Negativity Metering for 10/15

Today at 12:00pm-ish:
See the rules for what this is.
ABC(22): 15 negative, 5 neutral, 2 positive; 1 Death & 0 Kills
CBS (12): 9 negative, 2 neutral, 1 positive; 1 Deaths & 0 Kills
CNN (19): 12 negative, 3 neutral, 4 positive; 1 Deaths & 0 Kills
Fox News (19): 14 negative, 5 neutral, 0 positive; 2 Deaths & 0 Kills
MSNBC (14): 8 negative, 6 neutral, 0 positive; 1 Death & 1 Kill

Note: ABC had the exact proportions the last time we did this in June.

ABC also has the headline: Kids 'Sitting Ducks' for Pedophile Teachers. Freaky, huh? Well you actually need to read the article to see that they're talking about loopholes in teaching laws in Bangkok! Not your local elementary school.

CBS ran this headline: Oops! U.S. Military Recruits Gays. Whether you agree with the tell/don't tell policy or not, this carries such a negative connotation towards gays in our nation. It might as well say: We Can't Believe the Military Would Even CONSIDER Having Gays in the Military!!!.

More Recession Stuff (Follow Up to 9/7/07 Post)

Check out this article. Written by "CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser", it reports that 46% of Americans believe the country is in a recession, while 51% do not. It goes on to provide a demographic breakdown of the poll (black vs white), the definition of a recession, and speculation on the impact of this perception on the President's approval rating. It does not, however, state whether the U.S. is actually in a recession. I've not seen any confirmation that we are, although there have been numerous articles recently about whether we're close. (Thoughts on that can be found below.)

Are we in the midst of a self-fulfilling prophecy? People read about a shaky economy, get nervous, stop spending, and voila! Recession, considering that consumers drive roughly 70% of the economic activity in this country. Let's hope, for all our sake, that's not what happens.

Recession? Not so fast...

Interesting article on abcnews.com today. The RSS feed, as well as the name of the article as represented on the top bar of my Firefox window (see image above), included the term "recession". The content of the page, however, did not. (Sidebar: I find that abcnews.com does this from time to time, presumably because it works in generating traffic.) In any case, I want to focus on the use of the term "recession". While not necessarily a black & white thing, a recession is a condition that can be identified:

* The simple definition is "two consecutive quarters of decline in Real GDP". It's pretty clear that hasn't happened, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

* The sophisticated definition leverages the expertise of organizations such as the National Bureau of Economic Research, which takes into account factors other than straight GDP. You can find more information here, but I wanted to highlight a passage that resonated with me in the context of the abcnews.com article:

Q. How do the movements of unemployment claims inform the Bureau's thinking?

A: A bulge in jobless claims would appear to forecast declining employment, but we do not use forecasts and the claims numbers have a lot of noise.

Q:What about the unemployment rate?

A: Unemployment is generally a lagging indicator. Its rise from a very low level to date is consistent with the employment data.

So an article about falling job numbers uses the term "recession" in its headline, when the generally accepted methods of determining a recession do not put a great deal of weight on that information. I recognize that the subprime mess has everyone worried, and news organizations want to be ahead of the curve on this story, but let's not get carried away by questioning whether there's a recession when no credible source or data has indicated one.

I AM TO BLAME FOR VT

Why do we have a need to blame someone or something for everything?

William O’Neil, father of slain graduate student Daniel O’Neil, called it outrageous that no one had been held accountable. “With the exception, of course, of Cho, no one from the university is held accountable,” he said.

Why should they be? How was sending out that warning even a few minutes earlier gonna make a difference? Even if kids don't go to class, Cho was still going to have his blood. There are PLENTY of public areas on any college campus where kids would have been sitting ducks. This is because NO ONE KNEW WHO WAS REPSONSIBLE FOR THE FIRST TWO SHOOTINGS. Cho was a student there and could have accessed any place at any time. Besides, it's not like EVERY kid checks their email at every minute of every day. Some wouldn't have gotten the message until they went back to their dorm rooms.

Cho and the loopholes of the gun laws of Virginia are the ONLY ones to blame. One is dead, the other has been addressed or is being addressed.

Firing the VT president seems to be completely useless at this point. No one has pointed out legitimate negligence. This Monday-morning quarterbacking is infuriating. There was a process they followed.

Let's look at some other moronic statements in this article:

“As you read the report, it’s clear that so many of the mistakes that were made result from a failure of leadership at the very top levels of the university,” said Cathy Read, stepmother of slain freshman Mary Karen Read. "I love Virginia Tech, too. My daughter loved Virginia Tech,” the grieving mother said, but “we have to separate Virginia Tech brick and mortar from the administration, which is inept.”

How are they inept, again? They got out the warnings that were appropriate from the information that was given at the time. They followed advice from the police that this was a domestic dispute and the shooter was no longer on campus.

If you want to talk about his mental health history, everyone that came into contact with Cho is to blame (and the people that know them, and the people that know them...), not the administration that acted as appropriate (keep in mind, the campus is constantly getting bomb threats and false alarms). Mainly his parents, who seemed to have skated out from under the radar by even letting a troubled kid like this go to college on his own. It seems quite clear he was not able to function without supervision. Yet his parents seemed to get ignored on this whole thing. Probably* because they don't have the pocketbooks....


*Or that he's over 18, you moron. What was your argument, again?? Just get 'em thinking...

Hmmm...

It seems like I've heard this before...remind me where*....

*Below.