No Comments for Obama

So this morning's silliness has CBS disabling comments on news stories about Barack Obama.

From the story at the above link:

Mike Sims, director of news and operations for CBS News.com, explained the reason for the new policy in a story on the Web site's Public Eye section.

"We have our rules of engagement," Sims said Friday. "They prohibit personal attacks, especially racist attacks. Stories about Obama have been problematic, and we won't tolerate it."

Sims said the news group sometimes deletes questionable individual comments, but he said this wasn't working with Obama stories because of "the volume and the persistence" of the comments.

CBSNews.com didn't plan to disable comments for stories on the other presidential candidates, Sims said, adding that he hasn't ruled out allowing them again for Obama stories. "But at this point, it's not possible," Sims said.

OK, I have a few thoughts on this.

1. The implication here is that CBS just can't afford to keep up with commenters on their site. I find that utterly impossible to believe, given their resources, so it's clearly a lie. They did just release first quarter earnings a few das ago and their profits dropped 6%, but that left them with a dismal $214 million profit. Hmm. I know pressure to perform on the Street is intense, but I think if you're talking about monitoring the website comments being made about a Presidential candidate, you could and should be able to come up with a few bucks to pay some interns to filter and delete. My suggestion would be to skim some money off of the CSI franchise (preferably Miami). If it has to come from within the CBSNews budget, I think we could all lose 48 Hours Mystery and be none the worse for it.

2. Why are comments allowed on news stories anyway? It's news, it shouldn't invite opinion. If people want to take issue with the factual basis of a story, they should send a letter to the editor, just like in the good old days. If the editor wants to print the letter, so be it. But since none of the MSM even pretends to actually be about news anymore, I suppose that's asking too much.

3. Does disallowing comments take away "free speech?" NO! People seriously need to drop this whole righteous indignation whenever anyone says they can't spout their particularly idiotic, misspelled and poorly constructed thoughts. CBS is a privately owned concern and if they want to turn off comments, that's their right. I personally think that turning them off only for stories about Obama is an incredibly obtuse move and predict that they'll reverse course within days (if not hours), but it's a move that in no way hampers anyone's First Amendment rights. Try to say otherwise and I'll delete your comment, and that won't be me trampling on your rights to free speech either.

4. It seems to me that the logical next step here, if CBS is concerned about possibly negative repercussions to news stories about Obama, would be to simply stop reporting on his activities at all. Right? Clearly he's just causing trouble, enough so that CBS had to change their whole policy.

Interesting, isn't it?

Life is sacred.

From the New York Times: President Bush told Congressional leaders Thursday that he would veto any legislation that weakened federal policies or laws on abortion.

Uh huh.

More: Mr. Bush said his veto threat would apply to any measures that "allow taxpayer dollars to be used for the destruction of human life."

Bush is concerned about human life. Doesn't want us to spend money on anything that would destroy human life.

Except for that , you know, emergency war funding bill thingie.

Asshole.

Rethinking Thin

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!

Our local news station just had an interview with Gina Kolata, who
writes for the NY Times. She wrote a book that will be released in a
few days called "Rethinking Thin." Her contention? That a lot of
overweight folks are suffering from genetics and that our increasingly
thin "ideal" body images are hurting us. That being overweight isn't
necessarily bad and of course ... it's not your fault.

We don't need to "rethink thin." I'll bet if most of us looked at
pictures of our families from the 60's and 70's, there aren't that
many as many fat people in them ... and the folks who were fat weren't
as fat as fat people today. It's not genetics, genetics wouldn't
change the collective body shape of the country within 50 years. Or
rather, it IS genetic, it's ALWAYS been genetic for our bodies to
store fat, there's nothing special that anyone inherited from their
parents.

I'm so sick of all of this. When I was a kid, from kindergarten thru
high school, I worked out every day (and as I got older, about three
hours per day) and had a six pack and probably some ridiculous body
fat percentage. Working out 20 minutes a day, three times a week will
not give anyone rock hard abs like on infomercials. Vigorously
cleaning the kitchen floor isn't going to get you in shape, and
neither is chasing your adorable little toddler around the house.

Eating whatever you want on the diet program du jour is bullshit,
because you don't WANT the foods that will keep you thin. If you did,
you wouldn't be fat!! Even if you workout three hours a day or have a
job where you are physically active, you still can't eat whatever you
want because the crappiest food now is hella crappier than the
crappiest food 50 years ago. And the worst food 50 years ago couldn't
be zapped in the microwave for two minutes and you're good to go. You
actually had to work to even eat. Crazy!

I'm not blaming fat people, just so tired of the warm fuzzies people
try to give out about being fat. Fat isn't good! It's not our normal
state, it's not what we were built for. Our joints can't handle it,
our circulatory system can't handle it, our endocrine system can't
handle it - not one of our systems was built to thrive on obesity.
People need to stop saying it's OK to be fat!

Geesh.

OK. I'm through. Whew! Getting all worked up like that probably
burned off a few thousand calories, right? I deserve a grande
cinnamon dolce frappucino now, I think. With whipped cream, natch.