Wednesday, January 28, 2004

Luken and Miller Sitting in a Tree

Greg Korte writes today about Mayor Charlie Luken sitting next to Dennis Miller at the SOTU. A coup for Korte for getting this scoop on "hot" topic, at least on my blog. I could take this as a joke on me, but with Dean being the Blog candidate it still makes perfect sense beyond my myopic view of the world:
But when the speech started, Miller cheered like a blogger at a Howard Dean rally. "He must have stood up 70 or 80 times," said Luken, who said he himself only stood up half as often.


Greg also showed Councilman Chris Smitherman continuing his rookie mistakes. I think Smitherman has a bit of an ego and over worked sense of self-importance. Pointing out Smitherman's lack of explanation regarding why he needed to know what High School each police officer attended is something that I wish more local media would pick up. It would be very interesting to learn why Smitherman needed to know that less than 60% went to Cincinnati area schools. The line referenced Chris's father being the principal of the #2 school was classic and I think the Whistleblower had it first too.

Tuesday, January 27, 2004

New Miami Prof Media Blog

Christopher S. Kelley, a professor at Miami, has a media watchdog blog called "Media Watch." I will be checking it out and may add it to my roll.

Cincinnati Post Editorial

The Post comes close to calling out the President on where the WMD's are. Will the Enquirer do the same? I will guess they will stick to their spin from last year. They were ahead of the Bush spin by a few months, or were just willing participants to ignore the WMD issue from the start. I guess being lied to is something journalists are used to, and they discount it, even from a President.

Missing Questions for Jack Espelage

Mr. Espelage: Have you forgotten about WMD? Or do the ends justify the means and getting Saddam was worth it? I wonder when we invade North Korea to free their people. How about China? How about Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria? How about half of the former Soviet Republics?

Bottom line for Jack: Yes getting Saddam was a positive for the world, but the means to do so were not good in the long run. We could have waited 6 months or more to act, but politics prevented that from happening. We did not need to fight this war. Bush chose to fight it. You can like that choice, but you will have to ignore the misinformation you were given about Iraq's WMD's and ties to "terrorism." If you like being the manipulated fool, doing the bidding for your dear leader, that is your right. I would suggest you understand that the rest of us don't like being lied to, and Ted Kennedy was right to shake his head at Bush during the SOTU.

Playing to the Ignorant Crowd?

I know the Enquirer is trying to appeal to the suburbs, but are they trying on purpose to appeal to extreme religious groups who embrace myth and try to make it into a faux-science, a step below pseudoscience. Answers in Genesis does not need the press, what it needs is critical journalism. All this article does is provide a tourism advertisement to a den of theocratic indoctrination.

Secret Service Say's No to City

The U.S. Secret Service will not review the 1998 video of a police officer being interrogated when he allegedly used the "N-word." There reason for no helping was that they do not want to establish a precedent of examining information for something not involved in a criminal investigation.

Blood, Blood, Blood Makes the Ice Red

Miami University sports teams get little coverage here in Cincinnati. The Miami Hockey program get even less. It is great to see my classmate Enrico Blasi and his team get good press.