Weekly Topic

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Hi all! Here's what you elected to be the [Poll #1559607]...

(If you have ideas for more topics, do suggest some for the week after).

 

Special interests by the numbers

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

This isn't about "bias in the media" so much as political bias.

Many people are concerned that Congress has been "bought and paid for" by various wealthy campaign donors and so-called "special interest groups". As a result there was a lot of hemming-and-hawing when the US Supreme Court struck down part of the McCain/Fiengold Campaign Finance Reform Bill that forbade corporations from giving money to political candidates.

I did not participate. After all, How is "Fox News" giving a candidate $250,000 any different from Rupert Murdoch giving the same candidate $250,000?

On many political forums "Special Interests" is practically synonymous with the Bogeyman.

I bring this up because I am a dues-paying-member of the "California Gun Owners Foundation" (AKA Calguns) which has taken some flak in the local media recently for being the "special interest group" to blame for the whole Open-carry mess. This got me thinking...

The Violence Policy Center is the leading advocate for Gun-control in the US and Canada. How many people does the VPC represent? I know that Calguns has somewhere around 20,000 active members, and that the NRA is said to have more than 4,000,000. (that's "four million" for you Liberal-Arts types ;) Now thanks to the power of the internet I know that the VPC brings in about $700,000 a year. Assuming that the average membership dues/donation is about equal ($50) that would put the VPC's membership at approximately 14,000. Wich begs the question...

What defines a "Special Interest"?

One could easily call the ACLU or VFW a "special interest group", does that make it so?

Does that make anything they support automatcially suspect?

Personally I don't understand the power that the words "Special Interest" seems have over people. If an idea has merit than it has merit, who cares about the meesenger?

Barack Hussein! Why hasn't you stuck your finger in the hole yet?

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Nearly two weeks after the oil rig exploded, Obama appears at the site of a disaster not yet under control. Heckuva job, Mr. President.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=532122

Rush Limbaugh, conservative pundits call Gulf Coast oil spill, 'Obama's Katrina'
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/05/03/2010-05-03_rush_limbaugh_conservative_pundits_call_gulf_oil_spill_obamas_katrina.html

Is Oil Spill President Obama's Katrina?
In the past few days, some of the focus has shifted to the White House and whether it sprang to action soon enough to make a difference. Some critics are calling this "Obama's Hurricane Katrina."
http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/03/is-oil-spill-president-obamas-katrina/

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The three articles above are just a sampling of the current "Obama ain't sprung to action fast enuff" bullshit. This is a wonderful opportunity for the right-wing media, left-wing media, environmentalists, and a host of others to milk a story and bend it to their advantage.

Unfortunately, most of what I've heard in ALL the media - other than comments by people actually IN the oil business - is pure BS. BP is the only non-BS so far. They've accepted responsibility (but not blame) for this god-awful mess, and are doing everything they can to fix it.

This is the fault of a blow-out preventer not working. It was either faulty equipment, wasn't installed properly, or was trashed by tons of platform landing on it. Making the disaster political is asinine.

Media criticism: Why it is boring and why you shouldn't care.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

In the good old days, obscure topics were relegated to the neglected volumes of academic and professional journals sitting forgotten in rows of university library stacks.
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