> I don't know what media you use, but I seem to hear about these things quite a bit.

I wonder:

Like an iceberg, there's always much more than meets the eye - 90% more. There are so many oblique references in the back pages of the paper, that are largely not expanded on - no facts - no details - no context - no connecting the dots - no nothing.

Now just spend a sick day or two listening to CSPAN, pick up a copy of the Congressional Record, or the 911 Commission Report, or any other government report; you will see that very little of what goes on in government ever gets brought to our attention. And when it does, most of the pertinent facts are missing - and they stay missing.

A little bit of college level "Critical Thinking" (remember that) about what you do see and hear, will quickly reveal we ain't gettin' anywhere near the whole story. Not ever - anymore, if ever!

Just be involved in a situation or institution that receives a lot of media attention, and thus know for yourself much of what is really going on; then you will see in great clarity, that the media generally gets it wrong - way wrong, bordering on falsehood.

And beyond counting, is the number of times I have seen some enormously important factoid, obscurely reported with a only couple of inches in the back pages - once. But then you never hear about it again, ever. I go hunting for those, and rarely find them.

I'm still waiting for The Times to connect the dots on the Miami Harold's experiments with the hanging chads - seems the only way they could cause them is to stuff several ballots into the machine at once. It got six inches in The Times - once. No followup at all!

Most of my news listening time is with ABC Radio, CSPAN, PBS, local newspaper, several distant papers via the internet - oh, and the good ol' BBC. I refuse anymore to listen to CNN, or CBS (see BS on CBS) except for Charles Osgood.

Speaking of the BBC, did you ever hear how the French could be accused of causing the IRAQ war, though I'm sure it was an unintended consequence of other shenanigans. The BBC reported about a French-Italian double agent being convicted in an Italian court, for planting most of the Iraqi W.M.D. reports in the European intelligence community, at the behest of the French Government. I thought not! Hardly anyone in the U.S. did. All we ever heard about is how Bush made it all up. It was actually the French that made it all up.

Now I am involved in the transportation business. And can see a lot for myself. Trains Magazine news reports border on pure sham. Though entertaining, if you want the facts, you must go somewhere else. And yes it is very biased - pro corporate. Only thing worse is a trade journal. Though there are always at least two sides to every story, you rarely will see them both; or you won't even hear about the really controversial internal industry stuff at all.

Same goes for almost all the media. When it really matters the most, they will be asleep at the wheel!

But enough already, I doubt any of us sees much more than the tip of the iceberg anyhow -

Double Duh. - Duh to infinity!