What's the "real" story

So many times I talk to people who don't seem to either take the time to find out what BOTH sides of the story are or investigate something a little bit further. These people will watch their favorite newscast and believe everything they are told by the media (now I'm not saying that the media is liberal or Conservative) just that the media doesn't seem to give you ENOUGH information to make an informed decision.

[There are those that blame everything on the liberal media, I don't believe all media is liberal, or conservative, however I do believe all media is owned by some giant corporation, like 20th century Fox or Sony or Disney or some VERY BIASED company]

Let's take for example the whole "Iraq" issues: some folks would say it's the Bush administration's fault for the troubles in Iraq, and some would say it's all caused by the insurgency, or Al Qaeda, and still others would say it's all caused by Don Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney, or Paul Wolfowitz.

All I can say is take some time to read a few magazine articles, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, watch some TV about it, CNN, Fox News, listen to some radio, NPR, not just one but all of them. They will ALL give different opinions. Yes, all different. Then make up your mind and you can feel comfortable knowing you have made an INFORMED opinion on something.

I think it is much better to get several sides to a story before you TRUST the opinions of some corporate media talking head and call it the gospel.

Here is something interesting to watch on the Iraq issues:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/yeariniraq/view/

(a brief overview for those that don't have hi-speed Internet and can't watch the video's, or just won't take the time to REALLY find out other sides to the story)

Today, as America looks for an exit strategy, FRONTLINE examines the initial, critical decisions of the U.S.-led regime in Baghdad in The Lost Year in Iraq. From the same team that produced Rumsfeld's War, The Torture Question and The Dark Side, the film is based on more than 30 interviews, most of them with the officials charged with building a new and democratic Iraq.

The Lost Year in Iraq begins on April 9, 2003, as American troops help a crowd of Iraqis topple a statue of Saddam Hussein. In Washington there was celebration, but in Baghdad the looting was beginning. Jay Garner, the retired general picked by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to lead reconstruction, was forced to wait in Kuwait for authorization to enter Iraq. He and his team had arrived from Washington without computers, telephones or a plan. "Everybody was focused on the war; they were focused on regime change," Garner tells FRONTLINE. "That took all of their energy. I wasn't the central focus." On the day Garner finally arrived in Baghdad, he received a phone call from Rumsfeld: He was being replaced by L. Paul Bremer.

On the minds of most bloggers

Paris Hilton was let out of jail after 2 days . . . what a load of crap that is. Mostly it just keeps our minds off the fact that we are paying record prices for gas, more Americans are STILL dying in foreign wars, and the powers that be can't seem to figure out how to do much of anything right (as in correctly, rather than right/left as the case may be).

In real news, it seems that Russia is not too happy with the good ol' US of A and it's plan to put a missile shield system in Europe.

I'm kind of thinking that Russia is looking at it as the US of A staking a claim to Europe and all it's glorious resources, whereas Russia figures that after the big WW (World War) and everything is divided up, Russia gets Euro-Asia and USA gets all of North America/South America, I mean that is why it's called "AMERICA." So in the divorce USA gets Canada, and up and Mexico and South America, but somehow I don't think it's going to be a smooth transition and I'm wondering who gets Australia on Christmas and who gets Australia on its birthday?