MetaFilter posts tagged with opinion

Osama bin Elvis

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:45:19 -0800

What is the logical consequence of noting the fact that the terrorist groups that make a difference on planet Earth—such as Hamas and Hezbollah, the PLO, Colombia's FARC—are extensions of, respectively, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and Venezuela? It is the negation of the U.S. government's favorite axiom. It means that when George W. Bush spoke, and when Barack Obama speaks, of America being "at war" against "extremism" or "extremists" they are either being stupid or acting stupid to avoid dealing with the nasty fact that many governments wage indirect warfare.

International relations professor Angelo M. Codevilla argues that Osama bin Laden is not quite influential, not quite relevant, and probably dead. (multipage version)

Do you like this post? a)Yes b)Of course c)How could I not? d)Maybe

Gyan — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:26:24 -0800

Rethinking Public Opinion - the immense importance of public opinion polling in American politics, and the under-reported problems at the heart of the enterprise, combine to call for a serious critique of the polling industry, its assumptions, and its method

Here's to a better, stronger America! (points to flag)

wendell — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 05:54:02 -0800

GEORGE PUTNAM (all caps, because that's the way he said everything), Los Angeles Television/Radio Legend, has died at the age of 94. A protege of Walter Winchell who came to L.A. in 1951 to restart a stalled career as a news anchor, he was famous for his dramatic style and extremely UNobjective reporting. Retrospective of his colorful career: Part One, Part Two. Best known on the Web as the "outstanding news reporter" who narrated the '50s alarmist documentary "Perversion for Profit", he was also acknowledged as the model for the Mary Tyler Moore show's bombastic newsman character Ted Baxter (seen here sitting in on a real newscast). Not restricting his editorializing to his daily "One Reporter's Opinion" segment, he is credited/blamed for the election of Sam Yorty as mayor of Los Angeles. And when TV News outgrew him, he found a home for the next 30 years doing Talk Radio (where some of us believe Rush Limbaugh also modeled his style after him). And that’s the up-to-the-minute obitfilter; up to the minute, that’s all the obitfilter. In lieu of a moment-of-silence signifying "." I would recommend an emphatic "!"

Pluribo

matthewr — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:15:23 -0800

Pluribo is a way-cool Firefox extension that automagically summarises Amazon product reviews.

NYT Op-Ed labels Obama "muslim apostate"

flotson — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:33:34 -0800

An opinion piece by Edward N. Luttwak in the May 12 Sunday New York Times declares that Obama is an apostate under Islamic law (Sharia), and thus that an Obama Presidency would compromise US relations with the Middle East. This Sunday, Clark Hoyt, the NYT ombudsman, was sorry.

OpEd Writer Receives Opinions: Film At Eleven.

Second Account For Making Jokey Comments — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:01:30 -0800

Recently an opinion writer for The Age, Catherine Deveny unleashed a firestorm of sorts when she wrote an article entitled 'Why Do Some Wives Still Change Their Names?'. The reaction to her article (from both men and women) was strong; so much so that in a recent follow up article entitled 'I Don't Give A Stuff What You Do. I'm Paid To Write What I Think' , she jokingly wrote that it had had the effect of reducing her readership to three. But when an article penned by a professional comedian employs such pointed rhetoric along the lines of "Insecure or conservative or stupid women are bowing to the wishes of their husbands", can she truly claim surprise at the level of vitriol her article generated or is this simply a case of an opinion writer trying to get opinions?

NYT first video "letter to the editor"

stbalbach — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 08:18:02 -0800

The New York Times has published its first video "letter to the editor", a 10-minute mini-documentary by Charles Ferguson on the decision by L. Paul Bremer to disband the Iraqi army shortly after the US occupation began. The video is posted as a rebuttal to a recent op-ed by Bremer that tried to redistribute some of the blame for that catastrophic blunder that in large part gave birth to the Sunni insurgency.

There are two guards: one always speaks the truth, the other gouges the eyes out of people who ask tricky questions.

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 16:10:23 -0800

All men are liars. Start with the follow-up to this much-discussed article.

Your favourite film sucks

chuckdarwin — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 03:13:41 -0800

'In defense of film critics' posits that 'Film critics [unlike food critics, etc] are expected to be cheerleaders.' I guess we're not supposed to think it's odd that the piece was written by paper's resident film critic. He does ask at least one good question, though: why have so many truly awful [and poorly reviewed ] films done so well at the the box office this year?

British believe Bush is more dangerous than Kim Jong-il

Mave_80 — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 09:41:16 -0800

Newsfilter: Bush and America are now perceived to be more dangerous than Kim Jong-il according to an international opinion poll published by the Guardian Newspaper. Perhaps more interesting than that, it shows that only 1 in 4 people in Israel think that Bush has made the world safer - a fairly small percentage for a country that is traditionally one of America's staunchest allies when it comes to national security...

A Rogue State

empath — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 10:26:00 -0800

A Rogue State. Matt Yglesias sums up what America has become after the McCain "Compromise."

often using “truth-based” information — to borrow from the vernacular of the military specialists who deal in the manipulation of words and images — as a substitute for truth.

amberglow — Mon, 01 May 2006 16:53:05 -0800

Their view is that psyops can be directed toward global transregional audiences. My view is that that’s not possible because it directs psyops against our own friends and allies and even at our own public. ... In Mind Games, Columbia Journalism Review thoroughly examines the disintegrating lines between Public Affairs, Psy-Ops, IO, the public, and the truth. Some old friends are mentioned too: the Lincoln Group, the Rendon Group, the Pentagon, our own media, and others. If truth is our greatest weapon, as Rumsfeld has said, how can the administration hope to prevail in an information war when it is not honest with itself?

Ladies, you should know better!

nofundy — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 11:04:54 -0800

Feminism causes rape. Or, maybe not.

... they want to set the record straight. ...

amberglow — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 07:02:47 -0800

an example of Operation Homefront? --this news report about a Reservist back from Iraq is apparently part of a new Pentagon propaganda operation aimed at us. ...Did Diaz return to the U.S. on emergency leave with an agenda -- to offer a positive spin that could help counter growing concerns among Americans about the U.S. exit strategy? How do we know that's not his strategy, especially after he discloses that superior officers encouraged him to talk about his experiences in Iraq? ...

Spengler

IndigoJones — Sat, 14 May 2005 11:00:50 -0800

Spengler of the Asia Times. Right-headed, wrong-headed, at times off-headed, but always interesting. You can spend a lot of time wading through the archives. The fellow, anonymous for whatever reason, has written on US/China trade, Ratzinger as a dark age theologian, the American empire , how Europe might be re-Christianized, US vs Islam, religion vs philosphy, Tolkien vs Wagner, internet stocks , and anti-semitism. A bit of something for everyone. Also runs a lively little forum.

Mostly good riddance

psmealey — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 05:21:56 -0800

Goodbye and good riddance to William Safire. Though, yes, admittedly not good form to post a link to an Op-Ed piece, let alone several, Safire's retirement from the Times' Op-Ed pages is something of a landmark event, even to those of us who grew up reading his On Language pieces (which will continue) and did not yet know of his past as a speechwriter for Richard M. Nixon. His opinions were sometimes aggravating, and other times, infuriating, but they were always well-written. [many NY Times links]

Elvis is basically Shakin' Stevens writ large.

feelinglistless — Sat, 04 Dec 2004 11:30:30 -0800

Don't believe the hype Debunking the so-called genius of Prince, The Sopranos and 'Blade Runner'. Amusingly harsh yet convincing cases all round. Can I add 'Goodfellas' to the list? Never has so much been written about a film so lacking. I prefered 'Casino'.

Echo? Echo, did you say?

mmahaffie — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 05:48:25 -0800

MemeOrandum: A newfangled news tangle [via Poynter Online]

Sigh.

CunningLinguist — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 05:36:54 -0800

Al Gore on tomorrow's Bush-Kerry duel: The debate tomorrow should not seek to discover which candidate would be more fun to have a beer with. As Jon Stewart of the "The Daily Show'' nicely put in 2000, "I want my president to be the designated driver.''

Preserving Anti-conservatism

boost ventilator — Sun, 15 Aug 2004 19:34:29 -0800

What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It? According to Philip E. Agre, previously discussed here and the guy behind the Red Rock Eater News Service, the answers to these questions are simple (if 13k+ words = simple).

Of course. Haven't we already done that?

amberglow — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 19:15:07 -0800

Voice of a Superpower --Foreign Policy magazine puts together an interview with John & Jane Q. Public on us, the world, terror, and stuff--based on our responses to public-opinion polls from a wide variety of sources.

Tom Friedman's T-shirt employment guru

troutfishing — Thu, 11 Mar 2004 12:24:36 -0800

Tom Friedman, well meaning NYT columnnist lunkhead, gets job outsourced In a stunning development, Tom Friedman - until recently the famous NYT op-ed columnist who has downplayed the outsourcing of American jobs, finds his job has been outsourced due to an egregious factual error concerning T-shirts. "[ BANGALORE, India ] I am delighted to write to you today as the new foreign-affairs columnist for the New York Times . My name is Tam Veeraraghavan. Ah, you say, you've never heard of Tam Veeraraghavan, but the name sounds vaguely Indian. Well, I am an Indian. I live in Bangalore. And I'm now the pundit you read in this newspaper. Now some of you might think that I'm an example of how outsourcing is hurting American workers. Well let me introduce you to Yamini Narayanan, an Indian-born 35-year-old with a Ph.D. in economics....."

New dot-com flourishing? Moby?

nandop — Thu, 28 Aug 2003 16:13:54 -0800

When all dot-com companies existed in full power (late 90's), none of us could actually use them (because of our lazy dial-up modems), now that we could use them they don't exist. "Which leads me to think that there might be another dot-com flourishing just around the corner." Is Moby right?

Now if he'd just cut the EFF a nice, big check ...

allaboutgeorge — Tue, 22 Jul 2003 02:15:41 -0800

MJ pro-tech, anti-jail: "I am speechless about the idea of putting music fans -- mostly teenagers -- in jail for downloading music," he said in a statement from his Neverland Ranch in the western state of California. "It is wrong to illegally download, but the answer cannot be jail. Here in America we create new opportunities out of adversity, not punitive laws, and we should look to new technologies ... for solutions. This way, innovation continues to be the hallmark of America. It is the fans that drive the success of the music."

The tide is turning.

insomnia_lj — Tue, 21 Jan 2003 14:14:45 -0800

The tide is turning. A new poll from the Pew Research Center indicates that the Bush Administration is losing support for a war against Iraq, with only 29% favoring war if U.N. inspectors fail to find weapons of mass destruction. Polls are looking considerably worse in Great Britain, where 47% of the public disapprove of an attack on Iraq, compared to just 30% in favor of such an attack. Blair is certain that he can get the British public to support war, however, even if Britain goes to war without U.N. support. "When and if that time came, people would find the reasons acceptable and satisfactory because there is no other route available to us."