You are allowed to question.

Who agrees? …

… that challenging and questioning should be an encouraged part of your freedom of speech?

… that if permission to challenge and question were taken away, we’d be living under a tyranny?

… that we should be allowed to examine what our government does in case they are doing really stupid things?

… that we should be able to ask questions and make arguments based on the information we acquire, whether they be facts, supposed facts, opinions, or speculations, if they are acknowledged as such?

… that people should base their opinions on knowledge and reason rather than on what Family Guy said in that one episode where Lois becomes a news anchor?

… that most if not all news organizations are generally run by left-wing voters?

… that it is neither probable nor plausible that a dominantly left-wing media would have no agenda whatsoever?

… that it’s kind of unfair to victimize the one right-wing news station because they share unflattering stories about the current government?

… that insinuations, arguments, suggestions, allegations, implications, and so on are not lies?

… that if a news organization does lie, they should be penalized but not silenced?

… that the media criticizing an administration is nothing new?

… that we should have the freedom to listen to both sides of any political debate and decide for ourselves what seems logical?

… that it speaks to the character of a government who condemns a news source that frequently reports negative stories about them?

… that a government acting so hostile towards its critics should be a bright, flashing red warning sign?

… that politicians telling people not to lie is pretty much the definition of irony?

If not, please calmly explain why. I will listen.

Epic Showdown: Sean Hannity and Michael Moore

Tonight, I watched the interview between Sean Hannity and Michael Moore, several times, then spent the next three hours writing about it.

After shedding a single tear, I deleted it all.

The whole entry was taking bits and pieces about what each guy said and specifying what was stupid about it. Eventually, it was about who ‘won’ the debate. And isn’t that what debates always end up being about? Most of the YouTube comments that you will see are mostly either “OMGz eye luvz teh hanidy!!!11″ or “U TELL EM’ MIKE rofl lmao bbq.” Though there are some coherent thoughts mixed in between.

It slipped my mind that I wanted to use this blog to expose truth, engage questioning, and disregard competition. I wasn’t really doing any of those things with the original entry. I even had an ultra-cheesy UFC-like introduction all written out. I’m sorry to deprive you all of such classic comedic gold.

So, since this still is a debate between two reasonably intelligent people who stand for two completely different things, my advice would be to watch the interview and note the following things:

1. Moore’s and Hannity’s constant interruptions of each other. It accomplishes nothing, annoys the viewer, and impedes my ability to really listen to them and write a blog entry that isn’t worthless.

2. Michael Moore’s peculiar inability to admit that he is wealthy and flies in jets sometimes. Could that be because he does not want to associate himself with the “greedy” wealthy Americans? Wouldn’t he rather show us that one doesn’t have to be greedy to become wealthy, and that prosperity can be achieved in good, honest ways? Maybe he didn’t want to hurt his cause.

3. Their argument about human rights. Where do you define the lines? By fighting terrorists we are protecting our human right to life, but by actually trying to kill terrorists, are we actually disrespecting human life? Should we just be like Batman and scare them away without actually killing them? Just throw them into a body of still water and assume it’s all taken care of? Maybe we should change our military uniforms to bat suits. I mean it worked for Batman, except when the villains kept coming back to try and kill him. I guess we now know where I stand on that matter.

4. Fillers. Look for the fillers and delays. Things like “Are you kidding me,” “I’m getting to that in a minute,” “Oh, come on really?” and nervous laughter. These are all ways to make yourself look like you’re on the ball, but really you don’t have a response yet and need a few extra seconds to think of something intelligent to say.

5. The cheap shots! They’re unbelievable in this video. Both of these guys hit below the belt and their reactions are classic. My personal favorite was when Michael asked Sean how many candles he lights every night to Ronald Reagan. Burn! Haha.

6. Capitalism wasn’t discussed all that much, and that was disappointing because I was so ready to lay down some seriously cold, raw, delicious facts on that. Oh well, that can be tomorrow’s entry. Huzzah!

So yes, watch the interview and share your thoughts. Sorry there weren’t any cold, raw, delicious facts tonight, but I spent the whole night wasting my time on an entry you’ll never see and ended up writing this sub-par one. Enjoy!

Part 1: Jesus and Pals!

Part 2: Guys on Monkey Bars. Plus more Jesus.

Part 3: Who Dunnit? The Mystery of the Mortgage Crisis. Part A

Part 4: Who Dunnit? The Mystery of the Mortgage Crisis. Part B

Somewhere over the rainbow, there are unbiased news sources.

Do any unbiased news sources even exist? And if they do, how can you even gauge their level of bias? What if they are really being unbiased but we can’t tell because we’re so busy thinking they are biased?

*head explodes*

Dammit. Not again.

The process of figuring out whether or not a source is biased is probably pretty exhausting. You’d have to pick a story, retrace the steps taken to write that story, dig up all of the resources, find out if any key information was omitted or exaggerated, and then take about 600 sleeping pills because the whole process is tiresome and unbearable. And you shouldn’t even have to be doing it in the first place.

I think I’d rather just gather information from several biased or maybe-biased sources, reflect on the information I received, and then come to an honest, sensible conclusion in light of all of the details. The trick here is to keep my head from exploding anymore, which as you may have noticed is a bit of a problem for me. The point is, what you find out from one source may very well not be the end of that story. There could be some key facts left out of one medium that another respectfully provides.

How many times have we heard “Big Oil” mentioned in news reports, cheesy puns and all? “Big Oil Strikes Again.” “Faith in Big Oil Tanks.” “Big Oil on a Slippery Slope.”

From these sources, you are given reasons to hate oil companies. A whole lot. I’m talking Scar vs. Mufasa type of hate. And why wouldn’t you hate them? Remember the horrid unpleasantness that was the summer of 2008? Exxon made $45.2 billion that year, setting the company record in profits. Chevron also broke their record with $23.9 million. Ugh. How irritating is it to see how much money those people made while we were weeping at the fuel stations? While we could barely afford gas, they were using dollar bills as napkins! Right? Remember how outraged everyone was? That was when you saw the headlines: Big Oil this, Big Oil that. Be angry at Big Oil now. Big Oil Bad.

This is where the omitted information would have made more sense of everything and would have made Big Oil look a little bit less like Beelzebub himself. In reality, Exxon and Chevron each had a profit margin of only about nine percent that year. Let’s compare that with other companies who aren’t so often targeted by the media: Microsoft (29%), Apple (15%), Google (19%), Johnson & Johnson (20%), Coca-Cola (18%), eBay (21%), McDonald’s (19%) and several other companies who have been counting their dollars while making money off of us contently for quite a number of years. But they aren’t evil, because from them we get really neat stuff. I have like eight Microsoft products in my room right now and a Coke can on my night stand. Living the dream.

Back to the point. Were you aware that the mutual funds, 401(k)s, and pension funds account for around 52% of Exxon’s shares? The profits of that company go directly towards average working Americans who decided to make an investment to better their lives. The rest is owned by 2 million different people who invested their money into a company that was expected to succeed, and did. How… dare they?

So yes, Big Oil profits aren’t exactly as astronomical as the media leads us to believe, and they have not been trying to take advantage over the inelastic demand for fuel. Compared to other proud corporations in this nation, they are doing… eh, decently… ranked 56th in the country for profits. That’s grounds for polite applause (*clap clap clap*).

Another reason to not despise Big Oil, other than the fact that they produce the very substance that helps us go to and fro every day, is the amount they paid back to us… Or, you know, our government. Being that their revenue is so high, they have super high taxes. In three years they paid the government $94.2 billion in income taxes alone. Taxes are intended to be for the people, so yeah. Exxon gave $94.2 billion back to us between 2006 and 2008. Those dirty greedy oil tycoons!

By the way, the reason our gas prices went so high up? Demand for oil increased worldwide. We have a limited amount of oil. As demand increased and supply decreased… so did the prices. Economicz rulez. It’s back down now (yay) because of our craptacular world economy (boo).

So why was it that I was picturing a completely different scenario in my head before I received all of this other information? One moment I was fantasizing about breaking the kneecaps of rich people, and the next I was patting Big Oil on the back saying “Nice work boys.” The answer to that is the topic of this entry: media bias. Good. Grief.

If something in a news story sounds appalling, disgusting, and just plain wrong, there’s a decent chance there is a piece of the puzzle that was “accidentally” lost. That’s why it’s so important to always question, and look for the cold, raw facts before we jump to any major conclusions that mislead us into becoming ill-informed people.

Check up on my cold, raw, delicious facts:

Exxon and Chevron profits – LA Times – Exxon Mobil shatters US record for annual profit

Corporation profits Finance.Yahoo.com – see esp. Microsoft, Apple, Google, Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, & eBay

Exxon’s income tax 2006 to 2008 – Townhall.com – Robert Murphy: On Those Oil Profits

52% of Exxon’s shares … – New York Times – Exxon Mobile Needs a Hug (written by Ben Stine. Remember that guy ?! You know, the one with the dirty beach ball?)