Has actually become less entertaining and more creepy. Perhaps he/she/it has, until that last post, simply tried harder to disguise it.

Has anyone ever noticed that as a comments/letters thread gets up into the 100+ range, his/her/its posts get more deranged and less factual (if that is even possible)? Now it's occurring within the span of fewer than 25 total posts.

After the last one, I wonder why anybody would even bother to respond....EVER.

"...it was basically a result of Israel being seen as a balwalk against Soviet influence in the region, which is arguably the main reason that Republicans became interested in supporting Israel to a greater extent."

Did you mean bulwark? No such word as "balwalk", although the Google search I've pasted for it below is kind of interesting in that it only turned up 8 total results (!) and that three of them are links to comments threads or opinion pieces where the "word" is used in exactly the same manner you've used it here. Perhaps even more incriminating is the context in which it was used. In the first case it is obviously meant to say "a bulwark against Islam" and in the second "a bulwark against Socialism".

I'm not usually very nit picky about little things like that, but geez, PW.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=balwalk&btnG=Search

While we're (Well I am, you're pretending to be autistic, I think) on the subject, what's entirely wrong with that anyway? Why should news be 'balanced'? Balance is for opinions and bullshit, not information. Facts aren't balanced, it's either raining or it's not. The stockmarket is either up or it's down. Do you want someone to tell you what to think based on your brand affinity?

Oh wait this is Salon, of course you do.

Ah, but facts are balanced...on one side you have the truth, and on the other you have what isn't true; often a specious version of the truth - "truthiness" if you will. Too often the latter is what the administration currently in power (not saying it doesn't happen with any administration)will present to our devoted corps of stenographers in Washington. The GOP issues talking points (Truth (TM)) via Rove, McClellan, Snow, etc. Then our press corps dutifully transcribes this "truth" and disseminates it for the masses. That simple.

Balance implies that they offer legitimate analysis (OF the "facts")from more than one angle for an equal amount of time. Something you almost never see anymore.

Ultimately though, "news" does not equal "facts" and you know it. News is both the facts and later analysis of these facts, whether implicit or overt.

But you already know this. You're just trying to re-frame the core term of the "debate" you're having as a diversionary tactic.

How does it work over on Team Psychosis, anyway? Do you, Sugarman, and Proximity Warning function like a tag team? Or when one of your meds wears off, does the other one clock in?

National Weather Conditions for Selected Cities August 29th, 2005:

Anchorage, AK: 75F, Not Raining

Dallas: 97F, Not Raining

New Orleans, LA: 93F, Raining

You prefer 100% predigested (and largely agreeable) analysis to news, then. Well I almost pity you. This is what American has plummeted to. The land of the bland and home of the lame. Don't make me conclude anything, it rattles me skulls. Please massa Newsman spout your pearls of insight to me. Conclusions are hard, like Math!!!

The only things really rattling my skull at this point are incoherent, intentionally ignorant posts. See the above.

Dude (or whatever), you're completely right! How stupid of me! If Bush and Cheney and Condi say there are WMDs in Iraq, well gosh darn it, they must be RIGHT. There was NO other intel at the time to refute these irrefutable facts! It was simply the Truth (Patent Pending). Plus (!) there were no other credible intelligence reports/analysts/experts who would have been available to offer a different view. I know! If anyone did come out against these irrefutable Truths they were rightly relegated to the fringe, regardless of qualifications.

Thanks again for showing me the error of my ways by means of an example.

Seriously in closing, is your understanding of the role that a functioning media should play in a constitutional democracy really that shallow? Do we need to start quoting the founding fathers when discussing the role that media should play, i.e. it should serve as a check on statements of "truth" by actually checking the "facts".

While I hope you enjoyed my weather joke, I regret making it because it plays into your notion that the weather or stock prices are the same kind of "news" as a statement from the President, VP, or any other government official regarding the direction that our country is about to take under their leadership. In the example above, the consequences were dire.

I wasn't implying that the stock market and weather aren't deserving of or don't require analysis. Or that people don't want to hear or see it.

I'm just trying to focus on the political sphere, as this is a political blog. And while it is hard to lie or be "truthy" about the weather or stock prices, the same can't be said for politics.

And the wing nut trolls here know it.

I know this is kind of off your topic, but obviously the media themselves should have given equal time to opposing expert views. There was plenty of information out there regarding contradictory intelligence to almost everything the administration was proffering, and the media was simply allowing to be heard with little to no rebuttal.

That is, after all, their job isn't it?

Re: the runup to the war and what the media should have done if they really cared about doing their job.