This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
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OK, the text of this one is
Shall Section 7.4 of the Brevard County Charter be amended to increase the interval between appointment of regular Charter Review Commissions from six years to eight years, and to increase the time allowed for such review from one year to eighteen months?
Initial research showed this to be as straightforward as it seems. The charter requires that a commission be set up periodically to review the charter and recommend changes. Personally, I think this kind of thing shouldn’t have a regular schedule anyway, but rather just be as needed, and infrequent. So something that makes it LESS frequent is fine.
I will vote: YES FOR APPROVAL
![]() So, Saturday morning we took Brandy’s mom to the airport in Orlando to go back to Pennsylvania. (She had been visiting for Amy’s birthday.) As it happens, Brandy, having signed up to volunteer for the Kerry campaign, had some tickets to a John Edwards event in Orlando. So we stopped by. Before and after the event, Amy got to play on the moon bounce that was provided for the kids. There was an hour or so of waiting before anything happened. It was good that it was a nice day! Finally there were a few short speeches by some union types and local politicians… then John Edwards did indeed appear. We were probably about 30 feet back in the crowd from the podium. I took a few pictures. Including the one here.
The event we were at was the opening of a new union hall, so the crowd was mostly union. And Edwards oriented his speech in that direction. So there was a little bit on foreign policy and Iraq and such, but not a huge amount. Then they talked about health care, and social security, and trade policies, and all of that sort of thing. For me though, that probably had the wrong effect. Because what he was doing was not talking much about the areas in which I agree with them and instead he was emphasising the stuff where I disagree with them. Of course, I was not the intended audience. The union folks in the crowd were. And they ate it up. There was all sorts of waving of signs and cheering and people were very excited. After the event they were organizing busses to early voting locations and the like. I bet a lot of the folks did just that.
We did not however. We weren’t in the right county to actually vote. And in my case anyway, I still have more research to do before I am ready to vote, especially on the local races and issues. Also, Amy had something to do in the afternoon, so we had to get back to Melbourne.
Coincidentally, President Bush was speaking just north of Melbourne today as well. I wish we had had tickets for that as well. It would have been very interesting to go straight from one to the other and compare and contrast. As it turns out, one of Amy’s friends from the neighborhood did have tickets and went with her family. We did not though. Coming home on I-95, we had to content ourselves with watching what appeared from a distance to be Air Force One on final approach into Patrick Air Force Base. That almost counts, right?
OK, now the ballot text on this one simply says:
Shall the Preamble be revised and incorporated into Section 1.1 of the Charter of Brevard County so as to give legal effect to the provisions of the preamble?
Well, OK, obviously there isn’t enough information here to make a decision. However the full text of the existing county charter is here and the full text of the proposed amendment is here. Using those two together we see that they are trying to change this:
PREAMBLE
We, the people of Brevard County, in the belief that governmental decisions affecting the interests of our County should be made locally rather than by the State, in order to establish a government responsive to the needs and wishes of the citizens and to guarantee equal civil and political rights for all; do hereby avail ourselves of the opportunity afforded by the Constitution of Florida to adopt a Home Rule Charter, conceived in the interest of cooperation with the municipalities and other governmental units of the County; and do ordain and establish this Home Rule Charter for Brevard County.
ARTICLE 1
CREATION, POWERS AND ORDINANCES OF HOME RULE CHARTER GOVERNMENT
Section 1.1. Â Creation and general powers of home rule charter government
Brevard County shall be a home rule charter county, and, except as may be limited by this Home Rule Charter, shall have all powers of self-government granted now or hereafter by the Constitution and laws of the State of Florida.
to get rid of the preamble entirely and change Article 1 Section 1.1 to:
ARTICLE 1
CREATION, POWERS AND ORDINANCES OF HOME RULE CHARTER GOVERNMENT
Section 1.1. Â Creation and general powers of home rule charter government
WE, THE PEOPLE of Brevard County, residing in the constituent state of Florida of the United States of America, grateful for and secure in our protected individual rights, and in affirmation of dedication to the Constitutions and laws of the United States of the State of Florida, do ordain and establish this Home Rule Charter for the execution of our County Government for the most common benefits to all our inhabitants. Brevard County shall be a home rule charter county, and, except as may be limited by this Home Rule Charter, shall have all powers of self-government granted now or hereafter by the Constitution and laws of the State of Florida.
OK. This is supposidly to make the statements in the preamble have force of law since they are in the charter itself rather than in a preamble. However all that is being moved is essentially the statement that Brevard County is in Florida and we are grateful for our rights. This seems pointless, and the original is more verbose, and I like verbosity. And the best statement in favor of this I could find was a Florida Today Editorial that said
a minor alteration that does no harm and strengthens the preamble’s legitimacy
Uh huh. Pointless change, waste of time. Does no harm. Not a good enough argument.
So on this one, my vote is: NO
Time for another Darkflash! This one was sent to friends and family 2 September 2004 04:25:02 UTC.
So, this week has been pretty interesting. Lets see…
Thursday: We started looking at houses again for the first time in a couple months, now that we are fairly settled. We weren’t going to look again for a few more weeks until my company finishes paying me back my relocation money, but the agent sent us one that looked really good. So we looked. And liked it.
Saturday: We went back to the house. To check it out in a lot more detail. We still liked it a lot. It was near the top of the range we had been looking at, but it was larger than most we had looked at in the same price range. It needed a little work, but nothing major, and all things Brandy wanted to do. And otherwise it had almost all the things we had on the list of things we wanted. A couple little things missing, but nothing major, and on balance good.
Monday: In the morning I speak to my boss to see if he can assure me that I’ll get all my relocation money by the end of September. Because if I have that money, making an offer on a house would be viable. If I do not, then it needed to wait. He gave me enough assurances to move forward. We put in an offer. If we get it then we may be a little house poor for awhile. We’ll have to cut back on other things. It will be a little tight, but we can do it. I then immediately left for a business trip to New York City. I was supposed to be there from Monday night to Thursday night. Basically completely overlapping the Republican Convention. I found out on the plane though that the trip had been extended, and we (me and two other people from the company) would be staying until Friday night.
Tuesday: We had a great meeting with the people we were in NYC to see. And in the middle of the day I got notice that our offer had been officially accepted by the sellers of the house we liked. But by the time we left the meeting, the “well, maybe it might be an issue” thoughts on Hurricane Frances had turned into the forecasts explicitly saying there would be a good chance of a direct hit on us in Melbourne. There was much conferring, and it was decided that we were leaving on the next flight out. All the rest of the meetings would be canceled. MEanwhile, the AC in Melbourne started leaking, and soaked the rug in Amy’s room. Complete soaking stinking mess.
Wednesday: We got up at 4 AM, and took a 6 AM flight home. After a layover in Atlanta, we were home just after noon. Now it was all hurricane all the time. Oh, and Brandy had the AC folks fix the AC. But the rig in Amy’s room still was soaked and smelling very bad. But with the hurricane, there were more pressing concerns.
Accent had decided that on noon Thursday the whole company was being relocated. (And families as desired.) They are relocating to a big block of rooms they reserved at the Dolphin Hotel near Disney. The idea being (I think) that even if Orlando got clobbered too (which looks likely) that Disney would be up and running more quickly. However, no pets allowed, so we have to go elsewhere.
Now, to answer a question several have asked… We have a bunch of fish, 4 birds, 2 lizards and a dog. How do I have a dog? Am I not allergic? Won’t I die? Brandy has had the dog (Princely) since it was a puppy 9 years ago. It is a 115 pound rottweiler malemut mix. It is super friendly with people, but not so good with other dogs. Excepts its “brother” Sammy. Yes, Sammy. Anyway, the original plan was that when we moved to Florida, both dogs would stay with Brandy’s mom. But Brandy’s mom decided she couldn’t handle both of them. There were not many other options, and none of them were satisfying. So we brought Princely with us. Now I *AM* deathly allergic to dogs and cats and imaginary friends named Shmoo. But it is Florida, and there is an enclosed porch thing called a Florida room here. So that room is where the dog lives. I don’t go in there much, and aside from a couple times in major storms, Princely does not come inside, and thus we can coexist happily.
OK, now with that out of the way, that whole pets thing means we can’t stay with Accent in Orlando. So our plan is to just head roughly northwest, leaving by noon Thursday, and go as far as we can get. There will be lots of evacuation traffic, so who knows how far we will really manage to get, but we’ll try out best to at least make Tallahasee, if not beyond. Cause all the hotels in Florida are already booked apperantly. Brandy has relatives in Tallahasee. And perhaps beyond that we might actually be able to find a cheap pet friendly or pet oblivious motel.
Meanwhile, back at home, we spent Thursday afternoon moving stuff around in the garage to try to block up (a bit) the garage window, and to make space so Brandy’s second car could go into the garage. Then after that, after getting news that the Accent people who were going to help us board up the house a bit had some of the needed supplies left, but not all, we spent several hours in a fruitless search for places that still had things like masonry anchors and such. There may be such, but we didn’t find. In the morning two people from work are coming to help us, and we’ll improvise any way we can to board up as much as possible, tape up what we can’t board up, and then when time runs out, we’re just leaving.
We’ll have packed the animals and the most valuable stuff (both dollar wise and sentimental) into my Saturn and Brandy’s Nissan, and we’ll be on our way.
And no, I am not loading the email archive into the evacuation cars. If my old print email archive from CMU gets destroyed, I certainly will not be happy, I’ll be quite upset. But I’ll get over it. And frankly, if things get messed up enough that the email gets messed up, it will be bad enough that a lot more than that will be ruined, and it will be the least of our concerns.
We’ll put stuff as far away from windows as we can manage. Hope we don’t get it bad enough that the roof comes off, and just hope for the best.
Of course, we will actually hopefully be at least on the other side of the state by the time it hits. We may lose stuff, but we have no intention of being one of those idiots who stays around for a hurricane this strength.
Oh, and there is that house we put an offer in on. The offer that was accepted. Well… we have 14 days to schedule an inspection. That will be after the hurricane. If there is major storm damage, that may just not happen. At the same time, the added expenses of relocating the whole company may screw up cash flow at accent, in which case they may have issues getting the relocation money back to me in time. Also a case in which the house thing may not happen. We shall see.
A lot in flux right now.
Anyway, it is just after midnight. Brandy has already turned in. I’m also going to catch a quick nap. I’m meeting the folks from work who will be helping with this house at 7 AM. And before then we need to get a bit more packed and ready to leave, and a bit more of what is here in order. If the clock strikes noon, we’re leaving, even if we haven’t gotten everything together that we would like to have done. Noon, we go. We will not be here any longer. So it will be short sleep and up early to try to get everything set to go as much as possible. Whatever isn’t done, oh well.
So, having said that, time for me to take a quick nap, then wake up and get back to work.
I’ll update again if I have a chance later, but it may well be a few days.
Starting with this post over the next week and a half or so until the election, I’ll be working my way up the ballot from the bottom, deciding how to vote on each issue or race. Of course I will share that with my handful of loyal readers. I’m starting at the bottom which is local referenda, then the state referenda, then local offices, then state offices, then national offices, and finally president.
So lets start with this one:
Brevard County Charter Amendment 3
“Truth in Taxation”
Shall the Brevard County Charter be amended to require publication of notice of tax increase in any year in which the Board of County Commisioners tentatively adopts a property tax millage rate in excess of the roll-back rate computed pursuant to Florida Statutes?
Well, OK. I did a little googling on this just to make sure there wasn’t anything that didn’t seem obvious here, and it seemed to be straightforward. It just requires public notice of changes in property tax rates that would result in increased revenue. Which could be due to increases in the rate, or in the tax base. In any case, it is all about notification and transparency in government, which I am all for.
So on this one, I will vote: YES
Being the junkie that I am, especially with things being as close as they are, every day I check a few of the places doing predictions of the electoral college results based on state polls. A pet peeve of mine is any place that even bothers mentioning national poll results as if they are at all relevant to anything. The popular vote doesn’t matter. The electoral college does.
Luckily there are dozens of places doing electoral college analysis, ranging from major main stream news outlets to individuals tracking this on their own. Some of them have really solid methodologies, some have odd methods, some are trying to be unbiased, some are clearly partisan. But they are all interesting.
Anyway, as a reference to anybody who wants to look at this kind of stuff, here are my favorite places to check regularly:
UnFutz: Once or twice a week UnFutz comes out with an electoral college survey. This basically provides links to almost all of the places on the web doing this sort of analysis on an ongoing basis. In addition UnFutz adds meta-analysis, averages, graphs and all sorts of other interesting things aggregating the results of all the others. From here you can look at the overall trends and also click through to each of the source sites to see them in detail. If you want to look at this stuff, start here. In between the surveys UnFutz is also publishing some additional meta-analysis. For the most recent UnFutz survey as of this post, look here.
electionprojection.com: This site is done by a Bush supporter, but tries to have a neutral methodology. He has an interesting method that takes into account not just state polls, but also the national polls, approval ratings, and other things. I now check other places more often, but this is one of the first I found, and I got into a habit of looking, so it is still on my list.
electoral-vote.com: The must check site. Not necessarily because they have a better methodology, or their prediction is most likely to be right, or anything like that, but simply because they update every day, and have some cool graphs. They also provide daily commentary on what has changed since the previous days, thoughts on the validity of the results, and that sort of thing. As of today their graph shows just how volatile the electoral college is in a race this close. Since tracking started on this site in May, the lead has changed *SEVENTEEN TIMES*.
After spending time looking at all these sorts of things, including the tracking graphs on several, and seeing the current breakdown of the predictions on UnFutz (20 Bush winning, 15 bush ahead, 8 Kerry ahead, 19 Kerry winning) only one thing is clear… barring something huge happening in the next couple weeks, we definately won’t know the results until (at least) election night. This isn’t one of those where month ahead of time you pretty much knew how it would turn out. Every daily news cycle has the possibility of shifting the results significanty… with winner take all in most states, and so many states split right down the middle and really too close to call… it’ll all come down to how a handful of states end up falling at the very last minute, and that will depend on how the small number of undecideds fall, as well as how the far off the polls end up being from reality.
It should be fun. And of course, it will be even more interesting (although not necessarily fun) if any of the things listed in this article happen:
Florida 2000: The Sequel
(Richard Hasen, Slate)
Nightmare Scenarios
No. 1: Litigation Following Voting Glitch
No. 2: Litigation Over Whose Vote Counts
No. 3: Litigation Over Colorado’s Amendment 36
No. 4: Electoral College Woes in Congress
No. 5: Terrorist Attack That Disrupts Voting
(via electoral-vote.com)
There are also issues already bubbling about absentee votes and problems there, and various irregularities in voting in various places… none of which will matter at all if one or the other candidate pulls far enough ahead, but if it is close… I suppose it is too much to ask to get fun like 2000 twice in a row????
So this morning I was at the daily meeting we have at work. I had my work laptop open and had booked a meeting relevant to some stuff being discussed, I was looking at my to do list for the day, and OK, maybe during some of the slow parts of the meeting I snuck a peak at a news site. But then one of the people was giving a presentation on what they had been working on, so I closed the laptop and paid attention to the presentation.
About mid-way through, my laptop gave off a loud, completely unexpected BEEP. Well, at the end of the presentation I opened it up, and it was showing an angry error about not finding the hard drive. And then it just generally wouldn’t start. Kept cycling through the initial start up, but never actually starting up.
Sure enough, initial suspicions were confirmed a couple hours later by the guy here who deals with this sort of thing:
Your HD is bad. They are shipping a new one. You will have a new hard drive, OS, and software installed by the end of the week. Probably fully functional end of day Friday. Let me know if you need another computer to use in the mean time. […] You also might want to put together a list of the programs you will need installed on the laptop when I rebuild it, and then send the list to me when it’s complete. […] Sorry there was nothing I could do to recover the hard drive.
Yes, indeed. Dead hard drive. Lost everything that wasn’t already copied onto the network. All of the important finished documents were copied onto our document library, but works in progress, my email archive for work, all that fun stuff, all gone.
Luckily, unlike last time when I lost important things like emails back and forth between my friends as they insult and tease each other, this time it was just work stuff, so nothing important. I’m not really that concerned, although it still sucks.
I am however waiting for a third important hard drive in my life to fail. I’ll be double checking all my backups tonight.
Yesterday I was walking around the house cleaning up some in preparation for the arrival of Brandy’s mother. She is staying with us for a week because at 19 October 2004 09:54:54 UTC Amy will be exactly 9 years old. (Although, not being as precice as I am, the date she considers her “birthday” is a day later.)
Anyway, as I was walking around the house I noticed something wrong with my car. I had just had it detailed last week because it was a mess, and so I saw something. It took me about 5 seconds, then it suddenly came to me when the problem had originated. And with horror I determined it had been there for over a year and a half…
I had been screwed back in March of 2003. You see, back on my 2003 Q1 random trip to Ohio, I had busted up my back right tail light… Click below and check out the picture about 1/5 of the way down of my smashed taillight.
2003 Q1 Random Vacation – Day 3
OK, that was on 15 Feb 2003. On 1 Mar 2003 I went back to Ohio to pick up the car. Check out the picture about 1/3 of the way down of the fixed taillight below…
2003 Q1 Random Vacation – Epilogue
OK, what is wrong here???
Now, I should have noticed it right when I was picking up the car. Or at least sometime in the same year. Or maybe earlier this year. It isn’t like yesterday was the first time it was visible. And yes, I don’t wash my car as often as I should, but it isn’t the first time it has been clean, and I should have seen it anyway…
Do you see it???
When they put on the new back right panel, they did NOT restore the pinstripe!!!! It goes down the right side of my car to the back door, then STOPS. It does not continue through to the back like it is supposed to!!!! In the March 3rd picture of my car covered with snow on the page above, if you look carefully, you can see how the line stops at the end of the door and does not continue like it should.
(In both the 1 Mar 2003 and 3 Mar 2003 pictures there is something that looks a little like a pinstripe, but if you look carefully you can tell it does not match the pinstripe from the 15 Feb 2003 pictures and is really just a reflection from the shape of the car at that point.)
So now, I haven’t even noticed this for a year and a half, but now that I HAVE noticed it, it is driving me nuts and disturbing me. The car is uneven! The left side has the pinstripe all the way and the right side does not! It is all unbalanced!! I now feel self concious about driving the car. It is just WRONG.
It has been a year and a half, and Ohio is a long way again, so I’m certainly not running back to Ohio to complain at this point. But you can be sure when I go to my next regularly scheduled service with Saturn in about 3000 miles, I am going to have them fix this!
Argh!!!! I can’t believe I’ve been driving all lopsided for so long and not even known it!
Why didn’t anybody tell me!!!
I promised my thoughts on the various debates, and keep forgetting to do that, so here goes. Since the first thoughts are what I really want, I’ll grab things from emails I sent at the time when I can…
First Presidential Debate
(my comments sent at 1 Oct 2004 04:02:40 UTC)
I though Kerry definitely won. He came off much more together and coherent and his answers were a lot more thought out. He did a lot better than I expected. Bush did just about how I expected. I was surprised at just HOW much he just kept repeating his stock phrases and prepared stock answers. I expected both of them to do some repetition, it is part of what you do. And they both did. But over and over W kept going back to the same few things, even when it wasn’t related to the question at all… and I was just amused by some of the long pauses.
Vice Presidential Debate
(my comments sent 6 Oct 2004 11:18:19 UTC)
Unlike the other one, this one was a fair fight where both contestants were in the game. In the first half though, Cheney was running circles around Edwards. Edwards looked and sounded like a young wippersnapper who had a few lines he wanted to get off, while Cheney sounded like an authoratative adult who knew what the hell he was talking about. Edwards did a little bit better in the second half when they got to domestic policy, but just a little bit better, not a lot. He never pulled ahead. Cheney won this one.
I also note, that although I probably still would have issues picking a candidate, I’d be a lot happier if these were the two choices rather than Bush/Kerry. Either one of these guys would be better than the ones above them on the tickets.
(IE: I may still violently disagree with Cheney on many things, but at least it is obvious he has thought about the issues and has some complexity and depth behind his positions. Edwards is less of a difference, but I’ve just had a better reaction to him than Kerry, going all the way back to the primaries. He’s slick in a Clintonian way, but I still trust him more than Kerry.)
Second Presidential Debate: Well, I didn’t really comment much at the time in any form I can cut and paste. I thought it was much more even. Bush did a good job. Kerry did a good job. No knockouts, nothing significant. I was not impressed by the format. If you are going to have a town hall, have a real town hall. If you are just going to do what they did there, dispense with the audience and just have the moderator do it.
Third Presidential Debate: Well, to be honest… Domestic issues kind of bore me for the most part (with some exceptions) and I was kind of tired to begin with. I fell asleep at least three or four times trying to watch this debate. If it wasn’t for the Tivo I never would have made it through. As it was it took me several days. And I end up with very groggy impressions of it. So I can’t put a real opinion together. The polls and such seem to have Kerry coming out better from it.
Well, that is my debate opinion summary.
On Friday the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart was on Crossfire on CNN. And he just completely lit into them. Go Jon! Follow the link for the full transcript, or go here for the video. Here are my favorite bits…. (The […] indicates I’ve left stuff out, sometimes several minutes of stuff, so some context and back and forth is missing… I took out a bunch of the times Carlson and Begala inturrupted… go read the full transcript or watch the video to get the whole thing…)
Crossfire Transcript for 15 Oct 2004
CARLSON: Right. But of the nine guys running, who do you think was best. Do you think he was the best, the most impressive? […]
STEWART: I thought Al Sharpton was very impressive. I enjoyed his way of speaking. I think, oftentimes, the person that knows they can’t win is allowed to speak the most freely, because, otherwise, shows with titles, such as CROSSFIRE. Or “HARDBALL” or “I’m Going to Kick Your Ass” or.. Will jump on it. In many ways, it’s funny. And I made a special effort to come on the show today, because I have privately, amongst my friends and also in occasional newspapers and television shows, mentioned this show as being bad. […] And I wanted to — I felt that that wasn’t fair and I should come here and tell you that I don’t — it’s not so much that it’s bad, as it’s hurting America. […] So I wanted to come here today and say… […] Here’s just what I wanted to tell you guys. […] Stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America. […] See, the thing is, we need your help. Right now, you’re helping the politicians and the corporations. And we’re left out there to mow our lawns.
BEGALA: By beating up on them? You just said we’re too rough on them when they make mistakes.
STEWART: No, no, no, you’re not too rough on them. You’re part of their strategies. You are partisan, what do you call it, hacks. […] You know, it’s interesting to hear you talk about my responsibility. […] I didn’t realize that — and maybe this explains quite a bit. […] is that the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity. […] So what I would suggest is, when you talk about you’re holding politicians’ feet to fire, I think that’s disingenuous. I think you’re… […] So what I would suggest is, when you talk about you’re holding politicians’ feet to fire, I think that’s disingenuous. I think you’re… […] No, no, no, but what I’m saying is this. I’m not. I’m here to confront you, because we need help from the media and they’re hurting us. And it’s — the idea is…
BEGALA: Let me get this straight. If the indictment is — if the indictment is — and I have seen you say this — that… […] And that CROSSFIRE reduces everything, as I said in the intro, to left, right, black, white. […] Well, it’s because, see, we’re a debate show. […] It’s like saying The Weather Channel reduces everything to a storm front. […] We’re 30 minutes in a 24-hour day where we have each side on, as best we can get them, and have them fight it out.
STEWART: No, no, no, no, that would be great. To do a debate would be great. But that’s like saying pro wrestling is a show about athletic competition.
CARLSON: Jon, Jon, Jon, I’m sorry. I think you’re a good comedian. I think your lectures are boring. […]
STEWART: Now, this is theater. It’s obvious. How old are you?
CARLSON: Thirty-five.
STEWART: And you wear a bow tie. […] So this is theater. […] Now, listen, I’m not suggesting that you’re not a smart guy, because those are not easy to tie. […] But the thing is that this — you’re doing theater, when you should be doing debate, which would be great. […] It’s not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. And I will tell you why I know it.
CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you’re accusing us of partisan hackery?
STEWART: Absolutely.
CARLSON: You’ve got to be kidding me. He comes on and you…
STEWART: You’re on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. […] What is wrong with you?
CARLSON: Well, I’m just saying, there’s no reason for you — when you have this marvelous opportunity not to be the guy’s butt boy, to go ahead and be his butt boy. Come on. It’s embarrassing.
STEWART: I was absolutely his butt boy. I was so far — you would not believe what he ate two weeks ago. […] You know, the interesting thing I have is, you have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.
CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think.
STEWART: You need to go to one. The thing that I want to say is, when you have people on for just knee-jerk, reactionary talk…
CARLSON: Wait. I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny.
STEWART: No. No. I’m not going to be your monkey.[…]
CARLSON: I do think you’re more fun on your show. Just my opinion. […]
STEWART: You know what’s interesting, though? You’re as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.
(via Fark)
Now, I haven’t watched Crossfire in a long time. (Although I was in the audience for one taping a few years back.) It was interesting back in the Buchanon/Kinsey days, but since then I just have found it annoying. But this is one of the best Crossfires I have ever seen. They get taken to task about the whole premise of their show and similar shows.
I Tivo the Daily Show every day. I usually don’t watch it until a week or more later, but I do watch it all the time. And I watch and listen to news and commentary from a lot of other sources every day, mostly online. (I don’t watch nearly as much TV news as I used to.) And the striking thing time and time again is that Stewart is the only one doing a really good and consistant job of calling both the media and the politians on when they are being hypocritical, when they are just using vapid words with no content, etc.
I’ve heard talking heads on the various news networks or elsewhere talk sadly about how “young people get their news from the Daily Show” and how bad this was since they were not getting “real news”. I think it is even sadder that a comedy show can time after time provide a more insightful view into current events than the “real news”.
Anyway, watch the clip. It is good stuff.
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