"A caricature of what is wrong in American journalism. A tragic bit player in A Great American Tragedy."

The birth of American Idiocracy! You have the corporate given right to believe in the stupidest shit and not have to bare having that questioned. Now be a good German and picket the nearest Acorn offices but don't believe that the 'haves' haven't been looking out for your 'best interests' all this time (you losers)...

Would Ayn Rand be proud or horrified that her work of fiction has twisted the world so much?

CNBC became less about the news and the illnesses and more about the ego's and the chicks.

I used to watch CNBC years ago. I was watching CNBC the morning of 9/11. They, the morning show at least was an 'old boys' network' but it worked. Then, they 'Foxified' the show and put more women on with their tight clothes and glistening lips and from then on the show started sliding downhill.

Like Fox, they appear to use the women as 'bait' and the bombastic men as lures to keep people interested, and in the grand tradition of Fox Opinion News, ill-informed.

Disinfotainment...

I have nothing against women per say, but CNBC could have handled it much differently... Instead of 'eye candy' and outrageousness, they could have stuck to the facts and been less entertainment. But that doesn't make money and in the drive for profit, 'truth' and 'honesty' and especially 'cut-to-the-bone' journalism is a liability...

We the people don't get 'journalism' anymore. We get 'urinalism'... The 'golden shower' from the people that want to control what we learn and what we watch. News becomes sideshow and truth becomes the victim.

John Stewart portrays that honorable function of court jester, tweaking the nose and kicking the ass of the royalty. We need MORE Stewart's and Colbert's to keep the people that are the town criers doing their function. Cramer is just a sideshow and a bad one. A charicature of what is wrong in American journalism. A tragic bit player in A Great American Tragedy.

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/quick-question

Is there are more mediocre mind -- let alone writer -- posing as a daring intellectual provocateur than Camille Paglia?

Just wondering.

I especially had to gag upon reading this:

And I'm sick of people impugning Rush's wealth and lifestyle, which is no different from that of another virtuoso broadcaster who hit it big -- Oprah Winfrey.

Yeah, because Oprah also used her Latino house cleaner to help run drugs to support her Oxycontin habit. And Oprah is in the habit of flying to the Dominican Republic with valises full of Viagra. No different lifestyle at all.

I would like to think that it's because people are losing their taste for his version of bombast and bile.

I can dream, right?

I think that the undertow that Bush and his economic geniuses started is taking it's toll on Fox Opinion News and News (doesn't matter) Corp. too...

Is Quantas an example of maintenance taking a back seat to passenger safety?

They had a run of nail biting 'incidents' that would make anyone wonder what their priority is.

Obviously the airlines are concerned with 'passenger safety' as a concept but they also have people doing 'risk assessment' analysis and determining that the 'risk' of flying that plane 10 more years doesn't outweigh the cost savings. They determine that flying that plane with multiple systems non-operational is better than paying a mechanic to fix them every time they flake out. That paying a cleaning crew for every time a plane lands isn't 'cost effective' when the flight crew can make a quick sweep of the plane and re-stuff the 8-month old in-flight magazines into the seat pouches and pick up the barf bags (that's already happening now). They will penalize the cockpit crew that asks for more fuel while the corporate bean counters don't feel it's warranted.

What is needed in this time and what is to come is strong government regulation and adherence to those regulations. History shows that the airlines, some airlines, will push issues that they don't feel represent a real risk to passenger safety. Inspections will fall, maintenance will suffer, moral will plummet.

It's going to be an interesting time in the next few years and a true test of the Obama administrations choices for regulators and agenda...

When there is profit to squeeze out of the wreckage that is left of the airline industry.

Profit...

No free, safe water. No food. No free clean blankets. No pillows. No video. No audio. No free checked baggage. No carry-on baggage. No respect. No honor.

Bean counters figuring out how many bodies they can extinguish and yet still keep the profit margins up.

The lust of profit is what has killed the newspapers. It's what killed healthcare and a living wage in this country. It killed the respect that the workers deserve from their employers.

It's killed US.