That guy sounds like an idiot. We should leave it at that (though we can assume he's a Democrat and/or Liberal if we want to bring that element into this).

I'm not apologizing for his ignorance as to Bush's relationship to the mining industry, but most of the points he made were on the mark as Boortz notes. The infractions the mine had over the past 2 years bring to light what the regulations and regulatory powers have with regards to the actual safety of Americans. This isn't political crony-ism (unless someone can prove otherwise), this is average attempts by a business to not have the government rules prevent them from making a buck. Sometimes the government oversteps its bounds, sometimes the business breaks the laws. Sadly, honest hardworking Americans get caught up in it.

It appears that these deaths could have been prevented, or at least more of them could have been saved, had the rules/regulations been followed. I base this on what "experts" are saying on TV and the radio, and writing in print. The sad part is this is indicative of everyday life for hundreds/thousands of Americans, the rules get broken and people's lives or livelihoods get caught in the process. There are rules, meant to keep us and workers safe, being broken right now. I'm not trying to be an alarmist, because I think the system in general works pretty well, but clearly the past few years have taught us that while companies will eventually get caught (because of stupidity), you can lie/cheat/steal/fraud milliions and millions of dollars. I choose to look at these kinds of things as aberations and anomalies, but I don't blame those who look at all this stuff and feel like they can't make an impact.

The news was reported after 2 sources came through with confirmation. The first confirmation came from the Governor himself when a family member stopped him and asked point blank if there were 12 survivors and he said "yes." The family members then told the press.


This is confirmation? "From the governor himself", not quite if it was relayed through a family member to the press. Let's see, a family member, highly emotionally involved, desparately wanting to hear good news is going to clearly and objectively hear anything anyone has to say to them after a long, difficult, emotional day? I don't think so. Not to mention press trying to scoop competitiors on a story and boost their rankings or rep. I have difficulty reading and correctly understanding my company insurance policies when I am trying to determine if a certain procedure or test is covered. I can only truly understand the policies when I don't have an immediate need. Ok, part of that is because those things are so difficult to read in the first place.

Is it such a stretch to believe when a lot is at stake, someone can interpret information incorrectly? If you were responsible for preventing the implementation of weapons that could kill thousands, or hundreds of thousands, wouldn't you think that there would be a lot of pressure and stress involved in every decision you make? How would the weight of that burden affect the weight you give the information?

R10C is having some fun with some of you, but the analogy is a lot closer to the truth than those same people realize. It is more a matter of scale and perspective

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Behold the turtle! He makes progess only when he sticks his neck out. (James Bryant Conant)
GET OFF THE F*%KING WALL!!!!!!! (Doug Stern)
Brevity is the soul of wit. (William Shakespeare)

the republicans laissez-faire attitude toward abuses and irresponsibility on the part of business owners will bite them in ass before long. maybe this time, maybe next time.

however,as long as ignorant jerks keep saying ' oh it's the liberal media reporting this crap don't worry about it now get back in that mine'

it could be a while.

the myth of the liberal media is the greatest propaganda tool the right has ever come up with.

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"the trouble with normal is - it always gets worse"

- Cockburn

 the myth of the liberal media is the greatest propaganda tool the right has ever come up with.


Is it really?

[reply] the myth of the liberal media is the greatest propaganda tool the right has ever come up with.


Is it really?[/reply]

no i just said that for fun.

of course it is. the myth of the liberal media is perfect cover for any bullshit the right wants to pull.

someone calls em on it - it's just the 'liberal media'


brilliant. wish we'd thought of it.

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"the trouble with normal is - it always gets worse"

- Cockburn

 
from thenation.com:

That the media were biased against the Reagan Administration is an article of faith among Republicans. Yet James Baker, perhaps the most media-savvy of them, owned up to the fact that any such complaint was decidedly misplaced. "There were days and times and events we might have had some complaints [but] on balance I don't think we had anything to complain about," he explained to one writer. Patrick Buchanan, among the most conservative pundits and presidential candidates in Republican history, found that he could not identify any allegedly liberal bias against him during his presidential candidacies. "I've gotten balanced coverage, and broad coverage--all we could have asked. For heaven sakes, we kid about the 'liberal media,' but every Republican on earth does that," the aspiring American ayatollah cheerfully confessed during the 1996 campaign. And even William Kristol, without a doubt the most influential Republican/neoconservative publicist in America today, has come clean on this issue. "I admit it," he told a reporter. "The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures." Nevertheless, Kristol apparently feels no compunction about exploiting and reinforcing the ignorant prejudices of his own constituency. In a 2001 pitch to conservative potential subscribers to his Rupert Murdoch-funded magazine, Kristol complained, "The trouble with politics and political coverage today is that there's too much liberal bias.... There's too much tilt toward the left-wing agenda. Too much apology for liberal policy failures. Too much pandering to liberal candidates and causes." (It's a wonder he left out "Too much hypocrisy.")


well that's an accurate description of my feelings on the subject.

avoid responsibility. blame the ref.

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"the trouble with normal is - it always gets worse"

- Cockburn

"You're not only an attention whore, but an idiot to boot."

You really shouldn't name call, especially when you haven't offerred anything better. There's a huge difference between being smart and having a smart mouth. I tell that to the youngsters I tutor and coach.

"Asked to elaborate on why he thought the mine stayed open despite the violations, Mr. Spadaro actually said this: "I think it's because of the current Bush administration's policies toward mine operators and their reluctance to take the strong enforcement action that's sometimes necessary." That's right....those miners died because of, you guessed it, President George W. Bush's lack of enforcement action on mine operators. The president killed the miners!"

Huh ????

How about this - It's because of the Bush Administration's policy or lack of it in controlling state governments on traffic laws that should be made responsible for every traffic related death in the USA. All the people who died on the roads during the time he's in office ... George Bush killed them all!

Naivete. That's the word for people who refuse to see the liberal media for what they are.

The liberal slant has been objectively identified in a study, most recently by two professors; one from UCLA and the other from Univ. of Missouri.

Clearly they have an agenda and clearly this past year provided many examples of how they attempted to foment this agenda.

Open your eyes and you too can see the light.

"the myth of the liberal media is the greatest propaganda tool the right has ever come up with."

your answer - Is it really?

my answer - Without exception ...everything in life, in society, in politics, in personal behaviour requires a strike of balance. Either extreme is not the best.

This includes the freedom of press. Total unbridled freedom of press is NOT a good thing.

I challenge anyone to come up with a viable exception to my without exception statement above.

You may wish to rephrase your challenge. It doesn't make sense. What is it exactly you are asking?

"The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."

Bingo.

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You sir, are my new hero! - Trifan 11/13/2008

Casey, you are a wise man - blueraider_mike 11/13/2008

Casey, This is an astute observation. - Slowbern 11/17/2008

 
[font "Arial"][size 3]The news was reported after 2 sources came through with confirmation. The first confirmation came from the Governor himself when a family member stopped him and asked point blank if there were 12 survivors and he said "yes." The family members then told the press.[/size][/font]

[font "Arial"][size 3]Now do you think it is a liberal agenda? If you were sitting at an editors desk in New York, and received confirmation from a family member and the governor himself that 12 people were alive, would you sit on it or report it? How many more confirmations would you have received before you reported it?[/size][/font]

What ever happened to reporting on what was actually happening instead of listening to 2 people who aren't even in the mines. In my opinion, nothing should be reported until the reporter sees it. Too many media types nowadays just want to be the first to report something. I don't care which one was the first, I want to watch or read the one who is the most accurate. And none of them are doing that nowadays. They report on heresay and conjecture far too much. Unless I see what is going on, I don't listen to any reporter.

And that agenda would be what? Do all the press corps from coast to coast meet monthly to discuss the agenda or do they just send out a memo via email? Do you have any inkling the coordination that would be needed for such a nefarious agenda to actually exist? How does one "objectively" measure something that is inherently subjective? What is the metric used to determine "liberal bias"? How does the international press factor into this? With such obvious liberal bias and assuming a close correlation between liberal and Democrat, why was Clinton raked over the coals so consistently? Wouldn't there have been more favorable coverage?

The media is anti-establishment. And they are incompetent. Some are conservative and some are liberal. The drum beat of "liberal bias" in the media is a form of plausible deniability writ large...but at best, it is waaaaay overblown.

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f/k/a mclamb6

Not according to the study. It was objectively shown the liberal bias of the media.

No, it's not way overblown. And yes, they do speak to each other, ie., the WP talks to the NYT and the NYT talks to the LAT. Do you think they operate in a vacuum?

The fact is that the majority of the press as well as academia are left oriented. They continue to push their agendas in the papers and in college classrooms.

I take it you don't read the NYT or you would see what's going on with its own omboudsman. Even he doesn't believe half the stuff they're printing.

The list goes on and on. Fortunately, only the left believes its drivel.

So in other words, you have absolutely no response to any of the questions I asked. Duly noted.

I particularly like how you now threw in academia as pushing this nefarious agenda...what a joke. If I wanted to find a liberal professor, I could find a liberal professor. If I wanted to find a conservative professor, I could find a conservative professor. This tin hat stuff is amusing.

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f/k/a mclamb6

The challenge is very clear. Can you suggest a situation where balance is not the right choice?

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"We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe."

I can see you don't really follow the news and/or what's been going on within academia. It's a rather naive comment to say that you could find a conservative professor if you wanted to.

This all sounds like it's news to you. Welcome to reality. I'm not sure where you've been, but the only people who haven't accepted that there isn't a left tilt to the media and academia are those on forums apparently.

It's not like it's any secret. But you must read in order to know that.

You weren't paying attention to the whole CPB thing, where that consultant was surreptitiously hired to check for liberal bias on "Now with Bill Moyers" and other PBS shows. His standard? If the person disagreed with the Bush Administration, it counted as a liberal point of view. Even if the person saying it was Republican Chuck Hegel. I'm not making this up.

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----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

mclamb6 did not say that Academia and the press were not left oriented. He said that you can find a conservative

professor if you want to. And this is true.

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"We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe."

I can't help but notice you provide absolutely no back up to your statements and refuse to answer any of the questions I posed. Rather, you simply adopt a condescending tone and move on. Very telling.

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f/k/a mclamb6

This one has been beat to death. If you come from the position that there's no liberal bias in the media, then there's really not much to discuss since it reveals that you are naive and uninitiated.

I suppose that all the liberal story slants are just coincidences.

If it looks like a duck....

Hence the reputation of "Resident troll" at trinewbies...

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_______________________________________________

Then please explain the conservative slants and "blood-in-the-water" type attacks against Clinton. This continued into Gore's presidential campaign as well.

As I said, the media is anti-establishment and incompetent. Bias is minimal.

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f/k/a mclamb6

You weren't paying attention to the whole CPB thing, where that consultant was surreptitiously hired to check for liberal bias on "Now with Bill Moyers" and other PBS shows. His standard? If the person disagreed with the Bush Administration, it counted as a liberal point of view. Even if the person saying it was Republican Chuck Hegel. I'm not making this up.



PLEASE. You really aren't going to use Bill Moyers as your shining example are you?



"The major example of this is PBS omnipresence Bill Moyers. In 1999, Knight-Ridder reporter Frank Greve revealed than in his moonlighting job as the president of a liberal foundation (the Florence and John Schumann Foundation), Moyers was funding left-wing activists for campaign finance “reform”– and then interviewing them on his show, giving them national exposure at taxpayer expense, with no disclosure.

In June of 1999, Moyers hosted a PBS show ironically called “Free Speech for Sale,” and he opened with the views of three "reformers" -- Burt Neuborne of the Brennan Center for Justice, Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity, and Bob Hall of Democracy South. But as Greve reported, Moyers "never revealed that their organizations have received a total of $2.6 million from the Schumann Foundation in the last five years."



OOPS.