Monday, January 30, 2006

Fry 'em!

http://today.reuters.com/news/

I hope (without having read this article about the facts of the case) that they get the same 25 years that the other CEO got not long ago. And since the judge has refused repeated change of venue requests and the Houstin public is still pretty peeved about this, I suspect that will be the case. Their "defense" that the perpetrators were all people at "lower pay grades" is very nearly the definition of "lame". We need to send a message that people without ethics will be punished when they're caught (and we need to work on catching them I suspect). Next target, Congress!

http://www.abcnews.go.com/
http://www.npr.org/

Why is this any more of a news story than any of the other Americans or Iraqis who are killed or wounded in Iraq on a daily basis? Why is it more of a story than the London Times reporter who the NPR piece referred to? Why did a "co-anchor" go out there? Isn't the point of working hard for 10 or 15 years to earn an anchor spot that you won't have to go to places where people are shooting at you or blowing up bombs? I'm fairly certain that if a cooresponding military officer (say a senior major or lieutenant colonel) had been out hot-rodding around with the troops and got wounded he might have been reprimanded for not being at his office/headquarters where he was supposed to be. Despite a "lead from the front" mindset of military officers.

The ABC article has some interesting facts on battlefield and brain injuries. The NPR one I heard in the shower this morning started me thinking about this. For the most part reporters are ametures, they're not trained for combat as the troops fighting are and they're not "smart" like most of the non-combatants (who are usually trying to hide, seek cover or get the fsck out of the way), they're the stupid ones since they're sticking their heads out of armored vehicles trying to "get the shot" or see what's going on or other things. Maybe combat reporters should have to go through basic training (and not this lame ass crap that they have to do when they get "embedded", full on combat training like the troops do).

"But they don't fight" you say. Well medics don't fight either and they have to go through basic just like the infantrymen.

[reads articles]

Ah, he's a "well known American journalist", that's why it's news. And yet I didn't know who he was. It still strikes me as "so what, why's he special?". It seems to me the Lay/Skilling trial and the Palestinian election results are more news than this.

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