Newspaper Apologizes to Sheriff for Requesting Public Gun Records

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Monday February 25, 2013 · 8:36 PM PST

2013/02/25 · 20:36

A small town newspaper in North Carolina, the Cherokee Scout, submitted two public records requests to the local Sheriff's office for a list of local citizens with gun permits. The sheriff denied those requests, and a local PR nightmare for the paper ensued. What followed was a capitulation from the newspaper so thorough as to terrify.

The full text of the apology is below, but here's a taste: "Sheriff Keith Lovin had the best interests of the people of Cherokee County at heart when he denied our request."

MrFakeName

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Monday January 10, 2011 · 11:22 AM PST

2011/01/10 · 11:22

This is probably a bit silly and unnecessary to point out, and it may be a waste of a diary entry, but this made me a tad angry and I thought I'd share it.

This is Palin's reaction to the shooting:

My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Grabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today's tragic shooting in Arizona[source]

This is Palin's staff's reactions to associations between the shooting and Palin:

"We are all looking at our Twitter feeds and I am seeing people and it's really sad," Mansour said in the interview that is posted on Bruce's web site. "People actually accuse Gov. Palin of this. It's appalling. Appalling. I cannot even express how disgusting that is."[source]

There's just something weird about how much more upset they are about the latter.

Paul the Octopus and "both sides" journalism

MrFakeName

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Thursday July 08, 2010 · 11:21 AM PDT

2010/07/08 · 11:21

CNN has a fluff piece (surprised?) on Paul the Octopus and his surprisingly good soccer prediction streak. In it, they did a great job demonstrating all that's wrong with journalism today. Journalism these days amounts to finding or creating a controversy, finding at least one person on each side of the issue, and getting their opinion. If one opinion is so obvious that there is near-universal agreement on it, they may not even bother finding a representative of the obviously-correct side.

Paul the Octopus has predicted World Cup winners surprisingly well. According to CNN, this leads to the obvious question: is Paul the Octopus psychic? Now, you, I, or a reputable news outlet would assume no. CNN, though, went that extra mile. They found an animal psychic who was willing to say yes.

MrFakeName

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Tuesday November 04, 2008 · 8:01 PM PST

2008/11/04 · 20:01

It's over.

MrFakeName

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Friday August 29, 2008 · 9:00 AM PDT

2008/08/29 · 09:00

I was really upset by Governor Palin's selection this morning, and it took me a minute to figure out why. There are a few reasons, but the one that got under my skin was that this is a sexist choice.

MrFakeName

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Tuesday May 27, 2008 · 5:44 PM PDT

2008/05/27 · 17:44

My favorite poll aggregator is electoral-vote.com. Basically, it takes all the polls of all the states every few days, and calculates exactly who is winning the election. Up until a few days ago, it showed Hillary Clinton beating McCain, but Barack Obama losing to McCain. Possibly for that very reason, there was a little picture of its current status up on Hillaryis44.com

Well, today that picture's gone, and Obama's winning 266-248.

Here's the map: http://www.electoral-vote.com/...

MrFakeName

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Tuesday May 06, 2008 · 9:25 PM PDT

2008/05/06 · 21:25

Okay, so, I'm not a mathematician, and this is taking me a while to write, and by the time I'm done writing it, I'm going to be wrong, but nonetheless, by my math, Obama is about to win Indiana. And he can do it even if Lake County only gives him 55% support.

Math follows.

Update 1: I totally missed Union County having totally failed to release any results
at all yet. Obviously this will skew the math a little bit. Anyone know how many people live there?

Update 2: Union county has 9,000 residents, give or take. I'm fixing the math to assume they all vote for Clinton. Now I predict that Obama will need a total of 56% support in Lake County to win. Which I predict will happen.

Update 3: Going to bed. I think there are a couple flaws in my math. First, I assume that % results = % of population, not % of voting places. So I probably calculated wrongly about number of voters. Second, I assumed that all of the county would vote like had been reported so far, and Gary is apparently not that representative of the rest of the county (and is also almost all reported). So I could be terribly, terribly wrong. But I'm still calling Obama in a squeaker.

MrFakeName

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Friday February 08, 2008 · 1:44 PM PST

2008/02/08 · 13:44

Alright, here's my report on Obama's speech today at the Key Arena in Seattle.

I couldn't get in.

I showed up 15 minute before it started (rookie mistake). The arena fits 40,000 people comfortable in chairs. It couldn't even come close to fitting everybody who wanted in. They let people crowd into the arena until they couldn't fit anymore, then they stuffed some more in, then they stuffed some more in.

What I did see: An Edwards '08 sign with the letters "V.P." added in marker.

Lawrence Lessig on Obama: "A Request"

MrFakeName

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Tuesday February 05, 2008 · 10:54 AM PST

2008/02/05 · 10:54

Lawrence Lessig, the brilliant Stanford lawyer, famous for his work on IP issues, most notably for the Eldred v. Ashcroft suit, which attempted to overthrow the most recent retroactive copyright extension, has endorsed Barack Obama. There have been plenty of endorsements on both sides, but his reasons, copied here (Lessig also invented Creative Commons licenses), are elegant, strong, and beautiful.

It's well worth a read if you've got a few minutes and enjoy reading well-phrased, solid arguments.

Lessig's blog (w/ video):
http://lessig.org/...
Original transcript I cribbed from:
http://blog.printf.net/...

MrFakeName

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Thursday September 13, 2007 · 12:06 PM PDT

2007/09/13 · 12:06

Think fast. What does "The Hunt for Red November" mean to you? Is it:

A really awesome sequel?
The motto for the American Communist Party?
The secret plan to extend the war in Iraq for at least two more months?
The slogan on Fred Thompson's web site right now?

If you picked that last one, you're right.

MrFakeName

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Tuesday August 14, 2007 · 7:39 AM PDT

2007/08/14 · 07:39

So, I'm a die-hard Democrat, but (oh no, you think this can't be good!), but I have a Republican/libertarian friend who I send links back and forth with. He sends me stupid things about how Democrats don't use the word "terrorism" in their debates, and I send him exact dates and a link to the Colbert Report (thank you for that Word, Stephen!). It's all well and good, and usually I feel like I won the argument. This time, however, he sent me a link to the Club for Growth's 2007 rePORK card (despite the name, I'm pretty sure it's the first one, feel free to correct me). I was looking around for the right answer this time, and I couldn't find one. Honestly, this is a heckuva lot of pork, and the Democrats supported all of it down the line.

MrFakeName

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Monday July 09, 2007 · 10:02 PM PDT

2007/07/09 · 22:02

During several weeks of calls to possible clients of the woman dubbed the D.C. Madam, Brian Ross of ABC confirmed that some fairly important people had used her escort service.

"Their names won’t mean anything to our audience," Ross said in an interview. "They just weren’t newsworthy enough." Instead, he said, "what we really wanted to do is demonstrate the range of official Washington" involved with the escort service.

So, ABC, a US Senator was discovered to be on that list in about 15 minutes. We now have a problem.

Poll

92 votes Show Results

What happened here?

92 votes Vote Now!

What happened here?

1. Didn't get that part of the list

6 votes

2. Didn't do the research

20 votes

3a. Somebody ordered him to lie

56 votes

3b. He lied on his own

7 votes

4. Something else happened

3 votes

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Newspaper Apologizes to Sheriff for Requesting Public Gun Records

Palin's two reactions

Paul the Octopus and "both sides" journalism

CNN CALLS IT

This is sexism, not feminism

electoral-vote.com shows Obama beats McCain

Obama is about to win Indiana

Report on Obama rally in Seattle

Lawrence Lessig on Obama: "A Request"

"The Hunt for Red November"

Leftist Pork

ABC, we have to talk.