Gaming World Forums
General Category => General Talk => Topic started by: jamie on March 30, 2009, 03:04:37 pm
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I read too much shitty news like cnn and bbc.co.uk.
What are some good news websites? I've been kind of reading Slate but I noticed they've got guys like Christopher Hitchens writing for him and that guy is a d-bag. I don't really like a lot of what they say but they at least try to analyse things and the writing is a bit better than I'm used to.
I really should know more about news considering I'm doing a politics degree and I consume so much of it but it all comes from shitty sources and I want some good ones. I don't want all mainstream stuff, some pure partisan news sites would be good to throw into a mixture too like radical socialist news or whatever - I sometimes read the usa radical socialist site. Good blogs on general news or specific issues would be great, too.
also: news stinks huh? how about that news. Let's Dish Dirty on the news.
i'll start: fox "fair and balanced" more like "unfair and biased". FOX news? FUX news.
I'll edit the post with good sites people suggest. I dunno what I'm expecting but I bet I'm missing out on some good stuff.
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www.guardian.co.uk is a very good source, usually many well written articles and despite being in the UK, it's world-centric
Also more love for the uk papers: www.independent.co.uk
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I don't read online news :o
how old-fashioned of me
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Usually if I want news I just check Google News since it pulls articles from all sorts of places.
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Macleans for politics, but it's all Canadian. I hate it when people pass by and read the title thinking it's a porn magazine, especially when the covers are of faces of politicians.
http://www2.macleans.ca/
It really is one of the better news sources that is available where I live (I actually read the magazines). The other two being newspapers, one of which is The Canadian Sun which you can imagine how reliable that is.
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This is where I've been getting mine recently;
http://rawstory.com/
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Infowars.com
There is a war out for your mind
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yeah I knew you were gonna try that slick shit again.... fuck you chief
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Infowars.com
There is a war out for your mind
why does that site have a special section devoted to 'ron paul on the rise'
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Because its fuckin alex jones
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touche
next question: on a scale of 1 to 10 how would you rate infowars.com concerning the objectivity and overall quality of their reporting
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Objectivity is not something I look for in news because the appeal to objectivity or 'balance' is often used to reinforce ideology and frame issues within a narrow field of acceptable discourse.
Infowars/alex jones uses sensationalist reporting for the purpose of growing a sort of paleoconservative/libertarian social movement to oppose what they see as a new world order being set in place by a shadowy global elite. A lot of it is exaggerated and speculation based on the writings of people and thinktanks that have influence or the ears of those in power. They address some important issues that mainstream media overlooks, but I tend to disagree with them more than I agree. At least they make no attempt to mask their agenda.
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Usually if I want news I just check Google News since it pulls articles from all sorts of places.
This. I check and see if the major news places have what I am looking for because that way when I show it to peeps they are more likely to believe it.
Also: Fox News = Faux News
CNN = Controlled News Network
www.outfoxed.org
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whoa! And I thought CNN was "Christian" News Network!
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you could always keep up with blogs a little but eh. honestly if you are on the cusp of figuring shit out, it might be best to try and formulate it from as objective news as possible so you can read something like infowars, roll your eyes at what's appropriate, and then not be wholely dismissive at the same time.
honestly this is a shit reply but you could really keep up with the day via the daily show. avoid most 24 hour news networks imho.
with the death of newspapers this is all going to get a lot worse and soon local corruption will just be life heh.
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places like reddit/digg/etc are really good for finding stuff. I'm mostly interested in programming stuff, so I regularly check out reddit's Programming section and Hacker news and stuff like that, and I always come upon new blogs or sites from these places. My point is not that reddit is good for finding news (which it is, however biased it may be) but that its good for finding news SOURCES.
I think your question is more about GOOD sources, but still this is a good way to find out about places you might never have heard of or something.
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you could really keep up with the day via the daily show. avoid most 24 hour news networks imho.
I've always thought the daily show was weaksauce when it comes to keeping up with the day. Aside from the fact it's 80% cringe/20% funny, they don't really hit very hard, you know? alot of the criticisms they make are pretty superficial and if the show was funny, which is all it really sets out to be, then that wouldn't really matter but i dunno. it just feels a bit like buying into the system using that as a source of news. jon stewarts whole "the show leading into us is puppets! we aren't serious!" argument on that crossfire interview, and elsewhere, comes off as disingenuous to me cos he's got to know that people do take them semi-seriously. Al Gore came on the show and said so!
I mean i'm saying this but i watch at least a couple eps of it a week. the daily show is one of the things i think i'm trying to stop relying on. I'll probably never stop watching it intermittently though.
hmmmm i dunno.
Objectivity is not something I look for in news because the appeal to objectivity or 'balance' is often used to reinforce ideology and frame issues within a narrow field of acceptable discourse.
Yes, I'm not really hoping for any kind of objective news source at all cos there can't be any such thing so I don't care if it's biased as hell I just want it to not be stupid and trying to deny the fact. I'll find a couple of places to go to so all the craziness is just a drop in the water cos who believes anything they see in the news anyway.
i think i'll have a search for some blogs.
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www.ft2020.com
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Democracy Now is cool. Also the daily show is pretty funny (not funny as in HAHAHA good joke, funny as in you're stupid!), just because it's so fucking liberal and they think they know exactly whats going on all the time
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Democracynow is really good but kinda frustrating because amy goodman is such a sweetheart and needs to be a little tougher on her guests
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I don't really keep up with the news online but occasionally I hit the Latest Headlines tab in Firefox and skim through the headlines that are listed there.
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i like democracy now. they just sat and asked a homeless guy what his situation was like. they're kind of goofy and make little mistakes alot.
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I don't think the bias in news matters too much, so long as you can separate the bullshit from the facts.
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I guess by asking about objectivity I meant to say
is their perspective is not one that is influenced by the system of ideological control thats in place to disseminate only the information that the powers that be have determined are okay for mass consumption but rather whats really happening in the world
thats an entirely different beast I guess
part of me wishes I could have like noam chomsky, umberto eco, and joseph campbell as little angels/devils that travel around with me on my shoulders to interpret current events and help make sense of daily life for me lol
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well now you're asking for it which ones are angels and which are devils.
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Macleans for politics, but it's all Canadian. I hate it when people pass by and read the title thinking it's a porn magazine, especially when the covers are of faces of politicians.
http://www2.macleans.ca/
It really is one of the better news sources that is available where I live (I actually read the magazines). The other two being newspapers, one of which is The Canadian Sun which you can imagine how reliable that is.
this is a right-wing news source, fyi.
I do feel obligated to mention that I was written about in Nov. 2008's issue 8)
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Now if you could point to me a left wing source that I can get access to in the country that'd be perfect!
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"High Times"
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This is where I've been getting mine recently;
http://rawstory.com/
I occasionally get linked to here. It seems like a pretty decent site. Interestingly, right now there's a big banner at the top of the page that says "it's not too late -- fiat currency or REAL MONEY??"
As for objective news: the difficult part is being able to tell when someone is letting his ideology get in the way. Some say you should read both left-wing and right-wing sites to get an accurate idea, but in my experience the high-quality left-wing sites are usually quite good on their own, as a fundamental part of the right-wing ideology is to simply be ideological. Everywhere in the world, conservatism is linked to narrowmindedness and favoritism towards old and long disproven ideas, whereas progressivism is essentially the advocacy of reform.
What I'm saying is that you shouldn't be fooled into thinking that newspapers, blogs or media outlets that have proven themselves to be tainted, like virtually all the self-proclaimed right-wing sites that I've ever seen, have a valid opinion. The point of these sites is to hide or distort information from you so as to make their ideology work in practice. Some are very seriously open about that goal too.
Personally, I think http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ is good, as is http://thinkprogress.org/. I also occasionally watch the Countdown (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/) because it's a good and entertaining daily source of information about the political process, despite Olbermann's in my opinion unnecessary habit of making fun of people he disagrees with.
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well now you're asking for it which ones are angels and which are devils.
well I was just using that to illustrate little spirit guys that chill on my shoulders but I guess that would make chomsky and campbell angels and eco a devil lol
also zatham, I met the editor of high times last quarter after a marijuana legalization debate that he had with some really famous nark. he is a petulant child of a man. he is basically just a really baked dude who likes to say things without backing them up and then defending his points by saying well everyone has a right to their opinion blah blah. I know its a bit off topic but man all I have to say is, dont read high times because a magazine run by a man who has the rhetorical abilities of a middle schooler cant be any good. that said hes a nice guy and I wish I coulda smoked with him but it was like 11 oclock when the shit was over and they had another debate the next day in chicago so yeah
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Macleans for politics, but it's all Canadian. I hate it when people pass by and read the title thinking it's a porn magazine, especially when the covers are of faces of politicians.
They have made some controversial covers before that almost did look like porn mags. According to the editors those also happened to be some of their best selling weeks, 3x as much as usual. :|
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A funny thing I've noticed in the american far right news is that in their rush to find things to criticize about obama is that they've been bringing to light a lot of valid criticisms of international finance capital and the cedeing of economic soveriegnty that imperialist organizations like the world bank/imf have demanded.
Meanwhile papers like huffington post that are seen by a lot of folks to have a 'left' perspective have a picture on their websites front page of presidents of the us italy russia and china grinning and giving a thumbs while right underneath it says "g20 proposes giving the imf/world bank $1 trillion" without a critical peep in sight.
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Whoever mistook it for porn covers must've been pretty disappointed.
And European news or atleast the english news is pretty bad from what i've read around here.
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there was a good joke on 30 rock where alec baldwin says IF I WANTED TO KNOW SOMETHING OBVIOUS I'D GO TO THE HUFFINGTON POST.
christ that site. when daily kos makes you look good you're in trouble.
edit: i must be really out of touch when i get more of a kick out of people poking fun at dumb politics shit than actually caring about it. oh ron paul! what won't you do next.
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Even the nation is losing its edge these days.
Counterpunch.org is still a great site for editorials, they won't go soft on us(ihope)
Labourstart.org occasionally has some good stories that slip through the cracks but its focused exclusively on trade union news
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this just in: there aint no jobs
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www.guardian.co.uk is a very good source, usually many well written articles and despite being in the UK, it's world-centric
Just gunna point out that for a supposed "green" paper, the guardian pals around with motor and oil companies, bringing into question it's credibility. I think it's also a tax evader, but then all our papers are.
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A funny thing I've noticed in the american far right news is that in their rush to find things to criticize about obama is that they've been bringing to light a lot of valid criticisms of international finance capital and the cedeing of economic soveriegnty that imperialist organizations like the world bank/imf have demanded.
Meanwhile papers like huffington post that are seen by a lot of folks to have a 'left' perspective have a picture on their websites front page of presidents of the us italy russia and china grinning and giving a thumbs while right underneath it says "g20 proposes giving the imf/world bank $1 trillion" without a critical peep in sight.
i don't even know what the IMF and the world bank do. aren't they basically some kind of loan shark to 3rd world countries run by a bunch of neocons?
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'Neoliberalism' not neocons
And yeah, it was basically first world finance capital using conditional loans to bust open markets in the third world
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I guess by asking about objectivity I meant to say
is their perspective is not one that is influenced by the system of ideological control thats in place to disseminate only the information that the powers that be have determined are okay for mass consumption but rather whats really happening in the world
thats an entirely different beast I guess
It depends on what you're looking for in news. It's impossible for any station to be completely objective, so you've just gotta play what you're dealt. Yeah, they cater to their demographic, but that doesn't mean that their news is shit. As biased as it may be, it's still relevant. Obviously, the best thing to do is look as many sources as you can, but no one has the time to do that. So the best solution is to develop a discerning eye for any ideological nuance in your news, and be aware of the bias.
Y'know though, I really wouldn't mind a website that links to hundreds of sources for any given current event, sources of course organized by ideology and relevance. Oh wait, that's google!
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When my car radio worked, I would always listen to NPR. Aside from some great music (SOUNDSCAPES... with jon d libretto... are you high yet???), they always have very objective reporting concerning all types of subjects, covering all parts of the world. They never seem to have a slant towards any idea, usually keeping listeners informed about all sides of an issue. At first, some of their reporting sounded trivial, but it concerns somebody in the world.
I guess before I listened regularly, I was used to very U.S.-centric reporting. Fuck that! I want to hear about the relationship between tribal Africans and endangered lions in the savannas, and after that, Obama's latest ideas on fiscal policy (with fair commentary!).
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Not really a news source, more like a collection of articles from everywhere, but I get some of my news tidbits from digg.com.
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Digg was an okay news source maybe a year or two ago, but now....well, unless you consider every new xkcd and photos of gorillas picking their noses on the front page 'news', you're in trouble
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I occasionally get linked to here. It seems like a pretty decent site. Interestingly, right now there's a big banner at the top of the page that says "it's not too late -- fiat currency or REAL MONEY??"
As for objective news: the difficult part is being able to tell when someone is letting his ideology get in the way. Some say you should read both left-wing and right-wing sites to get an accurate idea, but in my experience the high-quality left-wing sites are usually quite good on their own, as a fundamental part of the right-wing ideology is to simply be ideological. Everywhere in the world, conservatism is linked to narrowmindedness and favoritism towards old and long disproven ideas, whereas progressivism is essentially the advocacy of reform.
What I'm saying is that you shouldn't be fooled into thinking that newspapers, blogs or media outlets that have proven themselves to be tainted, like virtually all the self-proclaimed right-wing sites that I've ever seen, have a valid opinion. The point of these sites is to hide or distort information from you so as to make their ideology work in practice. Some are very seriously open about that goal too.
Personally, I think http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ is good, as is http://thinkprogress.org/. I also occasionally watch the Countdown (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/) because it's a good and entertaining daily source of information about the political process, despite Olbermann's in my opinion unnecessary habit of making fun of people he disagrees with.
huffingtonpost, thinkprogress, and def. keith olbermann are basically just cheerleaders for the american democratic party
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digg news is pretty much a farce. sure, there are some entertaining articles, but when you consider everything that makes the front page goes through a nerd popularity contest, it loses objectivity. most of these articles consist of "will THIS be the person to charge the bush administration? FIND OUT!" or "our constitutional rights...TRAMPLED!" or "ron paul was right....AGAIN!" or "weed legalization, YET ANOTHER argument in favor of...".
i still digg everyday, but their political news and debates are so goddamn predictable.
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if it weren't for digg, how would we know when there was a new xkcd???? where would we find it???
here's a summary of some current front page digg stories:
IPHOTO'S FACE DETECTION DETECTS A FACE IN A COOKIE
DOG OWNERS *DO* LOOK LIKE THEIR PETS
14 HORRIFIC CELEBRITY PLASTIC SURGERIES (PICS)
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Chomsky was on democracynow today. Checkit!
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I read too much shitty news like cnn and bbc.co.uk.
lol theres nothing wrong with the bbcs news coverage
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When my car radio worked, I would always listen to NPR. Aside from some great music (SOUNDSCAPES... with jon d libretto... are you high yet???), they always have very objective reporting concerning all types of subjects, covering all parts of the world. They never seem to have a slant towards any idea, usually keeping listeners informed about all sides of an issue. At first, some of their reporting sounded trivial, but it concerns somebody in the world.
I guess before I listened regularly, I was used to very U.S.-centric reporting. Fuck that! I want to hear about the relationship between tribal Africans and endangered lions in the savannas, and after that, Obama's latest ideas on fiscal policy (with fair commentary!).
when taken as a whole NPR is by far the best wide circulation news source we can get access to. Except on the weekends during the day when they try to relive the glory days of radio with shit like Prairie Home Companion and The Splendid Table and other goofy things like that they have good stuff. I especially love those talk shows from PRI, like News and Notes because it offers a specifically afrocentric viewpoint, which is something I didnt get much of where I grew up heheh. Plus Fresh Air, All Things Considered and Marketplace are great news shows as well. and that show with john d'libretto is p amazing I must say. he is a real whacko but man does he play some crazy awesome music
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Lol when I read the afrocentric part of your post and then saw fresh air, I read it as fresh prince of bel-air.
Hehehehehehe LOL!
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Not really a news source, more like a collection of articles from everywhere, but I get some of my news tidbits from digg.com.
You can get some interesting articles from Digg (I visit it too for that reason) but I think you probably shouldn't look at the comments. Their comment system is broken, which means you either get whole pages worth of either sour conservatism, cynical libertarianism or Obamania. Most of the people who post there are either complete idiots or simply very happy to not have to think very much.
huffingtonpost, thinkprogress, and def. keith olbermann are basically just cheerleaders for the american democratic party
Does that matter very much? I know very little about American media (since we don't get a lot of it and I picked up other stuff online) but from what I can tell there's a surprisingly small amount of good news resources that don't portend to this. Those that do are usually very boring. Stories that are explained from a POV usually tend to be a bit more explanative as well. There's nothing wrong in reading a site like The Huffington Post and accepting that they too are omitting or sensationalizing things for the sake of their viewpoint; as long as you know they are, and that viewpoint does not make you sick to your stomach.
No matter what you read, whether it's The Huffington Post or the NRC Handelsblad or politically oriented semi-entertainment like Keith Olbermann, you have to be on your toes anyway. I'd rather read any of the former than Drudge Report.
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Drudge report is hilarious!
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Objectivity is not something I look for in news because the appeal to objectivity or 'balance' is often used to reinforce ideology and frame issues within a narrow field of acceptable discourse.
You are usually very terse with words (maybe it just seems that way to me because I'm Dutch and ken't spiek de inglish) but do you mean by this that by being "objective" they are able to omit their way around things so as to make otherwise tiny details stand out and change the tone completely? Because that's part of why I don't like those news sources. (But it's not like I only seek out purposely partisan material.)
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Well I was speaking specifically to american news and politics though it does apply to a lot of international media too.
Most people in the US have a political consciousness that generally assumes there are two sides to every issue which basically boil down to the 'republican' or 'democrat' perspective. My problem is that when news media kinda panders to that by attempting to appear 'objective', they set the boundaries of the debate and effectively marginalize every dissenting perspective that doesn't really fit in. Any ideas/perspectives outside of the platforms of the two parties becomes unthinkable or at worst dangerous/crazy.
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Lol when I read the afrocentric part of your post and then saw fresh air, I read it as fresh prince of bel-air.
Hehehehehehe LOL!
Now, this is a story all about how
My life got flipped-turned upside down
but yeah dietcoke dont you love how there is literally no representation of any sort of marxist (or truly leftist of any stripe) commentary or representation in mainstream political life in this country at all? I bet that really grinds on you after a while
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but yeah dietcoke dont you love how there is literally no representation of any sort of marxist (or truly leftist of any stripe) commentary or representation in mainstream political life in this country at all? I bet that really grinds on you after a while
well you kinda expect it:
"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force."
~K. Marx
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um a little thing called ADBUSTERS? dumbass.
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heh he said MAINSTREAM
*goes back to cutting out armani ads*
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i had a girlfriend with a subscription to BITCH magazine and i just could not stop making fun of her for it. alt-news media is at best cute and usually horrible.
i'm being harsh but MAN i can barely stand to read my own political posts forget some shit analyzing twilight which is apparently one of their cover features this month.
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Ann Coulter is backing Ron Paul for 2012. thats gonna kick so much ass
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also i just found out about this guy named Glenn Beck and hooooollly shit this guy is a fucking idiot
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hahaha ann coulter. i had to do a project on her in english last year.
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What kind of english class were you taking where you had to do a project on Ann Coulter?
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that's like saying "hahaha David Bowie. i had to do a project on him in Astronomy last year."
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you didn't know about glenn beck?
dude you are in
for a ride.
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glenn beck is by far the most insane person on cable news
stephen colbert PwN3d him pretty bad tho on a few occasions
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http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/3/noam
this is a very interesting interview with noam chomsky
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you didn't know about glenn beck?
dude you are in
for a ride.
i dont have cable so i dont ever see network news except on youtube lynx