i need a suit against regular tv remotes as well. i throw them all the time. ordinary people dont put much force into those, but i really like to turn the shit out of the fucking channels.
i dont feel like any particular "news" source, or media, any even any individual has any real responsibility to me whatsoever, unless we have an explicit agreement for that person to provide that service. as an individual, i think i bear the responsibility to educate myself on the topics i find important or interesting.
and certainly the press plays a big role in democracy. but the press as a whole, not as individual news outlets. if we depend on one source to be our filter and aggregator of information, we are asking for trouble. and i might be able to rescue a tiny nugget of interesting truth from crossfire. but i would be smart not to trust it until i had seen some other perspectives.
of course you are right, the news networks are not good at delivering news. but now, more than any other time in history, you have virtually unlimited news sources. for almost any event in america some independent person is blogging about it and what it means. you do not need, and probably should not, depend on cnn or any single news source (particularly on tv, which doesnt lend itself to in-depth analysis) if you actually care about what is happening.
i find that it is relatively easy for me to figure out my opinions from the information i collect from the world, even if dont see crossfire or tv at all. of couse, i might have to read my local papers as well as a few international ones, and mayeb even a book on the issue in question. and that is my responsibility as a person who wants to understand what is going on. and i think it is really counterproductive to lay the blame on any individuals other than myself for that.
i would like stewart better if he said "hey you guys are doing your thing, bringing a perspective to the table, having your say, and that is cool with me, but i dont really trust you, and i would hope americans are smart enough to seek out a broader perspective.
because just offering your opinion for our perusal, that doesnt hurt america. an extra voice is always good, no matter what they are saying. the problem (if there is one) is people who don't take responsibility for their own ideas and perspectives and want it presented to them by arguing hacks on cable tv. and furthering that problem is stewart by encouraging the idea that any single news source should do anything but present a perspective. one among many.
an opinion, spoken and argued about by jerkoffs, no matter how stupid, never hurts america.
like i said, if you and i started our show and yelled at each other and called it "news according to two losers on the internet" and we got really popular, and we even got picked up by cnn, would you feel like we were hurting america by adding our stupid voices the opinions available? i wouldnt. if we became the world's only source of information, that would be pretty bad. but as long as were just one of the millions of options, i think we are helping america, if only for having a dialogue, no matter what we say.
"I think there's some obligation to make it a show with serious content."
thats where we disagree. i dont think they are responsible to do anything, certainly i am no place to tell them what they should do.
"Crossfire is not and should not be Jerry Springer."
again, i dont feel like it our job to tell crossfire what they "should" be. again, that is implying that they have some responsibility to educate us. thats the mistake. we should carry that responsibility ourselves.
oh and to more directly answer your question, i think part of the problem with stewart is that he was serious, and not good-naturedly debating the state of journalism. he was taking serious personal shots at the guys on the show. that is sort of like me going on conan o'brien and telling conan he sucks, that i am serious, and i think he is a waste of time. thats an ok opinion, but if you did that to conan you would really be a dick, why not just not go on the show at all? maybe carlson should go to the daily show and sit in the audience and heckle stewart after every joke. even if the jokes really sucked, that wouldnt be appropiate.
crossfire was a debate show, not a news show. they gave you their opinions and argued, they didnt report news. i dont feel like there is some standard of argument that i should expect from shows or they are hurting america. do you actually think a couple dorks yelling at each other on tv "hurts america"?.
i actually do think carlson's reaction wasnt bad. he was sort of suprised that jon stewart is gonna come on show and preach at him about journalistic standards. if you don't like somebody's perspective, that is fine, but to claim that they are hurting america by voicing their opinion? that is way over the top, and stewart takes himself way too seriously. possibly because everyone lavishes praise on him as if it is a suprise that you can pointedly make fun of politicians pretty easily.
i don't think is particulalry praiseworthy for a comic to come on tv and get on his high horse and talk down to political talking heads, because talking heads really have no real responsinility to do anything other than get ratings for CNN. perhaps he should have taunted them for poor ratings, because attracting viewers is actually their job. educating america with quality journalism isnt.
since everyone loves to claim stewart is actually educating america more than the news is, at what point do i get to come on his show and tell him he isnt up to standards? i mean, if people are looking to him for guidance, he should provide us with a proper education on the issues right?
the point: when it isnt tucker carlson's responsibiity to educate us on the issues, calling him out only misdirects the blame from the ignorant public, who think they should depend on crossfire for a smart take on the news.
you don't seem to get that a political talking head yell-at-each-other show is not serious journalism, and only idiots expect it to be.
i dont expect anyone to find lots of real serious journalism, i expect us to piece together what is going on the best we can from multiple sources, all of which are biased to some extent.
i dunno if that exists, or if we should even expect it to. tv is bad medium for in-depth news. i figure if anyone really cares about being informed they would have to read, and invest a little time into it. but i am too lazy. then again i am not a prick going around calling anyone else out, like J. stewart.
tv works great for partisan hacks to yell at eath other in political discussions though.
we do agree that by the end of crossfire's run it wasnt a serious news show. so why not just find something else? it isnt as if there are arent opinions and news spewing out of thousands of different sources every day.
if you and i started show where we yelled at each other, i would resent it if some loser came and told us we are hurting america. we just want to yell at each other, is that so wrong? and if we want some jackass politicians to come on so we can softball them questions, that should be ok with everyone. you want hard journalism, go find it. read whatever you think is noble enough for your needs. nobody is stopping you from finding whatever news sources are up to your standards.
crossfire was not marketed as a hard news show, crossfire is a polical arguments show, with opinions, not journalism. one guy presents one side, the other guy yells at him. thats what crossfire is. i don't think they really marketed themselves as anything else. and if they did, so what.
it should be apparent to everyone that if you are making decisions based on facts you heard from jackasses (including stewart) yelling at each other on crossfire, then the problem is yours, not theirs.
i am saying stewart (and carlson) has no responsibilty to do anything other than say what he wants, and he is free to hurt america by attempting to mislead us by being wrong about the media's responsibility. the mistake is listening to stewart or crossfire. stewart is incorrect, but that doesnt matter unless we listen to him, which we shouldnt.
i didnt say stewart has any responsibility to be correct, only that we shouldnt listen to crossfire or stewart or hold them responsible for educating us.
if mainstream journalism is terrible, and we are getting our news from it, then shouldnt we be pointing our fingers at ourselves? we have options, and it is our responsibility to educate ourselves, not tucker carlson's.
jon stewart did a disservice to us, by furthering the notion that we should hold mainstream media responsible for educating us, and if they don't, they are "hurting america". we are the ones who are responsible for educating ourselves! chewing out carlson just continues the idea that we are not to blame. and with so many options out there for information, shouldnt we blame ourselves if we cant get the whole story? if anyone is "hurting america", it is stewart, for implying that any media source a responsibility to do anything other than report whatever they want. free speech doesnt hurt america. relying on one point of view and holding them responsible does.
the survival of civilization? cmon, wake up. when oil becomes too expensive. (it isnt now, it is very affordable, everyone buys it constantly) then money will go to alternatives instead of oil, then those will become more efficient and finally replace oil as our main energy source. there is nothing to worry about.
you continue to discuss this as if there is something to consider. we know how dell works. we know how gateway works. there is no "issue". certainly not with respect to the question of monopoly, the title of this thread. how dell operates is really of no consequence, as nobody is involved in any sort of monopoly.
the issue isnt dell, or compaq or any oem. the issue is monopolies. but there is no monopoly. so there is really no issue at all.
i love open source and i dont see why people dont just allow it to take its place in the market naturally without trying to hurt microsoft. it isnt as if the we havent been left without options. why waste time and money battling microsoft? things work out fine if we let the market work. nd how can we argue that it hasnt worked when our best OS options are free?
i just dont get this pretense that microsoft is forcing anyone to do anything. dell voluntarily does its business with microsoft and i voluntarily avoid dell. the only people being forced are taxpayers to pay the bills to torture microsoft. and i dont wanna torture bill gates, he is busy giving away his billions to charity.
what is your point, that you are unable to shop at local or smaller shops? do you just refuse to shop somewhere else so that you can continue to shout about the so-called monopoly? are you intentionally avoiding microsoft's competition in order to claim it doesnt exist?
i am building a computer now, amd box with ubuntu. microsoft hasnt bothered me a bit. they do my thing, i do mine. why is things are going so smoothly for me if microsoft is so oppressive to the market? ubuntu was free and it rocks. how has the market failed us?
"Again, the comments are hashed over the validity of a Microsoft monopoly on the desktop NOT if one could purchase a computer without Microsoft Windows installed."
it is the same question. if you can buy computers without paying microsoft, then there is no monopoly. a monopoly means there are no options, no competition.
you can buy computers without any microsoft getting any money at all. that means they have no monopoly. that means you have options. that means if you pay microsoft anything, you chose to. if you choose to pay something, it isnt a tax. a tax is not optional.
are you too lazy to shop at a locally owned store? or find one not in your area that ships?
you are trying as hard as you can to portray it as if you do not have options. you do.
you basically repeated again that you cant avoid the "microsoft tax", when clearly you can. paying taxes is not voluntary, so this ms tax is a misnomer.
"You can always get an OEM license from a local shop waived because Microsoft doesn't care about the shop that sells units in the hundreds or thousands."
so where is the problem? you just explixitly stated that you can shop at places where you are not subject to paying any "microsoft tax". why not just shop there and stop complaining? stop acting like you dont have options.
if you dont like the way dell does business, maybe you should buy computers somewhere else. why complain about a product you are not forced to buy? there are lots of products that are miserable, so what, shop elsewhwere and leave them be.
you dont see me outside of mcdonalds screaming "these dang cheeseburgers are not as tasty as i would have hoped!". that would be a waste of time i could be using to go get a cheesburger somewhere else, or even make my own cheeseburger. mmm, homemade cheeseburgers.
nobody says you have to buy a dell computer. or a anyone else. i am sure you could find lots and lots and people and shops willing to build you a PC with zero microsoft software on it. stop pretending you are forced to buy microsoft.
call a local computer guy in your town. it isnt so hard. use a phone. or build your own, lazy.
if what i meant to say is that linux is competing successfully, then how is MS to still be considered a monopoly? isnt a monopoly occuring when there is no competition?
why must we punish microsoft? why cant we let the inferiority of their products do that for us. why waste time and money bugging microsoft with court cases when we all can just use linux anyways. what do we care what microsft does, if we all have alternatives?
right, these people who use microsoft couldnt have just used linux products. they were forced. lets punish micrsoft for the foolish choices that consumers make. never let stupid consumers bear the responsibility and actually learn to make better decisions, like using linux.
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i need a suit against regular tv remotes as well. i throw them all the time. ordinary people dont put much force into those, but i really like to turn the shit out of the fucking channels.
and certainly the press plays a big role in democracy. but the press as a whole, not as individual news outlets. if we depend on one source to be our filter and aggregator of information, we are asking for trouble. and i might be able to rescue a tiny nugget of interesting truth from crossfire. but i would be smart not to trust it until i had seen some other perspectives.
of course you are right, the news networks are not good at delivering news. but now, more than any other time in history, you have virtually unlimited news sources. for almost any event in america some independent person is blogging about it and what it means. you do not need, and probably should not, depend on cnn or any single news source (particularly on tv, which doesnt lend itself to in-depth analysis) if you actually care about what is happening.
i find that it is relatively easy for me to figure out my opinions from the information i collect from the world, even if dont see crossfire or tv at all. of couse, i might have to read my local papers as well as a few international ones, and mayeb even a book on the issue in question. and that is my responsibility as a person who wants to understand what is going on. and i think it is really counterproductive to lay the blame on any individuals other than myself for that.
i would like stewart better if he said "hey you guys are doing your thing, bringing a perspective to the table, having your say, and that is cool with me, but i dont really trust you, and i would hope americans are smart enough to seek out a broader perspective.
because just offering your opinion for our perusal, that doesnt hurt america. an extra voice is always good, no matter what they are saying. the problem (if there is one) is people who don't take responsibility for their own ideas and perspectives and want it presented to them by arguing hacks on cable tv. and furthering that problem is stewart by encouraging the idea that any single news source should do anything but present a perspective. one among many.
an opinion, spoken and argued about by jerkoffs, no matter how stupid, never hurts america.
like i said, if you and i started our show and yelled at each other and called it "news according to two losers on the internet" and we got really popular, and we even got picked up by cnn, would you feel like we were hurting america by adding our stupid voices the opinions available? i wouldnt. if we became the world's only source of information, that would be pretty bad. but as long as were just one of the millions of options, i think we are helping america, if only for having a dialogue, no matter what we say.
"I think there's some obligation to make it a show with serious content." thats where we disagree. i dont think they are responsible to do anything, certainly i am no place to tell them what they should do. "Crossfire is not and should not be Jerry Springer." again, i dont feel like it our job to tell crossfire what they "should" be. again, that is implying that they have some responsibility to educate us. thats the mistake. we should carry that responsibility ourselves.
oh and to more directly answer your question, i think part of the problem with stewart is that he was serious, and not good-naturedly debating the state of journalism. he was taking serious personal shots at the guys on the show. that is sort of like me going on conan o'brien and telling conan he sucks, that i am serious, and i think he is a waste of time. thats an ok opinion, but if you did that to conan you would really be a dick, why not just not go on the show at all? maybe carlson should go to the daily show and sit in the audience and heckle stewart after every joke. even if the jokes really sucked, that wouldnt be appropiate.
i actually do think carlson's reaction wasnt bad. he was sort of suprised that jon stewart is gonna come on show and preach at him about journalistic standards. if you don't like somebody's perspective, that is fine, but to claim that they are hurting america by voicing their opinion? that is way over the top, and stewart takes himself way too seriously. possibly because everyone lavishes praise on him as if it is a suprise that you can pointedly make fun of politicians pretty easily.
i don't think is particulalry praiseworthy for a comic to come on tv and get on his high horse and talk down to political talking heads, because talking heads really have no real responsinility to do anything other than get ratings for CNN. perhaps he should have taunted them for poor ratings, because attracting viewers is actually their job. educating america with quality journalism isnt. since everyone loves to claim stewart is actually educating america more than the news is, at what point do i get to come on his show and tell him he isnt up to standards? i mean, if people are looking to him for guidance, he should provide us with a proper education on the issues right?
the point: when it isnt tucker carlson's responsibiity to educate us on the issues, calling him out only misdirects the blame from the ignorant public, who think they should depend on crossfire for a smart take on the news.
i dont expect anyone to find lots of real serious journalism, i expect us to piece together what is going on the best we can from multiple sources, all of which are biased to some extent.
tv works great for partisan hacks to yell at eath other in political discussions though.
if you and i started show where we yelled at each other, i would resent it if some loser came and told us we are hurting america. we just want to yell at each other, is that so wrong? and if we want some jackass politicians to come on so we can softball them questions, that should be ok with everyone. you want hard journalism, go find it. read whatever you think is noble enough for your needs. nobody is stopping you from finding whatever news sources are up to your standards.
it should be apparent to everyone that if you are making decisions based on facts you heard from jackasses (including stewart) yelling at each other on crossfire, then the problem is yours, not theirs.
i am saying stewart (and carlson) has no responsibilty to do anything other than say what he wants, and he is free to hurt america by attempting to mislead us by being wrong about the media's responsibility. the mistake is listening to stewart or crossfire. stewart is incorrect, but that doesnt matter unless we listen to him, which we shouldnt.
i didnt say stewart has any responsibility to be correct, only that we shouldnt listen to crossfire or stewart or hold them responsible for educating us.
if mainstream journalism is terrible, and we are getting our news from it, then shouldnt we be pointing our fingers at ourselves? we have options, and it is our responsibility to educate ourselves, not tucker carlson's. jon stewart did a disservice to us, by furthering the notion that we should hold mainstream media responsible for educating us, and if they don't, they are "hurting america". we are the ones who are responsible for educating ourselves! chewing out carlson just continues the idea that we are not to blame. and with so many options out there for information, shouldnt we blame ourselves if we cant get the whole story? if anyone is "hurting america", it is stewart, for implying that any media source a responsibility to do anything other than report whatever they want. free speech doesnt hurt america. relying on one point of view and holding them responsible does.
the survival of civilization? cmon, wake up. when oil becomes too expensive. (it isnt now, it is very affordable, everyone buys it constantly) then money will go to alternatives instead of oil, then those will become more efficient and finally replace oil as our main energy source. there is nothing to worry about.
the issue isnt dell, or compaq or any oem. the issue is monopolies. but there is no monopoly. so there is really no issue at all.
i love open source and i dont see why people dont just allow it to take its place in the market naturally without trying to hurt microsoft. it isnt as if the we havent been left without options. why waste time and money battling microsoft? things work out fine if we let the market work. nd how can we argue that it hasnt worked when our best OS options are free?
i just dont get this pretense that microsoft is forcing anyone to do anything. dell voluntarily does its business with microsoft and i voluntarily avoid dell. the only people being forced are taxpayers to pay the bills to torture microsoft. and i dont wanna torture bill gates, he is busy giving away his billions to charity.
i am building a computer now, amd box with ubuntu. microsoft hasnt bothered me a bit. they do my thing, i do mine. why is things are going so smoothly for me if microsoft is so oppressive to the market? ubuntu was free and it rocks. how has the market failed us?
"Again, the comments are hashed over the validity of a Microsoft monopoly on the desktop NOT if one could purchase a computer without Microsoft Windows installed." it is the same question. if you can buy computers without paying microsoft, then there is no monopoly. a monopoly means there are no options, no competition. you can buy computers without any microsoft getting any money at all. that means they have no monopoly. that means you have options. that means if you pay microsoft anything, you chose to. if you choose to pay something, it isnt a tax. a tax is not optional.
and i found you a place to buy laptops, lazybones: http://www.powernotebooks.com/articles/index.php?a ction=fullnews&id=18
or apple of course.
are you too lazy to shop at a locally owned store? or find one not in your area that ships? you are trying as hard as you can to portray it as if you do not have options. you do.
you basically repeated again that you cant avoid the "microsoft tax", when clearly you can. paying taxes is not voluntary, so this ms tax is a misnomer. "You can always get an OEM license from a local shop waived because Microsoft doesn't care about the shop that sells units in the hundreds or thousands." so where is the problem? you just explixitly stated that you can shop at places where you are not subject to paying any "microsoft tax". why not just shop there and stop complaining? stop acting like you dont have options.
if you dont like the way dell does business, maybe you should buy computers somewhere else. why complain about a product you are not forced to buy? there are lots of products that are miserable, so what, shop elsewhwere and leave them be. you dont see me outside of mcdonalds screaming "these dang cheeseburgers are not as tasty as i would have hoped!". that would be a waste of time i could be using to go get a cheesburger somewhere else, or even make my own cheeseburger. mmm, homemade cheeseburgers.
nobody says you have to buy a dell computer. or a anyone else. i am sure you could find lots and lots and people and shops willing to build you a PC with zero microsoft software on it. stop pretending you are forced to buy microsoft. call a local computer guy in your town. it isnt so hard. use a phone. or build your own, lazy.
if what i meant to say is that linux is competing successfully, then how is MS to still be considered a monopoly? isnt a monopoly occuring when there is no competition? why must we punish microsoft? why cant we let the inferiority of their products do that for us. why waste time and money bugging microsoft with court cases when we all can just use linux anyways. what do we care what microsft does, if we all have alternatives?
right, these people who use microsoft couldnt have just used linux products. they were forced. lets punish micrsoft for the foolish choices that consumers make. never let stupid consumers bear the responsibility and actually learn to make better decisions, like using linux.
i think it would be a nice way to protest a terrible rule.