The Agonist - News Guidance

New York City Gay Bloggers take on more Activist Tones

Wed, 07 May 2008 17:52:00 -0700

Excerpt from story at EDGENEWYORK.COM link below:

http://www.edgenewyork.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=local&sc2=features&sc3=&id=74039

by Cody Lyon

The blogosphere has expanded in popularity - and influence - in recent years with a variety of news, activism and even entertainment sites. The Web site "Best Gay Blogs" currently lists roughly 2,000 active gay blogs from around the world. And around 100 of these are in New York.

"[A successfully gay blog] is really about building a unique community of like-minded individuals to share thoughts, passions and dreams," Best Gay Blogs managing editor Chad Williams said....

How often do you visit the newswire?

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:45:30 -0700

Karl Rove on Obama (FOX Transcript)

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 19:41:40 -0800

Washington, DC | Feb 2

Always helpful to watch the master of guile at work

Fox - "FOX NEWS SUNDAY" HOST CHRIS WALLACE: We got a sneak peek this week at what a general election campaign between John McCain and Barack Obama would sound like, especially on foreign policy.

To get a better idea of how Republicans will go after Obama or Clinton, we're joined by former White House adviser, architect of two presidential election victories and now, most important of all, FOX News contributor Karl Rove.

And, Karl, welcome back.

FORMER WHITE HOUSE ADVISER KARL ROVE: Thanks, Chris.

WALLACE: Let's assume for the moment that Barack Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee next Wednesday. In general terms, and we'll get more specific, how should John McCain go after Obama?

What are things that he could do to Obama in a general election campaign that Hillary Clinton couldn't do in the fight for the Democratic nomination?

OECD stats analysis... the WTF moments...

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:27:00 -0800

Just stumbled across New Zealand in the OECD a bunch of "compare countries" graphs set up by the NZ stats department using OECD stats.

A few "Huh? WTF!?" moments in it....

For example...

* US has, by far, the largest GDP AND by far the largest _public_ expenditure as a portion of GDP on health... but really cruddy returns by every measure in the report. Huh!?

* NZ has too high an imprisonment rate, but the US is crazy off the scale. WTF!? Up with you guys?

* US has second highest attainment of upper secondary education....

Project Censored Top 25 Under and Unreported Stories of 2008

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 06:37:16 -0700

This year’s list of stories is released. Many are known to Agonist’s readers, however there are some surprises. Worth a quick click to view and scan. One that I have followed over the past year and noticed that there was a news blackout on the mass arrest of over 30 thousand individuals in massive sweeps nationwide, coordinated by the Feds.

Why would the Feds round up 30 thousand people, and not release statistics on the arrest, trumpeting Bush's muscle to rid the streets of miscreants.

One of the stories, #6 Operation FALCON Raids:

“Operation FALCON presents the first time in US history that all of the domestic police agencies have been put under the direct control of the federal government. The implications for American democracy are quite profound.
Operation FALCON serves no purpose except to centralize power and establish the basic contours of an American police state. It is not an effective way of apprehending criminals.”

Project Censored

"Project Censored is a media research group out of Sonoma State University which tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters. From these, Project Censored compiles an annual list of 25 news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country's major national news media."

Google News to Host Wire Service Stories

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 10:41:31 -0700

Juan Carlos Perez | August 31

IDG - Google Inc. took another step Friday in its continued attempts to improve its relationships with wire services, when it announced a program to host full articles from news agencies on Google News pages.

Google News, a site in which Google aggregates links to articles published on news outlets' Web sites, is generally valued by publishers who make money from online advertising and as such benefit from the traffic Google News sends to their sites.

But Google News has been a tougher sell for wire services, which generally make money by licensing their content to newspapers and magazines, an

Dumbing down Wiki - Look who's changing their own Wikipedia entries

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 23:38:29 -0700

Times Online

A new website built by an American technology student has uncovered the lengths that companies apparently go to improve their public image by tweaking their entries on Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia that - famously - “anyone can edit”.

The WikiScanner site, developed by Virgil Griffith, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, reveals changes to the online encyclopaedia by linking edits back to the computers from which they emanate using each computer’s unique IP address.

Tomorrow's Headlines and Blogposts Tonight

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:00:40 -0700

Here are the stories impacting the world tomorrow July 16, 2007:
Global and National News Headlines:
Police, Protesters Clash in Oaxaca
Cunningham report portrays entangled panel
Brown Meets Merkel On First Trip Abroad As British Premier
Strong quake hits Japan/Nuclear reactor damaged
Business, Finance and the Markets:
Tax Receipts Pare Treasury Sales as Foreigners Flee
News Corp. Reaches Tentative Agreement To Buy Dow Jones
Pimco Favors Japanese Mortgage-Backed, Inflation-Linked Bonds
Private Equity Gives More to Republicans
Blog Posts and Op-Eds of Note:
Menendez Reacts To Coming GOP Iraq Filibuster
Who’s Smoking What?
The phones, the keyboards, the streets
When All They Understand Is Fear or Force

Eric Idle comments on the FCC and court ruling

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 21:20:36 -0700

And a few other things and people.

via OGM

Covering US coverage

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 06:21:02 -0800

Andrew Stroehlein | February 20

Reuters - Those who need to follow US television news will already be familiar with the Tyndall Report, which monitors the all-important nightly network newscasts of the three big networks. Well, Andrew Tyndall has just radically revamped his website and unveiled it online today.

Rather than a weekly, the site has been relaunched as a daily Weblog complete with embedded links to the video packages discussed. That search page contains comparative figures for the number of segments on various subjects.

About Our NewsWire

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 11:40:09 -0800

Sean-Paul Kelley | San Antonio | February 10

The Agonist - A little over a year ago we opened the NewsWire in which all members can post without editorial approval. It's been a success in one aspect and a disappointment in another. Let me explain.

It's succeeded better than I thought it would because all the news which gets posted there is always thoughtful, timely (and humorous) and from solid sources.

But it's been a disappointment because so few people have contributed. (If you contribute, however, thank you! This post is not directed at you in any way.) I see several hundred different users online every day. So, instead of asking for donations here at The Agonist I'd like to ask for your time. In the future, if you are a reader who rarely posts, try posting one interesting news article a day, of course doing your best not to duplicate posts and keeping the flavor of the stories global.

If we all do this on a regular basis the news here in The Agonist NewsWire will be comprehensive in a way that no one can compete, all readers will benefit from the breadth of our coverage and ad revenues will go up so we don't have to ask for donations.

So how about it, want to give this a try?

However, please, please, please: no Capitol Hill Blue, Debka and other sources, especially those with a conspiratorial slant.

Nota bene: I want to add, after reading this comment that the reason we don't just use the aggregator included in the Drupal software package is that we don't want to. We want the news to be reflective of the community and the values our community is formed around: thoughtful, global and timely. The NewsWire isn't simply pulled from some computer generated RSS feed, but the conscious effort of a human, and a thoughtful one at that. Computer generated RSS feeds are exactly what we are trying to avoid. Ya dig?

Newsweek features 'Losing Afghanistan' in international edition, celebrity photographer in U.S.

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 20:32:25 -0700

Muriel Kane | Washington DC | Sep 25

Raw Story - The United States edition of the October 2, 2006 issue of Newsweek features a radically different cover story from its International counterparts, RAW STORY has learned.

The cover of International editions, aimed at Europe, Asia, and Latin America, displays in large letters the title "LOSING AFGHANISTAN," along with an arresting photograph of an armed jihadi.

The cover of the United States edition, in contrast, is dedicated to celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz and is demurely captioned "My Life in Pictures."

The International cover story begins:

"You don't have to drive very far from Kabul these days to find the Taliban. In Ghazni province's Andar district, just over a two-hour trip from the capital on the main southern highway, a thin young man, dressed in brown and wearing a white prayer cap, stands by the roadside waiting for two NEWSWEEK correspondents. It is midday on the central Afghan plains, far from the jihadist-infested mountains to the east and west. Without speaking, the sentinel guides his visitors along a sandy horse trail toward a mud-brick village within sight of the highway. As they get closer a young Taliban fighter carrying a walkie-talkie and an AK-47 rifle pops out from behind a tree. He is manning an improvised explosive device, he explains, in case Afghan or U.S. troops try to enter the village."

Morning Markets Brief 032806: Focus: Apple

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 08:02:34 -0800

Flambeee | Brooklyn | March 28

“You are the apple of my eye.
Forever you’ll stay in my heart…”

God bless ya’ Stevie Wonder! God bless ya’!!!

So here’s the thing. I have been a user of the ipod for quite some time now as well as the diminutive but robust Bose speaker system. The setup works great. And I’ve built up a nice little collection of music on it mostly from loading old CD’s and buying new or used ones and then loading them. However, my reticence to buy itunes off the itunes site has persisted for quite some time and I doubt I will ever use the feature...

Morning Markets Brief 032206

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 07:00:24 -0800

Flambeee | Brooklyn | March 22

Over the past 18 months, the stock market has keyed off of oil to varying degrees in an almost obsessive manner. Early on during this period, equities tended to move inversely to the price of crude as investors feared that the rise in energy prices would hamper consumer spending as well as corporate margins. More recently though, equities have tended to move with the price of crude as energy related equities cycled into momentum beasts positively correlated with more classic momentum related issues as Google, Apple and other high beta names.