Bear Flag Republic Radio Weblog

Three Years Since. I left work on September 10th at 9:00 PM. An hour before, my coworker was getting nervous. She was leaving on a trip to Italy on the 12th and wanted to meet me at 8:30 AM on the 11th to go over what projects of hers I needed to steer in her absence. I rolled my eyes and complained that no one schedules meetings at 8:30 in the morning, and convinced her to postpone the meeting to 10:00 AM. [kuro5hin.org]
comments < 3:15:37 PM        >

This is funny and so is this and this. Made me laugh!

Here is a huge collection of humor items about Dan Rather's foolishness. Very funny!

ABC, and NPR and PBS Media Matters fall for another amazing gaffe! They neglected to account for a time zone difference and accused those who questioned Dan Rather of posting questions before CBS had revealed the story!

This stuff is so hilariously funny. Sure makes journalists look like bozos. That alone, you'd think, would have the real journalists working hard to take down CBS right now.

I think I have discovered what happened at CBS! I have been doing some research and I have found some memos that reveal that CBS has outsourced all their fact-checking to a non-English speaking country where their "experts" are paid about US $1.00 per hour. This move was done to increase productivity, says the internal memo. The memo says they are lobbying the government to allow them to import fact checkers on temporary visas, but since 9-11 (2001), security restrictions are making it harder and harder to import such workers. The problem, it says, is that U.S. schools are doing a really poor job of turning out fact checkers who will verify facts the way CBS wants them to be verified. This stuff is blockbuster material. I cannot authenticate the memos but I believe them to be true, and I certainly would not publish memos unless they are true (and because I wanted more hits on my web site anyway).

[Edward Mitchell: Common Sense Technology]
comments < 11:41:52 AM        >

Dave Barry on Electronic Voting [Slashdot:]
comments < 11:41:37 AM        >

Hobbit Hole + World Class Fallout Shelter [Slashdot:]
comments < 11:41:06 AM        >

It just does not stop. The media is breathlessly reporting that Hurricane Ivan is now a Category 5 storm with 165 mph winds (last night) or Category 4 as of this morning, "but might strengthen"... in order to hype up the threat to Florida or wherever it eventally lands in the U.S.

However, computer models forecast winds of about 110 mph for Wednesday, when it is impacted to make landfall.  None of the "professional journalists" are reporting on the forecast for Wednesday, but are instead making it sound like Florida will be hit with 165 mph winds. And that's fraud, again. A Category 2 hurricane will be bad enough, but why the misrepresentation? Selling more eyeballs to advertisers, of course.

Source: National Hurricane Center, data collected at 10:34 AM PDT, 12 Sep 2004.
 
FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS
 
INITIAL      12/1500Z 19.0N  81.5W   135 KT
 12HR VT     13/0000Z 19.8N  82.4W   145 KT
 24HR VT     13/1200Z 21.3N  83.5W   145 KT
 36HR VT     14/0000Z 22.9N  84.4W   140 KT
 48HR VT     14/1200Z 24.7N  85.0W   125 KT
 72HR VT     15/1200Z 28.3N  85.5W   110 KT
 96HR VT     16/1200Z 32.5N  84.5W    55 KT...INLAND
120HR VT     17/1200Z 37.0N  81.5W    25 KT...INLAND

The events of the past week (and there have been more than those I have posted here) have struck a potentially fatal blow to "professional journalists" running roughshod over information flow in the U.S. Today it is often easy to do significant "fact checking" and we quickly learn that professional reporters plagiarize, make up the news, falsify photos (as the L.A. Times was caught doing), selectively use data to make a point by eliminating data that harms their point (such as the National Geographic), and so on. What has changed is that ordinary people can now easily check up on the pros. The pros, as Dan Rather is demonstrating do not yet understand this.
[Edward Mitchell: Common Sense Technology]
comments < 11:39:36 AM        >