They decided. I report: FOX rocks.

Though Neil Cavuto is officially among the top 10 douche bags on television, along with nine of his colleagues (take your pick) at FOX News, FOX rocks or at least Channel 13 does, anyway.

Go over to Best Buy, jack up one of them big ole' 50-inch HD TVs, schlep it home, hook it up to the satellite and guess what. The Tampa network affiliates don't broadcast their network feeds in HD. The networks put out in HD but the Tampa affiliates don't. You get 50+ inches of analog, sucker.

Ok. So what, you say. The Today Show sucks as bad or worse in HD as it does in analog. Who cares? Not me, until you start talking playoffs, college football and Bucs games on the network. Now, I care.

So, I checked with DirecTV and they said I had to ask for permission to watch network programming straight off the bird, instead of through the affiliate. Actually, DirecTV had to ask for permission on my behalf. They went off to 10 and 28 and 13 and 8 to ask whether these locals would deign to allow me to watch network programming in HD.

A few weeks later I discovered that 8 is most definitely NOT on my side. Neither is 10 or 28. FOX 13 is. Thanks to the poobah at Channel 13, DirecTV is now feeding me the FOX network straight off the New York bird where I can see the Gators and the Bucs in HD without paying for ESPN Gameday or NFL Sunday Ticket.

Channel 13 - I love you, man. And I hereby solemnly swear from this day forward that I shall watch only sports in HD and continue to look at all your crappy network shows, your local news AND your hideous national news douche bags on good old 13 analog.

Shocking development

Pediatric studies advise parents: Shut off the TV

In related news, recent studies suggest that tobacco may be harmful to pediatric development. The Times is investigatiing.

Dem. hackers keep out!

Tallahassee Democrat | 06/10/2005 | Equipment test under fire: "An aide to Secretary of State Glenda Hood said the Division of Elections 'will be contacting all appropriate parties to review this matter.'"

Get off the pot, Mr. Gailey

Memogate Hearings Scheduled for June 16 : "On Thursday June 16, 2005, from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Wasserman Room at 430 S Capitol St. SE, Washington, D.C., Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and other Congress Members will hold a hearing on the Downing Street Minutes and related evidence of efforts to cook the books on pre-war intelligence.

The hearings are being held at the Democratic National Committee because the Republicans controlling the House Judiciary Committee refused to permit the ranking Democratic Member to use a room on the Hill. ... Nonetheless, Republicans are welcome to attend."

Physician, heal thyself

The American people have been had: "It created an uproar in Britain but has barely registered in the United States, mainly because the press was more interested in whether U.S. interrogators were desecrating the Koran at Guantanamo." Philip Gailey - June 12, 2005

Flushing our values down the toilet: "American patriots, whether they support the war in Iraq or oppose it, should be outraged, if, for no other reason, than such stupid acts as putting the holy Koran down the toilet." Philip Gailey - May 15, 2005

Got parasites?

The fecal position



Thirsty?

By the pols for the pols in Fla.

Redistricting in Florida
-aka gerrymandering.

Stray from the Scripps

Read Florida Politics: "Five days before a critical vote on the future of its biotech research project, the county commission still lacks a consensus on how to proceed. The Scripps Research Institute warned Tuesday that it may leave Florida altogether if commissioners won't allow it to break ground immediately, despite unresolved lawsuits that could threaten the county's multimillion-dollar investment."

In the meantime, the lame duck waddles in: 'Bush has agreed to take a personal role in trying to keep a biotech park planned for northern Palm Beach County from leaving as environmentalists' opposition mounts.'"

-Scripps is supposed to create, what, something like 20 permanent jobs (and a biotech startup on every corner, of course)? How about this, instead: Fla. invests its $800 million in schools, the county sells the property for housing (which probably creates just as many if not more construction jobs) and Scripps finds some other sucker to subsidize its capital requirements. This thing makes tax money for a new ballpark in Miami look parsimonious.

Challenge the dominant paradigm

blogLinker.com - The automatic link swapper and traffic generator

They ARE serious

-As seen in the St. Petersburg Times May 19, 2005 ...

Page 2A World and Nation: Report: Iraq assessment bleaker: "The New York Times quoted one unnamed senior officer as suggesting that U.S. military involvement could last many years."

Page 10A Selective accountability: Newsweek failed to meet basic journalism standards when it printed an item based on a single anonymous source ... Newsweek made serious mistakes that can only further erode the credibility of news organizations. A veteran reporter relied on a single anonymous source when more confirmation should have been required.

-Walking their talk, again, at The Times.

Minds o' mush

"My girlfriend is doind my homework for me. She thinks I'm doing a different piece of homework that I made up but it doesn't exist and really I'm just reading grouphug."

-Looks like navel gazing to me but this cat has got it all psyched out...

Peter Brooks has a wonderful book on this subject, Troubling Confessions, in which he considers the ambivalence and indeterminacy of the truth of confessions, voluntary or otherwise. As he puts it, “How can someone make a false confession? Precisely because the false referentiality of confession may be secondary to the need to confess.” And further, that the false confession may not be a lie, “in that its definition of the truth corresponds to [an] order of desire and self-conception,”

-Uh huh. Hey, did you read the one about the guy who took a dump and tossed it in his neighbor's yard?

Worth a peek

Kitschy cool

From the Department of Oxymoronic Studies

Center Gives Fair Play To Ethics - from TBO.com: "They're not just sports headlines, they're topics for analysis at Saint Leo University's new Center for the Study of the Ethics of Business in Sport. "
-Good to see someone finally getting serious about improving U.S. math and science aptitude.