I hadn't heard that, although a lot of those campus buildings used to be homes. I know a good number of his family still lived in town.

The crime lab I worked in was an old house with some cosmetic Radio-Shack type security systems.. contact tape on the windows and shit like that.

Depending on the day, there were sometimes pounds and pounds of weed stacked up in that place virtually unguarded. If only people knew!...

Wait...where was the Crime Lab at? Was it in the same place as the Department of Public Safety (which moved from the Limbaugh House to Dearmont in mid '95)?

I don't know if the Limbaugh House actually WAS owned by the Limbaugh family at one time, but I can't imagine anything else. I would imagine that all the Limbaughs down there are related.

There are plenty of talk shows - to promote opinions . There is a serious shortage of factual shows. Philly has KYW - all news. Even that is too simplistic - and yet probably more fact that most who call into talk radio know. Most towns have no such all news stations. News comes from the Christian evangelical broadcasters who are on a campaign to remove PBS radios from the countryside.

The scary part is that talk radio is problaby source of all news for many people. We read the same story in two newspapers. First the Daily News. When the same story was read in the Philly Inquirer, then a complete 180 degree different interpretation was obtained. Extremists will blame the 'liberal' Inky. Reality was that both papers reported same facts. But the Inky also reported more details. Therein lies talk radio. "I don't need no stinkin' details. I know everything I need to know from talk radio." Even tabloids provide more 'facts' than talk radio.

Extremists will always have problem with responsible news services. Superior news services will provide too many facts. Too many facts means that one cannot expolate to their conclusions - how extremists 'prove' their positions. A full news service always leaves one with questions about the original position. In the black and white world of extremists, to many facts is heresy.

Why so many Christian evangelical news broadcasts? They must report the 'correct' news. And so we have this Christian opinion that is acceptable to American religious extremists - a man who marries outside of his religion inherits the devil for a father-in-law. These are the same people who can provide honest news? Christian news stations are on a campaign to replace PBS stations throughout the countryside. To Evangelical Christians, PBS is also pinko, communist, corrupt leftist liberal propaganda.

If one spends time listening to talk radio, then one must have a serious deficiency of intelligence. No hunger for the whole story is what causes low intelligence. Most callers are so poorly informed, so one sided, so transparent, that talk radio is an irritation. I just hope most people are not that poorly informed. But then many still advocate Biblical stories over the facts of Darwinism. Easy to do when details are conveniently ignored.

When George Jr first talked of attacking Iraq, there was widespread support. As reality of facts finally leaking down even to the talk radio crowd, then his majority is diminishing. But it takes time to get the full story through the hype of political rhetoric and extremist talk shows.

And don't need them, either. News is one of the most expensive formats. The only time people under age 50 listen to radio news is when they are automobile-bound. If a city's rush hour lasts less than an hour, not enough people will listen to make it worthwhile.

And in about 10 years, not even those people will make it worthwhile. Wireless is going to kill old-fashioned broadcast. Mourn your news radio now and get it over with.

There isn't a force on earth, or off for that matter, that can take away a high-level broadcasting license right now.

That's nonsense. PBS is not corrupt.

One wonders whether the 15 countries that unanimously passed the UN resolution listen to talk radio. Or the congressional majority.

You're late to the story anyway. Public support waned to a low point and has increased since.

The point of talk radio is not to communicate news, but opinion, and while I agree that it doesn't support a broad set of views that creates a healthy marketplace of ideas, well... I see it like fast food. If you make it your only diet, you'll be unhealthy. But there's nothing wrong with a little indulgence once in a while and most would say that a little fun food makes for a more enjoyable life.

But here's your biggest problem tw. To say that the viewpoints of talk radio listeners are automatically invalid, is to commit EXACTLY the same kind of intellectual sin that you're accusing of those listeners.

Ironic, innit?

So, let me get this straight, so that there is absolutely no confusion here. You personally are saying that if one spends time listening to talk radio, they have a serious deficiency of intelligence?

Well, the man said "no hunger for the whole story is what causes low intelligence"...although I would think that that notion reverses cause and effect. :-)

I disagree with tw, i find it hilarious. It's often on here the same time as the Goons, I have great trouble distinguishing between the two.

Reasoning could go both ways. Conclusion would be a function of what one calls intelligence. A great intellect that cannot be used because of no knowledge - is that still great intelligence? Some would say yes. I don't agree. An intellect without fundamental knowledge is like a computer without software. Knowledge, especially of many perspectives, is essential to intelligence. But then it is a trivial point.

Fundamental to the original supposition is that those who don't seek out more knowledge and new perspectives only leave themselves less intelligent, or less competent, or as kbarger said, "a shocking amount of ignorance".

Correct. Talk radio is not to communicate news. However too many people use talk radio as their only source of news. To requote my post: As kbarger notes: And yet this is the only news source for too many people. I never said those talk show caller's viewpoints were invalid. Instead, I agreed with kbarger: I mistakenly assumed what is happening to many PBS stations is common knowledge. Christian Evangelicals "are on a campaign to remove PBS radios from the countryside." The legal process is quite simple. Religious broadcasters require a more powerful station to revoke PBS station repeater licenses. Worse still, PBS station cannot get those licenses back. In the countryside (not to be confused with urban areas), PBS is slowly being replaced by Christian Evangelical broadcasters. Have you noticed how many new Evangelical TV stations have started broadcasting in the Philly region? I count 4 - 3 more than two years ago. In radio, this expansion comes at the expense of PBS stations which Christian Evangelicals despise since PBS discusses topics like family planning and Darwinism.

Many now tune into the 700 Club (or whatever it is called) as their only source of news. It is their right. But it is also their responsiblity to learn of others so different - the only way to promote and understand tolerance. Religious broadcasters so often don't promote tolerance. As kbarger notes, talk show callers "often display a shocking amount of ignorance." Same applies to Christian Evangelicals who even advocate a new Arab-Israeli war because that will lead to the second coming of Christ.

I find this widespread ignorance of the world more than just Leno comedy. I recently asked some high school graduates if they knew about Enron (as a result of a bad joke that no one seems to understand). Not one had ever heard of Enron even after being provided a summary. Yet a few knew that Darwinism was an outright lie.

Not to mention what your definition of "is" is.
Erm...you drifted pretty quickly there within a single sentence from talking about "knowlege" to talking about "intelligence".

Don't you agree there is a difference between intelligence and knowlege? I certainly have known people I considered very unintelligent who seemed to *know* a lot...they just didn't put their elements of their knowlege in what seemed to me to be intelligent ways.

I also know people who strike me as quite intelligent that don't seem to know an awful lot about subject matter that I consider inmportant...(I suspect they have quite a bit of knowlege about subjects I know little about). They did wonderful things with the knowlege they did have; our differences over "what knowlege is important" may be be a result of differing life experience, or different values.

While I beleive that intelligent people tend to seek out knowlege, I also think intelligent people can fairly differ on what knowlege is worth pursuing.

You have failed to answer my question tw, though I am not surprised.

I know I'm late to this discussion, but I'll chime in regardless.

First, tw, Undertoad's right. You can't instantly dismiss anyone who listens to talk radio as ignorant. You can, however, dismiss anyone who gets all their information from only one source as irresponsible.

On the other hand, though, I think Daschle is, to an extent, right, although he may have gone a bit far in claiming that threats on his life were Rush's fault. The conservative whining about the liberal media is a lie, propagated by their own manipulation of the media. It may have been liberal at one time, but, taken as a whole, I believe it would be really difficult to show it as such today. You can't even really claim the NY Times shows this - anyone remember their utter hatred of Gore?

See, here's how modern media works. Journalists are pressed for deadlines, so when they see something mentioned somewhere, they have a tendency to present it as fact (over-generalization, I know) without doing any real fact-checking. This 'fact,' then, gets picked up by national media, and spread throughout our system. It becomes institutionalized regardless of its plausibility. Occasionally, it gets debunked, but more often anyone doing the debunking becomes a voice in the wilderness. This is what you're talking about, slang, with your 'smoking gun' (even though you claim to hate that term). Conservatives (and, I think, to a lesser extent, liberals), whose think tanks are well-funded, prominent, and seemingly omnipresent, realize this. So they release a few press statements about an issue - let's say...the so-called 'death tax'. They come up with a few talking points about the issue, release it to the public, and get interviews from the release. In this manner, they are able to raise awareness on the issue. They speak in vague and pejorative terms, and those terms get transferred into the media. Suddenly, the average American thinks they're going to be affected by a tax that only, and just barely, hits the top 2% of the population. And so the facts don't become conventional wisdom, the vague half-truths and lies propagated by some think tank and capitalized on by the media do. The media is there to sell - I think, in most cases, it doesn't care about one side or the other. Some exceptions, most notably Fox News, have an obvious bias.

I think this is all a backlash from the 60s and 70s. Conservatives learned the feminist deconstructive techniques and started to apply them to their own theories. Liberals, on the other hand, went kind of dormant. They figured that things were trending their way, and they didn't have to bother to worry about trying to set the national agenda, not counting on the conservatives' sudden ability to do so. Daschle's comments were an attempt to point this out, and he is pretty justified in doing so. Democrats can't set the agenda right now because conservatives have the monopoly on controlling the media (that's taking it a bit far - it's not quite a monopoly, but it is a disproportionate amount of strength). If the 'conservative media' gets echoed enough, that will become the conventional wisdom.

Besides, I don't blame Daschle. Ever listen to Rush lay into him? I personally think the guy's a fat, deaf buffoon, but a lot of people don't agree with me, and think he's the complete opposite (well, eyes and his own admission would confirm that he's overweight and is losing his hearing). So when he goes into an extended metaphor comparing Daschle to the devil, people listen, and start to accept it as fact. Daschle has the right to respond to that, but to make the connection between the threats and the commentary leads us down a dangerous path into free speech territory. Democrats should come up with a different way of trying to gain some foothold on the national agenda.

Have you even watched the show? The moment someone brings up a rational point, he silences them. Bill O'Reilly is a huge fraud. He lies about his populist beginnings, claims he's an environmentalist without seeming to know the definition of the word (why else would he ignore this administration's trampling of environmental laws?) and generally touts a toned-down version of the Republican mantra. No, he's not down the middle. He's a friendly face for right-leaning individuals who distrust the Republican party.

Then read closer. Surprise Surprise! What is intelligence as you posted it? Your question was being answered. What is intelligence as I posted AND what is intelligence as you posted? Why did that discussion persist? Should you know?

The question I asked was incredibly simple and straight-forward--one that could have been answered with a "yes," "no," or "fuck yourself!"...and maybe a bit more explanation if you wished. I've wasted enough of my time reading your irresponsible (IMO) posts the past few days.