Our new favorite media star, Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, calls out the media on asking wrong, stupid questions at press conferences, from Radioblogger:

Male reporter: General Honore, we were told that Berman Stadium on the west bank would be another staging area...

Honore: Not to my knowledge. Again, the current place, I just told you one time, is the convention center. Once we complete the plan with the mayor, and is approved by the governor, then we'll start that in the next 12-24 hours. And we understand that there's a problem in getting communications out. That's where we need your help. But let's not confuse the questions with the answers. Buses at the convention center will move our citizens, for whom we have sworn that we will support and defend...and we'll move them on. Let's not get stuck on the last storm. You're asking last storm questions for people who are concerned about the future storm. Don't get stuck on stupid, reporters. We are moving forward. And don't confuse the people please. You are part of the public message. So help us get the message straight. And if you don't understand, maybe you'll confuse it to the people. That's why we like follow-up questions. But right now, it's the convention center, and move on.

Male reporter: General, a little bit more about why that's happening this time, though, and did not have that last time...

Honore: You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question. We are going to deal with Rita. This is public information that people are depending on the government to put out. This is the way we've got to do it. So please. I apologize to you, but let's talk about the future. Rita is happening. And right now, we need to get good, clean information out to the people that they can use. And we can have a conversation on the side about the past, in a couple of months.

Via the new Stuck on Stupid blog, from Michelle Malkin.

Maybe if more reporters were simply called on their stupid, ignorant, and/or biased questions, "Many" new stories would be better. But as someone who (only once or twice, admittedly) has been misquoted by reporters on the most mundane of facts, I'd say "many" reporters should find some other, less taxing craft to ply.

Chester leads off with a devestating expose of how Time magazine editorializes via word/phrase selection:

First, let's examine the overall tone of both sets of documents just through some of the descriptive phrases in each. In the TIME article, here are representative words, reflecting, and shaping, the overall tenor of the piece:

"elusive and inexhaustible enemy"
"success" is "elusive"
"inexhaustible enemy emboldened by the US presence"
"gradual . . . erosion" in public support
"millions of Iraqis will vote on a constitution that threatens to further split the country"
"beleaguered US mission in Iraq"
"unwinnable military fight"
"series of failures"
"hardened local fighters"
"politically compromised outcome"
"dangers, dilemmas, and frustrations that still haunt the US in Iraq"
"temporary tactical gains"
"doubts about whether anything resembling victory can still be achieved"
"powerless to do anything" about atrocities
"intelligence suggests insurgents are displaying their mettle"
"This enemy is not a rabble."
"fierce resistance"
"shaken US officer"
"troops . . . embittered"
"momentum lost"
"insurgents proving so resiliant"

Do you really even have to read the article to know what it says? When I was a child, my father told me that Life magazine was for people who don't like to read, and TIME for people who don't like to think. Seems an accurate characterization.

Meanwhile, Little Green Footballs takes the AP to task about the casually morphing Iraq into Vietnam in a photo caption:

An absolutely amazing example of naked, unrestrained bias, in a photograph from the Vietnam War dug up and republished today by with this jaw-dropping caption:

Two infantrymen sprint across the clearing in War Zone D where a U.S. battalion is trapped under automatic weapons fire from surrounding Viet Cong troops, 50 miles northeast of Saigon, Vietnam, in this June 18, 1967 black-and-white file photo. Bush administration officials bristle at the suggestion that the war in Iraq might look anything like the Vietnam war. Yet even as 2005’s anti-war protests recall memories of yesteryear’s demonstrations, President Bush’s own words eerily echo those of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967, a pivotal year in Vietnam. (AP Photo/Henri Huet, File)

“2005’s anti-war protests recall memories of yesteryear’s demonstrations?”

Funny, I remember a lot more than 30 people at “yesteryear’s demonstrations.”

(Hat tip: stuiec.)

UPDATE at 9/21/05 9:41:46 pm:

And this photo is accompanied by a mind-blowingly biased article: Bush’s Words on Iraq Echo LBJ in 1967.

They really do want us to lose in Iraq.

So, can somebody tell me why we should trust the major media's reporting? In Iraq, about Katrina, about Bush, about just about anything?

Wretchard at the Belmont Club makes a point about the lack of comprehension by the media of what's going on in Iraq:

The news coverage of Iraq frequently fails to convey the cumulative linkage of military events in that country. Operations are often reported in a disconnected fashion, as if some operations officer got up in the morning and asked 'what are we going to attack today?', and then troops rush out to do whatever just occurred to them. Worse, definite types of military operations on both sides, whether car bombing, cordon and search, precision strike, etc. are often described according to some political theme -- 'standing up for freedom', 'deepening quagmire', 'the body bags mount', 'reduced to high altitude bombing' -- and the reader gets no sense of the logic behind the events. Both the US Armed Forces and the enemy are led by experienced professionals schooled in the operational art; and if we can be sure of nothing else, we can be certain that their acts have a specific military intent which often does not correspond to the themes articulated by some talking heads. Whether one is on the Left or the Right, it should be abundantly clear that we are watching the battle for the Syrian border and for the control of the Euphrates and Tigris river lines. No matter whose side you're on, you should know what game you are in.

This article on Slate.com talks about the sloppy journalistic practice of using the word "many" to steer a story in the editorial direction the writer/editor/publisher prefers:

when a reporter pours a whole jug of weasel-words into a piece, as Louise Story does on Page One of today's (Sept. 20) New York Times in "Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood," she needlessly exposes one of the trade's best-kept secrets for all to see. She deserves a week in the stockades. And her editor deserves a month.
. . .
I suspect a Times editor glommed onto the idea while overhearing some *censored*tail party chatter—"Say, did you hear that Sam blew hundreds of thousands of dollars sending his daughter to Yale and now she and her friends say all they want in the future is to get married and stay at home?"—and passed the concept to the writer or her editors and asked them to develop it.

So that's the kind of craft you learn in journalism school? Sounds like fun, let's give it a try . . .

#6: Royals win two, avoid 100th loss again
#5: Firefox 1.07 is out
#4: Librarians gone wild?
#3: Global warming on Mars
#2: Sugar Bowl to Baton Rouge or Atlanta
#1: Rita now Category 4

Wisconsin librarians have put out a calendar. Sadly (or perhaps not), pictures are hard to come by on the Internet . . .

The five middle-aged library directors and a 32-year-old assistant each put up $200 and posed provocatively, using oversize books to cover what their clothes usually do.

Oh, those naughty, NAUGHTY librarians . . .

Latest from the National Hurricane Center:

...SATELLITE SUGGESTS THAT RITA HAS BECOME A CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE...

A TROPICAL STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR THE FLORIDA KEYS FROM THE MARQUESAS KEYS WESTWARD TO THE DRY TORTUGAS.

INTERESTS IN THE NORTHWESTERN GULF OF MEXICO SHOULD MONITOR THE PROGRESS OF RITA.
. . .
AT 8 AM EDT...1200Z...THE EYE OF HURRICANE RITA WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 24.4 NORTH...LONGITUDE 85.3 WEST OR ABOUT 195 MILES... WEST OF KEY WEST FLORIDA AND ABOUT 790 MILES EAST-SOUTHEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI TEXAS.

RITA IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST NEAR 14 MPH AND THIS GENERAL MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS. THIS MOTION SHOULD BRING THE CENTER OF RITA FARTHER AWAY FROM THE FLORIDA KEYS OVER THE SOUTHEASTERN GULF OF MEXICO TODAY.

SATELLITE IMAGERY SUGGESTS THAT RITA HAS CONTINUED TO STRENGHTEN AND MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS HAVE INCREASED TO NEAR 135 MPH WITH HIGHER GUSTS. RITA IS NOW A CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. A NOAA PLANE WILL CHECK THE INTENSITY LATER THIS MORNING. SOME ADDITIONAL STRENGTHENING IS POSSIBLE DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.

From the track, it looks like it might get wet here in Kansas City . . . the good news is that the current track stays well south of New Orleans.

NASA released their Exploration Systems Architecture yesterday. It's an amalgam of Shuttle-derived booster technology with spacecraft very like (but larger than) Apollo's Command and Lunar modules:

The centerpiece of this system is a new spacecraft designed to carry four astronauts to and from the moon, support up to six crewmembers on future missions to Mars, and deliver crew and supplies to the International Space Station.

The new crew vehicle will be shaped like an Apollo capsule, but it will be three times larger, allowing four astronauts to travel to the moon at a time.

The new spacecraft has solar panels to provide power, and both the capsule and the lunar lander use liquid methane in their engines. Why methane? NASA is thinking ahead, planning for a day when future astronauts can convert Martian atmospheric resources into methane fuel.

The new ship can be reused up to 10 times. After the craft parachutes to dry land (with a splashdown as a backup option), NASA can easily recover it, replace the heat shield and launch it again.

Coupled with the new lunar lander, the system sends twice as many astronauts to the surface as Apollo, and they can stay longer, with the initial missions lasting four to seven days. And while Apollo was limited to landings along the moon's equator, the new ship carries enough propellant to land anywhere on the moon's surface.

Once a lunar outpost is established, crews could remain on the lunar surface for up to six months. The spacecraft can also operate without a crew in lunar orbit, eliminating the need for one astronaut to stay behind while others explore the surface.

Image credit: NASA/John Frassanito and Associates.

Kansas City's 97.3 FM, an alternative adult contemporary ("AAA") radio station, has changed format to some schlock called "everything that rocks."

This just sucks. The carcass of the Planet's web site says they'll be playing:

U2, Tom Petty, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Jimi Hendrix, Aerosmith, Black Crowes, Green Day, Stone Temple Pilots, Bruce Springsteen, and Smashing Pumpkins. Additionally, Max will rock with Bon Jovi, AC/DC, Def Leppard, Metallica, ZZ Top, Van Halen, Foreigner, Motley Crue, Poison, Boston, Guns ‘N’ Roses, and many more!

Ooh, fantastic, Bon Jovi AND Def Leppard! I hated those guys when they were new! Come on, Union Broadcasting, we really don't need another fossilized hard rock station, do we?