Posted by Tony @ 5:45:00 pm |

Posted by Tony @ 11:55:00 pm |

First we find that viewers of Comedy Central's The Daily Show are more knowledgable about current politics than people who watch national news shows, despite apparently being mostly "stoned slackers".

“In recent years, traditional journalists have been voicing increasing concern that if young people are receiving political information from late-night comedy shows like The Daily Show, they may not be adequately informed on the issues of the day,” said Dannagal Goldthwaite Young, a senior analyst at the Annenberg Public Policy Center who conducted the research. ”This data suggests that these fears may be unsubstantiated. "

...

“In fact, Daily Show viewers have higher campaign knowledge than national news viewers and newspaper readers -- even when education, party identification, following politics, watching cable news, receiving campaign information online, age, and gender are taken into consideration.”

Then, via Daily Kos, we find this article from the Program on International Policy Attitudes:

"As the nation prepares to watch the presidential candidates debate foreign policy issues, a new PIPA-Knowledge Networks poll finds that Americans who plan to vote for President Bush have many incorrect assumptions about his foreign policy positions. Kerry supporters, on the other hand, are largely accurate in their assessments. The uncommitted also tend to misperceive Bush's positions, though to a smaller extent than Bush supporters, and to perceive Kerry's positions correctly. Steven Kull, director of PIPA, comments: "What is striking is that even after nearly four years President Bush's foreign policy positions are so widely misread, while Senator Kerry, who is relatively new to the public and reputed to be unclear about his positions, is read correctly."

 

Majorities of Bush supporters incorrectly assumed that Bush favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements (84%), and the US being part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the International Criminal Court (66%), the treaty banning land mines (72%), and the Kyoto Treaty on global warming (51%). They were divided between those who knew that Bush favors building a new missile defense system now (44%) and those who incorrectly believe he wishes to do more research until its capabilities are proven (41%). However, majorities were correct that Bush favors increased defense spending (57%) and wants the US, not the UN, to take the stronger role in developing Iraq's new government (70%).

So if you read that to mean that Bush supporters are a bunch of dumbasses, that's okay with me...

They just suck.  Seriously.

Monday, September 27, 2004

Damn, I'm tired!  Almost too much of a good thing - I managed to see at least a couple of minutes of the following performances Sunday:

Tim Stambaugh Band

Bill and Libby Hicks

Brown Mountain Lights

Will McFarlane

Gael Warning

Land of Chocolate

The Breaks

Too Much Fun

Betty Rocker

The Nerve

The Nevers

Saw a few tunes with Stambaugh and co. on the lawn in front of Weaver Street Market before walking back up to the Music Explorium to catch a little bit of Bill and Libby Hicks, who I honestly think I'd never seen before.  That was one of the unfortunate timing problems of the day as we only caught the last couple of tunes from their set, but that's okay - the main point of these things to me is to catch a little bit of as many people as possible.  Brown Mountain Lights was probably the only complete set we saw all day, partly because I know Greg, partly because JS had never seen them before and mostly because they're damn good!  We trucked on up Main Street after BML to catch the end of Will McFarlane's set with Armand Lenchek from Bluesology at the Cradle - their set-ending rave-up of Amazing Grace had people in the audience testifying that I'm sure haven't seen the inside of a church in 20 years.  [An editorial note here - JS remarked at this point on how much she liked seeing little kids in clubs like the Cradle and I absolutely agree.  We always encouraged people to bring their kids to shows when we had the club, as long as they weren't so young that they were crawling around in broken glass.  It's never too young to teach kids bar etiquette or to love live music!]  After a nice dinner at the Spotted Dog, we headed up to Temple Ball but were unfortunately too late to catch more that the last six or seven minutes of Gael Warning, but it was a helluva six or seven minutes!  Definitely worth checking out at a later date (I think they're from Charlotte).

Took a break to catch the shuttle back out to the car and JennySlash decided she was done for the day, so I ran her home then hopped on the bike to ride back in (we're about a 15 minute ride from downtown Carrboro).  I mostly walked back and forth between Tyler's parking lot (Land of Chocolate, Too Much Fun), the Cat's Cradle (The Breaks, Betty Rocker, The Nevers) and Temple Ball (the Nerve).  The highlight was definitely the Nerve from Raleigh - their medley of Take Me to the River/Sweet Jane was funkomatic (much more Stop Making Sense-era Talking Heads than Rev. Al Green) - check out the website for free mp3s.  Also worth a second look were a couple of bands claiming to be from Pittsboro (I guess after all the Chapel Hillians moved to Carrboro, the Carrboroites moved to Pittsboro and Hillsborough) - Betty Rocker (all female and rocking) and the Breaks (one of those bands made up of people that you've seen in 12 other bands, including Tom Maxwell from the Squirrel Nut Zippers).

Oh, the photos are all crap, so I won't be posting them.  And riding the bike home after 10:00 in the dark after many hours of standing around listening to bands and drinking many more brews than I should have was less the wonderful, but what the hell!  It was a hell of a day and I can't wait for next year!