WALL-E: Cute robot or liberal propaganda? - ParentDish

"From the first moment of the film," wrote Shannen Coffin, former general counsel to Vice President Cheney, "my kids were bombarded with leftist propaganda about the evils of mankind."

So, Wall-E has been described as "a 90-minute lecture on the dangers of over consumption, big corporations, and the destruction of the environment." The cynic in me is wondering if the blogs I read, predominantly pretty liberal, pick up on that, and overstate how good the movie is because it speaks to some of the issues they believe in. That is, it's getting "good movie" points for "good message".

It's only natural to come away with a more positive perception of anything - a movie, a person, a work of art, whatever - if that thing supports views you already hold. I certainly don't mean to imply that the reviewers of Wall-E are being dishonest, even unconsciously. But it's something to think about. Especially if the conservative reviewers consistently have lower opinions of the movie. I guess I'd have to check out some of them to be sure.

A friend pointed out that I not only got a picture of the Pope, but the gentleman (And I use that term loosely) accompanying him is none other than our fearless leader, President Bush. Laura Bush is just a few steps behind.

You can see the large size here.

So that's pretty cool.

Tobias Buckell Online | Blews

I’m quite intrigued, as I’m always trying tools that will blunt any attempt by myself to surround myself and read only people who think exactly like I do. I think of all the outraged liberals in ‘04 who thought there was no possible way Bush could win because they didn’t know of anyone who was going to vote for him. Or conservative friends who still think Bush has been the greatest president evar!

I keep hearing about this Microsoft Blews thing, and, as Buckell says, this could be the coolest thing Microsoft has ever done. I'd add "since Windows 3.1" to his statement, but whatever.

I have mentioned before that I'd like a nice unbiased news source that leans in the direction of exactly none of the political parties. I've tried foreign publications, since they probably lean towards parties I've never heard of, and I figure that's better than ones I have heard of. But foreign news always seems to have this undercurrent of, "Oh, jeez, look what the Americans did now". Maybe that's just me - I do have a not-entirely-irrational fear that the entire world laughs at us all the time.

Anyway, the one thing that I don't see anywhere is whether it's a website or a desktop application. If this is going after Google Reader or some other web-based news aggregator (My Firefox dictionary doesn't have "aggregator"?), then I think it could be very successful.

However, if this is some desktop application (Windows only == fail), then I'm getting interested for nothing. Desktop applications are best suited for things that are too resource-intensive to be done in your browser. Consuming news articles through a desktop application is only a half-step above (shudder) reading a newspaper.