Colbert at the White House Correspondants dinner

Stephen Colbert at White House

Stephen Colbert roasted the president and his staff last week at the White House Correspondant’s Dinner.
Here’s what one blogger wrote about it:

Bush glowered. Laura looked confused. Scott McClellan was like a dead deer caught in the headlights. Many of the journalists, celebs, ranking generals and other ‘notables’ at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner laughed openly, albeit uncomfortably, as Stephen Colbert of “The Colbert Report” just made himself about 500 times more of a national treasure and cemented himself as one of the most fearless satirists of this generation (instantly outpacing Jon Stewart, who, you get the feeling, wouldn’t have had the nerve to go as far as Colbert did) by way of a savage and hilarious roast/takedown of President Bush, who was seated not eight feet away.

It’s hillarious. If you haven’t seen it or hear it, do so.

Watch on Google Video

National Day of Prayer


So today is the National Day of Prayer.
They held an event at the courthouse in Waxahachie today and several local pastors and a few county employees gave prayers for various groups of people.
The media is normally one of the specific groups that are recommended to be prayed for, but we only got a line or so today.
It was interesting, “We pray for the media. They are the spokesperson’s of our day. I pray that they communicate the truth and not criticism and debate.”
Now don’t get me wrong, as a member of the media I appreciate any prayers we can get. But I’ve always thought the role of the media is to be critical. That doesn’t mean hateful. That doesn’t mean slanderous. But I feel we should be critical. What do you think? Should the media just stand by and only report what we’re told? Or should we be leary of everything and examine everything and look for every side of every story to reveal the truth?
Shouldn’t a healthy media spur and encourage debate?
If there was no debate, that would mean the media is simply feeding one side of a story and everyone is accepting it.
Or is that just me?

Spyware removal


Atariboy and Geeklimit.com have some good tips on removing Spyware and other mal-ware.

As an iT Geek, I quite often get asked to look at peoples machines outside work. The majority of the faults are related to spyware or virus activity making the PC slow, flaky or just unusable.
As each machine has a different configuration, a different set of software (usually) and often a different connection method to the internet, I have come to rely on ridding the PCs of some of the viruses and spyware by hand.
“Why?” I hear you cry. “When there all all those great, free utilities such as Ad-Aware and AVG?”.

Paper uses money to train future journalists

From NPR’s All Things Considered:

At many newspapers, the top priority is how best to prop up revenues. But the family that owns The Anniston Star in Alabama is quietly planning to devote the paper’s profits to training new generations of reporters.
The Star is a small daily that packs an outsized punch, situated in a town west of Atlanta. The paper has a circulation of just 27,000. But under the leadership of publisher Harry Brandt Ayers, it fights above its weight class. It campaigned for racial desegregation at a time when much of Alabama was brawling to keep it out, and it has uncovered pollution and government corruption. The newspaper has maintained a staff that is twice as large as what industry consultants recommend.

“It is the duty of a newspaper to become the attorney for the most defenseless among its subscribers.” ‘Anniston Star’ philosophy, Col Harry M. Ayers