Inauguration of Barack Obama

[Valynth]

Zinacat for President 2012.   

I'd vote for her

So would I.  And probably for the same reasons you guys would.

[superluser]

I just have to say... HE'S NOT REALLY PRESIDENT OMGWTFBBQZ!

On behalf of the United Kingdom, I was wondering if we could maybe borrow him for a bit?  We desperately need someone with a bit of a clue over here as well.  We'll give him back afterwards, promise...

Sorry, but Obama's British citizenship ended in 1963.

I know someone who was in France before the election (for some time, too) that told me that almost no-one in France thought Obama would win. They thought it was great he was a party's nominee, but that there was no way America would elect a black man. They hoped, but they thought that it was simply impossible that the ignorant Americans would actually press the "Obama" button. (Obviously this is second-hand anecdotal evidence and it's impossible to truthfully say NO ONE thought he'd win, but the impression I got was that this was the general consensus.)

Yup.  Dear The UK and France, you're the two other countries that have significant minority populations.  We're waiting.  (South Africa gets a bye because they had minority presidents until 1993)

It just so happens that neither party put up a black candidate until now.  If anything caused the delay, it was the party leaders' fears of losing rather than the nation's supposed racial intolerance.

Ahem. (Yes, I know Jesse Jackson is a joke.  Still.)

[Gareeku]

Yup.  Dear The UK and France, you're the two other countries that have significant minority populations.  We're waiting.  (South Africa gets a bye because they had minority presidents until 1993)

Call me a cynic, but there won't be a black prime minister for a while yet. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I just don't think there will be.

It's fantastic that the US now has a black president, but I was somewhat afraid people would start to get on their moral high horses about this.

[Valynth]

Yup.  Dear The UK and France, you're the two other countries that have significant minority populations.  We're waiting.  (South Africa gets a bye because they had minority presidents until 1993)

Call me a cynic, but there won't be a black prime minister for a while yet. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I just don't think there will be.

It's fantastic that the US now has a black president, but I was somewhat afraid people would start to get on their moral high horses about this.

It's America.  When have we ever been OFF our moral high horse?

[superluser]

It's fantastic that the US now has a black president, but I was somewhat afraid people would start to get on their moral high horses about this.

Honestly, I couldn't care less what race he is, but the foreign press wouldn't shut up about it.  And that's fine, but if you're going to do ``Wow, America's so backwards they've never even had a black president'' stories, maybe you should make sure that that's actually an exception and not the rule.

[Kasarn]

Yup.  Dear The UK and France, you're the two other countries that have significant minority populations.  We're waiting.  (South Africa gets a bye because they had minority presidents until 1993)

What are the UK's significant minorities? Scottish, Irish and Welsh? Homosexuals?

[superluser]

What are the UK's significant minorities? Scottish, Irish and Welsh? Homosexuals?

African and Asian subcontinent, mainly.  Compared to countries like Italy, which are almost entirely European, the UK has a significant non-European population.

I suppose I should add the Netherlands to the list, as well.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

There's a significant number of New Zealanders in London - half a million or so, I think. Out of 12 million, that's not a huge number, but if you throw in Australians over here on their big OE as well, we start adding up...

And whilst we British tend to outnumber we Australians, and seriously outnumber we New Zealanders, there's still enough of us around to make things somewhat interesting.


(Don't you hate it when you're in multiple opposing groups at the same time?)

[Kasarn]

Copy/paste from the CIA World Factbook:
United Kingdom
white (of which English 83.6%, Scottish 8.6%, Welsh 4.9%, Northern Irish 2.9%) 92.1%, black 2%, Indian 1.8%, Pakistani 1.3%, mixed 1.2%, other 1.6% (2001 census)

United States of America
white 79.96%, black 12.85%, Asian 4.43%, Amerindian and Alaska native 0.97%, native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.18%, two or more races 1.61% (July 2007 estimate)
note: a separate listing for Hispanic is not included because the US Census Bureau considers Hispanic to mean a person of Latin American descent (including persons of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin) living in the US who may be of any race or ethnic group (white, black, Asian, etc.); about 15.1% of the total US population is Hispanic

[Noone]

I just have to say... HE'S NOT REALLY PRESIDENT OMGWTFBBQZ!

Lol, wow.
I have to say, this image sums up FoX news quite nicely:

[Alondro]

You could also quite accurately say that about CNN.

Show me a news network that doesn't have an agenda.

I wish journalism would go back to reporting the world events instead of manufacturing them.  There is so much politically-motivated spin it's giving me motion sickness.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

I wish journalism would go back to reporting the world events instead of manufacturing them.  There is so much politically-motivated spin it's giving me motion sickness.

I don't believe this ever happened. As long as information contains power within it, there are advantages  to influencing people with less information, more advantages than informing them. Demagoguery has existed far longer than newspapers.

[Noone]

You could also quite accurately say that about CNN.

Show me a news network that doesn't have an agenda.

No other news station even comes close to approaching the magnitude of bias that FoX has. I never claimed that other news networks don't have their own agendas, of course they do. However, I can accurately say that FoX news is a putrescent festering mass reeking out globules of propaganda out of every pore of it's existence. Fact based reporting is a wonderful thing... though it's something that FoX news seems to avoid almost entirely, evident by their continued production of clips like the one displayed above. If I recall, they also are the source of far more controversies as well.
I read a journalism report... I found some of their numbers interesting: http://stateofthemedia.com/2005/narrative_cabletv_contentanalysis.asp?cat=2&media=5
Some things which I picked out...

In the degree to which journalists are allowed to offer their own opinions, Fox stands out. Across the programs studied, nearly seven out of ten stories (68%) included personal opinions from Fox's reporters -- the highest of any outlet studied by far.

Just 4% of CNN segments included journalistic opinion, and 27% on MSNBC.

Fox journalists were even more prone to offer their own opinions in the channel's coverage of the war in Iraq. There 73% of the stories included such personal judgments. On CNN the figure was 2%, and on MSNBC, 29%.

The same was true in coverage of the Presidential election, where 82% of Fox stories included journalist opinions, compared to 7% on CNN and 27% on MSNBC.

Also some stats they pulled on covering the Iraq war

The study this year also tried to assess the tone of coverage.4 When it came to the war, Fox again looked different from the others by being distinctly more positive than negative. Fully 38% of Fox segments were overwhelmingly positive in tone, more than double the 14% of segments that were negative. Still, stories were as likely to be neutral as positive (39%) and another 9% were multi-subject stories for which tone did not apply.

On CNN, in contrast, 41% of stories were neutral in tone on the 20 days studied, and positive and negative stories were almost equally likely -- 20% positive, 23% negative. Some 15% were multi-faceted and not coded for tone.

MSNBC's stories about the war were most likely to include several issues or subjects, so that no one area could be coded for tone. Fully four in ten stories were of this nature. Otherwise, the network's coverage, like CNN's, was more neutral (28%) with positive and negative stories almost equally prevalent, (16% positive and 17% negative).

So yes, any station is 'full of it' to some extent, but to say they are equally so is faulty.

[Angel]

I just have to say... HE'S NOT REALLY PRESIDENT OMGWTFBBQZ!

Lol, wow.
I have to say, this image sums up FoX news quite nicely:

I would now like to quote from the gospel of John Oliver:

I once challenged myself, recently, to watch eight straight hours, uninterrupted, eight consecutive hours of Fox News. And, well...interesting, because I actually won that challenge against myself; yet, in winning it, I fear that I may have lost something deep down in my soul, that I am struggling to claw back. Because it is around the fourth straight hour of mainlining Fox News, that it hits you that you could grab any Fox journalist square by the shoulders, shake them backwards and forwards, scream into their face: "BE WORSE at your job!" And they'd be entitled to look straight back at you and say: "...How?"

As a side note, I saw a choir singing for Obama on the news today. As I walked away, I turned my iPod to the song I believe is truly appropriate for his presidency: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doHoE156RAo

[Sunblink]

I have nothing to contribute to the conversation other than the fact John Oliver is hilarious.

[superluser]

You could also quite accurately say that about CNN.

``One of CNN's anchors suggested that Barack Obama wasn't president because of a misplaced modifier in his oath, and that the matter may be headed to the courts.''

Actually, no, I can't say that accurately.

As a side note, I saw a choir singing for Obama on the news today.

Speaking of which, did anyone else feel that Air and Simple Gifts borrowed too heavily from Copland?  I realize that Copland himself borrowed that bit from an old Shaker song, but there's so much variation that you can do on that theme, and I feel like an opportunity was missed.

[Brunhidden]

lets elect robin williams after obama is done

[GabrielsThoughts]

presidential cameo....in japan

http://www.onemanga.com/Air_Gear/226/01/

http://www.onemanga.com/Air_Gear/226/16/

http://www.onemanga.com/Air_Gear/226/17/

http://www.onemanga.com/Air_Gear/226/18/

http://www.onemanga.com/Air_Gear/227/08/

he has a different name, but he looks very similar.