More stuff you should be reading instead of this lousy blog…

• This is friggin’ hysterical. Boing Boing has a link to a movie that shows how you can open those fancy Kryptonite locks with a ball point pen!
• This, for me, is the crux of the matter. Here’s Nicholas Kristof as quoted in The Poor Man:

  “Mr. Bush’s own route to avoid the draft underscores the disparities in America, yet his policies seem based on a kind of social Darwinism in which the successful make their own opportunities. His tax cuts and entire outlook seem rooted in ideas not of noblesse oblige, but of noblesse entitlement.”

  The idea that the poor and oppressed are merely lazy slobs who haven’t worked hard enough is a dangerous half-truth. Hard work often pays off, no doubt, but connections, power, and money are what really tilt the playing field.

• In that vein, Atrios reports that Kerry isn’t playing the President’s blame game. When you think about it, isn’t this yet another refutation of Bush’s “social Darwinist” approach? When it comes to Presidential failures, it’s not his fault. However, when it comes to the unemployed or the homeless, they just haven’t worked hard enough?
• Corante’s Ernest Miller is no longer amused by the forged-document issue at CBS. Miller asks, “At what point do the members of a news organization have an ethical duty or responsibility to speak out against their own organization?” That leads me to wonder whether having a staff whistleblower would be useful or not. What if all news organizations had someone on their staff whose job it was to look out for the organization’s credibility. (Actually, isn’t this one of the duties of an ombudsman?)
• Athenae has a good take on the current trend of the press to make negative=bad journalism and postive=good journalism.

• No Related Post

Wednesday, September 15th, 2004 @ 11:22 am Nothings
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