Californinicineration

Jon Stewart is back this week from a mini vacation and last time the Daily Show was gone for this long, a gay Senator bathroom sex scandal broke. This video further proves why I stay away from watching the Cable News shows. It is mostly tabloid driven, mindless dribble.

CNN's used the California fires to promote their global warming piece and Fox News cited a 4 year old FBI memo about one Al Qaeda member mentioning starting fires in the US to suggest that terrorists ignited this blaze. Stewart takes the Katrina Analogies to the woodshed.


Since no one cares except random anonymous commenters, and this is MY blog, I watch PBS's News Hour with Jim Lehrer(Add it to your TIVO) every evening for my main TV source of current events and news discussion. They actually will analyze a topic, policy or event, instead of just glossing over them like the Network nightly news shows do. Networks usually spend 5- 10 out their 30 minutes on some puff piece human interest story too.

Plus, the News Hour's guests are highly intelligent people with real work credentials, who actually discuss and debate the issues. Not these self glorified pundit contributors on cable news, who spend most of their time yelling the same broken talking points. When you are done watching the 24/7 cable news shows, you just want to yell at or blame someone. After viewing the News Hour, you can actual retain some knowledge from it.

For example on last week's show, the topic was foreclosures. They were exchanging ideas on how to assist homeowners with the sub prime crisis with a consumer advocate and a president of the mortgage lender association. You can click on the streaming video or scroll down for the text of their talk. The first part is about a Chicago bank program that helps out homeowners restructure their loans so they will not lose their homes. The next part is the sub prime discussion.

News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS

Mac Gs World