Does anyone actually listen to Air America?

[lendaddy]

I have been forcing myself to listen for a couple weeks now to gain perspective. Wow, is the talent bad! It's tough to listen to at times. The Moring Sedition guys can be funny, but the Unfiltered chicks are pathetic! They remind me of the SNL public radio skit (the one with schwetty balls). Randi Rhodes..... Oh my, whos' idea was that?

Bottom line is that this is NOT good for the left. These people are honest about who they are and that will scare people away. Nothing but conspriacy theory and venom. This doesn't attract fence sitters.

Just all around bad, I mean REAL bad. If I ran the party I would hide these people under a rock, not give them a national forum. Thoughts?

[AFJuvat]

Haven't had the pleasure of hearing them yet (not available in my area.)

Unfortunately, we have Rush and Sean Hannity, Mike Savage, and Bill O'riley.

(I'm conservative, and I don't like those guys either)

I think the radio shows pander to the extremes of both the left and right.

Glenn Beck IMO, is at least entertaining to listen to.

AFJuvat

[lendaddy]

You can listen on-line. Infact I challenge anyone to listen to these chicks on unfiltered. Starts at 9:00 A.M. est. You will not believe how bad it is. They actually pick out and play songs that express how they feel about certain issues, etc.. It's schwetty balls

http://www.airamericaradio.com/listen.asp

[bryanthompson]

You listen to Glenn Beck but can't stand Hannity or Rush?? He's a direct rip off of them both, his style is a perfect combination of the two guys, imho.

I listen to Laura Ingraham on streaming radio until rush is on, then I listen to rush, then hannity. Keeps my day filled with background noise all day. Usually I switch over to Airhead America to see what's going on for a few hours, but it's always the same crap.

The only people that _do_ listen to Airhead America are the hardcore lefties that already hate everything. Their entire reason for being was to get Bush out of office, which they failed at. They are supported by donations from politicians and hardcore lefties, and they've publicly stated that their reason for being isn't to make money. Of course, it wouldn't be a true leftie operation if they actually succeeded at capitalism.

[stevepaa]

Yeah I heard them last week. A woman on the show was talking about the waste of some 85 million dollars "up in smoke" when the interceptor missile was not fired from Kwajalein. Franken corrected her that it was not a waste of 85 million, did not go up in smoke, was just not launched.

We did lose some money because we had lauched the target missile.

I find Air America as bad as Rush, Hannity, Savage, O'Reilly, and the whole Fox news network.

I could make the same generalization that the only poeple who listen to the right wing radio are the greedy, self righteous , me first, pro capital punishment, anti-pro choice, crazies who want everyone armed with assault weapons, but that would not be accurate. No more so than lefties hate everything.

Did any one watch Cspan last night and the town hall with Hoyer on Socuial Security. Quite informative.

[cowtown]

Originally posted by lendaddy
Infact I challenge anyone to listen to these chicks on unfiltered. [/url]

I tried, I really tried. I want to understand the people who sound like nutcases, because I'm always thinking I must be missing something. So I tuned in, and after 10 minutes or so, I hear them repeating over and over again,

"I'd rather have fala*io than be in Fallujah.

Get it? That right there is going to win them an election. It's gold, Jerry, gold!

Could have been Janine Garofolo too I suppose.

[Superman]

I'd guess that no radio or TV show is going to be pleasing to Bryan except the extreme right stuff. Bryan, this statement, if true, should be meaningful to you. If you're comfortable with this, fine. You do a good job of outlining your fairly extreme viewpoint. Just don't try to fool anyone into thinking you are open-minded.

I'd guess that extreme left stuff is going to be offensive to Lendaddy, but I can certainly imagine middle-ground discussions that are interesting to him. And direct conversation with an intelligent, respectful left-leaning person might also be very engaging for Lendaddy.

I hope you stick around, Steve.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

The morning guys aren't that bad. That's about all I've had the occasion to listen to so far. The commentary is actually quite good at times. Much more factual and researched than the typical right-wing crap that's on all the other stations (largely just opinion and pseudo-stats).

[SteveStromberg]

Did they pay their bill here in LA?
I listen when it first came on but they gotknocked off for not paying their air time bill.

[Overpaid Slacker]

P-O-P -- do you mean "factual and researched" the way Fahrenheit 9/11 was "factual and researched"?

I'm not busting stones, but too many folks buy Moore's line of crap as either "factual" or "researched"... and some of the looniest think it's both. The great social deceits that have been foisted upon us have always had some "factual and researched" predicate ... even if the proponents have done nothing more intellectually (let along mathematically) rigorous than a BA in sociology.

It's been my experience that the left is not only more about "truth" than "fact" and more about abstract principle than practicable-in-reality and emphasizes means almost to the exclusion of ends ... so that it will "research" the heck out of a "fact" until such "fact" it says what they want it to say.

Well, frankly, that, or ignore, exclude or selectively, snidely caricature the other side's arguments; if there's only one position admitted into evidence, to the exclusion or abuse of all contrary opinion, it probably looks like the best opinion, no?

I offer the Left's absolute, messianic faith* in the "fact" of Global Warming as Exhibit A to the two foregoing examples.

*The irony is that this is a secular faith of such immersion and conviction as to shame the "retrograde" fools who "believe" in "God."

To answer the thread question, once; for about 10 sec, and I realized that someone out there believed what was being said. In the interest of full disclosure, I neither don't listen to Rush or Hannity or any other Rightie broadcaster; one of them really pissed me off a little while ago ... I don't remember which one (it wasn't Rush or Hannity). But I thought "dang, here's why the Right is so easily caricatured as isolationist bigots.

I was subjected to NPR for about 3 hours once on a ride I bummed back from Okemo. That was painful stuff, my friends. I was afraid I'd get out of the hybrid spouting Tom Tuttle (from Tacoma, Washington) lines out of Volunteers.

JP

[SteveStromberg]

Hey they are on the air here.
l Did a rating search. Hmm # 51 in LA.
Loyola Marymounts 50 watt College fm Station is # 50.
Gee got any listeners I dont think so.

[CamB]

Originally posted by Overpaid Slacker
It's been my experience that the left is not only more about "truth" than "fact" and more about abstract principle than practicable-in-reality and emphasizes means almost to the exclusion of ends ... so that it will "research" the heck out of a "fact" until such "fact" it says what they want it to say.

Well, frankly, that, or ignore, exclude or selectively, snidely caricature the other side's arguments; if there's only one position admitted into evidence, to the exclusion or abuse of all contrary opinion, it probably looks like the best opinion, no?

I offer the Left's absolute, messianic faith* in the "fact" of Global Warming as Exhibit A to the two foregoing examples.

Oooooh - and I offer "lowering taxes raises overall tax revenues" as the conservative equivalent "fact". Ditto "pulling up by the bootstraps" as the all-encompassing methodology for solving social ills.

I had nearly already posted to this thread --> I can't understand the mentality behind listening to talkback radio. Either you disagree with the host and/or guests/callers... and get pissed off, OR you may find yourself agreeing with them.

If the latter is the case, it might be time to sit down and have a long, hard think about yourself. Having opinions the same as someone who is paid to be an opinionated ********* is not a primary goal I have in life

[Moneyguy1]

People hear what they want to hear. Simple as that.

[kumma]

Originally posted by lendaddy
This doesn't attract fence sitters.

Your missing the point here. They do not want fence sitters, they cater to died in the wool liberals. The same way Rush and the other voice boxes cater to right wing crowd.

Have you ever heard Nightcall on WRIF with Peter Werbe. He is a Proud president Bush hater and his callers are rabid followers. Its fun for a while then you get to thinking of all these callers sitting in their basement with tin foil hats on watching for black helicopters to swarm in on them. Nothing but insults and conspiracy theories. Mainstream will never sell in this country, it must be argumentative and demeaning or it wont sell.

[Overpaid Slacker]

Cam -
The Laffer Curve is accurate; and it posits a "theory", not a fact. Thank you for proving my point that liberals can't distinguish between the two.

Deny history if you must ... or mischaracterize it as "lowering taxes raises overall tax revenue," which is not what the Laffer Curve or "Voodoo economics" said. But it worked; for a while.

Essentially, Laffer posited that there is a point of diminishing marginal returns to tax revenues; if your effective tax rate is "above" that point, then lowering the effective tax rate will yield increased overall tax revenues. In human terms, there comes a point where the Gubmint just takes too much from me for me to want to work any harder; if they took less, I'd earn more and the Gubmint would get its (smaller) share of my (larger) income. Understandably, those who believe that the Government and its continual expansion are the reasons to work and/or exist in the first place take issue with the notion that some upstart taxpayer will alter his activity b/c he doesn't want to give "his" money to the Gubmint.

Obviously, with some stiction in the system, if you're just an itsy bitsy bit above the optimal tax rate, lowering the effective rate by an itsy bitsy bit is not going to result in noticeable gains (theory meets reality). However, in the mid-80's the effective tax rates were well in excess of the optimal rate, and lowering the rate DID increase tax revenues... which is not to say our legistlators couldn't find a way to spend 110% of the tax revenue increase.

Strange that the self-proclaimed "smarter/better educated/more nuanced" Left thought (and in some of the darker corners still thinks) that the ONLY way to raise tax revenues is to RAISE TAXES. That's so primitive for such an enlightened bunch.

JP

[Scooter]

Does anyone actually listen to Air America? No.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

JP, do you HONESTLY believe there's no global warming? If not, please explain to me why the largest insurance companies (most of whose executives are Republicans / right-wing types) are currently trying to restructure policies in coastal areas to reduce liability? I forget whether it was Lloyds or one of the other big players in the industry that estimated we could see losses of $100 billion (with a "B") PER YEAR in coastal areas directly attributable to global warming before the end of this decade. If these people that do risk assessment for a living seem to be concerned about it, I'd strongly suggest putting your naive opinions aside and giving it some consideration.

The "translation machine" bit is hilarious.

[stevepaa]

Although I rarely agree with JP, most of the information on the web substantiates that if global warming is happening it probably has little to do with human occupation on this planet and more to do with sun cycles and natural events over time periods for the universe. Our time period in all of this is a blink of the eye.

So global warming may be happening, and may not. The insurance companies always see an opportunity to make money. And this may be just another.

[stevepaa]

You know, I should say the likelihood of my agreeing with JP is like the lim of 1/n as n goes to infintiy.

[Overpaid Slacker]

Steve, you may be surprised how often we wind up agreeing (though I'll try to couch our common ground in incendiary comments).

P-o-P -- The "Global Warming" fact which I'm maligning is as steve described: that "recent" increases in the Earth's temperature, to the extent they're significant deviations from "normal" are due to mankind, and not in fact cyclical.

JP