Tag: Media

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Posted on | by Ed | 7 Comments on UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

The first (and only) time I watched an episode of Sex and the City I expected something mindless that I would dislike, logically, because it is not aimed at me. Fifty-four minutes later I was a hardcore Marxist, ready to put my fist through the Clinique window and throttle someone – anyone – on the other side.

Similarly, I saw a trailer prior to the new comedy Step Brothers** that has the potential to turn America into a nation of militant feminists. This is not praise for the filmmakers, for making new feminists is not their goal. But in their quest for "entertainment" the makers of The House Bunny have concocted a product so patronizing, so insulting, and so anachronistic that I am not sure minors should be allowed to see it.

The three-minute trailer can be seen here. Let me summarize. Aging Playboy bunny gets kicked out of the Mansion. She stumbles upon Campus and, through a series of machniations likely too convoluted and thematically rich to comprehend here, becomes the "House Mother" to a sorority. But it's the Loser sorority for Rejects – as subtle visual cues tell us. There's the girl with braces, the "fat" girl (approximately size 8), the goth girl, Too Many Piercings girl, and various other stock characters in alarmingly unglamorous clothing.

House Bunny to the rescue. In what I can only assume is a stirring montage set to "I Know What Boys Like," she teaches all of them how to dress and apply makeup in a manner that will make boys like them (i.e., like extras from Spice World who apply mascara with a butterknife).

As the promo puts it:

(The girls) need Shelley to teach them the ways of makeup and men; at the same time, Shelley needs some of what the Zetas have – a sense of individuality. The combination leads all the girls to learn how to stop pretending and start being themselves.

The Zetas learn that life is about not only studying but also shopping. The Bespectacled Nerd gets her dream boy, an aryan football star who was apparently hit by a truck full of J. Crew accessories. Bunny learns that men care about what is on the inside once a girl has met the prerequisite of looking like a clown hooker. Everyone grows and becomes a better person. Hugs are shared. Lessons learnt. Heels strutted-in. Breasts lifted. Hemlines compromised.

As my friend said at the completion of the trailer, "Wow. I'm not exactly a feminist, but that's incredibly offensive." I have a difficult time imagining any other reaction. Like those shorts/pants with words like "Juicy" written across the ass or thongs for 10 year-olds, this film is something that makes me wonder why a society that tolerates, even encourages, such misogyny bothers with the charade of gender equality.

**Hilarious. Exactly what you think it is: 96 minutes of Ferrell and John C. Reilly swearing and acting like retards.

BRING ON THE ROBOT MEDIA

Posted on | by Ed | 7 Comments on BRING ON THE ROBOT MEDIA

Just for shits and giggles, I'm going to (sort of) agree with Glenn Beck. A little.

With the exception of a few ill-advised and feeble attempts to defend McCain, Beck's write-up of the media's "embarrassing" coverage of Obama's Middle East trip is unusually readable. He mentions some facts worth mentioning. Unfortunately I can't tell what he expects anyone to do about it.

I think Beck is cherry-picking to note some of the ridiculous things the media report as "news" – the contents of Obama's iPod or workout routine. There was plenty of coverage about George Bush's iPod and love of mountain biking back in the day. This isn't Obama-specific, it's just the kind of vapid fluff that passes for news these days.

His second point – the vastly larger number of reporters vying for spots on Obama's foreign trip compared to McCain's – is valid. There is no way to ignore the numbers. So we agree on the basic facts. The conclusion is subjective, though. This doesn't prove that "bias" is the problem. Maybe – just maybe – McCain is the problem. He's a phenomenally boring person running a boring campaign utterly devoid of media savvy.
buy clomid online pridedentaloffice.com/wp-content/languages/new/over/clomid.html no prescription

He is essentially a walking blooper reel who shows complete disdain for the media (as do his followers). Since the media are in the business of selling newspapers and keeping viewers interested, McCain is poison. Of course they spend as little time with him as possible.

Why is there no story about John McCain's iPod? Well, he doesn't own one. Why are there no stories about his hobbies? Well, he doesn't have any. He's an ancient, surly, out-of-touch person. What is there to cover? How does one write sympathetically about a person who is "aware of the Internet" but never used it? Reporters don't make him sound like your doddering grandfather. He does that himself. So on the fluffy "human interest" stories, McCain is bound to get the short end of the stick.

online pharmacy buy amoxicillin online no prescription pharmacy

It's hard to do personality coverage of a man who doesn't have one aside from the occasional burst of anger.

What about the "hard news?" Arguably McCain does not get slighted as badly in this category, but the same basic problem exists. Beck says:

And while Obama was flying from country to country this week in a plane packed with celebrity reporters, McCain flew to an event in New Hampshire. After his Boeing 737 landed in Manchester, he stepped out onto the tarmac and glanced at the one reporter who'd bothered to show up. Yes, one.

But why would more than one reporter show up? Does Beck expect that a throng will attend something that has zero news value and even less commercial appeal? The event was a town hall meeting at the Rochester, NH Opera House. Can you think of anything that sounds more boring or less newsworthy? His campaign's media savvy is so bad it's comical. As Obama spoke to 200,000 in Berlin, McCain spoke to six people at "Schmidt's Sausage Haus und Restaurant" in Ohio. Are those two events supposed to get equal coverage? Maybe Glenn Beck should direct his anger at whatever asshat McCain has running his media team and setting him up in these ridiculous, humiliating, bush-league "appearances.

online pharmacy buy ventolin online no prescription pharmacy

"

If the media are slighting McCain's "message", it's probably because there isn't a single part of it that is new, exciting, or original. Name one policy he has proposed that differs from George W.
buy finasteride online pridedentaloffice.com/wp-content/languages/new/over/finasteride.html no prescription

Bush. I dare you, name one. There is a reason that people do not show up to rallies to scream "WOOO! STATUS QUO! WOOOOO!" Campaigning for a third term of Bush's presidency is what it is. "McCain says: stay in Iraq, keep Bush's tax cuts" hardly makes an interesting headline. Who can even muster the energy to pretend like that's exciting? The media can't.

Reporters are people. They are not robots who can divorce themselves from the demands of their industry and their own sense of what is or isn't interesting. The media would cover McCain's wild rallies or speeches to 200,000 people if McCain had wild rallies or could get 200,000 people to watch him speak. They have less interest in McCain because, as Beck points out, he doesn't sell. But they also have less interest in him because the public has less interest in him. Not necessarily politically (he's polling decently and he'll probably win in the end) but as a Story. We'd sooner watch news stories about an old guy in a nursing home, and we might be hard-pressed to tell the difference.

EN MINIATURE

Posted on | by Ed | 1 Comment on EN MINIATURE

Typical undergraduates, the 18-to-22 kind, are at a crucial developmental stage. They are about to be told "no" for the first time in their lives in an academic setting. Someone is about to evaluate their work, say "This is shit," and demand better. This is a turning point. One of two things will happen. The student can say "I did something wrong. I need to figure out how to do it right." This student will, in all likelihood, go on to be successful in his or her endeavors. Conversely, the student can say "That professor hates me / is biased against me / doesn't recognize my brilliance." These students will go on to work as 6th-string bloggers for Powerline or Little Green Footballs.

That is college teaching in a nutshell – getting students to realize, in the age of David Horowitz, that I don't fucking care what you write about or what you believe. I care that you get the facts right, cite your research, employ half-decent reasoning, and separate fact from opinion.
buy singulair generic rxnoprescriptionrxbuyonline.com over the counter

If I give you an F on your Ronald Reagan Was the Greatest Man Ever paper it is not because I don't like you or Ronald Reagan. It is because you can't write sentences in basic English, didn't do any research, and generally lack even a rudimentary grasp of a college-level research paper. It is not personal. It is not ideological. It is simply that you did something wrong.

You can choose to learn how to do it correctly.

The editorial staff of the New York Times is learning what this feels like. The second they rejected John McCain's editorial submission, I shuddered. I knew what was coming.

The editorial response to McCain's submission is almost verbatim what a decent teacher would write on a bad high school or college paper. No one said "Your submission was shit and you should give up on writing editorials." No, like anyone dealing with a clueless student the editors practically re-wrote the editorial for McCain:

"The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans … It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq."

If they weren't so busy getting indignant and going apopleptic about the damn liberal media, the McCain and his wingnuts might realize that the editor practically wrote the goddamn revised editorial for them. Look at that. It is a road map. It is a sugar cookie recipe for kids. It is paint-by-numbers. DO THESE THREE THINGS AND I WILL GIVE YOU AN A PRINT YOUR EDITORIAL. They are practically screaming this at McCain.

They are begging him to write something that meets the bare minimum standards for publication so they don't have to listen to Michelle Malkin.

The pedagogical tone is hard to miss; it's a tone one only adopts upon realizing that The Student does not get it and is unlikely to figure it out. Frankly, McCain is getting more mileage from milking the martyrdom angle than he would from the silly editorial. But the sad fact is that there's no point at which he (or his blogosphere cheerleaders) will sit back and think, "Gee, maybe I wrote a shitty Obama slam piece instead of an editorial." Their twisted take on "objectivity" boils down the issue like every other: they ran a liberal editorial, so now they have to run a conservative one.

HELLS YEAH I'M AN EXPERT!

Posted on | by Ed | 4 Comments on HELLS YEAH I'M AN EXPERT!

I've repeatedly used this website to marvel at the number of subjects in which people like James Dobson or Rush Limbaugh are experts. Whatever hot-button issue happens to be in the headlines on a given day, Dr. Dobson is suddenly able to speak of it with thundering, soul-shaking authority.

The Constitution? He practically wrote that motherfucker! Climatology? Junk scienceTM….but he's an expert in it anyway! Medical research? He does that kiddie shit while he's half-asleep and watching Night Court reruns! There may not be a subject of public debate that has suffered more egregiously from this phenomenon than climate change.

buy female cialis online meadowcrestdental.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/png/female-cialis.html no prescription pharmacy

Everybody's an authority, fully qualified to speak definitively on global warming. I think the qualifications for becoming a global warming expert involve a urine test…and not even a drug test. It's just a test to see if you can actually pee in a cup, a.

buy amoxicillin online meadowcrestdental.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/png/amoxicillin.html no prescription pharmacy

k.a. the Entrance Exam at Arizona State.

That's fine. The American appetite for corn-pone opinion – in fact, the ponier the better – is endless. What's disgusting is when its purveyors are passed off as Real Experts.

buy flexeril online meadowcrestdental.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/png/flexeril.html no prescription pharmacy

Take, for example, this standard-issue Global Warming Scientists are Alarmists with No Evidence tract by James Kerian. Who? Well, according to the tagline, "James Kerian is a mechanical engineer and small business owner in Grafton, North Dakota." Hmm. I daresay they're trying to imply ("mechanical engineer") that Mr.

Kerian is some sort of scientist. Or, failing that, someone who can do math and therefore a virtual Max Planck in the eyes of our society. As for the small business owner part, well, that's just there to let you know he's good people.

Turns out that James Kerian has made his mark on this world (if I may so wantonly debase the idea of making one's mark) by inventing a machine that sifts and sorts vegetables by size. That's neat. It gives me the power to choose either Medium or Jumbo white onions at Kroger. But a climatologist it does not make. It doesn't even put him in the ballpark. This piece, for all intents and purposes, might as well have been written by a garbageman – who almost certainly would have more perspective and have done a superior job.

(h/t Matthew)

VICHY LIBERALS

Posted on | by Ed | 5 Comments on VICHY LIBERALS

By what stretch of the imagination is David Brooks a "liberal?" He isn't, by his own admission. But for the media, he counts. That is, he's to the left of Scalia on a couple of issues ergo he is a liberal in the contemporary political/media landscape. His tired schtick of pretending he's Objective and Serious and Just Being Realistic, qualifiers that immediately precede an argument of the unassailability of neocon talking points, has enabled him to carve out a nice little career. See, America? Here's a guy who's not a Republican – he's just an honest, Serious guy who's able to transcend partisan hackery to act like a grown-up and realize that neoconservatism is the only way. Anyone who's willing to be Mature and Serious has to admit that The Surge has been the most resounding success since the 1985 Chicago Bears. God are we lucky to have President Bush!

He's not the only person selling this ration of shit. Joe Lieberman, Harold Ford, Bob Shrum, Zell Miller, Alan Colmes, and many others have made quite a living out of playing the "Liberal who just happens to agree with everything the Republican Party says" game. The American "left" is littered with these people, the kind who don't understand why the rest of us have to be Troublemakers when we could have such a sweet deal if we surrender to the enemy we can't possibly defeat. Conservatism is just too powerful, too right, too infallible. If we all admit that, drop to our knees, and suck enthusiastically enough, they might even let us be their house slaves. Just look at the sweet gigs they have – major newspaper columns, TV shows, $20k-per-hour speaking engagements. The life of the ideological Quisling is a good one. Very profitable, this pétainisme.

Every word that comes out of Lieberman's or Brooks' mouth sounds the same – "Gosh, I just can't figure out why liberals won't admit that these people are always right. I do everything the right says, and look how well they treat me!" Surrender, and you too could live to be patronized as the token "liberal." You could be used as scenery, trotted before the cameras to create the illusion of ideological competition. All it costs is your soul, your dignity, and your credibility.

Consider Bob Shrum kissing the establishment media's ass when Hillary Clinton says those nasty things about them, or Joe Lieberman getting hard over his status as the right's favorite liberal, or David Brooks talking about how he's not a conservative but just happens to have a lot of concerns about every fucking thing the Democrats do that doesn't mimic the GOP. This behavior is little different from those French who, convinced of the inevitability of defeat at German hands, tripped over themselves to surrender as fast and as convincingly as possible.

It is a matter of historical fact that some of Hitler's most rabid, dead-end troops were from the nations conquered by the German Army during the course of WWII. France, Belgium, and Eastern Europe had plenty of people who were psychologically incapable of fighting and turned to accomodation. They figured that if they killed enthusiastically enough for the Nazis, turning in or butchering their own neighbors, they could earn the favored treatment of their new masters. The Vichy French, the Quisling government of occupied Norway, and the Jews that were employed to beat down and round up other Jews all operated under this theory. And it was not a new phenomenon in the 1940s. The American Civil War had Copperheads and Doughfaces. The American Revolution had Tory sympathizers. The French Revolution had feuillants. The Russian Revolution had Whites.

Brooks et al would do well to read a little bit of history. Appeasement worked for the Vichy French, of course. Their willingness to slit the throats of their own friends and neighbors spared them the brutality of the Nazi regime…until its ultimate defeat. I don't recall things working out very well for Pétain or Quisling once the Nazis were crushed by the people they used such puppets to oppress.

PRICE ELASTICITY OF DEMAND FOR CRACK

Posted on | by Ed | 14 Comments on PRICE ELASTICITY OF DEMAND FOR CRACK

When economists talk about elasticity and demand they are addressing a very fundamental question in a free-market system: how do changes in price affect demand? Finding the ideal point is an important component of profitability and growth for retailers and manufacturers. For example, Ford sells 100,000 pickup trucks at $25,000 (total revenue: $2.5 billion). If they increase the price to $28,000 and sell 5% fewer trucks that's a good move (total revenue: $2.66 billion) even though they sell only 95,000.** However, if the price increase reduced demand by 10 or 15 percent it would not be profitable.

This is not a revelation. You probably already know this, even if you are unaware of the fancy name. So here is a question I would like you to ponder: from the perspective of a crackhead, what is the price elasticity of demand for crack?

This is not a question that fits cleanly into the model. In a standard economic example (trucks, tennis shoes, tuition, fast food) there are a number of important assumptions being made. First, the items for sale are "wants." We can walk away. We don't really need the truck or the Big Mac. There is a price at which we will say "Screw this." Second, there is choice. If the Ford gets too pricey but we remain interested in a new truck, try the Chevy. Honda. Dodge. Whatever. In other words, the manufacturer and retailer must be wary of the strategies of other competitors in the market when developing their pricing strategy.

If the price of a Big Mac goes from $2.50 to $7.00, it is very likely that demand would fall precipitously. Consumers would choose Whoppers as an alternative or simply avoid eating out. But what happens if the price of crack goes from $25 to $50 per unit? Or $25 to $100? This is irrelevant to the demand among crackheads. If crack is $25, $50, $100, or $250, crackheads need, want, and will buy crack. They will either cut other expenses from their budget or steal more things to sell for crack. "Rational economic behavior" is not a phrase that springs to mind in the decision to purchase crack.

Why? Because crackheads are addicted to crack. Duh. The crackhead can't walk away like a car shopper or make a substitution. He or she needs crack. Not weed, not booze. Crack. So until crack gets so expensive that it is literally unaffordable (i.e., $10,000 per gram) the crackhead's demand is going to show remarkably little sensitivity to price. Sure, he or she may buy a little less, sacrificing something in the margins. But overall that person is still going to be buying crack, whether it's expensive or cheap.

Ending extended metaphor…..now.

The media and public have been harping on the same story for the last two years – what is the "breaking point" with gasoline prices? At what point will Americans stop using so much gas or snap and demand some sort of political/military/whatever resolution to the problem? First it was $3/gallon. My, when those prices hit $3.00 Americans would seriously change their driving habits. Then it was $4.00. We tolerated $3.00 but there's no way we'll maintain our lifestyles and relative calm at $4.00. Now it's $6.00. If it hits $6.00, everything's gonna change.

No, it isn't. We are completely, hopelessly addicted to oil. People who already use very little (preferring public transit, walking, or biking) will cut even deeper while most other consumers will dabble a little bit in the margins (trying to drive a little less and usually not succeeding). If you live in the suburbs, 30 traffic-clogged and train-free miles from your job, you're driving. Period. $6/gallon gas isn't going to get you to quit your job or sell your house. You're going to pay $6/gallon and compensate with sacrifices in other areas of your budget (or, in classic American style, by simply charging what you can't afford).

Everything about our way of life, including every step of the food chain, is hopelessly dependent on oil. There simply is no "magic price" that will make everything different and usher in sweeping changes. Crackheads pay whatever price is quoted for crack because they're physically addicted to it and have no alternative except quitting, which is as inconceivable as it is difficult. Americans, for all the bitching and resolutions to drive less and can't-someone-do-something-about-this water cooler talk, are ultimately going to pay whatever price is demanded for gasoline unless it simply becomes unaffordable under any reasonable circumstances (i.e., $25/gallon). So the next time you hear someone hypothesizing or making vows regarding the price of gas, remind them that our national addiction is going to preclude any response more substantive than bitching.

**This is logically assuming that it costs less than $0.16 billion, the difference in revenue, to build 5,000 extra trucks. Since most manufacturing costs are fixed (overhead, salaries/benefits, equipment) I feel safe assuming that it would not cost $160 million to build an additional 5,000 trucks.

STENOGRAPHY

Posted on | by Ed | 1 Comment on STENOGRAPHY

In the midst of the Scott McClellan book and media tour we're seeing one of my favorite cultural trainwrecks: the Media Searches it Soul show. Colbert called it "Media Culpa" but I think that is a misnomer; nowhere have I seen anyone admit fault or apologize. All I've seen, as Glenn Greenwald notes, are phony introspection, self-absolution, and aggressive defensiveness.

Greenwald notes the example of Charles Gibson, who you might remember as the bag of dick hair who made the Pennsylvania Democratic debate one of the saddest spectacles since Godfather III. In the video you can see Gibson bristle and note how skeptical and incisive the corporate media were:

I think the questions were asked. I respectfully disagree with the gentle lady from the Columbia Broadcasting System. I think the questions were asked. . . . I can remember getting in trouble with administration officials for asking questions they didn't feel comfortable with.

Wow, he was so tough that he actually drew the ire of the people whose ire he is paid to draw! It would be funny enough that he'd brag about a few tough questions thusly, but it's even funnier when we go back and see the questions Gibson asked:

Specifically, of all the biological and chemical weapons that he outlined, and the means of delivery, what's the most frightening? Should be the most frightening?

buy rotacaps online mhvclinic.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/png/rotacaps.html no prescription pharmacy

buy zithromax online buy zithromax no prescription

How compromised are the inspectors there? Are they totally infiltrated by Iraqi intelligence?

Oh man, the administration must have been walking funny after that no-lube reaming! But wait, it got even tougher!

CHARLES GIBSON
James Woolsey, the Iraqis immediately challenged a lot of what was shown, said it was altered, said it was doctored. The international community — do they know that stuff was genuine?

JAMES WOOLSEY
Oh, anybody who is objective about this I think does. The people who now doubt whether or not Saddam really has WMD programs, chemical and bacteriological, in particular, are really of two types, either they work for Saddam or they're doing a human imitation of an ostrich. There really are, I think, no other possibilities.

buy zoloft online mhvclinic.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/png/zoloft.html no prescription pharmacy

It amazes me that Gibson would be stupid enough to get defensive when he knows damn well how easy it is to find every word these people have ever said on the air. While it would be like taking candy from a baby to point out the miles of fawning, supplicating, obsequious questions the media asked or the slack-jawed credulity and naïveté with which they swallowed this bullshit, I'm more troubled by a throwaway line in the Greenwald piece. Sayeth Gibson:

It was just a drumbeat of support from the administration. And it is not our job to debate them; it's our job to ask the questions.

If this isn't everything wrong with American society in 20 words or less, I don't know what is. So much of what I do on this website boils down to asking, What the fuck happened to this country? Well the answer is, this. This is what the fuck happened to us.

The media, which fill perhaps the most vital role in our democratic system, have managed to redefine their job and abdicate the overwhelming majority of it. Actually, Chuck, your job is not to "ask the questions." It is to ask the questions, record the answers, and then (and here's the key part) figure out whether or not said answers are true. This often involves "research" and "reporting." It means giving up the child-like faith (or is it simple laziness?) that Official Sources are telling the truth.

Instead the media have subcontracted the skepticism – that part of the job has been farmed out. To whom? Well, to you and I. Their role is stenography. It's our job as viewers to figure out whether or not what we read or see is true. In other words, "We Report, You Decide" has become more than a slogan. It's a professional creed, an industry-wide motto. Don't be Biased, don't be Critical, don't Take Sides, and never make the sources angry (how can we deliver hard-hitting news without access??

buy stromectol online mhvclinic.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/png/stromectol.html no prescription pharmacy

). Just write down what they say – write it down nice and accurately.
buy azithromycin online buy azithromycin no prescription

Let the viewers, most of whom would rather be distracted with bright colors and moving objects than deal with reality, do the vetting.

The saddest part is that they don't even understand why they're being criticized. There is an overwhelming sense of not only defensiveness but also a good deal of "What, what did we do?" cluelessness. They honestly don't see the problem given that they fulfilled all of the requirements of contemporary journalism: keeping the advertisers happy, keeping the people they cover happy, repeating what they're told, and constantly checking the ratings to make sure that the public is being told what it wants to hear. Sorry to burst the bubble, but journalists' primary functions are to irritate elected officials who sell the public a ration of shit and tell the public what it needs, not wants, to know.

SOUL SEARCHING

Posted on | by Ed | 26 Comments on SOUL SEARCHING

As the primary election season drags on interminably, I have officially reached my breaking point for the media trope about Salt-of-the-Earthiness and the reverence with which journalists and Pundits await the pronouncements of Real America; you know, the one represented by the (unironically) mesh-hatted, F-150 driving, no-fancy-haircut-gettin', barely-literate, Evangelical Protestant EveryMan from Pigsknuckle, Pennsylvania. One of the remaining candidates bases her viability entirely on her appeal among these Authentic Americans who are far more important than the sneering intellectuals, effeminate urbanites, and unwashed coloreds on the prowl for government handouts. Real Americans live in rural areas, the cultural mythology of which recalls the Norman Rockwell America that, of course, never existed but sure was perfect in the Good Ol' Days.

Well, fortunately I live in southern Indiana. So I count, according to the media, although my lack of truck, chewing tobacco, favorite NASCAR driver, and screaming risk factors for adult-onset diabetes may reduce the value of my opinion. Nonetheless.

If you are like me and you have spent some decent amount of time living in an area that qualifies as Real America in the standard Pundit Narrative, something feels odd about this premise. I find inescapable the feeling that if Bedford, Indiana or Rantoul, Illinois or Somerset, Pennsylvania somehow "are" America, then America is well and truly Fucked. Chris Matthews may look at the backward, uninformed, anti-fancy-book-learnin' Guy in Flannel Shirt and see the soul of the nation, but if that person is America then America belongs in the darkened corridors of a Dickensian state-run mental institution, picking corn out of his own shit and throwing it at the doctors who make the mistake of trying to go near him.

Neither Pundits nor candidates question this assumption that if Bedford, Indiana is America we should be OK with that. Hillary Clinton and David Brooks look at Bedford and see our romanticized, neglected national virtues. I see crushing poverty, virulent and endemic racism (a KKK Grand Wizard calls it home), oppressive ignorance, fast food diets, Third World teen pregnancy rates, bile-spewing conservatism from people on food stamps, unplanned development that sprawls idiotically across the land, xenophobia, and knee-jerk demonization of the pretentious liberal elites who think they are too good to live like Bedfordians (i.e., in their own filth). I see people fighting to ban science from their already pitiful schools and replace it with a religion to which they slavishly adhere but minimally understand. I see people voting Republican to stick it to the queers and the liberal media and the snotty college professors and the goddamn feminazis while their right-wing heroes institute economic policies that decimate Bedford and its residents. I see everything bleak and hopeless about America, everything that suggests people have given up and, unable to understand why their lives are so miserable, wait for Rush and Glenn and BillO to tell them who to blame (hint: anyone different).
https://landmarkfamilydental.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/jpg/stromectol.html

The media dutifully muse over accusastions of Obama's Elitism or Nancy Pelosi's "San Francisco Values" or out-of-touch East Coast wannabe-European leftists who can't understand Real Americans. It never occurs to them, at least not on camera, how most Americans (not to mention the reporters and pundits themselves, making six figures and living in the most elite communities in New York and D.C.) would choose if given the chance to live in Bedford or San Francisco. Janesville, Wisconsin or New York.
buy lexapro online pmilv.com/wp-content/languages/new/cheap/lexapro.html no prescription

Odessa, Texas or Boston. The Americans who would pick Bedford are not representative of anything other than their own ignorance and inflated conception of Virtuous Rural America. It shows the extent to which they have invested their lives in an ideology that regularly fucks them but excels at re-directing their anger.
https://landmarkfamilydental.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/jpg/amoxicillin.html

buy grifulvin online pmilv.com/wp-content/languages/new/cheap/grifulvin.html no prescription

Bedford isn't America; Bedford is a garbage heap we should look at only as a reminder of what happens when people politically mobilize to screw their own tangible interests in pursuit of "social issues" and moral outrages that will always be dangled and never addressed.

MEDICO-FASCIST CABAL DECIDES: BLACKS TO DIE IN PANDEMIC!

Posted on | by Ed | 4 Comments on MEDICO-FASCIST CABAL DECIDES: BLACKS TO DIE IN PANDEMIC!

It is barely worth mentioning what a poor job 24-hour cable news media do of delivering substantive news.
buy lasix online buy lasix no prescription

In real news' place we get a cloying mixture of celebrity news, personality-driven political "coverage," and bald efforts to create, or fan the flames of, mass hysteria.
buy lexapro online buy lexapro no prescription

Common household products are killing your kids! Immigrants are coming in sweaty, brown, job-taking, daughter-raping droves! Terrorists are lurking behind the Wal-Mart! Know the 10 signs that your middle schooler is involved in a satanic gay sex orgy cult!

Cue the CNN masterpiece "Docs list who would be allowed to die in a catastrophe" from this week. The story (and its corresponding TV segment, of which I could not find a video clip) details the manner in which hospitals are prepared to respond to a pandemic or disaster that overwhelms the healthcare system. It's laden with even-handed gems like:

To prepare, hospitals should designate a triage team with the Godlike task of deciding who will and who won't get lifesaving care, the task force wrote. Those out of luck are the people at high risk of death and a slim chance of long-term survival.

Wow, this is all very shocking. Doctors – real ones, not those cool ones on House – sitting around playing god and grimly plotting the deaths of millions. Beware, America. Soon your doctor-turned-Soup Nazi will sternly point in your direction and declare "No treatment for you."

My question is how or why, in the first week of May 2008, this is news. What this story describes is a simple triage system, and it's a basic emergency management plan that every healthcare provider on the planet has – and has had for decades. Hospitals and doctors are, and have been, trained and prepared to deal with a pandemic or major disaster that would overwhelm the ability of the system to treat every single patient according to severity.

online pharmacy buy amoxil with best prices today in the USA

In such instances, patients are treated according to their prospects for long-term survival. If a bomb levels the Superdome during a Saints game and 100,000 people show up at the hospital at once, the patients with severe and likely mortal injuries will not be treated before people who are badly hurt but can be saved with immediate care. If vaccines or medication to treat a disease are scarce, the 23 year old mother of two gets treated before the 91 year old guy on dialysis. This is not new. This is not shocking

While the CNN story darkly hints at "lists" of who gets to live and die (Blacks? Jews? Short people? Muslims? White males?) the truth is pretty banal. The list includes people over 85, patients with severe trauma, patients over 60 with 3rd-degree burns on more than 40% of their body, and people with advanced mental impairment (late stage Alzheimer's, for example). I know that this "story" is intended to provoke moral outrage, but if a catastrophe overwhelms the system I'm OK with bumping the 70 year old with 75% burn coverage to the bottom of the list. If resources become scarce, the person who is going to require $1 million worth of care and die anyway should not be treated first. Shocking, I know.

Hurricanes, earthquakes, nuclear war, and a global disease pandemic have inspired healthcare providers to make these plans long before CNN decided to report on them. Therefore one of two things is true of the coverage.

online pharmacy buy bactroban with best prices today in the USA

It is either entirely ignorant of the fact that this is not a new phenomenon – i.e., the work of a 25 year old reporter who skidded out of Rutgers journalism school with a C average and no understanding of how to do research – or it is interested solely in shock value. Neither would surprise me and both are equally embarassing.