This latest Sam Stein blog was posted at 12:19 am on May 7th 2008. I have started to write this response at 1:55 am on the same evening. This shows to me something very clear: that multimedia journalism has an immediacy to it that can’t be found in other forms of journalism. The printing presses have long started in the normal print world, and probably won’t have complete coverage of the results of tonight’s primaries. This blog has a lot to do with the election, but not what is normally covered anymore: John McCain.
McCain's Rough Night Overshadowed By Clinton's:
McCain, according to the numbers has a quite a problem on his hands. McCain has only one opponent who is still technically in the race and that is Ron Paul. The election results show McCain with what would have been a large victory had the race been fully contested. These numbers should be much larger then they are since nobody of note is still in the race. According to the data, in North Carolina there are 105,000 who voted in the uncontested primary for somebody other than McCain. In Indiana, the number of people who voted for a candidate other than McCain is 85,000. These numbers are also shown in the race last week in Pennsylvania where McCain got 73 percent of the vote compared to Paul’s 17 and Huckabee’s 11. The title of the blog says it all “McCain’s Rough Night Overshadowed by Clinton’s.”
The blog barley mentions the Democratic Race because the results were not fully processed by the time the blog was posted. I will update this blog with newer information on the Democratic race when or if Stein updates his blog. The results from last night and early this morning are not exactly good for Clinton. Clinton did win in Indiana, but apparently will only gain about four delegates in the effort. Obama on the other hand gained eight delegates his North Carolina victory. Obama has a net gain of four delegates in tonight’s primaries. In last weeks primary in Pennsylvania Clinton had a net gain of 12 delegates. Since, the primaries had started back up last week Clinton had gained 8 delegates. It seems that time is running out for Clinton’s campaign. On a related note CNN.com has a new feature that is really interesting to this news story. They have a new interactive delegate count tracker, which allows you to predict how the final primaries will go. You plug in the percentages of how you think the vote will go and the computer calculates how much delegates would be won. On the bottom of the interactive module is a bar that is the super delegate counter. You can also slide that around to predict how the super delegates will vote if indeed their vote will be allowed to sway the primary one way or another. DNC chairman Dr. Howard Dean has said that it would be a disaster for the party if the super delegates were allowed to choose the winner, so I don’t think that will happen. You can reach this Democratic delegate counter here.
Just like my last post I have two articles from Sam Stein’s blog that correspond with each other. Both of these blogs are based on Hilary Clinton’s idea for a Gas Tax Holiday sometime during the summer. Sam Stein’s blog seems to have created news itself, as one entry got a response from the Clinton Camp.
Expert Support for Gas Tax Holiday Appears Nonexistent:
Hilary Clinton and John McCain have come forth with a plan to have a Gas Tax Holiday sometime during the summer. This blog is a response to a futile attempt by Sam Stein to find experts who agree with this idea. This blog contains a great deal of quotes from political, economically and environmental experts who seem to all agree that the tax idea is not the correct answer to our gas problems.
Tom Friedman from the New York Times said that Clinton “has now joined John McCain in proposing the most irresponsible policy idea of the year – an idea that could actually aid the terrorists.” In response to these quotes Stein attempted to get a response from Howard Wolfson, a Clinton adviser. They were not able to get a statement from Wolfson, but there was a response the next day which became another blog story.
Jerry Taylor from the Cato institute called the idea a holiday from reality and that the gas prices would not fall. Taylor said “service stations would just continue to charge what they are charging.” So, that would mean the profits would be very high for the oil companies and it would be tax free. Max Schulz called it “bad policy and political gimmicks.” Schulz continued “I have never seen the wisdom in playing gimmicks with the tax code.” This quote also reminds me of Tax Free days in Massachusetts which suspend the states 5 percent sales tax usually in August.
Environmentally Robert Shapiro commented that this tax would lower the cost of substances that raise greenhouse gases. So, the experts agree that the cost overweigh the benefit. The only question is how the Clinton camp will respond to the charge that this plan is a waste of time and money and potentially dangerous to the environment.
Clinton Camp Defends Gas Plan: She Doesn’t Have to Listen to Experts:
The next day the response from the Clinton Camp that Sam Stein wanted actually happened. This might not have been an actual response to the blog, but it might be because Stein commented that he attempted to get a statement from Wolfson. Wolfson said in a conference call that "Senator Clinton realizes there is a problem for consumers that requires both a short term and long term set of solutions. In the short term, she has laid out a plan to suspend the tax and have those resources or revenues paid by oil companies as well. In the long term, she has the boldest and most comprehensive plan that will increase fuel efficiency standards... help lawmakers retool their production facilities.”
Wolfson did not give a definitive answer whether or not Clinton would leave the campaign trail to push this legislation. Wolfson also responded to the critics of the tax plan by saying “we believe the presidency need leadership.” Basically Wolfson was saying that the president was the “decider” and would do whatever they want whether or not the experts agree with it or not.
Also, the blog has a piece of commodity news from 2000 showing that Clinton was not in favor of a Gas Tax Day while running for her senate seat. Clinton called a tax free day “a bad deal for New York and a potential bonanza for the oil companies.” Clinton experts were quick to these potential flip-flop allegations by saying that her tax plan will be paid for by the oil companies. Clinton advisers note that the 2000 republican plan would have been paid for by using a highway trust fund. This idea of a highway trust fund was also noted in the first blog with Stein commenting that no trust funds would be used in the plan after he got a response about these funds by the American Trucking Association which said the “ATA appreciates the effort and supports the proposals. But we do have concerns that any fuel tax suspension proposal could damage the already ailing Highway Trust Fund. To the extent that McCain and Snowe's proposals use general revenue funds to offset the hit to the trust fund, that concern is addressed. ATA did not ask for this legislation. And we believe it is only a very short term answer that does not do anything to address the longer term issue of rising fuel prices. ATA recognizes that rising fuel costs have a disproportionate impact on small trucking companies where even a small savings can be the difference in their staying in business.”
In regards that the plan would be a waste of time and money Clinton adviser Geoff Garin disagreed. Garin said that “our calculation is that the average driver would save 70 dollars.” With upcoming votes in blue-collar states such as Indiana, could this idea sway the vote? As George W. Bush has proved these states love getting extra money no matter who pays for it in the end. This Tax Break idea reeks of republican politics, and how will that help Clinton during a democratic election? I don’t think it will help that much and it could do a great deal of damage.
McCain strongly rejected long-term Iraq presence “Bring them all home”:
This is a Sam Stein blog from April 28th 2008, and it has a video piece from MSNBC. The blog and the video show the differences between Sen. John McCain the senator in 2005 and Republican Candidate McCain in 2008. MSNBC’s video had the headline “McCain’s Iraq Flip-Flop?” On Hardball with Chris Matthews in 2005 McCain said “as soon as we can reduce our visibility as much as possible, the better I think it is going to be.” Matthews was asked if Iraq would be a good place for a permanent military installation like there is in South Korea.
Now in 2008 McCain has changed his mind as has been widely shown in the news that he feels we could be in Iraq for 100 years and beyond. McCain now believes that the Korea model is exactly the right model for our troop deployment. The blog has been updated with a response from somebody in McCain’s camp Marc Ambinder, who says “the full context of the interview he gave in 2005 suggests that he modeled a long-term U.S. commitment to Iraq on South Korea, albeit with a big difference: a major corps would not necessarily have to embed itself in the country.” Also Ambinder suggests that the military advisers in the speech are actually solders just not called soldiers.
Clinton in 05 ‘I agree with McCain on long term-Iraq presence:
This is a Sam Stein blog from May 5th 2008 which directly relates to the McCain blog from a couple of days ago. In 2005, Hillary Clinton agreed with John McCain that Iraq military presence should be modeled after the US military presence in South Korea. This is the same thing that John McCain said on Hardball with Chris Matthews which was the story from last week’s blog. Clinton said “we’ve been in South Korea for 50-plus years. We’ve been in Europe 50-plus years. We’re still in Okinawa with respect to protection there coming out of World War II.
These quotes came back to the public eye this past Sunday which makes it similar to the Reverend Wright speech. This is old news that is coming back to the fold which is in news terms is called commodity. The old news becomes today’s headlines, and everything old is new again. Clinton continued “We don’t want to send a signal to the insurgents, to the terrorist that we are going to be out of here at some, you know, date certain… We want to send a message of solidarity.” The blog tried to explain why exactly Clinton would say the things that she did. One thing that Sam Stein noted that the interview was Clinton had just traveled to Iraq and saw their first democratic elections. This would put her in good spirits as she just saw a big success in Iraq.. Stein noted that everybody except war critics believe that this was a turning point in the mission. Clinton now believes that we should get out of Iraq by sending a few brigades home every month for 16 months. The blog has links to a CNN article in which Clinton said that she was the only candidate who would or could end the war. The blog also has a statement from Barack Obama who says that he is the true war-ending candidate.
The only thing that would have made this blog better was the video from the Meet the Press interview. The other blog had a video from Hardball, and that made it better overall. I think most people will believe a video or audio piece better then something that is written. It would have been better to see or hear Clinton in her own words. The interview from Meet the Press is the news, and it should have been the focal point. An embedded video would have made that point clear, and it was a missed opportunity.
This past Wednesday the U-Mass Amherst journalism department hosted a public lecture. The lecture covered the ever changing use of multimedia journalism in another ever changing realm: politics. The panel discussed how this new feature of reporting has led to a tendency for a national narrative to surround the political scene. This lecture attempted to explain why that was, and to give advice on the future of political journalism.
Mary Carey, U-Mass professor and political reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette was the first speaker to discuss the national narrative. Carey said “I want to talk about sort of the national narrative you know. I think you hear people talking a lot more, people are saying well the narrative was that Hilary {Clinton} was unbeatable. Then all of a sudden Obama came out of nowhere and Hillary was nose diving real bad.”
When host and U-Mass professor Steve Fox commented that the national narrative is often responsible for several mistake predictions USA Today’s national political correspondent Jill Lawrence explained why that was the case. Lawrence said “I think we get in trouble when we made predictions. The national narrative comes from the fact that we are reading the same tea leaves.”
The third panelist deputy publisher of Governing magazine, Mark Stencel commented that the national narrative is hard to keep a hold on. Stencel said “It is an endless treadmill to face the narrative, it is exhausting. The phrase you always hear is feeding the beast you know that kind of thing.”
Host Steve Fox enthusiastically introduced the three guest speakers to the captivated audience. Fox said “I feel like it’s my birthday, Christmas…everything wrapped into one. I get to just talk politics with these guys. We spent lunch talking politics. We hung out in my office for the past couple of hours talking politics and we get another 90 minutes of politics. Yes, I’m very excited here.”
The lecture was a complete success, and if you don’t believe me, would you believe U-Mass professor B.J. Roche? Either way this is what she said
The blog that I am discussing right now is entitled “DNC Web Ad: McCain in Lockstep with Bush” and it can be found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/18/dnc-web-ad-mccain-in-loc_n_92065.html . The blog talks about a new web-video posted by the Democratic National Convention. The video’s message is very clear: a McCain presidency is literally a third term for George W. Bush. The blog has the video in its entirety which is very helpful. I didn’t have to go to YouTube to access its video. I don’t think the blogger has to worry about the video being pulled because I don’t see any copyright infringement occurring. While looking for my SNL video I saw a lot of YouTube broken links because NBC Universal forced YouTube to pull some video clips.
The video shows how some of John McCain’s speeches mirror that of words said by George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. All of the audio and video clips relate to the war in Iraq, and in general the war on Terror. There is a mixture of audio with photographs of the person speaking and normal video with audio.
Early in the republican debates there were no references to George W. Bush. Now that Bush has endorsed McCain the flood gates have been opened. This video is trying to make John McCain’s approval rating to be just as low as the Presidents. The DNC is doing this while Clinton and Obama are still fighting to become the democratic presidential candidate. The fact that the republican race finished early is proving to be helpful to the DNC. The DNC can attack McCain openly whereas McCain would have to attack both Clinton and Obama. It’s like Germany in World War I trying to fight to wars on the Eastern and Western fronts.
The blog ends with McCain’s own words: If the Country doesn’t think the war was worth the risk then he won’t be President. The video ends with the message “after five years, we don’t need a third Bush Term. Bush & McCain: Wrong Then, Wrong Now.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/01/george-carlin-reads-more-_n_89179.html
This is a link to a Huffington Post interview with George Carlin. Carlin talks about his new stand up special, "It's Bad For Ya" and about the blogs that he reads. He also talks about his favorite political humorists. I just thought everybody would find it interesting, so have a look if you want to.
The blog I am commenting on is entitled Obama Aides: VP Talk is a Ruse, and it was posted on March 10th. It can be found at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/10/obama-aides-vp-talk-is-a_n_90825.html.
As the title suggests the blog is about Hilary Clinton suggesting that Barack Obama would be a good vice presidential running mate in November. Obama blasted this report by asking it he wasn’t ready to be the President how could he be ready to be the Vice President? If Clinton were to be incapacitated Obama would assume the office. The blog has some of his aides mirroring what he has said in various speeches since Clinton made that comment.
Susan Rice said that “the Clinton camp is trying to suggest that Sen. Obama is not ready to be commander in chief, they are touting him as a potential a running mate, which puts him a heartbeat away. He is not going to be a running mate. He is going to be commander in chief."
It is also suggested in this blog that as President Obama would be able to get more people to recruit for all branches of the armed services. Obama is leading in the youth demographics who also make up a majority of the people being recruited to fight in Iraq. This makes sense because not only does the youth trust him Obama has promised to be out of Iraq. So, the people who get recruited could be being signed up for other postings in a post-Iraq war scenario. In my opinion they would most likely be deployed to find Osama Bin Laden and win the war in Afghanistan. The blog questions whether or not Clinton would redeploy combat troops because they said that Clinton hasn’t said anything definitive.
Another part of the blog was a response to the Clinton had about the call at 3am in the morning. Rice says that she doesn’t believe Clinton is qualified to answer the call just because she was first lady. Handling a critical situation is a lot different than watching somebody else handle it. Rice who is a former Clinton aid added : "We continue to ask the question as to what exactly is the experience that Sen. Clinton can point to that indicates that she has had real crisis management experience? And when asked that question we get 20 seconds of silence.”
This Sam Stein Blog was very text heavy, and didn’t have a video unlike that last one I reported on. I was somewhat disappointed with the lack of convergence on this blog, but it still was loaded with useful quotes. It would have been better to hear what Rice was saying instead of reading it, but it was still effective.
The blog from Sam Stein I am discussion in this post is “MSNBC-Clinton Feud Continues: Tucker Goes Off.” It was posted on February 25, and discusses the next round in the ongoing feud between MSNBC and Hillary Clinton and her campaign team. The blog can be found at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/25/msnbcclinton-feud-contin_n_88417.html.
This is the first blog of Sam Stein’s that I have seen which contained a video, and the video was posted on YouTube, and embedded directly into the blog. This is the video in question:
This is an on-going battle between Clinton and MSNBC, and it got very personal a couple of times already. Chris Matthews made comments that Clinton only received her Senate seat of New York because the voters felt bad about her failing marriage. Also, a MSNBC analyst David Shuster was suspended for making a comment that Chelsea Clinton was being “pimped out” to recruit super delegates. Matthews also made comments on his show “Hardball” that the Clinton campaign teams were “knee-cappers” and they were “lousy” to delve into intimidation.
This blog also contained a quote from Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s Press Secretary. Wolfson was asked by Time Magazine whether or not the media in general was dealing with Barack Obama with kid gloves. "I think it is true," he said, "that every time the Obama campaign in this campaign has attacked Senator Clinton in the worst kind of personal ways, attacked her veracity, attacked her credibility, said that she would say or do anything to get elected, the press has largely applauded him."
The overall tone of the blog is to highlight the wrongdoings of MSNBC which Carlson did not mention in his tirade. The blog shows why the Clinton campaign has been “awful to the press” or maybe it is just that they are being awful to MSNBC. I think MSNBC should remember that you only get what you give, and try to be nicer to Clinton in the future. At very least they should try to treat each candidate equally: love them or hate them, treat them the same.
This is a response to the Sam Stein blog “Bush’s Top Donors Signing On With McCain,” which was posted on February 26th, 2008. The article sums up the news that John McCain is getting money from some of the people who have given money to President Bush in the past namely for the 2004 presidential election. The biggest group of donors that McCain and Bush now have in common call themselves “Texans for Public Justice” they are also given the nickname 2004 Bush Rangers. The blog had a link to where the members of this group are listed. I notice that there are a lot of Jr, Sr, II and III in the list of donors. To me this shows that these “rangers” come from old money: oil money. This is a group that symbolizes the Presidents rich, conservative base which he has drawn on for support for all of his business and political career.
Stein has also provides links to a project called “The Buying of a President.” The director of this project Bill Hogan said “"If you are really great at shaking the money tree, history tells us that you are going to get donations from a lot of people in the party. It is a question of migration from one campaign cycle to the next. Some donors might sit it out or support other candidates early on. But as the campaign goes on the donors will increasingly gravitate to the likely nominee." The blog also has a useful link to a site where McCain’s fund raising totals are divulged along with the names of citizens and lobbyists who have given to the hopeful presidential candidate.
There is a very important question to answer: why are Bush supporters given money to McCain? It is well known that McCain is not well received in the ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party. Wayne Berman, the managing editor of Ogilvy Government Relations said this to Jonathan Salant of Bloomberg Financial News "bringing the people who give and raise money for other candidates is an element of unifying the party. What attracts them is the comeback story... A lot of these folks don't agree with him on every issue, but they're attracted by the way he came back.'' Even with his Lazarus story, McCain has only raised $48 million which is less then Rudy Giuliani received in his failed attempt to be the Republican nominee. The story ends with this fact: McCain and his team have a long way to go, but his team also has some familiar faces in terms of Bush’s money raising ability. McCain has hired Mercer Reynolds who was the national finance chairman for Bush in 2004. McCain not only has the same donors as the President he is hiring the same people for his campaign. With the state of Bush’s approval rating I don’t think that is advisable, but it could help McCain in getting the support of Bush’s ultra-conservative friends and business partners.
Stein’s blog can be found at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/26/bushs-top-donors-signing_n_88502.html.
AMHERST MA-
Violence has erupted in recent weeks at U-Mass Amherst, and binge drinking is to blame according to university officials.
Marianne Winters said “that there is an anticipation almost an expectation that violence is a possibility.” Many students have been expelled due to violent incidents, but the problems still remain.
Jeff Napolitian the president of the Graduate Student Senate said that the university "packs freshman who have no experience of living on their own into one area, and there are bound be to problems. "
Most of the incidents occur in the Southwest dorm area at U-Mass which has played host to violent riots over the past five years. Violence erupted after The Red Sox were defeated by the New York Yankees in the American League Divisional series in 2003. During this riot police cars were turned over and several U-Mass students were arrested.
The most damaging riots to the University took place after U-Mass lost to Appalachian State for the Division AA championship. During this incident windows of Berkshire Dining commons were smashed, along with windows of the lower level dorms near the South West quad.
University officials said that the rowdiest parties happen off-campus. A town-university coalition is proposing a measure that would give local law enforcement broader authority to break up disruptive parties and hold hosts responsible for serving alcohol to minors.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/02/21/attacks_rowdiness_rattling_many_at_umass_amherst/
Obama and McCain Conquer the Potomac:
The Potomac primaries resulted in two clean sweeps for the front runners of both political parties. Both Barack Obama and John McCain won primaries in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. According to both MSNBC and CNN for the first time Obama is the undisputed leader in the Democratic delegate count and McCain has all but assured his place as the republican candidate. It should now be a question of when, not if Mike Huckabee will drop out if he wants to have any future in the Republican Party or any spot in a McCain post if he wins the presidency in November.
The first results of the night came in as soon as the polls closed in Virginia; MSNBC was the first to call Obama the winner of Virginia. In the end Obama gained fifty four delegates to Clinton's 32. Obama won with 64 percent of the vote as 618,933 votes compared to thirty five percent for Clinton with 344,940 votes with 99 percent of the counties reporting. As soon as the polls closed at 8 pm, MSNBC also called the primary of Washington DC for Obama as well. According to CNN, with 75 percent of the vote Obama picked up thirteen delegates in the nation’s capital. Clinton with 24 percent of the vote gained 11 candidates. To complete a three state sweep Obama won seventeen delegates with 60 percent of the vote with 305,154 votes with 99 percent of the vote reported. Clinton got 15 delegates with 187,540 votes which were good for thirty seven percent of the vote reported. According to the MSNBC totals (non-super delegates) Obama has 1,078 delegates with Clinton falling behind with 969. In the CNN delegate total it is 1,215 for Obama with Clinton’s 1,190 which includes the super delegates.
All three of the Republican primaries were winner take all and they all went to McCain. McCain got 16 candidates in his victory in Washington DC, 60 candidates in Virginia and 13 candidates in Maryland. According to MSNBC this gives McCain a total of 812 delegates with Huckabee still at 231. This totals show with utter certainty that the republican race is over, and the question is when will Huckabee throw in the towel? Is he risking a future in the Republican Party by refused to give this primary up? Could he still be McCain’s vice president? Of course Huckabee said that he didn’t want to be the Vice President but how many Vice President candidates in the past flatly denied that they were interested? I think he will be one of those numbers and in the end it will be Obama with John Edwards taking on McCain with Huckabee.
After reading John R. Henderson’s tutorial I have decided to look at a view websites and will attempt to show why they make be reliable or not. First, I have decided to write about a blog on The Huffington Post about Pedophilia and Star Trek. The absurdness of the topic should be a dead giveaway that this is going to be unreliable. I’m not just saying that because I’m a Star Trek fan and not a pedophile but the very topic is ridiculous.
This blog has two problems stemming from web browser links. Firstly, the LA Times article that this blog was based on had no mention of Star Trek whatsoever. The blogger calls the statistic to be mind boggling, but there is no statistic to be found at all. What is truly mind boggling is how a site with a good reputation like the Huffington Post would allow such a glaring mistake not to be corrected or the post completely deleted all together. With this fact, I am uncertain if the quotes that are in this blog are accurate or if they have been invented by somebody who wants to insult Star Trek. I know some people don’t like it, but this person seems to have a vendetta against Star Trek and its group of fans called Trekkers. This brings up another mistake by the blogger who incorrectly names Star Trek fans as “trekkies.” This glaring mistake shows, at least to me that she doesn’t know what she is talking about. Another web link mistake is a broken link which supposedly has an article that refutes her standpoint that Star Trek fans are more likely then not to be engaging in deviant sexual behavior with children. I would have really liked to have read that other blog, but I cannot. The link does not work, and it says ‘forbidden’ when I try to access it. This might be a problem that the other blogger needs to take care of but she could post the other bloggers opinion herself. Later in this essay I will describe what I found out when I searched this bloggers name into a search engine. Hopefully my web search will give me some insight on why Ladowsky thinks she is an expert on deviant behavior or “Star Trek.”
This particular post is the only blog that she ever did on the Huffington Post’s website. This is very odd, and could be a sign that her work was not up to scratch with the experts that makes the Huffington Post so respected. There could be other reasons for this being her own post, but it is intriguing and leads to questions on to why this was her only post on the website.
There are a few grammatical errors and some mistakes of television writing. Firstly, the blog does not have quotation marks on the names of the episodes of “Star Trek” that she brings up. Also, it would also be appropriate for her to put quotation marks over the words “Star Trek” itself. These oversights are important because people who are not familiar of the show will not know what she is talking about. Quotation marks are necessary to distinguish the episode of “Star Trek” with the other words in this blog. Grammatically there are a few commas that Microsoft word says that a semi-colon would work better in the sentence. Also, the blog contains a sentence fragment. These small mistakes might be easy to ignore, but added with everything else I think that they cannot.
There is one other technical aspect to why I would not trust this blog, and it is because of a lack of comments. This could be explained in a few different ways all of them not good for the blogs’ credibility. Firstly, there could simply been no readers to this blog or whoever read the blog did not care enough about the topic to post. Secondly, there could have been posts to this blog that were deleted because they were negatively blasting the blogs topic matter. Since the internet has a lot of “Star Trek” fans I am sure this article would anger everybody who read the article. Thirdly, the blogger might have been scared of the comments that she would get, and immediately closed the blog from accepting messages. These are the three, as Spock would call logical reasons why the blog does not have any posts. All three of these reasons are sufficient to question the validity of this bloggers claim.
The Huffington Post did have a very small biography on Ladowsky on their webpage. It says that she is a “doctoral candidate in clinical psychology and a Psychology intern at a Los Angeles Clinic.” It also says that she appeared as a relationship expert on a television show called Rendezvous. It also says that some of her articles have appeared in such papers as “The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Mirabella and In Style.” So, it appears her psychological and journalistic credentials are in order. The other mistakes in the blog are still there and I still believe the blog was a waste of time to write. The article offers no news, and in my opinion is not very interesting. Why would anybody want to read this, what does it offer? I think it offers nothing of value, and I certainly only read it in order to be fully able to insult it in this essay. The only fact that matters to me is that the LA Times article she based her entire blog on has no mention of “Star Trek.” This to me shows that she must have some vendetta on the show, maybe she wasn’t a fan growing up. Maybe she tried for a part on the show and was turned down. She invented the idea that the LA Times article mentioned Star Trek and only she knows why.
Google search brought up that Ladowsky co-wrote a book called “How to Dump a Guy” and that she wrote a biography on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. What I can note about the book is that it is not in print anymore, and amazon.com members are sell it for a minimum of fifty five cents. That is the price of a used copy and they sell a new copy for $1.98! Also, a Google search brought up a piece like this one: a piece that completely refutes what is said. That article can be found at this URL: http://www.conservativecat.com/mt/archives/2005/08/ellen_ladowski.html. The LA times article that Ladowsky used must have been somewhere at one point because the poster shows how Ladowsky misquoted it.
The Ladowsky quote is “The LA Times recently ran a story about the Child Exploitation Section of the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit, which contained a mind-boggling statistic: of the more than 100 offenders the unit has arrested over the last four years, "all but one" has been "a hard-core Trekkie."
The real LA Times Quote: “We always say there are two types of pedophiles: Star Trek and Star Wars. But it's mostly Star Trek.”
Ladowsky uses the quote marks to make us believe that a person said what she wrote verbatim. The words “all but one” and “a hardcore trekkie” were in quotes. There is no such quote, and it was journalistically dishonest for Ladowsky to pretend that there was. This is just another reason to not believe the content of the blog, and another reason why Ladowsky should probably go to journalism school along with her training to be a psychologist.
When looking for information on “Star Trek”, I usually go to www.startrek.com. I trust that site because it is known as the official website of the television show and movie series. The site is maintained by CBS/Paramount who own “Star Trek.” I usually try to get most of my information from official sources. I usually do not trust information from websites when I see a tilde sign because I know that is a definitive sign that the website is someone’s personal website. I didn’t see that on the tutorial, but it is something that I already knew about web pages. You always need to know who runs a website and what their objective in running it is. The objective of the “Star Trek” website is to give information about the show to its readers and to keep them informed of developments of future film or television ventures. The objective of this is simple: the website exists to make sure people buy, or watch Star Trek episodes, movies and merchandise. At least they are honest about it, and the website is well run and maintained. I don’t know why Ladowsky wrote her blog, and that is one of the main reason I was uneasy about it. Along with misquotes and everything else the ultimate question was not answered: why would I want to read this? I wouldn’t want to read it, and I don’t know anybody else who would either.
-Ryan Damon
At around 3 pm CNN announced the winner of the Kansas caucus was former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Dana Bash told the viewers that Huckabee will pick up thirty six delegates because of his victory. There are thirty nine delegates available in Kansas; three of them will be decided later as RNC delegates. Using the delegate count from MSNBC.com Huckabee has increased his delegate count for 231. This total is still lower than the 278 delegates that Romney had when he dropped out of the race this past Wednesday. Even with his sound defeat in Kansas John McCain now holds 723 delegates after picking up two of the super delegates. CNN analysts have formulated that even if Mike Huckabee wins every state left in the race by getting 50% of the vote John McCain will still be the nominee for the Republican Party. Romney saw that and dropped out of the race, but Huckabee said he will remain in the race until the winning number of delegates is achieved by any candidate.
By 8:40 pm, two democratic projections were made by both MSNBC and CNN. Washington State and Nebraska were both projected to be victories for Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Washington State has 78 normal pledged delegates with 18 super delegates for a total of 97. Nebraska has a total of 31 delegates with seven of those being super-delegates. At 10 pm MSNBC predicted that Barack Obama would win the state of Louisiana. This state has sixty six total delegates with ten super delegates. At 10:30 Obama spoke from Virginia where Democrats will vote on Tuesday. Obama is trying to rally around the big win he got today and to turn that into a big win in Virginia on Tuesday. CNN.com has projected that Obama will have gained seventy four delegates compared to Hillary Clinton’s thirty seven. Delegate counts on MSNBC (which do not include super delegates) are Obama with 935 delegates and Clinton with a total of 892. I left the super delegate count off because I do not feel that the super delegates will be allowed to decide who gets elected. This would leave a very sour taste in the mouths of people who voted in the democratic primaries. It would be similar to when in 2000 the Supreme Court appointed George W. Bush as President in the 5-4 decision of Gore vs. Bush. The people have to think that it was their vote that decided the primary I think the super delegates will decide to give support to the person with the delegate count lead, or who has gotten the most overall votes. This is necessary because people might not vote in the general election for the candidate if they feel that their vote was not considered in the electing of the candidate.
The last two races to be decided were the republican races in Louisiana and Washington. With a very slim margin of victory Mike Huckabee took the victory in the state of Louisiana, but CNN projects that it will not lead to any delegates because of the closeness of the results. It was also reported on Yahoo! News that Ron Paul will not be running as a member of the Green Party or as any other third party’s candidate. As of 1:30 in the morning the full results of the Washington caucus have not been fully processed. Currently, John McCain has a 2 percent lead over Mike Huckabee. This does not look good for Huckabee who has to win every primary and caucus by more than fifty percent to have a chance at being the Republican candidate. It looks like it will not be a matter of if, but when Mike Huckabee formally withdraws from the race.
The blog that I am writing about right now is another one of Sam Stein’s from the Huffington Post. It is entitled “Bolton as McCain’s Secretary of State?”
Sam Stein is saying that former UN ambassador John Bolton could be his secretary of state if McCain is elected President of the United States. According to this blog John McCain was behind the scenes in getting Bolton appointed to ambassador to the UN. Bolton said ‘He (McCain) though I was the type of ambassador that ought to represent in the United States in the United Nations.’ The blog earlier said that Bolton had anti-UN polities and statements against the organization that McCain thought Bolton would fit in perfectly. The appointment of Bolton was very controversial and was fought by then democratic minority in congress.
These comments by Bolton were apart of the Conservative Political Action Conference and were made on Friday. On Wednesday Mitt Romney used this conference to drop out of the republican race but Mike Huckabee used the conference to say that he was in the race for the foreseeable future. Bolton also supported McCain by bashing the two democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. It is an old rule in politics if you can’t get your numbers up you attempt to get your opponent’s numbers down. The rumors of Bolton being McCain’s choice for potential secretary of state were finally verbalized by Bolton’s introductory speaker who called Bolton a ‘warrior of light and our next Secretary of State.’
The blog can be found at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/08/bolton-as-mccains-secret_n_85760.html.
-Ryan Damon
I am writing this response to Sam Stein’s blog from the Huffingtonpost.com. It is entitled “Unhinged Coulter uses Hitler Analogy to Bash McCain.” The blog can be seen in its entirety at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/08/unhinged-coulter-uses-hit_n_85778.html.
This blog does not have much analysis on the part of Stein except for its title. It is clear that the words of Ann Coulter do not need much analysis to know that she is crazy. Nearly all of the blog are direct quotes from Coulter but it also has one from Rush Limbaugh.
It is very odd for Ann Coulter to bash a republican, but the way she has done is more shocking. Coulter says that her supposed support of Hilary Clinton is like Winston Churchill’s support of Stalin in their fight against Hitler and Nazi Germany. I am no fan of John McCain, but comparing him to Hitler? This proves to me what I have thought for years, Ann Coulter is not just a cold-hearted woman, and she is certifiably insane. Who in their right mind could say that Clinton is Stalin or McCain is Hitler. It would have been better for her to say that she is supporting Clinton because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. There was no need to bring in the horrors of Nazi Germany into the fold. If anybody in the world is not Hitler, it would be John McCain.
Coulter's rant continues as she insults McCain for his age. Coulter said that McCain had been a senator for about 100 years.” For the record John McCain has been a senator in Arizona for twenty one years. Coulter can’t even get her math correct twenty one years is no where near 100 years. McCain also served four years in the House of Representatives, but that is still not even close for Coulters insulting accusation.
I love how this blog uses Coulter’s own words against her, and how he doesn’t need much of his own words. My response is saying outright what Stein said by using only Coulter's controversial voice.
-Ryan Damon
