Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism

After watching the primaries this year it's obvious that all of the news agencies are biased. Fox News is just as bad. I have less faith in Fox News than I do in CNN. They are truly horrible. Without a doubt, they pushed other candidates aside to so that they would not have a chance. Ron Paul raised more money than any other Republican candidate directly from the people. At every turn he didn't get the coverage that he deserved.

Here's an interesting video on Fox News:
Outfoxed: Rupert Murchoch's War on Journalism

Update 1: Just so you know I don't really care for any of the news networks. This article by Chez should give you an idea of just how bad it is at CNN. I used to watch a lot of CNBC, but the housing crisis and current economic woes illustrates just how clueless they are. I find myself watching MythBusters and How it's Made on the Discovery channel more and more.

Update 2: Here's another example of why I don't watch CNBC, Larry Kudlow. He's one of those that has been talking up the economy. He's been calling it Goldilocks for more than 1.5 years now. During this time he's give Roubini and others that have been talking about how bad it was getting and is now the short end of the stick.

Kudlow is a real cheerleader for less gov't regulation and intervention. To a certain point I think less is more. The gov't economists really don't know how to model the economy. (It would be nice to have a scoreboard to see how badly they've done.) Almost all of the regulation seems to have come after major problems like Great Depression, Savings/Loan, Long Term Capital Managment, Dot.Com Bubble and now Subprime.

The Subprime problem has essentially fixed itself. The banks are scared, people now know not to buy a home they can't afford. (Keep on charging the card though.) The only reason to enact legislation now is to clean up some of the bad mortgage and loan procedures. It will also provide a reminder for later generations 40 years from now when they start doing stupid stuff again.

Your rental is being foreclosed

Quinn's situation isn't unique. It's happening in a lot of places. It's just a shock when someone you know is having it happen to them. What probably happened is that the owner took out a sub prime loan or took out too much equity thinking that he would be able to sell it at a profit. The housing market in HI is doing fine from the reports that I had been hearing, but it's not crazy. Local lenders had been more conservative as well. Most of the subprime problem in Hawai'i has been caused by outside lenders.

Update: Fix spelling mistake in title. Also note that it is Washington Mutual that owns the mortgage. WaMu is in trouble because of all of their subprime lending.

The End of America

Book: The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot

Update: Jerry B. mentioned that the book Ominous Parallels may be a better book.

Pics from Ohio and Niagara Falls

We went to Ohio and Niagara Falls the March 3 - 7. When we got to Ohio there was 3"-4" of snow on the ground. The snow melted on Monday when it was in the 60s F. When we left Ohio Wednesday there was some snow on top of the .5"-1" ice/sleet that had fallen the night before. There was ice on the trees from Ohio to somewhere in Pennsylvania. In Niagara, there was snow on the ground but none on the roads. The river was frozen below the falls.

The low value of the dollar makes going to Niagara expensive. One US dollar is about or less than one Canadian dollar. A meal at TGIF was $100CDN for 4 people that didn't order expensive dishes compared to other items on the menu. Fish & Chips, quesidilla, salad, and another chicken dish was ordered. The 4 soft drinks cost ~$16CDN.

Sleet/Ice falling in Independence, OH.

Sleet/Ice with snow on top the next morning.

Picture of a bird taken at Bird Kingdom in Niagara.

Driving on I-79 in Northwestern Pennsylvania on Friday. It wasn't very fun for about an hour.

Fix Patent Law Not Protect Special Interests

Looks like someone owns the patents cover check scanning and clearing those checks electronically. Instead of fixing the patent laws, Congress is planning to pass some special measures to protect the banking industry. I wish that I could buy a couple of congress people to help protect me.

Laptop Suspends in Dock

I hadn't tried suspending my laptop while it was on the dock in a long time. Sunday evening I decided to give it a try. It worked. Hurray!!! It's good to know that this is finally working. Suspend has worked well in Fedora 7. The are only few issue that I have so far. On my wife's laptop, if you play with the touchpad it seems to cause the keyboard and touchpad not to work. I have to close the lid and wait for it to suspend again.

Comcast Filtering Pushing Customers Away

Comcast has briefed the FCC on their traffic policies. They are shaping the traffic to slow down some user's data transfers. Music and video transfers are two that are being slowed.

Time Warner is running a trial of hard bandwidth caps. Comcast is also considering the same thing. A fee will be charged for exceeding the bandwidth cap.

All of this makes me think that I should cancel my Comcast service. Luckily, I live in an area where I have some choice. I can get satellite from Direct or Dish. Embarq offers DSL and I've used their service. It looks like speed of 10Mbps/860kbps (Down/Up) is available.

I spend about $100/mth with Comcast. I'm guessing that Embarq will cost about $55-$65/mth. Direct will probably cost another $50-$60. Is it worth the potential extra $120/yr plus equipment costs? If it will help make Comcast wake up, maybe it is.