Balloon Boy Punks the Media

I love the balloon boy.  Well, not so much the balloon boy himself but his family.  Why you ask would I give dap to these people who wasted a few hours of my life Friday afternoon?  It’s simple, because they made the round the clock television news networks look like complete assholes.  They played these idiots like a fiddle, and in my mind they deserve a fair amount of thank you from all of us for that.  The days of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News adding any real value to news media is OVER.  Frankly, save a few decent interviews, I’ll throw CNBC in there as well, but hell, we all know they have their own issues that I won’t get into here.  It’s all just entertainment now, it has been for a while.  Why do I need to watch these people on the television, sitting through commercials and what not, when I can get my news online.  Going a step further, I don’t even have to go to the New York Times web site anymore, I get my news streaming to me on Twitter the second it hits the wires.  I spent an hour or so the other night searching through my stream for an excellent article I read on the death of the print media and 24 hour news industries, I believe it was posted by @howardlindzon, but I can’t find it.  Everyone needs to read this article, if you know what I’m talking about please get it to me on Twitter.

On a similar topic, I was getting into the subway this morning and grabbed the AM New York from the dude who hands them out free.  For anyone who doesn’t live in NY, this 20 page or so paper is pretty much a recap of the Reuters newswire.  Frankly, AM New York is exactly what it needs to be, and they are obviously doing well handing out free newspapers with a little advertising.

Anyway, on page 8 this morning was an article about Afghanistan that led with, “President Barack Obama will not commit more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until he is convinced that the central government can be a credible and effective U.S. Partner, a senior White House aide said yesterday.”  If this is true, and the administration is being forthright about their feelings, they are on the right track.  Look, there isn’t going to be a credible government in Afghanistan until there is a credible central government in Pakistan, so don’t hold your breath.  The idea of a stable central government which has control over the entirety of Afghanistan is a pipe dream, not to mention that forming a government in any part of the world which is relatively uncorrupt takes decades.  So at least the White House gets it, the question is will they act on the facts, or will they gamble against the odds.

I walked into the elevator at the office and on the floor was the NY Times.  The front page read, “A variety of sources feed cash into the Taliban’s war chest.”  Sound familiar anyone?  Russians, 80′s, Saudis, Iranians, same players people, this time we are on the other end of the stinger missiles that money buys.

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