Ukraine: Witness the rise of a new Russian Empire, live!

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**sebster**

Ironclad Warlord wrote:
The Ukraine is'nt a nation, it never was, it was created by the Lenin as a administrative district of the Soviet Union.

Ah, that explains why it was called "The United Nations and also Ukraine, who we're treating as a nation but totally isn't one because some guy on Dakka Dakka said so."

I have been wondering that for so long, and I thank you for finally answering the question for me.

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Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
You shouldn't disregard information or a story simply because the source is known to be biased. Rather, you should look to secondary sources and see if they confirm the original story.

Yeah, people should go and look for other articles on the story, to either confirm it or look for ways in which the story inaccurate.

But the thing is that I've done that, a lot. And it's pretty never gotten me anywhere with the other side, they'll either ignore the other articles or make up some new nonsense, often just posting a new junk story from the same site. I think this is because once someone has decided on a certain side and is happy just to find whatever crap supports their POV, then nothing that disproves that POV is going to make any difference... they've decided already, their mind is made up, if it wasn't they wouldn't be happy to just accept junk from junk news services.

At some point it just makes no sense to keep doing work to disprove the argument of someone who just doesn't care if his political opinion actually fits with reality. At some point you just have to accept that saying 'you're using a junk news service that's actually not much more than the press agency of the Russian government' is enough, because any more work than that is pissing in the wind.

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Iron_Captain wrote:
So, does that mean that impartial news agencies are more than just a myth?

While it is true that complete impartiality is never going to happen, it's a complete nonsense to then conclude that all media is equal. There is a basic difference between factual reporting that still has a point of view but looks to be as objective as possible, and distorted lying bs that intends only to deceive people in to buying in to a pre-determined line. The BBC would be an example of the former, while RT would be an example of the latter.

Like it or not, but Pravda does represent a very popular opinion in Russia.

And the Daily Mail is the most popular paper in the UK. But it's also complete crap that only makes its readers dumber.

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loki old fart wrote:
Yeah it's not like the BBC lies or covers up things, I mean they didn't cover up for jimmy saville did they . Oh wait.....

If they did that in order to promote the agenda of the government then you'd have a point. As that had nothing to do with serving the interests of the government of the day, it's nothing to do with nothing.

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AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Because the BBC doesn't have a history of being a propaganda mouthpiece for the British government?

Picking out some instances of poor behaviour at the BBC and using that to equate the service with RT is pretending "not perfect" is the same as "gak".

**Seaward**

I just enjoy watching part of the crowd that will devolve into gibbering, gak-flinging monkeys the second a Fox News article is posted defend RT. It's like a hypocrisy balm for the soul.

**sebster**

Iron_Captain wrote:
But really, both stations are used for propaganda. All media is used for propaganda, and state media even more so than others. Why would the British government have its own media station if not for propaganda? Sure, they will appear critical at times in order to maintain an air of impartiality and remain believable, but in the end they still broadcast the views of the British government.

I'm fascinated at this idea that government would allow the media to tell negative stories about its government, just so that down the line when the national carrier told a story on foreign policy people would believe it. That's... well it is certainly imaginative.

Seaward wrote:
I just enjoy watching part of the crowd that will devolve into gibbering, gak-flinging monkeys the second a Fox News article is posted defend RT. It's like a hypocrisy balm for the soul.

Is it okay if I have contempt for FOX and RT? And CNN, actually. Although in each case it's a little different - RT is saying what government wants said, FOX is pandering to the US far right, and CNN is filled with idiots who are extremely bad at their jobs.

**Seaward**

sebster wrote:
Is it okay if I have contempt for FOX and RT? And CNN, actually. Although in each case it's a little different - RT is saying what government wants said, FOX is pandering to the US far right, and CNN is filled with idiots who are extremely bad at their jobs.

No. You have to pick a side. Nobody gets to be Switzerland.

**WarOne**

sebster wrote:

Seaward wrote:
I just enjoy watching part of the crowd that will devolve into gibbering, gak-flinging monkeys the second a Fox News article is posted defend RT. It's like a hypocrisy balm for the soul.

Is it okay if I have contempt for FOX and RT? And CNN, actually. Although in each case it's a little different - RT is saying what government wants said, FOX is pandering to the US far right, and CNN is filled with idiots who are extremely bad at their jobs.

For gak and giggles-

http://freakonomics.com/2012/02/16/how-biased-is-your-media/

SQs Explained

In my book, Left Turn, I compute Slant Quotients, or “SQs” for several media outlets.

An SQ of “0″ means that the outlet sounds approximately as conservative as a speech by Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) or Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). An SQ of “100″ means that the outlet sounds approximately as liberal as a speech by Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) or Barney Frank (D-Mass.)

If the outlet is perfectly centrist, then it has an SQ is 50.4, which, according to my estimates, is the Political Quotient, or PQ, of the average U.S. voter. (Click here to learn more about PQs and, if you desire, to compute your own PQ.)

For more details about how I estimate SQs, click here.

Here I list the Slant Quotients, or SQs, of several media outlets, as well as the SQs of several local newspapers. To compute these SQs, I use the results of a research project by Gentzkow and Shapiro. The latter researchers use “loaded political phrases” to compute the slants of newspapers. (See Chapter 15 of my book, Left Turn, for a summary of their method.) I translate their slant estimates into SQs.

(Specifically, here’s how I translate their slant estimates into SQs. Gentzkow and Shapiro’s estimates answer the following thought experiment: Given the distribution of loaded political phrases that a media outlet reports, if that outlet were a member of Congress, what is the most likely conservativeness of his district — where “conservativeness” means the district’s two-party vote percentage for George W. Bush in 2004? Through a regression analysis, I translate this measure into a Slant Quotient. That is, I alter the thought experiment to ask, “What is the most likely Political Quotient, or PQ, of that would-be member of Congress?”. I define that PQ as the SQ of the outlet.)

Meanwhile, in the upper part of the site (where I report SQs), I list the SQs of several national media outlets. I base these SQs on the method that Professor Jeff Milyo and I developed for our article published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. (Here is a link to the article. I summarize the article, as well as respond to some critiques of the article, in Chapter 13 of Left Turn.) That method uses as its basic data the think tanks that media outlets cited.

In Left Turn I use the above method, plus two other methods to compute SQs. One of the latter two methods is the loaded-phrase method, developed by Gentzkow and Shapiro. The final method notes facts about the Bush tax cuts, and it records whether the news outlet did or did not report the facts.

In general, the media outlets that I examine appear less liberal when judged by the think-tank method than when judged by the other two methods. For instance, as I discuss on pages 175-77 of Left Turn, if you believe that the loaded-phrase method is the most proper of the three methods, then the true SQs of the media outlets are approximately two points higher (i.e. more liberal) than the SQs I report. If you believe that the fact-based method (i.e. the one that examines facts about the Bush tax cuts) is the most proper method, then, as I discuss on pages 185-6 and 197 of Left Turn, the true SQs of the media outlets are approximately 16 points higher than I report.

If you believe that the three methods are equally valid (or equally invalid), then the most accurate SQs are represented by an average of the three methods. This means that the true SQs are approximately six points ( = (2+16)/3 ) higher than I report.

The good folks at Andrew Breitbart’s “Big” web sites (BigGovernment.com, BigJournalism.com, etc.) have asked me to expand my list of SQs—that is, to compute SQs for more news outlets than I computed during the research for my book. Unfortunately, this is a very arduous task, and I do not have the time and resources to do this for more than a few outlets.

Instead, I have created subjective estimates for several additional outlets. The latter estimates follow the basic thought experiment that I adopt when computing the objective, statistical estimates. That is, I note the content of the particular outlet. Next I ask: What if that content were instead a speech by a member of Congress? What is my best guess of the PQ of the would-be member of Congress?

For each subjective estimate, I list the SQ in italics. (Thus, all non-italicized SQs were computed by one of my objective, statistical methods.) Below I give details about how I derive some of the subjective estimates.

When it comes to politics and media, the left argues that the right is more biased than the left while the right argues that the left is more biased than the right. Who’s right?

That’s what we try to answer in our latest podcast, “How Biased Is Your Media?” (You can download/subscribe at iTunes, get the RSS feed, listen live via the media player above, or read the transcript below.) In a way, this episode is a follow-up to a podcast we put out a few months ago called “The Truth Is Out There, Isn’t It?,” which examined how we choose to believe what we believe about a variety of important issues. In this episode, we apply that same idea in a small-bore fashion, going after media bias.

You’ll hear from a variety of media practitioners and academic scholars who’ve been brave (foolhardy?) enough to wade into the media-bias debate. Among the practitioners: Glenn Beck (who’s been on Freakonomics Radio before), Ann Coulter, Juan Williams, and Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor at The New York Times.

Everyone of course has his opinion about media bias, but we were trying to get beyond opinion. As Steve Levitt points out, this is no simple matter:

LEVITT: Measuring media bias is a really difficult endeavor because unlike what economists usually study, which are numbers and quantities, media bias is all expressed in words.

So we look at some of the recent empirical work on media bias, in which research scholars use words as data to better understand whether a) media bias exists; b) if so, to what degree, and in what directions; and c) what purpose/s it serves. In a 2004 paper, Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo took a stab at media bias; that paper became the launching point of Groseclose’s book Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind. You’ll hear from Gloseclose about his methodologies and findings, and you can read an earlier Q&A with him here. Here’s how Levitt has described the Groseclose-Milyo analysis:

LEVITT: Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo estimate how left-wing or right-wing media outlets are based on what research by think tanks they mention in their stories. They then compare that to the think-tank research that elected officials cite when they talk on the House or Senate floor, to calibrate where the media fits relative to the Congress. They find some interesting answers: most of the media does have a liberal bias (throwing out the editorial page, the Wall Street Journal is the most liberal of all, even beating the New York Times!). Fox News is one of the few outlets that is right of center.

Here’s how 20 major media outlets rank on Groseclose and Milyo’s slant scale, with 100 representing the most liberal and zero the most conservative:

Washington Post
66.6

Washington Post=Antichrist?

**Iron_Captain**

sebster wrote:

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Iron_Captain wrote:
So, does that mean that impartial news agencies are more than just a myth?

While it is true that complete impartiality is never going to happen, it's a complete nonsense to then conclude that all media is equal. There is a basic difference between factual reporting that still has a point of view but looks to be as objective as possible, and distorted lying bs that intends only to deceive people in to buying in to a pre-determined line. The BBC would be an example of the former, while RT would be an example of the latter.

I don't find the BBC an example of the former. They most definitely do not look to be as objective as possible, and if they do, they fail at it. The BBC has a clear bias typical of all British media (that I know at least).
As to RT, at this point I will have to admit that I do not often read their articles that do not have to do with the Ukraine crisis, but so far, I haven't found them to be any less factual, though just as biased as the BBC. Could you please provide some proof of RT spewing this 'distorted lying bs' you are talking about? Since I generally tend to agree with RT's opinion on the Ukrainian crisis, the bias might be harder to detect for me than it is for you.

**Jihadin**

Seaward wrote:
I just enjoy watching part of the crowd that will devolve into gibbering, gak-flinging monkeys the second a Fox News article is posted defend RT. It's like a hypocrisy balm for the soul.

Seaward.....damn you

I was enjoying the change

**Shadow Captain Edithae**

sebster wrote:

Like it or not, but Pravda does represent a very popular opinion in Russia.

And the Daily Mail is the most popular paper in the UK. But it's also complete crap that only makes its readers dumber.

Its a lowbrow tabloid, no more or less trustworthy than The Sun, for instance.

Some of its columnists and foreign correspondents are very good though. Peter Hitchens for instance, has reported from inside North Korea, Somalia, Gaza and Palestine, Libya, Soviet era Russia and Moscow, and many many other places.

loki old fart wrote:
Yeah it's not like the BBC lies or covers up things, I mean they didn't cover up for jimmy saville did they . Oh wait.....

If they did that in order to promote the agenda of the government then you'd have a point. As that had nothing to do with serving the interests of the government of the day, it's nothing to do with nothing.

I think the point was that the BBC has been known to be untrustworthy at times, to the point of criminality.

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Iron_Captain wrote:
sebster wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Iron_Captain wrote:
So, does that mean that impartial news agencies are more than just a myth?

While it is true that complete impartiality is never going to happen, it's a complete nonsense to then conclude that all media is equal. There is a basic difference between factual reporting that still has a point of view but looks to be as objective as possible, and distorted lying bs that intends only to deceive people in to buying in to a pre-determined line. The BBC would be an example of the former, while RT would be an example of the latter.

I don't find the BBC an example of the former. They most definitely do not look to be as objective as possible, and if they do, they fail at it. The BBC has a clear bias typical of all British media (that I know at least).

The BBC frequently violates its own Charter, and is institutionally Left Wing. Its even been admitted by past Directors, but their excuse is always "Oh, we used to be Left Wing and biased but not any more. When I was in charge we were totally impartial". The BBC is not so much biased to any one party, as it is to one end of the political spectrum. It favours any party that espouses Left Wing ideology and policies. It favoured New Labour, then switched to the self confessed "Heir to Blair", David Cameron, whos adopted a Centre-Left / Centre position.

The BBC does not fear British government, rather its the opposite way round. Successive governments have been afraid of the BBC, and have often shied away from attempting reform for fear of the BBC turning on them (I'm in favour of crapping the license fee altogether - I don't want ANY tax payer funded state media).

To accuse the BBC of being a mouthpiece for the government is simply wrong. Governments dance to the BBC's tune. The BBC and everything it represents IS the establishment.

**Co'tor Shas**

sebster wrote:
Is it okay if I have contempt for FOX and RT? And CNN, actually. Although in each case it's a little different - RT is saying what government wants said, FOX is pandering to the US far right, and CNN is filled with idiots who are extremely bad at their jobs.

This deserved an exalt

.

**easysauce**

I wonder how long it will be before russia is the "bad guy" for turning off the gas...

how audacious of them, to expect payment for their natural gas!

They should be happy to sell it to the ukraine, at whatever price the ukraine wants to pay, even if the ukraine is over 4 billion in arrears at the discounted price.

as for news sources,

every single one is biased, and is a puppet for its resepective government, if you deny this, you are simply denying the reality of the 21st century "the epoch of mass surveillance and mass media"

the difference between RT and BBC, is that while both are propoganda machines, the russians KNOW RT is propaganda, while the west will look at the BBC as un adultered/whitwashed/sanitized fact.

**Shadow Captain Edithae**

Exalted. ^

**d-usa**

Russia can turn off the gas, and they would be in their right to do so. But I don't think that they will.

I would imagine that turning off the gas will just result in a "Berlin Airlift 2.0" and Europe and the US will get together and ship gas to Ukraine and forever earn their favor and international goodwill.

**Seaward**

easysauce wrote:
as for news sources,

every single one is biased, and is a puppet for its resepective government, if you deny this, you are simply denying the reality of the 21st century "the epoch of mass surveillance and mass media"

So both DailyKos and the Breitbart sites are government puppets?

**Shadow Captain Edithae**

Oh goody. Spraying more of our tax money at people who don't deserve it, won't appreciate it, won't pay it back and will simply come back demanding more...

**easysauce**

d-usa wrote:
Russia can turn off the gas, and they would be in their right to do so. But I don't think that they will.

I would imagine that turning off the gas will just result in a "Berlin Airlift 2.0" and Europe and the US will get together and ship gas to Ukraine and forever earn their favor and international goodwill.

how *exactly*, is the USA going to bottle up gas and ship it trans atlantic, at rates cheaper then what the ukraine wants from russia, who is right next door with an existing pipeline? also in the volume required for ukraine, let alone all of europe if it gets that bad?

I think russia will very much turn the taps off on the ukraine, so long as they fail to reach a deal at least, but that the ukraine will just siphon gas off (allegedly, for the 2nd time already too) while its en route to the rest of europe. This will lead to more... unpleasantness to say the least.

**loki old fart**

d-usa wrote:
Russia can turn off the gas, and they would be in their right to do so. But I don't think that they will.

I would imagine that turning off the gas will just result in a "Berlin Airlift 2.0" and Europe and the US will get together and ship gas to Ukraine and forever earn their favor and international goodwill.

USA might Europe wont, we get our gas from Russia via Ukraine

**Grey Templar**

Putin pretty much has everybody, except the US, by the nuts.

Remember everybody, winter is coming.

**Shadow Captain Edithae**

Grey Templar wrote:
Putin pretty much has everybody, except the US, by the nuts.

Remember everybody, winter is coming.

Have no fear, Nick Cleggs wind farms will save us.

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So... Putin is the Night's King. It all makes sense now...

**loki old fart**

Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:
Putin pretty much has everybody, except the US, by the nuts.

Remember everybody, winter is coming.

Have no fear, Nick Cleggs wind farms will save us.

Except they've just cut all the subsidies to wind and solar. So not many new wind farms going up.

**Jihadin**

Come Winter with Walkers at your door getting ready to invite themselves in and convert you to their cause dead or alive and the gas heater fires up because Putin open up the pipeline. He goes from King to Savior and then to Saint.

Saint trumps Nobel

**Shadow Captain Edithae**

Should have added an [/irony] tag there.

And even with subsidiaries, wind energy is horribly unreliable and inefficient, and needs to be backed up by fossil fuel stations.

Wind energy is a false economy except perhaps for individual households.

**Grey Templar**

Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Should have added an [/irony] tag there.

And even with subsidiaries, wind energy is horribly unreliable and inefficient, and needs to be backed up by fossil fuel stations.

Wind energy is a false economy except perhaps for individual households.

Indeed. There are only a few places on earth where you have consistent wind that can produce reliable power.

Solar and biofuels have much more promise(except Ethanol, which is grossly inefficient)

**d-usa**

Grey Templar wrote:
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Should have added an [/irony] tag there.

And even with subsidiaries, wind energy is horribly unreliable and inefficient, and needs to be backed up by fossil fuel stations.

Wind energy is a false economy except perhaps for individual households.

Indeed. There are only a few places on earth where you have consistent wind that can produce reliable power.

Washington DC?

**Shadow Captain Edithae**

Westminster, London.

**-Shrike-**

d-usa wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Should have added an [/irony] tag there.

And even with subsidiaries, wind energy is horribly unreliable and inefficient, and needs to be backed up by fossil fuel stations.

Wind energy is a false economy except perhaps for individual households.

Indeed. There are only a few places on earth where you have consistent wind that can produce reliable power.

Washington DC?

Westminster.

**Jihadin**

-Shrike- wrote:
d-usa wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Should have added an [/irony] tag there.

And even with subsidiaries, wind energy is horribly unreliable and inefficient, and needs to be backed up by fossil fuel stations.

Wind energy is a false economy except perhaps for individual households.

Indeed. There are only a few places on earth where you have consistent wind that can produce reliable power.

Washington DC?

Westminster.

That's a lot of Hot Air Balloons...

**loki old fart**

Grey Templar wrote:
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Should have added an [/irony] tag there.

And even with subsidiaries, wind energy is horribly unreliable and inefficient, and needs to be backed up by fossil fuel stations.

Wind energy is a false economy except perhaps for individual households.

Indeed. There are only a few places on earth where you have consistent wind that can produce reliable power.

Solar and biofuels have much more promise(except Ethanol, which is grossly inefficient)

Wind solar works well together.
hydro could be utilised more.
Bio diesel is overated, because if your growing crops for diesel, your not growing crops for food.
Converting bio mass into energy shows promise.

**Co'tor Shas**

Hydro-electric works. Constant free energy from flowing water, as long as you don't have a very severe drought (and let's face it, it's Britain were talking about

).

**-Shrike-**

Nuclear fusion. Once we get it working, we won't need anything else.

**loki old fart**

-Shrike- wrote:
Nuclear fusion. Once we get it working, we won't need anything else.

Or our solar system will have two suns. In either case your right, we won't need anything else.