Hardly Relevant

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:20:00 +0000

I remember hearing about a case a few weeks ago about an 11-year-old girl in Romania who was raped by her uncle and got pregnant, and the government would not let her get an abortion. So I was pleased to read this article, which says the Romanian government decided to make an exception for the girl.

Unfortunately, I fear that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, many states, and/or the federal government would not be willing to make similar exceptions.

More later on recent supreme court decisions.

Jesus In Your Uterus?

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:24:00 +0000

Couple sees Jesus' Face In Ultrasound.

They should probably be more concerned with the horns apparently growing out of their unborn child's head. It is just as likely that she will give birth to the devil as it is that Jesus decided to stick his face in her uterus.

Coming Up On Hardly Relevant

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Sat, 31 May 2008 14:46:00 +0000

I have to go to work to cover the shuttle launch, but here are the things I plan on discussing soon!

1. The U.S. NOT signing the cluster bomb ban. Big friggin surprise, I called this when they announced the ban earlier this week. The U.S. is notorious for holding out on stuff like this.

2. This e-mail that has been making it's internet rounds about how Muslim males between the age of 17-40 deserve to be racially profiled because they ALL do terrible things and as such, Obama is the anti-Crist (even though he isn't Muslim, this e-mail will disagree). Stay tuned for a list of awful things white males age 17-40 have done, I bet I can make a longer one!

I have no good headline, insert comment about McCain

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Busy memorial day weekend with guests in town, so now I will try to do some catching up.

I'll start with this fairly controversial story. McCain Does Tricky Dance With Unpopular Bush.

Although I do not even specifically disagree with the theme of the article and the conclusions it draws (on a personal level), I think the headline, and some of the assumptions made in the article cross a line. To me this is not a news article, it is opinion, even a valid one, but one not appropriate for the CNN front page. This could have worked as an i-Report, a politics blog, or, (as I'm sure it already has been) a subject for discussion on CNN. I just don't think that McCain doing a "tricky dance" is newsworthy, or appropriate.

On the same subject, CNN ran a special report Sunday evening called The First Patient, which centered around the medical care of the president, specifically if he is ill or injured and what goes on behind closed doors etc. This special was no doubt intended to provoke subconscious consideration of a certain presidential candidates age and potential poor health.

I think we will only see more and more McCain bashing now that Obama has all but locked up the Democratic nomination. The media will soon loose the drama that is Obama vs. Hillary: Loosing the 2008 Election for the Dems One Comment At a Time. With that Springer episode out of syndication, the new target will surely be McCain.

Shocker of the day, people will try to scam you!

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Thu, 22 May 2008 13:47:00 +0000

So we have all seen those LifeLock commercials where the CEO plasters his social security number everywhere and dares you to steal his identity, because his product is so darn fabulous. Well, I am sure you will all be very surprised by this, his identity was stolen!

The article is a bit cumbersome, but the gist is that people are upset that the product isn't foolproof, which makes me wonder who is really more stupid. Is it the company for thinking they could endlessly fool morons into paying $10 a month for something they could do themselves for free, and ultimately does not even perform as promised, or is it the morons who pay $10 a month expecting some sort of identity theft protection miracle.

I swear I am back

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:55:00 +0000

Ok, between my laptop being broken and the entire coast of my viewing area being on fire last week, my much ballyhooed return was delayed; but I promise to regularly blog starting now!

On a random tangent, I was watching CNN yesterday in the ATL airport and one of their anchors really pissed me off. I don't know her name, but she was borderline giddy when she announced that gas prices had reached yet another record high. Seriously? I don't expect anchors to be totally stone-faced all the time, but seriously, she seemed ecstatic over the plight of the American middle class, it rubbed me the wrong way.

More to come

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:58:00 +0000

I was getting geared up for another excellent post but I got called into work :(.

I'll make a post when I get home, but check out the blog I started today about baking! You know you want to.

Mistakes And Cakes.

Baking, politics and news, a magical combination.

Screw NC and Indiana, Lets Go To Guam

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Mon, 05 May 2008 22:55:00 +0000

Ok I am officially a terrible blogger. I blame computer issues and my newfound hobby of baking (If you were wondering, no matter how long you spend perfectly crafting and painting gum paste limes for your margarita cupcakes, they will still melt in the fridge).

Anyway, there has been a lot going on lately. Between the guy that kidnapped his daughter and had seven kids/grandkids, the dolphin dying at Discovery Cove, the DC madam dying and the Myanmar Cyclone (which is estimated to have killed 10,000 people), a lot of interesting things have been going on in the news lately.

My favorite recent news story was the Guam Caucus on Saturday, which wasn't even really a caucus, but that didn't stop Obama from gaining another victory, by a margin of eight votes. No no, not 8,000, or 800, or even 80, but eight.

Truly a hard fought battle. And by hard fought, I mean both candidates aired an inordinate amount of ads in Guam leading up to the "caucus," only for things to basically stay the same. Guam only gets 8 representatives, each candidate received four, and each candidate only gets one half of a vote. So each candidate got 2 more delegates, campaign dollars well spent.

Guam also has 5 superdelegates, which seems like a lot for a country that I didn't even know got to vote for the nominees and does not vote in the presidential election in November.

Editorial v. News

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:06:00 +0000

I was just knee deep in a rant over an article that ran today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which "endorses Barack Obama for president". I know there is historical precedent for major newspapers to endorse political candidates, but I firmly believe it is inappropriate for the news to do anything other than REPORT THE NEWS.

Anyway, my rant was misguided. I was linked to the first article by this article, which makes a convincing case damning the Post-Gazette. The article begins with, "Barack Obama picked up the endorsement today of one of Pennsylvania's major newspapers," and I took that at face value.

But then I did a little searching. The Post-Gazette article doesn't specify what section in the paper the article ran in, but a little digging showed me that it ran in the editorial section, which is the only place in a newspaper that such an article is not only permissible, but expected. The editorial section is specifically designated as a place for the expression of opinions.

This is not to say that newspapers don't endorse politicians regularly, even if they don't come out and say it, it is evident in the articles. For all the efforts of the latter article calling out the Post-Gazette for bias, however, to be honest, the latter article seems a lot more biased and quick to jump the gun than the first.

I am lazy

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:42:00 +0000

I know I haven't posted in days, just been busy. I gave a presentation at a high school today and I had to get up at 5 a.m. to get there on time, I am a total waste of space right now, I do not know how I did it in high school.

Check this story out, pretty shocking. Although I am completely against the death penalty, I do understand that it is legal. I just feel like this is a "slippery slope" type case that to me is several steps backwards.

State Wants Child Rapist Executed

Katie Couric: The News Barometer

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:01:00 +0000

Check out this very interesting article about the media, well, kind of about Katie Couric, but the undertones say some interesting things about the state of the media.

The "Truth" Is Not Important

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:55:00 +0000

Yesterday I wrote about a group of Florida teenage girls that are accused of beating another girl and videotaping the incident. The news person in me says accused of, yes, obviously there is video, but it's that whole pesky innocent until proven guilty thing. Anyway, CNN is currently rocking this gem as a top headline: Suspects in video beating could get life in prison. This is extremely speculative, and leads the reader to believe that this is currently -- or will be soon-- at trial. This just happened on Tuesday, so this is really just the State Attorney running his mouth despite the gag order issued by the court. Beyond that, the article itself isn't even really about that as much as it is about the epidemic of "girl fighting."

Obviously these girls deserve to be punished, and I do not know enough about the legal system to say what their punishment should be, but I just think the headline is a bit of an exaggeration.

YouTube May Fan The Fire, But It Doesn't Force The Hand

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:11:00 +0000

I don't even know what to say about this video, about 6 teenage girls in Lakeland beating another girl. The father of the victim spoke out in this story. He makes some good points and to be honest, is a lot more composed than I would be if a group of girls beat my daughter. There is some truth to the fact the girls may not have beaten this girl so severely if they didn't have a great place to boast about it, such as youtube.

I'm not a violent person, so I have to say I really just don't understand fighting at all, but one of the suspects mothers justified her daughter's actions with this statement (from this article):

"The mother of one of the girls said the victim was the first to post threats online.'She said she was going to kick their you-know-whats and how slutty they are and calling them much worse names than sluts,' mother Christina Garcia said."

Yeah, because that totally makes it ok that your daughter brutally attacked a defenseless girl.
In related news, here is a sample of other similar stories I found on CNN today:

MySpace Shows Teacher Getting Beaten

Kids beat their art teacher and posted the video on MySpace, principal said teacher provoked the students...

2 Teen Girls To Face Charges In Grove City Hit List

2 teen girls make a list of people to murder...they may get expelled.

3rd grader speaks out about plot to harm teacher

Nine 8-year-olds plotted to kill their teacher...

Breasts=Good, Penis=Bad

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:17:00 +0000

I haven't posted all day because I went straight from work to a sneak preview for Forgetting Sara Marshall. I didn't go as press, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

I don't have a review of the movie as much as I have a review of men.

As we left the theater, the organizers were outside getting comments from the viewers. 80% of what I heard mens mouth's was "sooo funny, too much dick."

Seriously? Aside from the fact that penis was only shown in two scenes of the movie and it was done quite obviously to signify a kind of cyclical motion, that is such bullshit. Do these guys realize how absurdly low the amount of gratuitous penis in film is compared to that of gratuitous boobs? Nearly every R movie I have seen...well, ever, has women's breasts in it. I would say 99% of the time this is for NO REASON and in no way contributes to the quality of the film. But this is something that everyone has become desensitized to, women and men.

God forbid men be forced to watch penis on screen for five seconds..uhg. I am just so annoyed, I am barely forming complete sentences.

There were a few interesting local stories today, I'll get to them tomorrow, I'm tired.

China China China

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:54:00 +0000

Although I found the headline Is China paying for US taxpayer rebates? to be a bit misleading, overall the article is pretty informative about where money comes from and goes to when it comes to the federal government and these economic stimulus checks that most people have coming to them.

I knew a lot of the basics but I didn't realize so many countries, including China, had a stake in our debt. And, not being an economic whiz, I am trying to wrap my mind around why we have all this debt, but other countries are able to not only not have it, but help us out with ours.

This post makes me realize that I need to start talking about the Olympics. Soon.

Monkeys: The Cute AND Funny Double Threat

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:26:00 +0000

I really want to know how video's like this one make it on to the CNN home page three days after the fact. Yeah, the story is funny, and the first time I saw it I wondered why it wasn't on CNN, but that was Friday, and now it is Monday. But I guess people don't care, because a monkey in a diaper stopping traffic is funny on all the days of the week.

Facebook Defines Everything

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:55:00 +0000

This article about the delicate nature of relationships and facebook made me laugh/sad about my generation. It is so sadly true.

Before facebook, how could anyone ever know for sure if you're on or off with Billy McFrat? Now everyone knows within seconds, thanks to that cutesy little heart (broken or whole), what your status is.

I do think it is interesting that CNN reported on this phenomenon, I would have expected something more like an iReport than an actual story.

My grandpa has always hated Ted Turner...

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 20:32:00 +0000

I am using my fiance's computer, which is glorious because it has two monitors and isn't as terrible as my busted laptop, but awful because he somehow exists without having Microsoft Office on his computer, so I'm typing directly in to the blog, which I hate! But I digress...

Anyhow, I got this link sent to me the other day.

I kind of already knew that Ted Turner was crazy, but some of his comments were a bit surprising. To be honest, I do agree with bits of what he said, that I'm not going to go in to, but overall I think this article blows his comments out of proportion.

Realistically, Turner is a man; a US citizen with with a right to freedom of speech. Yes, he owns a media empire, but his comments were not made on CNN, nor were they presented as fact. People say a lot of crazy shit on news-style talk shows, for reference, look for anything ever said by Ann Coulter.

And beyond that, his own bias does not, in my opinion, reflect on CNN's coverage of the news. As I have said before, more than anything else, media bias stems from money, not politics. Obviously there is bias of all kinds in the media, including liberal and conservative, but Ted Turner's "crazy" opinions don't have any more influence than Rupert Murdoch's.

It is always good to be critical of what you read and hear, and as a public figure, Turner is obviously subject to stricter criticism, but I don't think his personal opinions are cause for an article on a web site devoted to "exposing and combating liberal media bias." While I applaud the efforts of website like News Busters because I think what they do is important, no matter their political stance, Ted Turner is not the news and thus does not qualify for "busting."

Recession?

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:44:00 +0000

This story about job cuts made it above the fold of both CNN and MSNBC this morning. What I don’t understand is, why does everyone keep saying we may be heading into a recession?

“For the first time, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged Wednesday that the country could be heading toward a recession, saying federal policymakers are ‘fighting against the wind’ in combating it. Many other economists and the public believe the recession already has arrived.”

I’ll be the first one to say that I am not an economical whiz, but I keep reading these articles and hearing about the housing collapse, losing 80,000 jobs in one month, etc. etc., so with all that happening, at what point are we actually in a recession? It is kind of like how we “never went to war with Vietnam.” What is the harm in saying the truth and working to fix it instead of ignoring it and making people paranoid over the prospect of recession? The article says the job cuts were a result of employers concerns about a potential recession, so obviously not saying it isn’t really helping anyone.

All of his makes so gosh darn excited about having graduated college in December.

I am lazy sometimes

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:06:00 +0000

I am feeling some news overload so I'm not going to make a productive post today, but I promise something tomorrow since I am off work!

Check this out, I have no commentary, just an interesting read.

Wal-Mart Rhymes With Heart

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:57:00 +0000

Today I have a good example of the power of the media. Yesterday, Wal-Mart announced that a brain-damaged former employee can keep her money. The headline doesn’t make much sense but they have limited space, I’m not sure I could have done better.

The article explains it pretty succinctly, so I can’t even really get into it, just read it. This family could have been stuck dealing with this lawsuit and expensive lawyer bills for years, but because of coverage by the media, Wal-Mart dropped the lawsuit. For some reason, cough cough bad press, Wal-Mart had a change of heart, and now sympathizes with this family. I still think Wal-Mart sucks but obviously there is someone in their PR department with half a brain.

Old news has feelings too, I guess

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:37:00 +0000

Judge Orders Whites Out, Lectures Blacks

I cannot figure out why this video is the top story on CNN.com. This happened last Friday, and the media has been all over it since then. The second link is to a video that is old news too, this story about a 10 pound four-year-old hit the AP wire on Saturday morning.

I don’t know anyone that checks CNN's homepages to find out what happened four days ago, that is why they have archives.

This story, Truckers Plan Possible Fuel-Cost Strike, finally made its way to the CNN home page, which is great except the original story was postedback on the 26th.

MLK Jr, the communist?

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 03:23:00 +0000

This story made me sick to my stomach. I have read the accounts of Martin Luther King Jr.'s…shall we say, philandering ways, but to read about the efforts the US government made to silence such an influential man, it is just heart breaking. The disdain is described such detail; I just cannot wrap my mind around the logic of all of this.

The suspected communist bit is so obviously a ruse used to disguise the fact that his persecution had everything to do with racism embedded deeply in the US and it’s government agencies.

I will never understand how a nation built on change can be so anti-progressive.

Protest the protesters

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:17:00 +0000

This video is given the headline “Gays Target Church Known For Gay Bashing” on the CNN home page.

I feel like that is pretty big baiting because in that usage, target has a negative connotation, to me it sounded like “gays” were attacking people or something.

The video itself is very interesting, I think it is great that the gay community organized a protest against the Westboro Baptist Church, a church that will protest almost anything (including soldiers funerals) just to spread their hate and apparent failure at life. The church’s lawyer is quoted in the video as saying that God is intolerant, along with many other ridiculous things.

To be honest, my only objection to the protest/video is that it gives even more press to the church. If no one was hearing about what they did, would they bother staging large scale protests? The power of the media is strong and sometimes it can be used to discourage wrong-doings, catch violent criminals, etc., but sometimes, I just encourages them.

Dear lurkers,

noreply@blogger.com (Hardly Relevant) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 21:50:00 +0000

Lurking is cool but people should comment so I don't feel like I am writing into a black hole.

Thanks!