Classic Spousal Emasculation?

Could it be that Joanna’s husband, Mark, is actually a blithering idiot?  After all, why else would an experienced television news reporter feel compelled to tell him to not scare people by talking too loudly about those explosions being a bomb, and then repeat what she had told him during her televised report, when she should realize that the way a story is presented goes a long way toward how it is received by the viewing audience?

In all fairness, it could be argued that she was just giving an honest report about what happened while her mind was still numb from pounding the pavement for 26.2 miles, but she neglected to make that clear—did she not?  Of course, it may very well be that he was going against the training he had received as a police officer, as well as in the military, by shouting out that what was heard was a bomb, which would have been a rather idiotic thing to do, considering the situation at hand.

In any event, she succeeded in emasculating him before a fairly large viewing audience.  Whether or not he deserved it (naturally-speaking, of course) remains to be seen.

P.S.

It was pointed out to me that I neglected to address intent.  Therefore, please accept my sincere apologies, and let it be widely known and well understood that I hope the lovely and talented Ms. Small did not intend to humiliate her husband.

I also neglected to mention that it most certainly works both ways.  A good example of a husband humiliating his wife in a public setting would be him volunteering to announce upon their arrival at a community potluck dinner that she did not have much time to spend in the kitchen because of the kids being sick, which would be (in effect) to assume that the dish she prepared would not be received very well.

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HLN: Head Line Nitwits

First of all, I would like to make it as clear as possible that none of this is meant to reflect badly upon [Robin Meade].  For I have watched her with great intensity on her [Morning Express] news show, and I cannot imagine how anyone (from among us, of course) could look any better in front of a camera.

Listening to her is another matter entirely, however.  Although, I am perfectly willing to accept that routinely delivering a big headline and then cutting to a commercial break is not her fault.

A prime example of what I am talking about happened a few days ago when the lovely and talented Ms. Meade leaned in toward the camera and said something about [CBS’ The Amazing Race] starting off their last aired episode with an [apology].  I am sorry.  I do not remember just exactly what she said, but what I do remember is what appeared on the television screen approximately a half-second later was several fairly attractive ladies twirling umbrellas.  Thirty seconds or so afterward, it was made clear that what I was watching was a commercial for Target.  Around 15 minutes and two and a half segments later, the actual report about The Amazing Race’s apology was aired.

No, I just do not get it.   For according to all sorts of news stories on scientific studies, we are now well into an age of 30-second attention spans at best.  So, why would televised news outlets insist upon stringing their viewers along?

Yes, I get that this is a tactic for the benefit of their advertising partners.  For at least a dozen commercials aired between the time that the lovely and talented Ms. Meade delivered that headline about The Amazing Race apology and when the actual report finally came up in the rotation, but with their now being literally thousands of different news outlets available to anyone with access to the internet, just how many of their initial viewers will still be there to hear the rest of the story?  Of course, the lovely and talented Ms. Meade truly is a sight to behold…

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Cramer and Cummins

As I have mentioned a few times before here and there, it is hard for me to explain why I have been watching so much on [CNBC] the past few months.  For I don’t really understand very much of what they are talking about when it comes to investing in stocks and bonds, and even if I did, I don’t have any money to lose in the first-place.

Yeah, I have picked up on one thing.  For one should look at investing in stocks and bonds in the same way as they should out-right gambling.  For if you can’t afford to lose anything, you shouldn’t be in the game.  A variation of that would be that if you can’t afford to stay in the game until things start looking good for you, you shouldn’t be in it.

I suppose most of the attraction that I have for what CNBC has to offer is getting insights into what is going on in the business community that do not usually make it onto the regular news outlets.  Early talk about the possibility of a true Apple TV coming to market fairly soon serves as a good example of that.

Not that I would want to buy an Apple TV.  For it is bound to be priced way out of our range, but Samsung and other more reasonable manufacturers trying to keep pace just might help break up the monopolies on content now being held by cable companies.  For with it being possible to more easily watch what is being streamed over the internet, I would think that the networks would start working with other outlets and the price that we now face for cable TV would have to go way down in order to hold onto as many subscribers as possible.

Early on, [Jim Cramer] of both [Mad Money] and [Squawk on the Street] fame and fortune (in a relative sense to this piece) was a great favorite of mine.  For he had a very colorful way of expressing his opinions that were usually quite enjoyable—very much unlike [Rick Santelli’s] Discharge Exchange segments.

Oh, there were a few things that I took great exception to.  For I would start shaking my head in dismay every time he would start hopping up and down while screaming, “THE PC IS DEAD!  THE PC IS DEAD!”  Those outbursts would usually be in conjunction with some news about something that either Hewlett-Packard or Microsoft was doing, and it was always followed with much talk about how much cooler Apple now is to younger generations.

Then he went and crossed a line that I simply could not abide.  For I heard him boldly proclaim, “CUMMINS!  THE BEST ENGINE MANUFACTURER IN THE WORLD!”

Okay, I was willing to let his lack of distinction between types of engines slide, but declaring [Cummins] as the best in the world was simply unforgiveable.  For they make diesel engines that go in trucks that those who buy them do not have to drive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Cummins makes more than diesel engines for trucks, but that is what I have an intimate knowledge of.  Besides, if Cummins is willing to make junk like that for trucks, it makes sense that the rest of their engines would not be much better.

Would you like to have to drive a vehicle delivering stuff in and around a big city with a 25 horsepower two-cylinder engine while all of the vehicles in the traffic you are trying to maneuver around have 300 horsepower V-8s?  This is what it is like driving a truck with a Cummins engine.

Yeah, the much more powerful vehicles would quickly go on their way and leave you to make your turns after they have went on down the street, but there is always more traffic coming up from behind.  In fact, I am quite sure that it is a law in most jurisdictions.

Cummins makes engines that are supposed to have as much horsepower as a [Cat] or a [Detroit Diesel] does, but the trucks with Cummins engines are always the last over the hill, with everything else being equal.  Some idiots will argue otherwise, but they are, after all, idiots.

The last truck I drove with a Cummins engine had a pumped-up 444 “Cat-Killer” in it.  In all fairness, I was fairly happy with its performance heading east out of Missouri, but on the way back, the turbo went out, which was not the first time that had happened, while I was trying to make two pick-ups on the south side of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  With each street being practically straight up and down in that part of town, plenty of power is a must for anyone who might be concerned about rolling backwards while trying to go uphill.  After taking most of two days to limp the truck back to the southwestern part of Missouri, the owner of the outfit mercifully sold the truck at auction as soon as a another new turbo was installed.

Now, it has been around 13 years since the last time I was out there on the road in a big truck, and it may very well be that Cummins has decided to return to the days when their [KTA engines] could give any Cat a true run for the money, but I kinda doubt it.  For why would a company like Cummins strive for greatness when mediocre had plenty of money coming into the bank?

It was finally revealed to me that Mr. Cramer and most of the rest at CNBC could not help themselves.  For they are looking at companies like Cummins through the eyes of a stock analyst—not someone who would actually use their goods or services themselves.  Yes, one would think that the quality of a company’s products would have much to do with the value of their stock, but with more and more money coming out of emerging markets like capitalist China, a Cummins engine is better than what they can make themselves at this time, and a Cummins can be generally bought at a cheaper price than a Cat or Detroit Diesel can be.

Alas, it is becoming more and more uncomfortable for me to watch my usual CNBC shows.  For Mr. Cramer was at it again during a segment of Squawk on the Street the other day when he started literally squealing with glee over [Valero] making a killing (his actual words) by charging the same at their gasoline pumps as their competitors were while paying much less for the crude oil they were refining.

Yes, if one is to make money in the stock market, they need to buy low and sell high, and higher and higher corporate profits drive the price of their stocks higher and higher.  Not much credit is given for making a truly great product and selling it at the lowest possible price out of goodness of heart, it would seem.  Isn’t our brand of capitalism great?

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Can Be Unreliable

According to a segment on a local newscast, that image of a shark swimming past the front porch of a house in New Jersey in the wake of Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy was actually taken in Puerto Rico a few years back.  Therefore, it is obviously a fake.

The segment about how information gathered from social media sites can be unreliable included many other images that were supposedly [faked], and I suppose I should be a lot more appreciative of their efforts.  For it certainly appeared to be a very well produced piece.

The thing is that it was produced by one of our local news teams.  In fact, the anchor introducing it reported in another story a few weeks ago that the scorpions around here in southwest Missouri are not poisonous, but that their sting can be rather painful.

WHAT?????????  For it is true that their venom is not normally strong enough to kill someone, but it is most definitely poisonous.

Oh, and this is the very same news team that was reporting that a fight between two brothers down in northern Arkansas resulted in one shooting the other with a shotgun while another local news team was reporting that it was a .45 automatic pistol.  To bring this into full view, these two news teams share the same facility—if not different parts of the same studio!

Perhaps I really am expecting too much.  For it seems reasonable to me that sharing notes with others reporting on the same story (maybe while passing them in some hallway?) during the fact-checking process and then at least acknowledging that there appears to be some discrepancies on just what weapon was involved at the time if one comes to light, but what do I know?

In all fairness, I should point out that it is not just with our local news teams that I often take exception.  A prime example of this happened when several national news outlets were [reporting] on the great tragedy of the tiny community of [Breezy Point] being almost completely burned to the ground while Sandy blew through.

Yes, I understand that close-knit neighborhoods can exist within the boundaries of huge cities, and in comparison to other such neighborhoods, Breezy Point appears to be much more of an entity unto itself.  Nonetheless, how can it be honestly reported that any part of New York City is tiny (except for maybe many studio apartments)!

It is, of course, a matter of perspective, and someone like me is more inclined to scoff at such a place as Breezy Point being described as being tiny when they cannot tell when it ends and another begins without seeing a sign.  For to me, [Bethlehem, Missouri] is tiny, with just a small feed mill, church and a couple of houses between two signs at the east and west boundaries on MO Highway 76 when I had a place around a mile to the northwest of it.

No, I do not want to believe that the national news outlets were trying to make a horrible situation sound even more tragic to draw a larger audience.  For that would mean that even their reporting can be unreliable, which would surely start [Walter Cronkite] a-spinnin’ in his grave, and this is something that none of us want—trust me.

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Cassville's Big Cats

Link: [On OazrksSportsZone.com]

Be assured that it gives me great pleasure to be able to publish something positive about one of our local news outlets.  For I would like to believe that there are some in the business who really are serious about producing a quality segment, and it gives me cause to hope that their efforts can actually make it on the air in spite of the efforts of station management to just avoid having nothing more than a test pattern to go on-air with.

Yes, it was a puff-piece, which first aired on [KSPR], and it certainly did not hurt with me that it was about my high school alma mater.  Of course, with it being around 20 years since the last time I spent much of any time at all around the town, it could have been really messed up and I wouldn’t know it.

Well, I got to take at least some of that back.  For I do know that the Cassville R-IV sports teams are still the [Wildcats], and I have been keeping up on how the high school football team has been doing since they started being really, really good around 10 years ago.

Alas, I have great concerns about them possibly doing something quite unethical—not to mention blatantly against the rules.  For unless something drastic has changed since I moved away for good, there shouldn’t be enough talented players available year after year to keep them winning at least 10 games per season. including a couple of state championships.

Yes, all indications are that the difference between Cassville and the rest of the pack is just the coaching staff.  For I cannot recall ever hearing about one of their players being recruited by even the likes of [Missouri State], which is just around 60 miles away to the northeast in Springfield—let alone [Arkansas], which is around the same distance away to the south-southwest in Fayetteville.

By the way, that 30-game regular-season winning streak is now at 31 after Cassville beat the defending Class AA state champion, [Lamar], 31-0 last Friday night (September 7, 2012).

Just in case you are not up on your American history, Lamar is the birthplace of [Harry S. Truman], who served as the President of the United States of America from 1945 to 1953.  Aside from the [Blue Top Café], I have never liked much of nothing about that town.

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Mary Moloney Is More

A few nights ago, my wife and I were watching the 10 p.m. newscast on [KSPR] when we heard the anchor report that there have been no confirmed cases of the [West Nile Virus] in Missouri so far this year, according to the [CDC].  We looked at each with a befuddled look on our faces almost immediately.  For we were both sure that we had heard otherwise, and a visit to the CDC website a couple of hours later [confirmed] our suspicions.

Ah, but I took a gentle approach when I sent an email to the anchor.  For I asked if we may have misunderstood what she was reporting.

Well, I didn’t receive an email back from the anchor, but she did pass on my email to the lovely and talented Ms. [Mary Maloney], who did email me back.  As it turned out, Mary had actually written the copy for the piece on mosquitoes threatening to take over [Nixa], and I was delighted with her freely admitting that all of the facts had not been rechecked before going on the air with a story that KSPR had obtained some of from one of their news partners.  I was also delighted with her expressing a desire to get things as right as possible, and I thanked her for wanting to be more than just another very pretty on-air personality.

Yeah, she might have been just shining me on.  For on the very next night, it was reported that a judge had ruled that Apple and Samsung had both infringed upon each other’s patents, and that Apple would be owing Samsung a tidy sum of money, which left me with another befuddled look on my face after hearing from CNBC and several other news outlets a day or so earlier that Apple had clearly won in their lawsuit against Samsung over [patent infringements], but Mary may have had nothing to do with that KSPR report.

Just in case I have left you with a befuddled look of your own, there wouldn’t have been any confusion with the KSPR piece if it had of just included some context.  For the KSPR anchor was reporting on a ruling made by a [South Korean court], which came after the ruling for Apple in an [American court], which is what I had been hearing about before.

Evidently, the markets don’t hold much stock in the South Korean ruling.  For the price for Samsung stock [plummeted] anyway.

In any event, I have no doubt that Mary has some work ahead of her in the fight against misinformation, and I am afraid that she will not be able to get very far with it.  For it couldn’t have become as bad as it has without someone higher up on the management ladder being asleep in front of the monitor.  We’ll be watching to see how it goes.

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Ron Hearst Rocks!

It was brought to my attention that it would only be fair to write about when a member of one of our local news teams had me cheering out loud after [ranting] about the poor quality of many newscasts lately.  Oh yeah, my wife actually came a-runnin’ to see what was going on when she heard me hollering, “Now, that’s what I want to see!”

What got me so pumped up happened a few days back as I was watching a weather segment where [KY3 Chief Meteorologist Ron Hearst] was showing the movement of a couple of fairly severe thunderstorms in the area.  While he was doing so, he noticed a blue text box in the lower left part of his presentation screen with a message bout 1.75” hail reportedly falling 10 miles north of Terre Haute, and since Terre Haute is in Indiana and around 320 miles to the northeast of us, he pointed to the text box and said that he had no idea why it was there.

Hip! Hip!! HOORAY!!!

Seriously, that is all I am looking for!  For I know that none of us are perfect, and I can imagine just how hard it could become to keep everything straight while doing a live newscast.

Whereas, what has been happening far too often is no acknowledgement of anything being wrong!  Such as when another member of the KY3 news team on another broadcast went right on to the next story after reporting that a bull rider had been bucked off and trampled to death almost immediately after the chute opened at the beginning of the attempted 8 MINUTE ride at a rodeo in a town just over the Kansas state line (I think) when the ride is an 8 SECOND one!  (Needling someone about making a mistake like that would make for some great witty banter—don’t you think?)

Another recent major misinformation malfunction occurred when the anchor of another station’s newscast ended the evening with a funny little story, along with footage of the incident, about a bear checking out the lobby of a ski lodge at [Angel Fire], and calling it an Albuquerque resort, which would be like calling [The Lodge of Four Seasons] a St. Louis resort.  For they are both around 150 miles away and much closer to other well-known locations that could serve as a point of reference, such as Taos and Santa Fe, in the case of Angel Fire.  

Alas, I do not know if this means that the people in charge also don’t have a clue or that they just don’t care, but local newscasts around here are becoming a joke.  Still, they can serve as a place to hear about things that can be searched for elsewhere to find out what may be really going on.  So, I’ll keep trying to watch.

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Witty Banter Should Be Witty

By definition, [witty] has to do with something that is either said or done that is quite amusing and/or very clever.  To the extent of my understanding, it is more often used to describe something amusing than something strictly intellectual, such as what is supposed to be the witty banter between members of a newscast team that is often used to fill in the gaps between segments.

Yes, I am building up to another rant about the quality of our local newscasts.  For when one of the anchors on one of our local newscasts mentioned something about the wife of a former colleague giving birth to another Ole Miss fan, the other anchor quipped, “Ole Miss?  Well, maybe we can make a Cardinals fan out of him.”

Um, just in case you are as witty as she is, [Ole Miss] is a university that is mostly known for its football team (debatable, I know) while the Cardinals she was referring to was either the [St. Louis Cardinals] or the [Springfield Cardinals], with both of them being professional baseball teams.  In other words, we have a true apples and oranges situation here.  Okay, I suppose I should give her credit for keeping it sports related.

The next example doesn’t have anything to do with witty banter.  For it is about one of our local reporters reporting that a serious wreck occurred a couple of miles south of High Landville instead of Highlandville.

Since I am really not all that picky, this next example won’t have anything to do with witty banter, either.  For it is about one of our local sportscasters announcing that [Jaime Garcia] would make a rehab start with the Springfield Cardinals before joining the big league team after suffering a serious injury to his left shoulder earlier in the season, and pronouncing his name as Hay-may Garcia instead of High-me—even after conducting an on-camera interview with the pitcher!  No, I didn’t catch if he mispronounced his name during the interview, but it has taken him at least four tries since to get it right.

Keeping with sports, we have a local sportscaster who dreams of making it to the [big time], and it just might be that he is not as clueless as I give him credit for being.  For while presenting a story about the NFL wanting to make football (the real kind) an Olympic sport, a couple of the ESPN sportscasters put up a list of NFL players who were born someplace other than the U.S., and included on that list was [Tim Tebow] and [Hines Ward].

Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, it is true that Tebow was born in the Philippians while his parents were doing missionary work there, and Ward was born in South Korea while his father was stationed there with the U.S. Army.  However, both were actually raised around real football in America when what the ESPN idiots were going for was NFL players who had grew up in a much different culture and started playing the game at a much older age than what most NFL players do.

No, I am not expecting perfection.  In fact, I find it quite endearing when a newscaster messes up and then corrects the mistake with nothing more than merely a roll of their eyes, and if there is time for not-so-witty banter, there is certainly time to start correcting the things that are driving me nuts.  Yeah, I really do need to get a life.

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Smokin' Hot!

We have a new weather person on one of our local stations.  Her profile says that she is actually a meteorologist, but that appears to be in question.  For on the July 12, 2012 10 p.m. CDT broadcast, she said, “There is nothing worse, I think, than having the really hot temperatures, but the fact that we’ve just had this drought for so long, it makes it that much worse because the dryer air is able to heat up faster.  So, that’s why we get those heat index values so incredibly high.”

In an attempt to allow her to retreat some from the position she took, I emailed the following to her.  I would like to thank you for setting the record straight (indirectly) about 110 Degrees in Phoenix not being so bad because it is a "dry heat" by explaining that dry air heats up faster, which is the why heat indexes get so incredibly high, last Saturday on the 10 p.m. newscast.  For I have been in 110 degree heat in Phoenix, and it sure didn't feel all that good!  Of course, you might have a tough time convincing the rest of the meteorologists out there.  For they have been explaining that the heat index is derived from air temperature and humidity, with the higher the humidity, the higher the heat index.

She sent the following reply.  Of course. I always like to try and explain what I know to the viewers out there. While heat index is a result of the air temp and humidity, it chances vastly from region to region.

Thanks for watching!

If you don’t get it, the [heat index] indicates what it really feels like, which is derived from a combination of the actual air temperature and the relative humidity in a given area.  In other words, it is just like [wind chill] that is talked about by meteorologists in the winter time, which is derived from a combination of the actual air temperature and the wind strength in a given area.

In an attempt to connect dots a little further for you, it is true that heat indexes can vary greatly from area to area, but this has nothing to do with how dry the air is.  That is, except in reverse of what she was saying.  For areas near bodies of water (stream, rivers, swamps, large ponds, lakes and oceans) can have much higher heat indexes than those with the same actual air temperature that are not so near bodies of water on account of the relative humidity usually being much higher near bodies of water.

I was advised against clearly identifying her.  Suffice to say that she is fairly smokin’ hot in appearance, and her voice doesn’t sound like fingernails scraping a chalkboard.  Therefore, she should have a successful career as an on-air personality on local news outlets, but this is a far cry from truly being a meteorologist—let alone a journalist.

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Atrocities Abound

Unless you have been completely out of it for quite a while, you probably already know all about the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado.  Oh, but do you really?  For that matter, do any of us really know?

No, I am not about to stir the conspiracy fires, but at the risk of sounding plumb asinine at a time like this, I would like to focus more of the atrocious reporting of the tragedy in this piece.  The image above should give you some indication of what I am talking about if it hasn’t already been brought to your attention.

It all started around 7:00 a.m. CDT when our television was first turned on, and my wife asked me if I knew about what happened in Aurora a few hours earlier.  I did not at the time, and she went on to inform me that 12 were dead, which was about the same time as I was reading a [MSNBC] headline that declared that 14 were dead.

Yes, I understand that it is very difficult to keep the facts straight when dealing with multiple “official” sources of information at a scene like that.  However, around an hour later, the breaking news banner that could be seen on the screen under a correspondent reporting live from the scene had, “12 Dead, 50 Hurt,” while she was reporting that at least 12 were dead and 38 had been wounded.  Since 12+38=50, was it that 50 in total were hurt, with 38 of the rest being just wounded?  After all, casualty counts from war zones are usually presented as the number of dead being separate from the number of wounded, unless clearly specified otherwise.

[CNN] and [FOX News] were also reporting 12 dead, 50 hurt at the time.  So, do not think that I am being unfair to NBC News.

3-4 hours later, the breaking news banners were finally changed to read, “At Least 12 Dead, 38 Wounded.”  By the time for the [NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams] to air, the reported casualty count stood at 71 shot, 12 dead and 59 wounded.

Be assured that we love Brian Williams.  For he comes off as a highly-respectable journalist with a great sense of humor, which is a combination that my wife and I find very appealing.  So, it hit even harder when during an interview with an eyewitness to the movie theater massacre, we heard him tell her, “We Americans do not make much eye contact.  So, I can’t blame you for not getting a good look at his face,” or something quite similar.

In all fairness, it may have been on account of not being used to the thinner air, or that he was trying to make other reporters feel better about themselves.  For aside from Brian’s comment being rather insulting to most (if not all) who do not live in (or at least spend a great deal of time around) a run-down inner city, asking the eyewitness if she had seen his face was a waste of airtime since it had been already established that the gunman had been wearing a full gasmask.  (Okay, maybe not.)

As for [CNBC], they appeared to be going about their usual business every time I checked.  That is, except for the one time when I heard it being reported that the gunman had a .40 caliber [Glock], another unidentified handgun, a [Remington 870] shotgun and a Smith & Wesson AR-15-type assault rifle.  Granted, he was close, but I wonder how many at both Smith & Wesson and Colt will be all that forgiving?  For Colt is the maker of the [AR-15] while Smith & Wesson has the [M&P15].

No, I am not expecting absolute perfection, but I do hope for much better news coverage than what we have been offered lately.  Alas, in a day and age when one has thousands of news outlets available, I would think that all of the major networks would be making more of an effort to get it as right as possible—albeit only just in the hope of keeping what share of the market they still have.

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The Great Brazilian Beer Company!

Be assured that it has nothing to do with having money to invest in the stock market.  For our Heavenly Father seems bound and determined to have me and my family live by faith and not by sight [2Corinthians 5:7] by having us live from paycheck to paycheck—quite literally.  Nonetheless, I have found myself being more and more attracted to the programming that [CNBC] has to offer.

On the surface, there is a lot more going on there than just what could be assumed.  For like it or not, business and government are joined at the hip—if only for the reason that it hard to keep productivity at the optimum when enemy tanks are rolling down the street in front of the plant.  Subsequently, a lot of politics is discussed.

Of course, the main topic of conversation is economics, but aside from politics, this also involves product lines, marketing, financing, energy availability, workforce readiness and even the weather.  In other words, EVERYTHING effects business trends in one way or another.  Therefore, EVERYTHING is at least touched upon during a typical broadcast day.

Another thing that I have found rather attractive about the CNBC reporting is that it is generally very politically-neutral.  That is, except for [The Kudlow Report].

Furthermore, I have not noticed them making a whole lot of mistakes.  Of course, it helps when you don’t really understand half of what they are talking about.

However, there was one when time when one of the rotating panelists on [Fast Money] boldly announced (three times, no less!) the headline for an upcoming segment, “The great Brazilian beer company…”

In all fairness, I think that it had to be more of an inside joke than pure stupidity.  For I would think that such a high-profile analyst would know that [Budweiser] is actually a brand name of [Anheiser-Busch], who is now owned by [InBev], which is more of a Beligian company than a Brazilian one.

It still irritated the snot out of me.  For our Heavenly Father has yet to remove all of my nationalist pride, and adding all the more to that particular [thorn] is that Anheiser-Busch owns my beloved [St. LouisCardinals], which would make it a Belgian baseball team in a technical sense, I suppose.  Not that I have anything against Belgium, but…

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Hacked Off

If you are not familiar with it, hacked off is an old expression that denotes being rather upset over something.  Kinda like ticked off—only different.

Truth be told, it is probably an expression that only someone at the end of a three-day drunk having some issues with an uncooperative bartender would likely use, but it goes fairly well with the topic at hand.  For it greatly upsets me to hear newscasters contributing to the dumbing down of America.

What I am talking about in this particular case is hearing the software engineers at Facebook being referred to as hackers.  For by [definition]: Computer hacking is broadly defined as intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access.

Link: [On ABC News]

In all fairness, the definition that I am referring to does not appear to be chiseled in stone.  For according to the [Wikipedia article] on the subject: Hacking means finding out weaknesses in a computer or computer network and exploiting them, though the term can also refer to someone with an advanced understanding of computers and computer networks.  Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, such as profit, protest, or challenge.  The subculture that has evolved around hackers is often referred to as the computer underground but it is now an open community.  While other uses of the word hacker exist that are not related to computer security, they are rarely used in mainstream context. They are subject to the long standing hacker definition controversy about the true meaning of the term hacker. In this controversy, the term hacker is reclaimed by computer programmers who argue that someone breaking into computers is better called a cracker, not making a difference between computer criminals (black hats) and computer security experts (white hats). Some white hat hackers claim that they also deserve the title hacker, and that only black hats should be called crackers.

On the other hand, what generally comes to mind when you hear the term, hacker, being used, and wouldn’t it be advantageous for the bad guys to have no distinction placed between their nefarious intentions and those of legitimate programmers?  It does give you something to think about—doesn’t it?

Oh, and in regards to Facebook stock, look for the price to start heading south in a hurry not all that long from now.  For as was addressed in that Nightline segment, if Facebook yields to the demands of serious investors/traders by adding more and more advertising, it will fade into oblivion like MySpace, and if Facebook doesn’t yield, those serious investors/traders will dump their holdings.

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[AsTheCrackerheadCrumbles]

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[FishHawk Droppings]

The Numbing of America

In an email exchange with the main news anchor of one of our local television stations, here in Springfield, MO, I mentioned that I believed that the dumbing down of America is not just an expression that makes for a good sound-bite, but after hearing all of the misinformation being broadcast and published about the tornado that utterly destroyed at least 25% of a community of around 50,000 residents, I am beginning to become more and more aware of the numbing of America.  For when almost everything that happens is the biggest, baddest, greatest or the worst thing to ever happen in the history of this world, is it not no wonder that so very many pay such little attention?

Case in point, I received an email from a local organization that is fairly well known for providing aid in disaster areas worldwide with the headline of, Deadliest Tornado In The History Of The U.S. Hits Close To Home.  Now, I realize that this might not be the best time to take exception to something like that, but why would they feel a need to overhype what really is a horrible situation in the hope of soliciting a donation?