Thursday, February 16, 2006

A Useful Illustration

According to press reports, Cheney was shooting #7½ birdshot. The illustration below shows various sizes of shot in relation to a penny:

16 comments:

Charlie Martin said...

Happy to help. You can see more at the Wikipedia article on "buckshot" --- whch is, by the way, the really big stuff on the bottom row.

MeaninglessHotAir said...

If you can't do the basic research to understand the mere outlines of your subject, how can I trust you to (a) explain it to me and (b) assign it appropriate news value?

And yet, somehow, we just keep right on buying their newspapers and watching their TV programs, don't we.

Unknown said...

It sounds like knuck and I have the same viewing habits. I spend more time watching A&E and the History Channel than I do the news.

Once again we see what happens when some vain pompous talking head starts yammering on about something he/she knows nothing about.

They are really bad at hands on stuff, like military matters or farming or hunting or search and rescue. They also suck at science most of the time...They are really in their element when they talk about corruption and sex scandals. After all, that is their area of expertise.

Specter said...

I proudly no longer read newspapers....I get my info online....lol

Charlie Martin said...

Oh, goddammit, Mark, I thought that Steve Martin thing was really pretty funny. Now, because we've banned yu, I've got to copy the link before I send your post screaming into the nether regions.

Unknown said...

I think it is a lot like college campuses. Peer pressure. Certain attitudes make it easier to get along.

But I know that when I was farming those of us who actually made a living in agriculture would talk about how difficult it was to take the press seriously. They just did not know what they were talking about.

Except for the Ag guys who worked for the magazines and periodicals that farmers read. But I am talking about the national news. TV created a lot of mediocre journalists.

buddy larsen said...

Sowell snip is very good. He could've mentioned that the previous administration is the modern gold-standard for secrecy. But, since it was so often involved in criminal activity, I guess it had a reason.

MeaninglessHotAir said...

What is of concern is that they don't think that it matters,that entire stories can be build on completely erroneous detail is outrageous.

What is of even greater concern is: how long has this been going on?

buddy larsen said...

Since Walter Cronkite's Tet Offensive.

MeaninglessHotAir said...

Peter,

That's the part that really gets my goat. Just who do these people think they are! Many of the people who think they are immune by virtue of their years of "neutrality" will be the first to have their necks sawed off.

loner said...

I've written at Roger's place that I'm the son of parents who were awarded journalism degrees. They spent a considerable amount of their little leisure time during my formative years in reading out loud to one another with amusement, contempt and even occaisionally rage the newspapers of the day. I knew quote and unquote before I knew that " meant one and then the other.

We were encouraged to read everything we could get our hands on and we were allowed to watch all the rotten television we cared to and we were encouraged to form our own opinions and if they led to a sustainable argument so much the better.

I could wish there were more talented editors about, but otherwise, the enormous quantity of available (mis-)information and the speed of its transmition is all that's different. Well, I sometimes wonder if we're all discontents (as opposed to society) now.

I'm here at your pleasure.

Patrick Tyson

loner said...

...poor spelling and all.

Unknown said...

Patrick:

I think we should be careful when we go after journalists to remember that many of them really are dedicated and intelligent people.

It is just too easy to paint them with the same brush. Blame it on TV.

buddy larsen said...

Don't anybody be in too big a hurry to check out Peter's link -- it's to a very short Powerline post concerning what has been happening to the families and soldiers who happen to've countered--or tried to--Cindy Sheehanism.

Specter said...

Check this out....pretty funny.

buddy larsen said...

Mr. Whittington did himself, his generation, and his state very proud with his humble words.