How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

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Big and Bashful
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Re: How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

Post by Big and Bashful »

moonshadow wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 1:13 am Well.... I was going to write my rebuttal... but Aquarius seems to be indicating that I need to chill for now.. and give her luvins....

She has not moved from this spot for a half an hour... I put her down... she hops right back up...

Sorry guys.... maybe tomorrow... the cat's in charge tonight... :mrgreen:

20200513_210742_resize_35_compress53.jpg
I know that problem, trying to work from home, involving a little laptop from Work, with an old larger screen and pc keyboard to make life easier, plus my old big loptap displaying yet another document I needed to refer to. Add to this table a damp cat because the weather has turned, she was happily standing in front of my main screen, apart from walking around and over all the keyboards, yes, she won!
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Big and Bashful
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Re: How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

Post by Big and Bashful »

Question, I hear that Fox News is a joke, probably why people say that Trump only believes what Fox says. I have to admit I find that very easy to believe, looking at what I see of Trump's performances. Now every time I go near YouTube MSNBC jump out at me and indulge in Trump bashing.

I live in the UK, here Trump is now hardly getting a mention on the News I watch, I have to ask, is MSNBC as unreliable and biassed as Fox? is it true that Fox is as bad as people say? Is Trump as bad as I think he is? What the hell is happening over there?

Please don't cry! tears aren't good if they get into your keyboards!
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Re: How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

Post by crfriend »

Big and Bashful wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 11:58 amQuestion, I hear that Fox News is a joke, probably why people say that Trump only believes what Fox says. I have to admit I find that very easy to believe, looking at what I see of Trump's performances. Now every time I go near YouTube MSNBC jump out at me and indulge in Trump bashing.
The unfortunate truth here in the USA is that relatively unbiased journalism is pretty much a dead art. There are some look fairly moderate, but the mass media has become extremely partisan, with outright editorialising passing as journalism.

Pick your sources wisely and always be on the lookout for bias.
[...]I have to ask, is MSNBC as unreliable and biassed as Fox? is it true that Fox is as bad as people say? Is Trump as bad as I think he is? What the hell is happening over there?
To my thinking -- and having watched the thing evolve from the "Murdoch papers" of the 1970s and though into the TV era of Fox -- I submit that it's about as reliable as the Daily Wail as a source for fact. As far as "What the hell is happening over there?" goes, you are in close to the same boat as we are because we get fed the same tripe. Some will say it's all roses and bluebirds and other will say that it's seagulls and scraps; the "truth" (if there is one) is somewhere in the middle. In any event, unless one is very, very. very rich we have some extremely serious problems.
Please don't cry! tears aren't good if they get into your keyboards!
The solution to that problem is a weatherproof system. Or to heed the old adage of, "We'd better laugh about this because if we don't laugh, we will cry."
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Re: How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

Post by Big and Bashful »

I must admit (How could I forget?) that all the Trump bashing headlines look far more believable when you read his tweets. I do not like twitter, as a rule anything that throws adverts at me gets ignored or binned, but I find I look at Twitter and the tweets of Trump with a sort of horrified fascination, what springs to my mind is insanity. If the USA votes him in for another term I'll, erm, I'll, no, can't think of anything! Oh I know, probably consume a significant amount of alcoholic substances, that'll help the world go away for a bit!
#Meanwhile, happy lockdown guys!
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Jim
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Re: How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

Post by Jim »

Big and Bashful wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 11:58 am ...Is Trump as bad as I think he is? ...
Folks have different opinions over here. In my opinion, he's probably worse than you think.
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Re: How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

Post by Gusto10 »

crfriend wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 1:08 pm
Big and Bashful wrote: Thu May 14, 2020 11:58 amQuestion, I hear that Fox News is a joke, probably why people say that Trump only believes what Fox says. I have to admit I find that very easy to believe, looking at what I see of Trump's performances. Now every time I go near YouTube MSNBC jump out at me and indulge in Trump bashing.
The unfortunate truth here in the USA is that relatively unbiased journalism is pretty much a dead art. There are some look fairly moderate, but the mass media has become extremely partisan, with outright editorialising passing as journalism.

Pick your sources wisely and always be on the lookout for bias.
[...]I have to ask, is MSNBC as unreliable and biassed as Fox? is it true that Fox is as bad as people say? Is Trump as bad as I think he is? What the hell is happening over there?
To my thinking -- and having watched the thing evolve from the "Murdoch papers" of the 1970s and though into the TV era of Fox -- I submit that it's about as reliable as the Daily Wail as a source for fact. As far as "What the hell is happening over there?" goes, you are in close to the same boat as we are because we get fed the same tripe. Some will say it's all roses and bluebirds and other will say that it's seagulls and scraps; the "truth" (if there is one) is somewhere in the middle. In any event, unless one is very, very. very rich we have some extremely serious problems.
Please don't cry! tears aren't good if they get into your keyboards!
The solution to that problem is a weatherproof system. Or to heed the old adage of, "We'd better laugh about this because if we don't laugh, we will cry."
I do think that getting un-biased information is a major problem. Most TV channels are staterun, newspapers have changed - due to the internet, Facebook, twitter and the likes - from an information source to an means of influencing. Most article are opinions of the modern journalist aka influencer. Imho the best way to gather information is reading newspapers from various countries so what's left out by the national censor will be complimented by the other sources. I do tend to go for the BBC site, not so much for the news but more for the articles under "REEL" and "Future".
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Re: How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

Post by Pdxfashionpioneer »

When I have questions about how biased and how Liberal or Conservative a given news source is, I consult the Media Bias Chart, readily available at MediaBiasChart.com that rates all of the well-known media sources on two dimensions: Liberal to Conservative and Original Fact Reporting to Contains Inaccurate/Fabricated Info. For ease of interpretation they have that second axis broken up into 4 segments:
  • Green Rectangle News
  • Yellow Rectangle: Fair Interpretation of the News
  • Orange Rectangle: Unfair Interpretation of the News
  • Red Rectangle: Nonsense Damaging to Public Discourse


Some of the outlets in the News Rectangle, and it's more crowded than you might think are:
  • ABC
  • BBC*
  • Bloomberg
  • CBS
  • NBC
  • NPR*
  • PBR*
  • New York Times
  • Politico
  • Reuters
  • Wall Street Journal


All of these sources are rated as Neutral or only slightly biased one way or another.

* Publicly financed (Gusto 10, I don't know where you live but I hope you see in the US we only have 2 government/donation funded TV and radio networks.)

Fair Interpreters of the News includes MSNBC. The chart positions them between Skews Liberal and Hyper-Partisan Liberal. For comparison purposes in the UK, The Economist is also considered to be a Fair Interpreter of the News and straddles the Neutral territory and Skews Conservative. The Weekly Standard (Is that a UK publication?) is about as Conservative as MSNBC is Liberal.

Fox News straddles the line between Unfair Interpreter of the News and Nonsense damaging to Public Discourse. It also sits in the Hyper-Partisan Conservative column.

It is said in the US media that Mr. Trump watches Fox News for hours every day and relies on it more heavily than our national intelligence agencies to keep up on what's going on in the world.

So B&B, I'm pretty close to where Jim is on the current US President and would say you pretty much have him figured out. Beyond the fact that the US is the 800 pound gorilla in the world's living room, his misrule is also hurting the rest of the world because he pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Accords and the Iranian anti-nuke deal.

I know we have some folks who vehemently disagree with me, but before you launch consider 2 things:
  • Something like 96% of the world's published climate scientists agree that the majority of the change in the climate is attributable to human activity.
  • Before the US pulled out of the Iranian Nuclear Treaty not only were inspectors able to get into Iran's nuclear facilities, but Iran was sticking to the agreement. Since the US pulled out of the accord, the Iranians have announced they did not feel bound by the agreement and have ramped up the quantity and quality of their uranium refining. That is, they are working on stockpiling enough weapons-grade uranium to make bombs and warheads.
David, the PDX Fashion Pioneer

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Re: How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

Post by Big and Bashful »

Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 3:42 am When I have questions about how biased and how Liberal or Conservative a given news source is, I consult the Media Bias Chart, readily available at MediaBiasChart.com that rates all of the well-known media sources on two dimensions: Liberal to Conservative and Original Fact Reporting to Contains Inaccurate/Fabricated Info. For ease of interpretation they have that second axis broken up into 4 segments:
<snip>
Interesting, I will go and have a look at that now, one question, how impartial and neutral is this mediabiaschart.com? Thanks for telling me that my Trumpometer is reasonably accurate!

Maybe in 5 or 10 years, we will look back and laugh at this period as just a momentary lapse of reason! (Anyone not get the reference?)

Or maybe will will go, rub a couple of stcks together for warmth and look back on civilisation and curse it.

Or maybe COVID will win, humanity will be a thing of the past and nature will be wiping what is left off the face of a recovering planet, who knows? not I, I have tried reading the teabag (don't do tea leaves- too messy) according to the teabag, the future is "Tetley"!
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Re: How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

Post by moonshadow »

Big and Bashful wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 10:10 am Interesting, I will go and have a look at that now, one question, how impartial and neutral is this mediabiaschart.com?
Upon reviewing the chart on the website Dave listed, in my opinion I'd say the chart is pretty accurate, and keep in mind I do endeavor to look at all sides of an issue (politically moderate). Indeed, those news organizations listed at the top of the image chart are generally the ones I trust.

I will admit there were many news sources I've never heard of, mostly on the left side of the chart...

It does raise an interesting question... how can the left be responsible for so much social engineering when so little is said regarding left side news outlets?

Nevertheless, I get tickled at all of the sewage people post on social media these days... both sides! Each quite blatantly accuses the other of being all manner of stupid, and I'm left to wonder how can anybody be absolutely SURE they are not being misled by their politicians of choice or theirs source of news? Let's face it... we're all mostly just a bunch of armchair warriors anyway, few people have ever seen "the front lines" of an issue...

(In other words, in the opinion of this humble member... people seem to be mostly full of........) 8)
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Re: How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

Post by Big and Bashful »

Thanks Moon! (Where is that like/thumbs up button when you want one?)
Looks like my views must be reasonably accurate, good for my brain, bad for the world in general!
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Re: How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

Post by crfriend »

Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 3:42 am[...] All of these sources are rated as Neutral or only slightly biased one way or another.
In the USA with NPR and PBS, one needs to be aware of the source station. Some of the news commentators are well off the "neutral" spectrum. In the Boston market I am thinking in terms of WGBH's David Braude who is so far left that he makes Rush Limbaugh look like a moderate -- and, gratingly, has much the same style.

I would -- at least in the United States -- be extremely careful with the terms "liberal" and "conservative". They no longer hold their original meanings and can be considered inflammatory in general use.
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Re: How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

Post by Gusto10 »

Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 3:42 am* Publicly financed (Gusto 10, I don't know where you live but I hope you see in the US we only have 2 government/donation funded TV and radio networks.)
Both sides of the Atlantic are familiar to me.
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Re: How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

Post by moonshadow »

crfriend wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 7:07 pm I would -- at least in the United States -- be extremely careful with the terms "liberal" and "conservative". They no longer hold their original meanings and can be considered inflammatory in general use.
There seem to be two types of people in the U.S....

Those who are extremist, and those who are not...

Hard right and hard left people have been known to speak nonsense... and that's putting it politely!
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Re: How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

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Big and Bashful wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 6:17 pm Thanks Moon! (Where is that like/thumbs up button when you want one?)
Oh, do you mean this :thumleft: or this :thumright: :?:

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Re: How Did the Country (USA) that Could Do Anything Turn Into One That Can't Do Anything

Post by Ray »

“Momentary lapse of reason”....Pink Floyd?
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