One idiot’s reaction to the recent ruling on Prop 8 in California:
If this ruling is upheld, millions of Americans will face for the first time a legal system that is committed to the view that our deeply held moral views on sex and marriage are unacceptable in the public square, the fruit of bigotry that should be discredited, stigmatized and repressed. Parents will find that, almost Soviet-style, their own children will be re-educated using their own tax dollars to disrespect their parents’ views and values.
A Houston TV station is planning to switch to an “anchorless news” format, which sounds to me like a heaping pile of stupid.
According to people who have seen the pilot of the NewsFix format produced at Tribune’s WPIX New York under the directon of Chief Innovation Officer Lee Abrams, it casts off the familiar anchor-reporter paradigm and replaces it with a lot of animated graphics and man-on-the-street sound bites.
In one story, the narrator refers to terrorists as “bozos.” In another, a clip of fictional boxer Ivan Drago from Rocky IV is mixed into a story about the West getting tough with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. There are even clips from cartoon shows like Ren and Stimpy and animations from the JibJab website.
The pilot starts with a map of the Houston area with scattered icons representing the news stories to come. As the narrator introduces a story, an icon animates to reveal a series of clips with natural sound and sound bites to tell it. The video then squeezes back to a graphic screen, the narrator introduces the next clip and another icon comes to life.
Yup, short attention span theater and a heaping pile of stupid on top. Certainly doesn’t sound very informative (or factual). Can’t wait to see it in action! The dumbing down of everything continues!
There was some shooting on MOPAC recently:
Smith said a man in a pickup truck was tailgating, so he tapped on his brakes and turned on his hazards. The other driver started cutting him off and swerving dangerously close, he said.
Smith said he thought his life was in danger and that the Castle Doctrine applied. But police say that’s not the case.
“We don’t feel that… the Castle Doctrine applies in this situation,” Austin Police Cpl. Scott Perry said. “The Castle Doctrine protects you when you’re in your house, in you business, or when you’re in your vehicle. It protects you when someone is forcibly entering your property.”
He tried to shoot the driver and failed, hitting a tire. This guy definitely gets a failing grade on how to handle asshole drivers by being the biggest and most dangerous kind of asshole driver possible. There are certainly better ways to deal with issues with idiots on the highway than shooting them. Here’s hoping he loses his concealed carry permit, though I doubt that would stop someone like this from carrying anyway.