Who Makes People More Informed: Print or New Media?

Slate wonders who is the more informed consumer of news, those that rely on tangible newspapers or the online variety.

Starting Tuesday, Slate will be conducting a highly unscientific experiment. For three days, two (mostly) newspaper journalists will return to the time (now 15 years ago) when if you wanted to read the news (as opposed to watching it on television), you had to buy a physical object called a newspaper. They will each spend no more than an hour every day reading whatever English-language papers are available where they live. And, of course, they won’t be allowed to read any news, even if gathered by a bona-fide newspaper, online. [emphasis mine]

For the same three days, another team of two (mostly) Web journalists—Emily Yoffe (aka Prudence) and Seth Stevenson, both of Slate, will get all their news from the Web. The trick, of course, will be to exclude Web sites that are primarily shovelware (newspaper material dumped unchanged onto a Web site) or aggregation (sites or site features that strain the limits of fair use in order to summarize what’s in newspapers).

Should Fairfax County, VA Become A City?

It’s being talked about.

The basis for the idea is largely tactical — under state law, cities have more taxing power and greater control over roads than counties do — and it led to more than a few snickers about the thrilling nightlife in downtown Fairfax (punch line: there isn’t any).

If Fairfax does become a city, it would instantly become one of the largest in the nation, the size of San Antonio or San Jose.

It would also diverge dramatically from the stereotype of the gritty metropolis. Fairfax enjoys many of the benefits — wealth and jobs — and few of the detriments — crime, troubled schools — of a large urban center. With a median household income of $105,000, it is the wealthiest large county in the nation. Among large school systems, it boasts the highest test scores. And it has the lowest murder rate among the nation’s 30 largest cities and counties.

I’m rather indifferent on the matter of city status.  There will be those, likely young professionals, who wish to retain a city feel without losing the benefits of suburban elements.  Yet, for those who want to remove themselves from any and all things urban, it seems that over the many coming years, we may witness a gradual migration away from northern Virginia.

My hope is that an efficient high-speed rail system could connect the D.C. area with areas such as Richmond, Norfolk, et al. to allow workers the benefits of D.C. area employment, with the convenience to travel home one hundred miles every evening.

Comic Writer Detained By TSA

Mark Sable was held at LAX and received two invasive searches back in May. During one of which, authorities came upon a script for the next issue of the Unthinkable title, which follows members of a government think tank whose purpose is to portend terrorist acts amidst an incursive police state.

“The minute I saw the faces of the agents, I knew I was in trouble. The first page of the Unthinkable script mentioned 9/11, terror plots, and the fact that the (fictional) world had become a police state. The TSA agents then proceeded to interrogate me, having a hard time understanding that a comic book could be about anything other than superheroes, let alone that anyone actually wrote scripts for comics.”

“In the end, I feel my privacy is a small price to pay for educating the government about the medium.”

Iranian Man Shot In Head

A man is shot during a scene of public protest.  The video is pretty rough.  And as the violence continues, it seems the hope that I, and many others, had for an Iranian Revolution are slowly fading.

(via Daily Dish)

Iran Admits Voting Errors. No Shit!

Even the Guardian Council can’t avoid owning up to the election mess.  Despite acknowledging irregularities, they affirm the June 19 results as valid.  An air of incredulity stirs:

“The plausibility of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s claimed victory is called into question by figures that show that in several provinces he would have had to attract the votes of all new voters, all the votes of his former centrist opponent, and up to 44 percent of those who voted for reformist candidates in 2005,” said Thomas Rintoul, one of the study’s authors.

“In the province where Karroubi did best in 2005, his home province of Lorestan, Ahmadinejad got some 71 percent of the vote,” wrote Nate Silver in an analysis that was posted on fivethirtyeight.com, a politics and polling Web site. He added, “If Ahmadinejad won the election, he did it by winning over these rural Karroubi voters. And if he stole it, those were the votes he stole or intimidated.”

In addition to these concerns there are, oh, just a few more:

How did the government manage to count enough of the 40 million paper ballots to be able to announce results within two hours of the polls closing? How is it that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s margin of victory remained constant throughout the ballot count? Why did the government order polls closed at 10 p.m. when they often stay open until midnight for presidential races? Why were some ballot boxes sealed before candidates’ inspectors could validate they were empty? Why were votes counted centrally, by the Interior Ministry, instead of locally, as in the past? Why did some polling places lock their doors at 6 p.m. after running out of ballots?

Will Iran’s Regime Be Usurped?

Using other nations as historical indicators, even with the dramatic mood of remonstration being displayed in Iran, the likelihood doesn’t seem too great.

“…the government [Iran] is both willing and able to use massive force: China, Burma, Armenia. In these cases, the government wins. There is, in recent history, not a single clear counterexample. If the government keeps its nerve, and the men with guns stay loyal, and the regime is willing to escalate without limit — the government wins.

While there are some reports of unease among the security forces, it appears the police and the military are holding steady.

Until and unless this changes, Ahmadinejad looks quite secure — green paint and massive street protests notwithstanding.”

Dead Iranian Boy Carried By Crowd

Via Daily Dish, which has superb coverage and commentary on the protests in Iran.

Revolution?

Needless to say, the protests going on in Iran are remarkable.  I get the sense that the US media outlets are under-reporting staggering developments in the country.

With minimal digital communiques and reportage coming from Iran, information is more difficult to come by.

This blog appears invaluable.

Current Events Quiz

A news quiz offered by the Pew Research Center.  Sadly, I only scored 9/12

The Murder Of George Tiller

Picking up where I left off on a previous post, my latest discusses a bit more about the recent murder and how I view it as domestic terrorism.

A taste:

The irony would be comical were it not so painfully tragic: a supposed follower of Jesus Christ murdering a fellow individual (let alone a fellow Christian) in a house of God.  Yet, Scott Roder (who, at this writing is the current suspect in the killing) felt it justified to execute abortion doctors, serving as the only means of defense for the unborn fetus.  The parallels to the pious Islamist, who detonate bombs in Israel’s public squares in retaliation for Israeli bombing that takes the lives of children, is blatant.  That behavior is dubbed as terrorism: using violence to achieve political aims.

Abortion Doctor Murdered In Church

Doctor George Tiller was murdered in the lobby of his church on Sunday, where he was working as an usher.

Tiller, 67, had performed abortions since the 1970s and ran the Women’s Health Care Services clinic, one of just three in the nation to perform abortions after the point when a fetus is considered able to survive outside the womb.

Tiller’s family members said through their attorney: “Today we mourn the loss of our husband, father and grandfather. Today’s event is an unspeakable tragedy for all of us and for George’s friends and patients. This is particularly heart wrenching because George was shot down in his house of worship, a place of peace.”

Regardless of your stance with the practice of abortion services (late-term or otherwise) this likely serves as an example of  horribly misguided zealotry of “pro-life” sentiment.

More after the jump…

Obama Keeping Photos of Rape from Public? (warning, graphic)

There is a lot of speculation as to the precise nature of the roughly 2,000 photos of detainees from Iraq and Afghanistan; ones that the President does not want the public to see.

If they are anything (or worse) than the photos below, then it is nothing short of horribly opprobrious conduct by American military personnel.

From the Telegraph:

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

I’ve posted select photos (originally shown on the site at-Largely) after the jump.

WARNING: GRAPHIC