Global Warming vs. Terrorism

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

This graph clearly shows that people (in the U.S.) are more
interested in global warming than terrorism. It also shows
that the corporate news media is clearly more interested
in terrorism.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=global+warming%2C+terrorism&ctab=0&geo=US&date=all

Does this indicate a democratic deficit between the corporate
news media and the informational desires of U.S. Citizens?

[liderm...@gmail.com]

this is not true if you search for terror instead of terrorism :

http://www.google.com/trends?q=terror+%2C+global+warming&ctab=1&geo=all&date=all

and anyway , if you are looking for inconsistency between informational
desire and new media , just try comparing sex with anything else....
sex will be the winner...

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

Barbiere di Siviglia wrote:

No, of course NOT! It means that YOU are nuts.

First of all, it is "[???] global warming" rather than just global
warming. Why don't you try defining [???] or are you just afraid to
put yourself on the line, like always?

Second, your own graph shows that during the 1st half of 2005 both
topics were a dead tie. So, your conclusion is more than a bit fruity.

Third, global warming doesn't change very much if at all. Therefore,
there is no breaking news to be reported on [???] global warming EVER.
Whereas every time the US kills a terrorist, there is a breaking news
story on terrorism. Go, figure! You must just be nuts.

Just thought that you might want to know.

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

> No, of course NOT! It means that YOU are nuts.

You have just shot the messenger. How does your personal
attack show that this democratic deficit does not exist?

> Second, your own graph shows that during the 1st half of 2005 both
> topics were a dead tie. So, your conclusion is more than a bit fruity.

Yes, they did tie for public attention at that time, but look again at
the news volume for the same time period. Why don't they match up?

> Whereas every time the US kills a terrorist, there is a breaking news
> story on terrorism.

Yes, there seems to be breaking news on terrorism even when most
people are not interested. Why?

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

Good point. More people are indeed interested in sex, but as expected,
the
elite media will not report:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=terror%2C+sex&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

Ooooh! Brilliant point. Ha, ... Hah, Ha! You just got be kidding.

Gee, why am I not a degenerate like you?

Now can all you SEX degenerates, kindly Fuck Off?

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

Listen idiot: You have refused to answer every single question that I
have ever asked you. And, yet you expect me to play your stupid little
game. You can drop dead, until you start answering my questions.

You are nothing but the typical ng idiot arguing over language. You
have been asking the same stupid question over and over again. What
exactly is your problem? Oh! I know. You just like to argue over
language.

Tell me, Dumb Dumb, what is the difference between the "news media,"
"Corporate news media," and the Internet? Just like I thought. The
only thing that you can do is argue over language.

NEWFLASH: No body is STOPPING you from fulfilling the informational
desires of U.S. Citizens.

Ha, ... Hah, Ha! All chronic complainers, like you, would be out of
business in about 15 seconds.

Who says so? I do. :)

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

How will Insults and slurs help rational people agree
with your argument?

> Tell me, [Desperate insult], what is the difference between the "news media,"

> "Corporate news media," and the Internet? Just like I thought. The
> only thing that you can do is argue over language.

The difference is control. The Internet is potentially democratic
in that you and I can both control its content. The content of the
"news media" or "corporate media" on the other hand is controlled
by a small number of corporations whose continued control is
dependent on advertising for funding.

Where do you suppose these news corporations get the
information for their news reports? Who are their sources?

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

Barbiere di Siviglia wrote:

> > Tell me, [Desperate insult], what is the difference between the "news media,"
> > "Corporate news media," and the Internet? Just like I thought. The
> > only thing that you can do is argue over language.
>
> The difference is control. The Internet is potentially democratic
> in that you and I can both control its content. The content of the
> "news media" or "corporate media" on the other hand is controlled
> by a small number of corporations whose continued control is
> dependent on advertising for funding.

I think that you are totally wrong. If you cannot define correctly the
objects discussed in your questions, then you cannot possible have an
intelligent discussion.

Almost all web sites and web pages on the Internet are private. You
have absolutely no control over their content. There are a few
exceptions, but for the most part I do NOT let anybody but me edit my
web site. Nor, do the vast majoriity of web sites let non-employees
control their content.

The exceptions would be blogs (again nobody is stopping you from
operating your own blog). Wikipedia and wikipedia type clones, and
newsgroup sites like this one (groups can be anywhere from totally
private to totally public). ISP's often provide free personal web
pages to subscribers. And, there are so-called free web sites where
individuals can publish their own web pages for next to nothing. Here,
again nobody is stopping YOU from fulfilling the information needs of
Americans. Of course, whether anybody will actually see and read what
you write is entirely another matter.

The Drudge Report
http://www.drudgereport.com/
is example of an individual managing to make money by competing against
the so-called established news media.

Wikipedia operates on the pretense that anybody can edit their web
pages, but in reality a small group of inner circle people totally
control their content. How well Wikipedia operates depends upon
entirely how well your point of view agrees with that of the inner
circle of people in the English edition of Wikipedia (who work for
their founder who is bascally a ornographer. Interestingly enough, the
#2 founder of Wikipedia was kicked out a long time ago). I myself in
order to promote Alternative Medicine on Wikipedia managed to have
gotten bannished twice by their inner circle. So much for democracy
and fair play on the Web.

Secondly, there is very little difference between a web site operated
by an organization, business, or individual and a web site operated by
the "news media." About the only real difference is perhaps a rapid
turnover in informational content. Or, perhaps the difference is web
pages lasting little more than a month. Articles in web sites operated
by newspapers often are very short lived. Of course, there always are
exceptions.

Third, the top three web sites are: www.yahoo.com, www.google.com, and
www.msn.com. Of these three only MSN is technically the news media.
Yet, even www.msn.com is trying very hard to both look and behave like
www.yahoo.com. MSN does not act like the news media on the Internet.

All of these three companies, are no longer American companies. They
are multi-national corporations which can operate independently of any
single country. They derive most of their revenues from advertisements.
Google runs search engines. Google ranks web pages almost entirely on
the number of backward links the home page has. Page content means
almost nothing in Google. All these companies determine which web
pages are seen by the public using their own rules.

Yahoo operates their own search engine, while MSN's search engine is
currently driven by Yahoo. It is only a matter of time before MSN will
become independent of both Google and Yahoo.

Until we can reach agreement as to what the nasty news media actually
is, we cannot possible have an intelligent discussion.

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

> Until we can reach agreement as to what the nasty news media actually
> is, we cannot possible have an intelligent discussion.

I agree. lets define it now then: News Media is:
Time Warner
Disney
Bertelsmann
Viacom
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation
(It also includes all of the companies they own: cnn, abc, cnn, cbs,
etc. etc. ect.)
Would you agree on this definition?

> Almost all web sites and web pages on the Internet are private.
> You have absolutely no control over their content.

Absolutely no control? Since web pages are controlled by
each individual web user, it is not possible for you and I
to get our message out potentially to the entire world?

> The exceptions would be blogs (again nobody is stopping you from
> operating your own blog). Wikipedia and wikipedia type clones, and
> newsgroup sites like this one (groups can be anywhere from totally
> private to totally public). ISP's often provide free personal web
> pages to subscribers. And, there are so-called free web sites where
> individuals can publish their own web pages for next to nothing. Here,
> again nobody is stopping YOU from fulfilling the information needs of
> Americans. Of course, whether anybody will actually see and read what
> you write is entirely another matter.

> ... ...
It seems we both agree that citizens can indeed participate in
democratic control of the content of the internet. The issue,
however, is democratic control of the News Media. Who gets to
decide what becomes "big news"?

> Secondly, there is very little difference between a web site operated
> by an organization, business, or individual and a web site operated by
> the "news media." About the only real difference is perhaps a rapid
> turnover in informational content. Or, perhaps the difference is web
> pages lasting little more than a month. Articles in web sites operated
> by newspapers often are very short lived. Of course, there always are
> exceptions.

Here we also disagree. There is a major difference: dependency on
advertising and sources. News sites that are operated by large
media corporations must turn a profit. They depend on advertisers
to fund their continued operation, and they have to get their news
somewhere -- where do they get it?

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

Barbiere di Siviglia wrote:
> > Until we can reach agreement as to what the nasty news media actually
> > is, we cannot possible have an intelligent discussion.
> I agree. lets define it now then: News Media is:
> Time Warner
> Disney
> Bertelsmann
> Viacom
> Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation
> (It also includes all of the companies they own: cnn, abc, cnn, cbs,
> etc. etc. ect.)
> Would you agree on this definition?

????

Apparently we don't even live on the same planet. :(

This is the 'Google Labs - Trends' group. You started this thread with
a specific question.
http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Labs-Trends/msg/b1bf34c5d8d0e9ce?hl=en&

You made a specific comment which you allegedly supported with the
following specific trend.
http://www.google.com/trends?q=global+warming%2C+terrorism&ctab=0&geo=US&date=all

You specifically stated: "the corporate news media is clearly more
interested in terrorism." And, the 'news reference volume' of this
trend of yours apparently supports this statement of yours.

So, any rational person living on my planet would equate "the corporate
news media" with Google's "news reference volume" or in other words
with the activities of the "the corporate news media" specifically in
the Google search engine or on the Internet.

Yet, you are still insisting on claiming that the "the corporate news
media" consists of Time Warner, Disney, Bertelsmann, Viacom, and
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation!!!!

Sorry, but I totally fail to see how that equates to either the
Internet or to Google's "news reference volume." Nor, do I see any
specific web sites which are supposedly "the corporate news media."

So, until you can tighten up your definition of the "the corporate
news media" to specific activities of specific web sites on the
Internet it would be a total waste of my time to continue this
conversation with you; since you don't have a clue as to what you are
talking about IMHO.

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

> So, until you can tighten up your definition of the "the corporate
> news media"

So let's clear it up then: Just where is the news coming from that gets
referenced by Google news?

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

See my reply at:
http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Labs-Trends/msg/b7da0c114449daec?hl=en&

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

You have some good points there, but you might check Google's
explanation again.

Here's what Google has to say:
http://www.google.com/trends/about.html#1
> Located just beneath our search-volume graph is our news-reference-volume graph.
> This graph shows you the number of times your topic appeared in Google News
> stories.

Back to the original question then: If "Big News" is really based on
democratic
interest, shouldn't the search graph match up a little better with the
news-reference
graph? How does a story become "Big News"?

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

Barbiere di Siviglia wrote:
> You have some good points there, but you might check Google's
> explanation again.
>
> Here's what Google has to say:
> http://www.google.com/trends/about.html#1
> > Located just beneath our search-volume graph is our news-reference-volume graph.
> > This graph shows you the number of times your topic appeared in Google News
> > stories.

What Google News stories? Google does NOT publish news stories. Yahoo
does, but where are these Google news stories?

> Back to the original question then: If "Big News" is really based on
> democratic
> interest, shouldn't the search graph match up a little better with the
> news-reference
> graph? How does a story become "Big News"?

Who ever said that big news is really based on democratic interest?

Generally, Big News stories stimulate interest in the topic in general
so that everybody benefits.

>From topics I happen to know something about News Stories generally
butcher the entire topic. The problem is really the individual
reporters who don't know crap about the topics that they are covering.

Who says so? I do. Who else would?

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

Being that I am officially a senior citizen, I have in fact lived a
life time. People younger than me are dying right and left all the
time.

I have concluded that news in America is mostly propaganda. Nobody
ever needs to keep up with current events. If information doesn't
immediately impact you, you don't need to know about it at all.

And, you can categories most news stories in America.

News for shock value used to boost the ratings of the news media.
Nobody needs to know about the latest mother who drown her children,
the postal worker who shot up their co-workers, or the teenager who
shot up their classmates.

Government / Military propaganda. The Government / Military means pay
day for everybody. Yippee for our military because military families
can screw the taxpayers out of big money over their lifetimes.

America propaganda. America is the greatest nation in the world.
Everybody wants to live in America. People in Canada, Great Britain,
France, New Zealand, and Australia are living in Hell because life in
every other country in the world really sucks. Who could possibly have
a life outside of America?

Religious propaganda. The Judeo - Christian religion is great. God is
on America's side. Give all your money to religion. All other
religions basically suck. Everyone has to tolerate these other evil
religions because our Constitutions says so. Liberals are trying to
take America's one true religion out of ours classrooms. Republicans
are godly. Democrats are basically evil, because our God says so. If
only America could get back to our Judeo - Christian roots.

Business propaganda. Employers can do no wrong. Businesses can do no
wrong. Conservation is evil because it is fundamentally anti-business.
There is something wrong with you if you ain't working 12 to 16 hours a
day, every day. Employers have a right to screw over their workers and
America because it is part of God's plan. So, if it is God's plan how
can it possibly be evil?

Health propaganda. People get sick and die from heart disease cancer
no matter what you do. There is absolutely nothing the individual can
do about it. Everybody is supposed to give all their money to the
health care system in American so that they can get totally screwed
over. Nobody is a consumer when it comes to health care, so you do NOT
have the right to compare prices. All old people are supposed to die
within 6 months of retirement. Old people are supposed to spend all
their money on prescription medication and on health care rather than
on food. Who wants to eat healthy food, just so you can end up dying
in the hospital? People are always responsible for their actions
except when it comes to their health choices. Better to burn out ,than
to rust out. Old people don't count at all, only our youth can save us.
This idea especially applies on the job.

Charity propaganda. Everybody should give all their money to charities
and feed the homeless. Just don't hire the poor and homeless. But be
sure to give them food, clothes, and health care for free. These
people make horrible workers, so they are never good enough for your
company.

Drug & Sex propaganda. Alcohol and smoking is legal so they are good
for you. Pot is bad for you because it is illegal. It is a part of
God's plan to wage a never ending War on Drugs which we can never win.
The Drug War means another paycheck for people in criminal justice. So,
God says that we should never legalize recreational use of drugs or
prostitution. If you happen to be a MD then the recreational use of
illicit drugs is perfectly okay, but taking vitamin supplements is a
total rip off and waste of money. Nothing wrong with smoking pot, but
be sure to never waste your money on Vitamin C.

Weather News: All bad weather always passes over Richmond, VA.
Everybody else seems dumb enough to live in areas that are seriously
affected by Floods, Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Earthquakes, and mud slides.
Why else do you think that I live in this boring city? Let everybody
else be flooded out each year, just as long as it is not me. :)

There in a nut shell, is all the Breaking Current Events that anyone
will ever need to know about on a hourly basis, 27 x 7. Now, you can
all turn your television sets off for ever. Cancel cable TV and your
newspaper subscriptions. And, get on with your life.

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

> Who ever said that big news is really based on democratic interest?
>
> Generally, Big News stories stimulate interest in the topic in general
> so that everybody benefits.

Can we assume then that the business community have
only benign intentions for the benefit of society?

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

> I have concluded that news in America is mostly propaganda.

What is propaganda? Could you recommend a resource that might
explain a little more about it?

> There in a nut shell, is all the Breaking Current Events that anyone
> will ever need to know about on a hourly basis, 27 x 7. Now, you can
> all turn your television sets off for ever. Cancel cable TV and your
> newspaper subscriptions. And, get on with your life.

Is it possible that there is some truth mixed in on TV? What
could a reasonable person do to better discern truth from
bogus information?

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

Is NPR (ie, National Public Radio) a business? If so, is it a member
of the business community?

Can we assume that NPR has only benign intentions for the benefit of
society?

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

Barbiere di Siviglia wrote:

> > I have concluded that news in America is mostly propaganda.
>
> What is propaganda? Could you recommend a resource that might
> explain a little more about it?

http://www.wordsmyth.net/live/home.php?script=search&matchent=propaganda&matchtype=exact
"information, allegations, or opinions that are deliberately and
methodically disseminated to promote or attack a particular doctrine,
movement, nation, or the like."

A resource ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

Now, do I win a prize for completing this exercise in futility?

> > There in a nut shell, is all the Breaking Current Events that anyone
> > will ever need to know about on a hourly basis, 27 x 7. Now, you can
> > all turn your television sets off for ever. Cancel cable TV and your
> > newspaper subscriptions. And, get on with your life.
>
> Is it possible that there is some truth mixed in on TV? What
> could a reasonable person do to better discern truth from
> bogus information?

Is this a true or false quiz?

With health news, I always try to locate and read either the abstract
or full text of the research study which are often online for free.
Medline makes it pretty easy to do this. The easiest way to do this is
to search on both the year and the name of a researcher.

Also, sometimes you can also locate the research journal online which
published the research. There could be other comments there on the
study such as an editorial. Or, the journal might publish feedback
from the readers. This does not always work since there is such a rush
to publish news stories you might have to wait a month before the study
will appear in the online journal.

A lot of research journals are now letting you view all the old studies
online for FREE after a certain waiting period (6 months to a year
old). So, you could always wait a year to get better information.

There are several Health News services out there. Every time a new
health news story comes out, there are often 100's of copies of
essentially the same story. So, searching the WEB or NEWS stories
generally wont bring up any new information. Very few sources make
original thoughtful comments on health news.

Now, do I win an even better prize?

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

Last I checked, NPR is part of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
(a business). They are also dependant on Advertising (they call it
'Underwriting').

They are also partly dependant on the Government for their funding
right?

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

http://www.npr.org/about/
"A privately supported, not-for-profit membership organization, NPR
serves a growing audience of 26 million Americans each week in
partnership with more than 800 independently operated, noncommercial
public radio stations."

NPR is a not-for-profit organization, NOT a business.

Last I checked, NPR is the evil Liberal Press.

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

> Now, do I win a prize for completing this exercise in futility?

Futility implies inaction. As far as I can tell you suggested
some quite effective strategies and solutions -- mainly: Turn
off the TV and get on with our lives. This doesn't sound futile
to me.

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

Because they do not make a profit, does that make them even more
dependant on
advertising? Are they then less likely to speak out against their
paymasters?

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

Just like PBS, they claim to have no advertisements, but often start
their shows off by saying that XYZ corp is sponsoring them. So, what
is the difference?

The History and Discovery cable television channels have commercial
adverting on them and they are a lot better than PBS ever was or ever
will be.

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

How do you characterize "better"?

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

Is it possible that the press has a liberal bias in order to set bounds
on acceptable debate?

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

Barbiere di Siviglia wrote:
> How do you characterize "better"?

???

What do you think? You watch PBS. You watch the History channel. You
watch the Discovery channel. The one that you are more likely to
return again and again is Better.

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

Barbiere di Siviglia wrote:
> Is it possible that the press has a liberal bias in order to set bounds
> on acceptable debate?

Is it possible that the corporate news media tries to set bounds as to
what is acceptable news?

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

> > Is it possible that the press has a liberal bias in order to set bounds
> > on acceptable debate?
>
> Is it possible that the corporate news media tries to set bounds as to
> what is acceptable news?

I think you are on to something here...
The question is this: Is it testable with the scientific method?

[elcalama...@gmail.com]

let's take cocaine: once you try it, you return again and again.
More adictive does not mean "better" in any sense I can imagein in my
personal preferences ranking.
And sorry for "playing with language".

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

Is there really a difference between PBS and the History Channel with
respect to ownership and dependency on advertising?

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

Barbiere di Siviglia wrote:
> Is there really a difference between PBS and the History Channel with
> respect to ownership and dependency on advertising?

I give you a gold "star" for your persistence in posting 2-line
questions.

Now, are you up to a 3-line question? How about replying to a post
with more than 3 paragraphs?

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

So -- do you really think there's no difference between PBS and the

[john...@naturalhealthperspective.com]

Could a chimp pounding away on a typewriter ask the same question? Or,
would the chimp's question be even better?

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

So it's quite clear that you consider the History Channel "better" than
PBS. I assume you mean "better" to mean "less important information
omitted". On this point, I agree, however, if you agree that both are
in fact heavily dependant on advertisers and under tight control from
their owners, does that not bring the content of both PBS and History
Channel into question?

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

> Is it possible that the corporate news media tries to set bounds as to
> what is acceptable news?

I think you are correct. After all, Is it not conceivable that there
are some things the owners, advertisers and public relations news
sources would not us to know about?

[Barbiere di Siviglia]

Hmm -- interesting question -- but what do chimps and typwriters have
to do with PBS and the History Channel?