08.18.07

Ron Paul has 2%!

Posted in General at 2:46 pm by Clay

C-Span rebroadcast a recent Republican presidential debate that appeared on ABC, and I was struck by the fact that the moderator started off with the current Iowa polling numbers of the candidates on the stage, as well as Fred Thompson.

This bugs me. I’m not sure how reasonable it is for me to be bugged by it, but I just have this image of a debate being something where one candidate does better than another based on his performance on the stage, or because of how people view the issues, rather than forming an opinion on the candidates because of the current polling data.

On the other hand, it’s a bit pie in the sky of me to even bother pretending that most of these candidates have even a tiny shot at the nomination.

Still, aren’t the producers of this dog and pony show pretending in exactly the same way when they have all the minor candidates on the stage? And if they’re going to pretend that the “non-serious” candidates are serious, why doesn’t that extend to ignoring things like polling?

Fox News — the epitomy of creativity

Posted in Copyright/Trademark/Patent Law at 8:52 am by Clay

In an SFGate article, linked to from Darknet:

Fox News has no plans to offer unlimited use of its debate content.

“That, to me, is giving up too much control to somebody who didn’t create the content and who can then turn around and monetize it,” said Chris Silvestri, vice president of legal and business affairs at Fox News.

Because, of course, it’s rather difficult to assemble ten politicians who already intend to pay large sums of money for media exposure.

Way to go, Fox; way to push the envelope on creativity, going where no one without a network and video equipment can go, but everyone with a network has gone.

I hope(unrealistically) that some politician will boycott the Fox News debate because of Fox’s morally repugnant stance on copyright of debates, so that I could have a clear candidate to whom I would gladly give my vote and money to.