EMF around, locks onto it and explodes, taking out the transmission equipment. Typical uses are radar installations, but if a sat uplink or radio tower was pumping out more wattage than the radar facility next door, I guess you are SOL. Problem is, Saddam would be kind of pissed about an reporters ungodly radio transmitter that was interfering with his AAA defenses, so the transmitter was going ofline anyways.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
What is this a post by the FBI to gather a list of unpatriotic geeks??
If not, well Ive found the Observer, the UK Independent, russian interfax, Pakistans dawn.com to be nice and unbiased. Ever BBC is pretty objective with not overflowing opinions like the CNN or NYTimes.
A smart person would gather objective data from these and form his own opinion rather than sucking up the world's opinion.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Well, having served in the Army and having been in situations where one may be inclined to think "the military tries very hard to prevent soldiers from assembling any clear picture of the latest world news," I have to disagree.
The military does not have much of a problem with its soldiers forming their own opinions. I have been in quite a few facilities where CNN and other news feeds are piped in. Post exchange facilities, even those in theatre, have access to Newsweek and Time.
The reason why the military does not care is because it really does not need to. Discipline, integrity and professionalism are typically motivation enough for a soldier to serve in combat. Comradery is another. There are some who do serve because--well, because they're crazy. Those in the latter category consider it the ultimate X-sport, or just like the thought of killing. Regardless of the cause, the Army does not need to misinform its personnel because there are factors other than one's opinion of contemporary events that compels one to serve.
My point that you contend with is that when one is an eye witness, then the source of bias is oneself. To illustrate my point, seeing Auswitz first-hand did a lot to convince those present that they were fighting the Germans for all the right reasons. The fact that Saddam commits attrocities will be aparent most to those who witnessed first hand. The fact that Saddam has weapons he recently said he didn't will be aparent to those who have to react to them.
The only time in my years of service where I was out of touch was when I was in Basic Training--and that was because there's really too much going on to muck with TV. Oddly enouch, that was during the last Gulf War.
Besides, who's to say that those who don't support the war aren't being brainwashed? Afterall, my key point is all news is biased, and if one gets his opinions from what is gleaned from the media, then is that not brainwashing?
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
And Rush Limbaugh when I'm driving. MEGA DITTOS!!!
Again, it was not a threat, it was a warning
This still amounts to censorship FFS!
The fact remains that only US controaled media will be able to broadcast out of Iraq via sattelite. (I'm assuming land-lines will be taken out first). Censorship may or may not be intentional, but the fact is its happening.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
Rather disingenuous of you.
I love this site more than /. Just dont click on any US or UK web site for war news.
-- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
http://www.infowars.com ofcourse, silly!
http://www.prisonplanet.com
http://sianews.
Right, and economic reasons and anti-communism aren't based on the "needs of American citizens?" When your biggest enemy is trying to recruit states that are just due south of you, it is irresponsible not to try to prevent that. Now its true that the CIAs attempts at counterinsurgency in the region weren't always the most upstanding operations, and didn't always go as planned. But to assert that we had no business fighting the beginnings of Communist regimes in South and Central American is just absurd. Not to mention that compared to the the corruption in the average 20th century South American country (Mexico during the 50 year revolution, Cuba under Castro, etc) the US is the model of corruption-free bliss.
(Don't get me wrong, I love South American culture and have spent a significant time studying the region, they've just had the lousy luck to have been plagued by some dismal governments)
And please, please, please stop talking about this "War for Oil" nonsense. This war might be about a lot of things, but it is not about enriching Bush's oil stocks. The facts just aren't there. "War for Oil" might be a catchy and simple-minded slogan to chant and wave about, but it's just supported by the situation. If you want to protest something, protest that (whether you blame France and Co. or the US and Co.) the UN is not onboard for this war. But put aside the "War for Oil" mantra.
_sig_ is away
More realistically, you're not going to get it. The military is going to censor everything that is said for a while (and that's perfectly OK with me; I want as few people to die as possible). Unless you're on the inside, you don't really need to know - and they'd be crazy to jeopardize operational security to satisfy my desire to know.
After the fact, it will be a different matter. For now, though, we just have to wait.
Oh, one last thing - you might want to check out #news and #war-news on efnet; they have bots that scan just about every major English-speaking news service in the world.
i sugest the onion www.onion.comf _war_2.html
http://www.onion.com/onion3910/gul
...is the reading room section of World Press Review Online. It collects news stories from papers and magazines worldwide, and categorizes each source (centrist, independent, government-owned, news agency, etc.)
From their masthead: "World Press Review is published as a nonprofit educational service to foster the international exchange of information. It contains material reprinted from the press outside the United States, as well as originally written material. Articles are subject to editing, translation, and excerpting. Illustration and photo selection, captions, and some headlines accompanying reprinted articles are by WPR's editors. Letters may be edited for length and clarity."
"For every right, an equal responsibility..."
Idont know if theyre right or wrong, but it makes sense to me.
t ml
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.h
summary
Although completely suppressed by the U.S. media and government, the answer to the Iraq enigma is simple yet shocking -- it is an oil currency war. The real reason for this upcoming war is this administration's goal of preventing further Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) momentum towards the euro as an oil transaction currency standard. However, in order to pre-empt OPEC, they need to gain geo-strategic control of Iraq along with its 2nd largest proven oil reserves. This essay will discuss the macroeconomics of the `petro-dollar' and the unpublicized but real threat to U.S. economic hegemony from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency. The author advocates reform of the global monetary system including a dollar/euro currency `trading band' with reserve status parity, and a dual OPEC oil transaction standard. These reforms could potentially reduce future oil currency warfare.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
I won't pretend that they are unbiased, but the news-related sites I read are the AP wire on Salon, Google news, Metafilter, and especially WRT recent events: Truthout, Common Dreams, and also Disinformation.
reed
VOS/Interreality project: www.interreality.org
I believe that newer AR missiles also use positional targeting - so if the source is an intermittent transmitter (or someone just turned it off) it can hit the last-known location.
If HARM is older/dumber then it could be more of a threat to journalists because if the properly-targeted SAM radar switches off it might just go find the next best source, being the satellite phone of the journalist down the road.
Unfortunately, CNN has no legal obligation to tell the truth. The appellate court in Florida recently ruled that it is legal for the media to lie and distort the truth.
They have an ethical obligation... but it seems like they have forgotten that part.
Come play free flash games on Kongregate!
Respectfully spoken, but that attitude itself has led to the misinformation cheerleaders like Rushie and many other folks who have left their senses because "everything is biased, so let's do it with style." In my view, this even moreso has contributed to the utter failure of the American Left in making its case. "Bias is everywhere, but The Right Wing is SOOO UNFAIIIR AND WIERD!!!"
Just realize that > 1% bias is not equal to the preponderance of %80 propoganda coming out of some sources. Sources should show some rationalist backbone and then people can both listen to them and believe a few things that aren't mere opinions... no matter what everyone wants them to be "spun" into.
[irony] Down With Slogan-Filled Nilhilism [/irony]
Nietzsche is dead - God
Funny, I guess the Singapore, Pakistan, Indian, Saudi, Iran, Iraq, Russian, French, Japanese et all links are just fakes, eh?
Infuriate left and right
Maybe I'm confused or wrong (I didn't do real well in math, but I did get an A in logic class), but if you have two datapoints on the end of a line, and you create new datapoints between them, aren't you interpolating, not extrapolating?
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
The Christian Science Monitor is an excellent new source.
They have won many awards, respected by the industry, and are very neutral. They do have points of view, but are expressed in op/ed type sections, not news stories.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
I couldn't believe the details that the newscasters were pushing for this morning. Norman Schwarzkopf was asked how involved the Special Forces were in this campaign. He simply laughed and said "Even if I knew I probably wouldn't be able to discuss that."
I know the media wants to be there for every shot and get incredible footage of things blowing up. I'm sure we'd have cameras broadcasting footage from each bomb, plane, tank, and rifle if the media had their way. They would receive advance notice, so they could go in and set up cameras to get the best angles on the attack.
What the hell is wrong with the media? As early at 10:00 EST they were doing estimates on how much money the strike cost. At 9:45 they were speculating on what had been bombed and why.
I think the Daily Show last night had the best coverage - it was taped before the deadline and aired after. They cut to a segment where Steven said "If we have not bombed them, I disagree with this war with every fiber of my being, but if we have, then I have been behind this effort wholeheartedly the entire time."
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
I recommend looking to The Onion. It is, after all, America's Finest News Source.
In all seriousness, I shall probably be checking the BBC's web site regularly (News Ticker (Win32) | RSS), as well as buying a decent newspaper for greater depth and insight.
Of course, for those committed to both sides of the argument, I recommend visiting Al-Jazeera with the use of a Arabic-English translator. Apparently, Al-Jazeera will soon be launching an English language service (e.g. the end of March).
Now its true that the CIAs attempts at counterinsurgency in the region weren't always the most upstanding operations, and didn't always go as planned. But to assert that we had no business fighting the beginnings of Communist regimes in South and Central American is just absurd. Not to mention that compared to the the corruption in the average 20th century South American country (Mexico during the 50 year revolution, Cuba under Castro, etc) the US is the model of corruption-free bliss.
"Not always the most upstanding operations?" In the Contra war, the CIA trained the Contra army to attack civilian targets at any given opportunity. Children were murdered, women were raped, hospitals were attacked.
Of course, the supposedly democratic regimes we have set up in many South American countries (Guatemala and Nicaragua come to mind) were puppet governments set up by the US goverment, with fair election being subverted through US actions. And the repressive tactics used by these governments were taught to their leaders right here on US soil, in the School of the Americas.
As for Mexico under the 50 year revolution and Cuba under castro, let me point out that although nothing has been officially stated, a quick run-through of the US involvement in Mexico's revolution seems that it was engineered to keep the revolution going as long as it did. And the United States put Castro in power.
The only regime I would call truly communist that existed before US involvement was the Sandanista government in Nicaragua, and I personally think that it was fairly well-run and hardly a threat to the United States. And the American interest that 'justifies' all of the rape, murder, and torture that toppled the Sandanista government and put into place Nicaragua's current (horribly corrupt) government? Cheap bananas, mostly.
The source of the most unbiased news on ANYTHING that's available is called "thinking rationally". It seems that most of the world regards thought as some sort of CHORE (I recall the bland, low-content speech President Bush gave to announce the 48-hour deadline...and the calls that came into C-Span afterwards. NOBODY was thinking. I heard "I don't need any information! George Bush says it, I believe it, that settles it! Praise George Bush, for He Can Do No Wrong!"....followed by "I don't need any information! George Bush says it, I don't believe it, that settles it! Curse George Bush, for He Can Do No Right!". No wonder we're denied any useful information - it's assumed everyone's decided on their opinion and won't change it no matter what, so why bother with facts?...). Anyway, back to my point - being willing to honestly think about and evaluate information will give you the most accurate "news".
I doubt it's possible to find a single "unbiased" news source. You CAN, though, find a whole mess of different sources that all have different biases. By comparing what they report and how they report it, it's just a matter of actual thinking to determine, approximately, what the "unbiased" truth really is.
For this, I recommend The Illustrious Google News and Columbia Newsblaster as starting points. Fark occasionally has some interesting pointers to more amusing angles on breaking news as well, though Fark is more for entertainment and amusement than "serious" news...
. Google News, in particular, seems to include a fairly wide variety of viewpoints, including "America is a bunch of evil imperialists who want to rule the world" type "Arab" news sites as well as, for example, the "Rah, rah, rah! Bomb Everybody!" Rupertican-party Fox channel (along with the various other "mainstream" channels that toe either a Disneycrat or Rupertican party line) and a not-unreasonable collection of international news outlets as well.Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
This thread hits close to home for me because I work in the newsroom of a major metropolitan newspaper, and a good friend of mine is in Kuwait right now on assignment.
After reading many of the comments in this thread, it's clear there is a lot of skepticism and mistrust toward how the US media will cover the war with Iraq, and I would heartily encourage this.
The biggest reason to take everything you hear with a grain of salt is because of how the US media is approaching this conflict. Essentially, the US press is beholden to the military in every way, shape and form in trying to cover this war.
Most of the information you will read in the newspaper or see on TV is from "imbedded journalists," who are reporters who have been officially credentialed and assigned to particular US military groups around Iraq. As you might expect, they have no freedom or initiative to actually go out and obtain first-hand observations. They are spoon fed information from official government press conferences. Although one argument to justify this situation could be is that it's to protect the journalists, in reality it's one big spin-control session.
It's hard to fault the journalists parroting our government's propaganda right now. They are strongly influenced by their environment and the pressure to produce some sort of story, whether or not it is fair, accurate and responsible. Personally, I doubt we will vitness any true "front-line" journalism for quite a while, but I know there are reporters wandering in the war zone who will publish pieces free of the yoke of our government's influence. These stories (and photos) will appear in newspapers -- not on TV where there pressure for "up to the minute" news is too great. Just be patient.
Good point, I'm pretty sure the "plot all trajectories on the last known course" action should be the default setup on this type of weapon, against stationary sam sites or C3I targets, but how would that work against self-propeled AA batteries (the AA tank at the end of "Flight of the Intruder") or mobile comms units. I also bet there are some operational thresholds on the guidance systems of an AARAM/HARM/Shrike, a radio transmiter at 1KW is a much different signal than a 10-50W sat linkup.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
Remember, the BBC is operated by a government that has a direct hand in this war. Even their famed, so-called "impartiality" (which is really just an inability to see where their biases are), should be considered compromised in such a situation.
Besides, who's to say that those who don't support the war aren't being brainwashed? Afterall, my key point is all news is biased, and if one gets his opinions from what is gleaned from the media, then is that not brainwashing?
I don't think anybody in their right mind can say that mainstream media isn't brainwashing supporters of the war either. I certainly wasn't trying to say that watching the news from home would be less biased than going there yourself, because I believe that no news source can be completely unbiased.
About the military filtering information to soldiers: like I said, that was only my understanding. My roommate's boyfriend just recently completed basic training for the National Guard, and he said that they were not given access to very many or any good news sources about the building tensions in the Middle East. Almost everyone at his camp was or became staunch supporters of Bush and the war. Now maybe they treat you differently in basic training than the real thing, or maybe the National Guard is different... thoughts?
why not listen to shortwave radio? As we've seen during 9/11 internet sites sometimes have problems dealing with lots of traffic.
If something does happen here on US soil - internet connectivity will most certainly go out, and your computer is really of no use after your power and UPS batteries go out. You can buy a pretty decent shortwave radio at radioshack for under $100, and tune in any number of news sources.
-neil
When the "US government will be clamping down on unpatriotic stories", what mechanism will it be using to do this?
It's weird, but the one major, well known network I've seen that actually has people disagreeing with the war and giving intelligent reasons for their views has been MTV.
And it's not like they are anti war themselves, they've also shown pro war people also. But they are the only network doing a good job, IMO, of presenting all sides fairly.
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
if this bias weren't perceived by a significant number of people, then Fox News would not be as popular as it is.
That's one possible explanation.
But it sure could explain why COPS is much more popular than documentaries about police practices, insightful reports into the causes and effects of crime, or careful examinations of the political and economic effects of various approaches to crime reduction.
My conclusion: boring things have an inherent liberal bias.
If you want disinterested, you're not gonna find it. Everyone has some interest or another.
If you want good, complete information, watch/read several sources and integrate it yourself; you'll probably be disappointed, since that seems to correlate pretty well with what the major news sources tell you.
If your definition of "unbiased" is "unpatriotic" -- or at least "anti-Allied" -- then why bother with looking for unbiased sources that might screw up your assumptions?
In a past life I was one of the guys who tested these puppies (Shrikes, HARMS, Cruise Missles, Mavericks, Smart Bomb guidance systems, etc.) at China Lake NWC. For Shrikes and HARMS we would setup dozens of "threat" simulators, each with slightly different modulation (CW, PRF, PW, jitter, spread codes, etc.) to simulate particular makes and models of radar, and each at different location to simulate real life deployment. You don't want to be near any source that is on a target signal profile list. One of my other duties included measuring the distance between the boresite and the missle's impact crater after a test. Often enough my simulators were damaged or destroyed by inert warheads alone :-). Let's just say the 100-hour 1st Gulf War wasn't much of a surprise - China Lake has geography a lot like Kuwait and Iraq.
It's certainly possible to discriminate targets well enough to avoid targetting TV satellite uplinks. It's even possible that journalist's military-supplied uplinks are provided with known spread code signals that are put on an avoid list. A warning and insistence on "equipment registration" may be CYA - unless they know the equipment's signature, there's still a small chance of a "mishap". However, unless they choose to target TV stations it would still probably be pretty safe (How many TV broadcasters does Iraq really have? Ah, maybe one? Compared to simply being shot by accident?) The spectral signatures of analog or digital TV are pretty different from radar (even spread spectrum radar).
<OffTopicWarning KarmaLock="disabled">
Despite my experience with this stuff, I'm still against this war and the facile justifications pathetically provided for it. If you don't see a patriot described above, you need to get your head examined!
This war is about extension of the Monroe Doctrine to the entire world and Manifest Destiny as a world hyperpower. It's spelled out on the PNAC web site. Note the founders include Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and other major hawks in the Bush Adminstration. Also note that the entire obsession with regime change and axis of evil predates 9-11 back to when Clinton was approached by PNAC with essentially the same Iraq/Axis of Evil plan. Clinton rejected it. Bush has embraced it. Linkage between Al Qaida and Iraq? Machiavelian fiction, nothing more. Weapons of Mass Destruction (worked on those too ;-| )? Doesn't add up in the context of post-War Iraqi infrastructure and economics, and especially not with forged documentery evidence provided by the US and UK intelligence agencies.
Creating a hegemon might not even seem so bad if you happen to be an American, but this type of foreign policy is certain to be mirrored in domestic policy: the beginning is Patriot I, Patriot II, TIA, CAPP and other recent laws and proposals.
For those who have read Linked, consider what a Bose-Einstein condensation of a geopolitical social network is in comparison to what it is for an economic social network. Consider that one of the desires of PNAC is to assure that the relationship between the US and each other country shall be stronger than the relationships between any pair of countries. What social network topology is that? Can you say: "All Roads Lead to Washington".
There are many active and reserve duty officers with similar concerns. I recently gave a speech about this subject where an officer I know, who is now serving in the Middle East, was in attendence. I was concerned about his reaction - these are scary ideas most people would prefer to ignore - but he approached me after the speech and was my stron
Did you mean NewspaperLinks? It's by the Newspaper Association of America, and includes links to sites all over the world.
.sig: be the majority of voters.
--
Remainder of my
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
If we were creating 'new data points between two points' I believe you are correct. However I think it is more analagous to say that what we are doing is taking a whole line with a lot of points in between and sorting through it to filter out the crap and forming a new data set from that.
CNN, MSNBC, and especially Fox News: every one of them can hardly be called news channels at all. They're commentary channels. Even when they supposedly are reporting news, the talking heads are always throwing around (usually smarmy) comments. And the vast majority of the time, it's just straight commentary, frequently of the loud, repetetive variety.
So forget them. Try reading the paper instead. If you must have video, try C-Span, which has completely unedited and uncommented broadcasts.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Living mere hours from Canada means that my cable co carries the Winnipeg CBC affilate. It's interesting to flip between the American news and the Canadian news.
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
I have found both PBS and National Public Radio to be professional and complete in their coverage. (Both these are public US networks.) I don't know about unbiased, but not being biased is idealistic in the media. About all the media can do is to present as many sides of an issue as possible as accurately as possible.
fair.org
Thank you for your insight into the capabilities of our various anti-radiation missles, I am merely facinated by military and weapon history, no operational experience with anything newer than enemy small arms siezed by family in WWII (I have nifty Vichy french rifle chambered in 8mm Lebel, very effective against deer and vermin on the farm, but stripper clips and ammo are rare, so we have to handload).
As to your "offtopic" section, I respect you opinion, but I find your paranoia unjustified IMO.
As to the Bush and Ashcroft domestic legislation, I don't believe they will hold up in court when used against "non islamic terrorist" US citizens, and therefore struck down.
As to the extension of the Monroe Doctrine into the 21st century, there are too many checks on the US in building a world empire for it to work.
All of these things consipire against a modern physical empire, now an economic empire is possible, but America already has this in place and has since WWII with little to no bitching except the Anti-globalization front groups for the socialist movements of the world, which are known failures and not a threat to global peace and prosperity. The age of physical empire died with the Warsaw Pact, and even I hesitate to call it an empire, as each country was largely self-garasioned as opposed to French Indochina, Cuba, India, or the Philipines.
Read my plan to save the Bengals
If you know some French you can try Le Monde, a major French newspaper. Since France was opposed to war it is likely that you will get a completely different prospective than that of BBC, CNN, NBC and other three letter acronyms.
Until then I don't think it makes much difference who you watch, they're all equally annoying. I've been watching Fox, but after hearing "shock and awe" for the twentieth time in five minutes I almost wish a stray Iraqi missle would make it into the area and blow up all the reporters.
The National Guard, US Army Reserves, and US Army Regular troops all train in the same Basic Training camps. We had a few Guardsmen in my platoon, and we envied them because they were allowed to wear unit patches while the remainder of us didn't. Yes, life in Basic can be that petty.
In Basic Training, there is too much to teach and too little time. The goal of Basic Training is to condition the trainee, so the climate is radically different than daily military life. Amongst the training is engrained willingness to follow orders given by one's chain of command, so I wouldn't doubt the trainees became Bush supporters. However, this effect does not linger--I can assure you of that. Just because I was in the Army does not mean I agreed with President Clinton.
But, then again, one should assume that many of those who enlist during this period of American history are influenced by the effects of 9/11 and would be more inclined to support President Bush.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Tangential to the question, but for the very latest news feeds I surf over to ABC News' Off The Wire [World] page. This consists of constantly updated raw wire feeds from AP and Reuters. Quite impressive.
If anyone knows of similar services, please let us know.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
Agreed on the the bad luck in governments thing in LA, but really, the US actions in the regions have been horrible. The governments of Chile and Guatamala were very mellow socialist governments, more akin to european socialism, and cannot be explained as a real communist threat. Guatamala was knocked out almost entirely becuase of the interests of United Frust (whos plantations were threatened by land reform). Chile disolved itself, but the US support for the following Pinochet regime was horrific, largely because it was looking like the US copper companies in Chile were being threatened. Amazingly, the US supported Pinochet even after he set off a car bomb in DC to take out a dissident exile.
Castro was probably a moderate socialist upon taking power, but we really forced him in to the soviet bloc. Mind you, Cuba was so completely dominated by the US at that point that an anti-US swing was quite likely upon a real nationalist government taking power. We had been supporting Batista for some time, and that man was increadably brutal.
Dont know much about the sandinistas, however the US response to it was in any case horrific, as well as extremely illegal both in international and domestic terms, think Iran-Contra, selling arms to a hostile government to illegally subvert another. Joy.
All of this ignoring our long term occupation of areas such as Haiti, Dominician Republic, Panama, Nicruagua, sporatic occupation of Mexico (VeraCruz) and the like.
Anti-communism was really just an excuse for the continued US strongarming in the region, which goes back really until before 1898 (it really surged up after the Spanish-American war). This is of course ignoring when we outright took 1/3rd of Mexico, in the 1840s I believe.
I am not isolationist mind you, but I really think that this hardball foreign policy has backfired on us so many times that it was time we learned that a slighly mellower approach to foreign policy would piss off alot less people and be more beneficial in the long run.
It also gives a list of all news sources in these languages: English (excluding UK, US, Canadian, Australian), Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, and Dutch.
Google Directories also provides a huge list on http://directory.google.com/Top/News/Directories/
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --- Albert Einstein
OK...just a statement of opinion here. I support both the right of Israel to exist as well as the formation of a Palestinian state. Just some facts as I understand them.
The creation is Israel was not a result of the holocaust, it had been occuring since the turn of the 20th century. It was formally created in 1948 with the withdraw of the British, who were occupying the region since the end of WW1. A Palistinian state was also to be created. The day Israel was created, every state around it attacked it, and the land that was to be Palistine was taken in the subsequent war. What is regarded as Palistine today was for the most part were never suppose be part of this. West Bank was part of Jordan, Gaza part of Egypt. Taken in a later war (1967 i believe), neither Egypt nor Jordan want it back.
There has never been a formal Palestinian nation, the area of Israel/Palestine were under firm Ottoman control up until WWI, where the british took over.
This is not to deny that Palestinian identity is not a real one today, however is it a modern phenomena as much as the idea of a Israeli state is...in fact it formed largely in response to the growing movement towards an Israeli state. It did not really exist prior to 1900....there were elements of it in place, but not a unified, national palestinian identity. Actually, most of the nations in the middle east now is a modern creation, created rather arbitrarily by the withdraw of british/french after WWII. Egypt would be a probably exception to this, as would Iran (in terms of nationalist identity, they were both controlled both others as well).
The situation in the Middle-East/Palestine/Israel is increadably complicated...and it is really difficult to determine who is "in the right" (both sides are being assholes). As far as I can tell, there really is not good resolution, almost anything done to resolve the problem would be an injustice in some way. I lean towards a simple granting of West Bank and Gaza independence (I have little sympathy for the Jewish settlers in those areas, they intentially went there to make resolution of the problem difficult) but there obviously some problems with this.
That's a great site... thanks!
.sig: be the majority of voters.
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Remainder of my
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
So, I guess you enjoy having someone else tell you what is important?
Remember, the BBC is operated by a government that has a direct hand in this war.
Actually no they are not operated by the [UK] government. The BBC are independent, it is run on a day to day basis by the Director General and the Senior Management Committee
who is accountable to the Board of Governors. Who are actually prohibited by the BBC charter from excising editorial control.
You can read more about it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/bbc/
Even their famed, so-called "impartiality" (which is really just an inability to see where their biases are),
The BBC impartiality is famous for a reason because it holds up. The most important aspect of impartiality is the ability to recognise your own natural bias and counter it not ignore it. The BBC people take great proffessional pride in their impartiality.
should be considered compromised in such a situation.
You only have to look at the coverage to see this is untrue. The BBC facts only without the need for superlatives. Commentary is clearly identified as such and presented by guest interviewees not staff reporters. The are scrupulous about allowing all sides of debate fair access, they pickup guest interviewees on factual errors & cross examine them using the most difficult arguments presented by their opposition.
On this subject alone this is list of some people/sides I've seen interviewed in the last few days on BBC. Rumfield, Powell, Hans Blix, Koffi Anan, the Emir of Kuwait, Saudi Prince Regent, Tariq Ali (Iraqi PM), Jacque Chirac (French President), numerous spokes-persons' from Stop the War Coalition, CND & Amnesty international et.al; Chairman of the Council of Mosques, Iraqis, Kurds, Iranians, American Iraqis.
India hasn't been very supportive the war, but they haven't been as vehemently against it as France, Germany, or the Muslim world, so you might want to try checking out an Indian newspaper, such as The Times Of India , The Hindu, The Indian Express, The Statesman, or Rediff Online. These are amongst the world's most circulated English dailies (The Times of India is #1, the Hindu and the Statesman are in the top 10.), and with the exception of Rediff, have been around in print form for decades.
Beccause you know for a fact its wrong? SIgh. Its idiots like you that got us into the mess were in today.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
I'm active duty US Army. The military doesn't really care what your views on the world are, so long as you soldier up and do your fucking job. I'm pretty liberal (compared to the "average" American)and had a libertarian roommate when I was in 3rd Ranger Battalion. I'm pretty much openly critical of the government and the mainstream media and I've yet to get treated any differently than any other soldier.
everyone knows that there will be other men in their company that they will disagree with. they also know that they can count on the same man to pull security for them and save their ass when the time comes.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
Well said. :) I don't think I completely agree with everything you said, but I'd have to dig out my notes and re-read some essays - it's been too long since I was actually emmersed in this stuff. And there is no way I could hold my own with a current History grad student. ;) And I agree with you that a slightly mellower foriegn policy would better - I think JFK & Ambassador D. Morrison (can't remember his first name) & the OAS (right acronymn?) were on the right track - there was certainly potential there. Still involved, but friendlier at least. As I'm sure you can tell, I still have the concepts, but the facts are all confused in my head.
I think the thrust of my original post was that regardless of our strong arm tactics with our foriegn policy in the region - and by extension our questionable use of the CIA & counterinsurgency - the US government was never as *corrupt* as many South American governments. Pinochet, Castro, Peron... we don't hold a candle to them. You cannot compare a intrusive and agressive *foriegn* policy with the widespread fiscal corruption found in Mexico or Argentina, or the political repression and human rights abuses found in so many South American states during the last century. Regardless of how our foriegn policy did or did not contribute to that, or did or did not prevent it, the US government was never that corrupt. Bad - even ethically questionable - foriegn policy isn't corruption - it's just bad foriegn policy.
_sig_ is away
India is the world's most populous democracy. We're still the largest (square-footage-wise ;).
Wrong again. Even in terms of land size, the USA is not the largest democracy in the world - it's the third largest. You can even check US government sources to verify it (ie the CIA World Factbook).
Russia
total: 17,075,200 sq km
water: 79,400 sq km
land: 16,995,800 sq km
Canada
total: 9,976,140 sq km
land: 9,220,970 sq km
water: 755,170 sq km
USA
total: 9,629,091 sq km
land: 9,158,960 sq km
water: 470,131 sq km
You still might be able to argue that Russia isn't a true democracy yet, but that only bumps the USA up to second, anyway.
In the context of the phrase "largest democracy", land size doesn't make sense anyway. Population is the logical measure, unless you favour some bizarre system of weighting votes depending on land holdings:)
Didn't Bush and Cheney divest themselves of most if not all of their oil stocks at the behest of critics? I know for a fact Cheney took millions in losses by getting rid of stock options he'd earned as a CEO before their maturity date. :)
On the other hand, if we assume they still have such stocks, this War still wouldn't make sense from that standpoint. In the first gulf war and now in this war, the price of oil has plummeted. How does devaluing oil help oil companies?
The Government guidelines for a steady increase in fuel efficiency and better emissions standards are still in place. President Bush simply opposed making these rules more strict than they already are and putting a further hurt on already suffering American auto-makers.
And how can you say this war has nothing to do with the opinions of the american people or citizens of other countries? The majority of America supports war with Iraq (much like the first war). Honestly I don't think anyone's opinion in this world matters but the opinion of the Iraqi people, and they on their part seem to be pretty happy about the whole liberation thing. I've been told stories by friends who took part in Desert Storm that surrendered Iraqi soldiers begged them to take out Saddam. If the people of Iraq want to be freed, what else should matter?
I think you just don't like Bush--which is fine--but at least mention that instead of developing some conspiracy theory as to why this war is 'reallly' being fought.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
you do need to understand dutch for this : http://www.krantenkoppen.be
I'm still right; Russia isn't really a democracy, and Canada is the unofficial 51st state, and they know it.
;)
I think democracy sucks, anyway - we should all revert to a state of feudalism. I'd like to tool around town in my spray-paint camo Bronco with a retinue of Road Warrior-style post-apocalyptic bodyguards, telling hot chicks I'm the Earl of 112th and Mill Plain Blvd.
DISCLAIMER: FOR ALL YOU CANADIANS (and others who can't take a joke) - I AM JUST JOKING (sheesh)
Arr! The laws of physics be a harsh mistress!
Don't forget Stuff.co.nz. I prefer them to nzoom.
The situation in the Middle-East/Palestine/Israel is increadably complicated... and it is really difficult to determine who is "in the right" (both sides are being assholes).
Hear, hear.
Very GOOD response. I visited the site he links to and found no such data, after a thorough reading to support his premise. Some people will always be paranoid, and lets not forget that Bush and his team might not be there after the next election.
*--- Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. ---*
You're exaggerating; it's not the height of telling lies (not even close). The corporate news outlets are the most biased because they are owned by huge corporations with gigantic financial & political conflicts of interest; however they work hard to APPEAR unbiased, which makes them sanitized rotten sources. Indymedia stories are definitely by anti-war people, but they give you much more information, and not from both sides, from all sides, and they don't try to appear as something they are not. Also excellent is www.alternet.org.
I am against the war, not because I am biased, because I am informed. I support assasinating Saddam, because he's a mass murdering despot, and it could be done quickly, cheaply, and with infinitely less damage to Iraq, its citizens, and attitudes about the US around the world. With GPS satellites, missiles can hit targets with amazing precision & surprise. A single bomb when his location is known, a few hundred dead, including Saddam, mission accomplished. When Saddam used chemical weapons on the Kurds, the US rewarded him generously. And the US helped Saddam stop the Kurdish uprising after the 1st Gulf war (by daddy Bush). And if Saddam wanted to hurt the US, he would have used those weapons on the US by now--he's not a threat (but could become because of the US invasion).
The corporate "news" sources are the worst. They have the resources for a much more polished presentation, but they are in bed (big orgy) with the huge public relations industry (biggest on the planet, even per capita). Sources whose bias is clear are usually the most useful.
4,000 people die of starvation or bad water every hour, but not in large buildings, therefore not newsworthy.
And don't forget the next big tax cut for the very rich, advancing thru congress right now. War is always useful as a smokescreen. 4,000/hour--when you find a news source that will even mention that, pay attention. Ignore the rest.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -MIT Ling
I think the Czech Republic and Polish sepecial forces would beg to differ on contributing to this war. I also understand the Albanians have sent a brigade of troops that are doing POW processing and assisting interogations. The US gov't has never claimed that Saddam was behind 9/11, we have pointed out however that Saddam has provided funds, food, medical care, and training to Al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Al-Asqua, and Islamic Jhiad. Iraq does effect our (and the rest of the world's) economic stability so it is our business.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
Unbiassed news? No such thing. Still, look at http://www.buzzflash.com for links to news media around the world.
Asking Slashdot for an unbiased news source is like asking Howard Stern to be homosexual. It just ain't gonna happen.
On the other hand, here you can find many different biasses. Anti-microsoft, pro-linux, pro-bsd, etc.. Eventually they all counteract.
The trick is to realize that each comment is biased, and to compare it to all the other comments to get the real truth.
An online Starcraft RPG? Only at
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
I understand the Monitor at www.csmonitor.com offers some of the most unbiased international news, particularly as it pertains to the Middle East.
The White House home page. .gov *nor* the .com version!
written for the discerning who can tell at a glance when they're being fed a line. Slightly toungue in cheek, but a great source for how the administration really feels.
Note that this is *neither* the
Your complaints about being offended offend me.
Compare the news in european (or eastern) papers with the headlines of the american news.
Anything you can't find in the american news has been censored and must therefore be true.
Example: US veto against productioncost medecins to third world countries. This news was not covered by any major US newspaper. However it was frontpage news in about every european paper.
Try Janes and Foreign Affairs give fairly unbiased analysis of such things.
Well, i'm not sure anyone is really disinterested as far as this war goes. I try to utilise a variety of sources; bit of a checks and balances type of thing. I've been using the bbc news site news.bbc.co.uk on the right, balanced with the guardian and the independent, www.guardian.co.uk and....well, you can figure it out. For solid left-wing coverage, try Pacifica radio. Here in LA it's KPFK, 90.7 FM, also www.kpfk.org. I think the network site is pacifica.org. I'd also recommend democracynow.org. But i'm one of those Damn Leftists. Keep your critical faculties sharp no matter what, tho. Good luck!
Good grief - the BBC is the usually-well-behaved British Government radio/TV network. Like the US's Nationalist Public Radio, it has some independence and _lots_ of professionalism, but it knows who it works for, and the British government has pretty much been toadying for the US since Reagan and Iron Maggie. Just because they're not rabid Bush syncophants like Fox News or because they also play coverage of Parliamentary debates (which do have a wide range of opinions with much better ranting than most US Congress debate) doesn't mean they're Traitors to America like the French are (oh, wait, both Britain and France are supposed to be independent countries :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"only country in the world never to have had a civil war" Well, almost true I guess. Canada hasn't had a civil war either. Unless you count that little spat between the Brits and the Frenchies, but that was before Canada was created. So yeah, make that (at least) two countries in the world that haven't had civil wars. I think that Australia should invite Canada over for a picknic in that dusty desert of yours one day. That would be swell! Hugs and Jam all around!
But your beer sucks! ........ eh :oP
What? Me? Worry?
Oh look, it looks like the US forces have already killed their first journalist of this war/invasion.
And they've started killing their allies too.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Again I'd be pleased to be wrong! There are some discomforting signs though.
If they aren't biased it's just because they're toppled already.
He saw some dirty arabs and fired. Too bad it was just some friendly kurds, BBC reporters and his fellow cowboys.