Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
How Obama got elected
A quick quiz. Of the four major-party candidates in the recent presidential and vice-presidential election, which one:
1. Has a pregnant unmarried teenage daughter?
2. Committed plagiarism in a campaign speech?
3. Received a wardrobe worth over $150K from his or her political party?
4. Claimed to have campaigned in 57 of the United States?
5. Was unsure how many houses he or she owns?
6. Won his or her first election by having the opponents removed from the ballot?
I'm willing to bet that you had no trouble at all answering the odd-numbered questions and were less sure about the even-numbered ones.
Former talk-show host, author, and documentarian John Ziegler examines this phenomenon in his in-progress documentary "Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected"; see www.howobamagotelected.com for more details.
His hypothesis is that the media in general exhibited a bias in favor of Obama, made manifest by suppressing news harmful to the Obama ticket and emphasizing news harmful to the McCain ticket; his method was to survey 12 Obama voters on topics such as those above. The results are shocking but unsurprising.
Now, I'm a math nut, and I'll be the first to tell you that 12 people do not a statistically valid sample make. John Zogby did one better by duplicating the poll in a scientific manner, and came up with similar results concerning Obama voters:
Four of seven could not identify the party that controls Congress.
Five of seven did not know that Biden plagiarized in a campaign speech.
Five of six did not know that Obama had his opponents removed from the ballot.
Six of seven knew that Palin received the $150K worth of clothes.
Fifteen of sixteen knew that Palin has a pregnant teenage daughter.
Six of seven "knew" that Palin said she could see Russia from her house, even though it was actually Tina Fey of Saturday Night Live who said that.
The obvious conclusion is that Obama voters are ignorant about the world around them, but that's not it. The real conclusion is that those people who base their opinions on what mainstream media tells them are kept selectively ignorant by the media's own agenda.
1. Has a pregnant unmarried teenage daughter?
2. Committed plagiarism in a campaign speech?
3. Received a wardrobe worth over $150K from his or her political party?
4. Claimed to have campaigned in 57 of the United States?
5. Was unsure how many houses he or she owns?
6. Won his or her first election by having the opponents removed from the ballot?
I'm willing to bet that you had no trouble at all answering the odd-numbered questions and were less sure about the even-numbered ones.
Former talk-show host, author, and documentarian John Ziegler examines this phenomenon in his in-progress documentary "Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected"; see www.howobamagotelected.com for more details.
His hypothesis is that the media in general exhibited a bias in favor of Obama, made manifest by suppressing news harmful to the Obama ticket and emphasizing news harmful to the McCain ticket; his method was to survey 12 Obama voters on topics such as those above. The results are shocking but unsurprising.
Now, I'm a math nut, and I'll be the first to tell you that 12 people do not a statistically valid sample make. John Zogby did one better by duplicating the poll in a scientific manner, and came up with similar results concerning Obama voters:
Four of seven could not identify the party that controls Congress.
Five of seven did not know that Biden plagiarized in a campaign speech.
Five of six did not know that Obama had his opponents removed from the ballot.
Six of seven knew that Palin received the $150K worth of clothes.
Fifteen of sixteen knew that Palin has a pregnant teenage daughter.
Six of seven "knew" that Palin said she could see Russia from her house, even though it was actually Tina Fey of Saturday Night Live who said that.
The obvious conclusion is that Obama voters are ignorant about the world around them, but that's not it. The real conclusion is that those people who base their opinions on what mainstream media tells them are kept selectively ignorant by the media's own agenda.
Star Trek 90210
I've just seen the trailer for the new Star Trek movie, scheduled to be released in May 2009. I'm optimistic, but wary.
First of all, I'm reminded of Tiny Toons, the cartoon show featuring toddler versions of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, and so on. The movie will have twenty-something versions of Kirk, Bones, Spock, Sulu, Uhura, Chekov, and Scotty (actually, as all fans know, Vulcans age much slower than humans, so Spock may be older than that) running the ship and generally having a young-adult good time. (I wonder where young Nurse Chapel is?)
It occurs to me that Sulu and Chekov were pretty young in the original series. If this movie is a prequel, how far back is it? Do we have to see them deal with their voice changing while piloting a spaceship? Maybe Bones will actually deliver one of them in the first five minutes.
The trailer indicates that Kirk and Uhura have a love scene (no word on if Kirk's shirt gets ripped or torn off beforehand) and even shows Spock throwing a weird Vulcan punch at Kirk, which we've wanted to see for a long time. I wonder if at this young age Scotty has already acquired his taste for scotch, or if he thinks that Budweiser is the bomb.
(Somewhat off topic, I wonder what the future of beer is. I shudder to think that it might go the way that restaurants did in "Demolition Man" in which only Taco Bell survives. The acquisition of Anheuser-Busch by InBev may be a portent of things to come. Not that I drink any AB product; I only drink Guinness.)
I'm a fan, so of course I'm going to see it. I just hoping that in their quest to boldly appeal to the demographic that no Star Trek has appealed to before, they manage to remain more Star Trek and less Teen Trek.
And I'm hoping that they manage to squeeze in one of Bones' "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a ____" rejoinders.
First of all, I'm reminded of Tiny Toons, the cartoon show featuring toddler versions of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, and so on. The movie will have twenty-something versions of Kirk, Bones, Spock, Sulu, Uhura, Chekov, and Scotty (actually, as all fans know, Vulcans age much slower than humans, so Spock may be older than that) running the ship and generally having a young-adult good time. (I wonder where young Nurse Chapel is?)
It occurs to me that Sulu and Chekov were pretty young in the original series. If this movie is a prequel, how far back is it? Do we have to see them deal with their voice changing while piloting a spaceship? Maybe Bones will actually deliver one of them in the first five minutes.
The trailer indicates that Kirk and Uhura have a love scene (no word on if Kirk's shirt gets ripped or torn off beforehand) and even shows Spock throwing a weird Vulcan punch at Kirk, which we've wanted to see for a long time. I wonder if at this young age Scotty has already acquired his taste for scotch, or if he thinks that Budweiser is the bomb.
(Somewhat off topic, I wonder what the future of beer is. I shudder to think that it might go the way that restaurants did in "Demolition Man" in which only Taco Bell survives. The acquisition of Anheuser-Busch by InBev may be a portent of things to come. Not that I drink any AB product; I only drink Guinness.)
I'm a fan, so of course I'm going to see it. I just hoping that in their quest to boldly appeal to the demographic that no Star Trek has appealed to before, they manage to remain more Star Trek and less Teen Trek.
And I'm hoping that they manage to squeeze in one of Bones' "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a ____" rejoinders.
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