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There's going to be a shooting war.
That's why we need to start holding politicians and bureaucrats accountable. Legally of course.
Once they fear the accountability things will calm down.
Still can't figure out how to make this picture big in the post.
Good god, if that makes Trump a Russian mole, how much more is Biden a Chinese mole?
Well, we’ll never know, will we? Funny thing about unidirectional time, you can’t go back and do something different and see what the other outcome would have been. You are just guessing what it would have been.
But we do know the actual outcome for the course we did take. But no one that pushed this shutdown wants to take responsibility for the catastrophe they caused. (Except Trump; he recognized very early it was a mistake and tried to encourage the states to open back up.) But has Fauci, or the governors, or the news media talked about the increase in drug addiction, suicides, mortgage foreclosures, death due to staying away from hospitals for fear of covid, domestic abuse, failed businesses, wiped out savings, and global increase in poverty? Have any of them, or you, even attempted to tally the damage?
This article cites Business Insider as debunking that Melania is a spy
https://www.bigeasymagazine.com/2020/10/19/could-melania-trump-actually-be-a-russian-spy/
UPDATE:
The Wall Street Journal has a lengthy article on Business Insider and Henry Blodget today http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444840104577555180608254796.html
A very positive article focused on their growth and what it signifies for digital news.
However, I felt they went easy on them regarding their shortcomings. To say that keeping "the focus on traffic" leads to a "boisterous mix" of content is an understatement. As is their observation that the "combination of speed and tabloid sensibility also has its pitfalls".
I like BI but the click-bait tactics they use are really annoying and cause me to keep my eyes open for good alternatives.
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Original post:
Everything on BI tends to have hyperbolic click-bait headlines, unrelated and unlabeled photos and over-caffeinated lead paragraphs. However, lets ignore the "tricks to get clicks" and just focus on the actual content of the various types of posts they do.
There are three categories of content on BI:
1) Summaries of content from solid news sources or reputable analysts
The vast majority of what I see on Business Insider are summaries/extracts of articles from other sources. Typically these are solid news sources such as Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, Fortune, etc. and Wall Street analysts (for example Gene Munster's reports on Apple are regularly quoted).
While BI will often throw a slanted click-bait type title or lead paragraph onto these summaries, the content itself is generally very good and reliable, as you would expect given the sources they are drawing from.
These summaries are often rather long with lengthy quotes, which begs the question about the boundary between summarize-and-link vs. copyright infringement/plagiarism. I will leave it to others to debate that point. The quality of the content itself is very good.
2) Original content by BI
Much of this content is "feature" type content, which is interesting and fun but should not be treated as a definitive news source. For example a post that lists the 100 "coolest people in Silicon Valley" is clearly a subjective feature and not real news.
The longer in-depth analysis pieces by Henry Blodget are usually very good. As good as the analysis from any traditional news source. Of course these pieces rarely have new facts in them as they are focused on analysis rather than breaking news.
Occasionally you will see BI do original reporting (as opposed to features or analysis) these are typically labeled "Exclusive" in the title. They seem to be a small percent of all posts. For example they appear to have dug up some old IMs from Mark Zuckerberg that had some bearing on understanding the controversies around the founding of Facebook. I do believe the facts that are reported in these posts are generally accurate and I do consider this original reporting as "legitimate".
Also they will occasionally do original interviews that are not intended to have any "breaking news" in them but are done as background type reporting. These are as good as interviews at a traditional news source. For example the recent interviews with Paul Krugman.
3) Reposts of bloggers
These vary dramatically in quality and many of them clearly are not "legitimate news source" quality.
The personal finance bloggers that they repost tend to be pretty good and probably are similar quality to traditional news sources.
However, the finance/economics bloggers vary significantly in quality. Some are solid, thoughtful, well informed and reliable. However many of them are not reliable, they are focused on selecting "facts" to support a particular controversial point of view and I don't really trust either their "facts" or their "conclusions".
Considering all of the above I think it is fair to say:
Yes it is a legitimate news source, however you have to actively filter out the good from the bad to get the real reliable news.
Their summaries/extracts news from real news sources (WSJ, NYT, FT, etc.) and Wall Street analysts (Munster, etc.) are easy to digest versions of legitimate news.
The analysis pieces by Blodget are solid
Their original reporting with actual new facts is rare and often lost among all the features and blog reposts but when you can find it it is as good as traditional news sources
There are a lot of "feature" type articles (for example listing the most influential: startups, investors, entrepreneurs under 30, etc.) that are very subjective and should be taken with a grain of salt.
The reposts of external bloggers are hit and miss and like the blogosphere in general has a lot of slanted and self-serving material
All of their pieces are dressed up with various kinds of click-bait (photos of attractive women, unnecessarily negative or controversial headlines, hyperbole in the lead paragraph, etc.) that you have to learn to ignore.
MSN has a similar story. And get this...a Ukrainian newspaper too. Counterintel???
I'm certain the shutdowns and social distancing has increased feelings of isolation, loneliness and desperation. I have no doubt there have been lots of resultant deaths. I have no doubt had you guys had your way and just ignored the whole thing there'd be more deaths. A lot more. And the over stress of our medical establishment. And all the loss of work and productivity because half the population was suffering a deadly respiratory disease. And the loss of work and productivity because a sizable portion of the victims have symptoms that continue for months and possibly years.
Sorry, I see no cheekiness and joy there.
“Meet the needs of the American people...”. What a disingenuous bitch.
If the Dem Fascist Communist Party cared about the American people they’d stop killing coal mining jobs in Appalachia, oil jobs for the Keystone pipeline and fracking, they’d open the country and stop driving restaurants and bars and hair salons out of business, and devastating prisoner re-entry programs, and causing record levels of depression among teenagers, etc etc etc
How these rich politicians and bureaucrats can talk about caring about the people while enforcing this insane lockdown nonsense that only hurts us, not them, over a disease that only kills people that already have one foot in the grave is beyond me, and embarrassing really. They have no idea how hypocritical and evil they are, do they?
